You become embarrassed, and your hearers still more so: the affair ends with apologies on both sides, with equivocal compliments, with encouragement to continue in the same course, with acknowledgment of fine hands for the piano, with uneasy, forced congratulations to the parents and teacher; but it is always a happy moment when the fatal soiree is over.

The next day I am forced to sigh again over the same, miserable, poorly and tediously performed Funeral March of Chopin, and over the timorous B major Mazourka by Schulhoff.

The left hand is always left in the lurch in the difficult, skipping basses of this piece, and in others of the present style, which are rich in harmony and modulations.

The bass part in this piece is apt to suffer from timid and false tones; frequently the fundamental tone is omitted, or the little finger remains resting upon it, instead of giving the eighth note with a crisp, elastic, and sprightly touch, and the chords are tame and incomplete.

You do not give them their full value; you leave them too quickly, because you are afraid of not striking the next low note quickly enough; but, on the other hand, you do not strike it at all, and one missing tone brings another one after it.