Friends not less esteemed by her than these, but with whom she was less intimate, were the Polish poet Mickiewicz, the famous bass singer Lablache, the excellent pianist and composer Alkan aine, the Italian composer and singing-master Soliva (whom we met already in Warsaw), the philosopher and poet Edgar Quinet, General Guglielmo Pepe (commander-in-chief of the Neapolitan insurrectionary army in 1820-21), and likewise the actor Bocage, the litterateur Ferdinand Francois, the German musician Dessauer, the Spanish politician Mendizabal, the dramatist and journalist Etienne Arago, [FOOTNOTE: The name of Etienne Arago is mentioned in "Ma Vie," but it is that of Emmanuel Arago which occurs frequently in the "Corrcspcndance.">[ and a number of literary and other personages of less note, of whom I shall mention only Agricol Perdiguier and Gilland, the noble artisan and the ecrivain proletaire, as George Sand calls them.
Although some of George Sand's friends were also Chopin's, there can be no doubt that the society which gathered around her was on the whole not congenial to him. Some remarks which Liszt makes with regard to George Sand's salon at Nohant are even more applicable to her salon in Paris.
An author's relations with the representatives of publicity
and his dramatic executants, actors and actresses, and with
those whom he treats with marked attention on account of their
merits or because they please him; the crossing of incidents,
the clash and rebound of the infatuations and disagreements
which result therefrom; were naturally hateful to him [to
Chopin]. For a long time he endeavoured to escape from them by
shutting his eyes, by making up his mind not to see anything.
There happened, however, such things, such catastrophes
[denouements], as, by shocking too much his delicacy,
offending too much his habits of the moral and social comme-il-
faut, ended in rendering his presence at Nohant impossible,
although he seemed at first to have felt more content [plus de
repif] there than elsewhere.
These are, of course, only mere surmises, but Liszt, although often wrong as to incidents, is, thanks to his penetrative genius, generally right as to essences. Indeed, if George Sand's surroundings and Chopin's character and tastes are kept in view nothing seems to be more probable than that his over-delicate susceptibilities may have occasionally been shocked by unrestrained vivacity, loud laughter, and perhaps even coarse words; that his uncompromising idealism may have been disturbed by the discordance of literary squabbles, intrigues, and business transactions; that his peaceable, non-speculative, and non-argumentative disposition may have been vexed and wearied by discussions of political, social, religious, literary, and artistic problems. Unless his own art was the subject, Chopin did not take part in discussions. And Liszt tells us that Chopin not only, like most artists, lacked a generalising mind [esprit generalisateur], but showed hardly any inclination for aesthetics, of which he had not even heard much. We may be sure that to Chopin to whom discussions of any kind were distasteful, those of a circle in which, as in that of George Sand, democratic and socialistic, theistic and atheistic views prevailed, were particularly so. For, notwithstanding his bourgeois birth, his sympathies were with the aristocracy; and notwithstanding his neglect of ritual observances, his attachment to the Church of Rome remained unbroken. Chopin does not seem to have concealed his dislike to George Sand's circle; if he did not give audible expression to it, he made it sufficiently manifest by seeking other company. That she was aware of the fact and displeased with it, is evident from what she says of her lover's social habits in Ma Vie. The following excerpt from that work is an important biographical contribution; it is written not without bitterness, but with hardly any exaggeration:—
He was a man of the world par excellence, not of the too
formal and too numerous world, but of the intimate world, of
the salons of twenty persons, of the hour when the crowd goes
away and the habitues crowd round the artist to wrest from him
by amiable importunity his purest inspiration. It was then
only that he exhibited all his genius and all his talent. It
was then also that after having plunged his audience into a
profound recueillement or into a painful sadness, for his
music sometimes discouraged one's soul terribly, especially
when he improvised, he would suddenly, as if to take away the
impression and remembrance of his sorrow from others and from
himself, turn stealthily to a glass, arrange his hair and his
cravat, and show himself suddenly transformed into a
phlegmatic Englishman, into an impertinent old man, into a
sentimental and ridiculous Englishwoman, into a sordid Jew.
The types were always sad, however comical they might be, but
perfectly conceived and so delicately rendered that one could
not grow weary of admiring them.
All these sublime, charming, or bizarre things that he knew
how to evolve out of himself made him the soul of select
society, and there was literally a contest for his company,
his noble character, his disinterestedness, his self-respect,
his proper pride, enemy of every vanity of bad taste and of
every insolent reclame, the security of intercourse with him,
and the exquisite delicacy of his manners, making him a friend
equally serious and agreeable.
