Ep 6. How a New Apostle Wooed His Wife

Hello! And welcome to the Faith Promoting Stories Podcast. I’m your host, Caden Beardall. Let’s dive right in.

Introduction

Story 16 - How a New Apostle Wooed His Wife

When Elder Caussé was seven years old, he demonstrated an unusual intuition for music.

His mother, recognizing his talent, enrolled him in a music conservatory.

His first teacher was a woman by the name of Madame M., obviously a pseudonym to protect her identity, who seemed to revel in a remarkably unforgiving curriculum. When Elder Caussé was 14 years old, Madame M. assigned him the gorgeous but notoriously difficult, Chopin's “Fantaisie-Impromptu”.

As the young Caussé fumbled over a mountain of notes, Madame M. was mercilessly austere, covering his sheet music with criticisms and threats, while verbally berating him whenever he faltered.

Though this method of teaching eventually enabled him to master the piece, the fallout was calamitous: Elder Caussé learned to resent the piano and eventually pleaded with his mother to allow him to quit.

Aiming to alleviate her son’s distress, Elder Caussé’s mother arranged for him to study with a new teacher, whom we’ll call Madame T. Madame T. was the very antithesis of Madame M. She was kind, patient, and a woman of high expectations, but one who exuded love for her students.

One fateful day, Madame T. presented Elder Caussé with a new piece of music, one just as challenging as Chopin’s “Fantaisie-Impromptu.”

Still sensitive to his former experience with a piece this rigorous, Elder Caussé hesitated. Madame T. then did something instructive and beautiful. She confided in Elder Caussé that this was the piece that had won her own husband’s heart when she played it for him. She had never allowed any other student to attempt it for its personal sanctity.

She felt that Elder Caussé had the potential to do the piece justice. So he did.

Then, in a remarkably poetic chain of events, Elder Caussé later in life played this same piece for a beautiful young woman in a single adult ward in Paris. As he played and she sang, their eyes met, and the ineffable rush of an eternal connection was sealed.

As we seek to instruct, let us take note from Madame T. that sometimes the gentler, more subtle strains of kindness can promote love in its many forms.