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diff --git a/76904-h/76904-h.htm b/76904-h/76904-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..24efeb7 --- /dev/null +++ b/76904-h/76904-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9619 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + Frederick Chopin: a man of solitude | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + margin-top:3em; + margin-bottom:1.5em; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 34%; margin-left: 33%; margin-right: 33%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%; display: none; visibility: hidden;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +ul.index { list-style-type: none; } +li.ifrst { + margin-top: 1em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} +li.indx { + margin-top: .5em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} +li.isub1 { + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 2em; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.tdl {text-align: left; padding: 0.2em} +.tdr {text-align: right; padding: 0.2em} +.tdl, .tdr {vertical-align: top;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +blockquote { + margin-top: 1.3em; + margin-bottom: 1.3em; + margin-left: 3%; + margin-right: 3%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right; margin-right:3em;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.mt3 {margin-top: 3em;} + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + +img.w100 {width: 100%;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +/* .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} */ +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp80 {width: 80%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp80 {width: 100%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76904 ***</div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="illo" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illo.jpg" alt="Drawing of Chopin by George Sand"> + <figcaption> + <p style="text-align:left;font-size:x-small;">From a Drawing by George Sand.</p> + <p>CHOPIN.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a><a id="Page_2"></a><a id="Page_3"></a><a id="Page_4"></a><a id="Page_5"></a><a id="Page_6"></a><a id="Page_7"></a>[p. 7]</span></p> + +<h1> +FREDERICK CHOPIN:<br> +A MAN OF SOLITUDE +</h1> + +<p class="center"> +<i>By</i><br> +GUY DE POURTALÈS<br> +<br> +<i>Translated from the French by</i><br> +CHARLES BAYLY, JR.<br> +<br> +<br> +THORNTON BUTTERWORTH LIMITED<br> +15 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.2 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p> + +<hr> +<p class="center"> +<i>First published . . . 1927</i><br> +<br> +<i>All rights reserved</i><br> +MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span></p> + +<hr> +<div style=" max-width: 13em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"> +<p><i>“He used his art only to play</i><br> +<i>to himself his own tragedy.”</i><br> +<span class="smcap" style="display: block; text-align: right">Liszt.</span></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="DEDICATION"> + DEDICATION + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>When I suggested the example of Liszt to a soul +stricken but still capable of enthusiasm, I thought +also of offering him this story of Chopin. Not that +this latter should serve to discount whatever slight +exuberance there might be in the former. On the contrary: +they complement and complete each other, and +show, the one concave and the other convex, the twofold +visage of that symbolic being whom we call the +artist. Or, the sensitive man, the cognizant—he, in +short, whom we envy.</p> + +<p>One of these masks portrays glory and passion: the +other, sorrow and loneliness.</p> + +<p>I quite realize the romantic sound of these four words +in an age when they are so out-moded. But if I agree +that in our time every thing possible has been tried, +indeed, to eliminate from our orchestra those harps, +those tremolos, those rubatos, those great billows of +harmony that transported three admiring generations +with the struggles between heaven and hell, it is nevertheless +necessary only to open a newspaper at the section +on the courts of law, to gaze into the show windows of +the picture dealers, or to hear a saxophone, to convince +myself that the themes of the human legend have in +no degree changed. The rhythm, the harmonies, are +different, but our responsive vibrations are just the same +as they were in the most guileless epochs.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span></p> + +<p>The real disaccord between our parents and us is that +the ugly—or what they called the ugly—has been +incorporated to-day in the beautiful—or what we call +the beautiful. In other words, there are to-day no +such things as beauty and ugliness, harmony and discord, +there is no longer any æsthetic prohibition. As one of +our sages, Paul Valéry, has written: “I see the modern +man as a man with an idea of himself and of the world +that is no longer fixed.... It has become impossible +for him to be a man of a single viewpoint, to hold, +really, to one language, to one nation, to one faith, to +one physical type.” Let us add: to one music.</p> + +<p>Thanks to the rigorous method of science, it has +become easy to believe everything, or nothing. To +love everyone, or no one. But do we gain other than +in childishness and dotage? I question whether this +new abundance enriches us more than their apparent +poverty fertilized our fathers. This mass of sensations +and perceptions has not increased our lucidity any more +than the steam siren and the typewriter have added +new notes to our scale. And yet we should hardly +consent to the loss of one of these recent contributions.</p> + +<p>But if a very ironic, very cynical jazz enchants me, +it in no way removes the pleasure I feel in hearing +Chopin. I should be sorry not to be able to savour +two such different forms of modern sadness, the one +born in New Orleans and the other in a Warsaw garret. +To pursue still further the little problem which the two +parallel existences of Liszt and Chopin pose for our +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>reflection, let us say that on certain days we are more +apt for action, for youth, for expenditure in any form; +on other days for reserve, for shrinking, for incertitude, +for concentration, and—even though the word has lost +its beauty—for mystery.</p> + +<p>The life of Liszt is an open book. He wrote it everywhere +in ink and in adventure. Of the life of Chopin +almost nothing remains. His nature protected him +from needless experiences, and fate furthermore decreed +that a great many of his letters and relics should be +burned in a house in which his sister lived at Warsaw +in 1863. We can discover him therefore only in his +music, in a few scraps of correspondence, and in the +memories of his friends. Meanwhile, his life was always +so simple and so logical that a slight commentary is +necessary to understand it, as an <i>appoggiatura</i> enhances +the value of a note. Save for two or three journeys, +the outside world had little chance to penetrate this +imagination that ever turned inward. Its poetry lies +in whatever qualities of possibility and of song that +were added to the illusions of his days. Badly served +in love, in friendship, in everything that demanded +blindness or excessive pedal, this clear-sighted sufferer +saw himself in only one mirror: the ebony of his piano. +“Piano, marvellous instrument,” he said. Naturally, +since the piano is an orchestra in itself. But it is something +more: it is an instrument. Hence a soul. It was +the only one Chopin ever knew; and he made his piano +his only legatee.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span></p> + +<p>If Liszt has given you the daring to seize the joys of +the moment and a little confidence in yourself, Chopin +can become not less a brotherly companion. His life +is that of your anxious shadow. His music is perhaps +nothing but the risen song of your inner loneliness.</p> + +<p>All art is rich above all in the measure of what you +yourself bring to it. Every soul possesses you in the +measure of the effort you make to receive it. Welcome +this one as the purest expression, for which there are no +words, of what there is in love that must remain for ever +inexpressible.</p> + +<p class="right"> + <span class="smcap">G. de P.</span> +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + </h2> +</div> + +<table style="width:60%"> + <tr style="font-size:x-small;"> + <td class="tdr">CHAP.</td> + <td class="tdl"></td> + <td class="tdr">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">I</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">“An angel, fair of face as a tall, sad woman”</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">II</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Childhood of Chopin</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">III</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Birth of the Poet</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IV</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">“Sorrow” and “Ideal”</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">V</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Revolution at Warsaw and Solitude at Vienna</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VI</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">“I doubt whether there is a city on Earth where more pianists are to be found than in Paris”</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VII</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Happy Years, Working Years</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VIII</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Marie Wodzinska and the Dusk</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IX</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">First Sketch of George Sand</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">X</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Letters of Two Novelists</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XI</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Chartreuse of Valdemosa</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XII</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">“If music be the food of love, play on”</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XIII</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">On some Friendships of Chopin, and on his Æsthetics</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XIV</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Misunderstandings, Loneliness</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XV</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chagrin, Hate</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XVI</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Story of an Estrangement</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XVII</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Swan Song</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XVIII</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">“The Cypresses have their caprices”</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XIX</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Death of Chopin</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XX</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Epitaph for a Poet</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Sources</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_263">263</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I"> + CHAPTER I + <br> + <span class="smcap">“An angel, fair of face as a tall, sad woman”</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>“An angel, fair of face as a tall, sad woman...” +This portrait of Chopin, penned by a hand he +loved, should stand as the frontispiece of this study. Naïve +painters in the Middle Ages—who also came to pray +for pardon—hung their expiatory offerings in the shadows +of the cathedrals. This once caressing woman’s hand, +now dead, surely yielded, while writing these words, to +the inner necessity of knowing absolution. It added: +“There was never anything more pure and at the same +time more exalted than his thoughts...”</p> + +<p>And perhaps with faint trembling: “... but this +being only understood that which was inherent within +himself. One would have needed a microscope to peer +into his soul, where so little light of the living ever +penetrated.”</p> + +<p>A microscope has never helped to reveal a soul. No +optical instruments are necessary in order to follow the +teaching of Liszt: let us try to see with our hearts.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>At the head of these pages must stand a name; because +that name breathes life into the whole being of whom +we write: Poland. Ever since 1795 that unhappy +country had been completely dismembered, until Napoleon, +that great poet of geography, after his first campaign +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>in Prussia, created the Duchy of Warsaw (1807). +This was to last until the fall of the Emperor, that is, +barely eight years. Yet these eight years were sufficient +to endow the Poles with a singularly youthful hero +worship for France.</p> + +<p>Now in 1806, a certain M. Nicolas Chopin, professor +of French, entrusted with the education of the son of +the Countess Skarbek, married in the village of Zelazowa +Wola, six leagues from Warsaw, a Mlle. Justine Krzyzanowska. +He was of French origin, a native of Marainville, +a small village near the Hill of Sion, in the heart +of Lorraine, the history of which is so curiously interwoven +with that of Poland. The fiancée of this one-time +clerk who had become a teacher was a girl of +twenty-four, of an impoverished noble family. In the +household of the Countess she held, as did others of +rank, the position of attendant and lady-in-waiting, +according to the tradition of such proud, poor seigneurs.</p> + +<p>Close to the seigneurial dwelling, which was screened +by a group of trees, stood a small house flanked by an +outside staircase. Right through it ran a passage, at +the end of which could be seen the court, the stables, +and, at a distance, the fields of alfalfa and of colza. +Here the young couple settled down. At the right of +the entrance were three low rooms where one could +touch the ceiling. After a time a girl was born, and +was named Louise. This obscure event was rapidly +succeeded by the French campaign in Prussia—Tilsit, +Austerlitz, Jéna, Wagram, and the Polish eagles flying +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>in the train of the Imperial eagles. Haydn died while +the cannon of Napoleon were thundering for the second +time under the walls of Vienna. When four shells had +fallen close to him, the old composer said to his terrified +servants, “Why this panic? Remember that wherever +Haydn is no accident can happen.” Stendhal, a commissioner +in the army, was present at his obsequies. +He afterwards made the following note: “Why is it +that all Frenchmen who are really great in literature—La +Fontaine, Corneille, Molière, Racine, Bossuet—should +have met together about 1660? Why should +all the great painters have appeared about 1510? Why, +since these two happy periods, has nature been so +sparing? Will music have the same fate?”</p> + +<p>Yet Beethoven at that date was writing the <i>Quatuor +serioso</i> and the sonata in E flat major, which is called +<i>The Farewells</i>. He had already composed six of his +symphonies, the <i>Kreutzer Sonata</i>, the <i>Appassionata</i>, and +<i>Fidélio</i>. Liszt, Schumann and Wagner were approaching. +Goethe was flourishing; Byron was publishing +his first verses. Shelley and Keats were outlining theirs. +Balzac, Hugo, Berlioz were warming the school benches. +And on the 22nd of February, 1810, at six o’clock in +the evening, in the little house in Zelazowa Wola, was +born Frederick François Chopin.</p> + +<p>He came into a world of music. For exactly at that +moment, under the windows of his mother, rustic violins +were giving a serenade for a village wedding.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II"> + CHAPTER II + <br> + <span class="smcap">The Childhood of Chopin</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>On the first of October of that same year, Nicolas +Chopin was made professor of French at the Warsaw +High School, and the whole family moved to the capital. +They were immediately absorbed into the urban life and +never returned to the country. Warsaw was indeed a +fertile soil where one quickly took root among its Italian +palaces and its wooden huts. Its swarming population +mingled Asiatic pomp with the filth of Esquimaux. +Here were to be met the bearded Jew, the nun, the young +girl in a silken cloak, and the mustachioed Pole, in +caftan, with belt, sword, and high red boots.</p> + +<p>M. Chopin bestirred himself to increase his income, +because his family had grown. After Louise and +Frederick, Isabelle and then Emilie were born. In 1812 +he became professor at the School of Artillery and +Engineers and in 1815 obtained the same post in the +Preparatory Military Academy. Finally he turned his +own home into a small boarding-school for the children +of the rich.</p> + +<p>It is not difficult to imagine the surroundings, the +manners, and the customs among which Frederick grew +up in this united and busy household. A somewhat +rigid modesty and the domestic virtues of the family +protected him from rough contacts with reality. It was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>thus, said Liszt, that “his imagination took on the +velvety texture of plants which are never exposed to +the dust of the highways.”</p> + +<p>Here, then, was a child, very gentle, very pale, sprightly, +with the sensibilities of a little girl, and dominated by +two passions: his love for his mother and his love for +the piano. He had been placed before the keyboard at +a very early age and had returned to it of his own accord, +drawn by the keys. Music drew tears and cries from +him. It became at once a necessary evil. He was also +very fond of his sisters, and chose four friends among +his father’s pupils: Fontana, Titus Woyciechowski, and +the Wodzinski brothers.</p> + +<p>To celebrate his eighth birthday, he played at the +benefit of the poet, Niemcewicz. He had been dressed +in the English fashion, with a velvet coat and a large +turn-over collar. And when his mother, afterwards, +questioned him about his success, asking what the +audience had liked best, he replied with pride, “My +collar.”</p> + +<p>The Polish aristocracy, and even the Grand Duke +Constantin himself, the Governor of Warsaw, became +interested in the child. He was commanded to appear +before this redoubtable prince—and played for him a +march of his own composition.</p> + +<p>“Child,” asked the brother of the Tsar, “why do you +always look upwards?”</p> + +<p>But is it not heavenward that poets look? Chopin +was “neither an intellectual prodigy nor a little thinking +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>animal,” writes one of his biographers, “but a simple, +modest child who played the piano as naturally as the +birds sing....”</p> + +<p>He had teachers. First Zywny, a venerable gentleman +of over sixty, a native of Bohemia, a violinist and a good +teacher. He was absorbed in the cult of Bach, a passion +which he instilled in his pupil; and the depth of such +childish enthusiasms is well known. Then, in 1824, at +the time when Frederick was sent to college, his father +replaced Zywny by Elsner, a Silesian professor who +taught him harmony and composition. Without being +a very famous musician, Elsner was something of a personage, +a composer of operas, symphonies, masses, and a +Director of the Conservatory. He had the virtue of +never suppressing Chopin’s personal gifts: “Let him +alone,” he said. “If he leaves the main road and the +traditional methods, it is because he has his own ways, +and some day his work will show an originality that no +one possesses to-day. He follows a unique path because +his gifts are unique.”</p> + +<p>One can applaud this happy prophet. Elsner was a +retiring man. He lived in two cells in an old monastery +in the rue des Jésuites. His pupils saluted him on the +right shoulder, according to the Polish fashion, and he +responded by a kiss on each cheek. In his annual +report to the Conservatory he writes: “Chopin, Frederick +(3rd year pupil), astonishing capability, musical +genius.”</p> + +<p>Chopin worked well at college also, and took prizes; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>in short, he was a fluent and charming youth, and gay +to the point of clownishness, like many melancholics. +His comrades adored him, above all because of his talent +for mimicry and imitation, which showed to what a +point he felt the grimaces of souls. He acted plays with +his sisters, who wrote comedies for the children. He +edited a paper.</p> + +<p>These minor events enamelled the surface of a life +without scratches. Three facts alone should be remarked. +In May and June, 1825, in two concerts at the Conservatory, +Chopin played an <i>Allegro</i> of Moschelès’ and improvised +for the Emperor Alexander, who gave him a ring. +During the course of the same year, he published his +<i>Premier Rondo in C minor</i> (op. 1), dedicated to Mme. +Linde, the wife of the Head of the school. Then, the +next summer, he was invited to the Château d’Antonin +by Prince Radziwill.</p> + +<p>Playing in public had already lost its novelty. On +the other hand, publishing his music was a new joy, +which he tasted with naïve ardour. And if the piece +was neither very profound nor very scholarly, it had +at any rate his personal imprint. “A lady,” said Schumann +somewhat later in speaking of this little work, +“would find it most delicate, most charming....” +Note how already they hasten the advent of the ladies! +Such is the first blossom of this chaste soul.</p> + +<p>The stay at the Château d’Antonin, in the summer of +1826, revealed to Chopin the pleasures that can come +from material plenty and refinements of the spirit, when +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>these are linked together by skilled hands. This was +precisely what the young aristocrat needed to awaken +his æsthetic response. It is a luxury which the strong +scorn; but a sensitive heart would have difficulty in +dispensing with a judicious distribution of these amenities, +ranging from perfect food to works of art, from +physical luxury to the subtleties of the mind, and subduing +this heart, despite itself, to the domination of the +delicious. I myself should think it very interesting to +know all about the furnishings, the pictures, the guests, +the conversations to be seen and heard during the summer +of 1826 at Prince Radziwill’s. Unfortunately, these +details cannot be known with any degree of certainty. +After all, it may be sufficiently enlightening that Chopin +called Antonin “a paradise” and that he found the +young princesses “divine.” But it is certain that from +that time on his nostalgia for that perfect harmony +derived from the union of fatherland, a sumptuous +dwelling and radiant young beings, shattered his transport +into invincible regrets.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III"> + CHAPTER III + <br> + <span class="smcap">The Birth of the Poet</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>When he was asked, after one of his improvisations +at the piano, improvisations that were a mixture +of brilliance that was always slightly sombre, and of +tenderness that was at once poignant and dramatic, by +what name this atavistic desolation that seemed too old +for his young existence should be called, he replied +with the Polish word <i>zal</i>. It was a word that he repeated, +that he loved, a word susceptible of varied meanings +and which included sometimes every tenderness and all +humility, and sometimes only rancour, revolt, and glacial +vengeance. It is a word also that holds at one and the +same time connotations of inconsolable sorrow, and +menace, or fruitless bitterness, a word, in short, that could +be applied to all those cruel and poet Hamlets whom +we call Slavs. From his sixteenth year <i>zal</i> was the +bright enemy of his fortune, an enemy armed each day +anew when one has a romantic heart and when the +destruction of oneself seems the most brilliant solution +of life. In knowing himself and then in cultivating +himself without opposition, Chopin accomplished the +rare miracle of becoming absolutely himself before life +had taught him anything. Himself against life, in spite +of life. The sum of knowledge that was necessary to him +he possessed at sixteen. It was reduced to the seven +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>notes of the scale, which were sufficient for the expression +of all his thoughts. He was tortured by the need of no +other nourishment than the search for his own style. +That was his method of attaining the truth. Apart +from his piano, the universe, indeed, was but literature.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, +his father allowed him to leave school +at seventeen to give himself up entirely to his music. +He was given a little attic study with an old piano and +a table. There he wrote his first works. And it was +at this time that, testing his powers, he acquired the +astonishingly original touch and style that were soon +to amaze the artistic world. The following year, he +composed his <i>Variations</i> on the <i>La ci darem la mano</i> of +Mozart, of which Schumann said as he thumbed it over: +“Eusebius came in softly the other day. You know +that ironic smile with which he tries to intrigue you. +I was at the piano... Eusebius put a piece of music +before us, with these words, ‘Hats off, gentlemen—a +genius!’ We were not to see the title. I turned over +the pages mechanically. The veiled joy of music without +sound is like something magical. And then, it has +always seemed to me that each composer offers to the +eyes a physiognomy of notes that is the essence of the +man. Beethoven has a different look from Mozart, on +paper. But here I fancied that quite strange eyes, the +eyes of a flower, the eyes of a basilisk, the eyes of a +peacock, the eyes of a virgin were marvellously regarding +me. But what was the astonishment of the hearers on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>reading the title: opus 2... Chopin? I had never +heard the name.”</p> + +<p>Listen to the almost prophetic tone of that surprise: +“Eyes of a flower, eyes of a basilisk, eyes of a peacock, +eyes of a virgin.” This splendid musical portrait paints +in completely the Polish swan testing for the first time +the flutter of his wings.</p> + +<p>He took flight very shortly after, at the beginning of +September, 1828, on his first journey. A friend of his +father’s, Professor Jaroçki, took him to Berlin, where +the professor had to attend a scientific meeting. Frederick +was in an ecstasy of enthusiasm. After five days +of jolting in the diligence the travellers reached the +Prussian capital and put up at the Hôtel du Kronprinz. +Chopin’s first visit was to the factory of the Kisting +pianos, his second to the Academy of Singing, his third +to the Opera, where they were giving <i>Ferdinand Cortez</i> +by Spontini, and <i>The Secret Marriage</i> by Cimarosa. “I +followed these operas with great pleasure,” he wrote +home, “but I must admit that the music of Handel approaches +most nearly the musical ideal that I have +adopted.... To-morrow they give <i>Freyschutz</i>; that +is exactly the music that I want.” He saw Spontini at +a distance, and the young Mendelssohn. He dined at +the Congress of Naturalists. “Yesterday there was a +banquet in honour of the scholars. What caricatures! +I divided them into three groups.” At the table he sat +next a professor from Hamburg, who, talking to Jaroçki, +so far forgot himself as to take Chopin’s plate for his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>own and begin drumming on it. “A true scientist, +eh? Nothing was lacking, not even the big deformed +nose. I was on pins and needles during the drumming, +and when it was finished had nothing better to do than +to rub off the finger-marks with a napkin.” This incident +was the object of a long report in which can be seen +his stubborn disgust. Then there were the toilettes +of the ladies. Details? None. That struck closer home +than the compulsory visits to the Geological Museum.</p> + +<p>Finally, after a fortnight, they re-entered their travelling +carriage to take once more the road for Warsaw. +Arriving at Zullichau, between Frankfurt-am-Oder and +Posen, they found a shortage of horses and were obliged +to stop and wait for fresh ones. What should they do? By +chance the postal relay station was also the tavern. Professor +Jaroçki seized the opportunity to dine. Chopin +spied a piano. He opened it, sat down and began to +let his fingers wander. An old traveller came and sat +quietly near him, then another, then silently all the +household, the postmaster, his wife, his daughters, and +the neighbours. What a surprise was this nightingale +blown by the wind from fairyland! Suddenly the head +of the postillion was framed in the window, and he +thundered out:</p> + +<p>“All aboard! The horses are harnessed.”</p> + +<p>“Devil take the spoil-sport,” replied the postmaster +furiously.</p> + +<p>They begged the young man, who had already arisen, +to sit down again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span></p> + +<p>“Go on, <i>please</i> go on,” said the ladies.</p> + +<p>“I’ll give you extra horses if necessary,” added the +postmaster.</p> + +<p>And the old traveller said in his turn:</p> + +<p>“Sir, I am an old-fashioned musician and I know what +I am talking about. I, also, play the piano. If Mozart +had heard you, sir, he would have taken your hand. I, +a nobody, dare not....”</p> + +<p>When Chopin stopped, this curious audience seized +him and carried him out in triumph.</p> + +<p>A Schumann overwhelmed, that enthusiastic postmaster, +that timid musicaster trembling with emotion, +these were the signs that a new poet was born among +men.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV"> + CHAPTER IV + <br> + <span class="smcap">“Sorrow” and “Ideal”</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>But it was not until the following year that he was +to find his voice. One evening at the Opera, he +noticed in a small part a young singer with a clear +tone, fair hair, and an attractive mouth. He learned +that her name was Constance Gladkowska, and that +she was still a pupil at the Conservatory. The impression +this girl produced on him was strong, but altogether +pure and childlike. To get the ribbon that tied her +hair, to die holding it hidden on his breast, would have +satisfied his longings. And so delicate was this sentiment +that at first he confided it to no one. Besides, +another thought wrung him more: the thought of +leaving Warsaw, because he well knew that he had +exhausted its musical resources.</p> + +<p>In July, 1829, his father furnished him with a little +money, which had been saved with difficulty, and the +young composer, on whom from all sides so many +hopes were now centred, was able to leave for Vienna. +His first visit there was to Haslinger, the music publisher, +a great eulogist who received him with open arms and +already called him “the new star of the North.” But +Chopin, who was not yet twenty, was cautious and +sceptical. He was presented to Count Gallenberg, the +superintendent of the Imperial theatres; he was urged +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>to give a concert. “What reassures Count Gallenberg,” +he wrote to his family, “is that I shall not tax +his purse. I am going to play for nothing. I am +acting the disinterested and the dilettante. I am a +musician for love of the art.”</p> + +<p>The concert took place at the Imperial Theatre on +the 11th of August, at seven in the evening. The +orchestra played a Beethoven overture, some airs of +Rossini. Then the delicate Chopin, already sickly +looking, came on to the platform. An old lady sitting +in the first row said in a whisper, “What a pity the +young man doesn’t make a better appearance!” But +Chopin’s whiteness was from rage rather than nervousness, +because the orchestra, not having been able to +decipher his <i>Variations</i>, had forced him to change the +programme. He therefore improvised on a theme from +<i>The White Lady</i>, then on the Polish air, <i>Chmiel</i>.</p> + +<p>With the one exception of Liszt, no one has ever +improvised like Chopin. Under his elegant hand there +opened a new world of velvet tragedies, of ravishing +sorrows, where each hearer trembled as he discovered +a memory of his own griefs. And old men as well as +young schoolgirls followed with delight these exquisite +whisperings. But the power of poets—what is it, if +not to draw singing from one’s own soul, the secret of +which they know better than oneself?</p> + +<p>So successful was this first concert that Chopin resolved +to give another a week later. This time he played his +<i>Krakoviak</i>, which the orchestra had rehearsed, and his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span><i>Variations</i> on the <i>La ci darem</i>. Count Lichnowsky, +Beethoven’s friend, was present and applauded wildly. +The public, the musicians, and the critics could not conceal +their surprise, for everything was new about Chopin, +both the substance and the form. “The public recognized +a great artist in this young man... On the +ground of the originality of his playing and of his +compositions one could almost attribute genius to him,” +said the <i>Wiener Theaterzeitung</i>; and the <i>Allgemeine +Musikalische</i>: “The exquisite delicacy of his touch, the +indescribable dexterity of his technique, the finish of his +<i>nuances</i>, which reflect the deepest sensitiveness, the clarity +of his interpretation and of his compositions, which +bear the marks of a great genius, all reveal a virtuoso +favoured by nature, who has flashed above the horizon +without previous heralding, like one of the most brilliant +meteors.” One single criticism, that Chopin made of +himself: he plays too softly, he lacks brilliance and +resonance. “They are almost of one voice in saying I +play too softly, too tenderly, rather, for this public,” +he writes to his family. “They are accustomed to the +great drums of their virtuosos. But I prefer them to +say that I played too softly than too brutally.” And in +another letter: “It is my way of playing, and I know it +gives infinite pleasure to women and artists.”</p> + +<p>Thereupon he left for Prague, accompanied to the +diligence by all the Viennese musicians, whom he had +conquered in so short a time. Even Czerny, with whom +Chopin had several times played duets, was there. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>Chopin thought him “a fine man and more sensitive +than his compositions.” He visited Prague, where he +made the acquaintance of the famous violinist Pixis, and +of Alexandre Klengel, the composer of forty-eight +fugues considered the finest since Bach. Klengel interested +Chopin greatly, and they spent half a dozen hours +together, at the piano and in conversation. Then +Frederick left for Dresden, viâ Teplitz, a watering-place +on the frontier of Bohemia and Saxony, where he passed +the evening at the château of Prince Clary.</p> + +<p>A small but “respectable” company were assembled +there: the men of the house, an Austrian general, an +English naval captain, a Saxon general sewed up in +decorations, some young men and girls. After tea, the +Princess asked Chopin if he would “deign” to seat +himself at the piano. The artist replied that he would +“deign,” and asked for a subject for improvisation. +The Prince’s <i>maître de musique</i> proposed a theme from +Rossini’s <i>Moses</i>, and Chopin launched forth upon +embroideries so lovely that he was obliged to return +to the piano four times. They tried to keep him at +Teplitz, but he would not consent. A restlessness, a +certain nervousness, pushed him on to continue his +journey. Something was working deeply in him. +Dresden hardly interested him. He stayed there a few +days doing nothing, then left for Breslau, and returned +at length to Warsaw on September 12th.</p> + +<p>Three weeks later, while writing a waltz, he found +out what ailed him. “I have, perhaps to my sorrow, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>found my ideal. For six months now I have dreamed +of her each night, and I have never spoken a word to +her. It was for her that I composed the <i>Adagio</i> of my +<i>Concerto</i> (in F minor, op. 21), as well as the <i>Waltz</i> (op. +70, no. 3), written only this morning and which I am +sending to you. Notice the passage marked with a +cross. No one, except you, will know the meaning +of it. How happy I should be, my dear friend, if I +could play it to you! In the fifth bar of the trio, the +bass carries the melody as far as the high E flat, in the +key of G flat. I should not tell you this, as I am sure +you would have noticed it for yourself.”</p> + +<p>This confidence was addressed to Titus, the friend +beloved above all others because he too was a musician, +and Chopin found at once the two words that were +henceforth to be the keys to his whole life: “sorrow” +and “ideal.” They give an atmosphere. Perhaps +they give too much; but if they have since then lost +something of their meaning, can we not give back to +them in spirit a living poetical value? In this Europe +which was open to romanticism and fervently breathed +a too magnificent vocabulary lived the faith that moves +and the candour that engenders deeds of love and of +history. An evil age, “An age of fools and follies,” +says M. Charles Maurras. Perhaps. But an age in +which ideas and dreams have more than a rhetorical +value puts a high price on art. And no one was less +satisfied than Chopin with mere words. Those which +he himself used translate exactly the accents of his piano. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>When he wrote that to his sorrow he had discovered +his ideal, doubtless he did not suspect what a true note +he had struck. Here, fixed for ever, is the musical +theme in which, thanks to him, millions of beings were +to discover the joys of hopelessness.</p> + +<p>In this sorrow, in this ideal, he was of course thinking +of Constance Gladkowska. He wrote again some time +later: “You cannot imagine how sad Warsaw seems to +me. If I were not so happy with my family, I would +not care for this place. Oh! how bitter it is to have +no one with whom to share sorrow and joy! How +dreadful when the heart is oppressed to be unable to +unfold it. You know what I mean. Many times I pour +into my piano what I should like to confide to you.”</p> + +<p>He heard much music, and was greatly struck by the +last of Beethoven’s trios. Never, he said, had he heard +anything greater. He composed. He went to the +Opera. Mlle. Gladkowska made her debut in Paër’s +<i>Agnes</i> and he admired her playing, her beauty, the range +of her voice. “Her phrasing and <i>nuance</i> are delicious. +At first her voice trembled slightly, but she soon got +over that. She was overwhelmed with applause.” +He made her acquaintance, accompanied her at the +piano, felt that he should die of sadness and uncertainty. +Ought he to leave? Must he stay? He decided to +accept an invitation from Prince Radziwill and went to +spend one autumn week at Antonin. He was received +as a personage, and played duets with the Prince, who +was the author of an orchestration of <i>Faust</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span></p> + +<p>Two charming Eves graced this paradise—“I mean +the two young princesses, pleasant, musical, and gentle +creatures. As for the Princess Mother, she knows that +it is not birth that makes a man.”</p> + +<p>The young princesses knew it, too, and they amused +themselves by taking lessons from this artist with the +complexion of a girl. Wanda allowed him to play with +her fingers, to which he had to teach the correct position. +Elise did his portrait. “Princess Wanda has a real +musical instinct. There is no need to be constantly +saying to her: here, <i>crescendo</i>, there, <i>piano</i>... here +more slowly, there faster... I had to promise to send +her my <i>Polonaise in F minor</i>.” He wrote another Polonaise, +for piano and violoncello. “It is a brilliant piece +for women to play.” He did not forget Constance, +even though Princess Elise was so ravishing. But he +realized the possibility of being charmed in all innocence +by two beings at once. Nor did he forget his dear +Titus of the silent, savage heart. In a moment of expansion +he wrote to him: “I might anoint my body with +the rarest perfumes of Byzantium and you would still +refuse to embrace me if I had not bound you by a kind +of magnetic attraction. But there are secret forces in +nature....”</p> + +<p>Returning to Warsaw, he decided to give a concert +which Constance would attend. She could not fail to +understand that it was to her alone that he dedicated +his young fame. The concert actually took place on the +17th of March, 1830, when he had just completed his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>twentieth year. The event aroused an extraordinary +amount of attention. The hall was crowded. The +programme, of the usual variegated order, announced +music by Elsner, Kurpinski, a hunting-horn solo, some +singing. Chopin’s part consisted of his <i>Concerto in F +minor</i> and a fantasia on national airs. But the effect +was not all that he had hoped. The connoisseurs alone +had realized and appreciated his originality as an artist. +But Constance, sitting in the front row, smiled at him +and he felt repaid.</p> + +<p>A second concert, several days after the first, was a +more brilliant success, and the <i>Rondo à la Krakoviak</i> +aroused acclamations. From all over the house came +cries: “A third concert! A third concert!” This +time it really seemed as though the critics, the crowd, +and the musicians were of one accord in declaring Chopin +Poland’s greatest pianist and composer. But the weeks +slipped by without bringing him real happiness. His love +for Titus and Constance both sustained and tormented +him. He carried their letters next his heart. For them +alone he composed, and his latest music seemed to him +worthless till they had heard it. “Work drives me on. +I am composing hard. Often I turn night into day +and day into night. I live in a dream and sleep while +I am awake. Yes, worse still, it is as though I must +sleep for ever, for I am for ever feeling the same thing. +But instead of gathering strength from this somnolence, +I am tortured further and weaken myself the more....” +He worked on his <i>Adagio in E major</i>, which was to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>“romantic, calm, melancholy,” and to evoke “crowds +of gentle memories. It should be like a reverie on a +moonlit spring night.... What does it matter if it +is bad? You will see in it my fault of doing badly +against my will. But that is because, also against my +will, something has entered my heart by way of my eyes. +It drives me, torments me, although I love it and cherish +it.”</p> + +<p>An unexpected treat was given him by the arrival of a +celebrated German singer, Sontag, who gave a series +of six concerts. To her Prince Radziwill presented +Chopin, who experienced a moment of enthusiasm. +She was not beautiful, but charming beyond description, +and she enchanted the circle in which she moved. +Frederick was allowed the honour of seeing her in her +morning peignoir, and brought Constance to her. But +the transit of the singer was no more than a meteoric +interlude and Chopin slid back into his uncertainties. +Departure seemed more and more necessary for his +musical development, and on the other hand the fear +of losing his love paralysed him. On September 4th +he wrote to Titus:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I have fits of fury. I still have not budged. I +haven’t the strength to name a day for leaving. I have +a presentiment that if I leave Warsaw I shall never see +my home again. I believe that I am going away to die. +How sad it must be not to die where one has always lived! +How dreadful it would be for me to see at my deathbed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>an indifferent doctor or servant instead of all my own +folk! I should like to stay with you for a few days; +perhaps I might find some peace again. But as I cannot, +I limit myself to roaming the streets, crushed by my +sadness, and I return—but why? To pursue my fancies. +Man is rarely happy. If he is destined to only a few +short hours of bliss, why should he renounce his illusions. +They too are fugitive.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>More curious still is his letter of September 18th, +where he makes this singular confession:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“You are mistaken in thinking, like so many others, +that my heart is the reason for my prolonging my stay +here. Be assured that I could rise above all if it were +a question of my own self, and that, if I were in love, +I could manage to dominate for several more years my +sad and sterile passion. Be convinced of one thing, I +beg, that is, that I too consider my own good and that +I am ready to sacrifice everything for the world. For +the world;—I mean, for the eye of the world; in order +that this public opinion which has so much weight with +us may contribute to my sorrow. Not to that secret +suffering that we hide within ourselves, but to what I +might call our outward pain... As long as I am in +good health, I shall work willingly all my life. But +must I work more than my strength permits? If it is +necessary, I can do twice what I do to-day. You may +not be master of your own thoughts, but I am always. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>Nothing could make me drop them as the leaves from +the trees. For me, even in winter, there is always verdure. +Of course, I am speaking only of the head! +In the heart, on the other hand... good Lord! there +is tremendous heat! No wonder the vegetation there +is luxurious.... Your letters lie upon my heart, +next to the ribbon (Constance’s), for though they do not +know each other, these inanimate objects nevertheless +feel that they come from friendly hands.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In short, this irresolute knew well that the very base +of his nature was his musical instinct; that this instinct +would conquer all, his desires, his comfort, his peace; +that his “secret suffering,” if it was inevitably necessary, +still amounted to less than that stubborn march towards +a future of melody and solitude.</p> + +<p>Coming out of church one day he saw Constance. +“My eyes caught her glance. I tore off into the street +and it took a quarter of an hour to pull myself together. +Sometimes I am so mad that it is terrifying. +But on Saturday week I leave, come what may. I +shall pack my music in my trunk, her ribbon in my +soul, my soul under my arm and,—away I go, in the +diligence!”</p> + +<p>Finally, on October 11th, he gave a last concert, in +which Mlle. Gladkowska assisted. Frederick played +his whole <i>Concerto in E minor</i>, a work that he had just +finished, and a <i>Fantasia on Polish Airs</i>. Mlle. Gladkowska, +dressed in white and crowned with roses, sang the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>cavatine from Rossini’s <i>Lady of the Lake</i>. “You know +the theme: <i>O quante lagrime per te versai</i>,” wrote Chopin +to Titus. “She rendered the <i>tutto detesto</i> to the G flat +admirably. Zielinski said the G alone was worth a +thousand ducats. After leading her off the stage I played +my <i>Fantasia</i> on the setting of the moon. This time at +least I understood myself, the orchestra understood itself +and the audience understood us.... Now nothing +remains but to strap my trunk. My outfit is ready, my +orchestrations are recopied, my handkerchiefs hemmed, +my new trousers have been tried on.” What was he +still waiting for?</p> + +<p>It was as though destiny offered him one final chance. +He did not take it.</p> + +<p>The 1st of November, 1830, was the date fixed; he was +to leave for Vienna. In the morning a whole troupe +set forth. Elsner, friends, musicians, conducted him as +far as Wola, the historic suburb where, in earlier times, +the election of the kings had taken place. They held +a banquet. They played a cantata composed by Elsner +in his honour. They sang:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“May your talent, native of our soil,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Display itself in all and everywhere,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Be you on the Danube’s shores,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or by the Spree, the Tiber or the Seine.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cherish the customs of your fathers,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, by the notes of your music,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Our mazurkas and our Kracoviennes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sing the glory of your native land.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yes, you shall realize our dreams.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Know always, Chopin, that you by song</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall glorify your native land.”</div> + </div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> </div> +</div> + +<p>Chorus:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“To leave your fatherland is naught,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Because your soul remains with us.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">We raise our prayers for your happiness,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And shall cherish your memory in our hearts.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>He is pale, the young prince, when they present him +with a silver cup filled with his native soil. And now +he bursts into sobs.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>As for Constance, she never saw him again. Two +years later she married a country gentleman. Then, +the blue eyes that the poet had loved,—by what strange +trick of fate should they be deprived of light? Constance +became blind. Sometimes, however, she would sit +once more at the piano and sing that lovely song: +<i>Quante lagrime per te versai</i>.... Someone who knew +her towards the end of her life told how “from her eyes, +which remained starry in spite of their blindness,” would +then fall the tears.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V"> + CHAPTER V + <br> + <span class="smcap">Revolution at Warsaw and Solitude at Vienna</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>Titus Woyciechowski rejoined Chopin at +Kalisz. Older than he by several years, he was +in appearance and character just the opposite of Frederick; +a tall strong youth with clear, determined features, +speaking rarely, but with just as passionate a melomania. +His huge hands, chiselled to grasp the sword of his ancestors, +as soon as they rested on the keys of the piano +developed an airy delicacy. Slender, deep-eyed Frederick, +however, with his complexion like a child’s, led on a +leash this powerful, submissive dog. They passed by +Breslau, and then went to Dresden, where a whole week +evaporated in calls, parties, and theatres.</p> + +<p>Armed with letters of introduction, Chopin betook +himself to pay his respects to Mme. Dobrzyçka, a Pole +and Grand Mistress of the Court of Princess Augusta. +This lady occupied an apartment of the royal castle. +She received him graciously, and invited him to spend +an evening with her in a little group of her friends. +Chopin accepted, suspecting strongly that he would have +to pay with his art, but he made it a rule never to refuse +anything to his compatriots. On the appointed day he +made his entrance in the salons of the Grand Mistress, +where he found only three or four people; some ladies +and a man of some thirty years, clean shaven, whom he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>took to be a scholar or an abbé of the Court. Mme. +Dobrzyçka presented him to her guests: “One of our +young compatriots, M. Frederick Chopin, an artist of +great talent, who won’t refuse to let us hear one of his +mazurkas, an echo of our far-off country.” Chopin +sat down at the piano. He felt inspired, his head filled +with poetry, his heart with memories; Constance, his +sisters, the ancient city of Warsaw, floated before his +eyes. In a dozen ways, he expressed them with that +careless grace, that naked emotion which owed nothing +to any model. He was heard in the deepest silence. +Then the Grand Mistress rose and came to him, with +tears in her eyes. “Thank you. You have given a +delightful hour to Their Royal Highnesses.” With a +deep bow she designated the two ladies and the clean-shaven +gentleman. They were the Infanta Augusta, her +sister-in-law, and Prince Jean, the future King of Saxony, +whom he had taken for a doctor of theology. Next +day these personages sent him sealed letters addressed to +Their Majesties the King and Queen of the Two Sicilies +and to His Serene Highness the Prince of Lucca, recommending +“Frederick Chopin, an incomparable artist +for whom the most brilliant future is in store.”</p> + +<p>Under these happy auspices Frederick and Titus arrived +in Vienna towards the end of November. They set +out to find an apartment and, for 50 florins a month, +rented three rooms in Kohlmarkt.</p> + +<p>But this fickle city had already forgotten the artist +it had once acclaimed. Haslinger, the publisher, refused +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>to buy his works, and Chopin would not consent to +part with them for nothing. “Maybe he thinks,” he +said, “that if he affects to treat them as bagatelles I +shall take him seriously and give them to him for love. +He is wrong. My motto shall be: Pay, brute.” But +these small cares faded suddenly away when the events +which were taking place in Poland began to filter into +the newspapers. On the 29th of November, indeed, +the revolution broke out in Warsaw. This ancient +people, reduced to slavery, was attempting once again +to regain its liberty. They got their news in crumbs: +on November 29th, eighteen conspirators had set out +for the Palais de Belvédère, where the Grand Duke +Constantin resided, in order to seize him. But they +were too late. “The bird had flown,” and, leading +his Russian troops, had already withdrawn from the +walls of Warsaw. Freed for the time, the entire town +had arisen against its oppressors. The next day a new +Government was formed, the war of independence proclaimed, +and everywhere thousands of volunteers were +enlisting.</p> + +<p>From the very first Titus and Frederick were wild +with enthusiasm. Titus fitted himself out from head +to foot, and without further delay left to join his brothers +in arms. Left alone, Chopin lamented his own inaction, +but what could he do with those delicate hands of his, +with his useless talent? On a gamble, without definite +plan, he hired a post-chaise and struck out on the trail +of Titus. But he was unable to overtake him and, in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>the sombre winter dusk, his warlike ardour seemed +suddenly so futile that he ordered his driver to turn +about and go back to Vienna. There he found a letter +from his father, who, guessing the feelings of his son, +besought Frederick not to allow himself to be turned +from his career. Let the many sacrifices that had been +made at least be allowed to bear fruit! So Chopin +stayed. But the ordeal was hard to bear in this Austria +of Metternich, entirely hostile to Poland. The artists +he knew avoided him, and more than once as he passed +he overheard the murmur that God’s only error was +to have created the Poles. His mail reached him now +only after long delays and he lived in anguish. He +learned of the march of the Russian General Paskewitch +on Warsaw. Already he saw the town in flames, his +family and Constance massacred. He spent his time in +writing, he who had such a horror of letter paper. “I +seem to be dreaming, to be still with you. These +voices which I hear, and which are unfamiliar to me, +are like carnival clackers. It is nothing to me to-day +whether I live or die.... Why am I left behind? +Why am I not taking my share of the danger with you?” +The Christmas festivities only aggravated this drama of +unrest. Dante was right when he said that a happy +memory is the worst misery of unhappy days. That +Christmas eve he went to the Church of St. Etienne, +and there, standing in the darkest corner under the dome, +he leaned against a Gothic pillar and dreamed of the +family Christmas tree, lighted with candles, of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>modest presents he and his sisters gave each other, of +the traditional supper where the whole family gathered +about the table and broke the holy bread that the lay +brothers of the convents had distributed during Advent.