She and he; Lavinia; Memoir

by George Sand

The months that had passed, however, were not without literary fruit. The works of the first period or style, besides those already mentioned, include Leone Leoni, 1835; Simon, Lavinia, and Metella, 1836. She also rewrote Lélia (of which she says: "Lélia is not myself ... but she is my ideal."), modifying her first production of anger so that it should "harmonize with that of gentleness." Leone Leoni is a tale of a woman's incurable love. The heroine is a bourgeoise, who has been ensnared by the wiles of a Venetian nobleman. She endures manifold sufferings and base indignities, yet her heart triumphs over her mind. While she rebels against the thrall in which she is held, she cannot break from it; and even when rescue is offered her by marriage with a man of heart, and all has been arranged to this end, she forsakes him in favor of the rascal who has wronged her. This morbid love, while alluring enough, does not offer us the type of woman whom we find attractive in the characters drawn by our author. In Simon, a new tone is dominant; there is light in the mind, hope in the heart. Herein she shows social prejudice overcome by deep and patient love.

The term of uncertainty due to the protracted legal proceedings had not been an idle one, nor does it seem to have deadened George Sand's appreciation of the external beauties of nature, or her enjoyment of physical exercise; for she writes cheerfully of her horseback rides at night, of the pleasure she takes in her surroundings at La Châtre, where she is entertained by friends near her own home during the pendency of the trial. She tells of the delight she experienced in watching the transition from night to day, which she speaks of as a "revolution apparently so uniform, but possessing a different character every day." Those evening rides, how much inspiration they furnished for the poet-novelist as she wandered along alone! how much of influence on her marvellous creative mind! In that breaking dawn, indistinct and fanciful, did she not see the image of society in its obscurity, and dream of the dawn of its hoped-for emancipation from the gloom of inequality and prejudice? She was once more face to face with nature, her back was turned upon the vanities of the proud and the machinations of the perverse. She was musing over the new teachings that had been given her. She sought "to believe in no other God than he who preaches justice and equality to men." How calming to her mind her communion with nature was at this time, and how refreshing to her fancy, may be inferred from her own words: "There is not a meadow, not a clump of trees, which, bathed in a lovely and brilliant sun, does not seem entirely Arcadian in my eyes. I teach you all the secrets of my happiness." In the woods, the streams, the sky, and the stars, George Sand found so many religious teachers. All her former spiritual tendencies reawakened, she tells us that through her prayers, few and poor though they were, she experienced a "foretaste of infinite ecstasies and exaltations like those of my youth, when I used to believe that I saw the Virgin, like a white spot on a sun which moved about me. Now my visions are all about stars; but I begin to have strange dreams."

In September, 1836, after reëntering into possession of Nohant, George Sand took her two children with her on a visit to her friend, the Comtesse d'Agoult, at Geneva. In November, she was in Paris again, but not in her old poet's attic, for she occupied a suite of apartments in the Hôtel de France. Her son's health now occasioned her profound trouble. Symptoms of consumption were apparent. In her distress, she begs Monsieur Dudevant to aid her in her anxiety, and entreats him to share her care in effecting their son's recovery. We are able to understand her feelings and the rule of her conduct toward her children in respect of their father by her letter to Monsieur Dudevant. She pleads that their child's health stands before everything else; that, as she encourages the boy's affection for his father, the latter should abstain from thwarting his affection for his mother. She invites him to come to her house as often as he pleases, and volunteers to keep out of his way if her presence should be distasteful to Monsieur Dudevant. She concludes: "What interest could there now be for us to attack each other through the affection of a poor child who is all meekness and love?" A short time later, the boy had recovered his health in the Berry home.

In the following year, George Sand wrote Mauprat. In this book is traced the power of love over an impulsive heart that no culture of the mind has influenced. A gentle woman, pure and gracious, bred in accordance with the dictates of an aristocratic class, gives her love to a boor, and, ignoring all conventional decrees, deliberately chooses to drive the savage out of the nature of her lover, and by his very love raise him to a level at which he stands her fellow and almost an exemplar for even the best of men. George Sand's faith in the transforming power of love is eloquently expressed in this work, in which also she shows the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In her letters of this period, we find her imbued with strong Republican theories, insisting on the liberty and dignity of the individual, and inveighing against monarchical principles. In the same year, Les Maîtres Mosaïstes appeared in the Revue. It was a short story, written for her son, telling of the adventures of the Venetian mosaic-workers. The character of Valerio, she says, was penned while she had in mind her friend Calamatta, the artist, who painted one of George Sand's portraits. Here we may give a word-picture of our author by Heine, who was a frequent visitor with her in the Comtesse d'Agoult's salon, and who saw much of George Sand at this period. "Her face might perhaps be described as more beautiful than interesting, yet the cast of her features is not severely antique, for it is softened by modern sentiment, which enwraps them with a veil of sadness. Her forehead is not lofty, and a wealth of most beautiful auburn hair falls on each side of her head to her shoulders. Her nose is not aquiline and decided, nor is it an intelligent little snub-nose. It is merely a straight and ordinary one. A most good-humored, though not very attractive, smile generally plays around her mouth; her lower lip, which is slightly inclined to droop, seems to suggest fatigue. Her chin is plump, but very beautifully formed, as are her shoulders, which are magnificent." So much for her physical traits. From the same source we learn that her voice was dull and muffled, with no sonorous tones, but sweet and pleasant. Her conversation he describes as not being brilliant; that she possessed absolutely none of the sparkling wit that distinguishes her countrywomen; nor had she their inexhaustible power of chattering.

