Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete

by Frederick Niecks

In another of George Sand's letters to her son—it is dated November 28, 1843—we read about Chopin's already often-mentioned valet. Speaking of the foundation of a provincial journal, "L'Eclaireur de l'Indre," by herself and a number of her friends, and of their being on the look-out for an editor who would be content with the modest salary of 2,000 francs, she says:—

This is hardly more than the wages of Chopin's domestic, and
to imagine that for this it is possible to find a man of
talent! First measure of the Committee of Public Safety: we
shall outlaw Chopin if he allows himself to have lackeys
salaried like publicists.

Chopin treated George Sand with the greatest respect and devotion; he was always aux petits soins with her. It is characteristic of the man and exemplifies strikingly the delicacy of his taste and feeling that his demeanour in her house showed in no way the intimate relation in which he stood to the mistress of it: he seemed to be a guest like any other occasional visitor. Lenz wishes to make us believe that George Sand's treatment of Chopin was unworthy of the great artist, but his statements are emphatically contradicted by Gutmann, who says that her behaviour towards him was always respectful. If the lively Russian councillor in the passages I am going to translate describes correctly what he heard and saw, he must have witnessed an exceptional occurrence; it is, however, more likely that the bad reception he received from the lady prejudiced him against her.

Lenz relates that one day Chopin took him to the salon of Madame Marliani, where there was in the evening always a gathering of friends.

George Sand [thus runs his account of his first meeting with
the great novelist] did not say a word when Chopin introduced
me. This was rude. Just for that reason I seated myself beside
her. Chopin fluttered about like a little frightened bird in
its cage, he saw something was going to happen. What had he
not always feared on this terrain? At the first pause in the
conversation, which was led by Madame Sand's friend, Madame
Viardot, the great singer whose acquaintance I was later to
make in St. Petersburg, Chopin put his arm through mine and
led me to the piano. Reader! if you play the piano you will
imagine how I felt! It was an upright or cottage piano [Steh-
oder Stutzflugel] of Pleyel's, which people in Paris regard as
a pianoforte. I played the Invitation in a fragmentary
fashion, Chopin gave me his hand in the most friendly manner,
George Sand did not say a word. I seated myself once more
beside her. I had obviously a purpose. Chopin looked anxiously
at us across the table, on which was burning the inevitable
carcel.
"Are you not coming sometime to St. Petersburg," said I to
George Sand in the most polite tone, "where you are so much
read, so highly admired?"
"I shall never lower myself by visiting a country of slaves!"
answered George Sand shortly.
This was indecorous [unanstandig] after she had been uncivil.
"After all, you are right NOT to come," I replied in the same
tone; "you might find the door closed! I was thinking of the
Emperor Nicholas."
George Sand looked at me in astonishment, I plunged boldly
into her large, beautiful, brown, cow-like eyes. Chopin did
not seem displeased, I knew the movements of his head.
Instead of giving any answer George Sand rose in a theatrical
fashion, and strode in the most manly way through the salon to
the blazing fire. I followed her closely, and seated myself
for the third time beside her, ready for another attack.
She would be obliged at last to say something.
George Sand drew an enormously thick Trabucco cigar out of her
apron pocket, and called out "Frederic! un fidibus!"
This offended me for him, that perfect gentleman, my master; I
understood Liszt's words: "Pauvre Frederic!" in all their
significance.
Chopin immediately came up with a fidibus.
As she was sending forth the first terrible cloud of smoke,
George Sand honoured me with a word:
"In St. Petersburg," she began, "I could not even smoke a
cigar in a drawing-room?"
"In NO drawing-room have I ever seen anyone smoke a cigar,
Madame," I answered, not without emphasis, with a bow!
George Sand fixed her eyes sharply upon me—the thrust had
gone home! I looked calmly around me at the good pictures in
the salon, each of which was lighted up by a separate lamp.
Chopin had probably heard nothing; he had returned to the
hostess at the table.
Pauvre Frederic! How sorry I was for him, the great artist!
The next day the Suisse [hall-porter] in the hotel, Mr.
Armand, said to me: "A gentleman and a lady have been here, I
said you were not at home, you had not said you would receive
visitors; the gentleman left his name, he had no card with
him." I read: Chopin et Madame Sand. After this I quarrelled
for two months with Mr. Armand.

George Sand was probably out of humour on the evening in question; that it was not her usual manner of receiving visitors may be gathered from what Chopin said soon after to Lenz when the latter came to him for a lesson. "George Sand," he said, "called with me on you. What a pity you were not at home! I regretted it very much. George Sand thought she had been uncivil to you. You would have seen how amiable she can be. You have pleased her."

