Like the tired robbers, were fast asleep
"Like the tired robbers, were fast asleep."
Stealing from the room on tiptoe, hesummoned his sisters and the servants to bring in lights; then stepping to the piano, he struck one crashing chord.
As though a bomb had exploded among them, the boys started from their slumbers, rubbing their eyes and staring stupidly at one another.
At that moment the clock chimed the hour of dismissal, and Nicholas Chopin entered the room; whereupon the pupils bounded from their seats with shouts of laughter over the musical spell that Frédéric had cast upon them.
When the cups and plates went round, the new teacher drew the master into the hall and told him how cleverly Frédéric had helped him to maintain order; but in the schoolroom the lads were waving their sandwiches and napkins, and cheering the master's son as a jolly comrade and a true-blue mate.
>The city of Warsaw adored its composer, Frédéric Chopin. The residents detected hidden meanings in his playingof the piano which they believed would sometime be accepted beyond the realm of Poland.
He was young, handsome, and gay, and his companionship was sought on every side. Had not his breast been stirred by an impulse stronger than the mere desire for popularity, Frédéric Chopin would have developed into nothing more than an elegant young musician, the acknowledged favorite of his fellow-townsmen. But he was not content to end his career so tamely. He must see the world. He must conquer the public beyond his native land. He must play, he must compose, he must work and study to greater ends.
Accordingly, one day in November, at the age of twenty-one, he set out for Vienna. When he found himself actually leaving kindred and home behind, a flood of sadness swept over him.
"I shall never return," he groaned; "my eyes will never look upon Warsaw again!"
His friends responded lightly to these fears, and with their words of cheer he soon recovered his usual bright spirit.
He was escorted as far as the first day's travel would carry him by a score of affectionate friends; and at the end of a banquet given in his honor, he was touched to the heart by one of their number presenting to him a silver goblet filled with Polish earth, with entreaties that he would meet the world as a man, and keep his country in constant remembrance.
In Vienna he attracted much attention by his playing, and at the end of a year he was accounted one of the leading musical spirits of the city.
He had decided to pay a brief visit to his home and friends, when on his way he was horrified to learn that his beloved Poland had been seized by the Russians, that his country was in the hands of the enemy, and that Warsaw was converted into a camp of foreign soldiers. He dared not advance farther, as all absentPoles had been warned by the new Government to keep away from Poland, on pain of death.
Frédéric was nearly crushed by these unlooked-for tidings, and, only waiting to learn that his parents were safe and well, he set his face toward Paris. Here he decided to make his home, as had so many others of his exiled countrymen. Success in this city meant success in the world, and for this Frédéric Chopin labored through the following years.
His playing was so rare, so peculiarly delicate, that no one in Paris could approach him in his chosen style. One critic called him "the piano god," another, "Velvet Fingers"; and when his compositions were printed, and the people could play them for themselves, they were nigh transported by his genius.
London vainly besought him to take up his residence there, but he steadily refused, remaining for the rest of his days in Paris, the pride of the Parisians and the idol of the many Poles who, likehimself, were exiled from their native land.
When the end came, and the "velvet fingers" were stilled at last, he was buried from the Church of the Madeleine. Crowds of distinguished persons and homeless Poles attended the sacred service, and the procession was numbered by hundreds, that, to the strains of his own "Funeral March," followed Frédéric Chopin to the tomb.
Finally, when his body was lovingly laid in the place prepared for it, one of his countrymen brought forth the silver goblet which for nineteen years the composer had fondly cherished, and, as the sweetest benediction he could offer, reverently took a handful of Polish earth and sprinkled it upon the body of Frédéric of Warsaw.
FOOTNOTE:[4]Chopin (pronouncedSho-pang).
[4]Chopin (pronouncedSho-pang).
[4]Chopin (pronouncedSho-pang).