Madame M. thought he would perhaps
for her, if the party were not too large, and the guests "sympathetic"
to him. I have heard so many artists say it made all the difference to
them when they felt the public was with them--if there were one
unsympathetic or criticising face in the mass of people, it was the only
face they could distinguish, and it affected them very much. The piano
was engagingly open and music littered about, but he apparently didn't
see it. He talked politics, and a good deal about pictures with some
artists who were present.
[Illustration: Franz Liszt.]
I did hear him play many years later in London. We were again lunching
together, at the house of a mutual friend, who was not at all musical.
There wasn't even a piano in the house, but she had one brought in for
the occasion. When I arrived rather early, the day of the party, I found
the mistress of the house, aided by Count Hatzfeldt, then German
ambassador to England, busily engaged in transforming her drawing-room.
The grand piano, which had been standing well out toward the middle of
the room, open, with music on it (I dare say some of Liszt's own--but I
didn't have time to examine), was being pushed back into a corner, all
the music hidden away, and the instrument covered with photographs,
vases of flowers, statuettes, heavy books, all the things one doesn't
habitually put on pianos.
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