Produced by Charles Franks, John Mamoun <mamounjo@umdnj.edu>

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician, Volume 2 (of 2)

Frederick Niecks

Third Edition (1902)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTERS XX-XXXII APPENDICES I-IX REMARKS PRELIMINARY TO THE LIST OF CHOPIN'S WORKS. LIST OF CHOPIN'S PUBLISHED WORKS

CHAPTER XX.

1836—1838.

THE LOVES OF CELEBRITIES.—VARIOUS ACCOUNTS OF CHOPIN AND GEORGE SAND'S FIRST MEETING.—CHOPIN'S FIRST IMPRESSION OF HER.—A COMPARISON OF THE TWO CHARACTERS.—PORTRAYALS OF CHOPIN AND GEORGE SAND.—HER POWER OF PLEASING.—CHOPIN'S PUBLICATIONS IN 1837 AND 1838.—HE PLAYS AT COURT AND AT CONCERTS IN PARIS AND ROUEN.—CRITICISM.

THE loves of famous men and women, especially of those connected with literature and the fine arts, have always excited much curiosity. In the majority of cases the poet's and artist's choice of a partner falls on a person who is incapable of comprehending his aims and sometimes even of sympathising with his striving. The question "why poets are so apt to choose their mates, not for any similarity of poetical endowment, but for qualities which might make the happiness of the rudest handicrafts-man as well as that of the ideal craftsman" has perhaps never been better answered than by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who remarks that "at his highest elevation the poet needs no human intercourse; but he finds it dreary to descend, and be a stranger." Still, this is by no means a complete solution of the problem which again and again presents itself and challenges our ingenuity. Chopin and George Sand's case belongs to the small minority of loves where both parties are distinguished practitioners of ideal crafts. Great would be the mistake, however, were we to assume that the elective affinities of such lovers are easily discoverable On the contrary, we have here another problem, one which, owing to the higher, finer, and more varied factors that come into play, is much more difficult to solve than the first. But before we can engage in solving the problem, it must be properly propounded. Now, to ascertain facts about the love-affairs of poets and artists is the very reverse of an easy task; and this is so partly because the parties naturally do not let outsiders into all their secrets, and partly because romantic minds and imaginative litterateurs are always busy developing plain facts and unfounded rumours into wonderful myths. The picturesqueness of the story, the piquancy of the anecdote, is generally in inverse proportion to the narrator's knowledge of the matter in question. In short, truth is only too often most unconscionably sacrificed to effect. Accounts, for instance, such as L. Enault and Karasowski have given of Chopin's first meeting with George Sand can be recommended only to those who care for amusing gossip about the world of art, and do not mind whether what they read is the simple truth or not, nay, do not mind even whether it has any verisimilitude. Nevertheless, we will give these gentlemen a hearing, and then try if we cannot find some firmer ground to stand on.

L. Enault relates that Chopin and George Sand met for the first time at one of the fetes of the Marquis de C., where the aristocracy of Europe assembled—the aristocracy of genius, of birth, of wealth, of beauty, &c.:—

The last knots of the chaine anglaise had already been untied, the brilliant crowd had left the ball-room, the murmur of discreet conversation was heard in the boudoirs: the fetes of the intimate friends began. Chopin seated himself at the piano. He played one of those ballads whose words are written by no poet, but whose subjects, floating in the dreamy soul of nations, belong to the artist who likes to take them. I believe it was the Adieux du Cavalier…Suddenly, in the middle of the ballad, he perceived, close to the door, immovable and pale, the beautiful face of Lelia. [FOOTNOTE: This name of the heroine of one of her romances is often given to George Sand. See Vol. I., p. 338.] She fixed her passionate and sombre eyes upon him; the impressionable artist felt at the same time pain and pleasure…others might listen to him: he played only for her.

They met again.

From this moment fears vanished, and these two noble souls understood each other…or believed they understood each other.

Karasowski labours hard to surpass Enault, but is not like him a master of the ars artem celare. The weather, he tells us, was dull and damp, and had a depressing effect on the mind of Chopin. No friend had visited him during the day, no book entertained him, no musical idea gladdened him. It was nearly ten o'clock at night (the circumstantiality of the account ought to inspire confidence) when he bethought himself of paying a visit to the Countess C. (the Marquis, by some means, magical or natural, has been transformed into a Countess), this being her jour fixe, on which an intellectual and agreeable company was always assembled at her house.

When he ascended the carpet-covered stairs [Unfortunately we are not informed whether the carpet was Turkey, Brussels, or Kidderminster], it seemed to him as if he were followed by a shadow that diffused a fragrance of violets [Ah!], and a presentiment as if something strange and wonderful were going to happen to him flashed through his soul. He was on the point of turning back and going home, but, laughing at his own superstition, he bounded lightly and cheerfully over the last steps.

