We can have no difficulty in believing the statement that in after-life our artist recalled with pleasure this incident at the post-house of Zullichau, and that his success among these unsophisticated people was dearer to him than many a more brilliant one in the great world of art and fashion.  But, it may be asked, did all this happen in exactly the same way in which it is told here?  Gentle reader, let us not inquire too curiously into this matter.  Of course you have heard of myth-making and legend-making.  Well, anecdote-making is a process of a similar nature, a process of accumulation and development.  The only difference between the process in the first two cases and that in the third is, that the former is carried on by races, the latter by individuals.  A seed-corn of fact falls on the generous soil of the poetic imagination, and forthwith it begins to expand, to sprout, and to grow into flower, shrub, or tree.  But there are well and ill-shapen plants, and monstrosities too.  The above anecdote is a specimen of the first kind.  As a specimen of the last kind may be instanced an undated anecdote told by Sikorski and others.  It is likewise illustrative of Chopin’s power and love of improvisation.  The seed-corn of fact in the case seems to be that one Sunday, when playing during divine service in the Wizytek Church, Chopin, taking for his subjects some motives of the part of the Mass that had just been performed, got so absorbed in his improvisation that he entirely forgot all his surroundings, and turned a deaf ear to the priest at the altar, who had already for the second time chanted ’Per omnia saecula saeculurum.’  This is a characteristic as well as a pretty artist-story, which, however, is marred, I think, by the additions of a choir that gathers round the organist and without exception forgets like him time and place, and of a mother superior who sends the sacristan to remind those music-enthusiasts in the organ-gallery of the impatiently waiting priest and acolyte, &c.  Men willingly allow themselves to be deceived, but care has to be taken that their credulity be not overtaxed.  For if the intention is perceived, it fails in its object; as the German poet says:—­ “So fuehrt man Absicht und man ist verstimmt.”

On the 6th of October, as has already been said, Chopin returned to Warsaw.  Judging from a letter written by him at the end of the year (December 27, 1828) to his friend Titus Woyciechowski, he was busy composing and going to parties.  The “Rondeau a la Krakowiak,” Op. 14, was now finished, and the Trio, Op. 8, was nearly so.  A day on which he had not been musically productive seems to have been regarded by him as a lost day.  The opening phrase of the following quotation reminds one of the famous exclamation of the Emperor Titus:—­

During the last week I have composed nothing worthy either of God or of man.  I run from Ananias to Caiaphas; to-night I shall be at Madame Wizegerod’s, from there I shall drive to a musical soiree at Miss Kicka’s.  You know how pleasant it is to be forced to improvise when one is tired!  I have not often such happy thoughts as come sometimes under my fingers when I am with you.  And then the miserable instruments!

In the same letter he relates that his parents are preparing a small room for him:—­