</p> + +<p>He passed the holidays largely alone in his room, +which he thus describes: “It is large and has three +windows; the bed faces them, my marvellous piano +is at the right, the sofa at the left, between the windows +a mirror and in the centre of the room a big mahogany +table. The floor is waxed. It is quiet. In the morning +an unbearably stupid servant wakens me. I get +up and have my coffee, which I often take cold, as +playing makes me forget breakfast. About nine o’clock +my German teacher arrives. After that I play. Then +Hummel (the son of the composer) comes to work on my +portrait while Nidecki studies my concerto. I stay in +my dressing-gown until noon. Then a funny little +German, Herr Leidenfrost, arrives, with whom I go +for a walk on the pavement. Then I go to lunch wherever +I may be invited or else at the <i>Café Zur Böhmischen +Köchin</i>, which is frequented by all the University students.... +Afterwards I make calls, come in at dusk, dress, +arrange my hair, dress, and go to some party or other. +About eleven or twelve o’clock, never later, I come +home, play, cry, laugh, read, go to bed, and dream of +you.”</p> + +<p>In this same letter to his friend Matuszinski, he adds +on Christmas Day (1830):</p> + +<p>“I wanted so desperately to have a letter from you. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>You know why. What joy news of my angel of peace +gives me! How I should like to sound all the chords, +not only those that evoke stormy feelings but those that +sound the <i>lieder</i> whose half-stilled echoes yet hover on +the shores of the Danube.... But I cannot live as +I please.... You advise me to make a poet’s choice. +Don’t you realize that I am the most irresolute being +on earth, and that I have made only one single fortunate +choice in my whole life? All these dinners, parties, +concerts, balls, bore me. I am overwhelmed with +them. I cannot do what I wish; I must be dressed, +powdered, shod, have my hair dressed, and play the +quiet man in the drawing-room, only to return home +and thunder on the piano. I have no confidant, I have +to ‘do the polite’ with everybody. Forgive these +complaints, my dear Jean, they calm me and give me +relief. One point in your letter made me very gloomy. +Has there been any change? Has anyone been ill? +I could easily believe it of such a tender being.... +Reassure her and tell her that as long as my strength +permits, till death, yes, until after death, my ashes shall +be scattered under her feet. More... all this is not +enough, and you may tell her much more.... I +should have done it myself, but for the dread of people’s +gossip. Be my interpreter to her. The day before +yesterday I dined at a Mme. Bayer’s, a Pole whose name +is Constance. I love her society because of this reminder. +Her music, her handkerchiefs, her napkins are +marked with <i>her</i> initial.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span></p> + +<p>“January 1, 1831.—I received your letter. I do not +know what is taking place in me. I love you all more +than my life. Write to me. So you are with the army? +Our poor families! What are all our friends doing? +I live with you. I should like to die for you, for all +of you. If you leave, how can you deliver my message? +Look after my family. One might believe evil.... +How sadly the year begins for me. Perhaps I shall +not see its end. Embrace me. Are you leaving for the +war? Return a colonel. Ah! why cannot I be even +your drummer boy! If you think it unnecessary, do +not give her my note. I don’t remember what I wrote. +You may read it. It is perhaps the first and the last.”</p> + +<p>Then he notes in his little pocket-diary: “This bed, +where I sleep ... perhaps it has already held a corpse. +Who was it? Was he more wicked than I? Had he +parents, sisters, a mistress? Now all is peace for him. +I am sure that to die is the noblest human act. Or, on +the other hand, is birth the noblest?...” Later a few +scattered lines about Constance: “Did she love me or +is she playing a part? How hard it is to guess. Yes, +or no? Yes, no, yes, no?... Yes, surely. But +God’s will be done.”</p> + +<p>Thus Chopin stands wholly self-revealed, nervous, +lonely, horribly sensitive. All the pains of the world +are latent in him, and a few simple joys. But the <i>man</i> +developed with extreme slowness. The poet clung to +his youth, which had furnished the difficulties he needed. +He had given himself over, as women do, unconsciously +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>to suffering, and it was by that alone that he was to +become adult.</p> + +<p>Yet the two years since his first love for Constance +Gladkowska had already produced admirable work. It +was not without a certain pride that Chopin bound into +his work such pages as the <i>Waltz in D flat major</i> (op. +70, no. 3), in which he had earlier called Titus’s attention +to a confidential passage, the sketches of his <i>Etudes</i>, the +first of his <i>Nocturnes</i> and the two <i>Concertos</i> (in E minor, +op. 11, and in F minor, op. 21). If in construction, in +skeleton, they still owe much to Hummel, in their flesh +and blood they are entirely Chopin. The orchestral +parts are weak because he was not able to <i>think orchestrally</i>, +but the piano parts have an originality and poetry +that bear the stamp of eternity. Liszt later said of the +<i>adagio</i> of the <i>Second Concerto</i>, for which Chopin had a +marked predilection, that the whole piece had “an ideal +perfection,” that “his sentiment by turn radiant and full +of pity, evoked a magnificent country bathed in light, +some dowered valley of Tempe that one might have +selected as the site of a tragic tale, a heartbreaking scene. +It might be called an irreparable sorrow enfolding the +human heart against a background of the incomparable +splendour of nature.”</p> + +<p>There is truth in these somewhat florid words. But +it is difficult to reduce to the average vocabulary what +slips so swiftly out of ordinary experience and opens +to our most complex senses an entirely new universe. +An analysis of music is the most futile of intellectual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>exercises, because it can build on nothing but emotion. +Look at concert audiences. They are made up for the +most part of lovers and old people. For they understand, +remember, and seek again this powerful inexpressible +thing in which they find the best that is in themselves. +Even Chopin still did not know what he was +giving. He was hampered by classic forms. But he +carried in him the joy of a growing knowledge, developed +and assimilated in his first sorrows.</p> + +<p>The winter dragged on as best it could, and Chopin, +with somewhat more pleasure than he admitted, went +from party to party. He let his whiskers grow, or +rather one whisker, the other was not necessary, “because +I only show my right profile to the audience.” +He spent many an evening at the house of Dr. Malfatti, +Court Physician and former doctor to Beethoven, a +happy sybarite and philanthropist who lived in a smart +villa surrounded by a garden. And then spring returned +and the doctor’s peach and cherry trees were covered +with pink and white snow. There, on St. John’s Day, +they had a fête by moonlight. Out on the terrace, in +the bridal air that rose from the orangery, wafted by the +fountain sprays, Chopin played, while the Viennese +listened to the sad-eyed foreigner who in sombre colours +paraphrased a joyous waltz of Strauss.</p> + +<p>He went to concerts, met plenty of musicians but, +Slavik the violinist excepted (another Paganini, who +played ninety-six staccato notes with a single sweep of +his bow), none of them impressed him greatly. Vienna +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>offered him nothing to love. Waltzes, nothing but +waltzes, were played on all sides, and although they were +laughed at, still the editors would publish nothing else. +He was ill and admitted it to his friends, but forbade +them to inform his family. He planned another departure, +and had his passport arranged without knowing +very definitely whether he should name France, Germany, +or England. Italy attracted him also, but there were +revolutions in Bologna, Milan, Ancona, Rome. In +his indecision, he might have settled the matter by a +throw of dice had that not been to tempt fate somewhat. +He ended by deciding on London and, at all events, +had added to the passport: “by way of Paris.” For +the moment he was pacified and furnished with a few +landmarks on which to fasten his imagination. He +packed, made his good-bye calls, and reserved a seat +in the diligence for July 20 (1831).</p> + +<p>A few days before his departure, a letter reached him +from his compatriot, Witwicki, the writer, a family friend. +It touched his most sensitive spot. “... Keep always +in view the idea of nationality, nationality and yet again +nationality. It is a word that means little for an ordinary +artist, but not for a talent like yours. There is native +melody just as there is a native climate. The mountains, +the forests, the waters, and the meadows have their native +voice, an inner voice, though not every soul is aware +of it.... Every time I think of it, dear M. Frederick, +I nurse the sweet hope that you shall be the first to be +able to imbibe the vast treasures of Slav melody. Seek +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>out the popular Slav melodies as the mineralogist seeks +out the stones and minerals of the mountains and the +valleys. I hear that in Vienna you fret and languish. +I can put myself in your place; no Pole could be happy +when the life or death of his own country is in question. +But remember always, dear friend, that you left us not +to languish but to perfect yourself in your art and to +become the consolation and glory of your family and +your country.”</p> + +<p>He left on July 20th and, by way of Salzburg, reached +Munich, where he stayed for several weeks. Then he +set out again, and reached Stuttgart. There, on the +8th of September, he learned of the capture of Warsaw +by the Russians. Under the shock of this frightful news +he turned to his piano and his grief burst into harrowing +improvisation. This was the first germ of the <i>Etude +in C minor</i> (op. 10, no. 12) that is called <i>The Revolutionary</i>. +“What a change! What a disaster!... Who +could have foreseen it?” he wrote, several weeks +later.</p> + +<p>These words may sound somewhat feeble. But Chopin +did not love great, strong words. In him emotion +always took on a moderate accent. Nevertheless, in +his pocket-notebook he gave free rein to his feelings: +“The suburbs burned! Matuszinski and Titus surely +killed! Paskewitch and that dog Mohilew flee from +the beloved town. Moscow commands the world! +Oh, God, where are you? Are you there and do not +venge yourself? Are you not surfeited with Russian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>massacres? Or else,—or else,—are you not yourself, +indeed, only a Muscovite?”</p> + +<p>The young exile little suspected that he was to be, +according to Paderewski’s beautiful metaphor, the +ingenious smuggler who would enable the prohibited +Polonism to escape across the frontiers in his portfolios +of music, the priest who would carry to the scattered +Poles the sacrament of nationalism.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI"> + CHAPTER VI + <br> + <span class="smcap">“I doubt whether there is a city on Earth where + more pianists are to be found than in Paris”</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>When the stage-coach in which Chopin rode had +passed the walls of Paris, the young musician +climbed up on the seat beside the driver. He hardly +knew where to look, at the monuments or at a crowd +so thick it might be thought another revolution. However, +it was only the joy of living again that had brought +the people into the streets and forced the horses down +to a walk. The driver felt impressively at home among +all these symbolic costumes of the bourgeois gentlemen, +and pointed them out to his passenger. Each political +group had its own livery. The School of Medicine and +the Young French parties were distinguished by their +beards and cravats. The Carlists had green waistcoats, +the Republicans red, and the Saint Simoniens blue. +Many strutted about in tailed coats, called <i>à la propriétaire</i>, +which fell to their heels. There were artists dressed +after Raphaël, with hair to their shoulders and wide-brimmed +tam-o’-shanters. Others affected the Middle +Ages,—numbers of women dressed as pages, as musketeers, +as hunters. And in this swarm were hawkers +brandishing their pamphlets: “Ask for <i>The Art of +Making Love and Keeping It</i>; ask for <i>The Loves of the +Priests</i>; ask for <i>The Archbishop of Paris and the Mme. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>la Duchesse de Berry</i>.” Frederick was at first somewhat +scandalized. Later he was agreeably surprised to see +a group of youths march by, crying: “Poland! Poland!” +“That is in honour of General Ramorino, +the Italian who is trying to deliver our Polish brothers +from the Russian boot,” explained the driver. They +were obliged to stop the carriage for the crowd to pass. +Eventually they reached the posting station and Chopin +dismounted, had his baggage loaded on a cabriolet, and +betook himself to a house agent, who provided him with +two rooms on the fifth floor at 27, Boulevard Poissonnière.</p> + +<p>He liked these quarters because his windows had a +balcony from which he could see the succession of +boulevards. The endless perspective of trees hedged +in between two rows of houses astonished him. “It +is down there,” he thought, “that the history of France +is being written.” Not far away, in the rue d’Enfer, +M. de Chateaubriand was editing his memoirs and he +too wrote: “What happenings have taken place before +my very door! But after the trial of Louis XVI and +the revolutionary uprisings, all trials and uprisings are +insignificant.” And at the same time, a plainly dressed +young woman was writing in her garret novels which +she signed with the name George Sand, and exclaimed: +“To live, how sweet! How good it is, in spite of +griefs, husbands, boredom, debts, relatives, tittle-tattle, +in spite of bitter pangs and tedious annoyances. To +live, how intoxicating! To love, to be loved! That is +happiness, that is Heaven!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span></p> + +<p>The day after his arrival Frederick plunged into the +crowd and exulted in his solitude. It was more complete +here than in the depths of the German forest, and it +at once stimulated and frightened the artist. He floated +with the tide, until suddenly the crowd thickened, +became organized, and Chopin found himself carried +along by a compact column who, with flags at their head, +were marching to acclaim Ramorino. Then fear seized +him in good earnest, and breaking away, he returned +home by back streets, and climbed to his balcony where +he witnessed from above that storm of enthusiasm. +Shops were shut and a squadron of hussars arrived at a +gallop and swept away the populace, who hissed and +spat at the soldiers. Till midnight there was an uproar +which approached a riot. And Chopin wrote to Titus: +“I can’t tell you what a disagreeable impression the +horrible voices of this angry mob gave me.” Decidedly +he did not like noise, or crowds; politics were not in +his line.</p> + +<p>Music, music, his only escape, because it is the only +way of thinking with the emotions. “Here alone can +one know what singing is. With the exception of Pasta, +I do not believe there is a greater singer in Europe than +Malibran-Garcia.” He spent his evenings at the Académie +Royale or at the Italian Opera. Veron managed +the Académie, where Habeneck conducted. At the +Italian Opera Rossini and Zamboni were in the bill. +He heard Lablache and Malibran in <i>Il Barbieri di Siviglia</i>, +in <i>Otello</i>, and in <i>L’Italiana in Algeri</i>. Under the stimulus +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>of his pleasure he wrote again to Titus: “You can have +no idea what Lablache is like. Some say that Pasta’s +voice is weakening, but I have never in my life heard +one so divine. Malibran has a range of three octaves; +in her own <i>genre</i> her singing is unique, uncanny. She +plays Othello; Schroeder-Devrient, Desdemona. Malibran +is small, the German larger. Sometimes you +think Desdemona is going to strangle Othello.”</p> + +<p>Chopin had a letter of introduction to Paër, who +put him in touch with Cherubini, Rossini, and the pianist +then more famous than any of the others, Kalkbrenner. +With beating heart Chopin went to see this supreme +master at his house. He was a tall man, stiff and cold, +with the bearing of a diplomat, and an unstable glance. +He put on the airs of a gentleman, was doubtless too +polite, and certainly very pedantic. Marmontel says +of him that his playing was smooth, sustained, harmonious, +and perfectly even, and that it charmed more +than it astonished; that his left hand had an unequalled +dexterity and that he played, without moving his head +or body, with splendid style in the grand manner. +“A giant!” said Chopin. “He crushes everybody, +myself included.” In Kalkbrenner the young artist +specially admired the purist, the man who talked at the +piano, the language of Cicero.</p> + +<p>The master and the unknown played several pieces for +each other. When Chopin had finished his <i>Concerto +in E minor</i>, Kalkbrenner said to him: “You have the +style of Cramer and the touch of Field,” which was without +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>doubt the greatest compliment he could find. Divining +in this unexpected disciple the great man of to-morrow, +he explained his faults, trotted out again his lack +of method, even pencilled his concerto. He tried to +decipher it. But if he succeeded in the first part, he +was stopped at the beginning of the second by insurmountable +difficulties, for its technique was entirely new. +Nevertheless, he stated with assurance that nothing short +of three years of study under his direction would make +Chopin master of a new piano school. Frederick was +disquieted. Three years more study! What would his +family say? “However, I will submit to it,” he thought, +“if I can be sure of making a big advance.” But, by +the time he had reached home again, he no longer +doubted. “No, I will never be a copy of Kalkbrenner.... +No, he shan’t destroy in me that hope, daring, +I admit, but noble, <i>of creating a new world for myself</i>.” A +quarter of a century earlier than Wagner, here in this +young man of twenty years was the certainty of the +same destiny.</p> + +<p>We must be grateful to M. Nicolas Chopin for having +upheld his son’s faith. “But, my dear fellow,” he +wrote to him, “I cannot see how, with your capacities +which he (Kalkbrenner) said he remarked, he can think +that three more years of work under his eyes are necessary +for you to become an artist and the head of a new school. +You know that I have done everything I could to further +your inclinations and develop your talent, that I have +opposed you in nothing. You know also that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>technique of playing took you only a short time to learn, +and that your mind has been busier than your fingers. +If others have spent whole days in practising scales, you +have rarely passed an hour on the works of others. +Experts can distinguish genius from its earliest moments, +but they cannot prophesy the peak it will reach.”</p> + +<p>Even more remarkable was the letter from his sister +Louise, who had run to Elsner to lay before him the +dilemma in which the whole family was plunged. The +aged teacher, like the young sister, had soon found +traces of a calculating self-interest in the proposal of the +virtuoso. And they said so, they who had simple hearts, +they who had faith. “Elsner was angry. He cried +‘Jealousy already,—three years, indeed!’ and tossed his +head. Then he added: ‘I know Frederick. He is +good, but he has no pride, no ambition; he is easily +swayed. I shall write him what I think of all this.’ +Sure enough, this morning he brought a letter which +I am sending you. He went on talking to us about this +business. We who judge men in the simplicity of our +hearts thought Kalkbrenner the most honest man in +the world; but Elsner was not altogether of this opinion. +He said: ‘They recognized a genius in Frederick, and +they are afraid of being supplanted by him. That is +why they would like to have their hands on him for three +years, so that they could stop the growth that Nature +would develop if she were left alone.’ Elsner does not +want you to imitate, and he expresses himself well when +he says: ‘No imitation is worth the original.’ As soon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>as you begin imitating you cease to be creative, and, +although you are young, your own conceptions may be +better than those of many others.... Then, M. Elsner +does not only want to see in you a concert player, +a famous virtuoso, which is easier and less worth while, +but he wants to see you attain the goal towards which +Nature is urging you and for which she has made you. +What irritated him extremely was, as he says, ‘the +presumption and arrogance that after having run over +your orchestration would pick up a pencil to strike out +passages without ever having heard the concerto with +the full effect of the orchestra.’ He says that it would +have been quite another thing to have advised you when +you write concerto, to shorten the <i>allegro</i>: but to +make you erase what was already written, that he cannot +pardon. Elsner compared it to taking a seemingly +unnecessary pillar away from a house that had already +been built, with the result of changing everything in +eliminating what was deemed bad. I think that Elsner +is right in declaring that to be superior it is necessary +to excel not only one’s teachers but also one’s contemporaries. +You can excel them by imitating them, but +then, that is following in their tracks. And he says +that you, who already know what is good and what +is better, should now be making your own path. Your +genius will guide you. One more thing, he said. +‘Frederick has drawn from his native soil this distinguishing +particularity: the rhythm—shall I say?—which +makes him as much more original and characteristically +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>himself as his ideas are more noble than others.’ +He would like you to retain that. We do not understand +these things as well as you do, my dear little +Fritz, and we cannot advise you; we can only send you +our comments.”</p> + +<p>It is beautiful, this letter. It is not literature, but it +goes to the root of the matter. Frederick followed its +councils and preferred to remain himself, even were it at +the expense of a rapid success. Meanwhile, Kalkbrenner +had the wisdom not to be annoyed at seeing this prize +pupil refuse to allow himself to be convinced. Their +friendship persisted. It was even Kalkbrenner who +presented him to the directors of the famous house +of Pleyel. Chopin attached himself to other artists, +particularly to Hiller, pianist, composer, and musical +critic, and to Franchomme, the celebrated violoncellist, +both of whom aided him to organize his opening concert.</p> + +<p>This took place on the 26th of February, 1832, in +the Salons Pleyel. Frederick had got it up with the +greatest care amid constantly renewed difficulties. He +had recruited for the occasion five violinists (among +them Urhan, Liszt’s friend, and Baillot), who were +to play Beethoven’s <i>Quintette</i>. Mlles. Tomeoni and +Isambert were to sing. Kalkbrenner, Stamati, Hiller, +Osborne, Sowinski and Chopin were to play a <i>Grande +Polonaise</i> for six pianos, composed by Kalkbrenner +himself; then Chopin was to play his <i>Concerto in F +minor</i> and his <i>Variations on the “La ci darem”</i> of Mozart. +The <i>Grande Polonaise</i> for six pianos disquieted him. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>“It is a mad idea, isn’t it?” he wrote to Titus. “One +of the grand pianos is very large: it is Kalkbrenner’s; +another is very small: that is mine.” He never loved +show. Besides, concerts for the general public were +always odious to him. So on this evening of February +26th, there stepped on the platform a very pale young +man, whose attitude betrayed a very sincere annoyance +much more than it did a dramatic inspiration. The hall +was only half-filled and that mostly with Poles, critics and +musicians. In the front row could be seen the handsome +features of Liszt. A stunning silence descended when +Chopin had slipped his first caresses over the keyboard.</p> + +<p>Then there arose from the piano a voice such as no +one, ever, had heard before. Yet each recognized in +it the cry of his innermost self. It was neither a tale, +nor a brilliant commentary, but the simple song of life; +an authentic revelation; the essential word of the heart. +By means of a delicate rightness, which is the strength +of the pure, Chopin transported these connoisseurs. +Liszt himself, whose “doubled and redoubled applause +was not sufficient to express his enthusiasm,” saw here the +revelation of “a new phase of poetic feeling side by side +with innovations in the form of the art.” From that +evening he gave him his warm friendship. Fétis, the +sharp but influential critic, declared: “Here is a young +man who, abandoning himself to his natural feelings, and +following no model, has discovered, if not a complete +renovation of piano music, at least a part of what we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>have long been vainly seeking: an abundance of original +ideas which fit into no earlier classification.”</p> + +<p>Chopin accepted these eulogies without pride and +without false modesty, because he totally lacked all +vanity. The receipts were counted; they barely sufficed +to cover expenses. But that was nothing in comparison +to another disappointment: the French public had not +attended. The artist’s object, therefore, had not been +achieved. When, towards midnight, he returned to his +room, Chopin believed that fate had pronounced an +unfavourable verdict, and he conceived the idea of +leaving for America.</p> + +<p>He had hardly any money left. His friends were still +few, being limited to a small number of artists and +compatriots. Ah, how happy Meyerbeer must be, +having just had produced his <i>Robert the Devil</i>, a mine +of gold and glory! Chopin confided to Titus: “Chance +brought me here. Here one can certainly breathe freely. +But perhaps one also sighs more, too. Paris is everything +that you want it to be. Here you can amuse +yourself, be bored, laugh, cry, do whatever you like +without anyone giving you a glance. I doubt whether +there is a city on earth where more pianists are to be +found than in Paris, or more asses and virtuosi. Ah, how +I wish I had you with me. If you only knew how +sad it is not to be able to relieve one’s soul. I like the +society of people. I make friends easily, and am up to +my ears in acquaintances; but there is no one, no one +who can understand me. My heart always beats, so to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>speak, in swoons, and I resent it and should like a pause,—solitude,—with +not a single soul to see me or speak +to me all day long. Above all, I detest hearing my bell +ring when I am writing to you.”</p> + +<p>However, it rang a good deal, that little bell, and was +mostly pulled by that worst of the bores, the deadly, +the awful, the ridiculous Sowinski. “He is just coming +in to see me. It is something big, and strong, and it +wears a tiny moustache; it sits down at the piano and +improvises without knowing why. It bangs, it knocks, +it crosses its hands without rhyme or reason; for +five minutes at a time it batters a defenceless key. It +has enormous fingers made rather to hold the reins +and the whip somewhere in the wilds of the Ukraine. +It has no other virtues than a tiny moustache and a +big heart.... When shall we see each other again? +Maybe never, because I assure you that my health is +wretched. Outwardly, I am gay, but within I am consumed. +Dark forebodings, restlessness, insomnia, home-sickness, +indifference to everything. Pleasure in life, +then immediately afterwards,—longing for death....”</p> + +<p>Other friends come and go through Chopin’s little +apartment: Albert Grzymala, Count Plater, Liszt, +Berlioz, who arrives from Rome and has great plans, +Polish refugees. But money these young people have +practically none, and Frederick, in spite of the “little +reinforcements” that his father sends him, sees his +resources vanish.</p> + +<p>As for love, that was a luxury of which he must not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>think. The memory of Constance faded after Isabelle +informed her brother of the marriage of that faithless +one: “Like you I marvel that anyone could be so +callous. It is easy to see that a fine château was a greater +attraction. She had feeling only in her singing!” But +chastity is the natural estate of the poor, and pleasure +was a word that Chopin did not even understand. +Living just below him, however, was a fresh, pretty +woman. They met sometimes on the stairs, smiled, +occasionally exchanged a few words. She heard from +his room the passionate harmonies that this handsome +male angel invented... for whom? Once she said +to him:</p> + +<p>“Come and see me some evening. I am often alone +and I adore music.”</p> + +<p>He refused, blushing. Yet a regret escaped him on +paper, in his cold room: “I should have found a hearth, +a fire. It would be nice to warm myself at it.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII"> + CHAPTER VII + <br> + <span class="smcap">Happy Years, Working Years</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>“To-morrow,” he wrote to his family, “to-morrow +I cross the seas.” He crossed the Boulevards +and encountered Prince Valentin Radziwill.</p> + +<p>This Radziwill family seems to have had a special +influence on the life of Chopin. What beautiful analogies +one could draw in comparing this encounter with such +another when some pope, king, lord or <i>fermier-général</i> +changed in one instant the fortunes of an artist apparently +condemned to the miscarriage of his genius. It seems +that there are between art and opulence secret and unconscious +fructifications. François I never seems to us +more inspired than in paying the debts of Clément Marot +or in welcoming Leonardo da Vinci on the terrace of +Amboise, nor Jules II more sympathetic than when +climbing the scaffoldings of Michelangelo. Never does +Elizabeth of England seem more intelligent than when +she commissions <i>The Merry Wives of Windsor</i> from the +pen of Shakespeare, and Fouquet, Treasurer-General, is +remembered only because he subsidized La Fontaine. +Had they dictated their biographies themselves, these +great princes would doubtless have made no mention of +such trivial gestures. In the same way, this Radziwill +dreamed not of adding a meritorious line to his life when, +meeting on the Boulevards this pitiful compatriot, he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>proposed to take him that very evening to see Baron de +Rothschild. It is, however, from that casual proposal +that the glory of Chopin dates.</p> + +<p>Baron de Rothschild received the most exclusive +society. Chopin was asked to play and he acceded +with good grace. In a moment he captured the elegant +world, and on the morrow was bombarded with invitations +and requests for lessons. The Maréchale Lannes, +Princess de Vaudemont, Count Apponyi, and Prince +Adam Czartoryski made themselves his protectors. +The lessons he gave cost no less than twenty francs an +hour. He changed his lodgings twice and finally +installed himself at No. 5 Chaussée d’Antin. Everybody +began to talk of this poet who, in the evening, in the +rare salons where he would consent to play, would people +the darkness with a conclave of fairies. He called it +“telling little musical stories.” They were tales of +infinite variety, since it was above all in improvising +that he showed his boldness. The incompleteness of +his sketches opened the avenues of the imagination +wherein the spirit lost itself. Chopin possessed to a +high degree this power of suggestion, the artist’s most +precious gift. He talked to himself, did not finish, +and left to his hearers the pleasure of having clothed +with notes for an instant forms and feelings which then +evaporated into nothingness. “Divine gambols,” said +Berlioz on hearing them. “A cloud of love, winter +roses,” said Liszt. “By the wonderful gate,” he +added, “Chopin leads you into a world where everything +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>is a delightful miracle, a mad surprise, a miracle come +true. But you must be initiated to know how to cross +the threshold.” And Frederick confided once to his +friend Franz:</p> + +<p>“I am not at all the person to give concerts. The +crowd intimidates me; I feel asphyxiated by their +breaths, paralysed by their curious stares, mute before +these strange faces. But you, you are destined for it, +because when you don’t win your public, you know how +to knock them dead.”</p> + +<p>Chopin himself would not have had the strength. +He only sought to win them. Furthermore, was it +really this that he wanted? The public mattered so +little to him. It was his own pain that he chanted and +enchanted. He did not like to express himself through +others and, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart apart, he +interpreted none but himself.</p> + +<p>For Chopin, as later for Wagner, the superfluous +was the only necessity. The money that was now +coming in more or less abundantly, was spent in poetic +pleasures; a smart cabriolet, beautifully cut clothes, +white gloves, expensive suppers. He took great pains +with the furnishing of his apartment, putting in crystal +lustres, carpets and silver, and he insisted on being +supplied with flowers in all seasons. When his new +women friends came—Countess Delphine Potoçka, +Princess Marceline Czartoryska, Mlle. O’Meara, Princess +de Beauvau, the rule was that they should bring a +rose or orchids that the artist would put in a vase and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>endlessly contemplate, like a Japanese enraptured by a +unique print.</p> + +<p>Happy years, working years. Chopin composed +a solid portion of his work. In 1833 he published five +<i>Mazurkas</i>, the <i>Trio</i> for piano, violin and violoncello, +three <i>Nocturnes</i>, the twelve great <i>Etudes</i> dedicated to +Liszt, the <i>Concerto in E minor</i>, and in 1834 the <i>Grand +Fantasia</i> on Polish airs, the <i>Krakoviak</i> for piano and +orchestra, three more <i>Nocturnes</i>, the <i>Rondeau in E flat +major</i> dedicated to Caroline Hartmann, four new <i>Mazurkas</i>, +and the <i>Grand Waltz in E flat major</i>. His works +were played by the greatest of the virtuosi at many +concerts: Liszt, Moschelès, Field, Kalkbrenner and +Clara Wieck. Liszt said of him: “A sick-room talent,” +and Auber: “All his life he slays himself.” For Chopin, +in spite of his success, was still suffering from nostalgia, +and one day when his friend and pupil Gutmann was +playing the third <i>Etude</i>, in E major, Chopin, who said +he had never written a lovelier melody, cried suddenly, +“Oh, my country!” Truly, for this young man of +twenty-four, the mother country was always the strongest +passion. He gave a Dantesque sadness to this name of +Poland, more powerful on his heart than the call of a +mistress. The hurt must have been deep indeed for +Orlowski, in writing to his people, to take note of it +as of a tubercular illness. “Chopin is well and vigorous,” +he says. “He turns all the women’s heads. The men +are jealous. He is the fashion. Doubtless we shall +soon be wearing gloves <i>à la Chopin</i>. But home-sickness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>is burning him up.” The fact was that Poland remained +the living spring, the reservoir whence he drew his +dreams and his sentiments, the only effective rhythm,—in +sun, the dynamo of his energies. Inspiration is +chance caught on the wing. But art is not found hidden +like the dove in the magician’s hat. Perhaps it is only +perfect self-knowledge, the true perception of one’s own +limitations, and the modulations that life teaches to our +youthful fine enthusiasms. The Marquis de Custine +wrote to Chopin: “When I listen to you I always think +myself alone with you, and even perhaps with greater +than you! or at least with all that is greatest in you.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In the spring of ’34 Chopin and his friend Hiller went +together to the Festival of Music at Aix-la-Chapelle. +There they encountered Mendelssohn, who took a liking +to the Pole and never tired of listening to his playing. +He called him the first among pianists, and always +reproached him, as well as Hiller, for the Parisian mania +for a pose of despair. “I look like a schoolmaster,” he +said, “while they resemble dandies and beaux.”</p> + +<p>They returned by Düsseldorf and Cologne to Paris, +where Chopin had the pleasure of seeing and entertaining +his friend Matuszinski, who had just been made +professor at the Ecole de Médecine. This was a period +of the greatest serenity, for to his quiet fame Chopin +could add the joy of daily companionship with one of +his “brothers.” He exerted himself, entertained guests, +played in public more than he usually did. On the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>7th of December, at the Théâtre Italien, he appeared at +a concert organized by Berlioz in honour of Harriet +Smithson, the Irish actress he had just married. On +Christmas Day, at the Salle Pleyel, he played, with Liszt +at the other piano, a duet by Liszt on a theme of Mendelssohn. +On the 15th of February, 1835, he took part in +a concert at the Salle Erard, and on April 4th he played +for the benefit of the Polish refugees. Berlioz wrote in +the <i>Rénovateur</i>, “Chopin, as a player and as a composer, +is an artist apart. He has no point of resemblance to +any other musician I know. Unhappily, there is no one +but Chopin himself who can play his music and give it +that original turn, that impromptu that is one of its +principal charms; his execution is veined with a thousand +nuances of movement of which he alone has the +secret, and which cannot be indicated... The detail +in his mazurkas is unbelievable; then he has found +a way to make them doubly interesting by playing them +to the last degree of softness, with superlative <i>piano</i>, +the hammers touching the strings so lightly that one +is tempted to bend the ear over the instrument as one +might at a concert of sylphs and pixies.”</p> + +<p>But the crowd always awards the palms to brilliance, +and Chopin, deciding that it had not given his <i>Concerto +in E minor</i> the reception he expected, declared that he +was neither understood nor made for concerts, and +made up his mind to abstain from appearing in public +for a long time.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he played once more in public, on the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>26th of April, 1835, at the Conservatory. This was the +only time he ever appeared in that famous hall. He played +his <i>Polonaise brillante</i>, preceded by an <i>Andante Spianato</i>.</p> + +<p>He found compensation for these slight professional +disappointments in the friendship of the Italian Bellini, +towards whom he was drawn by a quick sympathy and +whom he often saw. He was further distracted by an +interest in a celebrated beauty, Countess Delphine +Potoçka.</p> + +<p>She was twenty-five, of regal bearing, with a delicately +chiselled nose, a most passionate mouth, and the high, +pensive forehead of the true voluptuary. Her whole +appearance suggested a slender and puissant goddess, +but whatever luxuriance she had was cooled by the +severity of her glance.</p> + +<p>Miçkiewicz said that she was “the greatest of all +sinners,” and Krasinski apostrophized her in a poem in +the manner of Mephistopheles: “O stay, for thou +art true beauty.” Frederick let himself float in the +sensual <i>rayonnement</i> of this beautiful animal of love. For +the first time his head was turned. The sumptuous voice +of Delphine enchanted him. He accompanied her at +the piano, strove to make her soul be born again, to +give it back its flower, and watched for possible beautiful +vibrations; but the soul was the servant of this imperial +flesh. Once or twice, however, she seemed to come +out of her lethargy, to spread herself on an admirable +note that sprang from the depths of her unconscious +self, but immediately after, the shrieks, the laughter, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>exigencies of this ravishing hysteric extinguished these +gleams. And as the platonic love towards which Chopin +wanted to direct her seemed to Delphine both comic +and impossible, she gave herself before he had ever +dreamed of asking her.</p> + +<p>The adventure was of short duration. The Countess +had a jealous husband, who, by cutting off her allowance, +obliged this prodigal lady to make a prompt departure +for Poland, whence she did not return till later on. +But she retained a lasting affection for Chopin. The +only lines from her to the artist that have been discovered +furnish discreet witness to the fact:</p> + +<p>“I shall not annoy you with a long letter, but I do +not want to remain longer without news of your health +and your plans for the future. I am sad to think of +you abandoned and alone... Here my time is passed +in an annoying fashion, and I hope not to have still more +vexations. But I am disgusted. Everyone for whom +I have done anything has repaid me with ingratitude. +On the whole, life is one long dissonance. God bless +you, dear Chopin. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>“One long dissonance,” so had Liszt already spoken. +There was in these tormented bodies an invincible +straining towards the suavest harmonies. At least in +these beings—male or female—in whom the feminine +predominates. But this is not the case with Chopin, +whose musical travail was always virile. He would have +subscribed to the words of Beethoven: “Emotion is +good only for women; for man, music must draw +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>fire from his spirit.” And even more, perhaps, to those +quoted by Schumann from the German poet Johann-Paul +Richter: “Love and friendship pass through this +earth veiled and with closed lips. No human being can +tell another how much he loves him; he knows only +that he does love him. The inner man has no language; +he is mute.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII"> + CHAPTER VIII + <br> + <span class="smcap">Marie Wodzinska and the Dusk</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>In the summer of 1835, Chopin learned that his parents +were going very shortly to Carlsbad to take the cure +and he decided on the spot to get there first. The +sentiments that bound him to his own people were still +the most vital that he knew. So he left, his heart +melting with tenderness. When he saw them, after +five years of separation, he wrote to his sisters, who had +remained at Warsaw, with transports that might have +been mistaken for those of a rapturous lover.</p> + +<p>“Our joy is indescribable. We do nothing but embrace +one another... is there any greater happiness? +What a pity we are not all together! How good God +is to us! I write just anyhow; to-day it is better to +think of nothing at all, to rejoice in the happiness we +have attained. That is all I have to-day. Our parents +have not changed; they are just the same; they have +only grown a little older. We walk together, holding +the arm of our sweet little mother... We drink, we +eat together. We coax and bully each other. I am +simply overflowing with happiness. These are the very +habits, the very movements with which I grew up; it +is the same hand that I have not kissed for so long... +And here it has come true, this happiness, this happiness, +this happiness!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span></p> + +<p>For their part, the father and mother found their son +not in the least changed. It was joy inexhaustible, but +brief, and like a preface to profounder emotions. For +Frederick was invited to Dresden, to his friends the +Wodzinskis, and he already felt those annunciatory +quiverings, that exquisite fear, those physiological presentiments +which notify our inner being of the imminent +conception of love.</p> + +<p>In his father’s boarding-school Chopin had had as +comrades the three Wodzinski brothers, and since his +childhood he had known their younger sister Marie. +This great land-owning family had moved to Geneva +for the education of the children, and had lived there +during the years of the Polish Revolution. They had +lived at first in a house in the Place St.-Antoine, and +later in a villa on the shore of the lake, and they had +not been long in gathering round them the flower of +Genevese society and of the foreign colony. Familiar +guests in their drawing-rooms were Bonstetten, Sismondi, +Mlle. Salandin de Crans, Prince Louis Napoleon and +Queen Hortense.</p> + +<p>Marie was nineteen years old. The trace of Italian +blood which flowed in her veins (through the Orsettis, +who had come from Milan to Poland with Bona Sforza, +the betrothed of one of the last kings of the dynasty +of Jagellons), this trace had made her dark-haired, lively, +with great black eyes and a full-lipped mouth the smile +of which, a poet said, was passion incarnate. Some +called her ugly, others ravishing. This means that in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>her face, half Slav, half Florentine, everything derived +from the expression. “The brunette daughter of +Euterpe,” she was called by Prince Napoleon, who liked +to listen to her playing the piano while he smoked his +cigar in the Place St.-Antoine. For Marie practised all +sorts of minor talents; piano, singing, composing, +embroidery, painting, without the will or the ability to +fix her preference. The most pertinent thing about her, +was her charm, the profound reaction, possibly unconscious, +of a very rich temperament. From her fourteenth +year she had been passionately loved. Readily +she used her power over men, disconcerting them with +coquetry. Her imagination was rapid, her memory +exact.</p> + +<p>Such was the childhood companion whom Chopin +was to meet again at Dresden, where the Wodzinski +family were settled for a time. Frederick was more +curious than moved at seeing her again. He even +wondered if it were not simply a matter of musical +interest, Marie having formerly been one of his small +pupils. She still occasionally sent him one of her compositions. +Had he not only a few weeks before replied +to one of these communications by sending her in turn +a page of his own music? “Having had to improvise +in a drawing-room here the very evening that I received +it, I took for a subject the lovely theme of a Marie with +whom, years ago, I used to play hide-and-seek... +To-day I take the liberty of offering to my honourable +colleague, Mlle. Marie, a little waltz I have just written. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>May it give her a hundredth part of the pleasure I felt +when playing her <i>Variations</i>.”</p> + +<p>So he arrived at Dresden. He saw her once again. +He was won. He loved her. This town, which he had +already visited twice, seemed altogether new and enchanting. +In the mornings Marie and Frederick went out +together, filled with delicious melancholy. They walked +along the terrace of Bruhl and watched the flow of the +Elbe, sat under the chestnuts of the Grossgarten, or +lingered in ecstasy in the Zwinger Museum before +Raphaël’s Madonna.</p> + +<p>Together they paid a call on that Grand Mistress of +the Court who had a few years before taken such pride +in producing Chopin for Their Saxon Highnesses. In +the evening the family visited one of Marie’s uncles, +Palatin Wodzinski, who had presided at the last meeting +of the Polish Senate before the fall of Warsaw. Exiled, +the greater part of his wealth confiscated, the old man +was now living at Dresden, the second capital of his +ancient kings, surrounded by his prints, his books and +his medals. He was an aristocratic little man, with a +smooth face and a white wig. In his day he had soldiered, +had received Napoleon at Wilna, and had been +taken prisoner at Leipzig, at the side of the dying Poniatowski. +He had the serious defect of a dislike for music, +and now that they were playing every evening at his +house he spent his time observing, rather peevishly, that +his little niece was turning her shining eyes on this maker +of mazurkas. Still more did he disapprove of certain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>sighs and whisperings that came from a corner of the +room where this inseparable couple isolated themselves +under the very nose of everybody. So he coughed +loudly, adjusted his toupée, and addressed his sister-in-law:—</p> + +<p>“An artist, a little artist without a future... Ah! +that is not what I have dreamt of for your daughter.”</p> + +<p>“Two children,” replied the Countess, laughing. +“An old friendship.”</p> + +<p>“We all know where that leads to...”</p> + +<p>“But he is a child of the house, just as Antoine, Félix +and Casimir were Professor Chopin’s children. Why +sadden the poor boy? He is so tender, so obliging.”</p> + +<p>And Frederick continued his love duets at the piano +or on the terrace, in spite of the Palatin’s rebuking eyebrows +and under the mother’s indulgent eyes. A whole +month slipped by in these passionate new experiences. +Then he had to think of leaving. One September +morning he went up for the last time to the salon where +the girl was awaiting him. A handful of roses strewed +the table. She took one and gave it to him. The hour +of eleven struck from the clock on the Frauenkirche. +Chopin stood rigidly before her, pale, his eyes fixed. +Perhaps he was thinking of that death of the self—that +parting always is, whatever it promises for the future. +Or was he listening to the melodic rhythm of his pain? +In any case the only expression of sorrow that welled +to the surface was the theme of a waltz. He sat down +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>at the piano and played it, hiding thus all the cries of +his loneliness.</p> + +<p>Later, Marie called it <i>La Valse de l’Adieu</i>. It is worth +noting that Chopin, restrained by an insurmountable +pride, never published it. He did write it out, however, +recopied it, and gave it to his friend on that last day with +this very simple dedication: “For Mlle. Marie, Dresden, +September, 1835.” Fontana published it after the death +of the composer (Posthumous Works, op. 69, no. 1, +<i>Waltz in A flat major</i>). One wants to catch in it “the +murmur of two lovers’ voices, the repeated strokes of +the clock, and the rumble of wheels scorching the pavement, +the noise of which covers that of repressed sobs.” +It is possible, after all, in spite of Schumann and his mute +language. Be that as it may, Chopin kept the flower +Marie gave him. We shall find it later, placed in an +envelope and marked by him for whom sorrow and the +ideal had always the scent of an autumn rose.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>On his way back, Chopin stopped at Leipzig, where +he again saw Mendelssohn, who took him straight to +Wieck, his daughter, Clara, and Robert Schumann. The +small house of the Wiecks’ that day sheltered the three +greatest composers of the age.</p> + +<p>After his arrival in Paris, Chopin shut himself up at +home in order to live in close relationship with the loved +face that now bloomed in his desert. He wrote. He +received letters. These were, on both sides, a little flat, +because neither of them knew how to talk well except +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>through music. But what of it? A lover’s pen is not +necessarily literary nor abounding in sentiments. There +are even those who, in their exigency, scorn the worn +vocabulary of love. To the novices and the pure, the +palest nuances are enough to show the naked heart. +Listen with Chopin’s delicate ear to the gossamer letters +of Marie Wodzinska:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“Though you do not like either to receive or to write +letters, I nevertheless want to profit by the departure +of M. Cichowski to send you news of Dresden since you +left. So I am annoying you again, but no longer by my +playing. On Saturday, when you had gone, all of us +went about sadly, with our eyes full of tears, in the +room where only a few minutes before we had still had +you with us. Father came in presently, and was so sorry +not to have been able to say good-bye. Every minute +or so Mother, in tears, would speak of some traits of +‘her fourth son Frederick,’ as she called you. Félix +looked quite cast down: Casimir tried to make his jokes +as usual, they did not come off that day as he played the +jester, half-crying. Father teased us and laughed himself +only to keep from crying. At eleven the singing master +arrived; the lesson went very badly, we could not sing. +You were the subject of all conversation. Félix kept +asking me for the <i>Waltz</i> (the last thing of yours we +had received and heard). All of us found pleasure in it, +they in listening and I in playing, because it reminded +us of the brother who had just left us. I took it to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>bound; the German opened his eyes wide when he saw +a single page (he did not know by whom it had been +written). No one to dinner; we kept staring at your +place at the table, then too at ‘Fritz’s little corner.’ The +small chair is still in place and probably will be as long +as we keep this apartment. In the evening we were taken +to my aunt’s to spare us the sadness of this first evening +without you. Father came to fetch us saying that it was +as impossible for him as it had been for us, to stay in +the house that day. It was a great relief to leave the +spot that kept renewing our sorrow. Mother talks to +me of nothing but you and Antoine. When my brother +goes to Paris, think a little of him, I beg you. If you +only knew what a devoted friend you have in him,—a +friend such as one rarely finds! Antoine is good-hearted, +too much so, because he is always the dupe of +others. And he is very careless; he never thinks of +anything, or rarely, at least... When by some +miracle you have an impulse to write: ‘How are you? +I am well. I have no time to write further,’ add, I beg, +<i>yes</i> or <i>no</i> to the question I want to ask you: Did you +compose ‘<i>If I were a little sun up there, for none but you +would I want to shine</i>’? I received this a day or so ago +and I have not the courage to sing it, because I fear, if +it is yours, that it would be altogether changed, like +<i>Wojak</i>, for instance. We continually regret that you +are not named <i>Chopinski</i>, or at least that there is not some +indication to show that you are Polish, because then the +French would not be able to dispute with us the honour +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>of being your compatriots. But this is too long. Your +time is so precious that it is really a crime to make you +spend it reading my scrawls. Besides, I know you do +not read them all through. Little Marie’s letter will be +stuck away in a corner after you have read a few lines. +So I need not reproach myself further about stealing +your time.