M. Rollinat relates also how in 184-, when Chopin, Liszt, the Comtesse d'Agoult, Pauline Garcia, Eugene Delacroix, the actor Bocage, and other celebrities were at Nohant, the piano was one moonlit night carried out to the terrace; how Liszt played the hunting chorus from Weber's Euryanthe, Chopin some bars from an impromptu he was then composing; how Pauline Garcia sang Nel cor piu non mi sento, and a niece of George Sand a popular air; how the echo answered the musicians; and how after the music the company, which included also a number of friends from the neighbouring town, had punch and remained together till dawn. But here again M. Rollinat's veracity is impugned on all sides. Madame Viardot-Garcia declares that she was never at Nohant when Liszt was there; and Liszt did not remember having played on the terrace of the chateau. Moreover, seeing that the first performance of the Prophete took place on April 16, 1849, is it likely that Madame Pauline Garcia was studying her part before or in 1846? And unless she did so she could not meet Chopin at Nohant when she was studying it.
M. Rollinat is more trustworthy when he tells us that there was a pretty theatre and quite an assortment of costumes at the chateau; that the dramas and comedies played there were improvised by the actors, only the subject and the division into scenes being given; and that on two pianos, concealed by curtains, one on the right and one on the left of the stage, Chopin and Liszt improvised the musical part of the entertainment. All this is, however, so much better and so much more fully told by George Sand (in Dernieres Pages: Le Theatre des Marionnettes de Nohant) that we will take our information from her. It was in the long nights of a winter that she conceived the plan of these private theatricals in imitation of the comedia dell' arte—namely, of "pieces the improvised dialogue of which followed a written sketch posted up behind the scenes."
They resembled the charades which are acted in society and which are more or less developed according to the ensemble and the talent of the performers. We had begun with these. By degrees the word of the charade disappeared and we played first mad saynetes, then comedies of intrigues and adventures, and finally dramas of incidents and emotions. The whole thing began by pantomime, and this was of Chopin's invention; he occupied the place at the piano and improvised, while the young people gesticulated scenes and danced comic ballets. I leave you to imagine whether these now wonderful, now charming improvisations quickened the brains and made supple the legs of our performers. He led them as he pleased and made them pass, according to his fancy, from the droll to the severe, from the burlesque to the solemn, from the graceful to the passionate. We improvised costumes in order to play successively several roles. As soon as the artist saw them appear, he adapted his theme and his accent in a marvellous manner to their respective characters. This went on for three evenings, and then the master, setting out for Paris, left us thoroughly stirred up, enthusiastic, and determined not to suffer the spark which had electrified us to be lost.
To get away from the quicksands of Souvenirs—for George Sand's pages, too, were written more than thirty years after the occurrences she describes, and not published till 1877—I shall make some extracts from the contemporaneous correspondence of George Sand's great friend, the celebrated painter Eugene Delacroix. [FOOTNOTE: Lettres de Eugene Delacroix (1815 a 1863) recucillies et publiees par M. Philippe Burty. Paris, 1878.] The reader cannot fail to feel at once the fresh breeze of reality that issues from these letters, which contain vivid sketches full of natural beauties and free from affectation and striving after effect:—
Nohant, June 7, 1842.
…The place is very pleasant, and the hosts do their utmost to please me. When we are not assembled to dine, breakfast, play at billiards, or walk, we are in our rooms, reading, or resting on our sofas. Now and then there come to you through the window opening on the garden, whiffs of the music of Chopin, who is working in his room; this mingles with the song of the nightingales and the odour of the roses. You see that so far I am not much to be pitied, and, nevertheless, work must come to give the grain of salt to all this. This life is too easy, I must purchase it with a little racking of my brains; and like the huntsman who eats with more appetite when he has got his skin torn by bushes, one must strive a little after ideas in order to feel the charm of doing nothing.
Nohant, June 14, 1842.
…Although I am in every respect most agreeably circumstanced, both as regards body and mind, for I am in much better health, I have not been able to prevent myself from thinking of work. How strange! this work is fatiguing, and yet the species of activity it gives to the mind is necessary to the body itself. In vain did I try to get up a passion for billiards, in which I receive a lesson every day, in vain have I good conversations on all the subjects that please me, music that I seize on the wing and by whiffs, I have felt the need of doing something. I have begun a Sainte-Anne for the parish, and I have already set it agoing.
Nohant, June 22, 1842.
…Pen and ink certainly become more and more repugnant to me. I have no more than you any event to record. I lead a monastic life, and as monotonous as it well can be. No event varies the course of it. We expected Balzac, who has not come, and I am not sorry. He is a babbler who would have destroyed this harmony of NONCHALANCE which I am enjoying thoroughly; at intervals a little painting, billiards, and walking, that is more than is necessary to fill up the days. There is not even the distraction of neighbours and friends from the environs; in this part of the country everyone remains at home and occupies him self with his oxen and his land. One would become a fossil here in a very short time.