To tear Chopin away from so many gdteries, to associate him
with a simple, uniform, and constantly studious life, him who
had been brought up on the knees of princesses, was to deprive
him of that which made him live, of a factitious life, it is
true, for, like a painted woman, he laid aside in the evening,
in returning to his home, his verve and his energy, to give
the night to fever and sleeplessness; but of a life which
would have been shorter and more animated than that of the
retirement and of the intimacy restricted to the uniform
circle of a single family. In Paris he visited several salons
every day, or he chose at least every evening a different one
as a milieu. He had thus by turns twenty or thirty salons to
intoxicate or to charm with his presence.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHOPIN IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS: HIS PREDILECTION FOR THE FASHIONABLE SALON SOCIETY (ACCOUNTS BY MADAME GIRARDIN AND BERLIOZ); HIS NEGLECT OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTISTS (ARY SCHEFFER, MARMONTEL, HELLER, SCHULHOFF, THE PARIS CORRESPONDENT OF THE MUSICAL WORLD); APHORISMS BY LISZT ON CHOPIN IN HIS SOCIAL ASPECT.—CHOPIN'S FRIENDSHIPS.—GEORGE SAND, LISZT, LENZ, HELLER, MARMONTEL, AND HILLER ON HIS CHARACTER (IRRITABILITY, FITS OF ANGER—SCENE WITH MEYERBEER—GAIETY AND RAILLERY, LOVE OF SOCIETY, AND LITTLE TASTE FOR READING, PREDILECTION FOR THINGS POLISH).—HIS POLISH, GERMAN, ENGLISH, AND RUSSIAN FRIENDS.—THE PARTY MADE FAMOUS BY LISZT'S ACCOUNT.—HIS INTERCOURSE WITH MUSICIANS (OSBORNE, BERLIOZ, BAILLOT, CHERUBINI, KALKBRENNER, FONTANA, SOWINSKI, WOLFF, MEYERBEER, ALKAN, ETC.).—HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH LISZT.—HIS DISLIKE TO LETTER-WRITING.
George Sand, although one of the cleverest of the literary portrayers who have tried their hand at Chopin, cannot be regarded as one of the most impartial; but it must be admitted that in describing her deserted lover as un homme du monde par excellence, non pas du monde trop officiel, trop nombreux, she says what is confirmed by all who have known him, by his friends, foes, and those that are neither. Aristocratic society, with which he was acquainted from his earliest childhood, had always a great charm for him. When at the beginning of 1833, a little more than two years after his arrival in Paris, he informed his friend Dziewanowski that he moved in the highest society—among ambassadors, princes, and ministers—it is impossible not to see that the fact gives him much satisfaction. Without going so far as to say with a great contemporary of Chopin, Stephen Heller, that the higher you go in society the greater is the ignorance you find, I think that little if any good for either heart or mind can come from intercourse with that section of the people which proudly styles itself "society" (le monde). Many individuals that belong to it possess, no doubt, true nobility, wisdom, and learning, nay, even the majority may possess one or the other or all of them in some degree, but these qualities are so out of keeping with the prevailing frivolity that few have the moral courage to show their better nature. If Chopin imagined that he was fully understood as an artist by society, he was sadly mistaken. Liszt and Heller certainly held that he was not fully understood, and they did not merely surmise or speak from hearsay, for neither of them was a stranger in that quarter, although the latter avoided it as much as possible. What society could and did appreciate in Chopin was his virtuosity, his elegance, and his delicacy. It is not my intention to attempt an enumeration of Chopin's aristocratic friends and acquaintances, but in the dedications of his works the curious will find the most important of them. There, then, we read the names of the Princess Czartoryska, Countess Plater, Countess Potocka, Princesse de Beauvau, Countess Appony, Countess Esterhazy, Comte and Comtesse de Perthuis, Baroness Bronicka, Princess Czernicheff, Princess Souzzo, Countess Mostowska, Countess Czosnowska, Comtesse de Flahault, Baroness von Billing, Baron and Baroness von Stockhausen, Countess von Lobau, Mdlle. de Noailles, &c. And in addition to these we have representatives of the aristocracy of wealth, Madame C. de Rothschild foremost amongst them. Whether the banker Leo with whom and his family Chopin was on very friendly terms may be mentioned in this connection, I do not know. But we must remember that round many of the above names cluster large families. The names of the sisters Countess Potocka and Princesse de Beauvau call up at once that of their mother, Countess Komar. Many of these here enumerated are repeatedly mentioned in the course of this book, some will receive particular attention in the next chapter. Now we will try to get a glimpse of Chopin in society.
Madame de Girardin, after having described in one of her "Lettres parisiennes" (March 7, 1847) [FOOTNOTE: The full title of the work is: "Le Vicomte de Launay—Lettres parisiennes par Mdme. Emile de Girardin." (Paris: Michel Levy freres.)] with what success Mdlle. O'Meara accompanied by her master played his E minor Concerto at a soiree of Madame de Courbonne, proceeds thus:—