Tarnowski relates that Chopin gave his last orders in perfect consciousness. He begged his sister to burn all his inferior compositions. "I owe it to the public," he said, "and to myself to publish only good things. I kept to this resolution all my life; I wish to keep to it now." This wish has not been respected. The posthumous publications are for the most part feeble stuff.
Chopin died, October 17, 1849, between three and four in the morning, after having been shrived by the Abbe Jelowicki. His last word, according to Gavard, was "Plus," on being asked if he suffered. Regarding the touching and slightly melodramatic death bed scene on the day previous, when Delphine Potocka sang Stradella and Mozart—or was it Marcello?—Liszt, Karasowski, and Gutmann disagree.
The following authentic account of the last hours of Chopin appears here for the first time in English, translated by Mr. Hugh Craig. In Liszt's well-known work on Chopin, second edition, 1879, mention is made of a conversation that he had held with the Abbe Jelowicki respecting Chopin's death; and in Niecks' biography of Chopin some sentences from letters by the Abbe are quoted. These letters, written in French, have been translated and published in the "Allgemeine Musik Zeitung," to which they were given by the Princess Marie Hohenlohe, the daughter of Princess Caroline Sayn Wittgenstein, Liszt's universal legatee and executor, who died in 1887.
For many years [so runs the document] the life of Chopin was but a breath. His frail, weak body was visibly unfitted for the strength and force of his genius. It was a wonder how in such a weak state, he could live at all, and occasionally act with the greatest energy. His body was almost diaphanous; his eyes were almost shadowed by a cloud from which, from time to time, the lightnings of his glance flashed. Gentle, kind, bubbling with humor, and every way charming, he seemed no longer to belong to earth, while, unfortunately, he had not yet thought of heaven. He had good friends, but many bad friends. These bad friends were his flatterers, that is, his enemies, men and women without principles, or rather with bad principles. Even his unrivalled success, so much more subtle and thus so much more stimulating than that of all other artists, carried the war into his soul and checked the expression of faith and of prayer. The teachings of the fondest, most pious mother became to him a recollection of his childhood's love. In the place of faith, doubt had stepped in, and only that decency innate in every generous heart hindered him from indulging in sarcasm and mockery over holy things and the consolations of religion.
While he was in this spiritual condition he was attacked by the pulmonary disease that was soon to carry him away from us. The knowledge of this cruel sickness reached me on my return from Rome. With beating heart I hurried to him, to see once more the friend of my youth, whose soul was infinitely dearer to me than all his talent. I found him, not thinner, for that was impossible, but weaker. His strength sank, his life faded visibly. He embraced me with affection and with tears in his eyes, thinking not of his own pain but of mine; he spoke of my poor friend Eduard Worte, whom I had just lost, you know how. (He was shot, a martyr of liberty, at Vienna, November 10, 1848.)
I availed myself of his softened mood to speak to him about his soul. I recalled his thoughts to the piety of his childhood and of his beloved mother. "Yes," he said, "in order not to offend my mother I would not die without the sacraments, but for my part I do not regard them in the sense that you desire. I understand the blessing of confession in so far as it is the unburdening of a heavy heart into a friendly hand, but not as a sacrament. I am ready to confess to you if you wish it, because I love you, not because I hold it necessary." Enough: a crowd of anti-religious speeches filled me with terror and care for this elect soul, and I feared nothing more than to be called to be his confessor.
Several months passed with similar conversations, so painful to me, the priest and the sincere friend. Yet I clung to the conviction that the grace of God would obtain the victory over this rebellious soul, even if I knew not how. After all my exertions, prayer remained my only refuge.
On the evening of October 12 I had with my brethren retired to pray for a change in Chopin's mind, when I was summoned by orders of the physician, in fear that he would not live through the night. I hastened to him. He pressed my hand, but bade me at once to depart, while he assured me he loved me much, but did not wish to speak to me.
Imagine, if you can, what a night I passed! Next day was the 13th, the day of St. Edward, the patron of my poor brother. I said mass for the repose of his soul and prayed for Chopin's soul. "My God," I cried, "if the soul of my brother Edward is pleasing to thee, give me, this day, the soul of Frederic."
In double distress I then went to the melancholy abode of our poor sick man.