"Pst!" enjoined his friend discreetly. Mychowski smiled, sighed, shook his head, settled himself before a new piano and plunged into the preludes, playing the entire twenty-five without pause, while business was suspended in the ancient and honorable Maison Pleyel, so captivating, so miraculous, was the poetic performance of this commonplace and kind-hearted virtuoso....
Mychowski discovered in Daniel an agreeable servant. He was noiseless, ubiquitous. He could make an omelette or sew on a button with woman's skill. His small, well-kept hands knew no fatigue, and his master often watched them, almost transparent, fragile and aristocratic, as they shaved his rotund oily face. Daniel was admirable in his management of the musical library, seeming to know where the music of every composer had to be placed. Mychowski wondered how he contrived to find time to learn so much and yet keep his hands from the keyboard. After the first month Mychowski began to envy his servant the possession of such a poetic personality.
"Now if I had such a face and figure how much better an effect I should produce. I see the women laugh when I sit down to play, and if it wasn't for my fat fingers where would I be?" Mychowski sighed. He had conquered the musical world, but not his reflection in the mirror. He had made some charming conquests, but his better guides had whispered to him that it was his music, not his face, that had won the women. He was vain, sensitive and without the courage of his nose, unlike Cyrano de Bergerac. Nothing was lacking; talent, wealth, health, a capital digestion and success! Had they not poured in upon him? From his twentieth year he enjoyed the sunshine of popular favor and after ten years was enamoured of it as ever. He almost felt bitter when he saw Daniel's high-bred and delicate figure. He questioned him a hundred times, but could find out nothing. Where had he been raised? Who was his mother, and why did he select a servant's life? Daniel replied with repose and managed to parry or evade all inquiries. He confessed, however, to one weakness—insatiable love for music—and begged his master to be allowed the privilege of sitting in the room during the practising hours. When a concert was given Daniel went to the hall and arranged all that was necessary for the pianist's comfort. Mychowski caught him at a recital one night with a score of the F minor Ballade of Chopin, and warm and irritable as he was, for he had just played the work, he could not refrain from asking his servant how it had pleased him. Daniel shook his head gently. Mychowski stared at him curiously, with chagrin. Then a lot of women rushed in to congratulate the artist, but stopped to stare aghast at Daniel.
"Ah, M. Mychowski!"—it was the beautiful Countess d'Angers—"We know now why you play Chopin so wonderfully, for have you not his ghost here to tell you everything? Naughty magician, why have you not come to me on my evenings? You surely received cards!" Mychowski looked so annoyed at the jest that Daniel slipped out of the room and did not appear until the carriage was ready....
At the café where Mychowski invariably went for his macaroni Daniel usually had a place at the table. The pianist was easy in his manners, and not finding his man presumptuous he made him a companion. They had both eaten in silence, Mychowski gluttonously. Looking at Daniel and drinking a glass of chianti, he said in his most jocular manner:
"Eh bien, mon brave! now tell me why you didn't like my F minor Ballade." Daniel lifted his eyes slowly to the other's face and smiled faint protestation. Mychowski would take no refusal. He swore in Polish and called out in lusty tones, "Come now, Daniel Chopin, what didn't you like, the tempo, the conception, the coda, or my touch?"
"Your playing, cher maître, was yourself. No one can do what you can," answered Daniel evasively.
"Hoity-toity! What have we here, a critic in disguise?" said Mychowski good humoredly, yet at heart greatly troubled. "Do you know what the pupils of Chopin say of my interpretation?" Daniel again shook his head.
"They know nothing about Chopin or his music," he calmly replied. A thunderbolt had fallen at Mychowski's feet and he was affrighted. Know nothing of Chopin or his music? Here was a pretty presumption. "Pray, Daniel," he managed to gasp out, "pray how does your lordship happen to know so much about Chopin and his music?" Mychowski was becoming angry. In a stifled voice Daniel replied:
"Dear master, only what my father told me. But do let me go home and get your bed ready. I feel faint and I ask pardon for my impertinence. I am indeed no critic, nor shall I ever presume again." "You may go," said his master in gruff accents, and regretted his rudeness as soon as Daniel was out of sight. If any one of the managers who so ardently praised Mychowski's temperate habits had seen him guzzling wine, beer and brandy that night, they might have been shocked. He seldom went to excess, but was out of sorts and nettled at criticism from such a quarter. Yet—had he played as well as usual? Was not overpraise undermining his artistic constitution? He thought hard and vainly endeavored to recapture the mood in which he had interpreted the Ballade, and then he fell to laughing at his spleen. A great artist to be annoyed by the first adverse feather that happened to tickle him in an awkward way. What folly! What vanity! Mychowski laughed and ordered a big glass of brandy to steady his nerves.