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye (simply). A childhood friend needs no +fine phrases. Mother embraces you tenderly. Father +and my mother embrace you sincerely (no, that is too +little) in the most—I do not yet know how to say it +myself. Joséphine, not having been able to say good-bye, +asks me to express her regrets. I asked Thérèse: +‘What shall I say to Frederick for you?’ She answered: +‘kiss him and give him my regards.’</p> + +<p class="right"> + “Good-bye,<br> + “<span class="smcap">Maria</span>. +</p> + +<p>“P.S. When you started out, you left the pencil of +your portfolio on the piano. This must have been +inconvenient on the way; as for us, we are keeping it +respectfully as a relic. Once again, thank you very +much for the little vase. Mlle. Wodzinska came in this +morning with a great discovery. ‘Sister Maria, I know +how they say Chopin in Polish,—Chopena!’”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Frederick replied, sent his music, and above all, +composed. The year 1836 opened under the sign of +Marie. He published the <i>Concerto in F minor</i> and the +<i>Grande Polonaise</i> for piano and orchestra. He wrote the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span><i>Ballade in G minor</i>, which is the monument to his love.</p> + +<p>It is not deliberately that an artist discovers and then +fashions the residue of his amorous experiences. He +receives his joys and sufferings within himself and leaves +them to ferment. It is only after the rude labour of his +conflicts with himself, after the corrosion of each of his +illusions, under the salt of his tears, that the costly +fruit of which he bears the germ can be born. From +this obscure chemistry, from the disillusionment which +Marie’s letters, little by little, brought to him, came the +<i>Ballade in G minor</i> (op. 23). Schumann called it one of +the most bitter and personal of Chopin’s works. He +might have added, the saddest, and thus the most +passionate, for there is no passion without pain. Here +we see passion itself crucified, and hear its cries.</p> + +<p>How powerful is the instinct of the poet to submit +his pain to the form of narrative, like a heroic tale! +For in theory the ballad is a song with accompaniment. +Under this form of legend Chopin transposed the ancient +malady of man, which had become for a second time +his own. It is in this way, by what it tells us of him, +involuntarily, that the <i>Ballade in G minor</i>, irresistible in +its unique and unhappy sentiment, retains an accent +that flatters us. It convinces us that we also are marked +by the sign of love.</p> + +<p>Schumann, who saw him again that summer, at Leipzig, +tells of the magical hours they spent together at +the piano. To listen to the dreamer was to become +oneself the dream of his spirit. But nothing could be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>more exasperating than Chopin’s habit of drawing his +finger rapidly from one end of the keyboard to the +other at the end of each piece, as though forcibly to +drive away the dream he had created.</p> + +<p>A curious detail: in the original edition of the +<i>Ballade</i>, there appears in the last bar of the introduction +a <i>D</i>, evidently written with an <i>E</i> flat and corrected later. +Saint-Saëns writes on this subject: “This supposed <i>E</i> +gives a dolorous accent which is quite in keeping with +the character of the piece. Was it a misprint? Was +it the original intention of the author? This note +marks a dissonant accent, an effect of surprise. But +dissonances, sought out to-day like truffles, were then +distrusted. From Liszt, whom I questioned on the +subject, I could obtain only this reply: ‘I prefer the +<i>E flat</i>....’ I concluded from this evasive answer that +Chopin, in playing the ballad, sounded the <i>D</i>; but +I am still convinced that the <i>E flat</i> was his original idea +and that cowardly and clumsy friends persuaded him to +the D.”</p> + +<p>I reproduce this detail for the lovers of sources, for +those who like to surprise in the heart not the sweetest +tones, but the most pure. They will understand the +distinction.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Thus Chopin worked, economized, and prepared for +his next meeting with Marie. He refused an invitation +from Mendelssohn, who wanted him to come to Düsseldorf +for a music festival. He refused Schumann, although +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>he had signed his invitation “with love and +adoration.” He reserved all his forces for a trip to +Marienbad, which he finally took in July, 1836.</p> + +<p>On a radiant summer morning Chopin reached the +wooded hills round the little Austrian watering place +where his loved one was awaiting him. The effect was +so powerful that he closed his eyes as from a shock of +pain. In that instant, even before seeing her, a presentiment +came to him that he had reached the summit of +his joy. He knew the unreasonable agony advanced +by false joys, finished, experienced, emptied, almost +before they have begun to exist. However, Marie’s +agitated face steadied him and gave him back his confidence. +But a shade of uneasiness, a slight tendency on +the part of Marie and her mother to be more ceremonious +than they had been the year before, left him anxious.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, they resumed the intimate family life +which he loved. Forebodings fled. There were walks +in that agreeable country-side, musical séances, evening +talks, stories of his Paris life, memories. Frederick +shone with his talent for mimicry. He imitated famous +artists, assaulted the keys with a great waving of arms +and hands, went, as he said, “pigeon-shooting.” The +Wodzinskis lived in a villa. In their garden spread a +tall lime-tree. During the hot hours of the afternoon +Marie and Frederick took refuge in its shade and the +girl sketched in charcoal the ever slightly grave features +of this friend who was at once so childlike and so mature.</p> + +<p>On August 24th they all returned to the beloved town +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>of Dresden. There they spent two more weeks. Two +weeks which were to lead fatally to the crisis. At dusk +on the 7th of September, two days before Chopin’s +departure, he asked Marie to be his wife. She consented. +That is all we know, except that the Countess +also gave her consent but imposed the condition of +secrecy. They were obliged to hide the decision from +the father, whom they would without doubt persuade, +but whose family pride made a rapid consent improbable. +Besides, he thought Chopin in delicate health. +Frederick departed, carrying with him this promise +and his own despair. He knew that the presentiment +of Marienbad had not deceived him, and already he +had lost his faith in happiness.</p> + +<p>However the Wodzinskis wrote to him,—especially +the Countess. Marie added little postscripts. Here is +Mme. Wodzinska’s first letter:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="right"> + “<i>14 Sept., ’36.</i> +</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Frederick</span>:</p> + +<p>“As we agreed I am sending you a letter... I +should have sent it two days ago if it had not been for +a tooth which I had extracted and from which I suffered +greatly. I cannot sufficiently regret your departure on +Saturday; I was ill that day and could not put my +mind on <i>the dusk</i>. We spoke of it too little.</p> + +<p>“The next day I could have talked of it further. M. +de Girardin says: ‘To-morrow is always a great day.’ +We have it still ahead of us. Do not think I retract +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>what I said,—no. But we must discuss the path to +follow. I only beg of you to keep the secret. Keep +it well, because everything depends on that... On +October 15th I shall be at Warsaw. I shall see your +parents and your sisters; I shall tell them that you are +well and in excellent spirits: however, I shall say +nothing of <i>the dusk</i>.... Good-bye, go to bed at +eleven o’clock and until January 7th drink <i>eau de gomme</i>. +Keep well, dear Fritz: I bless you with all my soul, +like a loving mother.</p> + +<p>“P.S. Marie sends you some slippers. They are a +little big, but she says you are to wear woollen stockings. +This is the judgment of Paris, and I trust you will be +obedient; haven’t you promised? Anyway, remember +that this is a period of probation.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p><i>The dusk</i>, it was so, among themselves, that they +called Chopin’s love. No chance name was ever more +appropriate.</p> + +<p>To a letter which her brother Casimir sent off the +next day, Marie added these lines: “We cannot console +ourselves for your departure; the three days that have +just passed have seemed like centuries; have they to +you? Do you miss your friends a little? Yes,—I +answer for you, and I do not think I am mistaken; at +least I want to believe not. I tell myself that this <i>yes</i> +comes from you (because you would have said it, +wouldn’t you?).</p> + +<p>“The slippers are finished; I am sending them to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>you. I am chagrined that they should be too large, +in spite of the fact that I gave your shoe as a measure, +<i>carissimo maestro</i>, but the man is a common German. +Dr. Paris consoles me by saying this is good for you +as you should wear very warm woollen stockings this +winter.</p> + +<p>“Mamma has had a tooth out, which has made her +very weak. She has had to stay in bed ever since. +In two weeks we leave for Poland. I shall see your +family, which will be a joy for me, and that sweet Louise,—will +she remember me? Good-bye, <i>mio carissimo +maestro</i>. Do not forget Dresden for the present, or in +a little while Poland. Good-bye, <i>au revoir</i>. Ah, if it +could be soon!</p> + +<p class="right"> + “<span class="smcap">Maria.</span> +</p> + +<p>“Casimir says that the Sluzewo piano is in such +ramshackle condition that it cannot be used. So think +about a Pleyel. In the happy days, not like to-day (as +far as we are concerned), I hope to hear you play on the +same piano. <i>Au revoir, au revoir, au revoir!</i> That gives +me hope.”</p> + +<p>Such is the most passionate letter Chopin ever received +from Marie Wodzinska. In October another letter +from the Countess, another postscript from Marie.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="right"> + “<i>October 2nd—Dusk.</i> +</p> + +<p>“Thank you ever so much for the autographs. Will +you please send some more? (Mamma makes me write +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>this.) Now we are leaving at once for Warsaw. How +I shall rejoice to see all your family and next year <i>you</i>!... +Good-bye, till <i>May</i>, or <i>June</i> at the latest. I +recommend to your memory your very faithful +secretary.</p> + +<p class="right"> + “<span class="smcap">Marie.</span>” +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In January, 1837, Countess Wodzinska was disturbed +about a Pleyel piano Chopin had sent her. She thanked +him for a new supply of autographs, and added this +slightly ambiguous sentence at the end of her letter: +“From now on we must inform ourselves still more +prudently about our loved one.” Marie put in her +postscript, her “imposition,” one would like to say.</p> + +<p>“Mother has been scolding. I thank you so much,—so +much. And when we see each other again I shall +thank you even more kindly. You can see how lazy I +am about writing, because to put off my thanks till our +next meeting spares me many words to-day. Mamma +has described to you our way of life. There is nothing +left for me to say, except that it is thawing; which is +great news, isn’t it? This tranquil life we lead here +is what we need, so I like it,—for the present, I mean, +because I should not like it to be always so. One takes +what comes with as good grace as possible, when things +cannot be different from what they are. I occupy myself +a little to kill time. Just now I have Heine’s <i>Germany</i>, +which interests me enormously.</p> + +<p>“But I must stop and leave you to God’s grace. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>I hope I do not need to repeat to you the assurance +of the sentiments of your faithful secretary.</p> + +<p class="right"> + “<span class="smcap">Marie.</span>” +</p> + +<p>This time Chopin must have discovered in the colourless +words not the least gleam of <i>the dusk</i>. The night +had completely fallen. He took down the album Marie +had given him the year before to write in it a page of +music. For a year the pages had remained virgin. +Chopin said: “I could not have written anything at all +in it, not if I had tried a hundred years.”</p> + +<p>Now he could fill it, because he realized that Marie’s +love was dead. So he wrote on the first page a <i>Lento +con gran expressione</i> and eight other melodies to the words +of Witwicki and Miçkiewicz. Soon after, he received +in reply this letter, the last:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“<i>For Frederick Chopin.</i></p> + +<p>“I can only write you a few words to thank you +for the lovely scrapbook you have sent me. I shall +not try to tell you with what pleasure I received it, as +it would be in vain. Accept, I beg you, the assurance of +the gratitude I owe you. Believe in the life-long attachment +of our whole family for you, and particularly of +your naughtiest pupil and childhood friend. Good-bye. +Mamma sends her dearest love. Thérèse is always +talking of her ‘Chopena.’</p> + +<p class="right"> + “Good-bye,—think of us,<br> + “<span class="smcap">Maria.</span>” +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span></p> + +<p>It is hard to say whether it was heart or intelligence +that was wanting in this young woman. Besides,—it +scarcely matters. Love is not within the compass of all +little girls any more than happiness is made for difficult +souls. “Perhaps we are worth more than happiness,” +said Liszt to Mme. d’Agoult.</p> + +<p>Chopin accepted the breaking of his engagement in +silence. But neither his heart nor his body recovered, +ever. His friend Camille Pleyel took him to London +for a few days, to distract him. There he was very +ill. His latent tuberculosis seems to have begun its +ravages at that time.</p> + +<p>The Marquis de Custine wrote him: “You have +gained in sympathy, in poetry; the melancholy of your +compositions goes deeper into the heart than ever before. +One is alone with you even in the midst of the crowd. +It is not a piano, it is a soul...”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Chopin gathered the notes of Marie Wodzinska and +placed them, with the rose of Dresden, in an envelope +on which he wrote these two Polish words: “<i>Moïa +Biéda</i>,” my grief. They found this poor packet, after +his death, tied with a loving ribbon.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX"> + CHAPTER IX + <br> + <span class="smcap">First Sketch of George Sand</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>Some six years before this romance in such few +words, we glanced at the face of a woman bending +over her paper and watched her enthusiastic hand pen +these words: “To live, how sweet! How good it +is, in spite of griefs, husbands... in spite of bitter +pangs. To live,—how intoxicating! To love, to be +loved! That is happiness, that is Heaven!” During +these six years neither this heart, nor this body, nor +this hand had much slackened. To live, indeed, was +the vital business of George Sand, dumpy, greedy, and +so formidably endowed for all the extravagances of the +spirit and the flesh. Nothing was too strong for this +small woman, so solid of head and of body. And no +one had bested her. In spite of her “bitter pangs,” +her chagrin, for and against a boorish and rapacious +husband, this great-granddaughter of the Maréchal de +Saxe, this daughter of a daughter of the people had pretty +well solved the double tactical problem of happiness +that she had set herself: love and fame—enough to +satisfy the most exigent appetites. At twenty-seven, +this provincial had written her first book and taken +her first lover. At thirty she could have said, like her +ancestor the Maréchal: “Life is a dream. Mine has +been short, but it has been beautiful.” Now, in her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>thirty-fourth year, this surprising pagan thought herself +finished, and for ever disgusted with pleasure. She had +not yet learned that the malady of desire, once it has +opened in a being its ever-living wound, has but a +feeble chance of healing. At least before the season +of the great cold.</p> + +<p>But, to this malady of desire, Aurore Dudevant added +a taste for lengthy associations. Heart and head she +was made for them,—and from them had contracted +the habits of bed and of thought. Jules Sandeau had +given her her pen name, her theories of “love free and +divine,” and her first experience of love. The disappointment +that followed this trial plunged her into +war against all yokes, even that of sentiment. Still, +perhaps yoke is too heavy a word. Pressure is enough. +To rid herself, however, of such disturbing memories, +she chose an intelligent thaumaturgist, and, against +love, a marvellous antiseptic: the writer Mérimée. +She confessed as much, at a later date, in a curious letter: +“On one of those days of weariness and despair I met +a man of sublime self-confidence, a man who was calm +and strong, who understood nothing of my nature and +who laughed at my troubles. The vitality of his spirit +completely fascinated me; for a week I thought he +had the secret of happiness, that he would teach it to +me, that his scornful indifference would cure me of +my childish susceptibilities. I believed that he had +suffered like me, and that he had triumphed over his +surface emotions. I do not yet know if I was wrong, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>if this man is strong by reason of his greatness or of +his poverty.... At any rate, at the age of thirty I +behaved as a girl of fifteen would not have done. The +experience was a complete failure.”</p> + +<p>This woman, so smothered in words, sometimes found +a phrase that plumbed the depths. She adds a little +farther on, in that same letter to Sainte-Beuve: “If +Prosper Mérimée had understood me, he might perhaps +have loved me, and if he had loved me he might have +vanquished me, and if I had been able to submit to a man +I should have been saved, <i>because my liberty devours and +kills me</i>.” Here is the real misfortune of this gross +temperament. It needed a master and from that time +sought it only among the weak. Her slight physiological +inversion induced psychological aberrations from +which sprang all the wrongs which this fine thinking +animal committed against her own peace.</p> + +<p>Thus, there was thenceforth in the life of George +Sand an <i>absent being</i>. We can take those words to mean +a kind of ideal lover, lord of her thought and minister +to her flesh, this marvellous twin self who arouses our +instincts but never satiates them, who invents our dearest +pains and stirs up our devils, yet like an angel bears +us up to the mystical union of souls. The difficulty is +to find united in one being all the colours of our own +neurosis. We all join the chase, however, giving each +his own name to the pursuit. George Sand called it +“the search for her truth.” After all, why not? One +might call truth the rhythm from which our engines +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>derive the greatest potential power, whether this be for +pleasure, for pain, for work, or for love. But we must +do Sand this justice, that next to her private ills the +general ill, “the suffering of the race, the view, the +knowledge, meditation on the destiny of man” also +impassioned her elastic soul. She often succeeded in +forgetting herself in order to understand others. She +knew how to let her intelligence ripen, to give maturity +to her thoughts. Yet, in spite of the part she took in +the idealistic battles of the century, in spite of the intellectual +influence which she exerted at such an early age +on the minds of her time, this woman’s profound lament +was that of her <i>Lélia</i>: “For ten thousand years I have +cried into the infinite,—‘Truth, truth!’ For ten thousand +years the infinite has answered,—‘Desire, desire!’”</p> + +<p>But here is this <i>désenchantée</i>, after her period of +despair in 1833, suddenly writing: “I think I have +blasphemed Nature, and God perhaps, in <i>Lélia</i>; God, +who is not wicked, and who does not wreak vengeance +upon us, has sealed my mouth by giving me back my +youthful heart and by forcing me to admit that he has +endowed us with sublime joys.” She had just dined at +the side of a fair young man of twenty-three, with arrogant +eyes and no eyelashes, with a slender waist and +beautiful, aristocratic hands, who scoffed loudly at all +social idealism and bent over to breathe in the women’s +ears: “I am not gentle, I am excessive.” He scoffed +both at the “labouring classes” and at the “ruling,” +at St.-Simon and at the Abbé de Lamennais. He even +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>said: “I am more interested in the way Napoleon put +on his boots than in all the politics of Europe.” Women +felt that his real interest was love.</p> + +<p>He paid immediate attention to his already celebrated +neighbour with the olive skin, who sent him a few days +later the two volumes of her <i>Leila</i> with these inscriptions: +the first: “To <i>Monsieur mon gamin d’Alfred</i>;” +the second “To Monsieur the Viscount Alfred de +Musset, respectful regards from his devoted servant, +George Sand.”</p> + +<p>We know to-day in all its details the story of this +liaison and its magnificent expenditure of sorrows. +We shall retain only certain crystals, the bitter dregs +left in their hearts by the excesses of two fierce and +consummate imaginations. It can be said that they +devoured each other. Their desires differed: the one +more brutal, more ravenous, less merciful; the other +evil, maniacal, but savouring in little bites the marrow +of their mutual suffering. “Contract your heart, big +George,” he said. And she: “I no longer love you, +but I still adore you. I no longer want you, but I +cannot now do without you.” They departed for +Venice, where these two sadists took vengeance on +each other for their double impotence: cerebral with +him, physical with her. And they continued nevertheless +to desire and adore each other in spite of their +outworn senses and spent joys. Then came those tortures +that are self-inflicted for the stimulation of the +senses. They soon had nothing left but the taste of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>their tears. Finally, in the very middle of the crisis, +each of the two lovers sought refuge according to his +own temperament: George in work and Alfred in +sickness. Then the saviour appeared in the form of a +handsome Venetian doctor on whom, at the very bedside +of the delirious poet, fell the brunt of the reillumined +desires of the other victim. No more pity, when the +beast is once more at large. And no more despair, +when the dry scales fall from an old love to leave naked a +new body that melts to softness at the first touch of +unfamiliar lips.</p> + +<p>Musset departed. The three of them cultivated a +curious relationship. The following summer George +wrote to Alfred: “Oh! that night of rapture, when, +in spite of ourselves, you joined our hands and said: +‘You love each other and still you love me; you have +saved me body and soul!’” And for his part Musset +cried: “Poor George, poor dear child! You thought +yourself my mistress,—you were only my mother....” +There the word is spoken. That physiological inversion +we mentioned could at once assume another form. But +the <i>mot juste</i> is really that of mother. Because Sand was +above all maternal, protective, the mistress <i>genetrix</i>. +She needed to endow everything about her with the +sentiment of maternity. A few months later on, when +everything was over between them, the shrieks she uttered +in her <i>Journal Intime</i> over this badly quenched love were +again those of a mother deprived of her suckling. “I +love you! I would submit to every torture to be loved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>by you, and you leave me! Ah! poor man, you are +mad... It is your pride that leads you... Oh, +my poor children, how unhappy your mother is!... +I want to surround myself with pure and distinguished +men. Away with the strong; I want to see the artists: +Liszt, Delacroix, Berlioz, Meyerbeer. I shall be a man +among them and we shall gossip and talk. Alfred shall +hear our bad jokes... Alas, if I only had him to-day! +What haste I am in to have him! If I had only +a few lines from you once in a while, just a word, permission +to send you sometimes a little two-penny picture +bought on the <i>quai</i>, cigarettes I made myself, a bird, +a toy... Oh, my blue eyes, you will never look at +me again! Lovely head, I shall never see you bend +over me again, or wrap you in sweet languor. My little +body, warm and supple, you will never stretch yourself +out on me, as Elisha on the dead child, to quicken it!” +“Ah! who will care for you, and for whom shall I +care?”</p> + +<p>This was the punishment for loving a man devoid of +passion. The depth of her being, when she stirred it +well, sent up always the same hope: “I need to suffer +for someone. I must nourish this maternal solicitude, +which is accustomed to guard over a tired sufferer.”</p> + +<p>A fancy for a kind of tribune of the people intervened +to heal the still live sore: she thought herself in love +with Everard, he whom his contemporaries called Michel +de Bourges. She yielded him the virginity of her +intelligence. A cold love. The love of a slave who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>admires a handsome captain and a just legislator. But +no giving, no suffering, nothing to blast deep caves +of passion into the soul. Besides, Michel de Bourges +was anti-artist. She wanted to avenge art with irony. +“Berlioz is an artist,” she wrote to the master of rhetoric. +“Perhaps he is even criminal enough to think secretly +that all the people in the world are not worth a rightly +placed chromatic scale, just as I have the insolence to +prefer a white hyacinth to the crown of France. But +rest assured that one can have these follies in one’s head +and not be an enemy of the human race. You are for +sumptuary laws, Berlioz is for demi-semi-quavers, I am +for liliaceous plants.”</p> + +<p>This lawyer was nevertheless jealous underneath his +coldness. He was even tiresome. George Sand saw +Liszt, found him handsome, and received him at Nohant +with his mistress, Marie d’Agoult. Envying their still-young +love, she noted in her diary: “What fearful +calm in my heart! Can the torch be extinguished?” +It was not the torch that was dying but the burned out +candle lighted by the philosopher whose penholder she +had aspired to be. And still the old stubborn idea +reappeared: “My sweetest dream... consists in +imagining the care I might give you in your feeble old +age.” One important service she received from Michel +was the winning of her action for divorce from Casimir +Dudevant.</p> + +<p>In the summer of 1836 she shook off the lover’s chain +and broke the hobble of a husband. She was free. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>On the spot she turned over her two children, Maurice +and Solange, to a young tutor by the name of Pelletan, +whom, to know him better, she put to the test by becoming +his mistress. Then she left for Geneva to join +Liszt and the Countess d’Agoult. She returned in the +early autumn and settled for a time in Paris with this +couple, who were beginning to tire of solitude. All +three of them went to the Hôtel de France in the rue +Laffitte. This sedate bourgeois tavern became a communal +dwelling of artists. On the stairs one passed +Eugène Sue, Miçkiewicz, the singer Nourrit, the Abbé +de Lamennais, Heinrich Heine. The musical gentlemen, +with Liszt at the head, spoke of nothing but Chopin.</p> + +<p>“Bring him to me,” demanded George.</p> + +<p>He came one evening with Hiller. Mr. Sand and +Miss Chopin saw each other for the first time.</p> + +<p>Returning home, Chopin said to his friend: “What +an antipathetic woman that Sand is! Is she really a +woman? I’m inclined to doubt it.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X"> + CHAPTER X + <br> + <span class="smcap">Letters of Two Novelists</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>While Frederick Chopin, in the year 1837, was +living out the slow decomposition of his love, +George Sand was back at her little Château de Nohant. +There she spent long months alone, with her children +and her work. The summer brought her the Liszt-d’Agoult +ménage, nights of music, new dreams of +happiness. Then her mother died unexpectedly, and +she was obliged to return to Paris, while the Countess +and Franz took the road for Italy. She planned to +rejoin them there, but was prevented by a sudden +inclination for the new tutor of her children, Félicien +Mallefille. The rupture with Michel de Bourges still +bled feebly, but George felt that she had finally “slain +the dragon,” and that this attachment, more stubborn +than she had dreamed, would be cured by a gentle affection, +“less enthusiastic, but also less sharp,” and, she +hoped, lasting. She was mistaken. Six months were +sufficient to drain this spring to the bottom. Nevertheless +she had pity on this rather vapid lover, who never +interested her physically. For several months more +she dragged him about with her luggage between Paris, +Fontainebleau, and Nohant.</p> + +<p>In January of 1838, the great Balzac stumbled one fine +evening into this country seat and stayed for several +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>days. The two novelists passed the nights in gossip +and confidences. Balzac set down his still warm impressions +for Countess Hanska: “I reached the Château +de Nohant on Holy Saturday, about half-past seven in +the evening, and I found comrade George Sand in her +dressing-gown, smoking an after dinner cigar, in front +of her fire in an immense empty room. She had lovely +yellow slippers ornamented with fringe, bewitching +stockings and red trousers. So much for her state of +mind. As to physique, she had doubled her chin like +a prebendary. She has not a single white hair in spite +of her frightful misfortunes; her swarthy complexion +has not changed; her fine eyes are as brilliant as ever; +she has the same stupid air when she is thinking, because, +as I told her after studying her, her whole countenance +is in her eye. She has been at Nohant for a year, very +sad and working prodigiously. She leads about the +same life that I do. She goes to bed at six in the morning +and gets up at noon; I go to bed at six in the evening +and get up at midnight. But, naturally, I conformed +to her habits, and for three days we have gossiped from +five o’clock in the evening, after dinner, till five in the +morning. The result is that I know her, and she knows +me, better after these three talks than during the whole +of the preceding four years, when she used to visit me +while she was in love with Jules Sandeau and when she +was attached to Musset... It was just as well that I +saw her, for we exchanged mutual confidences regarding +Jules Sandeau... However, she was even more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>unhappy with Musset, and now there she is, in profound +seclusion, raging at both marriage and love, because +in each she has found nothing but disappointment.</p> + +<p>“Her right male was hard to find, that is all. All +the harder because she is not amiable, and, consequently, +loving her will always be beset with difficulties. She is +a bachelor, she is an artist, she is big, generous, loyal, +chaste; she has the features of a man. <i>Ergo</i>, she is +not a woman. While I was near her, even in talking +heart to heart for three days, I felt no more than before +the itch of that gooseflesh of gallantry that in France +and in Poland one is supposed to display for any kind +of female.</p> + +<p>“It was to a friend I was talking. She has high +virtues, virtues that society regards askance. We discussed +the great questions of marriage and of freedom +with a seriousness, a good faith, a candour, a conscience +worthy of the great shepherds who guide the herds of +men.</p> + +<p>“For, as she said, with immense pride (I should not +have dared think of it myself), ‘Since by our writings +we are preparing a revolution in the customs of the +future, I am not less struck by the inconveniences of the +one state than by those of the other.’</p> + +<p>“We spent the whole night talking of this great +problem. I am absolutely in favour of liberty for the +young girl and bondage for the woman, that is, I want +her to know before marriage what she is undertaking: +I want her to have considered everything; then, when +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>she has signed the contract, after having weighed the +chances, to be faithful to it. I gained a great point in +making Mme. Dudevant realize the necessity of marriage; +but she will come to believe in it, I am sure, and I feel +that I have done good in proving it to her.</p> + +<p>“She is an excellent mother, adored by her children; +but she dresses her daughter Solange like a little boy, and +that is not right.</p> + +<p>“She is like a man of twenty, <i>morally</i>, because she +is chaste, modest, and only an artist on the outside. +She smokes inordinately, she plays the princess, perhaps, +a little too much, and I am convinced that she portrayed +herself faithfully as the princess in <i>Le Secrétaire Intime</i>. +She knew and said of herself, before I told her, just +what I think,—that she has neither power of conception +nor the gift of constructing plots, nor the ability to +attain to the truth, nor the art of pathos; but that, +without knowing the French language, she has <i>style</i>. +This is true. She takes fame, as I do, lightly enough, +and has a profound scorn for the public, whom she calls +<i>Jumento</i>.</p> + +<p>“I shall tell you of the immense and secret devotion +of this woman for these two men, and you will say +to yourself that there is nothing in common between +the angels and the devils. All the follies she has committed +entitle her to glory in the eyes of great and +beautiful souls....</p> + +<p>“Anyway, it is a man she would like to be, so much +so that she has thrown off womanhood, and is no longer +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>a woman. A woman attracts and she repels, and, +since I am very masculine, if she produces that effect +on me, she must produce it on men who are like me. +She will be unhappy always. And so,—she is now +in love with a man who is her inferior, and in that +covenant there is only disillusionment and disappointment +for a woman with a beautiful spirit. A woman +should always love a man greater than she, or she be +so blinded that it is the same as though he were.</p> + +<p>“I have not come from Nohant unscathed. I carried +away one enormous vice; she made me smoke a <i>hooka</i> +with <i>Lattakieh</i>; it has suddenly become a necessity to +me...”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Balzac’s eye and ear were not mistaken in their diagnosis. +Yet he could neither fully see nor fully hear +what was passing behind the windows of this being who +was more complex than he knew. This spring of 1838 +germinated once again the strong dark violet of a new +love.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>George Sand had been to Paris several times. She +had seen Chopin again. And the drama of pleasure, +of difficulties, of pains, had involved them. Both +Sand and Chopin had come through too many sufferings +to turn the new page of their story with anything but +distrust and uncertainty. But with Chopin it had all +been buried in silence, and his music alone had received +his queries and his secret raptures. We may consult +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>all his work of this period, which witnesses magnificently +to this: the <i>Twelve Studies</i>, dedicated to Mme. d’Agoult +(Vol. 2, op. 25), the <i>Impromptu</i> (Op. 29), the <i>Second +Scherzo</i> (Op. 31), the <i>Two Nocturnes</i> (Op. 32), the four +mazurkas of op. 30 (C minor, B minor, D flat major, +and C sharp minor), the three <i>Valses Brillantes</i> of op. +34, and four other mazurkas (op. 33) dedicated to Mlle. +la Comtesse Mostowska.</p> + +<p>As for George, the first hint of her new passion is +found in a letter to her friend, Mme. Marliani, dated +the 23rd of May, where she says: “Pretty dear, I have +received your letters and have delayed replying <i>fully</i>, +because you know how <i>changeable</i> the weather is in the +season of love. There is so much <i>yes</i> and <i>no</i>, <i>if</i> and <i>but</i>, +in one week, and often in the morning one says: <i>This +is absolutely intolerable</i>, only to add in the evening: +<i>Truly, it is supreme happiness.</i> So I am holding off until +I may tell you <i>definitely</i> that my barometer registers +something, if not stable, at least set fair for any length +of time at all. I have not the slightest reproach to +make, but that is no reason to be happy....”</p> + +<p>Yet it was not to Mme. Marliani that she showed +the singular and interesting fluctuations of her sentimental +barometer, but to Count Albert Grzymala, a close friend +of Chopin. But here is what she wrote him at the +beginning of that summer:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“Nothing could ever make me doubt the loyalty +of your advice, dear friend; may you never have such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>a fear. I believe in your gospel without knowing or +examining it, because once it has a disciple like you +it must be the most sublime of all gospels. Bless you +for your advice, and be at peace about my thoughts. +Let us state the question clearly, for the last time, for +on your final reply on this subject will depend my +whole future conduct, and since it had to come to this +I am vexed at not having conquered the repugnance I +felt to questioning you in Paris. It seemed to me that +what I was to hear would blanch <i>my poem</i>. And, indeed, +now it has browned, or rather it is paling enormously. +But what does it matter? Your gospel is mine when +it prescribes thinking of oneself last and not thinking +of oneself at all when the happiness of those we love +claims all our strength. Listen to me well, and reply +clearly, categorically, definitely. This person whom +he wants, ought, or thinks he ought to love, is she the +one to bring him happiness? Or would she heighten +his suffering and his sadness? I do not ask if he loves +her, if he is loved, if she is more or less to him than I. +I know, approximately, by what is taking place in me, +what must be happening to him. I want to know which +of <i>us two</i> he must forget and forsake for his own peace, +for his happiness, for his very life, which seems to me +too precarious and frail to withstand great sorrows. +I do not want to play the part of a bad angel. I am +not Meyerbeer’s Bertram and I shall never fight against +a childhood friend, provided she is a pure and lovely +Alice. If I had known that there was a bond in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>life of your child, a sentiment in his soul, I should never +have stooped to inhale a perfume meant for another +altar. By the same token, he would without doubt +have drawn back from my first kiss had he known I was +as good as married. We have neither of us deceived +one another. We gave ourselves to the wind that +passed, and for a few minutes it carried us both into +another region. But we had, none the less, to come back +down here, after this celestial embrace and this flight +through the empyrean. Poor birds, we have wings, +but our nest is on the ground, and when the song of +the angels calls us on high, the cries of our family recall +us below. For my part, I have no wish to abandon +myself to passion, although there is in the depths of my +heart a fire that still occasionally threatens. My children +will give me the strength to break with anything that +would draw me away from them, or from the manner +of life that is best for their education, their health, their +well-being.... Thus I am unable to establish myself +at Paris because of Maurice’s illness, etc., etc. Then +there is an excellent soul, <i>perfect</i>, in regard to heart and +honour, whom I shall never leave, because he is the only +man who, having been with me for a year, has never +once, <i>for one single minute</i>, made me suffer by his fault. +He is also the only man who has ever given himself +absolutely and entirely to me, without regret for the +past, without reserve for the future. Then, he has +such a good and wise nature that I can in time teach +him to understand everything, to know everything. He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>is soft wax on which I have put my seal. When I +want to change the imprint, with some precaution and +patience I shall succeed. But it cannot be done to-day, +and his happiness is sacred to me.</p> + +<p>“So much for me. Tied as I am, bound fairly +tightly for years to come, I cannot wish that our <i>child</i> +should on his side break the bonds that hold him. If +he should come to lay his existence in my hands, I +should be indeed dismayed because, having already +accepted another, I could not offer him a substitute for +what he had sacrificed for me. I believe that our love +could last only under the conditions under which it +was born, that is, that sometimes, when a good wind +blows us together, we should again make a tour among +the stars and then leave each other to plod upon the +ground, because we are earth children and God has not +decreed that we should finish our pilgrimage together. +We ought to meet among the heavens, and the fleet +moments we shall pass there shall be so beautiful that +they shall outweigh all our lives below.</p> + +<p>“So my task is set. But I can, without ever relinquishing +it, accomplish it in two different ways; the +one, by keeping as aloof as possible from C[hopin], +by never seeking to occupy his thoughts, by never again +being alone with him; the other, on the contrary, by +drawing as close to him as possible without compromising +the position of M[allefille], to insinuate myself +gently into his hours of rest and happiness, to hold him +chastely in my arms sometimes, when the wind of heaven +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>sees fit to raise us and transport us up to the skies. +The first way will be the one I shall adopt if you tell +me that the <i>person</i> is fit to give him a pure, true happiness, +to care for him, to arrange, regularize, and calm his +life, if, in fact, he could be happy through her and I +should be an impediment. If his spirit <i>strongly</i>, perhaps +<i>madly</i>, perhaps wisely scrupulous, refuses to love two +different beings, in two different ways, if the eight days +I might pass with him in a whole season should keep +him from inner happiness for the rest of the year,—then, +yes, then I swear to you that I should try to make +him forget me. I should adopt the second way if +you should say one of two things: either that his +domestic happiness could and should do with a few +hours of chaste passion and of sweet poetry, or that +domestic happiness is not possible to him, and that +marriage or any union that resembled it would be the +grave of this artist soul, that he must at any cost be +saved from it and even helped to conquer his religious +scruples. It is thereabouts that I arrive in my conjectures. +You shall tell me if I am mistaken; I believe +the person charming, worthy of all love and all respect, +because such a being as he could love only the pure +and the beautiful. But I believe that you dread marriage +for him, the daily bond, real life, business, domestic +cares, everything in a word that seems remote from +his nature and detrimental to the inspiration of his +muse. I too should fear it for him; but on this point +I can say nothing and decide nothing, because there are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>many aspects under which he is quite unknown to me. +I have seen only the side of his being that is warmed +by the sun. You shall therefore settle my ideas on +this point. It is of the very greatest importance that +I should know his position, so that I can establish my +own. If it were left to me, I should so arrange our +poem that I should know nothing, absolutely nothing +of his <i>positive</i> life, nor he of mine, and that he should +follow all his own ideas, religious, social, poetic, artistic, +without question from me, and <i>vice versa</i>, but that +always, in whatever place or at whatever moment of +our lives we might meet, our souls should be at their +apogee of happiness and goodness. Because, I am +sure, one is better when one loves with a heavenly +love, and, far from committing a sin, one comes near +to God, the fountain-head of this love. It is perhaps this, +as a last resort, that you must try to make him thoroughly +understand, my friend, and without opposing his ideas +of duty, of devotion and of religious sacrifice, you may +put his heart more at ease. What I fear above anything +in the world, what would be most painful to me, what +would make me decide even to make myself <i>dead for +him</i>, would be to see myself become a horror and a +remorse in his <i>soul</i>. I cannot (unless, quite apart from +me, she should be tragic for him) fight against the +image and memory of someone else. I have too much +respect for decency for that, or rather it is the only +decency I respect. I will steal no one from anyone, +except captives from jailers and victims from executioners +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>and, consequently Poland from Russia. Tell me if it +is a <i>Russia</i> whose portrait haunts our child. Then I +would ask heaven to lend me all the seductions of +Armida to keep him from throwing himself away on +her. But if it is a Poland, let him be. There is nothing +like a native land, and when you have one you must +not take another. In that case, I shall be an <i>Italy</i> to +him, an Italy which one goes to see and where one +enjoys the days of spring, but where one does not stay, +because there is more sun than there are beds and tables, +and the <i>comforts of life</i> are elsewhere. Poor Italy! The +whole world dreams of her, desires her, and sorrows +for her, but no one may live with her, because she is +unhappy and cannot give the happiness which she has +not. There is a final supposition that I must tell you. +It might be possible that he no longer loves the <i>childhood +friend</i> at all, and that he would have a real repugnance +towards any alliance, but that the feeling of duty, the +honour of a family, or what not, demands a remorseless +sacrifice of himself. In that case, my friend, be his +good angel. <i>I</i> could scarcely meddle in it, but you +should. Keep him from too sharp attacks of conscience, +save him from his own virtues, prevent him, at all costs, +from sacrificing himself, because in this sort of thing +(I mean marriage or those unions that, without the same +publicity, have the same binding power and duration), +in this sort of thing, I say, the sacrifice of him who +gives his future is not in proportion to what he has +received in the past. The past is something appreciable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>and limited; the future is infinite, because it is unknown. +The being who, for a certain known sum of devotion, +demands in return the devotion of a whole lifetime, +asks too much, and if he on whom the demand is made +is hard pressed to defend his rights and satisfy at the +same time both generosity and justice, it is the part +of friendship to save him and to be the sole judge of +his rights and his duties. Be firm in this regard, and +believe that I, who detest seducers, I, who always take +the part of outraged and deceived women, I who am +thought the spokesman of my sex and who pride myself +on so being; I, when it has been necessary, have on +my authority as a sister or mother or friend broken +more than one engagement of this kind. I have always +condemned the woman when she has wanted to be +happy at the expense of the man; I have always absolved +the man when more was demanded of him than it is +given to freedom and human dignity to undertake. A +pledge of love and faithfulness is criminal or cowardly +when the mouth speaks what the heart disavows, and +one may ask anything of a man save a crime or a cowardice. +Except in that case, my friend, that is to say +except he should want to make too great a sacrifice, I +believe we must not oppose his ideas, nor violate his +instincts. If his heart can, like mine, hold two quite +different loves, one which might be called the <i>body</i> of +life, the other the <i>soul</i>, that would be best, because our +situation would dominate our feelings and thoughts. +Just as one is not always sublime, neither is one always +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>happy. We shall not see each other every day, we shall +not possess the sacred fire every day, but there will be +beautiful days, and heavenly flames.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps we should also think of telling him my +position regarding M[allefille]. It is to be feared that, +not knowing it, he might conjure up a kind of duty +towards me which would irk him and come to oppose +<i>the other</i> painfully. I leave you absolutely to judge +and decide about this confidence; you may make it if +you think the moment opportune, or delay it if you +feel that it would add to his too recent sufferings. +Possibly you have already made it. I approve of and +confirm anything and everything you have done or will +do.</p> + +<p>“As to the question of possession or non-possession, +that seems secondary to the question we are now discussing. +It is, however, an important question in itself, +it is a woman’s whole life, her dearest secret, her most +pondered philosophy, her most mysterious coquetry. +As for me, I shall tell you quite simply, you, my brother +and my friend, this great mystery, about which everyone +who mentions my name makes such curious observations. +I have no secrets about it, no theory, no +doctrine, no definite opinion, no prejudice, no pretence +of power, no spiritual aping—in fact, nothing studied +and no set habit, and (I believe) no false principles, +either of licence or of restraint. I have trusted largely +to my instincts, which have always been worthy; sometimes +I have been deceived in people, never in myself. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>I reproach myself for many stupidities, but for no platitudes +or wickednesses. I hear many things said on +the question of human morality, of shame and of social +virtue. All that is still not clear to me. Nor have I +ever reached a conclusion. Yet I am not unmindful +of the question; I admit to you that the desire to fit +any philosophy at all to my own sentiments has been +the great preoccupation and the great pain of my life. +Feelings have always been stronger than reason with me, +and the limits I have wanted to set for myself have never +been of any use to me. I have changed my ideas twenty +times. Above everything I have believed in fidelity. +I have preached it, practised it, demanded it. Others +have lacked it and so have I. And yet I have felt no +remorse, because in my infidelities I have always submitted +to a kind of fatality, an instinct for the ideal +which pushed me into leaving the imperfect for what +seemed to me to come nearer to the perfect. I have +known many kinds of love. The love of the artist, +the love of the woman, the love of the sister, the love +of the mother, the nun’s love, the poet’s love,—I know +not what. Some have been born and dead in me within +the same day without being revealed to the person who +inspired them. Some have martyred my life and have +hurled me into despair, almost into madness. Some +have held me cloistered for years in an excessive spirituality. +All of it has been perfectly sincere. My being +passed through these different phases as the sun, as +Sainte-Beuve said, passes through the signs of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>zodiac. To one who watched my progress superficially +I would have seemed mad or hypocritical; to one who +watched, reading me deeply, I seemed just what I am, +a lover of beauty, greedy for truth, very sensitive of +heart, very weak of judgment, often absurd, always +sincere, never small or vindictive, hot tempered enough, +and, thank God, perfectly forgetful of evil things and +evil people.</p> + +<p>“That is my life, dear friend. You see it is not +much. There is nothing to admire, much to regret, +nothing for good souls to condemn. I am sure that +those who have accused me of being bad have lied, +and it would be very easy to prove it if I wished to +take the trouble to remember and recount it; but that +bores me, and I have no more memory than I have +rancour.</p> + +<p>“Thus far I have been faithful to what I loved, absolutely +faithful, in the sense that I have never deceived +anyone, and that I have never been unfaithful without +very strong reasons, which, by the fault of others, have +killed the love in me. I am not inconstant by nature. +On the contrary, I am so accustomed to loving him +who loves me, so difficult to inflame, so habituated to +living with men without consciousness of being a woman, +that really I have been a little confused and dismayed +by the effect produced on me by this little being. I +have not yet recovered from my astonishment, and if I +had a great deal of pride I should be greatly humiliated +to have fallen full into an infidelity of the heart, at the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>very moment when I believed myself for ever calm and +settled. I think this would be wrong; if I had been +able to foresee, to reason, and combat this inroad; +but I was suddenly attacked, and it is not in my nature +to govern myself by reason when love possesses me. +So I am not reproaching myself, but I realize that I +am still very impressionable and weaker than I thought. +That matters little; I have small vanity. This proves +to me that I should have none at all, and should never +make any boast of valour and strength. This makes +me sad, for here is my beautiful sincerity, that I had +practised for so long and of which I was a little proud, +bruised and compromised. I shall be forced to lie like +the others. I assure you that this is more mortifying +to my self-respect than a bad novel or a hissed play. +It hurts me a little; this hurt is perhaps the remains of +pride; perhaps it is a voice from above that cries to +me that I must guard more carefully my eyes and my +ears, and above all my heart. But if heaven wishes +us to remain faithful to our earthly affections, why does +it sometimes allow the angels to stray among us and +meet us on our path?