Even more cruel were the charges leveled against Mme. Paderewska, she who had worked herself almost to the breaking point not only to ease her husband’s arduous life, but to further the cause of Polish relief. She was accused of undue interference in matters of state, of being a bad influence on the Prime Minister, of any vindictive thing that could be thought of to discredit her husband. A man of Paderewski’s moral courage can weather almost any attack made against him, but the abuse of his wife cut him to the heart. For weeks he wrestled with his conscience. He was thinking, as usual, first of Poland; last, of himself. If he stepped aside now, would it not end the terrible dissensions that rocked the newborn country? But if he did so, would he not be deserting his country when she needed him, deserting her, perhaps, out of a selfish, if natural, longing for personal peace? At last, on December 5, 1919, Paderewski announced his resignation from office. A few days earlier, at a wildly agitated meeting of the Sejm, his government had received a vote of confidence, but the vote had been carried by a very slim majority. Too slim a majority, Paderewski felt, to represent a true mandate of the people, particularly since one of the parties that voted against him in the Sejm actually had more followers, numerically, than any of the parties who voted in his favor. If he stayed on, nothing could follow but further discord. If he left now, then surely the country would somehow make her way to internal peace and unity. Paderewski generously agreed to the panic-stricken request of the Sejm that he try to form a new cabinet. Then he quietly left Warsaw, and after five years of voluntary exile returned to his beloved home on the shining Swiss lake. CHAPTER 10 “AFTER THAT—ART!” [Illustration: Coat of arms with Eagle.] An announcement the world had been hoping to hear came from Paderewski on July 14—Bastille Day—1922. As he boarded the _S.S. Savoie_ in New York for a trip back to Europe, he announced that in the fall of that year he would return to the United States to resume his concert career. He had not played in public for five years, not since the night he played in the Metropolitan Opera House at a special concert in honor of the French hero, Marshal Joffre. But now he was ready to move back to Carnegie Hall and the other concert platforms of the world. Or at least he would be ready, he felt, after four more months of the kind of hard work he had been doing behind closed doors for over two years.