Next morning the critics were enthusiastic about the pianist’s “bravura performance.” They spoke of the wild delight of the audience which agreed to go home only after the lights in the hall had been turned off. It was, in other words, “a typical Paderewski recital audience,” wrote the man from the _Tribune_. In it were “men and women of society, musicians, and many young persons, even boys and girls who will grow up to tell their juniors about the time ‘when I heard Paderewski.’” Yet neither the critic nor the boys and girls knew what a fantastic scene they had just witnessed: Paderewski locked in absolute concentration on Beethoven and Schumann and the others, while the fate of his country waited silently for him on his desk. When the recital was finally over—and he did not deprive the audience of so much as one bow—he went home and ate dinner. Then he went to work on the memorandum. Thirty-six hours later—at eight A.M. on Thursday morning—it was delivered to Colonel House. Paderewski went to bed for the first time since Monday night. His fatigue seemed well worth it a week later when the Colonel came back from Washington. “The President was very much pleased with your memorandum,” he said. “Now get ready. The first shot will be fired very soon!” On January 22 President Wilson addressed Congress on “Essential Terms of Peace in Europe.” Paderewski, who was touring in the South at the time, picked up a newspaper the next day and read these words: “No peace can last or ought to last which does not recognize and accept the principle that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand people about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. I take it for granted ... that statesmen everywhere are agreed that there should be a united, independent, and autonomous Poland, and that henceforth inviolable security of life and worship ... should be guaranteed to all people who have lived hitherto under the power of governments devoted to a faith and purpose hostile to their own.” The words swam before his eyes. For the first time, the fate of Poland had been publicly mentioned as an official concern of the United States government.