The herald., 1896-02-09
CHAT WITH PADEREWSKI
The Great Pianist Talks Freely With
One of His Countrymen
With Pride II, Relates the Past GIories of
Poland and Talks of Its Present
Triunphs

"And so you are in Southern California,
our Spain.''
Paderewski started. His soft, blue,
dreamy eyes flashed for an instant as he
TUNED towards the interviewer with an
outstretched hand.
1t was the sonnd of his mother tongue
that brought this flash in the great pianist's
eyes-his mother tongue which he speaks
as musically as he plays.
1t was on Friday night in the dressing
room of the Los Angeles theater, where
the HERALD representative met the great
man by appointment.
There was no one else present during the
chat save Paderewski's valet, who never
leaves his master. There in the little room
the servitor stood, motionless as statue,
but his deep-set Slavic eyes spoke of the
fidelity of faithful dog.
"You are my countryman; of course you
must be? How delightful" and he took
the outstretched hand and shook it and
shook it again.
The interviewer looked at him, for he
had met Paderewski once, in the days of
yore, when he was not what he is now.
"Tempora mutantur ct nos mutamur in
illis," said the interviewer to himself as he
gazed at him again.
Paderewski has changed. The boyish
look of the days long past is over. He has
lost and he has gained. He is no more
struggling artist; the anxious look has
passed away forever. Here was "a man
whose fame circles the world; a young
man who, conscious of his power, is trying
to outdo all the great masters of the past
and leave his footballs ''echoi1g down the
corridors of Time" With the fiery spirit
of Beethoven he combines the sof ness of
Mozart--with the technique of Rubenstein
the poetry of L.szt
Many persons think Paderewski is dark
and rather southern-looking. Nothing
could be farther from the facts. Tho great
Pole is fair; not only that. he is very fair.
His hair has that glimmer of Venetian gold
in it which Titan loved to paint. His eyes
are a deep blue; his complexion Of that
transparent. almost opal hue which one
finds only among the Slavic people.
His hands and feet are diminutive, and his
whole figure 1.-the and flexible; strong. yet
almost fra2ile. There is a great deal of
vitality in his small body.
An erroneous impression prevails that
the Poles, as rule, are dark-haired race.
Nothing could be more misleadinr. Though
there are sou hern-looking Poles, the
nation at large is fair-hared and blue-eyed.
Some writer's have called them blonde
Arabs. and in fact. behind that fair COM
plexion. under that head Of golden hair, in
the depths Of those blue eyes, is hidden a
soul as poetic as the soul OF the
Semitic, endowed with the same
gift for the expression of poetic
ideas in melancholy cadences. And il they
resemble the Arab through their poetry
and their music, they differ from the Arab
in their gracious and cosmopolitan spirit.
They have a marvellous aptitude for all so.
cial studies and for tho acquisition of all
human languages. In their mythology
there has never existed the barbarous god
of war. The pure cultivator of the field
is called to be chief of the tribe; their cit
les were the common property of the clii-
Gems, and the jury system existed among
them before it did among the English.
But to return to Paderewski. "Sit down !:
here is q chair. and here are cigarettes .
and the pianist pushed light pasteboard
box towards me.
The tobacco offered was the most famous
in Russa-of the city of kieff-and deliv.
cred almost exclusively to the imperial
family. How did Paderewski get hold of
that brandt He alone can tell you.