The physical condition in which we saw Chopin in the preceding chapter was not the outcome of a newly-contracted disease, but only an acuter phase of that old disease from which he had been suffering more or less for at least twelve years, and which in all probability he inherited from his father, who like himself died of a chest and heart complaint. [FOOTNOTE: My authority for this statement is Dr. Lyschinski, who must have got his information either from Chopin himself or his mother. That Chopin's youngest sister, Emilia, died of consumption in early life cannot but be regarded as a significant fact.] Long before Chopin went in search of health to Majorca, ominous symptoms showed themselves; and when he returned from the south, he was only partly restored, not cured.
My attachment [writes George Sand in "Ma Vie">[ could work this miracle of making him a little calm and happy, only because God had approved of it by preserving a little of his health. He declined, however, visibly, and I knew no longer what remedies to employ in order to combat the growing irritation of his nerves. The death of his friend Dr. Matuszynski, then that of his own father, [FOOTNOTE: Nicholas Chopin died on May 3, 1844. About Matuszynski's death see page 158.] were to him two terrible blows. The Catholic dogma throws on death horrible terrors. Chopin, instead of dreaming for these pure souls a better world, had only dreadful visions, and I was obliged to pass very many nights in a room adjoining his, always ready to rise a hundred times from my work in order to drive away the spectres of his sleep and wakefulness. The idea of his own death appeared to him accompanied with all the superstitious imaginings of Slavonic poetry. As a Pole he lived under the nightmare of legends. The phantoms called him, clasped him, and, instead of seeing his father and his friend smile at him in the ray of faith, he repelled their fleshless faces from his own and struggled under the grasp of their icy hands.
But a far more terrible blow than the deaths of his friend and his father was his desertion by George Sand, and we may be sure that it aggravated his disease a hundredfold. To be convinced of this we have only to remember his curse on Lucrezia (see the letter to Grzymala of November 17-18, 1848).
Jules Janin, in an obituary notice, says of Chopin that "he lived ten years, ten miraculous years, with a breath ready to fly away" (il a vecu dix ans, dix ans de miracle, d'un souffle pret a s'envoler). Another writer remarks: "In seeing him [Chopin] so puny, thin, and pale, one thought for a. long time that he was dying, and then one got accustomed to the idea that he could live always so." Stephen Heller in chatting to me about Chopin expressed the same idea in different words: "Chopin was often reported to have died, so often, indeed, that people would not believe the news when he was really dead." There was in Chopin for many years, especially since 1837, a constant flux and reflux of life. To repeat another remark of Heller's: "Now he was ill, and then again one saw him walking on the boulevards in a thin coat." A married sister of Gutmann's remembers that Chopin had already, in 1843-4, to be carried upstairs, when he visited her mother, who in that year was staying with her children in Paris; to walk upstairs, even with assistance, would have been impossible to him.
For a long time [writes M. Charles Gavard] Chopin had been, moving about with difficulty, and only went out to have himself carried to a few faithful friends. He visited them by no means in order that they might share his misery, on the contrary, he seemed even to forget his troubles, and at sight of the family life, and in the midst of the demonstrations of love which he called forth from everyone, he found new impulse and new strength to live.
[FOOTNOTE: In a manuscript now before me, containing reminiscences of the last months of Chopin's life. Karasowski, at whose disposal the author placed his manuscript, copies LITERALY, in the twelfth chapter of his Chopin biography, page after page, without the customary quotation marks.]
Edouard Wolff told me that, in the latter part of Chopin's life, he did not leave the carriage when he had any business at Schlesinger's music-shop; a shopman came out to the composer, who kept himself closely wrapped in his blue mantle. The following reminiscence is, like some of the preceding ones, somewhat vague with regard to time. Stephen Heller met Chopin shortly before the latter fell ill. On being asked where he was going, Chopin replied that he was on his way to buy a new carpet, his old one having got worn, and then he complained of his legs beginning to swell. And Stephen Heller saw indeed that there were lumps of swelling. M. Mathias, describing to me his master as he saw him in 1847, wrote: "It was a painful spectacle to see Chopin at that time; he was the picture of exhaustion—the back bent, the head bowed forward—but always amiable and full of distinction." That Chopin was no longer in a condition to compose (he published nothing after October, 1847), and that playing in public was torture to him and an effort beyond his strength, we have already seen. But this was not all the misery; he was also unable to teach. Thus all his sources of income were cut off. From Chopin's pupil Madame Rubio (nee Vera de Kologrivof) I learned that latterly when her master was ill and could not give many lessons, he sent to her several of his pupils, among whom was also Miss Stirling, who then came to him only once a week instead of oftener. But after his return from England Chopin was no longer able to teach at all. [FOOTNOTE: "When languor [son mal de langueur] took hold of him," relates Henri Blaze de Bury in "Etudes et Souvenirs," "Chopin gave his lessons, stretched on a sofa, having within reach a piano of which he made use for demonstration.">[ This is what Franchomme told me, and he, in the last years especially, was intimately acquainted with Chopin, and knew all about his financial affairs, of which we shall hear more presently.
As we saw from the letter quoted at the end of the last chapter, Chopin took up his quarters in the Square d'Orleans, No. 9. He, however, did not find there the recovery of his health, of which he spoke in the concluding sentences. Indeed, Chopin knew perfectly by that time that the game was lost. Hope showed herself to him now and then, but very dimly and doubtfully. Nothing proves the gravity of his illness and his utter prostration so much as the following letters in which he informs his Titus, the dearest friend of his youth, that he cannot go and meet him in Belgium.
Chopin to Titus Woyciechowski; Paris, August 20, 1849:—
Square d'Orleans, Rue St. Lazare, No 9.