He was not exacting like those whose rights and just demands surpass by far what one would have to offer them. The most intimate acquaintances did not penetrate to this sacred recess where, withdrawn from all the rest of his life, dwelt the secret motive power of his soul: a recess so concealed that one scarcely suspected its existence.
Ready to give everything, he did not give himself.
The last dictum and part of the last but one were already quoted by me in an earlier chapter, but for the sake of completeness, and also because they form an excellent starting-point for the following additional remarks on Chopin's friendships, I have repeated them here. First of all, I venture to make the sweeping assertion that Chopin had among his non-Polish friends none who could be called intimate in the fullest sense of the word, none to whom he unbosomed himself as he did to Woyciechowski and Matuszynski, the friends of his youth, and Grzymala, a friend of a later time. Long cessation of personal intercourse together with the diverging development of their characters in totally unlike conditions of life cannot but have diminished the intimacy with the first named. [FOOTNOTE: Titus Woyciechowski continued to live on his estate Poturzyn, in the kingdom of Poland.] With Matuszyriski Chopin remained in close connection till this friend's death. [FOOTNOTE: Karasowski says in the first volume of his Polish biography of Chopin that Matuszynski died on April 20, 1842; and in the second that he died after Chopin's father, but in the same year—that is, in 1844.] How he opened his whole heart to Grzymala we shall see in a subsequent chapter. That his friendship with Fontana was of a less intimate character becomes at once apparent on comparing Chopin's letters to him with those he wrote to the three other Polish friends. Of all his connections with non-Poles there seems to be only one which really deserves the name of friendship, and that is his connection with Franchomme. Even here, however, he gave much less than he received. Indeed, we may say—speaking generally, and not only with a view to Franchomme—that Chopin was more loved than loving. But he knew well how to conceal his deficiencies in this respect under the blandness of his manners and the coaxing affectionateness of his language. There is something really tragic, and comic too, in the fact that every friend of Chopin's thought that he had more of the composer's love and confidence than any other friend. Thus, for instance, while Gutmann told me that Franchomme was not so intimate with Chopin that the latter would confide any secrets to him, Franchomme made to me a similar statement with regard to Gutmann. And so we find every friend of Chopin declaring that every other friend was not so much of a friend as himself. Of Chopin's procedures in friendship much may be learned from his letters; in them is to be seen something of his insinuating, cajoling ways, of his endeavours to make the person addressed believe himself a privileged favourite, and of his habit of speaking not only ungenerously and unlovingly, but even unjustly of other persons with whom he was apparently on cordial terms. In fact, it is only too clear that Chopin spoke differently before the faces and behind the backs of people. You remember how in his letters to Fontana he abuses Camille Pleyel in a manner irreconcilable with genuine love and esteem. Well, to this same Camille Pleyel, of whom he thus falls foul when he thinks himself in the slightest aggrieved, he addresses on one occasion the following note. Mark the last sentence:—
Dearest friend [Cherissime],—Here is what Onslow has written to me. I wished to call on you and tell you, but I feel very feeble and am going to lie down. I love you always more, if this is possible [je vous aime toujours plus si c'est possible].
CHOPIN.
[FOOTNOTE: To the above, unfortunately undated, note, which was published for the first time in the Menestrel of February 15, 1885, and reprinted in "Un nid d'autographes," lettres incites recueillies et annotees par Oscar Comettant (Paris: E. Dentu), is appended the following P.S.:—"Do not forget, please, friend Herbeault. Till to-morrow, then; I expect you both."
La Mara's Musikerbriefe (Leipzig: Breitkopf and Hartel) contains likewise a friendly letter of Chopin to Camille Pleyel. It runs thus:
"Dearest friend,—I received the other day your piano, and give you my best thanks. It arrived in good tune, and is exactly at concert-pitch. As yet I have not played much on it, for the weather is at present so fine that I am almost always in the open air. I wish you as pleasant weather for your holidays. Write me a few words (if you find that you have not sufficiently exercised your pen in the course of the day). May you all remain well—and lay me at the feet of your mother and sister.—Your devoted, "F. CHOPIN."
The date given by La Mara is "Monday [May 20, 1842], Nohant, near La Chatre, Indre." This, however, cannot be right, for the 20th of May in 1842 was a Friday.]
And, again, how atrociously he reviles in the same letters the banker Leo, who lends him money, often takes charge of his manuscripts, procures payment for them, and in whose house he has been for years a frequent visitor. Mr. Ch. Halle informed me that Chopin was on particularly good terms with the Leos. From Moscheles' diary we learn that the writer made Chopin's acquaintance at the banker's house. Stephen Heller told me that he met Chopin several times at Leo's, and that the Polish composer visited there often, and continued to go there when he had given up going to many other houses. And from the same informant I learned also that Madame Leo as well as her husband took a kindly interest in Chopin, showing this, for instance, by providing him with linen. And yet Leo, this man who does him all sorts of services, and whose smiling guest he is before and after, is spoken of by Chopin as if he were the most "despicable wretch imaginable"; and this for no other reason than that everything has not been done exactly as he wished it to be done. Unless we assume these revilings to be no more than explosions of momentary ill-humour, we must find Chopin convicted of duplicity and ingratitude. In the letters to Fontana there are also certain remarks about Matuszynski which I do not like. Nor can they be wholly explained away by saying that they are in part fun and in part indirect flattery of his correspondent. It would rather seem that Chopin's undoubtedly real love for Matuszynski was not unmixed with a certain kind of contempt. And here I must tell the reader that while Poles have so high an opinion of their nation in comparison with other nations, and of their countrymen with other countrymen, they have generally a very mean opinion of each other. Indeed, I never met with a Pole who did not look down with a self-satisfied smile of pity on any of his fellow-countrymen, even on his best friend. It seems that their feeling of individual superiority is as great as that of their national superiority. Liszt's observations (see Vol. I., p. 259) and those of other writers (Polish as well as non-Polish) confirm mine, which else might rightly be supposed to be based on too limited an experience. To return to Matuszynski, he may have been too ready to advise and censure his friend, and not practical enough to be actively helpful. After reading the letters addressed to them one comes to the conclusion that Fontana's and Franchomme's serviceableness and readiness to serve went for something in his appreciation of them as friends. At any rate, he did not hesitate to exploiter them most unconscionably. Taking a general view of the letters written by him during the last twelve years of his life, one is struck by the absence of generous judgments and the extreme rareness of sympathetic sentiments concerning third persons. As this was not the case in his earlier letters, ill- health and disappointments suggest themselves naturally as causes of these faults of character and temper. To these principal causes have, however, to be added his nationality, his originally delicate constitution, and his cultivation of salon manners and tastes. His extreme sensitiveness, fastidiousness, and irritability may be easily understood to derive from one or the other of these conditions.