</p> + +<p>“So the great question of love is raised again in me! +No love without fidelity, I said only two words ago, +and certainly, alas! I did not feel the same tenderness +for poor M[allefille] when I saw him again. Certainly +since he went back to Paris (you must have seen him), +instead of awaiting his return with impatience and being +sad while he is away, I suffer less and breathe more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>freely. If I believed that a frequent sign of C[hopin] +would increase this chill, I would feel it my <i>duty</i> to +refrain.</p> + +<p>“That is what I wanted to get to—a talk with you +on this question of possession, which to some minds +constitutes the whole question of faithfulness. This is, +I believe, a false idea; one can be more unfaithful or +less, but when one has allowed one’s soul to be invaded, +and has granted the simplest caress, with a feeling of +love, then the infidelity is already consummated, and +the rest is less serious; because whoever has lost the +heart has lost everything. It would be better to lose +the body and keep the soul intact. So, <i>in principle</i>, I +do not believe a complete consecration to the new bond +would greatly increase the sin; but, in practice, it is +possible that the attachment might become more human, +more violent, more dominating, after possession. It is +even probable. It is even certain. That is why, when +two people wish to live together, they must not outrage +either nature or truth in recoiling from a complete +union; but when they are forced to live apart, doubtless +it is the part of prudence. Consequently, it is the part +of duty and of true virtue (which is sacrifice) to abstain. +I have not reflected seriously on this and, if he had asked +me in Paris, I should have given in, because of this +natural straightness that makes me hate precautions, +restrictions, false distinctions and subtleties of any kind. +But your letter makes me think of scuttling that resolution. +Then, too, the trouble and sadness I have endured in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>again experiencing the caresses of M[allefille], the courage +it has taken to hide it, is a warning to me. So I shall +follow your advice, dear friend. May this sacrifice be +a kind of expiation for the perjury I have committed.</p> + +<p>“I say sacrifice, because it would be painful for me +to see this angel suffer. So far he has had great strength; +but I am not a child. I saw clearly that human passion +was making rapid progress in him and that it was time +we parted. That is why, the night before my departure, +I did not wish to stay with him and why I almost sent +you both home.</p> + +<p>“And since I am telling you everything, I want to +say to you that only one thing about him displeased +me; that is, that he himself had bad reasons for abstaining. +Until then I thought it fine that he should abstain +out of respect for me, from timidity, even from fidelity +for someone else. All that was sacrifice, and consequently +strength and chastity, of course. That is what +charmed and attracted me most in him. But at your +house, just as he was leaving us, and as if he wished +to conquer one last temptation, he said two or three +words to me that did not answer to my ideas. He +seemed, after the fashion of devotees, to despise <i>human</i> +grossness and to redden at the temptations he had had, +and to fear to soil our love by one more transport. +This way of looking at the last embrace of love has +always been repugnant to me. If the last embrace is +not as sacred, as pure, as devoted as the rest, there is +no virtue in abstaining from it. These words, physical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>love, by which we call what has no name under heaven, +<i>displease</i> and <i>shock</i> me, like a sacrilege and at the same +time like a false notion. Can there be, for lofty natures, +a purely physical love, and for sincere natures a purely +intellectual one? Is there ever love without a single +kiss and a kiss of love without passion? <i>To despise +the flesh</i> cannot be good and useful except for those who +are all <i>flesh</i>; with someone one loves, not the word +<i>despise</i>, but the word <i>respect</i> must serve when one abstains. +Besides, these are not the words he used. I +do not exactly remember them. He said, I think, that +<i>certain acts</i> could spoil a memory. Surely, that was +a stupid thing to say, and he did not mean it? Who +is the unhappy woman who left him with such ideas +of physical love? Has he then had a mistress unworthy +of him? Poor angel! They should hang all the women +who degrade in men’s eyes the most honourable and +sacred thing in creation, the divine mystery, the most +serious act of life and the most sublime in the life of the +universe. The magnet embraces the iron, the animals +come together by the difference of sex. Plants obey +love, and man, who alone on this earth has received +from God the gift of feeling divinely what the animals, +the plants and the metals feel only materially, man in +whom the electric attraction is transformed into an attraction +felt, understood, intelligent, man alone regards +this miracle which takes place simultaneously in his +soul and in his body as a miserable necessity, and he +speaks of it with scorn, with irony or with shame! +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>This is passing strange! The result of this fashion of +separating the spirit from the flesh is that it has necessitated +convents and bad places.</p> + +<p>“This is a frightful letter. It will take you six +weeks to decipher it. It is my <i>ultimatum</i>. If he is happy, +or would be happy through <i>her</i>, <i>let him be</i>. If he would +be unhappy, <i>prevent him</i>. If he could be happy through +me, without ceasing to be happy through <i>her</i>, <i>I can for +my part do likewise</i>. If he cannot be happy through me +without being unhappy with her, <i>we must not see each +other and he must forget me</i>. There is no way of getting +around these four points. I shall be strong about it, +I promise you, because it is a question of <i>him</i>, and if I +have no great virtue for myself, I have great devotion +for those I love. You are to tell me the truth frankly. +I count on it and wait for it.</p> + +<p>“It is absolutely useless to write me a discreet letter +that I can show. We have not reached that point, +M[allefille] and I. We respect each other too much to +demand, even in thought, an account of the details of +our lives....</p> + +<p>“There has been some question of my going to +Paris, and it is still not impossible that if my business, +which M[allefille] is now looking after, should be prolonged +I shall join him. Do not say anything about it +to the <i>child</i>. If I go, I shall notify you and we will +surprise him. In any case, since it takes time for you +to get freedom to travel, begin your preparations now, +because I want you at Nohant this summer, as soon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>and for as long as possible. You shall see how happy +you will be. There is not a hint of what you fear +There is no spying, no gossip, no provincialism; it is an +oasis in the desert. There is not a soul in the country +who knows what a Chopin or a Grzymala is. No one +knows what happens in my house. I see no one but +<i>intimate</i> friends, angels like you, who have never had +an evil thought about those they love. You will come, +my dear good friend, we shall talk at our ease and your +battered soul will regenerate itself in the country. As +for the <i>child</i>, he shall come if he likes; but in that case +I should like to be forewarned, for I should send M[allefille] +either to Paris or to Geneva. There is no lack +of pretexts, and he will never suspect anything. If the +<i>child</i> does not want to come, leave him to his ideas; he +fears the world, he fears I know not what. I respect +in those I love everything I do not understand. I shall +go to Paris in September myself, before the final departure. +I shall conduct myself with him according to +your reply to this letter. If you have no solution for +the problems I put, try to draw one from him, ransack +his soul; I must know what he feels.</p> + +<p>“But now you know me through and through. +This is such a letter as I do not write twice in ten years. +I am too lazy, and I do so hate talking about myself. +But this will spare me further talk on that subject. +You know me by heart now, and you can <i>fire at sight +on me</i> when you balance the accounts of the Trinity.</p> + +<p>“Yours, dear good friend, yours with all my heart. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>Ostensibly I have not spoken of you in all this long chat. +That is because it seemed as though I were talking of +myself to another <i>me</i>, the better and the dearer of the +two, I swear.</p> + +<p class="right"> + “<span class="smcap">George Sand.</span>” +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Let us, above all, admire the woman’s method of so +conducting her battle that she necessarily remains victorious, +no matter what the attacks or shifts of the +enemy. Everything is foreseen, arranged, admitted, +except the omission to become the lover of George +Sand. Besides, she must have known perfectly well +that the little “Russia” she pretended to fear had already +surrendered her arms, that Chopin had flung her out of +his proud heart. But such a letter, such a rare psychological +document, deserves to be included intact in the +<i>dossier</i> of this love. The personality of the writer becomes +clearly illuminated, even—perhaps above all—in +what it tries to hide. One feels the intelligence; +weighs the slightly heavy goodness, once more maternal, +<i>pelicanish</i>; one wonders at the moist-lipped desire of a +woman of thirty-four for the “child” of twenty-eight, +who looked still younger and whose very purity intoxicated +the voluptuous woman enamoured of it. She +called it “doing her duty.” It is all a matter of well-chosen +words. She admitted also: “I must love or +die,” which is less pretentious.</p> + +<p>To sum up the matter, be it admitted that Chopin +needed a fine, generous tenderness after the poor, dried-up +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>little romance he had hidden in an envelope. He +also needed care. George began by sending him to +Doctor Gaubert, who sounded him, and swore that +he was not phthisical. But he needed air, walks, rest. +The new lovers set out in quest of solitude.</p> + +<p>Paris soon heard that the novelist had left with her +three children: Maurice, Solange and Chopin, for the +Balearic Isles.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI"> + CHAPTER XI + <br> + <span class="smcap">The Chartreuse of Valdemosa</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>As a matter of fact, they had agreed to meet at +Perpignan, because Chopin’s decent soul stuck at +advertising his departure, and at proclaiming his resounding +luck. Perhaps, too, George wanted to smooth the +pride of poor Mallefille. So the two left in their own +way, and came together at Perpignan in the last two days +of October. George was happy, at peace. She had +travelled slowly, visiting friends on the way, and passing +through Lyons, Avignon, Vaucluse, and le Pont du +Gard. Furthermore, it was not so much a question +with her of travelling as of getting away, of seeking, as +she always said on such occasions, some nest in which +to love or some hole in which to die. Doubtless she +hardly remembered having made the same trip with +Musset four years before, when they had encountered +fat Stendhal-Beyle on the steamship. Chopin, for his +part, did not stop on the road; he had four days and +four heroically borne nights by mailcoach. Yet he +descended “fresh as a rose and as rosy as a turnip.” +Grzymala, Matuszinski and Fontana alone knew +of this journey, which he wanted to conceal even +from his family in Poland. Fontana undertook to +forward his mail. Chopin had a little money on +hand because he had sold Pleyel his first <i>Preludes</i> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>for two thousand francs, a quarter of which he had +received.</p> + +<p>They all embarked for Barcelona on board the <i>Phénicien</i>, +on “the bluest sea, the purest, the smoothest; you +might call it a Greek sea, or a Swiss lake on its loveliest +day,” wrote George to her friend Marliani just before +they left. They stopped a few days at Barcelona, where +they visited the ruins of the Palace of the Inquisition.</p> + +<p>Then a fresh embarkation on the <i>El Mallorquin</i>. The +crossing was made on a mild and phosphorescent night. +On board all slept, except Chopin, Sand and the helmsman, +who sang, but with a voice so sweet and so subdued +that he too seemed to be half-asleep. Chopin listened +to this rambling song that resembled his own vague +improvisations. “The voice of contemplation,” said +George. They landed at Palma, on Majorca, in the +morning, under a precipitous coast, the summit of which +is indented with palms and aloes. But learning to their +amazement that there was no hotel, nor even rooms where +they could live, they sought out the French Consul and, +thanks to him, succeeded in discovering the house of a +certain Señor Gomez. It was outside the town, in a +valley from which could be seen the distant yellow walls +of Palma and its cathedral. This uncomfortable oasis, +which had to be furnished and equipped with all accessories, +was called <i>The House of the Wind</i>. The travellers +were at first jubilant.</p> + +<p>“The sky is turquoise,” wrote Chopin to Fontana, +“the sea lapis-lazuli, the mountains emerald. The air +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>is like heaven. In the daytime there is sunshine, and it +is warm, and everybody is in summer dress. At night, +you hear songs and guitars on all sides for hours on end. +Enormous balconies hung with vines, houses dating from +the Moors.... The town, like everything here, +resembles Africa. In short, life is delicious. My dear +Jules, go and see Pleyel, because the piano has not yet +arrived. How was it sent? Tell him he will soon +receive the <i>Preludes</i>. I shall probably live in an enchanting +monastery, in the most lovely country in the world; +the sea, mountains, palms, a cemetery, a crusaders’ +church, a ruined mosque, thousand-year-old olive trees.... +Ah! dear friend, I now take a little more pleasure +in life; I am near the most beautiful thing in the world, +I am a better man.”</p> + +<p>This <i>House of the Wind</i> was rented for a hundred francs +a month. But as it did not completely satisfy their +appetite for isolation, and as they wanted something +more “artistic,” more rare, they found three rooms and +a garden full of oranges for thirty-five francs a year in +the Chartreuse of Valdemosa itself, two leagues away. +“It is poetry, it is solitude, it is everything that is most +enchanting under the sky; and what sky! what country! +We are in a dream of happiness,” Sand wrote. This +joy at once expressed itself in too long walks. Chopin +wore himself out, tore his feet on the stones of the +paths, caught cold in the first rain. He had hardly +been there a few days when he was forced to take to +his bed with bad bronchitis. The tuberculosis, momentarily +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>checked, came on again, in spite of a temperature +of 65 degrees, in spite of roses, lemons, palms, fig trees +in bloom. “The three most celebrated doctors of the +Island came together for a consultation. One sniffed +what I had expectorated, another tapped me where I +had expectorated, the third listened while I expectorated. +The first said I would die, the second said I was about +to die, the third said I was already dead. But I go on +living as I have always lived.... I cannot forgive +Jeannot (Dr. Matuszinski) for not having given me any +instructions about this acute bronchitis which he should +have foreseen when I was at home. I was barely able +to escape their bleedings and cuppings and suchlike +operations. Thank God, I am myself again. But my +sickness delayed my <i>Preludes</i>, which you will receive God +knows when.... In a few days I shall be living in +the most beautiful spot in the world; sea, mountains, +everything you could want. We are going to live in +an enormous old ruined monastery, abandoned by the +Carthusians, whom Mendizabal seems to have driven +out just for me. It is quite close to Palma and incomparably +marvellous: cells, a most romantic graveyard.... +In fact, I feel I shall be well off there. Only my +piano is still lacking. I have written direct to Pleyel, rue +Rochechouart. Ask him about it and tell him I was +taken sick the day after I arrived, but that I am already +better. Do not say much in general about me or my +manuscripts.... Do not tell anyone I have been +ill; they would only make a fuss about it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span></p> + +<p>Here was George in action. She had her hands full. +She wrote, managed the household as well as her novels, +explored the shops of the little town, gave their lessons +to her two children and nursed the third, who claimed +her every other moment. “He improves from day +to day and I hope that he will be better than before. +He is an angel of gentleness and goodness.” But the +material side of life became more and more difficult. +They lacked everything, even mattresses, sheets, cooking-pots. +They had to buy expensive furnishings, write to +Buloz, the editor of the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, and +borrow. Soon <i>The House of the Wind</i> became uninhabitable. +The walls were so thin that under the autumn +rains the lime swelled like a sponge. There was no stove, +of course, as in all so-called hot countries, and a coat of +ice settled on the travellers’ shoulders. They had to fall +back on the asphyxiating warmth of braziers. The invalid +began to suffer greatly, coughed incessantly, could +hardly be nourished, because he could not stand the +native food, and George was obliged to do the cooking +herself. “In fact,” she wrote, again to her friend +Marliani, “our trip here has been, in many ways, a +frightful fiasco. But here we are. We cannot get out +without exposing ourselves to the bad season and without +encountering new expenses at every step. Besides, +it took a great deal of courage and perseverance to install +myself here. If Providence is not too unkind, I think +the worst is over, and we shall gather the fruit of our +labours. Spring will be delicious, Maurice will regain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>his health.... Solange is almost continually charming +since she was seasick; Maurice pretends she lost all her +venom.”</p> + +<p>The invalid, whom they hid at the back of the least +damp room, became an object of horror and fear to the +natives. Service was refused. Señor Gomez, learning +that it was a matter of lung trouble, demanded the +departure of his tenants after a complete replastering +and whitewashing of his house at their expense and an +<i>auto-da-fé</i> of the linen and furnishings. The Consul +intervened, and sheltered the miserable emigrants for a +few days. At last, on the fifteenth of December, a +beautiful day, they set out for their monastery. Just +before they started, Chopin wrote again to Fontana: +“I shall work in a cell of some old monk who had perhaps +in his soul a greater flame than I, but stifled and mortified +it because he did not know what to do with it.... +I think I can shortly send you my <i>Preludes</i> and the <i>Ballade</i>.”</p> + +<p>As for George Sand: “I shall never forget,” she +wrote later on in her <i>Winter at Majorca</i>, “a certain bend +in the gorge where, turning back, you espy, at the top +of a mountain, one of those lovely little Arab houses +I have described, half-hidden among the flat branches +of cactus, and a tall palm bending over the chasm and +tracing its silhouette against the sky. When the sight +of the mud and fog of Paris gives me the spleen, I close +my eyes and see again as in a dream that green mountain, +those tawny rocks, and this solitary palm tree, lost in +a rose-coloured sky.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p> + +<p>The Chartreuse of Valdemosa... The name alone, +associated with the names of Chopin and Sand in this +African setting, evokes an image which is not only +romantic and picturesque, but fixed, as in a poem. +Here is the scene of their sickly passion. We still love +the picture, mingled with the music into which this +Nordic consumptive threw his heart-rending sweetness. +What indeed would Majorca be in the story of human +dreams without this encampment of the rainy winter of +1838? This abandoned island has no other worth than +its unhappy monastery, which for two months served +as the prison of a hopeless love. Because no search, +even between the lines of their letters, reveals any happiness. +George tried in vain to blow the embers of her +tired heart, and kindled but a tender pity, full of nostalgia, +raising with each puff of smoke the memory of those +terrible Venetian delights. And Chopin, bruised by +a thousand little sufferings, proud and lacking in virility, +felt the strength for pleasures ebbing from him day by +day. In one way or another, nerves got the upper +hand. Work alone was deliverance for them, and +solitude, riveting them together, filled them with fraternity.</p> + +<p>Valdemosa is an enormous pile of masonry. An +army corps could be lodged in it. There are the quarters +of the Superior, cells for the lay brothers, cells for the +novices, and the three cloisters that constitute the monastery +proper. But that is all empty and deserted. The +oldest part is fifteenth century, and is pierced by Gothic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>windows over which creep vines. In the centre is the +old Carthusian cemetery, without stones or inscriptions. +A few cypresses frame a tall cross of white wood and +a pointed well-head, against which have grown up a +pink laurel and a dwarf palm. All the cells were locked +and a yellow sacristan jealously guarded the keys. Although +he was extremely ugly, this fat satyr had wronged +a girl who with her parents was spending a few months +in that solitude. But he gave as an excuse that he was +employed by the State to protect only the painted +virgins.</p> + +<p>The new cloisters, girded by evergreens, enclosed +twelve chapels and a church decorated with wood +carvings and paved with Hispano-Moresque majolica. +A Saint Bruno in painted wood, provincial Spanish in +style, is the only work of art in this temple. The design +and colour are curious, and George Sand found in the +head an expression of sublime faith, in the hands a +heartbreaking and pious gesture of invocation. “I +doubt,” she said, “if this fanatical saint of Grenoble has +ever been understood and depicted with such deep and +ardent feeling. It is the personification of Christian +asceticism.” The church, alas! is without an organ, +according to the Carthusian regulations.</p> + +<p>Sand, Chopin, and the children occupied three spacious +cells, vaulted, with walls three feet in thickness. The +rooms faced south, opening on to a garden-plot planted +with pomegranates, lemon trees, orange tress. Brick +paths intersected this verdant and fragrant pleasaunce. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>And on the threshold of this garden of silence Chopin +wrote to Fontana three days after Christmas:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“Can you imagine me thus: between the sea and +the mountains in a great abandoned Carthusian monastery, +in a cell with doors higher than the porte-cochères +in Paris, my hair uncurled, no white gloves, but pale, +as usual? The cell is shaped like a coffin; it is high, +with a cobwebbed ceiling. The windows are small.... +My bed faces them, under a filigreed Moorish +rose-window. Beside the bed stands a square thing +resembling a desk, but its use is very problematic. +Above, a heavy chandelier (this is a great luxury) with +one tiny candle. The works of Bach, my own scrawls +and some manuscripts that are not mine,—that is all my +furniture. You can shout as loud as you like and no +one will hear; in short, it is a strange place from which +I am writing.... The moon is marvellous this evening. +I have never seen it more beautiful.... Nature here +is kind, but the men are pirates. They never see strangers, +and in consequence don’t know what to charge +them. So they will give you an orange for nothing but +ask a fabulous price for a trouser button. Under this +sky one feels permeated with a poetic sentiment that +seems to emanate from all the surrounding objects. +Eagles hover over our heads every day and no one +disturbs them.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>But it was in vain that he sought to enjoy himself +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>there; this rather lofty setting did not suit Chopin. +He had too great a taste for intimate habits, for sophisticated +surroundings, to feel at his ease in these unfurnished +rooms where his mind had nothing on which to fasten. +And then, unfortunately, they had come in for the +height of the rainy season, which at Majorca is diluvian. +The air is so relaxing in its humidity that one drags +heavily about. Maurice and Solange were perfectly +well, “but little Chopin is very exhausted, and still +coughs a great deal. For his sake, I am impatient for +the return of good weather, which cannot be long now +in coming.” His piano at last arrived, a joy that carried +with it forgiveness for everything. Chopin worked, +composed, studied. “The very vaults of the monastery +rejoice. And all this is not profaned by the admiration +of fools. We do not see so much as a cat,” apart from +the natives of the country, a superstitious and inquisitive +people, who climbed, one after another, up to this old +monastery in the charge of one ancient monk and a +few devils. In order to get a look at them they came +to have their beasts blessed. It became a holiday of +mules, horses, donkeys, goats and pigs. “Real animals +themselves,” said George, “stinking, gross and cowardly, +but nevertheless them superb, nicely dressed, +playing the guitar and dancing the fandango.... I +am supposed to be sold to the devil because I do not +go to Mass, nor to the dances, and because I live alone +in the mountains, teaching my children the rule of +participles and other graces.... In the middle of all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>this, comes the warbling of Chopin, who goes his own +pretty way, and to whom the walls of his cell listen with +astonishment.”</p> + +<p>One evening they had an alarm and a ghost which +made their hair stand on end. First there was a strange +noise, like thousands of sacks of nuts being rolled across +a parquet floor. They rushed out of their cells to +investigate, but the cloister was as deserted as ever. +Yet the noise drew nearer. Soon a feeble light illuminated +the vaulting, torches appeared, and there, enveloped in +red smoke, came a whole battalion of abominable +beings; a horned leading devil, all in black, with a +face the colour of blood, little devils with birds’ heads, +lady devils and shepherdesses in pink and white robes. +It was the villagers celebrating Shrove Tuesday who +had come to hold their dance in one of the cells. The +noise that accompanied their procession was that of the +castanets that the youngsters clacked with a sustained +and rolling rhythm. They stopped it suddenly to sing +in unison a <i>coplita</i> on a musical phrase which kept +recurring and seemed never to end.</p> + +<p>This was a shock to poor Chopin’s nerves. It was +worse when Maurice and Solange disappeared in the +echoing depths of the monastery, or when George left +him for excursions that lasted whole days. Then the +deserted cloister seemed to him full of phantoms. Returning +from one of her nocturnal explorations among +the ruins, George surprised him at his piano, white, with +haggard eyes, and it took him several minutes to recognize +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>her. Yet it was then, during or after these spells +of nervous exaltation, that he composed some of his +most beautiful pages.</p> + +<p>Sand affirms that several of the <i>Preludes</i> were begotten +of these agonies. “There is one,” she says, “which +came to him one lugubrious rainy evening that plunged +his soul into a frightful depression. Maurice and I +had left him that day feeling very well, to go to Palma +to buy some necessities for our camp. The rain had +come, torrents were unloosed; we made three leagues in +six hours, coming back in the midst of the flood, and +it was full night when we arrived, without shoes, abandoned +by our driver in the midst of untold dangers. +We had hurried on account of our patient’s anxiety. +It had indeed been lively; but it had, as it were, congealed +into a kind of resigned despair, and he was +playing, in tears, his fine prelude. When he saw us +come in, he rose with a great cry; then he said to us +with a vague stare and in a strange voice: ‘Ah, I knew +you were dead!’ When he had recovered himself and +saw the state we were in, he became ill at the thought +of our past dangers; but he then swore to me that +while he was awaiting us, he had seen it all in a dream, +and that, unable to tell what was dream and what was +reality, he had become quiet and as though drugged +while playing the piano, convinced that he was dead +himself. He saw himself drowned in a lake; heavy +drops of icy water fell with a regular beat on his chest, +and when I made him listen to the sound of the drops +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>that were really falling on the roof, he denied having +heard them. He was even angry at what I meant by +the words ‘imitative harmony.’ He protested with all +his strength, and rightly, at the puerility of these auditory +imitations. His genius was full of the mysterious +harmonies of nature, rendered in his musical thought +by sublime equivalents and not by a slavish mimicry +of outside sounds. That evening’s composition was full +of the raindrops sounding on the resonant tiles of the +monastery, but they were transposed in his imagination and +in his music into tears falling from heaven on his heart.”</p> + +<p>There has been a great deal of discussion as to what +<i>Prelude</i> this might be. Some call it No. 6, in B minor, +others No. 8, in F sharp minor, or the 15th, in D flat +major, or the 17th, or the 19th. In my own opinion +there is no possible doubt. It is certainly the Sixth +Prelude, where the drops of sorrow fall with a slow +inexorable regularity on the brain of man. But it +matters little, after all. Each one will find it where +he will, at the bidding of his own imagination. Let us +credit music with this unique power, that of adapting +itself to us rather than us to it, of being the Ariel that +serves our fancy. Here is the place to recall Beethoven’s +words: “You must create everything in yourself.” +Liszt, so fond of psychology and æsthetics, said that +Chopin contented himself, like a true musician, with +extracting the <i>feeling</i> of pictures he saw, ignoring the +drawing, the pictorial shell, which did not enter into +the form of his art and did not belong to his more spiritual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>sphere. Then, returning to that rainy twilight when +his friend had composed so beautiful a melody, Liszt +wondered if George Sand had been able to perceive in +it the anguish of Chopin’s love, the fever of that overexcited +spirit; if the genius of that masculine woman +could attain “to the humblest grandeurs of the heart, to +those burnt offerings of oneself which have every right to +be called devotion.” Probably not. She never inspired +a song in this miraculous bird. The only one that came +to him through her was that moment of agony and grief.</p> + +<p>The next day he played over again, with comments +and finishing touches, this unique musical expression +snatched from his depths. But she understood it no +better. All the incompatibility of these two natures +is revealed here. “His heart,” said Liszt, “was torn +and bruised at the thought of losing her who had just +given him back to life; but her spirit saw nothing but +an amusing pastime in the adventurous trip, the danger +of which did not outweigh the charm of novelty. What +wonder that this episode of his French life should be +the only one of which his work showed the influence? +After that he divided his life into two distinct parts. +For a long time he continued to suffer in an environment +material almost to the point of grossness, in which his +frail and sensitive temperament was engulfed; then,—he +escaped from the present into the impalpable regions of +art, taking refuge among the memories of his earliest youth +in his beloved Poland, which alone he immortalized in +his songs.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span></p> + +<p>Chopin soon acquired a horror of Majorca. He felt +seriously ill. In addition, he had little taste for the +country, and less still for this Spanish monastery where +his imagination failed to find the intimate warmth and +urbanity in which alone it could unfold. His spirit +was wounded to the quick; “the fold of a rose leaf, +the shadow of a fly, made him bleed.” He was dying +of impatience to get away, and even Sand confessed +that “these poetic intervals which one voluntarily +interpolates into life are but periods of transition, +moments of repose granted to the spirit before it again +undertakes the <i>exercise of the emotions</i>.” Underline +these words, so luminous in the analysis of their characters. +For this deceived woman Valdemosa was a +poetic interlude, a time of waiting, an intellectual +vacation. Already she was dreaming only of taking +up again the exercise of her feelings, while for Chopin, +his life was done, his emotions were exhausted. There +was but one joy left to which he aspired: the great +peace of work. “For the love of God, write,” he +enjoins Fontana. “I am sending you the <i>Preludes</i>. +Re-copy them with Wolf. I think there are no mistakes. +Give one copy to Probst (publisher) and the manuscript +to Pleyel. Out of the 1,500 francs he will give you, pay +the rent on my apartment up to the first of January, +that is, 450 francs. Give the place up if you think you +can find another for April....”</p> + +<p>This savours of a return, and is like an odour of +Paris. The life at the monastery was becoming really +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>unbearable. A servant left them, swearing they were +plague infected. They had all the trouble in the world +to procure supplies, thanks to the bad faith of the +peasants, who made them pay ten times too much for +everything. The skimmed goat’s milk meant for Chopin +was stolen from them. No one would consent to +wait on the consumptive, whose health declined. Even +their clothes mildewed on their backs. There was nothing +for it but flight from this hard-hearted land.</p> + +<p>They strapped their baggage at last, nailed up their +boxes,—and were refused a carriage in which to go +down to Palma. They were obliged to do the three +leagues by <i>birlocho</i>, a sort of wheelbarrow, Chopin +barely able to breathe. At Palma he had a dreadful +hæmorrhage. Nevertheless, they embarked on the one +boat of the island, on which a hundred pigs were already +grunting. The artist was given the most miserable +bunk, as they said it would have to be burned. The +next day, at Barcelona, he lost a full bowl of blood +and drooped like a ghost. But it was the end of their +miseries. The Consul and the commandant of the +French naval station took them in and had them put +on board a sloop-of-war, <i>Le Méléagre</i>, whose doctor +succeeded in arresting Chopin’s hæmorrhage.</p> + +<p>They rested eight days at an inn. On the fifteenth +of February, 1839, George wrote to Madame Marliani: +“My sweet dear, here I am at Barcelona. God grant +that I get out soon and never again set foot in Spain! +It is a country that I do not relish in any respect.... +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>Read Grzymala the part about Chopin, and warn him +not to mention it, because after the good hope the +doctor gives me, it is useless to alarm his family.”</p> + +<p>A few days later, they landed at Marseilles. It was +perfect happiness.</p> + +<p>“At last, my dear, I am here in France.... A +month more and we should have died in Spain, Chopin +and I; he of melancholy and disgust; I of fury and +indignation. They wounded me in the tenderest spot +in my heart, with their pinpricks at a being who was +suffering before my eyes; I shall never forgive them, +and if I write of them it shall be with gall.”</p> + +<p>To François Rollinat, the real confidant of her life: +“Dear friend, I should not like to learn that you have +suffered as much as I during my absence....”</p> + +<p>Such was the brilliant return from this honeymoon.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII"> + CHAPTER XII + <br> + <span class="smcap">“If music be the food of love, play on”</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>Nietzsche, on a very dark day, wrote to a +friend: “Isn’t it a work of art: to hope?” In +landing at Marseilles in the early spring of 1839, Chopin +and George Sand built a work of art, because they +hoped, because they were overflowing with that inexplicable +enthusiasm that the most banal things inspire +at certain predestined hours. Anything sufficed: an +expected letter, a beautiful face, the shadow of a church +on the street, the reassuring words of a doctor, to convince +them that this was the dawn of a convalescence +that would dry their almost rotted love and ripen +it, transmute it into a peaceful and lasting friendship. +Sometimes nothing more than a chance landscape is +enough to change the rhythm of souls.</p> + +<p>At Majorca, one might wonder if the deserted monastery +was not a sort of Dantesque Purgatory from +which Sand explored the Hells and the invalid felt himself +already rising towards Heaven. “This Chopin is +an angel,” George had written. “At Majorca, while +he was sick unto death, he wrote music that had the +very smell of Paradise; but I am so used to seeing +him in Heaven that neither his life nor his death seems +likely to prove anything for him. He does not know +himself on which planet he exists.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span></p> + +<p>At Marseilles, a good town of grocers, perfumers, +soap sellers, their feet were once more on the earth. +They settled at the Hôtel de Beauvau, saw a physician, +and decided to await the summer in the south. This +resolution was not carried out without a certain amount +of boredom, but boredom itself contributes to rest, +which was so necessary after their voyage of miscarried +love. They had, besides, to shut themselves up against +the mistral and the pests that entered by all the doors. +But they lay hidden. Dr. Cauvières regularly sounded +Chopin’s lungs, made him wear cupping glasses, put +him on a diet and pronounced him well on the way to +cicatrization. He could begin to play again, to walk, +to talk like anybody else, he whose voice for weeks +had been nothing more than a breath. He slept a great +deal. He busied himself with the publication of his +works, wrote to Fontana on the subject of their dedications, +and discussed with him the price of his new +compositions. For he had to think of the future, about +the Paris apartment he had decided to re-rent: “Take +Schlesinger the 500 francs you will receive from Probst +for the <i>Ballade</i>.” “Schlesinger is trying to cheat me, +but he makes enough out of me; be polite to him.” +“Tell him I shall sell the <i>Ballade</i> for France and England +for 800 francs and the <i>Polonaises</i> for Germany, +England and France for 1,500.” He grew angry. He +stood out against the publishers and would cede nothing. +“As for money, you must make a clear contract and +not hand over the manuscripts except for cash....” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>“I should rather give my manuscripts as I did before, +for a low price, than stoop to these....” He returned +to the charge in April: “Keep everything till +I come back since they are such Jews. I have sold the +<i>Preludes</i> to Pleyel and have so far received only 500 +francs. He has the right to do as he pleases about +them. As for the <i>Ballade</i> and the <i>Polonaises</i>, do not +sell them either to Schlesinger or to Probst... get +them back... Enough. Enough for you and for +me. My health improves but I am angry.” “It is +not my fault if I seem like a toadstool that poisons you +when you dig it up and eat it. You know perfectly +well that I have never been of any use to anyone, not +even myself. Meanwhile, they continue to regard me +as not tubercular. I drink neither coffee nor wine, only +milk. I keep in the warmth and look like a young +lady.”</p> + +<p>In March the famous singer Nourrit died at Naples +and it was rumoured that he had committed suicide. +His body was brought to Marseilles the following +month, and a funeral service was arranged at Notre-Dame-du-Mont. +To honour the memory of a friend +whom he had seen so often at Liszt’s and had even +entertained himself, Chopin agreed to take the organ +during the Elevation. Although the instrument was +squeaky and out of tune, he drew from it what music +he could. He played <i>The Stars</i> of Schubert, which +Nourrit had sung a short time before at Marseilles: and, +renouncing all theatricality, the artist played this melody +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>with the softest stops. George was in the organ stall +with a few friends, and her fine eyes filled with tears. +The public did not recognize the novelist in this little +woman dressed in black.</p> + +<p>In May, Chopin was strong enough to take a short +trip to Genoa with his mistress. It was a beautiful +interlude. They visited the palaces, the terraced gardens, +the picture-galleries. Did she think of that journey of +almost four years earlier, when with Musset she first +put foot on this Italian soil? Genoa is perhaps the +only town where their love was not overcast. She +has written that to see it again was a pleasure. I do +not know if the word is sincere but it does not ring +true. Something like a wrinkle of fatigue, however, +can be seen in the statement which she made, on her +return, to Mme. Marliani: “I no longer like journeys, +or rather, <i>I am no longer in such condition that I am able +to enjoy them</i>.” One hopes, too, that Chopin knew +nothing of that first Genoese visit, because, for a distrustful +heart, such a picture would have been terrific.</p> + +<p>On May 22nd, they left Marseilles and started for +Nohant, where they planned to spend the entire summer. +After a week of jolting, they at last reached the wide, +well-cultivated district of Berry, “studded with great +round walnut trees” and cut by shady roads that George +loved. All at once, there was the modest village, the +church with its tiled roof, and, bordering the square, +the château. A country château that symbolized the +double origin, royal and plebeian, of this woman of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>thirty-five years whom all Europe regarded with admiration, +and who brought to the nest her <i>little one</i>, her +new little one, a noble and diaphanous young man who +seemed to have dropped down like a sea-bird into this +ancient French country-side.</p> + +<p>Dear woman, must we admire you for the period of +rest you accorded to this beautiful weary soul? We +know that you were bad for him, sometimes, because +you were sound, ardent, and, in spite of everything, +curious about that inviolable mind, about those limbs +without desire. But we have seen too that you knew +your rôle of guardian. “Of whom shall I take care?” +you cried, when your other invalid had left you because +he could no longer bear the sufferings with which you +seasoned your pleasure. Dear woman, nevertheless! +You cannot be judged by any common standards, you +with your hot blood and your heart always so soon +feasted by the very strength of its own hungers. The +enormous labour you accomplished was but the result of +your own energies. They burdened you with work. +They tired you out like a man. You never found +those horrible mental tasks too stupid, those tasks from +which they feigned to derive an elastic and libertarian +moral, when you were really made but for love and +travail and the old human order. This is all rather +amusing, and sad as truth. But we must thank you for +having in some sort made Musset and broken that easy fop +to healthy sorrows. We cannot blame you, as others +do, for having finished Chopin. You fought for him +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>a long time against his malady. If you bruised him +further, it is because even your friendship was costly. +But always, it was your best that you gave.</p> + +<p>Now that we have seen you enter Nohant with this +new prey to your tenderness, let us say with Shakespeare: +“If music be the food of love, play on.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Chopin never liked the country. Yet he enjoyed +Nohant. The house was comfortable. After Majorca +and Marseilles, it was a joy to have a large room, fine +sheets, a well-ordered table, a few beautiful pieces of +furniture. Without being luxurious, the big house +had a pleasant air. There was a sense of ease. He +was spoiled, petted. An old friend of George’s, Dr. +Papet, ran up at once to examine the invalid thoroughly. +He diagnosed a chronic affection of the larynx: he +ordered plenty of rest and a long stay in the country. +Chopin submitted with no difficulty to this programme, +and adopted a perfectly regulated, wise way of living. +While George went back to the education of her children +and her job as a novelist, he corrected a new edition of +Bach, finished his <i>Sonata in B flat minor</i>, the second +<i>Nocturne</i> of op. 37 and four <i>Mazurkas</i> (op. 41). They +dined out of doors, between five and six o’clock. Then +a few neighbours dropped in, the Fleurys, the Duteils, +Duvernet, Rollinat, and they talked and smoked. From +the first, they all treated Chopin with respectful sympathy. +Hippolyte Chatiron, George’s half-brother, who +lived with his wife in the immediate neighbourhood, a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>kind of squireen, good-natured and convivial, formed +a passionate friendship for him.</p> + +<p>When they had gone Chopin played the piano in the +twilight; then at Solange’s and Maurice’s bedtime, he +too went to bed and slept like a child. As for George, +she took up the Encyclopædia and prepared the lessons +for the next day. Truly a family life, such, exactly, as +Chopin understood best; such also as he needed during +his working periods.</p> + +<p>“I am composing here a <i>Sonata</i> in B flat minor,” he +wrote to Fontana, “in which the <i>Funeral March</i> you +already have will be incorporated. There is an <i>allegro</i>, +then a <i>scherzo</i> in E flat minor, the <i>March</i>, and a short +<i>finale</i> of about three pages. After the <i>March</i> the left +hand babbles along <i>unisono</i> with the right. I have a +new <i>Nocturne</i> in G major to accompany the one in G +minor, if you remember it. You know I have four +new <i>Mazurkas</i>: one from Palma in E minor, three +from here in B major, in A flat major, and C sharp minor. +To me they seem as pretty as the youngest children +seem to parents who are growing old. Otherwise, I +am doing nothing; I am correcting a Paris edition of +Bach’s works. There are not only misprints, but, I +believe, harmonic errors committed by those who think +they understand Bach. I am not correcting them with +the pretention of understanding him better than they, +but with the conviction that I can sometimes divine +how the thing ought to go.”</p> + +<p>Every evening, during that hour of music that Chopin +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>dedicated to George alone, she listened and dreamed. +She was a choice listener. Without doubt, it was in those +moments that these two souls, so impenetrable to each +other, understood each other best. She fully realized +that he was the extreme artist type; that it would never +be possible to make him accept any jot of reality; that +his continued dream was too far from the world, too +little philosophic for her to be able to follow into those +unpeopled regions. But it was, nevertheless, sweet to +be the object of such a man’s preference. Cruel also, because +if Chopin kept usurious account of the least light +given him, “he did not take the trouble to hide his +disappointment at the first darkness.” His fantastic +humour, his profound depressions, at once interested +and worried the amateur of emotions in George. But +a kind of terror gripped her heart at the thought of a +new obligation she would assume if Frederick were +definitely to install himself with her. She was no longer +under the illusion of passion. She was afraid of having +some day to struggle against some other love that might +conquer her and prove the death of this frail being she +had torn from himself. Then she stiffened. One more +duty in a life already so burdened, would this not be +precisely a defence against temptation—an even greater +chance for her to attain to that austerity towards which +she felt herself drawn by the old depths of religious +enthusiasm of which she had never freed herself? How +should she settle the matter? She compromised by +leaving it for time to tell.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span></p> + +<p>As for Chopin, this peaceful lot was too perfectly +fitted to the measure of his strength for him to dream +of any change. He was radiating all his gentleness, he +was creating; such was his beautiful present, his only +possible future. While he improvised George opened +a scrapbook and wrote: “The genius of Chopin is +the most profound and pregnant of feeling and emotions +that has ever existed. He makes a single instrument +speak the language of the infinite. He knows how to +gather into ten lines that even a child could play poems +of immense elevation, dramas of unequalled power. +He never needs great material means.... He needs +neither saxophone nor bass horns to fill the soul with +terror; neither Cathedral organs nor the human voice +to give it faith and exultation. There must be great +advances in taste and artistic intelligence if his works are +ever to become popular.... Chopin knows his +strength and his weakness. His weakness lies in the +very excess of that strength, which he cannot control. +His music is full of delicate shades of feeling and of the +unexpected. Sometimes, rarely, it is bizarre, mysterious, +and tormented. In spite of his horror of the unintelligible, +his overpowering emotions sometimes +sweep him unconsciously into regions known to him +alone.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Towards the end of the summer, they all decided +to return to Paris. Sand was persuaded that she could +not manage to finish the education of her children +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>without assistance. Maurice was eager to learn drawing; +Solange was difficult, a little sullen, stubborn. +George also had to see her publisher, Buloz, the editor +of the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>. Chopin wanted to get +to his pupils again and resume their lessons, the main +source of his revenue. So they bombarded friends with +letters, asking them to find two apartments not too far +from each other. Grzymala, Arago and Fontana started +a search. From Nohant, instructions rained on the +heads of the three friends.</p> + +<p>Chopin asked them to choose a <i>dove-like</i> wallpaper, +glowing and glossy, for his rooms. Something else for +the vestibule, but still <i>respectable</i>. If there was anything +more beautiful, more fashionable, they were not to hesitate +to get it.</p> + +<p>“I prefer something simple, modest, elegant, to the +loud, common colours the shopkeepers use. That is +why I like pearl-grey, because it is neither striking nor +vulgar. Thank you for the servant’s room, because it +is really essential.”</p> + +<p>For George, it was vital that the house should be +quiet. There must be three bedrooms, two next to +each other, and one separated by the drawing-room. +Close to the third there must be a well-lighted work-room. +Drawing- and dining-room must be next each other. +Two servants’ rooms and a cellar. Inlaid floors in good +condition if possible. But most of all, quiet,—“no +blacksmith in the neighbourhood.” A decent staircase, +windows facing south. “No young ladies, no smoke +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>or unpleasant odours.” Chopin even took the trouble +to sketch the plan of this imagined suite.</p> + +<p>Soon they had good news. Chopin was to live at +5, rue Tronchet, while George was to have two small +pavilions in a garden at 16, rue Pigalle. Nohant was +in a state of joy, and Frederick, always so particular +about matters of elegance, now began to think of his +clothes. He wrote again to Fontana: “I forgot to +ask you to order a hat for me at Duport’s, rue de la +Chausée d’Antin. He has my measure and knows what +I want. Show him this year’s shape, not too exaggerated, +because I don’t know how you are dressing now. +Also, drop in on Dautremont, my tailor, on the Boulevards, +and tell him to make me a pair of grey trousers. +Will you choose a dark shade, for winter trousers, +something good, not striped, but plain and soft. You +are English; so you know what I ought to have. +Dautremont will be glad to know that I am coming +back. I also need a black velvet waistcoat, but one +with very little ornament and not loud,—a plain waistcoat, +but elegant. If he has no very fine velvet, let him +make a waistcoat of fine wool, but not too open....” +In recompense for all these errands: “... I shall keep +changing the second part of the <i>Polonaise</i> for you till +the end of my life. Yesterday’s version may not please +you either, though it put my brain on the rack for +eighty seconds. I have copied out my manuscripts in +good order. There are six with your <i>Polonaises</i>, not +counting the seventh, an impromptu, which may be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>worthless. I can’t judge of it, myself, because it is too +new. Titus advises me to compose an oratorio. I +have asked him in reply why he is building a sugar mill +rather than a Dominican monastery. As you are such a +clever fellow, you can arrange so that neither black +thoughts nor suffocating cough shall bother me in my +new rooms. Arrange for me to be good. Erase, if +you can, many episodes of my past. And it would +be no bad thing if I set myself a task that will last me +several years. Finally, you would oblige me by growing +much younger, or in finding a way of arranging for us +to be not yet born.</p> + +<p class="right"> + “Your old <span class="smcap">Frederick</span>.” +</p> + +<p>Both Frederick and George settled in Paris in October +of that year, 1839. But they were soon convinced that +after a whole year of existence together it would be +difficult to live apart. Chopin still had need of attentions, +precautions. He gave up his lodging to Dr. Matuszinski, +and moved with his furniture to the lower +floor of one of the two pavilions in the rue Pigalle.</p> + +<p>So these longed-for years of great and perfect work, +unrolled themselves in about the desired rhythm. +During the morning, the professors for Maurice and +Solange succeeded one another. In Chopin’s part of +the house it was a procession of pupils. His lessons +lasted at least an hour, sometimes more. It often happened +that the master would play the pieces himself. +On one occasion he played from memory to one of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>his pupils fourteen <i>Preludes</i> and <i>Fugues</i> of Bach. And +as the young girl expressed her admiration for this +<i>tour de force</i>, “One can never forget them,” he said, +smiling. “For a year I have not practised a quarter +of an hour at a time. I have no strength, no energy. +I am always waiting for a little health to take all that +up again, but—I am still waiting.” Such efforts exhausted +him. He used to take a little opium in a glass +of water, and rub his temples with <i>eau-de-Cologne</i>.