p. 33 Par 1 Vladimir de Pachmann was less magnanimous [than Paderewski in a fund-raising venture just related]. He once telephoned me in the middle of the night to accuse me of the theft of the Chopin Études that his son had lent me. The son, when he heard about this, laughed heartily, as I did too, but we had to wait until the morning to straighten matters out.

Par 2 On the platform Pachmann talked to the public like Planté, and like Paderewski grew very cross if he saw untoward movement among the audience. It was not someone waving a fan [as in a Paderewski anecdote mentioned on page 32], but a score which a listener was following which once incurred his displeasure. He stopped abruptly and declared very audibly: 'I don't want controlling.'

Par 3 What a character! What a pianist! I would never have dared to imitate him [by stopping playing in such circumstances], and yet he was perfectly right. Only once did I have occasion to stop playing. . . .

Par 4 Nevertheless, I feel myself to be very far from the pride of those 'sacred giants'. . . .