[6.]
The day after to-morrow, Thursday, at five o'clock in the
morning, we start, and on Friday at three, four, certainly at
five o'clock, I shall be in Rue Tronchet, No. 5. I beg of you
to inform the people there of this, I wrote to Johnnie to-day
to retain for me that valet, and order him to wait for me at
Rue Tronchet on Friday from noon. Should you have time to call
upon me at that time, we would most heartily embrace each
other. Once more my and my companion's most sincere thanks for
Rue Pigalle.
Now, keep a sharp look-out on the tailor, he must have the
clothes ready by Friday morning, so that I can change my
clothes as soon as I come. Order him to take them to Rue
Tronchet, and deliver them there to the valet Tineau—if I
mistake not, that is his name. Likewise the hat from Dupont,
[FOOTNOTE: In the preceding letter it was Duport] and for that
I shall alter for you the second part of the Polonaise till
the last moment of my life. Yesterday's version also may not
please you, although I racked my brains with it for at least
eighty seconds.
I have written out my manuscripts in good order. There are six
with your Polonaises, not counting the seventh, an impromptu,
which may perhaps be worthless—I do not know myself, it is
too new. But it would be well if it be not too much in the
style of Orlowski, Zimmermann, or Karsko-Konski, [FOOTNOTE:
Chopin's countryman, the pianist and composer Antoine Kontski]
or Sowinski, or other similar animals. For, according to my
reckoning, it might fetch me about 800 francs. That will be
seen afterwards.
As you are such a clever man, you might also arrange that no
black thoughts and suffocating coughs shall annoy me in the
new rooms. Try to make me good. Change, if you can, many
episodes of my past. It would also not be a bad thing if I
should find a few years of great work accomplished. By this
you will greatly oblige me, also if you would make yourself
younger or bring about that we had never been born.—Your old
FREDERICK.
CHAPTER XXIV.
1839-1842.
RETURN OF GEORGE SAND AND CHOPIN TO PARIS.—GEORGE SAND IN THE RUE PIGALLE.—CHOPIN IN THE RUE TRONCHET: REMINISCENCES OF BRINLEY RICHARDS AND MOSCHELES.—SOIREES AT LEO'S AND ST. CLOUD.—CHOPIN JOINS MADAME SAND IN THE RUE PIGALLE.—EXTRACTS FROM GEORGE SAND'S CORRESPONDANCE; A LETTER OF MADAME SAND'S TO CHOPIN; BALZAC ANECDOTES.—MADAME SAND AND CHOPIN DO NOT GO TO NOHANT IN 1840.—COMPOSITIONS OF THIS PERIOD.—ABOUT CHOPIN AS A PIANIST.—LETTERS WRITTEN TO FONTANA IN THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF 1841.
Although Chopin and George Sand came to Paris towards the end of October, 1839, months passed before the latter got into the house which Fontana had taken for her. This we learn from a letter written by her to her friend Gustave Papet, and dated Paris, January, 1840, wherein we read:—
At last I am installed in the Rue Pigalle, 16, only since the
last two days, after having fumed, raged, stormed, and sworn
at the upholsterers, locksmith, &c., &c. What a long,
horrible, unbearable business it is to lodge one's self here!
[FOOTNOTE: In the letter, dated Paris, October, 1839,
preceding, in the George Sand "Correspondance," the one from
which the above passage is extracted, occur the following
words: "Je suis enfin installee chez moi a Paris." Where this
chez moi was, I do not know.]
How greatly the interiors of George Sand's pavilions in the Rue Pigalle differed from those of Senor Gomez's villa and the cells in the monastery of Valdemosa, may be gathered from Gutmann's description of two of the apartments.
[FOOTNOTE: I do not guarantee the correctness of all the following details, although I found them in a sketch of Gutmann's life inspired by himself ("Der Lieblings-schuler Chopin's", No. 3 of "Schone Geister," by Bernhard Stavenow, Bremen, 1879), and which he assured me was trustworthy. The reasons of my scepticism are—1, Gutmann's imaginative memory and tendency to show himself off to advantage; 2, Stavenow's love of fine writing and a good story; 3, innumerable misstatements that can be indisputably proved by documents.]
Regarding the small salon, he gives only the general information that it was quaintly fitted up with antique furniture. But of George Sand's own room, which made a deeper impression upon him, he mentions so many particulars—the brown carpet covering the whole floor, the walls hung with a dark-brown ribbed cloth (Ripsstoff), the fine paintings, the carved furniture of dark oak, the brown velvet seats of the chairs, the large square bed, rising but little above the floor, and covered with a Persian rug (Teppich)—that it is easy to picture to ourselves the tout-ensemble of its appearance. Gutmann tells us that he had an early opportunity of making these observations, for Chopin visited his pupil the very day after his arrival (?), and invited him at once to call on George Sand in order to be introduced to her. When Gutmann presented himself in the small salon above alluded to, he found George Sand seated on an ottoman smoking a cigarette. She received the young man with great cordiality, telling him that his master had often spoken to her of him most lovingly. Chopin entered soon after from an adjoining apartment, and then they all went into the dining-room to have dinner. When they were seated again in the cosy salon, and George Sand had lit another cigarette, the conversation, which had touched on a variety of topics, among the rest on Majorca, turned on art. It was then that the authoress said to her friend: "Chop, Chop, show Gutmann my room that he may see the pictures which Eugene Delacroix painted for me."