</p> + +<p>“The final triumph,” he continued, “is simplicity. +When you have exhausted all the difficulties, and have +played an immense quantity of notes, simplicity emerges +in all its charm, as the final seal of art. Anyone who +expects to achieve it at the outset will never succeed +in so doing; you cannot begin at the end.”</p> + +<p>The afternoon was generally devoted to the personal +work of the two artists. In the evening they met at +George’s, and dined together; then someone or another +of the intimates of the household came to see them. +The salon was <i>café au lait</i> in colour, decorated with very +fine Chinese vases always filled with flowers in the +Chopinesque mode. The furniture was green; there +was a sideboard of oak laden with curiosities and, on +the wall, the portrait of the hostess by Calamatta and +several canvases by Delacroix. The piano was bare, +square, ebony. Chopin almost always sat at it. At +one side, George’s bedroom could be seen, where two +mattresses on the floor covered with a Persian rug +served as a bed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span></p> + +<p>Sand arose late, because she sat up most of the night. +Chopin polished and put the final touches to his works, +the first versions of which had in general come to him +during the summer. His creation was entirely spontaneous. +It gushed forth during a walk, an hour of +meditation, or it might unfold sudden and complete, +while he was sitting before his piano. He played it to +himself, sang it, took it up again, modified its accents. +Then began that immensely laborious quest of perfection, +which will always be, whatever people may say, +the essential mandate of the artist. “He locked himself +in his room for whole days at a time, weeping, walking +up and down, shattering his pens, repeating or changing +a single bar a hundred times, writing it down only +to rub it out again, and beginning all over again the +next day with minute and despairing perseverance. +He spent six weeks on one page, only to write it finally +as he had jotted it down in the first flush.” In noting +these things, George was exasperated with the genuine +surprise of facile creators who are not tortured by any +yearning for finality. But, like Giotto, who, when +the Pope asked for a perfect example of his knowledge, +wanted to send only a true circle, so Chopin, having filled +one line with all the ornament of his thought, came +back to exquisite nudity, the final and sufficient symbol +of the idea. So a poet works. So he squeezes his +universe into the smallest possible limits, makes it as +heavy as a crystal, but gleaming from a thousand facets. +That is what made that great blackener of paper, Sand, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>say that Chopin could compress into a few bars “poems +of immense elevation, dramas of unequalled power.” +Mozart alone, she thought, was superior to him, because +he had the calm of health, and so the fullness of life. +But who knows what happy accidents illness may bring +to art? It is certain that Chopin’s breathlessness, his +nervousness, brought to his virile inspiration those +qualities of languor, those weary echoes by which he +touches us most finely.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII"> + CHAPTER XIII + <br> + <span class="smcap">On some Friendships of Chopin, and on his Æsthetics</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>It was not only furniture and habits that were held +in common in the rue Pigalle, but friends as well. +Sharing,—that was the great doctrine of Pierre Leroux, +George’s new director of conscience and “preacher of +eternal Truth in its steady progress.” According to +this philosophic typographer, it passed from people to +people according to mysterious laws, becoming incarnate +now in one, now in another, and had just settled in +Poland. The mission of the Poles was thus all equality, +fraternity, love. Chopin smiled at this, without revealing +his opinion. But he often invited his compatriots, +who joined all of George’s friends: Leroux, Delacroix, +Pauline Viardot, the great singer, and Heinrich Heine +at the head. Frederick introduced the Grzymala brothers, +Prince Czartoryski, Franchomme, the violoncellist, +Fontana, the poets Slowacki and Krasinski, the +artist Kwiatkowsky, and above all Miçkiewicz, the author +of <i>Dziady</i> (or <i>The Feast of the Dead</i>), whom they thought +profounder than Goethe and Byron.</p> + +<p>He was an ecstatic, a visionary, inspired, at any rate, +and, like Socrates, St. John, or Dante, was smitten +occasionally with “intellectual falling-sickness.” At +such times he became fired with an eloquence that +enraptured his listeners and sent them into veritable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>trances. George Sand, so sensitive to disturbances, +either the highest or the lowest, found herself ravished +to the point of ecstasy before the sublime abstractions +of this dreamer, the whispers of his soul, by which +she was led into those dangerous regions where reason +and madness go hand in hand. Ecstasy is contagious. +Assuredly it is an evil for simple souls; but with +the great spirits, such as Apollonius of Tyre, Moses, +Swedenborg, Pierre Leroux, Miçkiewicz, and, who knows, +George Sand, perhaps, is it not a sacred enthusiasm, +a divine faculty of understanding the incomprehensible, +“capable of producing the most noble results when +inspired by a great moral and metaphysical cause?” +This is the question George put to herself in her <i>Journal</i>. +Meanwhile, this Miçkiewicz gave at the College de +France a course of lectures full of logic and clarity. He +was great hearted, had himself perfectly in hand, and +reasoned with mastery. But he was transported into +exaltation by the very nature of his beliefs, by the violence +of his partially savage instincts, the momentum of his +poetic faith, and the sentiment, so fecund in all these +exiles, of the misfortunes of their fatherland.</p> + +<p>Chopin also believed in the mystic aureole of this +saintly bard. He did not know that Miçkiewicz, overjoyed +at having been able to win so great a convert as +George, thought her lover “her evil genius, her moral +vampire, her cross, who tortured and would possibly +end by killing her.” How surprising such a judgment +from one who received secret communications from the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>other world! Fortunately, Sainte-Beuve came along, +lent his delicate ear to Miçkiewicz and declared that if +he had eloquence his faults should be noticed as well. +However delicate Chopin’s perceptions, he no longer +regarded them because for him Miçkiewicz was the +great bell that tolled the sorrows of Poland. Who could +be more stimulating than this apostle prophesying the +resurrection of his country? The Redeemer was announced. +The Saviour was about to arise, and his +coming must be hastened by deeds of faith and by +repentance.</p> + +<p>Sometimes in the evening the seer came to the rue +Pigalle accompanied by several of his compatriots. He +would retire into a dim corner of the little salon and read +his <i>Infernal Comedy</i> or one of his <i>Ballades</i>, some new poem +filled with the odour of his forests. Or else, in a divine +delirium, he would improvise. That great Slavic dismay, +mute and passive, soon appeared on the face of the +exiles and was prolonged in a silence loaded with memories. +Then Chopin would rise and seat himself at the +piano. The lamp would be still further lowered. He +would begin with feathery arpeggios, stealing over the +keys in his usual way, until he encountered the <i>blue +note</i>, the pitch which seemed to correspond best to the +general atmosphere. Then he would start one of his +favourite pieces, the <i>Etude</i> in thirds from the second +volume, for instance (G sharp minor). One of his +compatriots called it <i>The Siberian</i> because it symbolized +the journey of the deported Pole. The snow falls on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>the endless plains. (An ascending and descending scale +for each hand pictures this universal infinity in a striking +manner.) You hear the bells of the troika that approaches, +passes, and disappears towards the horizon. +And each one of them has seen a brother or a friend pass +by, escorted by two Russian police who were taking +him off for ever. Or else a <i>scherzo</i> takes shape, crystallizes: +an old popular refrain that Frederick has heard +in his childhood at the doors of the village inn. All of +them, recognizing it, follow with muted humming from +between tightened lips, while tears cover their faces. +And the artist varies it, scans it softly, throws it up +and catches it again, neglects the colouring, seeking only +the design. For him the design is the soul. In spite +of effects of resonance, of cloudlike fluidity, it is the +design he pursues, the pure line of his thought. One +of the friends who heard him writes: “His eyes burned +with a feverish animation, his lips became blood-red, his +breath short. He felt, we felt, that part of his life was +running out with the sounds.” Suddenly a little dry +cough, a sudden pause in a <i>pianissimo</i> passage, and in +the dim light Chopin raises his fine white face with black-circled +eyes.</p> + +<p>But the evenings did not always end on this affecting +scene. Sometimes, on the contrary, there would burst +out from behind the piano the Emperor of Austria, an +insolent old man, a phlegmatic Englishman, a sentimental +and ridiculous Englishwoman, a sordid old Jew. It +was again Chopin, past master of grimaces, who, after +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>having drawn tears from all eyes, wrinkled their faces +with fits of laughter.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Among George Sand’s old friends was a delicate, +pale, nervous little man, with however, a will and a +mind so strong that he stands out from his time like +a bronze figure in an Olympus of plaster casts. In his +own profession he was at once the most violent, the +steadiest, the purest of creators. But, as in art everything +is, as he said, a matter of the soul, here is an opinion +which coming from his pen has some weight. He +wrote: “Times without number, I have talked intimately +to Chopin, whom I like greatly. He is a man +of rare distinction and the truest artist I have ever met. +He is of that small number that one can admire and +esteem.”</p> + +<p>This man was named Eugène Delacroix. His very +young friend, Baudelaire, said of him that he loved the +big, the national, the overwhelming, the universal, as +is seen in his so-called decorative painting or in his <i>big +machines</i>. What could be farther from Chopin’s whole +æsthetic? But they had both a certain taste for the +conventional, especially in the arts which were not their +own. Delacroix, the powerful innovator, liked only +the classic in literature, only Mozart in music. Chopin, +in painting, greatly preferred M. Ingres to Delacroix. +Opposite as they were in culture, in tendencies, in taste, +yet Chopin and Delacroix understood each profoundly +in their hearts. Delacroix, a great lover and connoisseur +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>of music, soon placed Chopin directly after Mozart. +As for Chopin, who loved and respected the man, he +continued to detest his painting. It was above all in +temperament that they were brothers. “... A mixture +of scepticism, politeness, dandyism, of burning +will, of finesse, of despotism, and finally of an especial +kind of goodness, and of <i>restrained tenderness</i> that always +goes with genius.” Well now, who is the subject of +this portrait that so resembles Chopin? It is still Baudelaire +talking of Delacroix. A hater of crowds, a polished +sceptic, a man of the world entirely preoccupied in +dissimulating the cholers of his heart,—such characteristics +applied to either of them. Both violent, both +reserved, both modest, such were these aristocrats born +among the people. Delacroix taking his old servant +to the Louvre to explain the Assyrian sculpture to her, +or Chopin playing the piano for his valet,—these are +pictures which give a better critical estimate than ten +pages of abstractions. Let us add that both of them +were invalids, both sufferers, both tubercular, and that +the only revenge they could take upon life was to live +by the spirit. I should say: by the emotional spirit. +Exquisite judges of nuances, music furnished them with +incomparable ones. Mozart was their God because his +science naturally was equal to his inspiration. Of the +works of Beethoven they said: “Vulgar passages side by +side with sublime beauty.” To the ear of Delacroix +he was sometimes diffuse, tortuous; to Chopin’s too +athletic, too Shakespearean, with a passion that always +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>bordered on a cataclysm. Yet the painter admired him +because he found him modern, entirely of his own +times. That is precisely the reason that made him +suspect to Chopin, who before everything demanded +a delicately decanted wine, a liqueur from which rose +the bouquet of memory. Nietzsche said later on: “All +music begins to have its <i>magical</i> effect only from the +moment when we hear the language of our past in it.” +Now that exile, Chopin, never heard anything but the +oldest voices of his memory. That was his poetry.</p> + +<p>“When Beethoven is obscure,” he said, “and seems +to lack unity, the cause is not the rather savage, pretended +originality, for which people honour him; it +is that he turns his back on the eternal principles; +Mozart never. Each of the parts has its own direction +which, even while harmonizing with the others, forms +a song and follows it perfectly. In that is the counterpoint, +<i>punto contrapunto</i>. It’s the custom to learn harmony +before counterpoint, that is, the succession of +notes that lead up to the chords. Berlioz pounds out +the chords and fills up the intervals as best he can. In +music, the purest logic is the <i>fugue</i>. To know the fugue +thoroughly is to know the element of all reason and all +deduction.”</p> + +<p>Sand tells us that one day she came to Delacroix’s +studio to take him to dine at her house where Chopin +was asking for him. She found him at work, his neck +wrapped in woollens, just like her “regular invalid,” +coughing like him, and husky, but raging none the less +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>against Ingres and his Stratonice. They joined Chopin. +He did not like the Stratonice either; he found the +figures mannered, but the “finish” of the painting +pleased him. In everything he was a lover of the exact, +of the finished.</p> + +<p>“About colour,” he said, “I don’t understand a +thing.”</p> + +<p>They dined. At dessert, Maurice asked his master +to explain the phenomenon of reflections to him, and +Delacroix drew a comparison between the tones of a painting +and the sounds of music. Chopin was astonished.</p> + +<p>“The harmony of music,” explained the painter, “is +not only in the construction of chords, but also in their +relations, their logical sequence, their sweep, their +auditory reflections. Well, painting is no different. +The reflection of reflections...”</p> + +<p>Chopin bursts out: “Let me breathe. One reflection +is enough for the moment. It’s ingenious, new, +but it is alchemy to me.”</p> + +<p>“No, it’s pure chemistry. The tones decompose and +recompose themselves constantly, and the reflection is +not separated from the <i>relief</i>.”</p> + +<p>Here is Delacroix well in the saddle. He explains +colour, line, flat tones; that all colour is an exchange +of reflections; that what M. Ingres lacks is half of +painting, half of sight, half of life, that he is half a man +of genius, the other half an imbecile.</p> + +<p>But Chopin is not listening. He rises and goes to +the piano. He improvises an instant, stops.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span></p> + +<p>“But,” cries Delacroix, “it’s not finished.”</p> + +<p>“It’s not begun. Nothing comes to me... Nothing +but reflections, shadows, reliefs that won’t become +clear. I look for colour, and can’t even find design.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll never find one without the other, and you +are going to find both of them.”</p> + +<p>“But if I only find moonlight?”</p> + +<p>“You will have found a reflection of a reflection.”</p> + +<p>Chopin returned to his theme without seeming to +begin again, so vague was his melody. Then the <i>blue +note</i> sounded, and they were transported into the heavens, +straying with the clouds above the roofs of the square.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Several times already we have noticed this <i>blue note</i>. +It did not alone proceed from the characteristic Chopin +pitches. It was the song of his touch, the timbre of +his hand. Like Liszt, Chopin had a distinct state of +consciousness in each of his fingers. He managed to +disassociate their impressions, to make them transmit +to his brain a harmony of infinitely varied manual +sensations. It was a whole education in technique and +observation which taught a new method of self-knowledge, +how to think of oneself in a new way.</p> + +<p>For him, a good technique had for its object not the +ability to play everything with an equal tone but to +acquire a beautiful quality of touch in order to bring +out nuances perfectly. “For a long time,” he said, +“pianists have gone against nature in trying to give equal +tone to each finger. On the contrary, each finger should +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>play its proper part. The thumb has the greatest +strength, because it is the largest and most independent +of the fingers. After that comes the little finger, at the +other end of the hand. Then the index, the principal +support of the hand. Then the middle finger, the +weakest of all. As for its Siamese twin, some pianists +try, by putting all their strength into it, to make it independent. +That is impossible, and perfectly useless. +So there are several kinds of tones, as there are several +fingers. It is a matter of profiting by these differences. +This, in other words, is the whole art of fingering.”</p> + +<p>Chopin had worked a great deal on these questions +of transcendental mechanics. Taking his hand, which +was small, people were surprised by its bony resistence. +One of his friends has said that it was the frame of a +soldier covered with the muscles of a woman. Another, +on the contrary, thought it a boneless hand. Stephen +Heller was stupefied to see him cover a third of the +keyboard, and compared his hand to the jaw of a snake +opening suddenly to swallow a whole rabbit in one +mouthful.</p> + +<p>He had invented a method of fingering all his own. +His touch was, thanks to this care, softer than any other +in the world, opposed to all theatricality, and of a beauty +that charmed from the first bars. In order to give the +hand a correct position, he had it placed lightly on the +keyboard in such a way that the fingers struck the <i>E, +F sharp, G sharp, A sharp</i>, and <i>B</i>. This was, to his mind, +the normal position. Without changing it, he made +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>his pupils do exercises designed to give independence +and equality to the fingers. Then he put them at +<i>staccato</i>, to give them lightness, then at <i>staccato-legato</i>, and +finally at <i>accented-legato</i>. He taught a special system +to keep the hand in its close and easy position while +using the thumb in scales and in <i>arpeggio</i> passages. +This perfect ease of the hand seemed to him a major +virtue, and the only means of attaining exact and equalized +playing, even when it was necessary to pass the +thumb under the fourth or fifth finger. But these +exercises explain also how Chopin executed his extremely +difficult accompaniments (unknown until his time), +which consist in striking notes that are very distant from +each other. We can easily understand how much he +must have shocked the pianists of the old school by +his original fingering, which had always the object of +keeping the hand in the same position, even while +passing the third or fourth finger over the fifth. Sometimes +he held it completely flat, and thus obtained effects +of velvet and of finesse that threw Berlioz, and even +Liszt, into ecstasy. To acquire the independence of the +fingers, he recommended letting them fall freely and +lightly, while holding the hand as if suspended in the air +without any pressure. He did not want his pupils to +take the rapid movements too soon, and made them +play all the passages very <i>forte</i> and very <i>piano</i>. In this +way the qualities of sound were formed of themselves, +and the hand was never tired. It is he who, always for +the purpose which he considered so important, of gaining +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>the independence of the fingers, conceived the idea +of making his pupils play the scales with an accent on +each third or fourth note. He was very angry when +accused of being too free in his handling of the beat. +“Let your left hand be your precentor,” he said, “while +your right hand plays <i>ad lib</i>.”</p> + +<p>Reading these rapid technical indications ought not +to be disheartening. In every art the technique and +the material are the living joys of the intelligence. They +are the beautiful secrets of the potter. Chopin, moreover, +did not leave a <i>method</i>. He dreamed of it, but it +all remained in the state of a project. The big, the +developed, the scholarly frightened him. He always +inhabited closed regions where he did not much like +to be accompanied. He never felt the strength to compose +an opera. His teachers and his friends pressed +him to do it. “With your admirable ideas,” demanded +M. de Perthuis, “why don’t you do an opera for us?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Count,” replied Chopin, “let me write only +piano music. I do not know enough to build operas.”</p> + +<p>He had a taste for the rare and the finished rather +than for great applause. It was in the detail that he +excelled. His most pregnant harmonic inventions are +made of nothings, but of nothings essential to the +character of his art. Professor Kleczynski, one of his +compatriots to whom I am indebted for several of these +details, has written: “Given the richness of his talent, +he, like Schumann, disappointed us a little. But on +the other hand, putting his whole soul into the little +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>things, he finished and perfected them in an admirable +manner.” It is precisely in these “little things” that +Chopin was great. Perhaps for him nothing was little. +Indeed, where does the little end, and the big begin? +Without doubt he put his soul into everything from which +he expected a pitch of perfection.</p> + +<p>“When I am ill-disposed,” he said, “I play on an +Erard piano, and easily find a <i>ready-made</i> tone; but when +I feel keyed up, and strong enough to discover <i>my own +tone</i>, then I need a Pleyel piano.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Another friend of Chopin’s was Liszt, a friend by +heart and by profession. People often tried to pitt +one against the other, to persuade each of them that +the contrast of their methods, of their playing as of their +characters, made them rivals. But this was not so, +and if Chopin sometimes seemed rather retiring, and +even timid before the other great virtuoso of his time, +it is because the women interfered.</p> + +<p>George Sand and Marie d’Agoult had known each +other for a long time. Before the reign of Chopin +George had gone to Geneva, where she had sojourned +for a season in the intimacy of this pretty, romantic +left-handed establishment. Then Franz and Marie had +come to spend a summer at Nohant. On both sides +there had been curiosity, admiration, but also secret +jealousies. The Countess prided herself on her writing. +She had a noble style, a sceptical but well-furnished +mind, and, except in love, balance in everything. With +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>George, spontaneity carried the day. She had at first +a temperamental sympathy for this beautiful tall woman +who threw her bonnet over the great houses of the +Faubourg. It was a brilliant putting into practice of +her theories on love and liberty. “You seem to me +the only beautiful, estimable and truly noble thing that +I have seen shine in the patrician sphere,” she wrote to +her. “You are to me the true type of the Princess +of romance, artistic, loving and noble in manner, language, +and dress, like the daughters of the Kings in +heroic days.” But this extravagant admiration was +entirely literary. So also was it with Marie d’Agoult, +who was much more interested in the almost illustrious +novelist than in this strange descendant of a line of kings +and of a bird-seller. She soon decided to withdraw +Liszt from her influence, and it was with displeasure +that she saw the arrival of that Chopin whose sweet and +profound genius her lover prophesied. So they became +cold. They separated. George sent the Countess to +all the devils.</p> + +<p>But Liszt continued to see Chopin because he loved +him. No one played the Pole’s compositions better +than he, because no one knew them better, nor had +sounded them more deeply and played them more in +his concerts. “I love my music when Liszt plays it,” +said Chopin. In the work which Liszt dedicated, later +on, to his friend, he compares the <i>Etudes</i>, the <i>Preludes</i>, +and the <i>Nocturnes</i> to the masterpieces of La Fontaine. +I do not know that anyone has made a truer comparison. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>Two great poets, who tried to hold the very-big in the +very-little, and who salted with irony their daily-wounded +hearts. This is the place to recall the words of Heine, +who called Chopin “the Raphaël of the pianoforte.” +In his music “each note is a syllable, each bar a word,” +and each phrase a thought. He invented “those admirable +harmonic progressions by which he dowered +with serious character even those pages which, in view +of the lightness of their subject, seemed to have no claim +to such importance.” It is by their sentiment that they +excel, and on closer examination one recognizes, according +to Liszt, those transitions that unite emotion and thought, +these degrees of tone of which Delacroix speaks. Of the +<i>classic</i> works of Chopin, Liszt admired above all the +<i>adagio</i> of the <i>Second Concerto</i>, for which Chopin himself +had a marked predilection. “The secondary melodies +belong to the author’s most beautiful manner; the +principal phrase is of admirable breadth: it alternates +with a <i>recitative</i> that strikes the minor key and is like +an antistrophe.” In several of the <i>Etudes</i> and of the +<i>Scherzos</i> Liszt discovers the concentrated exasperation, +the proud and ironic despair of Fritz. Yet it takes a +trained ear, because Chopin allowed hardly a suspicion +to be entertained of the “secret convulsions” that +disturbed him. His character “was made up of a thousand +nuances which, in overlapping, disguised each +other in an indecipherable manner.” And Liszt, whose +intelligence always stands out so sharply, wrote this +fine comment on the last works of Chopin: “He used +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>his art only to play to himself his own tragedy.” After +having sung his feeling, he set himself to disintegrate +it. But even then, the emotion that inspired these +pages remains pure nobility, their expression rests within +“the true limits of the language of art,” without vulgarity, +without wild shrieks, without contortion. “Far +from being diminished, the quality of the harmonic stuff +becomes only more interesting in itself, more curious to +study.”</p> + +<p>Needless to say Chopin considered himself a romantic, +and yet he invoked two masters: Bach and Mozart; +Bach, whom he admired boundlessly, without a single +reserve, and Mozart, in whom he found “the laws of +all the liberties of which he made abundant use.” And +yet he would not admit that “one should demolish +the Greek architrave with the Gothic tower, nor that +one should abolish the pure and exquisite grace of +Italian architecture to the profit of the luxuriant fantasy +of Moorish buildings... He never lent the lightest +approval to what he did not judge to be an effective +conquest for art. His disinterestedness was his strength.” +(Liszt.) We know that Beethoven, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, +frightened him. It seems stranger that he should +not have liked Schumann more. He found Mendelssohn +common, and he would not willingly listen to +certain works of Schubert, “whose contours were too +sharp for his ear, where the feelings seemed to be stripped +naked. All savage brutality repelled him. In music, +as in literature, as in the habit of life, everything that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>approached melodrama was torture to him.” Apropos +of Schubert he said to Liszt one day:</p> + +<p>“The sublime is defamed when the common or the +trivial takes its place.”</p> + +<p>Even in Mozart he found blemishes. He regretted +certain passages of <i>Don Juan</i>, the work that he adored. +“He managed,” Liszt always said, “to forget what +was repugnant to him, but to reconcile himself to it was +always impossible.” Romantic that he was, yet he +never engaged in any of the controversies of the epoch. +He stood apart from the battles into which Liszt and +Berlioz wholeheartedly threw themselves, but he brought +to their group, nevertheless, convictions that were +“absolute, stubborn, and inflexible.” When his opinions +had prevailed, like a true <i>grand Seigneur</i> and party leader, +he kept himself from pushing his victory too far, and +returned to all his habits of art and of the spirit.</p> + +<p>How often did Liszt bend over the keyboard at Chopin’s +side to follow the sylph-like touch! He studied it with +love and infinite care, and he was the only one who +succeeded in imitating it. “He always made the melody +undulate ...; or else he made it move, indecisive, +like an airy <a id="quote"></a>apparition.” This is the famous <i>rubato</i>. +But the word conveys nothing to those who know, and +nothing to those who do not know, and Chopin ceased +to add this explanation to his music. If one has the +intelligence it is impossible not to divine this <i>rule of +irregularity</i>. Liszt explained it thus to one of his pupils: +“Look at those trees; the wind plays in their leaves +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>and awakens life in them, yet they do not stir.” His +compositions should be played “with this kind of +accented and prosodic balance, this <i>morbidezza</i> of which +it is difficult to grasp the secret when one has not often +heard Chopin himself play.... He impressed upon +all of them some mystery of nameless colour, of vague +form, of vibrating pulsations, that were almost devoid of +materiality, and, like imponderable things, seemed to +act upon the soul without passing through the senses. +Chopin also liked to throw himself into burlesque +fantasies; of his own accord he sometimes evoked some +scene from Jacques Callot, with laughing, grimacing, +gambolling caricatures, witty and malicious, full of +musical flings, crackling with wit and English humour +like a fire of green boughs. One of these piquant +improvisations remains for us in the fifth <i>Etude</i>, where +only the black keys are played,—just as Chopin’s gaiety +moved only on the higher keys of the spirit.”</p> + +<p>It was to his compatriots that he demonstrated it +most willingly, to a few choice friends. It is said that +even to-day the pupils of his pupils shine in the reflected +glory of these preciously transmitted recipes. Doubtless +there will always be born here or there a Chopinian +soul; but can the intangible be taught? Liszt said: +“Chopin passed among us like a phantom.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV"> + CHAPTER XIV + <br> + <span class="smcap">Misunderstandings, Loneliness</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>In October, 1839, King Louis-Philippe expressed a +desire to hear Chopin play, and had him invited with +Moschelès, the pianist, to Saint-Cloud. Count de +Perthuis received the two artists at the entrance of the +castle. They had to cross a succession of rooms before +arriving at the Salon Carré, where the royal family were +informally gathered. Round the table sat the Queen +with her work-basket, Madame Adélaïde, the Duchess +of Orleans, and the ladies-in-waiting. Near to these, +the fat King filled his arm-chair. Chopin and Moschelès +were welcomed as old friends. They took turns at the +piano. Chopin played his <i>Nocturnes</i> and <i>Etudes</i>, Moschelès +his own <i>Etudes</i>; then they played as a duet a sonata +by Mozart. At the end of the <i>andante</i> there was a shower +of “delicious!” “divine!” and they were asked to +repeat it. Chopin’s fervour electrified the audience, so +much so that he gave himself up to a real “musical +delirium.” Enthusiasm on all sides. Chopin received +as a souvenir a cup of silver-gilt, Moschelès a travelling-case.</p> + +<p>Such an evening was exactly what was needed to +stimulate Chopin to work. The three years of the rue +Pigalle (1839–1842) which opened under these royal +auspices, were just such as he had wished; years of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>great and perfect labour. If the year 1839 saw the publication +of only <i>Trois valses brillantes</i>, it was pre-eminently +the year of the <i>Preludes</i>, perhaps the most rare and perfect +of Chopin’s masterpieces. Then came the famous +<i>Sonata in B flat minor</i> of which Schumann said strangely +enough: “... A certain pitiless genius blows in our +face, strikes anyone who tries to stand out against him +with a heavy fist, and makes us listen to the end, fascinated +and uncomplaining... but also without praise, because +this is not music. The sonata ends as it began, +in a riddle, like a mocking Sphinx.”</p> + +<p>Following this, Chopin gave to the world in 1840 +and 1841 four <i>Nocturnes</i>, the second and third <i>Ballades</i>, +a <i>Scherzo</i>, three <i>Polonaises</i>, four <i>Mazurkas</i>, three new +<i>Etudes</i>, a <i>Waltz</i>, the <i>Fantasy in F minor</i>, the <i>Tarantella</i>, +and a <i>Concerto Allegro</i>.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1841 he consented to play again in +public at Pleyel’s. The hall was crowded, naturally, +for at that time Chopin and Liszt were making the greatest +sensation at Paris. It was Liszt himself, that enthusiastic +heart, who claimed the honour of reporting it +for the <i>Gazette Musicale</i>. Here are a few of the variations +and cadenzas from the pen of the pianist:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“On Monday last, at eight in the evening, the Salon +Pleyel was magnificently lighted; to the foot of the +carpeted and flower-covered stairway a limitless line +of carriages brought the most elegant women, the most +fashionable young people, the most celebrated artists, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>the richest financiers, the most illustrious of the great +Lords, the whole <i>élite</i> of society, a whole aristocracy of +birth, fortune, talent, and beauty.</p> + +<p>“A large grand piano was open on a stage; they +pressed about it; they sought the closest places, already +they lent their ears, collected their thoughts, and said +that they must not lose a chord, a note, an intention, a +thought of him who was to be seated there, and they +were right to be thus greedy, attentive, religiously stirred, +because he whom they awaited, whom they wanted to +see, to hear, to admire, to applaud, was not only an +accomplished virtuoso, a pianist expert in the art of +making notes, was not only an artist of great renown. +He was all that, and more than all that; he was Chopin.</p> + +<p>“... It is only rare, at very long intervals, that +Chopin is heard in public, but what would be a certain +cause of obscurity and neglect for anyone else is precisely +what assures him a renown beyond the whim of +fashion, and what puts him out of the reach of +rivalry, jealousy and injustice. Chopin, holding aloof +from the excessive turmoil which for the last several +years has driven executive artists from all parts of the +world, one on top of another, and one against another, +has remained constantly surrounded by faithful disciples, +enthusiastic pupils, warm friends, who, while protecting +him from vexing quarrels and painful slights, have never +ceased to spread his works and with them admiration +for his genius and respect for his name. Therefore +this exquisite celebrity always on a plane, excellently +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>aristocratic, has been free from every attack. He +has been surrounded by a complete absence of criticism, +as though posterity had rendered its verdict; and in the +brilliant audience which flocked about the too long +silent poet, there was not a reticence, not a restriction; +there was but praise from every mouth.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Chopin was satisfied with his friend. Some weeks +later he left for Nohant, full of ideas, but with no real +pleasure. “I am not made for the country,” he said, +“although I do rejoice in the fresh air.” That was +really very little. For her part, Sand wrote: “He was +always wanting Nohant, and could never stand Nohant.” +His rural appetite was soon sated. He walked a little, +sat under a tree, or picked a few flowers. Then he +returned and shut himself in his room. He was reproached +for loving the artificial life. What he really +loved was his fever, his dimmed soul, his position as +Madame Sands’ “regular invalid.” Without realizing +it, he cultivated the old leanings of his childhood, his +irresolution, his most morbid sensibility, all the refinements +of luxury and of the spirit. What he did not like +he set himself, unthinkingly, to hate: the plebeian side +of George’s character, her humanitarian dreams, her +friends who were democratic by feeling and by birth, +especially Pierre Leroux, dirty, badly combed, with a +collar powdered with dandruff, who was continually +turning up to beg subsidy. Oh, how good it was to +see Delacroix appear, the perfect dandy, looking as if he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>had just stepped out of a bandbox! He and Frederick +had the air of two princes strayed into evil company +at the table where Leroux and Maurice’s studio friends +exaggerated their open collar garb. Together the two +artists humorously bewailed George’s toleration of +such freedom. What would Liszt have said, Liszt +so particular in such matters, Liszt who, called himself +a “professor of good manners?” But Madame Sand +had small sympathy with such regard for appearances. +She overrode the bursts of coarse laughter, the shouts, +the disputes of her guests, the familiarity of her servants, +the drunkenness of her brother Hippolyte. She heeded +nothing but the sincerity of heart, listened to nothing +but ideas, and insisted that “flies should not be taken +for elephants.” She termed the exasperation of Chopin +unhealthy, incomprehensible, and refused to see in it +anything but the caprices of a sick child of genius. He +retired into his room and sulked. He was not visible +except at meal times when he looked on the company +with suspicion, with disgust.</p> + +<p>A rather painful incident marked the summer of +1841. It arose through Mlle. de Rozières, a pupil of +Chopin’s, who was George’s friend and the mistress of +Antoine Wodzinski. Chopin thought her an intriguer, +a parasite, and he was displeased that she had been able +to insinuate herself into intimacy with George. More +than that, he thought her ostentatious, loud, and grandiloquent +in the expression of her friendship. But what +loosed his anger was that Antoine, inspired perhaps +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>by Mlle. de Rozières, had sent to the Wodzinski family +a replica of his, Chopin’s bust, by the sculptor Dantan. +What equivocal intention might they not read into such +an action? What might Marie, his old <i>fiancée</i>, think? +Frederick was aghast, and complained to Fontana, who +had given the statue to Antoine. “I gave Antoine +no permission,” he wrote to him.... “And how +strange this will appear to the family... They will +never believe that it was not I who gave it to him. +These are very delicate matters in which there should be +no meddling touch... Mlle. de Rozières is indiscreet, +loves to parade her intimacy, and delights in interfering +in other people’s affairs. She will embellish all this, +exaggerate it, and make a bull out of a frog, and it won’t +be for the first time. She is (between ourselves) an +insipid swine, who in an astonishing manner has dug +into my private affairs, thrown up the dirt, and rooted +around for truffles among the roses. She is a person +that one must on no account touch, because when one has +touched her the result is sure to be an indescribable +indiscretion. In fact, she is an old maid! We old +bachelors, we are worth a lot more!”</p> + +<p>On her side, George revealed the great man’s irritation +to this young lady. She unfolded on this friendly +heart, because was she not attacked from below and +pierced with pin pricks each time that she took sides +against the pronouncements of her friend? “If I had +not been a witness to these extravagant neurotic likes +and dislikes for three years, I should by no means understand +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>them, but unfortunately I am too used to them,” +she wrote. “I tried to cheer him up by telling him +that W. was not coming here; he could count on that. +He hit the ceiling, and said that if I was certain, apparently +it was because I had told W. the truth. Thereupon +I said ‘Yes.’ I thought he would go mad. He wanted +to leave. He said I would make him look like a fool, +jealous, ridiculous, that I was embroiling him with his +best friends, that it all came from the gossip that had been +going on between you and me, etc., etc.... Anyway, +as usual, he wanted no one to suffer from his jealousy +but me.” And further on: “I have never had any +rest and I never shall have any with him. With his +distressing nature, you never know where you are. +The day before yesterday he passed the whole day without +saying a syllable to anyone at all.... I do not want +him to think he is the master. He would be so much +the more suspicious in the future, and even if he gained +this victory he would be in despair, because he does +not know what he wants, nor what he does not want.”</p> + +<p>Certainly Chopin was jealous, but a meaning slightly +different to the usual one should be attached to the word. +It was not the jealousy of a lover. His jealousy extended +to all the influences, the desires, the curiosities, and the +friendships of his mistress. It was the wild need of +absolute possession. He had to know at each moment +that all of George’s vital sources were born in his own +heart, that if he was the child in fact, he was the father +in spirit. He had to feel that his reign effaced preceding +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>reigns, abolished them, and that in adopting him, in +loving him, George was born anew. He would have +liked her to be ignorant of the very existence of evil, +never to think of it in speaking to him, and without +ceasing to be good, tender, devoted, voluptuous, maternal, +still be the pale, the innocent, the severe, the virginal +spouse of his soul. “He would have demanded but +that of me, this poor lover of the impossible,” noted +Sand. And when he found himself losing this universal +possessorship, which his love should have given him, +he would have nothing more to do with it. He repulsed +feeble substitutes.</p> + +<p>Assuredly, he had some reason to be jealous of everyone, +of a too-forward servant, of the Doctor, of the great +simpleton of a cousin, half bourgeois, half lout, who +brought game to the mistress of Nohant, of a beggar, a +poacher with a strong face,—because this invalid with +sharpened nerves well understood what troubles, what +desires these passers-by aroused in a woman for whom +the “exercise of the emotions” was the true law of +knowledge; of a woman,—who, he well knew, had no +fear, and no scruples in the face of this kind of experience. +So he found the wit to torment her. “He seemed +to be gnawing softly to amuse himself, and the wound +that he made penetrated the entrails.” Then he would +leave her presence with a phrase that was perfectly +polite, but freezing, and once more shut himself up in +his own room. During her nights of toil, George +served as her own <i>écorché</i>, stripped the elusive soul of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>her lover, and, good woman of letters that she was, +traced their double portrait in her <i>Lucrezia Floriani</i>. +Was it obtuseness, sadism, or an obscure vengeance that +led her the next day to make Chopin read these pitiless +reconstructions? But the artist saw nothing, or at +least he seemed not to. He bent over the pages, he +admired, he praised; but as always, he gave out nothing +of his inner self, and if Lucrezia delivered herself in +writing, Prince Karol returned to his room where the +light sounds of the piano interpreted all of his suppressed +misery. He, also, clung to his grief, and even to the +outward signs of his grief, “Take good care of my +manuscripts,” he advised Fontana. “Don’t tear them, +don’t dirty them, don’t spoil them.... I love my +<i>written pain</i> so much that I always tremble for my papers.”</p> + +<p>“The <i>friendship</i> of Chopin...” wrote George. Or +else: “Our own story had no romance in it.” And +even: “His piano was much more his torment than his +joy.” This shows to what a point beings who have +mingled their lives can reserve their souls. Here are +two such—very penetrating, very greedy, who yet were +never wedded.</p> + +<p>In the Autumn of 1842 George Sand and Chopin +left the rue Pigalle to move to Nos. 5 and 9 in the +Square d’Orléans. Between them at No. 7 lived their +great friend Mme. Marliani, the wife of a Spanish politician. +Near neighbours were Pauline Viardot and the +sculptor Dantan. Here they established a kind of <i>commune</i> +which provided diversion for them, and where +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>freedom was “guaranteed.” Each one worked and +lived at home. Their meals were taken, at the common +expense, at Mme. Marliani’s. Chopin had a large salon +for his pianos; Sand, a billiard room. His quarters +were furnished in the modern style of Louis-Philippe, +with a clock and empire candelabra on the mantelshelf. +Behind one of the pianos was a painting by Frère of +a caravan on the desert, above the other a Coignet pastel +of the Pyramids. During the day they seldom met, +but in the evening they dropped in on one another like +good country neighbours. Chopin always cultivated +elegant society, and received at his house his titled and +amorous pupils. But he received only with a good deal +of distaste the innumerable pianists and priers who now +came to call on him and solicited his support.</p> + +<p>One day Chopin’s valet brought in the card of a M. +W. de Lenz, a Russian virtuoso and writer on musical +subjects. He would have stood less chance than any, +this enemy of his Poland, of being received by Chopin +if the card had not borne in pencil the words “<i>Laissez +passer</i>: Franz Liszt.” He therefore decided to have +this slightly importunate gentleman in, and begged him +to be seated at the piano. Lenz played well. It was +apparent that he was a pupil of Liszt. He surpassed +himself in one or two of Chopin’s <i>Mazurkas</i>, and like his +master, added a few embellishments. Chopin was both +amused and a little irritated.</p> + +<p>“He has to touch everything, this good Franz! +But a recommendation from him deserves something; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>you are the first pupil who has come from him. I shall +give you two lessons a week. Be punctual; with me +everything runs on schedule. My house is a pigeon-cote.” +As M. de Lenz had expressed a lively desire to +make the acquaintance of Mme. Sand, Chopin invited +him to call again as a friend. He arrived, therefore, +one evening, and Chopin presented him to George, to +Pauline Viardot, to Mme. Marliani. Sand, hostile and +reserved, said not a word, for she detested Russians; but +Lenz pointedly seated himself at her side. He noticed +that Chopin was fluttering about “like a little frightened +bird in a cage.” In order to relieve the tension, Chopin +asked Lenz to play the <i>Invitation to the Waltz</i>, an elegant +specialty of the Russian, who several years before had +revealed it to Liszt himself. Lenz played it, slightly +intimidated. On which George continued to remain +silent. Chopin held out his hand amiably, then Lenz +seated himself with some embarrassment behind the table +on which a <i>Carcel</i> lamp was burning.</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you coming to St. Petersburg some time?” +demanded the stranger, addressing Sand.</p> + +<p>“I should never lower myself to a country of +slaves!”</p> + +<p>“You would be right not to come. You might find +the door shut.”</p> + +<p>The disconcerted George opened her big eyes which +Lenz described in his notes as “beautiful big heifer’s +eyes.” Chopin, however, did not seem displeased, as +if he enjoyed having his mistress put out of countenance. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>She arose, went to the fireplace where a log was flaming, +and lighted a fat Havana cigar.</p> + +<p>“Frederick, a spill!” she cried. He rose and brought +the light.</p> + +<p>“At Petersburg,” went on George, blowing out a +cloud of smoke, “probably I could not smoke a cigar in +a drawing-room?”</p> + +<p>“In no drawing-room, Madame, have I ever seen a +cigar smoked,” replied this badly brought up Lenz, +looking at the pictures through his glasses.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it must be supposed that these robust +manners were not altogether displeasing, for the day after +this visit while Chopin was giving him his lesson, he +said to Lenz:</p> + +<p>“Madame Sand thinks she has been rude to you. +She can be so pleasant. She liked you.”</p> + +<p>One can divine what obscure attractions this sensualist +obeyed. At times victories of the flesh are preceded +by victories of wit. But Chopin was not the man for +that sort of thing, Chopin who had so little muscle, so +little breath, and such a delicate skin “that a prick of +a gnat made a deep gash in him.” The whole complication +came about because he still loved with passion, while +she had, for a long time, dwelt in affection. Her “little +Chopin” she loved, she adored, but in the same way +that she loved Maurice and Solange.</p> + +<p>In the months during which they lived apart, she +was constantly disturbed about his health. She knew +that he did not take care of himself. She wrote to one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>person and another to ask them to keep a discreet watch. +Wasn’t he forgetting to drink his chocolate in the morning, +his bouillon at ten o’clock? They must make him +take care of himself, and not go out without his muffler.</p> + +<p>But, he had found a new way to exalt still further the +sentiments which, from their very lack of balance, are +an active stimulant to artistic production; he would not +worry her, he would leave her in ignorance of his moral +and physical illness, of his agonies, of his hæmorrhages. +Let her, at least, have the peace necessary for her work. +In every willing sacrifice to love there are humble joys, +all the deeper for remaining hidden; but it is the most +deeply buried love that nourishes the most.</p> + +<p>George now passed part of her winters in the country, +while Chopin wore himself out in Paris. It was a +problem not to let her notice anything. His letters +were gay, confiding. Sickness holds aloof, so he pretends, +and only happiness is ahead. “Your little garden +(in the Square d’Orléans) is all snowballs, sugar, swans, +ermine, cream cheese, Solange’s hands, and Maurice’s +teeth. Take care of yourself. Don’t tire yourself +out too much with your tasks. Your always older than +ever, and very, extremely, incredibly old,</p> + +<p class="right"> + “<span class="smcap">Chopin.</span>” +</p> + +<p>Perhaps he had never felt more alone, this “little +sufferer,” as his maternal friend calls him. But he was +the essential solitary.</p> + +<p>Forty years later than that time, I see another who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>resembles him, and who also feeds upon a terribly hard +<i>me</i>, a me which, no more than that of Chopin, could +expand over other beings, bleed on them, because he +was too high, too savage, too shamed; that is Nietzsche. +It is not surprising that Nietzsche loved Chopin like +a chosen brother. The love of both was too great for +their hearts.</p> + +<p>When I hear played the <i>Nocturne in C Minor</i> (op. 48), +where, under so much repressed suffering, there still +bursts forth, mingled with sadness, this ideal which is +built only upon the creative joys of the spirit, I think +of a page written by Nietzsche in a loggia overlooking +the Barberini Square at Rome, in May, 1883. This is +that beautiful <i>Night Song</i> through which pass the blue +and black visions of Chopin, his flower-like glance, his +young girl’s eyes, and his heart so “extremely, incredibly +old.” Some fragments of these strophes seem to me to +furnish for the <i>Nocturne</i> of which I speak—and for the +final solitudes into which the poet is now entering—a +commentary worthy of them. Before calling them +to mind I should say that a tradition among the Polish +artists has it that this piece was composed one stormy +day when Chopin had taken refuge in the Church of St.-Germain +des Prés. He listened to the Mass under the +rolling thunder and, coming back home, improvised the +fine chorale that forms the centre of this solemn Elevation. +But that does not for a moment prevent me from associating +this prayer with the pagan song of Nietzsche. Quite +the contrary: both the one and the other have this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>transport, this point of enthusiasm, which draws the +cry from the philosopher: “There is in me a desire for +love which itself speaks the language of love.”</p> + +<blockquote style="margin-top:2em; width:60%; margin-left:20%; margin-right:20%;"> +<p class="center"> +THE NIGHT SONG +</p> + +<p>“It is night: now the voice of the trickling fountains rises +higher. And my soul, also, is a trickling fountain.</p> + +<p>“It is night: now all the songs of the lovers awake. And my +soul, also, is a lovers’ song.</p> + +<p>“There is in me something unappeased, and unappeasable, that +struggles to raise its voice. There is in me a desire for love which +itself speaks the language of love.</p> + +<p>“I am light: ah! if I were night! But this is my solitude, to +be enveloped in light.</p> + +<p class="center"> +· · · · · +</p> + +<p>“My poverty is that my hand never rests from giving; my +jealousy, to see eyes full of waiting and nights illuminated with +desire.</p> + +<p>“Oh, misery of all those who give! Oh, eclipse of my sun! +Oh, desire of desiring! Oh, the devouring hunger in satiety!”</p> + +<p class="center"> +· · · · · +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Thus sang Zarathustra.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV"> + CHAPTER XV + <br> + <span class="smcap">Chagrin, Hate</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>It seems that it was about 1842 that life for Chopin +began to lower its tone. For whom should he cultivate +even the will to get well, now that love was no +longer ahead, but behind him? Lovers who feel the +power of suffering desiccating in them abandon themselves +immediately to the soft call of Death. If they +disappear, they are reproached for having been weaklings; +if they survive, for having been cynics. They themselves +do not suspect that they are emptied of their substance +like those hollow trees still full of leaves which a gust +of wind will vanquish. Chopin, dying, thought himself +eternal.