Alexander Chodzko, the learned professor of Slavonic literature at the College de France, told me that he was half-a-dozen times at George Sand's house. Her apartments were furnished in a style in favour with young men. First you came into a vestibule where hats, coats, and sticks were left, then into a large salon with a billiard-table. On the mantel-piece were to be found the materials requisite for smoking. George Sand set her guests an example by lighting a cigar. M. Chodzko met there among others the historian and statesman Guizot, the litterateur Francois, and Madame Marliani. If Chopin was not present, George Sand would often ask the servant what he was doing, whether he was working or sleeping, whether he was in good or bad humour. And when he came in all eyes were directed towards him. If he happened to be in good humour George Sand would lead him to the piano, which stood in one of the two smaller apartments adjoining the salon. These smaller apartments were provided with couches for those who wished to talk. Chopin began generally to prelude apathetically and only gradually grew warm, but then his playing was really grand. If, however, he was not in a playing mood, he was often asked to give some of his wonderful mimetic imitations. On such occasions Chopin retired to one of the side-rooms, and when he returned he was irrecognisable. Professor Chodzko remembers seeing him as Frederick the Great.

Chopin's talent for mimicry, which even such distinguished actors as Bocage and Madame Dorval regarded with admiration, is alluded to by Balzac in his novel "Un Homme d'affaires," where he says of one of the characters that "he is endowed with the same talent for imitating people which Chopin, the pianist, possesses in so high a degree; he represents a personage instantly and with astounding truth." Liszt remarks that Chopin displayed in pantomime an inexhaustible verve drolatique, and often amused himself with reproducing in comical improvisations the musical formulas and peculiar ways of certain virtuosos, whose faces and gestures he at the same time imitated in the most striking manner. These statements are corroborated by the accounts of innumerable eye and ear-witnesses of such performances. One of the most illustrative of these accounts is the following very amusing anecdote. When the Polish musician Nowakowski [FOOTNOTE: He visited Paris in 1838, 1841, and 1846, partly for the purpose of making arrangements for the publication of his compositions, among which are Etudes dedicated to Chopin.] visited Paris, he begged his countryman to bring him in contact with Kalkbrenner, Liszt, and Pixis. Chopin, replying that he need not put himself to the trouble of going in search of these artists if he wished to make their acquaintance, forthwith sat down at the piano and assumed the attitude, imitated the style of playing, and mimicked the mien and gestures, first of Liszt and then of Pixis. Next evening Chopin and Nowakowski went together to the theatre. The former having left the box during one of the intervals, the latter looked round after awhile and saw Pixis sitting beside him. Nowakowski, thinking Chopin was at his favourite game, clapped Pixis familiarly on the shoulder and said: "Leave off, don't imitate now!" The surprise of Pixis and the subsequent confusion of Nowakowski may be easily imagined. When Chopin, who at this moment returned, had been made to understand what had taken place, he laughed heartily, and with the grace peculiar to him knew how to make his friend's and his own excuses. One thing in connection with Chopin's mimicry has to be particularly noted—it is very characteristic of the man. Chopin, we learn from Liszt, while subjecting his features to all kinds of metamorphoses and imitating even the ugly and grotesque, never lost his native grace, "la grimace ne parvenait meme pas a l'enlaidir."

We shall see presently what George Sand has to say about her lover's imitative talent; first, however, we will make ourselves acquainted with the friends with whom she especially associated. Besides Pierre Leroux, Balzac, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, and others who have already been mentioned in the foregoing chapters, she numbered among her most intimate friends the Republican politician and historian Louis Blanc, the Republican litterateur Godefroy Cavaignac, the historian Henri Martin, and the litterateur Louis Viardot, the husband of Pauline Garcia.

[FOOTNOTE: This name reminds me of a passage in Louis Blanc's "Histoire de la Revolution de 1840" (p. 210 of Fifth Edition. Paris, 1880). "A short time before his [Godefroy Cavaignac's] end, he was seized by an extraordinary desire to hear music once more. I knew Chopin. I offered to go to him, and to bring him with me, if the doctor did not oppose it. The entreaties thereupon took the character of a supplication. With the consent, or rather at the urgent prayer, of Madame Cavaignac, I betook myself to Chopin. Madame George Sand was there. She expressed in a touching manner the lively interest with which the invalid inspired her; and Chopin placed himself at my service with much readiness and grace. I conducted him then into the chamber of the dying man, where there was a bad piano. The great artist begins...Suddenly he is interrupted by sobs. Godefroy, in a transport of sensibility which gave him a moment's physical strength, had quite unexpectedly raised himself in his bed of suffering, his face bathed in tears. Chopin stopped, much disturbed; Madame Cavaignac, leaning towards her son, anxiously interrogated him with her eyes. He made an effort to become self-possessed; he attempted to smile, and with a feeble voice said, 'Do not be uneasy, mamma, it is nothing; real childishness...Ah! how beautiful music is, understood thus!' His thought was—we had no difficulty in divining it—that he would no longer hear anything like it in this world, but he refrained from saying so.">[