I always made my appearance long before my hour and waited.  One lady after another came out, one more beautiful than the other, on one occasion Mdlle.  Laure Duperre, the daughter of the admiral, whom Chopin accompanied to the staircase, she was the most beautiful of all, and as straight as a palm; to her Chopin has dedicated two of his most important Nocturnes (in C minor and F sharp minor, Op. 48); she was at that time his favourite pupil.  In the anteroom I often met little Filtsch, who, unfortunately, died too young, at the age of thirteen, a Hungarian and a genius.  He knew how to play Chopin!  Of Filtsch Liszt said in my presence at a soiree of the Comtesse d’Agoult:  “When the little one begins to travel, I shall shut up my shop” (Quand le petit voyagera, je fermerai boutique).  I was jealous of Filtsch, Chopin had eyes only for him.

How high an opinion the master had of this talented pupil appears from his assertion that the boy played the E minor Concerto better than he himself.  Lenz mentions Filtsch and his playing of the E minor Concerto only in passing in “Die grossen Pianoforte-Virtuosen unserer Zeit,” but devotes to them more of his leisure in an article which appeared in the Berliner Musikzeitung (Vol.  XXVI.), the amusing gossip of which deserves notice here on account of the light thrown by some of its details on Chopin’s ways and the company he received in his salon.  On one occasion when Filtsch had given his master particular satisfaction by a tasteful rendering of the second solo of the first movement of the E minor Concerto, Chopin said:  “You have played this well, my boy (mon garcon), I must try it myself.”  Lenz relates that what now followed was indescribable:  the little one (der Kleine) burst into tears, and Chopin, who indeed had been telling them the story of his artist life, said, as if speaking to himself, “I have loved it!  I have already once played it!” Then, turning to Filtsch, he spoke these words:  “Yours is a beautiful artist nature (une belle nature d’artiste), you will become a great artist.”  Whilst the youthful pianist was studying the Concerto with Chopin, he was never allowed to play more than one solo at a time, the work affecting too much the feelings of the composer, who, moreover, thought that the whole was contained in every one of the solos; and when he at last got leave to perform the whole, an event for which he prepared himself by fasting and prayers of the Roman Catholic Church, and by such reading as was pointed out by his master, practising being forbidden for the time, Chopin said to him:  “As you have now mastered the movement so well, we will bring it to a hearing.”

The reader must understand that I do not vouch for the strict correctness of Lenz’s somewhat melodramatic narrative; and having given this warning I shall, to keep myself free from all responsibility, simply translate the rest of what is yet to be told:—­