At first, it is true, they saw but little of each other. For one reason, the fastidious artist was somewhat repelled by the unconventionality of George Sand's surroundings; for a second, they were both busy—he with his pupils, she with her books and with the education of her daughter, Solange. However, it is probable that, in 1837, he formed one of the usual summer party at Nohant, and that he forgot his unreasoning dislike in the kindliness and hospitality which filled that most delightful of châteaux. During the winter he was occupied with fresh publications—the second Scherzo, the Impromptu in A flat, and some smaller pieces—and then came a third attack of influenza, which for a time rendered all further work impracticable. In February 1838, he was well enough to accept an invitation to Court; next month he had so far recovered as to play in a concert at Rouen: but during the spring his illness returned in the form of a serious bronchial affection, and the doctor, whom he called in for consultation, peremptorily ordered him abroad.
It happened that George Sand was also contemplating a visit to the South of Europe. Her son Maurice, was suffering from rheumatism: she thought it advisable to save him from the risks of a Parisian December: after some debate, she decided to try Majorca, of which her friend Count Valdemosa had given her an enthusiastic description. Chopin, who was her guest during part of the summer, heard the plan discussed, and, feeling somewhat disheartened at the prospects of a lonely voyage, asked leave to make one of the party. His proposal was accepted with frank good-nature; and, after a few weeks of hesitation and uncertainty, he followed the Sands to Perpignan, crossed with them to Barcelona, and proceeded first to Palma, and then to a little up-country villa, where they hoped to establish themselves for the winter.
Never, since the days of the Ten Thousand, was there a more disastrous expedition. No doubt the scenery was magnificent enough to justify all Count Valdemosa's patriotism, but it was compensated by every form of petite misère which a malicious destiny could devise. The house was draughty and ill-constructed: the food was detestable; the peasants were ignorant, superstitious savages, to whom, as to most barbarians, stranger was synonymous with enemy. Chopin's failure to attend Mass on the first Sunday exposed him to the gravest suspicion; and when it was rumoured that his absence was due to ill-health, suspicion ripened into the hostility of panic terror. It became difficult to procure the necessaries of life; it became almost impossible to obtain any service or neighbourly assistance; the whole countryside passed sentence of outlawry upon the newcomers; and as climax of inhospitality, the landlord heard that one of his tenants was consumptive, and immediately turned the whole party out of doors.
All this was bad enough, but it would have been tolerable if only the climate had remained propitious. Unfortunately, after a fortnight's delusive sunshine, the winter broke into a passion of wind and rain. The woods stood dripping and shivering; the mountain roads turned into impassable torrents; and the exiles, driven for shelter to the cells of a disused monastery, found their days heavy with imprisonment, and their nights ghostly with the voices of the storm. It is not surprising that Chopin's nerve began to give way. His material privations he could bear with some fortitude, but he was powerless to banish the vague, nameless apprehensions which spoke in every echo, and haunted every shadowy corner. It required all George Sand's courage and devotion to render his life endurable. It was in her strength that his weakness found support; it was her sympathy and kindness that soothed him, as a mother soothes a sick child. On her, indeed, devolved the whole administration of the household. Overwhelmed as she was with literary work, she yet found time to teach her children, to tend her patients, to clothe empty rooms and bleak walls with some appearance of warmth and comfort. She was never weary, never despondent, never out of humour, and whatever of brightness came to lighten those wintry days of stress and hardship was but the reflection of her unclouded serenity.
During these fluctuations of fear and solace, of convalescence and relapse, Chopin can hardly have completed any work of importance. The Preludes, which are sometimes referred to his sojourn in Majorca, seem to have been composed before he left Paris; and as they are the only publications of the year 1839, we may reasonably conclude that there was nothing else ready. It is possible that one or two of them may have been written at Valdemosa, whence also may have come the inception of the Ballade in F major, the two Polonaises, Op. 40, and the Funeral March Sonata. But none of these look like productions of the sick-room; and it is clear that, as the winter advanced, Chopin grew less and less capable of any sustained effort. Unmistakable symptoms of consumption made their appearance; the local doctors proved wholly incompetent to deal with the case; at last, it became only a question of waiting until the season was warm enough for a journey home. At the end of February, Chopin nerved himself to face the fatigue of travel, and returned to the shores of France in desperate search of the health, for lack of which he had left them.
