Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete

by Frederick Niecks

I never heard the wind sound so like mournful voices and utter
such despairing howls as in these empty and sonorous
galleries. The noise of the torrents, the swift motion of the
clouds, the grand, monotonous sound of the sea, interrupted by
the whistling of the storm and the plaintive cries of sea-
birds which passed, quite terrified and bewildered, in the
squalls; then thick fogs which fell suddenly like a shroud and
which, penetrating into the cloisters through the broken
arcades, rendered us invisible, and made the little lamp we
carried to guide us appear like a will-o'-the-wisp wandering
under the galleries; and a thousand other details of this
monastic life which crowd all at once into my memory: all
combined made indeed this monastery the most romantic abode in
the world.
I was not sorry to see for once fully and in reality what I
had seen only in a dream, or in the fashionable ballads, and
in the nuns' scene in Robert le Diable at the Opera. Even
fantastic apparitions were not wanting to us. [FOOTNOTE: "Un
Hiver a Majorque," pp. 116 and 117.]

In the same book from which the above passage is extracted we find also a minute description of the new cloister; the chapels, variously ornamented, covered with gilding, decorated with rude paintings and horrible statues of saints in coloured wood, paved in the Arabic style with enamelled faience laid out in various mosaic designs, and provided with a fountain or marble conch; the pretty church, unfortunately without an organ, but with wainscot, confessionals, and doors of most excellent workmanship, a floor of finely-painted faience, and a remarkable statue in painted wood of St. Bruno; the little meadow in the centre of the cloister, symmetrically planted with box-trees, &c., &c.

George Sand's party occupied one of the spacious, well-ventilated, and well-lighted cells in this part of the monastery. I shall let her describe it herself.

The three rooms of which it was composed were spacious,
elegantly vaulted, and ventilated at the back by open
rosettes, all different and very prettily designed. These
three rooms were separated from the cloister by a dark passage
at the end of which was a strong door of oak. The wall was
three feet thick. The middle room was destined for reading,
prayer, and meditation; all its furniture consisted of a large
chair with a praying-desk and a back, from six to eight feet
high, let into and fixed in the wall. The room to the right of
this was the friar's bed-room; at the farther end of it was
situated the alcove, very low, and paved above with flags like
a tomb. The room to the left was the workshop, the refectory,
the store-room of the recluse. A press at the far end of the
room had a wooden compartment with a window opening on the
cloister, through which his provisions were passed in. His
kitchen consisted of two little stoves placed outside, but
not, as was the strict rule, in the open air; a vault, opening
on the garden, protected the culinary labours of the monk from
the rain, and allowed him to give himself up to this
occupation a little more than the founder would have wished.
Moreover, a fire-place introduced into this third room
indicated many other relaxations, although the science of the
architect had not gone so far as to make this fire-place
serviceable.
Running along the back of the rooms, on a level with the
rosettes, was a long channel, narrow and dark, intended for
the ventilation of the cell, and above was a loft in which the
maize, onions, beans, and other simple winter provisions were
kept. On the south the three rooms opened on a flower garden,
exactly the size of the cell itself, which was separated from
the neighbouring gardens by walls ten feet high, and was
supported by a strongly-built terrace above a little orange
grove which occupied this ledge of the mountain. The lower
ledge was covered with a beautiful arbour of vines, the third
with almond and palm trees, and so on to the bottom of the
little valley, which, as I have said, was an immense garden.
The flower garden of each cell had all along its right side a
reservoir, made of freestone, from three to four feet in width
and the same in depth, receiving through conduits placed in
the balustrade of the terrace the waters of the mountain, and
distributing them in the flower garden by means of a stone
cross, which divided it into four equal squares.
As to this flower garden, planted with pomegranate, lemon, and
orange trees, surrounded by raised walks made of bricks which,
like the reservoir, were shaded by perfumed arbours, it was
like a pretty salon of flowers and verdure, where the monk
could walk dry-footed on wet days.

Even without being told, we should have known that the artists who had now become inmates of the monastery were charmed with their surroundings. Moreover, George Sand did her utmost to make life within doors comfortable. When the furniture bought from the Spanish refugee had been supplemented by further purchases, they were, considering the circumstances, not at all badly off in this respect. The tables and straw-bottomed chairs were indeed no better than those one finds in the cottages of peasants; the sofa of white wood with cushions of mattress cloth stuffed with wool could only ironically be called "voluptuous"; and the large yellow leather trunks, whatever their ornamental properties might be, must have made but poor substitutes for wardrobes. The folding-beds, on the other hand, proved irreproachable; the mattresses, though not very soft, were new and clean, and the padded and quilted chintz coverlets left nothing to be desired. Nor does this enumeration exhaust the comforts and adornments of which the establishment could boast. Feathers, a rare article in Majorca, had been got from a French lady to make pillows for Chopin; Valenciennes matting and long-fleeced sheep skins covered the dusty floor; a large tartan shawl did duty as an alcove curtain; a stove of somewhat eccentric habits, and consisting simply of an iron cylinder with a pipe that passed through the window, had been manufactured for them at Palma; a charming clay vase surrounded with a garland of ivy displayed its beauty on the top of the stove; a beautiful large Gothic carved oak chair with a small chest convenient as a book-case had, with the consent of the sacristan, been brought from the monks' chapel; and last, but not least, there was, as we have already read in the letters, a piano, in the first weeks only a miserable Majorcan instrument, which, however, in the second half of January, after much waiting, was replaced by one of Pleyel's excellent cottage pianos.

