After looking them over, Reicha said to my mother, "This child already knows a good deal of what I shall have to teach him, but he is unconscious of the knowledge he possesses."
In a year or two I had reached a point in my harmony studies which was rather beyond the elementary stage—counterpoint of all kinds, for instance, fugues, canons, &c. My mother then asked him—
"Well, what do you think of him?"
"I think, my dear lady, that it is no use trying to stop him; nothing disheartens him. He finds pleasure and interest in everything; and what I like best about him is, he always wants to know the 'reason why.'"
"Well," said my mother, "I suppose I must give in."
I knew right well there was no trifling with her. Often she would say to me—
"You know, if you don't get on well, round comes a cab, and off you go to the notary." The very idea of a notary's office was enough to make me do miracles.
But, anyhow, my college reports were good; and though I was threatened with extra work to make up for lost time, I took good care the masters should have no cause to complain that my music interfered with my other studies.
Once indeed I was punished, and pretty sharply too, for having left some work or other unfinished. The master had given me a heavy imposition, 500 lines or thereabouts to write out. I was writing away (or rather I was scribbling with the careless haste which is usually bestowed on such a task) when the usher on duty came to the table. He watched me silently for some minutes, then laid his hand quietly on my shoulder and said—
"You know you are writing dreadfully badly."