To take away any bad impression that may be left by the last anecdote, I shall tell another of a more pleasing character, which, indeed, has had the honour of being made the subject of a picture.  It was often told, says Karasowski, by Casimir Wodzinski, a boarder of Nicholas Chopin’s.  One day when the latter was out, Barcinski, the assistant master, could not manage the noisy boys.  Seeing this, Frederick, who just then happened to come into the room, said to them that he would improvise a pretty story if they would sit down and be quiet.  This quickly restored silence.  He thereupon had the lights extinguished, took his seat at the piano, and began as follows:—­

Robbers set out to plunder a house.  They come nearer and nearer.  Then they halt, and put up the ladders they have brought with them.  But just when they are about to enter through the windows, they hear a noise within.  This gives them a fright.  They run away to the woods.  There, amidst the stillness and darkness of the night, they lie down and before long fall fast asleep.

When Frederick had got to this part of the story he began to play softer and softer, and ever softer, till his auditors, like the robbers, were fast asleep.  Noticing this he stole out of the room, called in the other inmates of the house, who came carrying lights with them, and then with a tremendous, crashing chord disturbed the sweet slumbers of the evil-doers.

Here we have an instance of “la richesse de son improvisation,” by which, as Fontana tells us, Chopin, from his earliest youth, astonished all who had the good fortune to hear him.  Those who think that there is no salvation outside the pale of absolute music, will no doubt be horror-stricken at the heretical tendency manifested on this occasion by an otherwise so promising musician.  Nay, even the less orthodox, those who do not altogether deny the admissibility of programme-music if it conforms to certain conditions and keeps within certain limits, will shake their heads sadly.  The duty of an enthusiastic biographer, it would seem, is unmistakable; he ought to justify, or, at least, excuse his hero—­if nothing else availed, plead his youth and inexperience.  My leaving the poor suspected heretic in the lurch under these circumstances will draw upon me the reproach of remissness; but, as I have what I consider more important business on hand, I must not be deterred from proceeding to it by the fear of censure.

The year 1825 was, in many respects, a memorable one in the life of Chopin.  On May 27 and June 10 Joseph Javurek, whom I mentioned a few pages back among the friends of the Chopin family, gave two concerts for charitable purposes in the large hall of the Conservatorium.  At one of these Frederick appeared again in public.  A Warsaw correspondent of the “Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung” says in the course of one of his letters:—­