“Prince Charles, a man of a noble and sympathetic character, but sickly, nervous, jealous, proud, and full of aristocratic notions, falls passionately in love with Lucrezia, a woman no longer young, who has given up love and the world, and lives only for her children and to do good. She is a famous artist, who does not pretend to be better than she is, but who is better than she is said to be. This consuming love causes Prince Charles a severe illness which endangers his life. Lucrezia saves him and loves him; but, foreseeing that this love would be a misery to her, conceals it. Prince Charlesʼs feelings, however, growing more and more passionate and again threatening his safety, the object of his adoration gives herself up to him.”
It is strange how women of a certain age like to hide their feelings under the cloak of sacrifice and motherly care. They are not in love, but the weak, sick, nervous being needs support and tenderness. Thus is produced that painful and disagreeable counterfeit of motherly affection which we so often meet with, as in “Lucrezia Floriani.”
“Whence,” asks the writer of the romance, “arises this unnatural specious feeling? Perhaps if a heroine loves at that age, when, as Hamlet says, ‘the heyday in the blood is tame,’ she feels degraded in her own eyes and in those of the world, and to regain her position, and gloss over her real feelings and actions, she makes a pretext of sacrifice and tender care.” In this way the famous Madame de Warrens interpreted her sacrifice, of which J. J. Rousseau says so much in his “Confessions;” and thus Lucrezia explained her love for Charles.
For two months she was unspeakably happy; then everything changed. Charles grows jealous, unreasonable, and capricious; he cannot bear the sight of Lucreziaʼs old friends. There are constant outbursts of anger and nervous excitement, or fits of madness and desperation. Wearied and harassed, Lucreziaʼs health and strength give way; but of this she makes a secret and never complains because she has vowed to make any sacrifice for Charles. She knows that she will die—for Charles will make a martyr of her—and that her children will be orphans, yet she goes on suffering in silence because she has pledged herself to be faithful to him. After a few years of a life of such constant torture, and of alienation from her friends on account of the jealousy of Charles, she ceases to love him and submits resignedly to her fate. At length, exhausted by protracted self sacrifice, Lucrezia dies.
A LITERARY PORTRAIT OF CHOPIN. It was at that time generally thought that Prince Charles was a portrait of Chopin, although the exaggeration with which the character was drawn made it a caricature. The love story in the romance certainly bore a strong resemblance to the connection between himself and George Sand, which, with all its happiness, was, as none better than he knew, a very painful one. Both Frederic and the world were well aware that the real Lucrezia was not a victim to her devotedness, and that the Charles of the novel could be none other than Chopin. It is said that, by a refinement of cruelty, the proofs were sent to him for correction; it is a matter of fact, however, that George Sandʼs children said to him, “Monsieur Chopin, do you know that Prince Charles is meant for you?”
Everyone acquainted with the circumstances blamed the authoress. She excused herself,[41] saying that she had been misunderstood, and that the intention imputed to her had no existence.
“But,” said she by way of justification, “Charles is not an artist or a genius; he is only a dreamer. His character scarcely rises above the common-place; it never appears amiable, and has, indeed, so little in common with that of the great composer, that Chopin, although he every day reads the manuscript off my writing table and is very suspicious about other things, never imagined that any reference was intended to himself. Afterwards, indeed, the malicious whisperings of some of his friends, who were enemies to me, made him fancy, that in Prince Charles I was describing him, and in the martyr Lucrezia, myself; and that this romance depicted the relations between us. His memory was at that time very weak, and when a garbled version of the story was presented to him, he had quite forgotten the real description of the character and circumstances of Prince Charles. Why did he not read my novel again?”
Madame Sand much regretted that Matuszynski was not living when a breach between herself and Chopin had become inevitable. “His friendship for Chopin and the influence he had over him would,” said the authoress, “have rendered innocuous the whisperings of intriguers, and if a separation had taken place at all, his mediation would have made it less violent and painful.”
The sick and enfeebled artist suffered, however, most keenly from the mortification which he received from this book. “If,” he reflected, “I now desert the woman whom I formerly esteemed and loved, I make the romance a reality, and expose her to the blame, nay, even the scorn of the strictly virtuous.” He nobly struggled on, retreating more and more into himself, till at last he could bear it no longer.