[FOOTNOTE: By the way, among the many important and unimportant doubtful points which Chopin's and George Sand's letters settle, is also that of the amount of duty paid for the piano. The sum originally asked by the Palma custom-house officers seems to have been from 500 to 600 francs, and this demand was after a fortnight's negotiations reduced to 300 francs. That the imaginative novelist did not long remember the exact particulars of this transaction need not surprise us. In Un Hiver a Majorque she states tha the original demand was 700 francs, and the sum ultimately paid about 400 francs.]

These various items collectively and in conjunction with the rooms in which they were gathered together form a tout-ensemble picturesque and homely withal. As regards the supply of provisions, the situation of our Carthusians was decidedly less brilliant. Indeed, the water and the juicy raisins, Malaga potatoes, fried Valencia pumpkins, &c., which they had for dessert, were the only things that gave them unmixed satisfaction. With anything but pleasure they made the discovery that the chief ingredient of Majorcan cookery, an ingredient appearing in all imaginable and unimaginable guises and disguises, was pork. Fowl was all skin and bones, fish dry and tasteless, sugar of so bad a quality that it made them sick, and butter could not be procured at all. Indeed, they found it difficult to get anything of any kind. On account of their non-attendance at church they were disliked by the villagers of Valdemosa, who sold their produce to such heretics only at twice or thrice the usual price. Still, thanks to the good offices of the French consul's cook, they might have done fairly well had not wet weather been against them. But, alas, their eagerly-awaited provisions often arrived spoiled with rain, oftener still they did not arrive at all. Many a time they had to eat bread as hard as ship-biscuits, and content themselves with real Carthusian dinners. The wine was good and cheap, but, unfortunately, it had the objectionable quality of being heady.

These discomforts and wants were not painfully felt by George Sand and her children, nay, they gave, for a time at least, a new zest to life. It was otherwise with Chopin. "With his feeling for details and the wants of a refined well-being, he naturally took an intense dislike to Majorca after a few days of illness." We have already seen what a bad effect the wet weather and the damp of Son-Vent had on Chopin's health. But, according to George Sand, [FOOTNOTE: "Un Hiver a Marjorque," pp. 161-168. I suspect that she mixes up matters in a very unhistorical manner; I have, however, no means of checking her statements, her and her companion's letters being insufficient for the purpose. Chopin certainly was not likely to tell his friend the worst about his health.] it was not till later, although still in the early days of their sojourn in Majorca, that his disease declared itself in a really alarming manner. The cause of this change for the worse was over-fatigue incurred on an excursion which he made with his friends to a hermitage three miles [FOOTNOTE: George Sand does not say what kind of miles] distant from Valdemosa; the length and badness of the road alone would have been more than enough to exhaust his fund of strength, but in addition to these hardships they had, on returning, to encounter a violent wind which threw them down repeatedly. Bronchitis, from which he had previously suffered, was now followed by a nervous excitement that produced several symptoms of laryngeal phthisis. [FOOTNOTE: In the Histoire de ma Vie George Sand Bays: "From the beginning of winter, which set in all at once with a diluvian rain, Chopin showed, suddenly also, all the symptoms of pulmonary affection.">[ The physician, judging of the disease by the symptoms that presented themselves at the time of his visits, mistook its real nature, and prescribed bleeding, milk diet, &c. Chopin felt instinctively that all this would be injurious to him, that bleeding would even be fatal. George Sand, who was an experienced nurse, and whose opportunities for observing were less limited than those of the physician, had the same presentiment. After a long and anxious struggle she decided to disregard the strongly-urged advice of the physician and to obey the voice that said to her, even in her sleep: "Bleeding will kill him; but if you save him from it, he will not die," She was persuaded that this voice was the voice of Providence, and that by obeying it she saved her friend's life. What Chopin stood most in need of in his weakness and languor was a strengthening diet, and that, unfortunately, was impossible to procure:—

What would I not have given to have had some beef-tea and a
glass of Bordeaux wine to offer to our invalid every day! The
Majorcan food, and especially the manner in which it was
prepared when we were not there with eye and hand, caused him
an invincible disgust. Shall I tell you how well founded this
disgust was? One day when a lean chicken was put on the table
we saw jumping on its steaming back enormous Mattres Floh,
[FOOTNOTE: Anglice "fleas.">[ of which Hoffmann would have made
as many evil spirits, but which he certainly would not have
eaten in gravy. My children laughed so heartily that they
nearly fell under the table.

Chopin's most ardent wish was to get away from Majorca and back to France. But for some time he was too weak to travel, and when he had got a little stronger, contrary winds prevented the steamer from leaving the port. The following words of George Sand depict vividly our poor Carthusian friends' situation in all its gloom:—