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1842, his childhood friend, Matuszinski, +succumbed to tuberculosis. In May, 1844, his +father passed away at Warsaw. It was the end of a +just man. He closed his eyes looking at the portraits +and the bust of his beloved son, and asked that after +death his body should be opened because he feared being +buried alive.</p> + +<p>These two shocks were terrific for the artist, yet +he wrote to his own people: “I have already survived +so many younger and stronger people than I that it +seems I am eternal.... You must never worry about +me: God gives me His Grace.” In view of his persistent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>depression, George conceived the idea of inviting +Frederick’s oldest sister and her husband, the Jedrzeïewiczs, +to Nohant. It was necessary to warn them of +the great changes they were to see in their brother’s +health. George wrote to them:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“You will find my dear child very thin and greatly +changed since the time when you saw him, yet you +must not be too fearful for his health. In general, it +has not changed for more than six years, during which +I have seen him every day. A strong paroxysm of +coughing every morning, and each winter two or three +more considerable spells, each lasting only two or three +days, some neuralgic pain from time to time, that is his +regular state. For the rest, his chest is healthy, and his +delicate organism has no lesion. I am always hoping +that with time it will grow stronger, but at least I am +sure that with a regulated life and care it will last as +long as any other. The happiness of seeing you, mixed +though it be with deep and poignant emotions, which +may perhaps wound him a little the first day, nevertheless +will do him immense good, and I am so happy for him +that I bless the decision you have made.... For a +long time he has cared for nothing but the happiness +of those whom he loves, instead of that which he +can no longer share with them. For my part, I +have done everything I could to soften this cruel lack, +and though I have not made him forget it, I have +at least the consolation of knowing that, after you, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>I have given and inspired as much affection as is +possible.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>George even wrote to Mme. Nicolas Chopin to assure +her that henceforth she would consecrate her life to +Frederick and regard him as her own son.</p> + +<p>So Louise and her husband came in 1844 to spend +part of the summer at Nohant, and the joy that Chopin +experienced was translated into a new feeling of gratitude +for his friend. Some of the bitterness left his soul, +making him stronger and more courageous. Even +confidence returned for a time. The filial and family +side of his tenderness was thus reënforced.</p> + +<p>When they had gone, Frederick clung even more +closely to his “dear ones,” those pieces of himself. He +saw them again in dreams. He looked for their places +on the sofa, preserved like a relic an embroidered slipper +forgotten by his sister, and used the pencil from her +pocket-book as in other days Marie Wodzinska had used +his. He sent them news of the autumn, of the garden. +He entered into the most minute details, even to speaking +of the tiny bear which went up and down on the +barometer. How clearly one sees all that he lacked, +this deficient lover!</p> + +<p>On their walks he followed the others on a donkey +so as to tire himself less. But the autumn was cold and +rainy, and Chopin passed more time before the piano +than out of doors. He returned to Paris and reinstalled +himself in the Square d’Orléans at the very beginning +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>of November. George was seriously concerned this +time about “her dear corpse,” and recommending him +to friends while she stayed in the country. This period +is marked in one way and another by a blaze of affectionate +solicitude. Chopin did not want her to worry, +and continued to hide the progress of his malady. +Without his knowledge, George got information about +him. “He must not know....” “I cannot rid myself +of these preoccupations which make up the happiness +of my life....” “Decidedly I cannot live without +my little sufferer.” She realized that “Chip’s” constitution +was attacked in a very serious way. He was visibly +declining. The bad winter, nerves, irritation, the +persistent bronchitis were perhaps the causes. In any +case, love was still powerful. But love had apparently +taken refuge in family feeling. “... Let him never +have the least inquietude about any of you,” wrote +George to Louise, “because his heart is always with +you, tormenting him at every moment and turning him +toward his dear family.”</p> + +<p>During the winter of 1845, and the spring of 1846, +he was ill with influenza, yet he made none but the usual +plans and proposed to spend the summer at Nohant. +Before leaving, he gave a little dinner. “Music, flowers, +grub.” For guests: Prince Czartoryski and his wife (the +latter, it may be said in passing, was the most brilliant +and the most authentic of the feminine pupils of her +master); Princess Sapieha, Delacroix, Louis Blanc, Pauline +Viardot; in short, old friends. But on his arrival at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>Nohant everything seemed strange to him, as in a house +abandoned by life. He moved his piano and rearranged +his table, his books of poetry, his music. “I have +always one foot with you,” he wrote to Louise and her +husband, “and the other in the room next door where +my hostess works, and none at all in my own home +just now, <i>but always in strange places</i>. These are without +doubt imaginary <i>places</i>, but I don’t blush for them.”</p> + +<p>His delight was to make Pauline Viardot sing the +Spanish melodies that she had noted down herself. +“I am very fond of these songs. She has promised +me to sing them to you when she goes to Warsaw. +This music will unite me with you. I have always +listened to it with great enthusiasm.”</p> + +<p>But we must look below the surface, because in the +depths of all these beings who lived in common a drama +was preparing. One can say that it had been brewing for +several years. And neither George nor Frederick was +to be responsible for its explosion, but the children.</p> + +<p>First there was Maurice, the oldest, a young man of +twenty-two adored and very much spoiled by his mother, +wretchedly brought up, a dabbler, as the whim took +him, in painting and literature, and a collector of lepidoptera +and of minerals, he promised, in sum, to become +a fairly complete type of the intelligent failure. He +was not without talent; he had charm and gaiety, +touched, however, with bitterness and gruffness. Since +the trip to Majorca, he had had time to get accustomed +to Chopin, having seen this friend of his mother every +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>day, so to speak. But if there had been at first a certain +sympathy between them, it quickly flagged, and for +several years now they had not got on. No doubt, this +is easily explained. Maurice loved his mother above +everything, and he saw clearly that her life was not +easy, or smooth; he came upon disputes, he was exasperated +by the nervousness of the so-called great man, +who was to him merely a difficult, reserved, and sometimes +ill-natured invalid. Perhaps he even suffered from the +ambiguous smiles that followed the two celebrated +lovers. And then his father, the mediocre Dudevant, +must occasionally have let fall outrageously gross witticisms +when his son came to see him. Maurice was +chilled also by the character of Chopin, by the aristocratic +manners, the often disdainful eye of this puzzling +and encumbering parasite. Children never forgive a +stranger who allows himself a criticism, much less if +it is well founded. Chopin made one, severe enough, +concerning Maurice and Augustine. This Augustine was +a relation of Mme. Sand, daughter of her cousin, Adèle +Brault, who belonged to the side of the family that was +entirely bourgeois and who was nothing else than a +lady of easy virtue. Out of pity for the girl, George had +taken her into her home, where Augustine, charming +and tender-hearted, had become the favourite of all +the young people with one exception, Solange. Chopin +did not like Augustine. He took Solange’s side. As +for Maurice, the born enemy of his sister, he was <i>for</i> +Augustine to such a degree that he was suspected of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>having become her lover. George denied this vociferously, +with authority, but Chopin willingly believed it, +first because of his intuition, secondly because Solange +tried, by all manner of means, to fix the idea in his head.</p> + +<p>A strange child, this Solange. Physically, she was +the image of her great-grandmother, Marie-Aurore of +Saxe, that is to say, blonde, fresh, beautifully built. +In character, she was cold, brilliant and lively, passionate, +vain, very excitable, sullen, possibly false, certainly strong +willed, vicious without any doubt, absolutely unbalanced. +This neurotic, who might have developed in such a very +interesting way, they always regarded as hard-hearted. +They pestered her, they soured her, they made her ruthless. +Pauline Viardot contended that she did wrong for +the love of it. She was, in point of fact, innately ardent +and unhappy. A nature such as this has need of being +loved deeply, and her trials came above all through +jealousy. Offences slowly recorded by her heart made +it solitary and injurious. Her mother herself said: +“She is nineteen years old, she is beautiful, she has a +remarkable mind, she has been brought up with love +under conditions of happiness, growth and morality, +which should have made of her a saint or a heroine. +But this century is damned, and she is a child of this +century.... Everything is passion with her, an <i>icy</i> +passion, that is very deep, inexplicable and terrifying.” +Whose fault was that? It is only in families that one +finds these refined hatreds which are one of the sad +aspects of love.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span></p> + +<p>For a long time the mystery of this soul had attracted +Chopin. Solange was essentially a coquette. Ever +since her puberty she had practised the power of her +troubled age on him, and this man of nerves had not +seemed insensible. Did he not rediscover in her the +seductions and even that free and animal grace that George +must have had at fifteen? A lover loves, in the daughter +of his mistress, the happiness that he has missed, +and the rejuvenated memory of his sufferings. Solange +was less frank than her mother; she was even somewhat +perverse. She tried a few games that were not altogether +innocent; first from predilection, and also to +appease the amorous rancour that she vowed against +her own people. It would be fine to avenge her own +spurned heart by stealing Chopin’s tenderness from +her mother. Another of his attractions for Solange +was his elegance, his distinction, his high worldly connections. +For she was a snob, and it was delicious to flee +to the great friend’s salon, which was filled with countesses, +when that of her mother resounded with the roars +of Maurice and his comrades, or the “great thoughts” +of Pierre Leroux. Lately there had even been found +there a herd of poet-workmen to whom the novelist was +stubbornly attached.</p> + +<p>Here then was a whole obscure drama daily averted +but daily reawakened, sown with misunderstandings, +and complicated by embarrassments. For Sand, many +times, wanted to talk it out with her lover, to force him to +interfere, but he shied away, or even openly took +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>Solange’s part. George tried in vain to break her +daughter. Rather she broke herself against the sharp +edges of the character which in many ways were so like +her own.</p> + +<p>It was Chopin who suffered the most from these +misunderstandings, because he could never relieve +himself by words, by vain explanations, because he +could never express anything except in music. His +nervousness increased. He allowed himself to become +exasperated to the point of tears by incidents affecting +servants. He could not conceive that an old servant +could be dismissed, and Mme. Sand, that good <i>communist</i>, +was quite capable of reconstructing her household with +a sweep of her arm. It was a calamity. Frederick’s +Polish <i>valet de chambre</i> was dismissed “because the +children (Read: ‘Maurice and Augustine’) did not +like him.” Then it was the old gardener, Pierre, who +was turned off after forty years of service. Next came +the turn of Françoise, the chambermaid, to whom, +nevertheless, George had dedicated one of her books. +“God grant,” wrote Frederick to his sister, “that the +new ones will please the young man and his cousin +more.” He was tired. And, when he was tired he was +not gay. That reacted on everyone’s spirits. He felt old.</p> + +<p>George also felt old. She was forty-two. And even +while correcting a passage in her <i>Lucrezia Floriani</i>, she +was thinking so strongly of herself, and of her first lover, +that she returned for the first time in fifteen years to the +little wood she could see from her window, where +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>she used to meet Jules Sandeau. It was in this “sacred +wood” that her flight from the conjugal house had been +decided, in 1831. There she searched, and there she +found a tree under which her lover had been in the habit +of waiting for her. Their initials cut into the bark were +still faintly visible. “She went over in her memory the +details and the whole story of her first passion, and compared +them to those of her last, not to establish a parallel +between the two men, whom she did not dream of judging +coldly, but to ask her own heart if it could still feel +passion and bear suffering.... ‘Am I still capable +of loving? Yes, more than ever, because it is the +essence of my life, and through pain I experience intensity +of life; if I could no longer love, I could no longer +suffer. I suffer, therefore I love and I exist.’” And +yet she felt that she must renounce something. What +then? The hope of happiness? “‘At a certain age,’ +she finished by thinking, ‘there is no other happiness +than that which one gives; to look for any other is +madness.’... So La Floriani was seized with an +immense sadness in saying an eternal farewell to her +cherished illusions. She rolled on the ground, drowned +in tears.”</p> + +<p>This summer’s end of 1846 was a trying period, a +period of crises. The sky itself was full of storm. +Yet Chopin worked. He wrote to the loved ones at +Warsaw. He told them all the stories which one must +pack into a letter when one wishes to hide one’s true +feelings. The giraffe at the Jardin des Plantes was dead. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>The <i>Italians</i> had reopened in Paris. M. Le Verier had +discovered a new planet. M. Faber of London, a +Professor of Mathematics, had built a machine that +sang an air of Haydn, and <i>God Save the Queen</i>. “I play +a little, and also write a little. I am one moment happy +about my <i>Sonata</i> with the violoncello, and the next +unhappy; I throw it in the corner and then take it up +again. I have three new <i>Mazurkas</i> (in B major, F +minor, and C sharp minor, dedicated to Countess Czosnowska. +These are his last works—op. 63 and 65). +When I am composing them I think they are good; +otherwise one would never compose. Later on comes +reflection, and one rejects or accepts. Time is the best +judge and patience the best master. I hope to have a +letter from you soon, yet I am not impatient, and I +know that with your large family it is difficult for each +one to write me a word, especially as with us a pen is +not enough. I don’t know how many years we would +have to talk to be at the end of our Latin, as they say +here. So you must not be surprised or sad when you +do not receive a letter from me, because there is no +real reason, any more than there is with you. A certain +sadness blends with the pleasure of writing to you; it +is the knowledge that between us there are no words, +hardly even deeds.... The winter does not promise +badly, and by taking care of myself a little it will pass +like the last, and God willing, not worse. How many +people are worse off than I! It is true that many are +better, but I do not think about them.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span></p> + +<p>Have we noticed those words: “Especially as with +us a pen is not enough...?” There sounds the +exquisite mute on Chopin’s plaints. For George the +pen was enough. Everyone around Frederick, in +default of being happy, was noisy. They played comedies. +They got up <i>tableaux vivants</i> and charades. Pantomime, +over which the whole world was soon to go crazy, +was Chopin’s invention. It was he who sat at the piano +and improvised while the young people danced comic +ballets, with the assistance of a few guests: Arago, +Louis Blanc. But no one suspected that between +George and Frederick the break was complete. Desire +had been dead for a long time. And now tenderness, +affection, the attachment of the soul, no longer existed +but on one side. In weeping over her lost youth in the +“sacred wood,” George had shed her last tears.</p> + +<p>Thenceforth she was to be only a mother, pitilessly +a mother, and only of her <i>two</i> children. She was busy +now in marrying off Solange. Two or three aspirants +succeeded each other at Nohant, one after the other, +among them Victor de Laprade, followed by a young +Berry lad, with whom Solange flirted gaily.</p> + +<p>Then one fine day, a dispute burst out between +Maurice and Chopin over some silly question. One +of those grave, irreparable disputes. The two wounded +each other unmercifully. A moment later they embraced, +“but the grain of sand has fallen into the quiet lake, +and little by little the stones fall in, one by one,” wrote +George. It soon began again. Maurice spoke of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>leaving the group and the house. His mother took his +side, naturally. So Chopin bowed his head. It was +he who would go. No one said a word to restrain +him.</p> + +<p>He started out in the first days of November. Seven +years and a half before, he had arrived at Nohant for +the first time, his physique already much deteriorated. +That is nothing, however, when the soul is strong. +But on this late autumn day that, too, had collapsed.</p> + +<p>They saw the invalid, wrapped in rugs, getting into +his carriage. With his hand, pale and dry, he made +a sign of farewell. No one understood its meaning, +not even himself. He was about to get into his grave.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI"> + CHAPTER XVI + <br> + <span class="smcap">The Story of an Estrangement</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>There was a great deal of sickness in Paris. Grzymala +had just passed seventeen days without sleeping; +Delacroix, more ill than ever, dragged himself +nevertheless to the Luxembourg. Chopin too, tried +to put people off the scent, as he had done all those past +years. But at length he was forced to admit that he +had not the courage to leave his own hearth for an instant. +New Year’s Day, 1847, arrived. He sent George the +customary bonbons, and his best wishes, and, smothered +in coats, had himself driven to the Hôtel Lambert, to +his friends the Czartoryskis.</p> + +<p>At Nohant, they kept up the semblance of happiness. +Pantomime raged. Scenery was brushed up, costumes +were made. This united family played out its comedy +also. But suddenly the luggage was packed for a +return to Paris early in January, leaving Solange’s fiancé, +M. des Préaulx, stranded. And hardly had they been +settled a month in the Square d’Orléans when everything +was unsettled again by the entrance on the scene of a +new actor: the sculptor Clésinger. He was a man of +thirty-three, violent, full-blooded, enthusiastic, who had +just made a name in the exhibitions and achieved fame +at the first stroke. He had asked to do a bust of Mme. +Sand, came to call, saw Solange and was lost. She was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>almost as quickly inflamed. The projected marriage +with M. des Préaulx was postponed in spite of the misgivings +of George, who had gathered decidedly vexing +information about the sculptor. “A hot-tempered +and disorderly gentleman, a one-time dragoon, now a +great sculptor everywhere conducting himself as though +he were in the café of the regiment, or in the studio,” +said Arsène Houssaye. All decisions were postponed. +The novelist took her daughter back to Nohant immediately +after the first days of Holy Week, at the beginning +of April.</p> + +<p>Chopin at once had a very decided opinion about +these events. First; regret to see the Berry union fall +through, as it seemed to him a very sweet and proper +one. Then, an instinctive dislike made him hostile to +the “stone tailor,” as he called Clésinger. He wrote to +his people: “Sol is not to be married yet. By the +time they had all come to Paris to sign the contract, +she no longer wanted it. I am sorry, and I pity the +young man, who is very honest and very much in love; +but it is better that it should have happened before the +marriage than after. They say it is postponed till +later on, but I know what that means.” George, for her +part, confided her difficulties to a friend: “Within six +weeks she has broken off a love affair she had hardly felt, +and she has accepted another on which she is ardently +set. She was engaged to one when she drove him off +and became engaged to another. It’s odd, it’s above all +bold; but still, it is her right, and fortune smiles on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>her. She substitutes for a gentle and modest marriage +a brilliant and burning one. She has it all her own way, +and is taking me to Paris at the end of April.... +Work and emotion take up all my days and all my nights.... +This wedding must take place suddenly, as though +by surprise. Also it is a <i>deep</i> secret I am confiding to +you, and one that even Maurice does not know. (He +is in Holland.”)</p> + +<p>Above all, Chopin was not to know anything,—Chopin, +who was now refused all intimate participation in the +family affairs. George really knew she had met her +master this time, in his fierce Clésinger who boasted +that he would attain his ends at any cost. He appeared +suddenly at La Châtre, he repeatedly met Solange in the +woods, he demanded a definite answer. Naturally she +said yes, since she loved him. George was forced to +give in, despite her apprehensions, her terror. On +the 16th of April, she called her son to the rescue +because she was afraid, she needed to be reassured. +She added at the end of the letter: “Not a word +of all this to Chopin; it does not concern him, and +when the Rubicon is crossed, <i>ifs</i> and <i>buts</i> do only +harm.”</p> + +<p>When the Rubicon is crossed.... One more time! +How many times had she crossed it during her life, +this old hand at ruptures? And yet she pretended not +to see that this was the critical point of her long liaison. +The marriage of Solange, this fact, indeed, entirely outside +of her own love-life, had become the plank to which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>the hand of the pianist still clung, and she kicked it away +with her heel.</p> + +<p>Chopin heard whispered gossip about the affair, but +he said nothing, he questioned no one. He waited for +a renewal of confidence. If all the mystery astonished +him, if he even guessed at the deliberate and childish +side of the now obvious rupture of his friendship, he +made no sign. As always, it was his health that paid +for his muzzled pangs. He was taken gravely ill. But +it was no longer George who nursed him; it was Princess +Marceline Czartoryska. She sent a bulletin of his +health to Nohant. “One more trouble added to all +the rest,” replied George on May 7th. “Is he really +seriously ill? Write to me, I count on you to tell me +the truth and to nurse him.” Yet on that very day she +wrote in her <i>Journal</i> with a calmer pen: “Here I am +at the age of forty-three with a constitution of iron, +streaked with painful indispositions, which give me, +however, <i>only a few hours of spleen, dissipated the next day.... +To-day my soul is well, and my body also.</i>” Was it +that day that she was sincere, or the next, the 8th of +May, when she said to Mlle. de Rozières: “I am sick +with worry and am having an attack of giddiness while +writing to you. I cannot leave my family at such a +moment, when I have not even Maurice to save the +proprieties and protect his sister from wicked insinuations. +I suffer a great deal, I assure you. Write to me, +I beg. Tell Chopin whatever you think best about +me. Yet I dare not to write him, I am afraid of disturbing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>him, I am afraid that Solange’s marriage displeases +him greatly and that he has a disagreeable shock each +time I speak to him about it. Yet I could not make a +mystery of it to him and I have had to act as I have done. +I cannot make Chopin the head and counsellor of the +family; my children would not accept him, and the +dignity of my life would be lost.”</p> + +<p>Had it been a question of dignity it would have been +better to have thought of that earlier. Had it been a +question of sparing Chopin’s health, then it was too +late for that, too. She did not even perceive the contradictions +in her letter. The poor great artist remained +firm in his determined silence, and desperately proud.</p> + +<p>Yet George had just published her <i>Lucrezia Floriani</i>, +already the funeral march of her love. But Chopin +continued to see in it nothing but “beautiful characters +of women and men, great naturalness and poetry.” +This would force her to confess differently, to explain +herself further. For there was always in her this impetuous +need of justification which drove her, at the decisive +moments of the beginning or of the end of a love affair, +to acknowledge the forces that motivated her. To +whom should she, this time, fling the comments of her +sick brain, and expose the fatigue of a body which thenceforth +would be able to demand but the briefest of gratifications? +Eight years before she had written to Count +Grzymala to show of what she was capable, and that +a heart like hers could pass through the most diverse +phases of passion. If the whole horizon of love had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>been traversed, it seemed right, even useful, to call a +halt at the threshold of the oncoming night. So she +took a sheet of paper and wrote to the same confidant—he +of the first and of the final hour—the following +lines:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“<i>12th May, 1847.</i></p> + +<p>“Thank you, my dear friend, for your good letters. +I knew in a vague and uncertain way that he was ill +twenty-four hours before the letter from the good +Princess. Thank that angel also for me. How I suffered +during those twenty-four hours it is impossible to tell +you. Whatever had happened I was in such a position +that I could not have budged.</p> + +<p>“Anyway, once again he is saved, but how dark the +future is for me in that quarter!</p> + +<p>“I do not yet know if my daughter is to be married +here in a week, or at Paris in a fortnight. In any case, +I shall be in Paris for a few days at the end of the month, +and if Chopin can be moved I shall bring him back here. +My friend, I am as happy as can be over the marriage +of my daughter, as she is transported with love and joy, +and as Clésinger seems to deserve it, loves her passionately, +and will give her the life she wants. But in any +case, one suffers a great deal in making such a decision.</p> + +<p>“I feel that Chopin must for his part have suffered +also at not knowing, at not understanding, and at not +being able to advise anything; but it is impossible to +take his advice on the real affairs of life into consideration. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>He has never seen facts truly, nor understood +human nature on a single point; his soul is all poetry +and music, and he cannot bear what is different from +himself. Besides, his influence in my family affairs would +mean for me the loss of all dignity and of all love for +and from my children.</p> + +<p>“Talk to him and try to make him understand in a +general way that he should refrain from thinking about +them. If I tell him that Clésinger (whom he does not +like), deserves our affection, he will only hate him the +more, and will bring on himself Solange’s hatred. +This is all very difficult and delicate, and I know of no +way of calming and restoring a sick soul who is irritated +by efforts to heal him. The evil that consumes this poor +being, both morally and physically, has been killing me +for a long time, and I see him go away without ever +having been able to do him any good, since it is the +anxious, jealous and suspicious affection he has for me +that is the principal cause of his sadness. For seven +years I have lived like a virgin with him and with others; +I have grown old before my time, without effort or +sacrifice even, so tired was I of passions and so irremediably +disillusioned. If any woman on earth should +have inspired him with the most absolute confidence, +it was I, and he never understood that; and I know +that many people are accusing me, some with having +exhausted by the violence of my senses, others with +having made him desperate with my outbursts. I +believe you know the truth. He complains of me that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>I have killed him by privation, while I was certain that +I should kill him if I acted otherwise. See how I stand +in this dismal friendship, in which I have made myself +his slave whenever I could without showing an impossible +and culpable preference for him over my children, in +which the respect that I had to inspire in my children +and in my friends has been so delicate and so important +to preserve. I have achieved in this respect prodigies of +patience of which I did not believe myself capable, I, +who had not the nature of a saint like the Princess. I +have attained to martyrdom; but Heaven is inexorable +against me, as though I had great crimes to expiate, +because in the midst of all these efforts and sacrifices, +he whom I love with an absolutely chaste and maternal +love is dying a victim of the mad attachment he bears +for me.</p> + +<p>“God grant, in His Goodness, that, at least, my +children be happy, that is to say, good, generous, and +at peace with their consciences; because I do not believe +in happiness in this world, and the law of Heaven is so +strict in this regard that it is almost an impious revolt +to dream of not suffering from all external things. The +only strength in which we can take refuge is in the wish +to fulfil our duty.</p> + +<p>“Remember me to our Anna, and tell her what is +in the bottom of my heart, then burn my letter. I am +sending you one for that dear Gutmann, whose address +I do not know. Do not give it to him in the presence +of Chopin, who does not yet know that I have been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>told of his sickness, and who does not want me to know +it. His worthy and generous heart has always a thousand +exquisite delicacies side by side with the cruel +aberrations that are killing him. Ah! If Anna could +but talk to him one day, and probe into his heart to +heal it! But he closes it hermetically against his best +friends. Good-bye, my dear, I love you. Remember +that I shall always have courage and perseverance and +devotion, in spite of my suffering, and that I do not +complain. Solange embraces you.</p> + +<p class="right"> + “<span class="smcap">George.</span>” +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>What contradictions again, and how this time each +phrase rings false! The only truths that shine out here +in spite of the author are the twitchings of her will in +the affair of her daughter, and her decision to be finished +with Chopin. She is, once more, in the pangs of delivery, +and a woman when a prey to that ill sticks at nothing. +It was in spite of her also—and perhaps because there +is in love affairs as in those of art, a sort of symmetry, +a secret equilibrium—that this last association had +opened almost nine years earlier and is closed to-day on +a letter to the same man. These nearly nine years lie +completely between these two missives, of which the +one expressed the initial desire to unite two opposite +souls by forcing nature; the other, to jilt the ill-assorted +partner—“all poetry and music”—for whom the +practical part of existence and the realities of the flesh +remain the true grounds of illusion. It is vain to try +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>to comment further on so perfectly intelligible a conflict. +I am trying to be just in giving neither right nor wrong +to either of the two persons concerned. Each brought +his own contribution to the establishment, and, as it +usually happens, the one who had eaten his first took +from the other that in which he was more rich. George +was bound to remain the stronger because she had nothing +left to give. Chopin was bound to founder because +his very wealth had ruined him.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>On the 20th of May, Solange was married in haste, +almost by stealth, at Nohant. M. Dudevant was present +at this curious wedding, where his daughter did not +even sign her name on the register, but the pseudonym +of her mother. The latter, having strained a muscle, +had to be carried to the church. “Never was a wedding +less gay,” she said. Evil presentiments were in the air. +There followed yet another engagement,—that of Augustine, +Maurice’s friend, whom the young man wanted +to marry to his friend Théodore Rousseau, the painter. +Then certain strange events occurred. The engagement +of Augustine was abruptly broken off on some absurd +pretext. In reality this was the revenge of Solange. +Out of her hate for her cousin and bitterness against +her brother, she informed Rousseau of the relationship +she assigned to them. They separated. George was +outraged and complained with bitterness. Then the +Clésinger couple, two months married, returned to Nohant +and raised the mask, and there took place between +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>George and her son on the one side, and the sculptor and +his wife on the other, scenes of unprecedented violence.</p> + +<p>“We have been nearly cutting each other’s throats +here,” wrote the unfortunate Sand to Mlle. de Rozières. +“My son-in-law raised a hammer against Maurice, and +would perhaps have killed him if I had not thrown +myself between them, striking my son-in-law in the face, +and receiving a blow of his fist in the chest. If the +priest, who was present, and friends and a servant, had not +interfered by main force, Maurice, who was armed with +a pistol, would have killed him on the spot. Solange +fanned the flame with cold ferocity, having caused these +deplorable furies by backstairs gossip, lies, unimaginable +slanders, without having had here from Maurice or +from anybody whatever the slightest shadow of teasing +or the hint of a wrong. This diabolic couple left yesterday +evening, riddled with debt, triumphant in their +insolence, and leaving a scandal in the country-side +that they can never live down. Lastly, I was confined +to my house for three days by the blow of a murderer. +I do not want ever to see them again, never again shall +they put foot in my house. They have gone too far. +My God! I have done nothing to deserve such a daughter.</p> + +<p>“It was quite necessary for me to write part of this +to Chopin; I was afraid he might arrive in the middle +of a catastrophe, and that he would die of pain and +shock. Do not tell him how far things went; they are +to be kept from him if possible. Do not tell him I wrote +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>to you and if M. and Mme. Clésinger do not boast of +their behaviour, keep it secret for my sake....</p> + +<p>“I have a favour to ask of you, my child. That is +to take complete charge of the keys of my apartment, +as soon as Chopin has left (if he has not already), and +not to let Clésinger, or his wife, or anyone connected +with them set foot in it. They are supreme robbers +and with prodigious coolness they would leave me +without a bed. They carried off everything from here, +down to the counterpanes and candlesticks....”</p> + +<p>It is most important to note two things. In this first +letter to Mlle. de Rozières, Sand supposes that Chopin +has already left the Square d’Orléans, or is on the point +of so doing. We shall see why later on. In the second +letter—which I shall reprint below—notice the date: +<i>July the twenty-fifth</i>. These points will serve to shed a +certain light on a situation that is at first glance obscure, +but which becomes clear enough if these two landmarks +are kept in sight.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="right"> + “<span class="smcap">Nohant</span>, <i>25 July.</i> +</p> + +<p>“My friend, I am worried, frightened. I have had +no news of Chopin for several days, for I don’t know +how many days because in the trouble that is crushing +me I cannot keep count of the time. But it seems too +long a time. He was about to leave and suddenly +he does not arrive, he does not write. Did he start? +Has he been stopped, ill somewhere? If he were +seriously ill, wouldn’t you have written me when you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>saw his state of illness prolonged? I myself, should +already have left if it had not been for my fear of passing +him, and for the horror I have of going to Paris and +exposing myself to the hate of her whom you think so +good, so kind to me....</p> + +<p>“Sometimes I think, to reassure myself, that Chopin +loves her much more than he does me, looks sourly +at me and takes her part.</p> + +<p>“I would rather that a hundred times than know +him to be ill. Tell me quite frankly how matters stand. +If Solange’s frightful maliciousness, if her incredible +lies sway him,—so be it! Nothing matters to me if he +only gets well.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Chopin had already suffered too much, renounced +too much to come to heel again and let himself be +recaptured by the cries of this despoiled mother, this +hardened mistress. He did not want her pity. He +did not even give her his. Solange came to him. She +had little difficulty in convincing him that she was right, +his distrust and suspicions had so crystallized. Did not +all the darkness in which they tried to keep him hide +still other breaches of faith, other riddances? His long +docility had turned at one bound into bitter disgust. +“The cypresses also have their caprices,” he said. It +was his only complaint. He wrote to George, but neither +his letter, nor the one he received in reply has been +preserved. The lovers who had given each other eight +years of their lives could not consent to preserve in their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>archives the bulletin of their supreme defeat. On the +other hand, if we do not know the terms in which they +drew up the act of dissociation, we do know their +echo.</p> + +<p>To Delacroix alone Chopin showed the letter of +farewell he had received. “I must admit that it is +atrocious,” this friend wrote in his <i>Journal</i> under the +date of <i>July the twentieth</i>. “Cruel passions, long-suppressed +impatience come to the surface; and as a contrast +which would be laughable if the subject were not +so sad, the author from time to time takes the place +of the woman and spreads herself in tirades that seem +borrowed from a novel or a philosophical homily.”</p> + +<p>If I have underlined the date, July the twenty-fifth, +above, where George complains of having been abandoned, +it is to make the fact stand out more clearly that +already, five days before, on the twentieth, Delacroix +in his diary signals the existence of the letter of rupture, +which he describes as <i>atrocious</i>. So the astonishment +of George may be called astonishing. Note well her +duplicity. There can be no doubt that she foresaw its +effect too well to suppose for an instant that Chopin +would come running to Nohant. Rather she counted +on his moving out. Yet she still wanted to play a +part, to pose as the victim. Though she had decided +on the break, she feared the fame and the friends of +Chopin, who, later on, might search out the truth in +the name of history. So in her third letter to Mlle. de +Rozières she wrote thus:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="right"> + <i>(No date.)</i> +</p> + +<p>“... Sick to death, I was about to go and see why +no one wrote to me. Finally, I received by the morning +post a letter from Chopin. I see that, as usual, I have +been duped by my stupid heart, and that while I passed +six sleepless nights torturing myself about his health, he +was engaged in talking and thinking ill of me with the +Clésingers. Very well. His letter has a ridiculous +dignity and the sermons of this good <i>pater familias</i> shall +serve as lessons to me. A man warned is worth two. +From now on I shall be perfectly easy in that regard.</p> + +<p>“There are many points about the affair that I can +guess, and I know what my daughter is capable of in the +way of calumny. I know what the poor brain of Chopin +is capable of in the way of prejudice and credulity.... +But my eyes are open at last! and I shall conduct myself +accordingly; I will no longer allow ingratitude and +perversity to pasture on my flesh and blood. From now +on I shall remain here, peaceful and entrenched at +Nohant, far from the bloodthirsty enemies that are +after me. I shall know how to guard the gate of my +fortress against the scoundrels and madmen. I know +that meanwhile they will be tearing me to pieces with +their slanders. Well and good! When they have +glutted their hatred of me, they will devour each other.</p> + +<p>“... I think it <i>magnificent</i> of Chopin to see, associate +with, and approve Clésinger, who <i>struck</i> me, because I +tore from his hands a hammer he had raised against +Maurice. Chopin, whom all the world told me was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>my most faithful and most devoted friend! Marvellous! +My child, life is a bitter irony, and those who have the +folly to love and believe must close their careers with +a lugubrious laugh and a despairing sob, as I hope will +soon be my lot. I believe in God and in the immortality +of my soul. The more I suffer in this world, the +more I believe. I shall quit this transitory life with a +profound disgust, to enter into life eternal with a great +confidence....”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>She took up her pen a fourth time, on August the +14th:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I am more seriously ill than they think. Thank +God for it. I have had enough of life, and I am packing +up with great joy. I do not ask you for news of Solange; +I have it indirectly. As for Chopin, I hear nothing further +of him, and I beg you to tell me truthfully how +he is; no more. The rest does not in the least interest +me and I have no reason to miss his affection.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>There is a strong dose of the “<i>mélo</i>” that Chopin +thought so hateful in several passages of these documents, +and the evident desire to extract all possible pathos. +But without doubt certain authentic accents are to be +found as well. It is probable that she herself would not +recognize them any too clearly. George Sand had +suffered from this rupture of which she was the cause, +the agent and the victim. If the same cries are no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>longer to be heard as in the Venetian days, it is because +thirteen years had passed since the de Musset experience. +But perhaps I am making her part seem too easy. For +what are years to passionate hearts? No, growing old +is a poor reason. The only true one is that this woman +no longer tears anything living from her soul. If she +has not yet arrived at the time of the great cold, of +which we have already spoken, at least she has come +to that of the first serenities. A favourable epoch for +her literature. She took advantage of it so well that +she chose it precisely for <i>L’Histoire de ma Vie</i>, the best +of her books.</p> + +<p>As for Chopin, to complain was not in his nature. +Even in these mortal weeks all his pain had a beautiful +discretion. As before, as always, it rose and fell within +himself. No blame passed his lips. To Louis Viardot +(the husband of the singer), who questioned him, he +replied simply: “Solange’s marriage is a great misfortune +for her, for her family, for her friends. Daughter +and mother have been deceived, and the mistake has +been realized too late. But why blame only one for +this mistake that was shared by both? The daughter +wished, demanded, an ill-assorted marriage; but the +mother, in consenting, has she not part of the blame? +With her great mind and her great experience, should +she not have enlightened a girl who was impelled by +spite even more than by love? If she had any illusion, +we must not be without pity for an error that is shared. +And I, pitying them both from the depths of my soul, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>I am trying to bring some consolation to the only one +of them I am permitted to see.”</p> + +<p>He wanted to inform his sister about these happenings, +but could not at first manage to do it. To write certain +words is sometimes so great a cruelty to oneself! At +last, after having burned several sheets of paper, he +succeeded in giving the essentials in his Christmas +letter.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="right"> + “<i>25 December, 1847.</i> +</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Beloved children</span>,</p> + +<p>“I did not reply to you immediately because I have +been so horribly busy. I am sending you, by the usual +channel, some New Year pictures.... I spent Christmas +Eve in the most prosaic way, but I thought of you +all. All my best wishes to you, as always....</p> + +<p>“Sol is with her father, in Gascony. She saw her +mother on the way. She went to Nohant with the +Duvernets, but her mother received her coldly and told +her that if she would leave her husband she might return +to Nohant. Sol saw her nuptial room turned into a +theatre, her boudoir into a wardrobe for the actors, +and she wrote me that her mother spoke only of money +matters. Her brother was playing with his dog and +all he found to say to her was: ‘Will you have something +to eat?’ The mother now seems more angry +with her son-in-law than with her daughter, though in her +famous letter she wrote to me that her son-in-law was +not bad, that it was her daughter who made him so. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>One might think she had wanted to rid herself at one +sweep of her daughter and of me, because we were +in the way. She will continue to correspond with her +daughter; thus her maternal heart, which cannot completely +do without news of her child, will be appeased +for a moment and her conscience lulled to sleep. She +will think herself in the right, and will proclaim me her +enemy, for taking the part of the son-in-law she cannot +tolerate, simply because he married her daughter, while +I really opposed the marriage as much as I could. Singular +creature, with all her intelligence! A frenzy seizes +her, and she spoils her life, she spoils her daughter’s +life. It will end badly with her son, too, I predict and +am certain. To excuse herself, she would like to pick +holes in those who wish her well, who believe in her, +who have never insulted her, and whom she cannot +bear near her because they are the mirror of her conscience. +That is why she has not written me a single +word; that is why she is not coming to Paris this winter; +that is also why she has not said a single word to her +daughter. I do not regret having helped her to bear +the eight most difficult years of her life, those in which +her daughter was growing up, those in which she was +bringing up her son; I do not regret all that I have +suffered; but I do regret that her daughter, that perfectly +tended plant, sheltered from so many storms, +should have been broken at her mother’s hands by an +imprudence and a laxity that one might pass over in a +woman of twenty years, but not in a woman of forty.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span></p> + +<p>“That which has been and no longer is will not be +written in the annals. When, later on, she delves into +her past, Mme. Sand will be able to find in her soul +only a happy memory of me. For the moment she is +in the strangest paroxysm of maternity, playing the rôle +of a juster and a more perfect mother than she really +is, and it is a fever for which there is no remedy, especially +when it takes possession of an excitable imagination +that is easily carried away.</p> + +<p>“... A new novel by Mme. Sand is appearing in +the <i>Débats</i>, a novel in the manner of the Berry novels, +like <i>La Mare Au Diable</i>, and it begins admirably. It +is called <i>François Le Champi</i>.... There is talk also +of her <i>Mémoires</i>; but in a letter to Mme. Marliani, +Mme. Sand wrote that this would be rather the thoughts +she has had up until now on art, letters, etc.... and +not what is generally meant by memoirs. Indeed, it is +too early for that, because dear Mme. Sand will have +many more adventures in her life before she grows old; +many beautiful things will still happen to her, and ugly +ones too...”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The irony is hardly malicious, and “the enemy” +who would “tear her to pieces” is very gentle. Indeed +one must admire the way the artist holds his temper in +hand. The same day he wrote to Solange:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“... How the story of your two visits to Nohant +saddened me! Still, the first step is taken. You +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>have shown heart, and this was followed by a certain +<i>rapprochement</i>, since you have been begged to write. +Time will do the rest. You know you must not take +everything that is said at face value. If they no longer +want to know a <i>stranger like me</i>, for instance, that cannot +be the lot of your husband, because he belongs to the +family... I feel suffocated, have headaches, and beg +you to excuse my erasures and my French...”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>This was in January, 1848. February. Soon it +would be ten months since George and Frederick had +separated. But Chopin did not get well. Quite the +contrary. His broken tenderness had not only killed +his heart, it had dried up the one source of his consolation, +music. Since 1847, the <i>bad year</i>, as he called +it, Chopin composed nothing more.</p> + +<p>“She has not written me another word, nor I to +her,” he confided again to his sister on the 10th of +February. “She has instructed the landlord to let +her Paris apartment.... She plays comedies in the +country, in her daughter’s wedding-chamber; she +forgets herself, acts as wildly as only she can, and will +not rouse herself until her heart hurts too much, a +heart that is at present overpowered by the head. I +make a cross above it. God protect her, if she cannot +discern the true value of flattery! Besides, it may be +to me alone that the others seem flatterers, while her +happiness really lies in that direction and I do not perceive +it. For some time her friends and neighbours +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>have been able to make nothing of what has been going +on down there of late, but they are probably used to +it already. Anyway, no one could ever follow the +caprices of such a soul. Eight years of a half-steady +life were too much. God permitted them to be the +years when the children were growing up, and if it had +not been for me I do not know how long ago they would +have been with their father and no longer with her. +And Maurice will run off at the first opportunity to his +father. But perhaps these are the conditions of her +existence, of her talent as a writer, of her happiness? +Don’t let it bother you,—it is already so far away! +Time is a great healer. Up till now, I have not got over +it; that is why I have not written to you. Everything +I begin I burn the next moment. And I should have so +much to write to you! It is better to write nothing +at all.”</p> + +<p>They saw each other again one last time, on the +fourth of March, 1848, quite by accident. Chopin was +leaving Mme. Marliani’s as Mme. Sand was going in. +She pressed his trembling and icy hand. Chopin asked +her if she had recently had news of her daughter.</p> + +<p>“A week ago,” she replied.</p> + +<p>“Not yesterday, or the day before?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Then I inform you that you are a grandmother. +Solange has a little girl, and I am very happy to be +the first to give you the news.”</p> + +<p>Then he bowed and went down the stairs. At the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>bottom he had a pang of remorse, and wanted to go +back. He had forgotten to add that Solange and the +child were doing well. He begged a friend who was +with him to give Mme. Sand this additional information, +because going up steps had become a frightfully painful +business. George came back immediately. She wanted +further talk, and asked for news about himself. He +replied that he was well, and left. “There were mischievous +meddlers between us,” she said later in telling +of this minute in the <i>Histoire de ma Vie</i>.</p> + +<p>As for Chopin, he reported this fortuitous encounter +with her mother to Mme. Clésinger, and added, “She +seemed to be in good health. I am sure that the triumph +of the Republican idea makes her happy....”</p> + +<p>Eight days before, in fact, the Revolution had burst. +It must have been singularly displeasing to <i>Prince Karol</i>. +He wrote again to Solange: “The birth of your child +gave me more joy, you may well believe, than the birth +of the Republic.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII"> + CHAPTER XVII + <br> + <span class="smcap">Swan Song</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>For twenty years Chopin had been playing hide-and-seek +with revolutions. He had left Warsaw a +few weeks before that of 1830. His projected trip to +Italy in the spring of 1831 had been put off because of +the insurrections at Bologna, Milan, Ancona, Rome. +He had arrived in Paris a year after the “Three Glorious +Days,” but still he had witnessed from his balcony on +the Boulevard Poissonnière the last squalls of the storm. +Louis-Philippe was then King of France. Now he +was abdicating after a reign of little more than seventeen +years, just the length of Chopin’s stay at Paris. ’48 +promised to be a bad year for artists. Very bad for +Chopin, with that gaping wound in his heart, and the +phthisis against which he no longer even struggled. He +decided to leave France for a time, and to undertake a +tour in Great Britain that Miss Stirling, a Scotch lady +whom he greatly liked, proposed to organize. She had +been his pupil for four years. But his friends advised +him to give a last concert in Paris before leaving. He +allowed himself to be persuaded. This was at the +beginning of February.