Boys Who Became Famous Men

Twenty-five lads belonging to the oldest families of Warsaw were a

t the lower, a table bearing plates, cups, and wholesome refreshments which would be distributed among the boys when study-hour was over. Throughout the room great cheerfulness and comfort reigned, and the apple-cheeked

lgent with the boys out of school, furthering their enjoyment with all his heart, he was also a s

s was his first attempt at teaching. His soft voice and worried look filled the boys with glee; and half their playtime was spent in making plans to mock and deride him. Until now, however, they had failed to carry out their [Pg 209]mischievous schemes, for Nicholas

shuffled their feet, rattled their papers, and tossed their books about on their desks. The teacher rapped

but Frédéric was chief councillor and fun-maker at all other times and places. Although the master's son, he enjoyed no special favor or liberty, but was held to the same line of duty prescribed for the other students. In the classroom he was not noticeably clever, for he was very bad at numbers, and it is doubtful if he could have found his own country on the great globe i

nd and praise him;[Pg 211] and in the excitement and pleasure of it all, he might have become very vain of his powers and success, but he remembered just in time that while h

t, and soon it was no uncommon thing for the prince's carriage to roll up to the Chopin school. Frédéric went often with the young nobleman to drive, sometimes even acco

e never[Pg 212] mentioned the subject of music to the other lads, and w

n the noisy schoolroom, he felt a bit sorry, for he knew that the young man wo

d not long endure such rebellion. He, as much as any one, enjoyed the antics that kept the whole school tittering, and was strongly tem

g 213] him a cuff on the ear in passing. The teacher sprang up with an angry light in his eye, and flourished the

e quiet in your seats,

s a part of the joke, folded their arms; and instantly the room grew so

in the dark," he explained. Then seating himself at the piano, he bega

arms on his desk, and b

, like the rippling of water.) "A band of robbers riding through the country paused in the glade at nightfall. Seeing the old mansion

marched, two by two, toward the house by the swirling river. Noiselessly they approached and surrounded the many-pinnacled dwelling, each robber choosing a window through which he would make his entrance. At the signal of the leader" (a high faint

p of notes), "dogs barked fiercely, shouts were heard from the upper corridors, pistol-shots burst on the stillness of the night, and the robbers leaped from their

es and galloped madly away. Hour after hour they rode" (pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat of the hoof-beats), "through valley and village and glen. On, on they spurred" (pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat), "until t

e to nibble at will, and jaded by hours of reckless riding, the robbers threw themselves upon the green turf to rest. The scents of the flowers were sweet,

unds, that, gently touching the final chord, he discovered, by the moonlight streaming

d robbers, we

d robbers, wer

his sisters and the servants to bring in lights; the

boys started from their slumbers, rubbing th

n entered the room; whereupon the pupils bounded from their seats with sh

w cleverly Frédéric had helped him to maintain order; but in the schoolroom the lads were waving t

ts detected hidden meanings in his playing[Pg 218] of the piano which

ity, 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

he set out for Vienna. When he found himself actually leavin

groaned; "my eyes will ne

g

fears, and with their words of cheer he

banquet given in his honor, he was touched to the heart by one of their number presenting to him a silver goblet filled

aying, and at the end of a year he was accounte

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. H

well, he set his face toward Paris. Here he decided to make his home, as had so many others of his exiled countryme

n style. One critic called him "the piano god," another, "Velvet Fingers"; and when his compositions

remaining for the rest of his days in Paris, the pride of the Parisians and the id

eine. Crowds of distinguished persons and homeless Poles attended the sacred service, and the procession was

e silver goblet which for nineteen years the composer had fondly cherished, and, as the sweetest benediction

TNO

(pronounced

nd