At Marseilles he stayed for nearly three months,[35] under charge of Dr Cauvière, who, without concealing the gravity of the disease, told his patient that, with proper care, he might yet count on many years of life and work. There can be no doubt that Chopin's death-warrant had been signed, but it is equally sure that his sentence was one which could allow a long respite, and encourage the continued hope of deferment. Every man stands liable to an unread mandate of execution. Every man goes through the world, like Hernani, waiting for the summons of the fatal horn. Life, in all true reckoning, is counted not by years but by actions; and it is better to lavish the few decades of Schubert or Mozart than to hoard a long, inglorious cycle that has outworn its hopes and outlived its memories. No career is unhappy, however brief it be, that does not fail of its purpose.
And of failure in any form Chopin had unusually little experience. Even at this dark time we hear of rapid recovery, of regained strength and courage, of a summer filled with pleasant days and noble achievement. The cloud of trouble, which had hung over the forests of Valdemosa, lay far removed from the smooth lawns and sunny glades of Nohant; and there, amid music and children's laughter, and a concourse of friendly faces, the winter of discontent was very speedily forgotten. For the next few years, with the exception of 1840, he made a practice of spending his summer vacation at the château. Life looked more simple in the light of George Sand's simplicity and goodness; beneath her example it was easy to disregard all personal anxieties, and to turn with fresh resolution to the service of Art. Besides, under that hospitable roof, there were always other comrades to share the welcome. At one time Liszt would come, radiant with the triumphs of his last European tour; at another, Mickiewicz, ablaze with some fresh project of social regeneration; at another, Delacroix, busy with his St Anne; or Louis Blanc, intent on a new chapter of his History. Over the whole house was spread a clear, wholesome atmosphere of work, braced with a high seriousness of aim, and made genial with kindly aid and brilliant converse. We may well believe the statement of George Sand that Chopin always wrote his best at Nohant.
For some part of every winter, too, they were near neighbours in Paris. At first they occupied two adjoining houses in the Rue Pigalle; later they moved to the Cour d'Orléans, where Chopin took No. 3 on one side of the court; George Sand No. 5 on the other; and their friend Madame Marliani completed the phalanstery by installing herself between them. Here was established that famous salon, the memory of which recalls the better days of the Hôtel Rambouillet. Indeed, though some few names of the classic age are unsurpassed, at no time could Catherine de Vivonne have gathered so notable an assemblage of talent as that which thronged the rooms of the new Arthenice. Chapelain, Godeau, Voiture, the Scudérys, even Boileau himself are but dim and uncertain lights beside Dumas and Balzac, Gautier and Heine, Lamennais and Arago and Sainte-Beuve. Here was something better than madrigals and anagrams and the carte du tendre; something which helped to mould the life of a nation, and bore its effect on the whole course of European thought. It was amid these surroundings—now at Paris, now at Nohant—that Chopin lived and worked, stimulated by all that was best in contemporary art, encouraged by the sympathy of his peers and the cordial admiration of his listeners.
Unlike most musicians, Chopin was fond of teaching, and was almost uniformly popular as a master. It is hard to understand how his finely-strung temperament could have endured the strain and irritation of pianoforte lessons, but we have abundant testimony as to the gentleness and tact with which he corrected errors or pointed out nuances of expression. Even on 'stormy days,' his anger was nothing more than a cry of physical pain, and he always softened at once if the culprit showed any symptoms of distress. When things went well, he was the most admirable of teachers; kindly alert, suggestive, often protracting the lesson for two or three hours, and sometimes closing it with the best of all rewards, an improvisation. The qualities which he regarded as paramount were delicacy of touch, intelligence of conception, purity of feeling: in his eyes the only sin worse than affectation was the correct mechanical dexterity that is too dull to be affected. Not, of course, that he undervalued accuracy; every student, however accomplished, had to begin with Clementi's Gradus, and to tread the whole course of studies and exercises; but he was far too great an artist to see any finality in a mere Academic precision. 'Mettez y donc toute votre âme' was his injunction; and in all education there is no better rule.
Yet it is curious that not one of his pupils has succeeded in making a name of European mark. Filtsch might have done so had not death cut short his career in the early promise of boyhood, but to the rest—Gutmann, Lysberg, Mikuli, Tellefsen—the record of public favour has been singularly indifferent. No doubt many members of his school were amateurs, who, with all their training, never entered the arena: some, like George Mathias, were satisfied to embody in their own teaching the traditions of their master's method; but when all allowances have been granted, it still remains true that Chopin never communicated his secret. Perhaps his secret was incommunicable; perhaps, like his style in composition, it was not so much a method as a manner; something too intimate and personal to be expressed in the concrete language of principle and formula. We know that in later years he began a systematic treatise on the pianoforte, but we may guess that it was not ill-health alone which led him to destroy it unfinished.