</p> + +<p>In eight days all the tickets were sold, three hundred +seats at 20 francs in the Salons Pleyel. “I shall have +all Parisian society,” he wrote to his family. “The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>King, the Queen, the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of +Montpensier have each taken ten places, even though +they are in mourning and none of them can come. +Subscriptions are coming in for a second concert, which +I shall probably not give because the first one already +bores me.” And he adds the next day: “My friends +tell me that I shall not have to bother about anything, +only to sit down and play... They are writing to +my publisher from Brest and Nantes to reserve places. +Such enthusiasm astonishes me, and I must begin +playing to-day, if only for the sake of my conscience, +because I play less than I used to do. (Before his concerts +Chopin always practised on Bach.) I am going +to play, as a curiosity, the Mozart trio with Franchomme +and Allard. There will be neither free programmes nor +free tickets. The room will be comfortably arranged, +and can hold three hundred people. Pleyel always jokes +about my foolishness, and to encourage me for this +concert, he is going to have the stairs banked with +flowers. I shall be just as though I were at home, and +my eyes will meet, so to speak, none but familiar faces... +I am giving a great many lessons. I am overwhelmed +with all sorts of work, yet, with all that, I +do nothing... If you leave I shall move, too, because +I doubt if I could stomach another summer such as the +last in Paris. If God gives us health, we shall see each +other again, and we shall talk, and embrace each other.”</p> + +<p>It is not only lassitude that this letter breathes; +does one not read beneath the weary smiles the certainty +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>of an approaching end? This gathering of friends, +this atmosphere of flowers and wreaths, has about it +something funereal. We detect in the eagerness of this +élite of worldlings and of artists an anxiety, something +like a presentiment of the twilight of a whole peaceful +and elegant epoch. Poet and King are passing away. +Society is hastening to catch the last perfume of the +ancient lilies of France, and of the young Polish rose. +Sweeping closer was the triumph of George Sand, of +the philosophers with dandruff, and of Barbès.</p> + +<p>Frederick Chopin’s supreme concert took place on +Wednesday, the 16th of February, 1848, one week before +the abdication of Louis-Philippe. Everything about it +was extraordinary. The room was decorated with +flowers and carpets. The list of the selected audience +had been revised by Chopin himself. The text of the +programme had been steel-engraved in English script, +and printed on beautiful paper. It read:</p> + +<div style="width:60%; margin:2em 20% 2em 20%; text-align: left; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;"> + <p class="smcap center">Part One</p> + <div><i>Trio</i> of Mozart, for piano, violin and violoncello, + by MM. Chopin, Allard and Franchomme.</div> + <div><i>Airs</i> sung by Mlle. Antonia Molina di Mondi.</div> + <div><i>Nocturne</i></div> + <div><i>Barcarolle</i> } composed and played by M. Chopin.</div> + + <div><i>Air</i> sung by Mlle. Antonia Molina di Mondi.</div> + + <div><i>Etude</i></div> + <div><i>Berceuse</i> } composed and played by M. Chopin.</div> + + <p class="smcap center" style="margin-top:1em;">Part Two</p> + + <div><i>Scherzo</i>, <i>Adagio</i> and <i>Finale</i> of the <i>Sonata in</i> + <i>G Minor for piano and violoncello</i>, composed by M. Chopin and + played by the composer and M. Franchomme.</div> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span> + <div><i>Air nouveau</i> from <i>Robert the Devil</i>, by Meyerbeer, + sung by M. Roger.</div> + + <div><i>Preludes</i></div> + <div><i>Mazurkas</i> } composed and played by M. Chopin.</div> + <div><i>Valses</i></div> + + <div>Accompanists: MM. Aulary and de Garaudé.</div> +</div> + +<p>The <i>Barcarolle</i> is that of 1846 (op. 60). The <i>Berceuse</i> +(op. 57) dates from 1845. As for the <i>Nocturne</i> and the +<i>Etude</i> that were announced, one can only guess. The +<i>Sonata for piano and violoncello</i> is the last work he published. +As to the <i>Preludes</i> and the <i>Mazurkas</i> we are +again at a loss. But it is known that the Waltz chosen +was that which is called “The Waltz of the Little Dog” +(op. 64, no. 1).</p> + +<p>Chopin appeared. He was extremely weak, but erect. +His face, though pale, showed no change. Neither did +his playing betray any exhaustion, and they were sufficiently +accustomed to the softness and surprises of his +touch not to wonder that he played <i>pianissimo</i> the two +<i>forte</i> passages at the end of his <i>Barcarolle</i>. One is glad +to know that for that evening he chose this lovely +plaint, the story of a lovers’ meeting in an Italian country-side. +Thirds and sixths, always distinct, turn this +dialogue for two voices, for two souls, into a very easily +read commentary on his own story. “One dreams +of a mysterious apotheosis,” Maurice Ravel has said +of this piece. Perhaps, indeed, it is an inner climax, +the glorification of his unexpressed tenderness.</p> + +<p>The effort was so great that Chopin nearly fainted +in the foyer when he had finished. As for the enthusiasm +of the public, it hardly needs to be mentioned. “The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>sylph has kept faith,” said the <i>Gazette Musicale</i>, a few days +later, “and with what success, what enthusiasm! It +is easier to tell of the welcome he received, the transports +he excited, than to describe, to analyse, and to +lay bare the secrets of an execution that has no like in +our earthly world. When we can command the pen +that traced the delicate marvels of Queen Mab, no +bigger than the agate that shines on the finger of an +alderman... it will be as much as we can do if we +succeed in giving you an idea of a purely ideal talent +into which the material hardly enters. No one can +interpret Chopin’s music, but Chopin: all who were +present on Wednesday are as convinced of that as we +are.”</p> + +<p>Chopin arrived in London on the 20th of April, +1848, and settled in a comfortable room in Dover Street +with his three pianos: a Pleyel, an Erard and a Broadwood. +He did not arrive alone: England was invaded +by a swarm of artists fleeing the Continent, where +revolutions were breaking out on all sides. But Miss +Stirling and her sister, Mrs. Erskine, had thought of +everything, and already society and the Press were talking +of Chopin’s visit.</p> + +<p>At first, the change of air and of life seemed favourable +to his health. He breathed more easily and could +make a few calls. He went to the theatre, heard Jenny +Lind sing, and the Philharmonic play, but “their orchestra +is like their roast beef, or their turtle soup: energetic, +serious, but nothing more.” His greatest trouble was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>the lack of all rehearsals, and Chopin, before giving a +concert, always demanded rehearsals of the most detailed +kind. For this reason he decided not to appear in +public. In addition, his spirits were low, because of +the bad political news from Poland. Furthermore, he +learned with pain of the complete misunderstandings of +the Clésinger couple, of a possible separation, and he +thought at once of George. It was to be hoped that +this unhappy mother would have no new tears to shed!</p> + +<p>Soon he was again overwhelmed with fatigue. He +was obliged to be out very late every evening, to give +lessons all day long in order to pay for his costly rooms, +his servant, and his carriage. He began again to spit +blood. Still he was received with many attentions by +diverse great lords and ladies: the Duke of Westminster, +the Duchesses of Somerset and Sutherland, Lord Falmouth, +Lady Gainsborough. Miss Stirling and her +sister, who adored him, wanted to drag him about to +all their friends. Finally, he played in two or three +drawing-rooms for a fee of twenty guineas, a fee that +Mme. Rothschild advised him to reduce a little “because +at this season (June) it is necessary to make prices +more moderate.” The first evening took place at the +Duchess of Sutherland’s, at which were present the +Queen, Prince Albert, the Prince of Prussia, and more +than eighty of the aristocracy, among them the old +Duke of Wellington. Stafford House, the ancient seat +of the Sutherlands, struck the artist with admiration +He gave a marvelling description of it: “All the royal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>palaces and old castles are splendid, but not decorated +with such taste and elegance as Stafford House. The +stairs are celebrated for their splendour, and it is a sight +to see the Queen on these staircases in a blaze of light, +surrounded by all those diamonds, ribbons, and garters, +and descending with the most perfect elegance, conversing, +stopping on the different landings. In truth, it is +regrettable that a Paul Veronese could not have seen +such a spectacle and left one more masterpiece.”</p> + +<p>Dear Chopin, he did not dream that in looking at +such a picture we should have hunted only for his poor +bloodless face! What do this ephemeral glitter and all +these tinsel grandeurs mean to us beside his little person, +so wasted, but near to our hearts. We see the magnificence +of this gala evening merely for his sake, obscure +actor in a fête where nothing seems extraordinary to us +save his feverish glance. “I suffer from an idiotic +home-sickness,” he wrote, “and in spite of my absolute +resignation, I am preoccupied, God knows why, with +what is to become of me.” He played at the Marquis +of Douglas’s, at Lady Gainsborough’s, at Lord Falmouth’s, +in the midst of an affluence of titled personages. +“You know they live on grandeur. Why cite these +vain names again?” Yet he cites a great many. Among +celebrities, he was presented to Carlyle, to Bulwer, to +Dickens, to Hogarth, a friend of Walter Scott, who wrote +a very beautiful article about him in the <i>Daily News</i>. +Among the “curiosities,” was Lady Byron. “We +conversed almost without understanding each other, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>she in English, I in French. I can understand how she +must have bored Byron.” Mr. Broadwood, the piano +manufacturer, was among the most attentive of his +bourgeois friends. Occasionally he had a visit from +him in the mornings. Chopin told him one day that +he had slept badly. Coming in that evening, he found +on his bed a new spring mattress and pillows, provided +by this faithful protector.</p> + +<p>These various recitals brought Chopin about five +thousand francs, no great sum, all told. But what did +money matter? What could he do with it? He had +never been more sad. Not for a long while had he +experienced a real joy, he confided to Grzymala. “At +bottom I am really past all feeling. I vegetate, simply, +and patiently await my end.”</p> + +<p>On the 9th of August he left London for Scotland, +where he went to the house of his friends the Stirlings +and their brother-in-law, Lord Torphichen. The excellent +Broadwood had reserved two places for him in +the train so that he might have more room, and had +given him a Mr. Wood, a music-seller, as a companion. +He arrived in Edinburgh. His apartment was reserved +in the best hotel, where he rested a day and a half. A +tour of the city. A halt at a music shop where he heard +one of his <i>Mazurkas</i> played by a blind pianist. He +left again in an English carriage, with a postilion, for +Calder House, twelve miles from Edinburgh. There +Lord Torphichen received him in an old manor surrounded +by an immense park. There was nothing in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>sight but lawns, trees, mountains and sky. “The +walls of the castle are eight feet thick. There are +galleries on all sides and dark corridors hung with an +incalculable number of ancestral portraits of all colours +and costumes, some Scotch, others in armour, or again +in panniers. There is nothing lacking to satisfy the +imagination. There is even a little Red Riding Hood +in the form of a ghost. But I have not yet seen her.” +As for his hosts, they were perfect, discreet and generous. +“What splendid people my Scots are!” wrote +Chopin. “There is nothing I can desire that I do not +immediately receive. They even bring me the Paris +papers every day. I am well. I have peace and sleep, +but I must leave in a week.”</p> + +<p>These Stirlings of Keir were a very ancient family. +They went back to the fourteenth century, and had +acquired wealth in the Indies. Jane and her older +sister, Mrs. Erskine, had known Chopin in Paris. They +were two noble women, older than Frederick, but the +younger still very beautiful. Ary Scheffer painted her +several times, because she represented to his eyes the +ideal of beauty. It was said that she wanted to marry +Chopin. To those who spoke to him about it, “As well +marry her to Death,” he said.</p> + +<p>Life was agreeable at Calder House; quiet mornings, +drives in the afternoon, and in the evening music. +Chopin harmonized for the old lord the Scotch airs that +the latter hummed. A picture that does not lack +piquancy. But the poor swan was restless. He thought +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>always of George, of whom he had just received news +through Solange. It was bad. As the proclamations +which had ignited Civil War, even in the provinces, +were attributed to her, she had been in bad odour in her +Nohant world. Taking refuge at Tours, “she is stuck +in a sea of mud,” wrote Chopin to his sister, “and she +has dragged many others with her.” A filthy lampoon +was circulating about her, published by the father of +that same Augustine whom Chopin detested. This man +complained that “she had corrupted his daughter, whom +she had made the mistress of Maurice, and then married +to the first comer... The father cites Mme. Sand’s +own letters. In one word, a most dirty sensation, in +which all Paris is interested to-day. It is an outrage +on the part of the father, <i>but it is the truth</i>. So much for +the philanthropic deed she thought she was doing, and +against which I fought with all my strength when the +girl came into the house! She should have been left +with her parents, not put into the head of this young +man, who will never marry except for money. But +he wanted to have a pretty cousin in the house. She +was dressed like Sol, and better groomed, because +Maurice insisted on it.... Solange saw the whole +thing, which made them uncomfortable... Hence, +lies, shame, embarrassment, and the rest.”</p> + +<p>All the rancours, all the bitternesses are seen coming +to the surface again. And immense regrets. “The +English are so different from the French, to whom I +am attached as to my own people,” he wrote again in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>this same letter to his family. “They weigh everything +by the pound sterling, and love art only because +it is superfluous. They are excellent people, but so +original that I understand how one could oneself +become stiff here: one changes into a machine.”</p> + +<p>He was obliged to leave Calder House to give several +concerts. Manchester at the end of August; Glasgow +at the end of September; Edinburgh at the beginning +of October. And if everywhere he reaped the same +success, the same admiring surprise, a kind of tempered +enthusiasm, yet most of the criticisms noted that his +playing was no more than a kind of murmur. “Chopin +seems about thirty years old,” said the <i>Manchester Guardian</i>. +(He was thirty-eight.) “He is very frail of +body, and in his walk. This impression vanishes when +he seats himself at the piano, in which he seems completely +absorbed. Chopin’s music, and the style of his +playing, have the same dominant characteristics; he +has more refinement than vigour; he prefers a subtle +elaboration to a simple grasp of the composition; his +touch is elegant and quick without his striking the +instrument with any joyful firmness. His music and +his playing are the perfection of chamber music... +but they need more inspiration, more frankness of +design, and more power in the execution to be felt in +a large hall.”</p> + +<p>These are the same discreet reproaches that were +made in Vienna in 1828. But only his friends knew +how ill he was, and how he now had to be carried up +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>the stairs. He remained <i>chic</i>, however, as refined in +his dress as a woman, exercised about his linen, his +shoes, insisting on their being irreproachable. His +servant curled him every morning with an iron. The +imperious side of his nature revealed itself. Everything +weighed him down: attentions, even affection, +became heavy on his shoulders, like his greatcoat or +even his cashmere shawl. These are the irritations of +a very sick man: “People kill me with their useless +solicitude. I feel alone, alone, alone, although I am +surrounded... I grow weaker every day. I can +compose nothing, not that the will is lacking, but rather +the physical strength... My Scots will not leave +me in peace; they smother me with politeness and out +of politeness I will not reproach them.” These were +his plaints to Grzymala. He was carried to Stirling, +to Keir, from one castle to another, from a Lord to a +Duke. Everywhere he found sumptuous hospitality, +excellent pianos, beautiful pictures, well-selected libraries, +hunting, horses, dogs; but wherever he is, he expires +of coughing and irritation. What was he to do after +dinner when the gentlemen settled down in the dining-room +around their whisky and when, not knowing their +tongue, he was obliged “to watch them talk, and hear +them drink”? A renewal of home-sickness, of sickness +for Nohant. While they talked of their family trees, +and, “as in the Gospel, cited names and names that went +back to the Lord Jesus,” Chopin drafted letters to his +friends. “If Solange settles in Russia,” he wrote to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>Mlle. de Rozières, “with whom will she talk of France? +With whom can she prattle in the Berry <i>patois</i>? Does +that seem of no importance to you? Well, it is, +nevertheless, a great consolation in a strange country +to have someone about you who, as soon as you +see him, carries you back in thought to your own +country.”</p> + +<p>He came back at last to London in the beginning of +October, to go straight to bed. Breathlessness, headaches, +cold, bronchitis, all the regular symptoms. His +Scots followed him, cared for him, as did also Princess +Czartoryska, who constituted herself his sick-nurse. +From that time on, his one dream was to get back to +France. As before, on his return from Majorca, he +charged Grzymala to find him a lodging near the Boulevards +between the rue de la Paix and the Madeleine. +He needed also a room for his valet. “Why I give you +all this trouble, I don’t know, for nothing gives me +pleasure, but I’ve got to think of myself.” And suddenly +the old pain bursts forth without apparent rhyme +or reason in the very middle of these domestic affairs: +“I have never cursed anyone, but at this moment everything +is so insupportable to me that it would soothe me, +it seems to me, if I could curse Lucrezia!...” Three +lines follow which he immediately effaced, and made +indecipherable. Then coming back to himself, or +having once more swallowed what he could never +consent to express, he adds: “But they are suffering +down there, too, no doubt; they suffer so much the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span>more in that they are growing old in their anger. As +for Solange, I shall eternally pity her.”</p> + +<p>So the mystery of this soul remains. No one will +ever clearly trace its meetings of the extremes of love, +scorn, and hate. The only certain fact is that from +the time of his break with George, the life both of his +body and of his spirit was finished for Chopin. It will +be said that was already condemned. Not more than +at the return from Majorca. And his father did not +succumb to the same illness until he was seventy-five +years old. Chopin had deliberately given up a struggle +in which he had no further motive for the will to win. +In fact, he says as much: “And why should I come +back? Why does God not kill me at once instead of +letting me die slowly of a fever of irresolution? And +my Scots torture me more than I can bear. Mrs. +Erskine, who is a very good Protestant, possibly wants +to make a Protestant out of me, because she is always +bringing me the Bible, and talking to me of the soul, +and marking Psalms for me to read. She is religious +and good, but she is very much worried about my soul. +She <i>saws</i> away all the time at me, telling me that the +other world is better than this, and I know that by +heart. I reply by citations from Scripture and tell her +that I know all about it.”</p> + +<p>This dying man dragged himself again from London +to Edinburgh, to a castle of the Duke of Hamilton, +came back to London, gave a concert for the benefit +of the Poles, and made his will. Gutmann, his friend +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>and pupil, informed him that a rumour of his marriage +was circulating in Paris. Those unfortunate Scots, no +doubt! “Friendship remains friendship,” replied Chopin. +“And even if I could fall in love with a being +who would love me as I should want to be loved, I +still should not marry, because I should have nothing +to eat, nor anywhere to go. A rich woman looks for +a rich man, and if she loves a poor man, at least he +shouldn’t be an invalid!... No, I am not thinking +of a wife; much rather of my father’s house, of my +mother, of my sisters... And my art, where has +that gone? And my heart, where have I squandered +it? I can scarcely still remember how they sing at +home. All round me the world is vanishing in an +utterly strange manner—I am losing my way—I have +no strength at all... I am not complaining to you, +but you question and I reply: I am closer to the coffin +than to the nuptial bed. My soul is at peace. I am +resigned.”</p> + +<p>He left at last, at the beginning of the year 1849, to +return to the Square d’Orléans, and he sent his last +instructions to Grzymala. Let pine cones be bought +for his fire. Let curtains and carpet be in place. Also +a Pleyel piano and a bouquet of violets in the salon, +that the room may be perfumed. “On my return, I +want still to find a little poetry when I pass from the +salon to my room, where no doubt I shall be in bed +for a long time.”</p> + +<p>With what joy he saw again his little apartment! +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>Unhappily, Dr. Molin, who alone had the secret of +setting him on his legs again, had died not long before. +He consulted Dr. Roth, Dr. Louis, Dr. Simon, a homeopath. +They all prescribed the old inefficacious remedies: +<i>l’eau de gomme</i>, rest, precautions. Chopin shrugged +his shoulders. He saw death everywhere: Kalkbrenner +was dead; Dr. Molin was dead; the son of the painter +Delaroche was dead; a servant of Franchomme’s was +dead; the singer Catalani (who had given him his first +watch at the age of ten) had just died also.</p> + +<p>“On the other hand, Noailles is better,” said one of +his Scots.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but the King of Spain has died at Lisbon,” +replied Chopin.</p> + +<p>All his friends visited him: Prince Czartoryski and +his wife, Delphine Potoçka, Mme. de Rothschild, +Legouvé, Jenny Lind, Delacroix, Franchomme, Gutmann.</p> + +<p>And then,—he had not a sou. Absent-minded and +negligent, Chopin never knew much about the state of +his finances. Just then they were at zero, for he could +no longer give a single lesson. Franchomme served +as his banker, but he had to exercise his ingenuity, and +invent stories to explain the origin of the funds advanced +by one or other of his friends. If he had suspected this +state of things, Chopin would have flatly refused. The +idea of such charity would have been insupportable to +him. In this connection there came about a curious +happening. The Stirling ladies, wishing to remove this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>worry, thought of sending to his concierge the sum of +25,000 francs in a sealed and anonymous envelope. +Mme. Etienne received the envelope, slipped it behind +the glass of her clock, and forgot it. When Mrs. Erskine +perceived that Chopin had not received this money +she made her confession to the artist. He shouted aloud. +“I must have told her a lot of truths,” he told Grzymala, +“as, for example, this: ‘that she would have to be +the Queen of England to make me accept such princely +presents.’” Meanwhile, as the money was not found, +the postman who had delivered it to the concierge +consulted a fortune-teller. The latter requested, in order +to consult his oracles properly, a lock of Mme. Etienne’s +hair. Chopin obtained it by subterfuge, upon which +the clairvoyant declared that the envelope was under +the clock glass. And in truth it was discovered there +intact. “Hein! What do you say to that? What do +you think of this fortune-teller? My head is in a whirl +with wonder.”</p> + +<p>As is the case with very nervous people, Chopin’s +health was capricious. There were ups and downs. +With the return of spring he could go out a little, in +a carriage, but he could not leave it. His publisher, +Schlesinger, came to the edge of the pavement to talk +business to him. Delacroix often accompanied him. +He consigned to his <i>Journal</i> notes that remain precious +to us.</p> + +<p>January 29th. “In the evening to see Chopin; I +stayed with him till ten o’clock. Dear man! We spoke +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>of Mme. Sand, that woman of strange destiny, made +up of so many qualities and vices. It was apropos +of her <i>Mémoires</i>. He told me that it would be impossible +for her to write them. She has forgotten it all; she has +flashes of feeling, and forgets quickly.... I said +that I predicted in advance an unhappy old age for her. +He did not think so.... Her conscience does not +reproach her for anything of all that for which her +friends reproach her. She has good health, which may +easily last; only one thing would affect her profoundly: +the loss of Maurice or that he should turn out badly.</p> + +<p>“As for Chopin, illness prevents him from interesting +himself in anything, and especially in work. I said to +him that age and the agitations of the times would not +be long in chilling me, too. He replied that he thought +I had strength to resist. ‘You rejoice in your talent,’ +he said, ‘with a sort of security that is a rare privilege, +and is better than this feverish chase after fame.’”</p> + +<p>March 30th. “Saw in the evening at Chopin’s the +enchantress, Mme. Potoçka. I had heard her twice, I +have hardly ever seen anything more perfect... Saw +Mme. Kalerji. She played, but not very sympathetically; +on the other hand, she is really extremely lovely +when she raises her eyes in playing, like the Magdalens +of Guido Reni or of Rubens.”</p> + +<p>April 14th. “In the evening to Chopin’s: I found +him very much weakened, hardly breathing. After +awhile my presence restored him. He told me that his +cruellest torment was boredom. I asked him if he had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>not known in earlier times the insupportable emptiness +that I still sometimes feel. He said that he had always +been able to find something to do; an occupation, +however unimportant, filled the moments, and kept off +those vapours. Grief was another matter.”</p> + +<p>April 22nd. “After dinner to see Chopin, a man +of exquisite heart, and, I need not say, mind. He spoke +to me of people we have known together... He had +dragged himself to the first performance of <i>The Prophet</i>. +His horror of this rhapsody!”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In May, Chopin burned his manuscripts. He tried +to work up a method for the piano, gave it up, burned +it with the rest. Clearly the idea of the imperfect, of +the unfinished, was insupportable to his spirit.</p> + +<p>The doctors having recommended a purer air, a +quieter neighbourhood, his friends rented an apartment +in the rue de Chaillot, on the second floor of a new +house, and took him there. There was a beautiful view +over Paris. He stayed there motionless behind his window, +speaking very little. Towards the end of June +he desired suddenly, and at any cost, to see his own +people again. He sent a letter summoning them which +took him two days to write.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"> + CHAPTER XVIII + <br> + <span class="smcap">“The Cypresses have their caprices”</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>“To Madame Louise Jedrzeïewicz.</p> + +<p class="right"> + “<span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>Monday, June 25, 1849.</i> +</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">My dearly beloveds</span>,</p> + +<p>“If you can, come. I am ill, and no doctor can help +me as you can. If you need money, borrow it; when +I am better I can easily make it and return it to whoever +lends it to you, but just now I am too broke to be able +to send you anything. My Chaillot apartment is big +enough to receive you, even with the two children. +Little Louise will benefit in every way. Papa Calasante⁠<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +shall run about all day long; we have the Agricultural +Products Exhibition close to us here; in a word, he will +have much more time for himself than he did the other +time, because I am weaker, and shall stay more in the +house with Louise. My friends and all my well-wishers +are convinced that the best remedy for me would be the +arrival of Louise, as she will certainly learn from Mme. +Obreskow’s letter. So get your passport. People +whom Louise does not know, one from the North, and +one from the South, told me to-day that it would benefit, +not only my health, but also my sister’s.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> His brother-in-law.</p></div> + +<p>“So, mother Louise and daughter Louise, bring +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>your thimbles and your needles. I’ll give you handkerchiefs +to mark, socks to knit, and you shall spend your +time for a few months in the fresh air with your old +brother and uncle. The journey is easier now; also +you don’t need much luggage. We’ll try to be happy +here on very little. You shall find food and shelter. +And even if sometimes Calasante finds that it is far +from the Champs Elysées to town, he can stay in my +apartment in the Square d’Orléans. The omnibus goes +right from the Square to my door here. I don’t know +myself why I want so much to have Louise, it’s like the +longing of a pregnant woman. I swear to you that it +will be good for her, too. I hope that the family council +will send her to me: who knows whether I shan’t take +her back when I am well! Then we could all rejoice +and embrace each other, as I have already written, but +without wigs and with our own teeth. The wife +always owes obedience to her husband; so it’s the +husband whom I beg to bring his wife; I beg it with +my whole heart, and if he weighs it well he will see +that he cannot give a greater pleasure either to her, or +to me, or do a greater service even to the children, if he +should bring one of them. (As to the little girl I do not +doubt it.) It will cost money, it is true, but it cannot +be better spent nor could you travel more cheaply. +Once here, your quarters will be provided. Write me +a little word. Mme. Obreskow, who had the kindness +to want to write (I have given her Louise’s address), will +perhaps be more persuasive. Mlle. de Rozières will +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>also add a word, and Cochet, if he were here, would +speak for me, because there is no doubt that he would +find me no better. His Æsculapius has not shown himself +for ten days because he has at last perceived that there +is something in my sickness that passes his science. In +spite of that, you must praise him to your tenant, and +to all who know him, and say that he has done me a +great deal of good; but my head is made that way: +when I am a little bit better, that’s enough for me. +Say also that everyone is convinced that he has cured +a quantity of people of cholera. The cholera is diminishing +a great deal; it has almost disappeared. The +weather is superb; I am sitting in the salon from where +I can admire the whole panorama of Paris: the towers, +the Tuileries, the Chambres, St.-Germain l’Auxerrois, +St. Etienne du Mont, Notre-Dame, the Panthéon, St. +Sulpice, Val de Grâce, the five windows of the Invalides, +and between these buildings and me nothing but gardens. +You will see it all when you come. Now get busy on +the passport and the money, but do it quickly. Write +me a word at once. You know that the cypresses have +their caprices: my caprice to-day is to see you in my +house. Maybe God will permit everything to go well: +but if God does not wish it, act at least as though He +did. I have great hope, because I never ask for very +much, and I should have refrained from this also if I +had not been urged on by all who wish me well. Bestir +yourself, Monsieur Calasante. In return, I shall give +you <i>huge</i> and excellent cigars; I know someone who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>smokes marvellous ones—in the garden, mind you! +I hope the letter I wrote for Mamma’s birthday arrived, +and that I did not miss the date too far. I don’t want +to think of all that because it makes me feverish, and, +thank God, I have no fever, which disconcerts and vexes +all the ordinary doctors.</p> + +<p>“Your affectionate but very feeble brother,</p> + +<p class="right"> + “<span class="smcap">Ch.</span>” +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX"> + CHAPTER XIX + <br> + <span class="smcap">The Death of Chopin</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>“Mother Louise and daughter Louise” +hurried to him at once. Calasante accompanied +them. Chopin would have greatly liked to see again +the friend of his youth, Titus, who had just arrived at +Ostend. But as he was a Russian subject, passport +difficulties prevented him from entering France. “The +doctors do not allow me to travel,” wrote the invalid, +who had hoped to be able to go to meet him. “I +drink Pyrenees water in my room, but your presence +would be more healing than any medicine. Yours even +in death, your Frederick.”</p> + +<p>About six weeks glided by without any improvement. +Chopin hardly spoke any more and made himself understood +by signs. A consultation took place between the +Doctors Cruveillé, Louis and Blache. They decided +that any change to the South of France was thenceforth +useless, but that it would be preferable to take the dying +man to quarters that could be heated, and were more +convenient, and very airy. After long search, they +found what they needed at No. 12, Place Vendôme. +Chopin was carried there. One last time he took up +his pen to write to Franchomme. “I shall see you next +winter, being settled at last in a comfortable manner. +My sister will remain with me unless they should call +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>her back for something important, I love you, that is +all that I can say for the moment because I am crushed +with fatigue and weakness.”</p> + +<p>Charles Gavard, the young brother of one of his +pupils, often came to see him and read to him. Chopin +indicated his preferences. He returned with the greatest +pleasure to Voltaire’s <i>Dictionnaire Philosophique</i>, in which +he appreciated especially the form, the conciseness, and +the impeccable taste. It was, in fact, the chapter on +“The Different Tastes of Peoples” that Gavard read to +him one of the last times.</p> + +<p>His condition grew rapidly worse; yet he complained +little. The thought of his end did not seem to affect +him much. In the first days of October he had no +longer strength enough to sit up. The spells of suffocation +grew worse. Gutmann, who was very tall and +robust, knew better than any how to hold him, to settle +him in his pillows. Princess Marceline Czartoryska +again took up her service as nurse, spending the greater +part of her days at the Place Vendôme. Franchomme +came back from the country. The family and friends +assembled about the dying man ready to help as they +could. All of them waited in the room next to that in +which Chopin lived his last days.</p> + +<p>One of his childhood friends, Abbé Alexandre Jelowiçki, +with whom he had been on cold terms, wanted to +see him again when he learned of the gravity of his +illness. Three times in succession they refused to +receive him; but the Abbé succeeded in informing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>Chopin of his presence, and was admitted immediately. +After that he came back every day. Chopin had +great pleasure in recovering this comrade of other +days.</p> + +<p>“I would not like to die,” he said, “without having +received the sacraments, lest I should pain my mother; +but I do not understand them as you wish. I can see +nothing in confession beyond the relief of a burdened +heart on the heart of a friend.”</p> + +<p>The Abbé has related that on the 13th of October, +in the morning, he found Chopin a little better.</p> + +<p>“My friend,” the Abbé said, “to-day is the birthday +of my poor dead brother. You must give me something +for this day.”</p> + +<p>“What can I give you?”</p> + +<p>“Your soul.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! I understand,” cried Frederick. “Here it is. +Take it.”</p> + +<p>Jelowiçki fell on his knees and presented the Crucifix +to Chopin, who began to weep. He immediately confessed, +made his communion, and received extreme +unction. Then he said, embracing his friend with both +arms in the Polish fashion: “Thank you, dear friend. +Thanks to you I shan’t die like a pig.” That day was +calmer, but the fits of suffocation began again very +shortly. As Gutmann was holding him in his arms +during one of these wearing attacks, Chopin said after +a long breathless silence:</p> + +<p>“Now I begin my agony.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span></p> + +<p>The doctor felt his pulse and sought for a reassuring +word, but Chopin went on with authority:</p> + +<p>“It is a rare favour that God gives to a man in revealing +the moment when his agony begins; this grace He has +given to me. Do not disturb me.”</p> + +<p>It was that evening also that Franchomme heard him +murmur: “Still, she told me that I should not die except +in her arms.”</p> + +<p>On Sunday the 15th of October his friend Delphine +Potoçka arrived from Nice, whence a telegram had +recalled her. When Chopin knew that she was in his +drawing-room he said: “So that is why God has delayed +calling me to Him. He wanted to let me have the +pleasure of seeing her again.”</p> + +<p>She had hardly approached his bed when the dying +man expressed the desire to hear the voice that he had +loved. They pushed the piano on to the threshold of +the room. Smothering her sobs, the Countess sang. +In the general emotion no one could remember later on, +with certainty, what pieces she chose. Yet at the request +of Chopin she sang twice.</p> + +<p>Suddenly they heard the death-rattle. The piano +was pushed back, and all knelt down. Yet that was +not the end, and he lived through that night. On the +16th his voice failed, and he lost consciousness for several +hours. But he came to himself, made a sign that he wished +to write, and placed on a sheet of paper his last wish:</p> + +<p>“<i>As this Earth will smother me I conjure you to have my +body opened so that I may not be buried alive.</i>”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span></p> + +<p>Later he again recovered the feeble use of his voice. +Then he said:</p> + +<p>“You will find many compositions more or less +sketched out; I beg of you, by the love you bear me, +to burn them all, with the exception of the beginning +of a <i>Method</i>, which I bequeath to Alkan and Reber to +make some use of it. The rest, without exception, must +be burned, for I have a great respect for the public, +and my efforts are as finished as it has been in my power +to make them. I will not have my name made responsible +for the circulation of works unworthy of the +public.”</p> + +<p>Then he made his farewells to each of them. Calling +Princess Marceline and Mlle. Gavard, he said to them: +“When you make music together, think of me, and I shall +hear you.” Addressing Franchomme: “Play Mozart +in memory of me.” All that night Abbé Jelowiçki +recited the prayers for the dying, which they all repeated +together. Chopin alone remained mute; life now +revealed itself only by nervous spasms. Gutmann held +his hand between his own, and from time to time gave +him something to drink. “Dear friend,” murmured +Chopin once. His face became black and rigid. The +doctor bent over him and asked if he suffered. “No +more,” replied Chopin. This was the last word. A few +instants later they saw that he had ceased to live.</p> + +<p>It was the 17th of October, 1849, at two o’clock in +the morning.</p> + +<p>They all went out to weep.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span></p> + +<p>From the early morning hours Chopin’s favourite +flowers were brought in quantities. Clésinger came +to make the death-mask. Kwiatkowski made several +sketches. He said to Jane Stirling, because he understood +how much she loved him: “He was as pure as a tear.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX"> + CHAPTER XX + <br> + <span class="smcap">An Epitaph for a Poet</span> + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>The death of an artist is the moment of his transfiguration. +There are many who were thought +great, whose work nevertheless returns at once to the +dust. For others, on the contrary, the state of glory +only begins with death. Perhaps, as Delacroix said, +in art everything is a matter of the soul. We have not +yet reached agreement as to the meaning and value of +that little word. But if it were necessary to give a +working idea of it, nothing would furnish it better than +music. “A cry made manifest,” Wagner called it. +Doubtless that means: the most spontaneous expression +of oneself. The artist is he who has need to give form +to his cry.</p> + +<p>Each one sets about it in his own manner. With a +life expended sumptuously like that of Liszt, contrast that +of Chopin, entirely reserved, not to be plucked by any +hand, but so much the more filled with perfume. All +that he did not give forth, his love which none could +seize, his modesty and his timidity, that constant fever +for perfection, his elegancies, his exile’s home-sickness, +and even his moments of communication with the unknowable,—all +these things are potent in his work. +To-day that is still the secret of its strength; music +received what men and women disdained. It is for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>music that he refused himself. How one understands +the desolation of Schumann when he learned of the +death of the swan, and this beautiful metaphor gushed +spontaneously from his pen: “The soul of music has +passed over the world.”</p> + +<p>Just this must the crowds have dimly felt as they +pressed to the Temple of the Madeleine on the 30th of +October, 1849. Thirteen days had been required to +prepare for the funeral that they wished to be as solemn +as the life of the dead had not been. But he was not +even a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, this Monsieur +Frederick Chopin! No matter. “Nature had a holiday +air,” reported the papers. Many lovely toilettes. (He +would have been flattered.) All the leaders of the +musical and literary world, Meyerbeer at their head, +Berlioz, Gautier, Janin. Only George Sand was missing. +M. Daguerry, the Curé of the Madeleine, spent two +weeks in obtaining permission for women to sing in his +church. It is to the obsequies of Chopin that we owe +this tolerance. Without that, it would have been +impossible to give Mozart’s <i>Requiem</i>. It was played by +the orchestra of the Conservatoire, conducted by Giraud. +The soloists were hidden by a black drapery behind +the altar: Pauline Viardot and Mme. Castellan, Lablache +and Alexis Dupont. Lefébure-Wély was at the organ. +During the Offertory, they played two <i>Preludes</i>, that in +E minor (no. 4) and the 6th, in B minor, written at +Majorca in that dusk when Chopin had seen death while +the rain fell in torrents on the Chartreuse of Valdemosa.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span></p> + +<p>The coffin was then lowered in the midst of the congregation, +while the famous <i>Funeral March</i>, orchestrated +by Reber, sounded for the first time. The cords of +the pall were held by Prince Czartoryski, Franchomme, +Delacroix and Gutmann. Meyerbeer walked behind +the hearse. They set out, down the Boulevards, for the +cemetery of Père-Lachaise. There the body of Chopin +was buried, except the heart, which was sent to Warsaw, +where it has since remained in the church of the Holy +Cross. A beautiful symbol which accords with that +faithful heart.</p> + +<p>No eulogy was pronounced. In the moments of +meditation that followed the descent of the bier a friendly +hand was seen to throw on the coffin that Polish earth +that had been given to Chopin on the day he left his +country. Exactly nineteen years had passed since then. +During all those years the native soil had remained +in the silver cup awaiting this supreme use. But now +Poland no longer existed. Nowhere but in this delicate +handful of earth,—and the work of Chopin: a few +score pages in which were to burn for three-quarters of a +century the mysticism of a Nation.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>On the next 17th of October, in 1850, Miss Stirling +went early in the morning to Michon, the florist, who +had served Chopin, and bought all the violets she could +find. Then she went to Père-Lachaise and placed +them on the tomb with a wreath in the name of the +family of the dead. At noon, Mass was celebrated in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>the chapel at the cemetery. Those who were present +then went back to the tomb, where Clésinger’s monument +was unveiled. It is a mediocre allegory, made by a +man who hated Chopin. How could such a thing have +been beautiful? Only the medallion has a little life. +These words are engraved on the pedestal: “To Frederick +Chopin, his friends.” Deputy Wolowski tried to +make a speech, but his throat tightened and nothing +was heard. All those who were brought together there +had been friends of the dead. They were still listening +to his voice, his piano, his consumptive cough. One +of them recalled a saying of his: “None can take from +me that which belongs to me.”</p> + +<p>To-day, these remains, pelted by the rain, this sorry +Muse bent over its lyre with broken strings, blend well +enough with the trees of Mont St.-Louis. There are +strollers in this park of the dead. They stop before +the bust of de Musset, the handsome boy-lover who +spelt his sorrows into such charming rhymes. They +make a little pilgrimage to the tomb of Abélard and +Héloïse, where a pious Abbess has had these words cut: +“The love that united their spirits during their life, +and which is preserved during their separation by the +most tender and spiritual of letters, has reunited their +bodies in this tomb.” This reassures the silent lovers +who come secretly to throw a flower at the foot of these +two stone symbols lying side by side. But no one is +seen on the narrow path that leads from the central +avenue to the grave of Chopin. For he did not exemplify +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>the career of a great lover, this musician of souls. No +soul was found that could be attuned to his. It never +found its lute-maker.</p> + +<p>That word makes me think of a letter he wrote to +Fontana fourteen months before he died, and in which +he throws some light on the depths of his being: “The +only unhappiness,” he wrote, “consists in this: that +we issue from the workshop of a celebrated master, +some <i>sui generis</i> Stradivarius, who is no longer there to +mend us. Inexpert hands do not know the secret of +drawing new tones from us, and we push back into our +depths what no one has been able to evoke, for want +of a lute-maker.”</p> + +<p>There is a beautiful epitaph for a poet: dead for want +of a lute-maker. But where is he, this lute-maker of +our lives?</p> + +<p> + <i>Etoy, October 17, 1926.</i><br> + <i>77th Anniversary of the death of Chopin.</i> +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a><a id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="SOURCES"> + SOURCES + </h2> +</div> + + +<p><i>The sources from which one can gather an authentic documentation +of the life of Chopin are extremely scarce. During his life, few +people took the trouble to preserve his letters, although he wrote but few. +Some, doubtless, attached but little value to them. Others caused them +to disappear because they exposed too intimate a part of their lives.</i></p> + +<p><i>An historic anecdote has it that Alexandre Dumas</i> fils, <i>in the course +of a sentimental pilgrimage to Poland in the spring of 1851, fell by chance +upon the complete file of letters written by George Sand to Chopin. Dumas +brought the file back to France and, having restored it to the novelist, saw +her re-read her letters and then throw them into the fire. Doubtless she +thus thought to bury in eternal oblivion the sad remains of a love whose +raptures and whose pains alike would not return to her. The burning, +in 1863, of the Warsaw house of Mme. Barcinska, Chopin’s youngest +sister, destroyed other precious relics.</i></p> + +<p><i>So there remains to us but a very small number of the composer’s letters. +Even these were altered at will by their first editor, Maurice Karasowski. +Many biographers, however, have placidly copied them, without taking +the trouble to collate them with the original texts, or even with the faithful +and inexpurgated German translation which M. B. Scharlitt published +at Leipzig in 1911. M. Henri Bidou has been the first to restore to us +some of these letters in their libelled original form. Karasowski’s work +is important, nevertheless, because the author, writing between 1860 and +1863, was intimately associated with Chopin’s sisters and niece, and he +gathered from their lips the family traditions. Parts of this I have used +particularly those concerned with the composer’s childish years and his death, +being convinced that the pious legend is based on fact.</i></p> + +<p><i>Other episodes, notably the journey to Berlin and his love for Constance +Gladkowska, have been borrowed from the work of Count Wodzinski. +I have also adopted certain picturesque details furnished by this same +biographer, as well as some family information concerning his relation, +Marie Wodzinska. Let me say this much once for all, in order not to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>load my text with references. The curious reader will find all these on a +later page in the list of Works Consulted.</i></p> + +<p><i>The first complete and soundly documented work on the life of Chopin +was published by F. Niecks, in London, in 1888. Niecks too had known +a number of friends and pupils of the master. His study has therefore +an individual flavour which has not been superseded by later works. Elsewhere +have been issued a whole series of works on the musician, particularly +in Polish, German and English. I cite first of all the monumental</i> Chopin +<i>of Ferdynand Hoesick. But if we exclude the imaginative and erroneous +little books published in France during the latter half of the nineteenth +century (and up to our own day) we must go to the work of M. E. Ganche +to discover the first complete and serious study of the Polish musician +that has been published in French. The recent volume of M. H. Bidou +rectifies certain points in it and amplifies certain others. It is an indispensable +work for those who wish to fathom Chopin’s music.</i></p> + +<p><i>As I lately attempted with Liszt, I have sought here only to discover +a face and to replace it in its frame. With this object, I have always +allowed my characters to speak and act. I have scrupulously refrained +from</i> invention. <i>On the other hand, I have not hesitated to</i> interpret, +<i>believing, as I have said several times elsewhere, that every fact draws +its enduring value from artistic interpretation. My effort has been only to +group events in a certain order, to disentangle the lines of the heart and +those of the spirit without trying to explain that which, in the soul of +Chopin, has remained always inexplicable; not to lift, indeed, from my +subject that shadow that gives him his inner meaning and his nebulous +beauty.</i></p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="PRINCIPAL_WORKS_CONSULTED"> + PRINCIPAL WORKS CONSULTED + </h2> +</div> + +<div style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;"> +<p><span class="smcap">Franz Liszt</span>: <i>F. Chopin.</i> Leipzig (Breitkopf). 1852 and 1923.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">George Sand</span>: <i>Histoire de ma vie.</i> 4 vol. Calmann-Lévy. Paris.</p> + +<p>—<i>Un hiver à Majorque.</i> 1 vol., <i>ibid.</i> 1843.</p> + +<p>—<i>Correspondance.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Maurice Karasowski</span>: <i>F. Chopin.</i> Warsaw, 1862, and new ed. +Berlin, 1877 and 1925.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Comte Wodzinski</span>: <i>Les trois romans de F. Chopin.</i> Calmann, +Paris, 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Robert Schumann</span>: <i>Etudes sur la musique et les musiciens.</i> Trad. +H. de Curzon. Paris, 1898.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">M. Karlowicz</span>: <i>Souvenirs inédits de F. Chopin.</i> Paris, and Leipzig, +1904. Trad. F. Disière.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Friedrich Niecks</span>: <i>F. Chopin as a Man and a Musician.</i> London. +(Novello), 1882, 2 vol.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kleczinski</span>: <i>F. Chopin. De l’interpretation de ses œuvres.</i> Paris, +1906.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wladimir Karénine</span>: <i>George Sand, sa vie et ses œuvres.</i> Plon, +1899–1926. 4 vol. (An important and remarkable work, +including a quantity of unpublished documents of which I +have made much use.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Bernard Scharlitt</span>: <i>F. Chopin’s gesammelte Briefe.</i> Leipzig, 1911. +(Only authentic and complete text of the letters.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Samuel Rocheblave</span>: <i>George Sand et sa fille.</i> Paris, 1905.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Elie Poirée</span>: <i>Chopin.</i> Paris, 1907.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Edouard Ganche</span>: <i>Frédéric Chopin, sa vie et ses œuvres.</i> Paris, +10th ed. (<i>Mercure de France</i>), 1923.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ferdynand Hoesick</span>: <i>Chopin</i>, 3 vol. Warsaw, 1911.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">I. Paderewski</span>: <i>A la mémoire de F. Chopin</i> (speech). 1911.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Eugène Delacroix</span>: <i>Journal.</i> Plon, Paris. 3 vol., new ed., 1926.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Opienski</span>: <i>Chopin.</i> Lwow, 1910 (Altenberg).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Henri Bidou</span>: <i>Chopin.</i> (Libr. Alcan). Paris, 1926.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Aurore Sand</span>: <i>Journal Intime de George Sand.</i> Calmann-Lévy, +Paris, 1926.