In the summer of 1837, the illness of Madame Dupin disturbed the peaceful and pleasurable life that George Sand was enjoying at Nohant. Hurrying to Paris, she remained with her mother during her last days, but was not present at the moment of her death; for having received a false alarm that her son had been abducted from Nohant, she had sent a messenger there, and had herself gone to Fontainebleau to receive her son, and during the night of her absence her mother had died. At Fontainebleau, George Sand remained with her son for some weeks, riding in the forest, gathering flowers, and chasing butterflies during the daytime, and writing closely at night. It was here that she wrote La Dernière Aldini, a novel reminiscent of Italy, and remarkable for its brilliant style and exquisite descriptions. The patrician lady, her daughter, and Lelio,—how distinct are the characters, how subtle the scenes, and with what ease the current of the romance flows amid the charming pictures that dazzle with their beauty!

Le Secrétaire Intime, Lavinia, and some others, also belong to this period, which was one of constant labor; for the obligation now resting on George Sand of maintaining her old home and providing for the education and future of her children was a heavy burden. By the legal decision of 1836, certain details of the arrangements between Monsieur Dudevant and his wife had been left to private settlement, a circumstance which brought about renewed conflict. The mother was in constant dread lest her son should be kidnapped; indeed, in the case of her daughter Solange, this actually appears to have been undertaken during the mother's stay at Fontainebleau. Another arrangement was effected, by which all future friction was avoided, and the charge and education of Maurice, over whom his father had previously held joint control, was henceforward to rest solely with Madame Sand.

In the winter following, in consequence of the unsatisfactory condition of Maurice's health, a trip to Majorca was determined on, where it was hoped that the climate and a few months' change would reinvigorate him. The family was accompanied by the eminent composer, Chopin, who was suffering from phthisis. The stay in the island, however, was attended by the greatest inconveniences. Here George Sand devoted herself to the education of her children, to the household cooking and cleaning, to the care of her friend, and, lastly, to her literary labors. But the discomfort and extortion were such as to render the visit unendurable, and she left Spain with feelings of thankfulness for her departure, and with her son's health reëstablished. The literary result of this stay is Un Hiver à Majorque, of whose scenery she says: "It is the promised land;" but of whose people she writes in the severest terms: "They are devout, that is to say, fanatical and bigoted, as in the days of the Inquisition. Friendship, loyalty, honor, exist here only in name. The wretches! oh, how I detest and despise them!"

In the cells of Valdemosa, an old and deserted Carthusian monastery, situated in a wild and noble landscape, George Sand found poetic surroundings and associations that were so congenial that she says: "Had I written there that part of Lélia which has a monastery for its scene, I should have produced a finer and more real picture." The occupation of rooms in this lonely old retreat was perhaps the only pleasurable feature of the stay in Majorca. It was here that Spiridion was finished: a tale of a young monk who is filled with the fervor of divine love, but who later strays from his simple faith as the result of the agitations and doubts which philosophic teachings impart. This book probably reflects the experience of the author, more particularly that of her exaltation at the convent, and it also portrays her own spiritual conflicts and the calm of a sincere, broad faith that rises above dogma and rests secure in the divine love. After a short stay at Marseilles and a trip to Italy, George Sand returned to her home at Nohant.

We have now approached a period when Madame Sand's literary work was to show a change from the subjective lyricism of her previous works, which are the voice of her long-repressed early emotions, to a series of works in which she drew her inspiration largely from the religious, philosophic, and socialistic doctrines that her impressionable mind had espoused as expounding the true principles by which society and the individual should govern themselves. But, in yielding her art to the services of the reformers, George Sand had little thought for aught but the goodness of the principles, as they appeared to her, or, at any rate, had not taken measure of the practical difficulties within the circle of the reformers and those which passive resistance on the part of the great masses offered.