Paderewski felt as though the world were crumbling into bits and pieces. Seeing the look on his face, the good-natured professor said more kindly, “Well, well—since you are here, play something for me. It does not matter what.” With what desperation Paderewski must have poured into his playing the emotions that were surging through his head at that moment! He played his own compositions, since he knew little else. When he had finished, Leschetizky, who had stopped pacing, said quietly, “You have a great many qualities as a pianist. You have a natural technique, but it lacks so much. Still, you have the principal quality—that is tone.” He frowned and shook his head sadly, “But I am afraid there will be too much to do with your fingers. They absolutely lack discipline. Besides,” he added, cutting directly to the heart of the problem, “I am afraid you do not know how to work!” This was the thing that Paderewski had known all along. It was, in fact, the reason he had decided he must study with Leschetizky. “If I decide to give you lessons,” Leschetizky was saying, “you must start with finger exercises and with Czerny studies.” This was where all well-trained beginners started. But it was also the way that every Leschetizky pupil, no matter how advanced, had to begin working towards his lofty goals: absolute mastery of each finger, and a beautiful, singing tone. Now Paderewski knew how someone feels who must begin learning to walk all over again after a leg injury. As he thumped out his scales and exercises, he realized more clearly than ever how slipshod his playing really was. “I could not improve in a few weeks or months even, because bad habits were already deeply rooted in me, an amateurish way of treating the piano, just play the piano, fingering—anyhow!” No wonder poor Leschetizky almost gave up hope during the early days. “No, no, it’s impossible!” he would say, tugging nervously at his beard. “It’s too late! It’s too late! You have wasted your time on pleasant things like orchestration!” And here he would add the most heart-breaking judgment of all: “Ah, but if you had begun to study earlier. Then you could have become a great pianist!” But Leschetizky had not reckoned with Paderewski’s stubborn determination to work. He practiced seven or eight exhausting hours a day. By the end of each session he felt as though his arms would drop off at the shoulder. There was no time in his life now for anything but work. He who had such a gift for friendship now found that his closest friend was a little spider who ran down a thread and sat on the music rack while he practiced.