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a><a id="Page_267"></a>[267–<br>280]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX"> + INDEX + </h2> +</div> + + +<ul class="index"> + <li class="ifrst">Abélard, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Academy of Singing (Berlin), <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Académie Royale (Paris), <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Adagio in E major</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Adagio</i> of <i>Concerto in F minor</i> (op. 21) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Adélaïde, Madame, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Agnes</i> (Paër), <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Agoult, Countess Marie d’, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101–103</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171–172</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Aix-la-Chapelle, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Albert, Prince, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Alexandre, Czar (Emperor), <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Allard, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Allegro</i> (Moschelès), <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Allgemeine Musikalisches</i> (Vienna), <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Amboise, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx">America, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ancona, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Andante Spianato</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Antonin, Château d’, <a href="#Page_23">23–24</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Appassionata, The</i> (Beethoven), <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Apollonius of Tyre, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Apponyi, Count, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Arago, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Archbishop of Paris, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Artillery and Engineers, School of (Warsaw), <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Auber, Daniel François Esprit, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Augusta, Princess (Infante), <a href="#Page_43">43–44</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Augustine, <a href="#Page_197">197–198</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Aulary, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Austerlitz, battle of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Avignon, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Bach, Johann Sebastian, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Baillot, violinist, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Balearic Isles, <i>see also</i> Majorca, Palma, Valdemosa, <a href="#Page_127">127–142</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Ballade in G minor</i> (op. 23) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_85">85–86</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Balzac, Honoré de, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103–107</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Barberini, Place (Rome), <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Barber of Seville, The</i> (Rossini), <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Barbès, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Barcarolle</i> (op. 60) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_230">230–231</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Barcelona, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Baudelaire, Pierre-Charles, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bayer, Mme. Constance, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Beauvau, Hôtel de (Marseilles), <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Beethoven, Ludwig van, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, + <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, + <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bellini, Vincenzo, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Belvédère, Palais de (Warsaw), <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Berceuse</i> (op. 57) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_230">230–231</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Berlin, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Berlioz, Hector, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, + <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Berry (France), <a href="#Page_147">147</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Berry, Mme. la Duchesse de, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Bertram</i> (Meyerbeer), <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Blache, Dr., <a href="#Page_251">251</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Blanc, Louis, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Böhmischen Köchin, Café zur (Vienna), <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bologna, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bona Sforza, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bonstetten, Charles-Victor de, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bossuet, Jaques Bénigne, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bourges, Michel de, <a href="#Page_100">100–101</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Brault, Adèle, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Breslau, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Brest, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Broadwood, piano, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Broadwood, piano manufacturer, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bruhl, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Buloz, publisher, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bulwer, Lord, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Byron, George Gordon, Lord, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, 285</li> + + <li class="indx">Byron, Lady, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Calamatta, Louis, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Calder House (Scotland), <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Callot, Jacques, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carlist Party (Paris), <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carlsbad, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carlyle, Thomas, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carthusians, Order of, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Castellan, Mme., <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Catalani, Angelica, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cauvières, Dr., <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chaillot, rue de (Paris), <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chambres des Députés (Paris), <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Champs Elysées (Paris), <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chartreuse of Valdemosa. <i>See</i> Valdemosa</li> + + <li class="indx">Chateaubriand, François-René, Vicomte de, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chatiron, Hippolyte, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chaussée d’Antin (Paris), <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cherubini, Marie-Louis-Charles-Zénobi-Salvador, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Chmiel</i>, improvisation from (Chopin), <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chopin: Compositions, Pieces, Transcriptions, etc.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Adagio</i> of <i>Concerto in F minor</i> (op. 21), <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Adagio in E major</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Ballade in G minor</i> (op. 23), <a href="#Page_85">85–86</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Barcarolle</i> (op. 60), <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Berceuse</i> (op. 57), <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Chmiel</i>, improvisation from, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Concerto In E minor</i> (op. 11), <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Concerto in F minor</i> (op. 21), <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Etude</i> (no. 5), <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Etude in C minor</i> (op. 10, no. 12), <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Etude in E major</i> (no. 3), <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Etude in G sharp minor</i>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Fantasia in E minor</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Fantasia on Polish Airs</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Funeral March</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Grand Fantasia on Polish Airs</i>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Grande Polonaise</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Grande Valse in E flat major</i>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Impromptu</i> (op. 29), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurkas</i> (op. 41), <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in A flat major</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in B major</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in B minor</i> (op. 30), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in C minor</i> (op. 30), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in C sharp major</i> (op. 30), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in C sharp minor</i> (op. 63), <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in D flat major</i> (op. 30), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in E minor</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in F minor</i> (op. 63), <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in G major</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mazurka in G minor</i> (op. 30), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Nocturne</i> (op. 37, no. 2), <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Nocturne in C minor</i> (op. 48), <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190–191</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Nocturne in G major</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Polonaise Brillante</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Polonaise in F minor</i>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Polonaise for piano and violoncello</i>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Potpourri on the setting moon</i>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Prelude in B minor</i> (no. 6), <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Prelude in E minor</i> (no. 4), <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Prelude in B minor</i> (op. 6), <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Premier Rondo, in C minor</i> (op. 1), <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Revolutionary, The</i> (<i>Etude in C minor</i>, op. 10, no. 12), <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Rondeau in E flat major</i>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Rondo à la Krakoviak</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Second Scherzo</i> (op. 31), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Siberian, The</i>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Sonata in B flat minor</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Sonata in E flat minor</i>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Sonata in G flat minor</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Sonata in G minor, for piano and violoncello</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Sonata with violoncello</i>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Tarantella</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Three Mazurkas</i> (op. 33), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Trio, for piano, violin, and violoncello</i>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Twelve Etudes</i> (2nd vol., op. 25), <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Two Nocturnes</i> (op. 32), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Valses Brillantes</i> (op. 34), <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Valse de l’Adieu, in A flat major</i> (op. 69, no. 1), <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Variations</i> on the <i>La ci darem</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26–27</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Waltz in D flat major</i> (op. 70, no. 3), <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Waltz of the Little Dog, The</i> (op. 64, no. 1), <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>White Lady, The</i>, variations from, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chopin, Emilie, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chopin, Isabelle, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chopin, Louise, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60–62</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> Jedrzeïewicz, Louise</li> + + <li class="indx">Chopin, Nicolas, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, + <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76–77</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193–194</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chopin, Mme. Nicolas, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76–77</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247–251</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> Krzyzanowska, Justine</li> + + <li class="indx">Cichowski, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cimarosa, Domenico, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Clary, Prince, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Clary, Princess, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Clésinger, Jean-Baptiste-Auguste-Stello, <a href="#Page_205">205–227</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Clésinger, Mme., <a href="#Page_214">214–227</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> Sand, Solange</li> + + <li class="indx">Coignet, Jules-Louis-Philippe, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cologne, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Concerto in E minor</i> (op. 11) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, + <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Concerto in F minor</i> (op. 21) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, + <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Congress of Naturalists (Berlin), <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Conservatory of Music (Paris), <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Conservatory of Music (Warsaw), <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Constantin, Grand Duke, Governor of Warsaw, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cramer, pianist, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Crans, Mlle. Saladin de, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cruveillé, Dr., <a href="#Page_251">251</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Custine, Marquis de, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Czartoryski, Prince Adam, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, + <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Czartoryska, Princess Marceline, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, + <a href="#Page_252">252–255</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Czerny, Charles, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Czosnowska, Countess, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Daguerry, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Daily News</i> (London), <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dantan, Jean-Pierre, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dante, Alighieri, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Danube, The, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dautremont, tailor (Paris), <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + + <li class="indx">da Vinci, Leonardo, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx">de Garaudé, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Delacroix, Eugène, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163–167</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, + <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243–246</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">de Laprade, Victor, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Delaroche, Hippolyte-Paul, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Desdemona</i> (<i>see also Othello</i>), <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + + <li class="indx">des Préaulx, M., <a href="#Page_205">205–206</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dickens, Charles, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Dictionnaire Philosophique</i> (Voltaire), <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + + <li class="indx">di Mondi, Mlle. Antonia Molina, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dobrzyçka, Mme., <a href="#Page_43">43–44</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Don Juan</i> (Mozart), <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Douglas, Marquis of, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dover Street (London), <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Dresden, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77–81</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dudevant, Aurore. <i>See</i> Sand, George</li> + + <li class="indx">Dudevant, Casimir, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dudevant, Maurice. <i>See</i> Sand, Maurice</li> + + <li class="indx">Dudevant, Solange. <i>See</i> Sand, Solange</li> + + <li class="indx">Dupont, Alexis, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Duport, hatmaker (Paris), <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Düsseldorf, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Duteil, family of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Duvernet, Théophile-Imarigeon, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Dziady (The Feast of the Dead)</i> (Miçkiewicz), <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Ecole de Médecine. <i>See</i> School of Medicine (Paris)</li> + + <li class="indx">Edinburgh, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Elbe, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Elizabeth, Queen, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>El Mallorquin</i>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Elsner, Joseph-Xavier, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60–62</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Enfer, rue d’ (Paris), <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Erard, piano, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Erard, Salle, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Erskine, Mrs. <i>See also</i> Stirling, family, <a href="#Page_232">232</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Etienne, Mme., <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Etude</i> (no. 5) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Etude in C minor</i> (op. 10, no. 12) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Etude in E major</i> (no. 3) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Etude in G sharp minor</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Eusebius, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Euterpe</i>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Everard. <i>See</i> Bourges, Michel de</li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Faber, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Falmouth, Lord, <a href="#Page_233">233–234</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Fantasia in E minor</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Fantasia on Polish Airs</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Farewells, The (Sonata in E flat major)</i> (Beethoven), <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Faust</i> (Gounod), <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Ferdinand Cortez</i> (Spontini), <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Festival of Music (Aix-la-Chapelle), <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Fétis, music critic, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Fidélio</i> (Beethoven), <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Field, pianist, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Fleury, family of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Fontana, Jules, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, + <a href="#Page_145">145–146</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154–155</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, + <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Fouquet, Nicolas, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx">France, Hôtel de (Paris), <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Franchomme, violoncellist, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, + <a href="#Page_251">251–252</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">François I, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Françoise, the chambermaid, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>François Le Champi</i> (Sand), <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Frankfurt-am-Oder, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Frauenkirche, The (Dresden), <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Frère, Charles-Théodore, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Freyschutz Die</i> (Handel), <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Funeral March</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Gainsborough, Lady, <a href="#Page_233">233–234</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gallenberg, Count, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gaubert, Dr., <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gautier, Théophile, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gavard, Charles, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gavard, Mlle., <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Gazette Musicale</i> (Paris), <a href="#Page_178">178–180</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Geneva, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Genoa, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Geological Museum (Berlin), <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Germany</i> (Heine), <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Giotto, Ambrogio, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Giraud, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gladkowska, Constance, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33–42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48–50</a>, + <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Glasgow, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gomez, Señor, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Grand Fantasia on Polish Airs</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Grande Polonaise</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Grande Polonaise</i> (Kalkbrenner), <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Grande Valse in E flat major</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Grenoble, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Grzymala, Count Albert, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108–125</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, + <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209–213</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239–240</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, + <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gutmann, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252–255</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Habeneck, conductor, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hamilton, Duke of, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Handel, George Friedrich, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hanska, Countess, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hartmann, Caroline, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Haslinger, music publisher (Vienna), <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Haydn, Joseph, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Heine, Heinrich, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Heller, Stephen, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Héloïse, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hiller, Ferdinand, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Histoire de ma Vie</i> (Sand), <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hogarth, William, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Holy Cross, Church of (Warsaw), <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hortense, Queen, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>House of the Wind, The</i> (Majorca), <a href="#Page_128">128–132</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Houssaye, Arsène, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hugo, Victor, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hummel, Jean-Népomucène, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Imperial Theatre (Vienna), <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Infernal Comedy</i> (Miçkiewicz), <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Inquisition, Palace of (Barcelona), <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Invalides, Hôtel des (Paris), <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Invitation to the Waltz</i> (von Weber), <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Isambert, Mlle., singer, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Italian Opera House (Paris), <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Italienne à Alger, L’</i> (Rossini), <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Italy, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Jagellons, dynasty of, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Janin, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jardin des Plantes (Paris), <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jaroçki, Professor, <a href="#Page_27">27–28</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jean, Prince of Lucca, future King of Saxony, <a href="#Page_43">43–44</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jedrzeïewicz, Calasante, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247–250</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jedrzeïewicz, Louise, <a href="#Page_193">193–195</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237–238</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247–250</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> Chopin, Louise</li> + + <li class="indx">Jelowiçki, Abbé Alexandre, <a href="#Page_252">252–255</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jéna, battle of, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jésuites, rue des (Warsaw), <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Journal</i> (Delacroix), <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244–246</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Journal des Débats</i> (Paris), <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Journal Intime</i> (Sand), <a href="#Page_99">99–100</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jules II, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Kalerji, Mme., <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kalisz, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kalkbrenner, Frédéric-Guillaume, <a href="#Page_58">58–63</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Karol, Prince</i> (Sand), <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also Lucrezia Floriani</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Keats, John, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Keir, The Stirlings of, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kisting, piano factory, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kleczynski, Professor, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Klengel, Alexandre, composer, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Krakoviak. See Rondo à la Krakoviak</i> (Chopin)</li> + + <li class="indx">Krasinski, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Kreutzer Sonata</i> (Beethoven), <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kronprinz, Hôtel du (Berlin), <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Krzyzanowska, Justine, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> Chopin, Mme. Nicolas</li> + + <li class="indx">Kurpinski, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kwiatkowsky, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Lablache, Mme. Louis, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">La Châtre (France), <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Lady of the Lake, The</i> (Rossini), <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Laffitte, rue (Paris), <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + + <li class="indx">La Fontaine, Jean de, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lambert, Hôtel (Paris), <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lamennais, Abbé de, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lannes, Maréchale, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lefébure-Wély, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Légion d’Honneur, La</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Legouvé, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Leipzig, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Leipzig, battle of, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Lélia</i> (Sand), <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Le Méléagre</i>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lenz, Monsieur W. de, <a href="#Page_186">186–188</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Le Phénicien</i>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Leroux, Pierre, <a href="#Page_159">159–160</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Le Verier, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lichnowsky, Count, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lind, Jenny, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Linde, Mme., <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Liszt, Franz, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, + <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, + <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171–176</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, + <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lorraine (France), <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Louis XVI, King, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Louis, Dr., <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Louis-Philippe, King, <a href="#Page_177">177–178</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228–230</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Louvre, The (Paris), <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lucca, Prince of. <i>See</i> Jean</li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Lucrezia Floriani</i> (Sand), <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200–201</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Luxembourg, Musée du (Paris), <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Madeleine, Church of the (Paris), <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Majorca, <a href="#Page_128">128–143</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> Balearic Isles, Palma, Valdemosa</li> + + <li class="indx">Malfatti, Dr., <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Malibran, Maria-Félicité Garcia, <a href="#Page_57">57–58</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mallefille, Félicien, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, + <a href="#Page_123">123–124</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Manchester, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Manchester Guardian</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Marainville (France), <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mardi Gras, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mare Au Diable, La</i> (Sand), <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Marliani, Mme., <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142–143</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, + <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Marie-Aurore of Saxe, Queen, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Marienbad, <a href="#Page_87">87–88</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Marmontel, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Marot, Clément, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Marseilles, <a href="#Page_143">143–147</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Matuszinski, Dr. Jean, <a href="#Page_47">47–49</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, + <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Maurras, Charles, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurkas</i> (op. 41) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurka in A flat major</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurka in C sharp major</i> (op. 30) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurka in C sharp minor</i> (op. 63) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurka in C minor</i> (op. 30) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurka in D flat major</i> (op. 30) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurka in E minor</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurka in F minor</i> (op. 63) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurka in G major</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurka in G major</i> (op. 63) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mazurka in G minor</i> (op. 30) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mémoires</i> (Sand), <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mendelssohn, Bartholdy Felix, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mendizabal, Don Juan Alvarez y, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mérimée, Prosper, <a href="#Page_95">95–96</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Merry Wives of Windsor, The</i> (Shakespeare), <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Meyerbeer, Giacomo, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258–259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Michelangelo, Buomarroti, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Miçkiewicz, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159–160</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Milan, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mohilew, General, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Molière (Jean Baptiste Poquelin), <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Molin, Dr., <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Montpensier, Duke of, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Moschelès, Ignace, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Moscow, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Moses, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Moses</i> (Rossini), <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mostowska, Countess, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mozart, Wolfgang von, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163–165</a>, + <a href="#Page_174">174–175</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Munich, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Musset, Viscount Alfred de, <a href="#Page_98">98–100</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, + <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Nantes, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Naples, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Napoleon I, Emperor, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Napoleon III, Emperor. <i>See</i> Napoleon, Prince Louis</li> + + <li class="indx">Napoleon, Prince Louis, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nidecki, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Niemcewicz, Julian-Orsin, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nietzsche, Friedrich, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190–191</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Night Song</i> (Nietzsche), <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Noailles, Duke of, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Nocturne</i> (op. 37, no. 2) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Nocturne in C minor</i> (op. 48) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190–191</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Nocturne in G major</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nohant, Château de, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103–107</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, + <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Notre Dame de Paris, Church of (Paris), <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nourrit, Adolph, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Obreskow, Mme., <a href="#Page_247">247–248</a></li> + + <li class="indx">O’Meara, Mlle., <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Opera, The (Berlin), <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Opera, The (Warsaw), <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Orleans, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Orleans, Duke of, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Orléans, Square d’ (Paris), <a href="#Page_185">185</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Orlowski, <a href="#Page_70">70–71</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Orsetti, family of, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Osborne, pianist, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ostend, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Othello</i> (Rossini), <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Paderewski, Ignace, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Paër, Fernando, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Paganini, Nicolo, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Paix, rue de la, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Palma, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> Majorca, Balearic Isles, Valdemosa</li> + + <li class="indx">Panthéon, The (Paris), <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Papet, Dr., <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Paskewitch, General, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pasta, Giuditta Negri, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pelletan, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Père-Lachaise, Cemetery of (Paris), <a href="#Page_259">259</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Perpignan, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Perthuis, Count de, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Philharmonic Orchestra (London), <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pierre, the gardener, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pigalle, rue (Paris), <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Pixis, violinist, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Plater, Count, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pleyel, Camille, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127–128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, + <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pleyel, piano, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pleyel, Salon, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178–180</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229–232</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Poissonnière, Boulevard (Paris), <a href="#Page_56">56</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Polonaise Brillante</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Polonaise in F minor</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Polonaise for piano and violoncello</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Poniatowski, Prince Joseph-Antoine, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pont du Gard, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Posen, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Potoçka, Countess Delphine, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73–75</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254–255</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Potpourri on the setting moon</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Prague, <a href="#Page_32">32–33</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Prelude in B minor</i> (no. 6) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Prelude in E minor</i> (no. 4) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Prelude in G minor</i> (op. 6) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Premier Rondo, in C minor</i> (op. 1) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Preparatory Military Academy (Warsaw), <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Probst, music publisher (Paris), <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Prophet, The</i> (Meyerbeer), <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Prussia, Napoleon’s campaign in, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Prussia, Prince of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Quatuor Serioso</i> (Beethoven), <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Quintette</i> (Beethoven), <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Racine, Jean, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Radziwill, Prince Antoine, <a href="#Page_23">23–24</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Radziwill, Princess, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Radziwill, Princess Elise, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Radziwill, Princess Marceline, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Radziwill, Prince Valentin, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Radziwill, Princess Wanda, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ramorino, General, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ravel, Maurice, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Reber, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Rénovateur, Le</i> (Paris), <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Republican Party (Paris), <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Requiem</i> (Mozart), <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Revolution of 1830 (Poland), <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Revolution of 1848 (France), <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Revolutionary, The</i> (<i>Etude in C minor</i>, op. 10, no. 12) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> (Paris), <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Richter, Johann-Paul von, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Robert the Devil</i> (Meyerbeer), <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rochechouart, rue (Paris), <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Roger, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rollinat, François, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rome, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Rondeau in E flat major</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Rondo à la Krakoviak</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rossini, Gioachino, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Roth, Dr., <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rothschild, Baron James de, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rothschild, Baroness, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rousseau, Théodore, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rozières, Mlle. de, <a href="#Page_181">181–182</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215–217</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">St.-Antoine, Place (Geneva), <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Saint Bruno, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St.-Etienne, Church of (Vienna), <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin de, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St.-Etienne du Mont, Church of (Paris), <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St.-Germain des Prés, Church of (Paris), <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St.-Germain l’Auxerrois, Church of (Paris), <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St. John, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St.-Louis, Mont (Paris), <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St. Petersburg, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Saint-Saëns, Charles-Camille, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St.-Simon, Henri-Jean-Victor de Rouvroy, Duc de, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St. Simonien Party (Paris), <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St.-Sulpice, Church of (Paris), <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Salzburg, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sand, George, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Sand, Maurice, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137–138</a>, + <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166–167</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, + <a href="#Page_196">196–197</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, + <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sand, Solange, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, + <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197–199</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205–227</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> Clésinger, Mme.</li> + + <li class="indx">Sandeau, Jules, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sapieha, Princess, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Saxe, Maréchal de, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Saxony, King of. <i>See</i> Jean, Prince of Lucca</li> + + <li class="indx">Saxony, Queen of, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Scheffer, Ary, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Schlesinger, publisher (Paris), <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + + <li class="indx">School of Medicine (Paris), <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Schubert, Franz, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174–175</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Schumann, Robert, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, + <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Secret Marriage, The</i> (Cimarosa), <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Secrétaire Intime, Le</i> (Sand), <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Seine, The, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Shakespeare, William, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Shelley, Percy Bysshe, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Shroeder-Devrient, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Siberian, The</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_161">161–162</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Simon, Dr., <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Skarbeck, Countess, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Slavik, violinist, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Slowacki, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Smithson, Henrietta, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Socrates, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Somerset, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sonata in B flat minor</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sonata in E flat major</i> (Beethoven), <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sonata in E flat minor</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sonata in G flat minor</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sonata in G minor for piano and violoncello</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sonata with violoncello</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sontag, German singer, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sowinski, pianist, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Spain, King of, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Spontini, Gasparo Luigi Pacifico, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sprée, The, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Stafford House (London), <a href="#Page_233">233–234</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Stamati, pianist, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Stars, The</i> (Schubert), <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Stendhal (Marie Henri Beyle), <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Stirling, Jane, <a href="#Page_228">228</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Stradivarius, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Strauss, Johann, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Stuttgart, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sue, Eugène, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sutherland, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Swedenborg, Emmanuel, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Tarantella</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Tempe, valley of, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Teplitz, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Théâtre Italien (Paris), <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + + <li class="indx">“Three Glorious Days” (Paris), <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Three Mazurkas</i> (op. 33) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Tiber, The, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Tilsit, battle of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Titus. <i>See</i> Woyçieckowski, Titus</li> + + <li class="indx">Tomeoni, Mlle., singer, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Torphichen, Lord, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Tours, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Trio for piano, violin and violoncello</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Trio for piano, violin and violoncello</i> (Mozart), <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Tronchet, rue (Paris), <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Tuileries, The (Paris), <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Twelve Etudes</i> (2nd vol., op. 25) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Ukraine, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Urhan, violinist, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Val de Grâce Hospital (Paris), <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Valdemosa, Chartreuse of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133–142</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> Palma, Majorca, Balearic Isles</li> + + <li class="indx"><i>“Valse de l’Adieu” in A flat major</i> (op. 69, no. 1) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Valses Brillantes</i> (op. 34) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Variations</i> on the <i>La ci darem</i> (Chopin), <a href="#Page_26">26–27</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Vaucluse, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Vaudemont, Princess de, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Vendôme, Place (Paris), <a href="#Page_251">251</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Venice, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Veron, Louis-Désiré, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Veronese, Paul, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Viardot, Louis, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Viardot, Pauline, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Victoria, Queen, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Vienna, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Wagner, Richard, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wagram, battle of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Waltz in D flat major</i> (op. 70, no. 3) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + + <li class="indx">“<i>Waltz of the Little Dog</i>” (op. 64, no. 1) (Chopin), <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Warsaw, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, + <a href="#Page_45">45–46</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, + <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Warsaw, Duchy of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Warsaw High School, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wellington, Duke of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Westminster, Duke of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>White Lady, The</i>, improvisation from (Chopin), <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wieck, Clara, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wieck, Herr, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Wiener Theaterzeitung</i> (Vienna), <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wilna, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Winter at Majorca</i> (Sand), <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Witwicki, Polish writer, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wodzinska, Countess, <a href="#Page_80">80–92</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wodzinska, Marie, <a href="#Page_76">76–93</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wodzinska, Mlle. Thérèse, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wodzinski, Casimir, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wodzinski, Count Antoine, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wodzinski, family, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77–93</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wodzinski, Félix, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wodzinski, Palatin, <a href="#Page_79">79–80</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wola, suburb of Warsaw, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wolowski, deputy, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Woyciechowski, Titus, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36–39</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43–46</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, + <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Young French Party (Paris), <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>zal</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Zamboni, conductor, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Zarathustra</i> (Nietzsche), <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Zelazowa, Wola, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Zielinski, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Zullichau (Poland), <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Zwinger Museum (Dresden), <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Zywny, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> +</ul> + + +<p class="center"> +Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London +</p> + + +<p class="center mt3">Transcriber’s Note</p> + +<p class="center">New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to +the public domain.</p> + +<p class="center">A closing quotation mark was added after: like an airy +<a href="#quote">apparition</a> on page 175</p> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76904 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + |