His auditors, whom he, absorbed in his own thoughts and
looking only at the keys, had entirely forgotten, listened
with breathless attention. When he had concluded his
improvisation, he raised his eyes, and noticed a plainly-
dressed lady who, leaning on the instrument, seemed to wish to
read his soul with her dark fiery eyes. [Although a severe
critic might object to the attitude of a lady leaning on a
piano as socially and pictorially awkward, he must admit that
from a literary point of view it is unquestionably more
effective than sitting or standing by the door.] Chopin felt
he was blushing under the fascinating glances of the lady
[Bravo! This is a master-touch]; she smiled [Exquisite!], and
when the artist was about to withdraw from the company behind
a group of camellias, he heard the peculiar rustling of a silk
dress, which exhaled a fragrance of violets [Camellias,
rustling silks, fragrance of violets! What a profusion of
beauty and sweetness!], and the same lady who had watched him
so inquiringly at the piano approached him accompanied by
Liszt. Speaking to him with a deep, sweet voice, she made some
remarks on his playing, and more especially on the contents of
his improvisation. Frederick listened to her with pleasure and
emotion, and while words full of sparkling wit and
indescribable poetry flowed from the lady's eloquent lips
[Quite a novel representation of her powers of conversation],
he felt that he was understood as he had never been.
All this is undoubtedly very pretty, and would be invaluable in a novel, but I am afraid we should embarrass Karasowski were we to ask him to name his authorities.
Of this meeting at the house of the Marquis de C.—i.e., the Marquis de Custine—I was furnished with a third version by an eye-witness—namely, by Chopin's pupil Adolph Gutmann. From him I learned that the occasion was neither a full-dress ball nor a chance gathering of a jour fixe, but a musical matinee. Gutmann, Vidal (Jean Joseph), and Franchomme opened the proceedings with a trio by Mayseder, a composer the very existence of whose once popular chamber-music is unknown to the present generation. Chopin played a great deal, and George Sand devoured him with her eyes. Afterwards the musician and the novelist walked together a long time in the garden. Gutmann was sure that this matinee took place either in 1836 or in 1837, and was inclined to think that it was in the first-mentioned year.
Franchomme, whom I questioned about the matinee at the Marquis de Custine's, had no recollection of it. Nor did he remember the circumstance of having on this or any other occasion played a trio of Mayseder's with Gutmann and Vidal. But this friend of the Polish pianist—composer, while confessing his ignorance as to the place where the latter met the great novelist for the first time, was quite certain as to the year when he met her. Chopin, Franchomme informed me, made George Sand's acquaintance in 1837, their connection was broken in 1847, and he died, as everyone knows, on October 17, 1849. In each of these dates appears the number which Chopin regarded with a superstitious dread, which he avoided whenever he could-for instance, he would not at any price take lodgings in a house the number of which contained a seven—and which may be thought by some to have really exercised a fatal influence over him. It is hardly necessary to point out that it was this fatal number which fixed the date in Franchomme's memory.
But supposing Chopin and George Sand to have really met at the Marquis de Custine's, was this their first meeting?
[FOONOTE: That they were on one occasion both present at a party given by the Marquis de Custine may be gathered from Freiherr von Flotow's Reminiscences of his life in Paris (published in the "Deutsche Revue" of January, 1883, p. 65); but not that this was their first meeting, nor the time when it took place. As to the character of this dish of reminiscences, I may say that it is sauced and seasoned for the consumption of the blase magazine reader, and has no nutritive substance whatever.]
I put the question to Liszt in the course of a conversation I had with him some years ago in Weimar. His answer was most positive, and to the effect that the first meeting took place at Chopin's own apartments. "I ought to know best," he added, "seeing that I was instrumental in bringing the two together." Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more trustworthy witness in this matter than Liszt, who at that time not only was one of the chief comrades of Chopin, but also of George Sand. According to him, then, the meeting came about in this way. George Sand, whose curiosity had been excited both by the Polish musician's compositions and by the accounts she had heard of him, expressed to Liszt the wish to make the acquaintance of his friend. Liszt thereupon spoke about her to Chopin, but the latter was averse to having any intercourse with her. He said he did not like literary women, and was not made for their society; it was different with his friend, who there found himself in his element. George Sand, however, did not cease to remind Liszt of his promise to introduce her to Chopin. One morning in the early part of 1837 Liszt called on his friend and brother-artist, and found him in high spirits on account of some compositions he had lately finished. As Chopin was anxious to play them to his friends, it was arranged to have in the evening a little party at his rooms.
This seemed to Liszt an excellent opportunity to redeem the promise which he had given George Sand when she asked for an introduction; and, without telling Chopin what he was going to do, he brought her with him along with the Comtesse d'Agoult. The success of the soiree was such that it was soon followed by a second and many more.
In the foregoing accounts the reader will find contradictions enough to exercise his ingenuity upon. But the involuntary tricks of memory and the voluntary ones of imagination make always such terrible havoc of facts that truth, be it ever so much sought and cared for, appears in history and biography only in a more or less disfigured condition. George Sand's own allusion to the commencement of the acquaintance agrees best with Liszt's account. After passing in the latter part of 1836 some months in Switzerland with Liszt and the Comtesse d'Agoult, she meets them again at Paris in the December of the same year:—
At the Hotel de France, where Madame d'Agoult had persuaded me
to take quarters near her, the conditions of existence were
charming for a few days. She received many litterateurs,
artists, and some clever men of fashion. It was at Madame
d'Agoult's, or through her, that I made the acquaintance of
Eugene Sue, Baron d'Eckstein, Chopin, Mickiewicz, Nourrit,
Victor Schoelcher, &c. My friends became also hers. Through me
she got acquainted with M. Lamennais, Pierre-Leroux, Henri
Heine, &c. Her salon, improvised in an inn, was therefore a
reunion d'elite over which she presided with exquisite grace,
and where she found herself the equal of all the eminent
specialists by reason of the extent of her mind and the
variety of her faculties, which were at once poetic and
serious. Admirable music was performed there, and in the
intervals one could instruct one's self by listening to the
conversation.