Skipping the fine description of the brilliant company assembled in the salon, the enumeration of the topics on which the conversation ran, and the observation that Chopin, being disinclined to talk, seated himself in a corner and watched the beautiful ladies as they glided hither and thither, we will join Karasowski again where, after the departure of the greater number of the guests, Chopin goes to the piano and begins to improvise.

His auditors, whom he, absorbed in his own thoughts and looking only at the keys, had entirely forgotten, listened with breathless attention. When he had concluded his improvisation, he raised his eyes, and noticed a plainly- dressed lady who, leaning on the instrument, seemed to wish to read his soul with her dark fiery eyes. [Although a severe critic might object to the attitude of a lady leaning on a piano as socially and pictorially awkward, he must admit that from a literary point of view it is unquestionably more effective than sitting or standing by the door.] Chopin felt he was blushing under the fascinating glances of the lady [Bravo! This is a master-touch]; she smiled [Exquisite!], and when the artist was about to withdraw from the company behind a group of camellias, he heard the peculiar rustling of a silk dress, which exhaled a fragrance of violets [Camellias, rustling silks, fragrance of violets! What a profusion of beauty and sweetness!], and the same lady who had watched him so inquiringly at the piano approached him accompanied by Liszt. Speaking to him with a deep, sweet voice, she made some remarks on his playing, and more especially on the contents of his improvisation. Frederick listened to her with pleasure and emotion, and while words full of sparkling wit and indescribable poetry flowed from the lady's eloquent lips [Quite a novel representation of her powers of conversation], he felt that he was understood as he had never been.

All this is undoubtedly very pretty, and would be invaluable in a novel, but I am afraid we should embarrass Karasowski were we to ask him to name his authorities.

Of this meeting at the house of the Marquis de C.—i.e., the Marquis de Custine—I was furnished with a third version by an eye-witness—namely, by Chopin's pupil Adolph Gutmann. From him I learned that the occasion was neither a full-dress ball nor a chance gathering of a jour fixe, but a musical matinee. Gutmann, Vidal (Jean Joseph), and Franchomme opened the proceedings with a trio by Mayseder, a composer the very existence of whose once popular chamber-music is unknown to the present generation. Chopin played a great deal, and George Sand devoured him with her eyes. Afterwards the musician and the novelist walked together a long time in the garden. Gutmann was sure that this matinee took place either in 1836 or in 1837, and was inclined to think that it was in the first-mentioned year.

Franchomme, whom I questioned about the matinee at the Marquis de Custine's, had no recollection of it. Nor did he remember the circumstance of having on this or any other occasion played a trio of Mayseder's with Gutmann and Vidal. But this friend of the Polish pianist—composer, while confessing his ignorance as to the place where the latter met the great novelist for the first time, was quite certain as to the year when he met her. Chopin, Franchomme informed me, made George Sand's acquaintance in 1837, their connection was broken in 1847, and he died, as everyone knows, on October 17, 1849. In each of these dates appears the number which Chopin regarded with a superstitious dread, which he avoided whenever he could-for instance, he would not at any price take lodgings in a house the number of which contained a seven— and which may be thought by some to have really exercised a fatal influence over him. It is hardly necessary to point out that it was this fatal number which fixed the date in Franchomme's memory.

But supposing Chopin and George Sand to have really met at the
Marquis de Custine's, was this their first meeting?

[FOONOTE: That they were on one occasion both present at a party given by the Marquis de Custine may be gathered from Freiherr von Flotow's Reminiscences of his life in Paris (published in the "Deutsche Revue" of January, 1883, p. 65); but not that this was their first meeting, nor the time when it took place. As to the character of this dish of reminiscences, I may say that it is sauced and seasoned for the consumption of the blase magazine reader, and has no nutritive substance whatever.]

I put the question to Liszt in the course of a conversation I had with him some years ago in Weimar. His answer was most positive, and to the effect that the first meeting took place at Chopin's own apartments. "I ought to know best," he added, "seeing that I was instrumental in bringing the two together." Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more trustworthy witness in this matter than Liszt, who at that time not only was one of the chief comrades of Chopin, but also of George Sand. According to him, then, the meeting came about in this way. George Sand, whose curiosity had been excited both by the Polish musician's compositions and by the accounts she had heard of him, expressed to Liszt the wish to make the acquaintance of his friend. Liszt thereupon spoke about her to Chopin, but the latter was averse to having any intercourse with her. He said he did not like literary women, and was not made for their society; it was different with his friend, who there found himself in his element. George Sand, however, did not cease to remind Liszt of his promise to introduce her to Chopin. One morning in the early part of 1837 Liszt called on his friend and brother-artist, and found him in high spirits on account of some compositions he had lately finished. As Chopin was anxious to play them to his friends, it was arranged to have in the evening a little party at his rooms.

This seemed to Liszt an excellent opportunity to redeem the promise which he had given George Sand when she asked for an introduction; and, without telling Chopin what he was going to do, he brought her with him along with the Comtesse d'Agoult. The success of the soiree was such that it was soon followed by a second and many more.

In the foregoing accounts the reader will find contradictions enough to exercise his ingenuity upon. But the involuntary tricks of memory and the voluntary ones of imagination make always such terrible havoc of facts that truth, be it ever so much sought and cared for, appears in history and biography only in a more or less disfigured condition. George Sand's own allusion to the commencement of the acquaintance agrees best with Liszt's account. After passing in the latter part of 1836 some months in Switzerland with Liszt and the Comtesse d'Agoult, she meets them again at Paris in the December of the same year:—

At the Hotel de France, where Madame d'Agoult had persuaded me to take quarters near her, the conditions of existence were charming for a few days. She received many litterateurs, artists, and some clever men of fashion. It was at Madame d'Agoult's, or through her, that I made the acquaintance of Eugene Sue, Baron d'Eckstein, Chopin, Mickiewicz, Nourrit, Victor Schoelcher, &c. My friends became also hers. Through me she got acquainted with M. Lamennais, Pierre-Leroux, Henri Heine, &c. Her salon, improvised in an inn, was therefore a reunion d'elite over which she presided with exquisite grace, and where she found herself the equal of all the eminent specialists by reason of the extent of her mind and the variety of her faculties, which were at once poetic and serious. Admirable music was performed there, and in the intervals one could instruct one's self by listening to the conversation.

To reconcile Liszt's account with George Sand's remark that Chopin was one of those whose acquaintance she made at Madame d'Agoult's or through her, we have only to remember the intimate relation in which Liszt stood to this lady (subsequently known in literature under the nom de plume of Daniel Stern), who had left her husband, the Comte d'Agoult, in 1835.

And now at last we can step again from the treacherous quicksand of reminiscences on the terra firma of documents. The following extracts from some letters of George Sand's throw light on her relation to Chopin in the early part of 1837:—

Nohant, March 28, 1837.

[To Franz Liszt.]…Come and see us as soon as possible. Love, esteem, and friendship claim you at Nohant. Love (Marie [FOOTNOTE: The Comtesse d'Agoult.]) is some what ailing, esteem (Maurice and Pelletan [FOOTNOTE: The former, George Sand's son; the latter, Eugene Pelletan, Maurice's tutor.]) pretty well, and friendship (myself) obese and in excellent health.

Marie told me that there was some hope of Chopin. Tell Chopin that I beg of him to accompany you; that Marie cannot live without him, and that I adore him.

I shall write to Grzymala personally in order to induce him also, if I can, to come and see us. I should like to be able to surround Marie with all her friends, in order that she also may live in the bosom of love, esteem, and friendship.

[FOOTNOTE: Albert Grzymala, a man of note among the Polish refugees. He was a native of Dunajowce in Podolia, had held various military and other posts—those of maitre des requites, director of the Bank of Poland, attache to the staff of Prince Poniatowski, General Sebastiani, and Lefebvre, &c.—and was in 1830 sent by the Polish Government on a diplomatic mission to Berlin, Paris, and London. (See L'Amanach de L'Emigration polonaise, published at Paris some forty years ago.) He must not be confounded with the publicist Francis Grzymala, who at Warsaw was considered one of the marechaux de plume, and at Paris was connected with the Polish publication Sybilla. With one exception (Vol. I., p. 3), the Grzymala spoken of in these volumes is Albert Grzymala, sometimes also called Count Grzymala. This title, however, was, if I am rightly informed, only a courtesy title. The Polish nobility as such was untitled, titles being of foreign origin and not legally recognised. But many Polish noblemen when abroad assume the prefix de or von, or the title "Count," in order to make known their rank.]

Nohant, April 5, 1837.

[To the Comtesse d'Agoult.]…Tell Mick….[FOOTNOTE: Mickiewicz, the poet.] (non-compromising manner of writing Polish names) that my pen and my house are at his service, and are only too happy to be so; tell Grzy. …, [FOOTNOTE: Gryzmala] whom I adore, Chopin, whom I idolatrise, and all those whom you love that I love them, and that, brought by you, they will be welcome. Berry in a body watches for the maestro's [FOOTNOTE: Liszt's] return in order to hear him play the piano. I believe we shall be obliged to place le garde- champetre and la garde nationals of Nohant under arms in order to defend ourselves against the dilettanti berrichoni.

Nohant, April 10, 1837.

[To the Comtesse d'Agoult.] I want the fellows, [FOOTNOTE: "Fellows" (English) was the nickname which Liszt gave to himself and his pupil Hermann Cohen.] I want them as soon and as LONG as possible. I want them a mort. I want also Chopin and all the Mickiewiczs and Grzymalas in the world. I want even Sue if you want him. What more would I not want if that were your fancy? For instance, M. de Suzannet or Victor Schoelcher! Everything, a lover excepted.

Nohant, April 21, 1837.

[To the Comtesse d'Agoult.] Nobody has permitted himself to breathe the air of your room since you left it. Arrangements will be made to put up all those you may bring with you. I count on the maestro, on Chopin, on the Rat, [FOOTNOTE: Liszt's pupil, Hermann Cohen.] if he does not weary you too much, and all the others at your choice.

Chopin's love for George Sand was not instantaneous like that of Romeo for Juliet. Karasowski remembers having read in one of those letters of the composer which perished in 1863: "Yesterday I met George Sand…; she made a very disagreeable impression upon me." Hiller in his Open Letter to Franz Liszt writes:—

One evening you had assembled in your apartments the aristocracy of the French literary world—George Sand was of course one of the company. On the way home Chopin said to me "What a repellent [antipathische] woman the Sand is! But is she really a woman? I am inclined to doubt it."

Liszt, in discussing this matter with me, spoke only of Chopin's "reserve" towards George Sand, but said nothing of his "aversion" to her. And according to this authority the novelist's extraordinary mind and attractive conversation soon overcame the musician's reserve. Alfred de Musset's experience had been of a similar nature. George Sand did not particularly please him at first, but a few visits which he paid her sufficed to inflame his heart with a violent passion. The liaisons of the poet and musician with the novelist offer other points of resemblance besides the one just mentioned: both Musset and Chopin were younger than George Sand—the one six, the other five years; and both, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of their characters, occupied the position of a weaker half. In the case of Chopin I am reminded of a saying of Sydney Smith, who, in speaking of his friends the historian Grote and his wife, remarked: "I do like them both so much, for he is so lady-like, and she is such a perfect gentleman." Indeed, Chopin was described to me by his pupil Gutmann as feminine in looks, gestures, and taste; as to George Sand, although many may be unwilling to admit her perfect gentlemanliness, no one can doubt her manliness:—

Dark and olive-complexioned Lelia! [writes Liszt] thou hast walked in solitary places, sombre as Lara, distracted as Manfred, rebellious as Cain, but more fierce [farouche], more pitiless, more inconsolable than they, because thou hast found among the hearts of men none feminine enough to love thee as they have been loved, to pay to thy virile charms the tribute of a confiding and blind submission, of a silent and ardent devotion, to suffer his allegiance to be protected by thy Amazonian strength!

The enthusiasm with which the Poles of her acquaintance spoke of their countrywomen, and the amorous suavity, fulness of feeling, and spotless nobleness which she admired in the Polish composer's inspirations, seem to have made her anticipate, even before meeting Chopin, that she would find in him her ideal lover, one whose love takes the form of worship. To quote Liszt's words: "She believed that there, free from all dependence, secure against all inferiority, her role would rise to the fairy-like power of some being at once the superior and the friend of man. "Were it not unreasonable to regard spontaneous utterances— expressions of passing moods and fancies, perhaps mere flights of rhetoric—as well-considered expositions of stable principles, one might be tempted to ask: Had George Sand found in Chopin the man who was "bold or vile enough" to accept her "hard and clear" conditions? [FOOTNOTE: See extract from one of her letters in the preceding chapter, Vol. I., p. 334.]

While the ordinary position of man and woman was entirely reversed in this alliance, the qualities which characterised them can nevertheless hardly ever have been more nearly diametrically opposed. Chopin was weak and undecided; George Sand strong and energetic. The former shrank from inquiry and controversy; the latter threw herself eagerly into them. [FOOTNOTE: George Sand talks much of the indolence of her temperament: we may admit this fact, but must not overlook another one—namely, that she was in possession of an immense fund of energy, and was always ready to draw upon it whenever speech or action served her purpose or fancy.] The one was a strict observer of the laws of propriety and an almost exclusive frequenter of fashionable society; the other, on the contrary, had an unmitigated scorn for the so- called proprieties and so-called good society. Chopin's manners exhibited a studied refinement, and no woman could be more particular in the matter of dress than he was. It is characteristic of the man that he was so discerning a judge of the elegance and perfection of a female toilette as to be able to tell at a glance whether a dress had been made in a first-class establishment or in an inferior one. The great composer is said to have had an unlimited admiration for a well-made and well- carried (bien porte) dress. Now what a totally different picture presents itself when we turn to George Sand, who says of herself, in speaking of her girlhood, that although never boorish or importunate, she was always brusque in her movements and natural in her manners, and had a horror of gloves and profound bows. Her fondness for male garments is as characteristic as Chopin's connoisseurship of the female toilette; it did not end with her student life, for she donned them again in 1836 when travelling in Switzerland.

The whole of Chopin's person was harmonious. "His appearance," says Moscheles, who saw him in 1839, "is exactly like his music [ist identificirt mit seiner Musik], both are tender and schwarmerisch."

[FOOTNOTE: I shall not attempt to translate this word, but I will give the reader a recipe. Take the notions "fanciful," "dreamy," and "enthusiastic" (in their poetic sense), mix them well, and you have a conception of schwarmerisck.]

A slim frame of middle height; fragile but wonderfully flexible limbs; delicately-formed hands; very small feet; an oval, softly- outlined head; a pale, transparent complexion; long silken hair of a light chestnut colour, parted on one side; tender brown eyes, intelligent rather than dreamy; a finely-curved aquiline nose; a sweet subtle smile; graceful and varied gestures: such was the outward presence of Chopin. As to the colour of the eyes and hair, the authorities contradict each other most thoroughly. Liszt describes the eyes as blue, Karasowski as dark brown, and M. Mathias as "couleur de biere." [FOOTNOTE: This strange expression we find again in Count Wodzinski's Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin, where the author says: "His large limpid, expressive, and soft eyes had that tint which the English call auburn, which the Poles, his compatriots, describe as piwne (beer colour), and which the French would denominate brown.">[ Of the hair Liszt says that it was blonde, Madame Dubois and others that it was cendre, Miss L. Ramann that it was dark blonde, and a Scotch lady that it was dark brown. [FOOTNOTE: Count Wodzinski writes: "It was not blonde, but of a shade similar to that of his eyes: ash-coloured (cendre), with golden reflections in the light.">[ Happily the matter is settled for us by an authority to which all others must yield—namely, by M. T. Kwiatkowski, the friend and countryman of Chopin, an artist who has drawn and painted the latter frequently. Well, the information I received from him is to the effect that Chopin had des yeux bruns tendres (eyes of a tender brown), and les cheveux blonds chatains (chestnut-blonde hair). Liszt, from whose book some of the above details are derived, completes his portrayal of Chopin by some characteristic touches. The timbre of his voice, he says, was subdued and often muffled; and his movements had such a distinction and his manners such an impress of good society that one treated him unconsciously like a prince. His whole appearance made one think of that of the convolvuli, which on incredibly slender stems balance divinely-coloured chalices of such vapourous tissue that the slightest touch destroys them.

And whilst Liszt attributes to Chopin all sorts of feminine graces and beauties, he speaks of George Sand as an Amazon, a femme-heros, who is not afraid to expose her masculine countenance to all suns and winds. Merimee says of George Sand that he has known her "maigre comme un clou et noire comme une taupe." Musset, after their first meeting, describes her, to whom he at a subsequent period alludes as femme a l'oeil sombre, thus:- -

She is very beautiful; she is the kind of woman I like—brown, pale, dull-complexioned with reflections as of bronze, and strikingly large-eyed like an Indian. I have never been able to contemplate such a countenance without inward emotion. Her physiognomy is rather torpid, but when it becomes animated it assumes a remarkably independent and proud expression.

The most complete literary portrayal of George Sand that has been handed down to us, however, is by Heine. He represents her as Chopin knew her, for although he published the portrait as late as 1854 he did not represent her as she then looked; indeed, at that time he had probably no intercourse with her, and therefore was obliged to draw from memory. The truthfulness of Heine's delineation is testified by the approval of many who knew George Sand, and also by Couture's portrait of her:—

George Sand, the great writer, is at the same time a beautiful woman. She is even a distinguished beauty. Like the genius which manifests itself in her works, her face is rather to be called beautiful than interesting. The interesting is always a graceful or ingenious deviation from the type of the beautiful, and the features of George Sand bear rather the impress of a Greek regularity. Their form, however, is not hard, but softened by the sentimentality which is suffused over them like a veil of sorrow. The forehead is not high, and the delicious chestnut-brown curly hair falls parted down to the shoulders. Her eyes are somewhat dim, at least they are not bright, and their fire may have been extinguished by many tears, or may have passed into her works, which have spread their flaming brands over the whole world, illumined many a comfortless prison, but perhaps also fatally set on fire many a temple of innocence. The authoress of "Lelia" has quiet, soft eyes, which remind one neither of Sodom nor of Gomorrah. She has neither an emancipated aquiline nose nor a witty little snub nose. It is just an ordinary straight nose. A good- natured smile plays usually around her mouth, but it is not very attractive; the somewhat hanging under-lip betrays fatigued sensuality. The chin is full and plump, but nevertheless beautifully proportioned. Also her shoulders are beautiful, nay, magnificent. Likewise her arms and hands, which, like her feet, are small. Let other contemporaries describe the charms of her bosom, I confess my incompetence. The rest of her bodily frame seems to be somewhat too stout, at least too short. Only her head bears the impress of ideality; it reminds one of the noblest remains of Greek art, and in this respect one of our friends could compare the beautiful woman to the marble statue of the Venus of Milo, which stands in one of the lower rooms of the Louvre. Yes, she is as beautiful as the Venus of Milo; she even surpasses the latter in many respects: she is, for instance, very much younger. The physiognomists who maintain that the voice of man reveals his character most unmistakably would be much at a loss if they were called upon to detect George Sand's extraordinary depth of feeling [Innigkeit] in her voice. The latter is dull and faded, without sonority, but soft and agreeable. The naturalness of her speaking lends it some charm. Of vocal talent she exhibits not a trace! George Sand sings at best with the bravura of a beautiful grisette who has not yet breakfasted or happens not to be in good voice. The organ of George Sand has as little brilliancy as what she says. She has nothing whatever of the sparkling esprit of her countrywomen, but also nothing of their talkativeness. The cause of this taciturnity, however, is neither modesty nor sympathetic absorption in the discourse of another. She is taciturn rather from haughtiness, because she does not think you worth squandering her cleverness [Geist] upon, or even from selfishness, because she endeavours to absorb the best of your discourse in order to work it up afterwards in her works. That out of avarice George Sand knows how never to give anything and always to take something in conversation, is a trait to which Alfred de Musset drew my attention. "This gives her a great advantage over us," said Musset, who, as he had for many years occupied the post of cavaliere servente to the lady, had had the best opportunity to learn to know her thoroughly. George Sand never says anything witty; she is indeed one of the most unwitty Frenchwomen I know.

While admiring the clever drawing and the life-like appearance of the portrait, we must, however, not overlook the exaggerations and inaccuracies. The reader cannot have failed to detect the limner tripping with regard to Musset, who occupied not many years but less than a year the post of cavaliere servente. But who would expect religious adherence to fact from Heine, who at all times distinguishes himself rather by wit than conscientiousness? What he says of George Sand's taciturnity in company and want of wit, however, must be true; for she herself tells us of these negative qualities in the Histoire de ma Vie.

The musical accomplishments of Chopin's beloved one have, of course, a peculiar interest for us. Liszt, who knew her so well, informed me that she was not musical, but possessed taste and judgment. By "not musical" he meant no doubt that she was not in the habit of exhibiting her practical musical acquirements, or did not possess these latter to any appreciable extent. She herself seems to me to make too much of her musical talents, studies, and knowledge. Indeed, her writings show that, whatever her talents may have been, her taste was vague and her knowledge very limited.

When we consider the diversity of character, it is not a matter for wonder that Chopin was at first rather repelled than attracted by the personality of George Sand. Nor is it, on the other hand, a matter for wonder that her beauty and power of pleasing proved too strong for his antipathy. How great this power of pleasing was when she wished to exercise it, the reader may judge from the incident I shall now relate. Musset's mother, having been informed of her son's projected tour to Italy, begged him to give it up. The poet promised to comply with her request: "If one must weep, it shall not be you," he said. In the evening George Sand came in a carriage to the door and asked for Madame Musset; the latter came out, and after a short interview gave her consent to her son's departure. Chopin's unsuccessful wooing of Miss Wodzinska and her marriage with Count Skarbek in this year (1837) may not have been without effect on the composer. His heart being left bruised and empty was as it were sensitised (if I may use this photographic term) for the reception of a new impression by the action of love. In short, the intimacy between Chopin and George Sand grew steadily and continued to grow till it reached its climax in the autumn of 1838, when they went together to Majorca. Other matters, however, have to be adverted to before we come to this passage of Chopin's life. First I shall have to say a few words about his artistic activity during the years 1837 and 1838.

Among the works composed by Chopin in 1837 was one of the Variations on the March from I Puritani, which were published under the title Hexameron: Morceau de Concert. Grandes variations de bravoure sur la marche des Puritains de Bellini, composees pour le concert de Madame la Princesse Belgiojoso au benefice des pauvres, par M.M. Liszt, Thalberg, Pixis, H. Herz, Czerny, et Chopin. This co-operative undertaking was set on foot by the Princess, and was one of her many schemes to procure money for her poor exiled countrymen. Liszt played these Variations often at his concerts, and even wrote orchestral accompaniments to them, which, however, were never published.

Chopin's publications of the year 1837 are: in October, Op. 25, Douze Etudes, dedicated to Madame la Comtesse d'Agoult; and in December, Op. 29, Impromptu (in A flat major), dedicated to Mdlle. la Comtesse de Lobau; Op. 30, Quatre Mazurkas, dedicated to Madame la Princesse de Wurtemberg, nee Princesse Czartoryska; Op. 31, Deuxieme Scherzo (B flat minor), dedicated to Mdlle. la Comtesse Adele de Furstenstein; and Op. 32, Deux Nocturnes (B major and A flat major), dedicated to Madame la Baronne de Billing. His publications of the year 1838 are: in October, Op. 33, Quatre Mazurkas, dedicated to Mdlle. la Comtesse Mostowska; and, in December, Op. 34, Trois Valses brillantes (A flat major, A minor, and F major), respectively dedicated to Mdlle. de Thun- Hohenstein, Madame G. d'Ivri, and Mdlle. A. d'Eichthal. This last work appeared at Paris first in an Album des Pianistes, a collection of unpublished pieces by Thalberg, Chopin, Doehler, Osborne, Liszt, and Mereaux. Two things in connection with this album may yet be mentioned—namely, that Mereaux contributed to it a Fantasia on a mazurka by Chopin, and that Stephen Heller reviewed it in the Gazette musicale. Chopin was by no means pleased with the insertion of the waltzes in Schlesinger's Album des Pianistes. But more of this and his labours and grievances as a composer in the next chapter.

There are also to be recorded some public and semi-public appearances of Chopin as a virtuoso. On February 25, 1838, the Gazette musicale informs its readers that Chopin, "that equally extraordinary and modest pianist," had lately been summoned to Court to be heard there en cercle intime. His inexhaustible improvisations, which almost made up the whole of the evening's entertainment, were particularly admired by the audience, which knew as well as a gathering of artists how to appreciate the composer's merits. At a concert given by Valentin Alkan on March 3, 1838, Chopin performed with Zimmermann, Gutmann, and the concert-giver, the latter's arrangement of Beethoven's A major Symphony (or rather some movements from it) for two pianos and eight hands. And in the Gazette musicale of March 25, 1838, there is a report by M. Legouve of Chopin's appearance at a concert given by his countryman Orlowski at Rouen, where the latter had settled after some years stay in Paris. From a writer in the Journal de Rouen (December 1, 1849) we learn that ever since this concert, which was held in the town-hall, and at which the composer played his E minor Concerto with incomparable perfection, the name of Chopin had in the musical world of Rouen a popularity which secured to his memory an honourable and cordial sympathy. But here is what Legouve says about this concert. I transcribe the notice in full, because it shows us both how completely Chopin had retired from the noise and strife of publicity, and how high he stood in the estimation of his contemporaries.

Here is an event which is not without importance in the musical world. Chopin, who has not been heard in public for several years; Chopin, who imprisons his charming genius in an audience of five or six persons; Chopin, who resembles those enchanted isles where so many marvels are said to abound that one regards them as fabulous; Chopin, whom one can never forget after having once heard him; Chopin has just given a grand concert at Rouen before 500 people for the benefit of a Polish professor. Nothing less than a good action to be done and the remembrance of his country could have overcome his repugnance to playing in public. Well! the success was immense! immense! All these enchanting melodies, these ineffable delicacies of execution, these melancholy and impassioned inspirations, and all that poesy of playing and of composition which takes hold at once of your imagination and heart, have penetrated, moved, enraptured 500 auditors, as they do the eight or ten privileged persons who listen to him religiously for whole hours; every moment there were in the hall those electric fremissements, those murmurs of ecstasy and astonishment which are the bravos of the soul. Forward then, Chopin! forward! let this triumph decide you; do not be selfish, give your beautiful talent to all; consent to pass for what you are; put an end to the great debate which divides the artists; and when it shall be asked who is the first pianist of Europe, Liszt or Thalberg, let all the world reply, like those who have heard you…"It is Chopin."

Chopin's artistic achievements, however, were not unanimously received with such enthusiastic approval. A writer in the less friendly La France musicale goes even so far as to stultify himself by ridiculing, a propos of the A flat Impromptu, the composer's style. This jackanapes—who belongs to that numerous class of critics whose smartness of verbiage combined with obtuseness of judgment is so well-known to the serious musical reader and so thoroughly despised by him—ignores the spiritual contents of the work under discussion altogether, and condemns without hesitation every means of expression which in the slightest degree deviates from the time-honoured standards. We are told that Chopin's mode of procedure in composing is this. He goes in quest of an idea, writes, writes, modulates through all the twenty-four keys, and, if the idea fails to come, does without it and concludes the little piece very nicely (tres- bien). And now, gentle reader, ponder on this momentous and immeasurably sad fact: of such a nature was, is, and ever will be the great mass of criticism.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHOPIN'S VISITS TO NOHANT IN 1837 AND 1838.—HIS ILL HEALTH.—HE DECIDES TO GO WITH MADAME SAND AND HER CHILDREN TO MAJORCA.— MADAME SAND'S ACCOUNT OF THIS MATTER AND WHAT OTHERS THOUGHT ABOUT IT.—CHOPIN AND HIS FELLOW—TRAVELLERS MEET AT PERPIGNAN IN THE BEGINNING OF NOVEMBER, 1838, AND PROCEED BY PORT-VENDRES AND BARCELONA TO PALMA.—THEIR LIFE AND EXPERIENCES IN THE TOWN, AT THE VILLA SON-VENT, AND AT THE MONASTERY OF VALDEMOSA, AS DESCRIBED IN CHOPIN'S AND GEORGE SAND'S LETTERS, AND THE LATTER'S "MA VIE" AND "UN HIVER A MAJORQUE."—THE PRELUDES.—RETURN TO FRANCE BY BARCELONA AND MARSEILLES IN THE END OF FEBRUARY, 1839.

In a letter written in 1837, and quoted on p. 313 of Vol. I., Chopin said: "I may perhaps go for a few days to George Sand's." How heartily she invited him through their common friends Liszt and the Comtesse d'Agoult, we saw in the preceding chapter. We may safely assume, I think, that Chopin went to Nohant in the summer of 1837, and may be sure that he did so in the summer of 1838, although with regard to neither visit reliable information of any kind is discoverable. Karasowski, it is true, quotes four letters of Chopin to Fontana as written from Nohant in 1838, but internal evidence shows that they must have been written three years later.

We know from Mendelssohn's and Moscheles' allusions to Chopin's visit to London that he was at that time ailing. He himself wrote in the same year (1837) to Anthony Wodzinski that during the winter he had been again ill with influenza, and that the doctors had wanted to send him to Ems. As time went on the state of his health seems to have got worse, and this led to his going to Majorca in the winter of 1838-1839. The circumstance that he had the company of Madame Sand on this occasion has given rise to much discussion. According to Liszt, Chopin was forced by the alarming state of his health to go to the south in order to avoid the severities of the Paris winter; and Madame Sand, who always watched sympathetically over her friends, would not let him depart alone, but resolved to accompany him. Karasowski, on the other hand, maintains that it was not Madame Sand who was induced to accompany Chopin, but that Madame Sand induced Chopin to accompany her. Neither of these statements tallies with Madame Sand's own account. She tells us that when in 1838 her son Maurice, who had been in the custody of his father, was definitively entrusted to her care, she resolved to take him to a milder climate, hoping thus to prevent a return of the rheumatism from which he had suffered so much in the preceding year. Besides, she wished to live for some time in a quiet place where she could make her children work, and could work herself, undisturbed by the claims of society.

As I was making my plans and preparations for departure [she goes on to say], Chopin, whom I saw every day and whose genius and character I tenderly loved, said to me that if he were in Maurice's place he would soon recover. I believed it, and I was mistaken. I did not put him in the place of Maurice on the journey, but beside Maurice. His friends had for long urged him to go and spend some time in the south of Europe. People believed that he was consumptive. Gaubert examined him and declared to me that he was not. "You will save him, in fact," he said to me, "if you give him air, exercise, and rest." Others, knowing well that Chopin would never make up his mind to leave the society and life of Paris without being carried off by a person whom he loved and who was devoted to him, urged me strongly not to oppose the desire he showed so a propos and in a quite unhoped-for way.

As time showed, I was wrong in yielding to their hopes and my own solicitude. It was indeed enough to go abroad alone with two children, one already ill, the other full of exuberant health and spirits, without taking upon myself also a terrible anxiety and a physician's responsibility.

But Chopin was just then in a state of health that reassured everybody. With the exception of Grzymala, who saw more clearly how matters stood, we were all hopeful. I nevertheless begged Chopin to consider well his moral strength, because for several years he had never contemplated without dread the idea of leaving Paris, his physician, his acquaintances, his room even, and his piano. He was a man of imperious habits, and every change, however small it might be, was a terrible event in his life.

Seeing that Liszt—who was at the time in Italy—and Karasowski speak only from hearsay, we cannot do better than accept George Sand's account, which contains nothing improbable. In connection with this migration to the south, I must, however, not omit to mention certain statements of Adolph Gutmann, one of Chopin's pupils. Here is the substance of what Gutmann told me. Chopin was anxious to go to Majorca, but for some time was kept in suspense by the scantiness of his funds. This threatening obstacle, however, disappeared when his friend the pianoforte-maker and publisher, Camille Pleyel, paid him 2,000 francs for the copyright of the Preludes, Op. 28. Chopin remarked of this transaction to Gutmann, or in his hearing: "I sold the Preludes to Pleyel because he liked them [parcequ'il les. aimait]." And Pleyel exclaimed on one occasion: "These are my Preludes [Ce sont mes Preludes]." Gutmann thought that Pleyel, who was indebted to Chopin for playing on his instruments and recommending them, wished to assist his friend in a delicate way with some money, and therefore pretended to be greatly taken with these compositions and bent upon possessing them. This, however, cannot be quite correct; for from Chopin's letters, which I shall quote I presently, it appears that he had indeed promised Pleyel the Preludes, but before his departure received from him only 500 francs, the remaining 1,500 being paid months afterwards, on the delivery of the manuscript. These letters show, on the other hand, that when Chopin was in Majorca he owed to Leo 1,000 francs, which very likely he borrowed from him to defray part of the expenses of his sojourn in the south.

[FOOTNOTE: August Leo, a Paris banker, "the friend and patron of many artists," as he is called by Moscheles, who was related to him through his wife Charlotte Embden, of Hamburg. The name of Leo occurs often in the letters and conversations of musicians, especially German musicians, who visited Paris or lived there in the second quarter of this century. Leo kept house together with his brother-in-law Valentin. (See Vol. I., p. 254.)]

Chopin kept his intention of going with Madame Sand to Majorca secret from all but a privileged few. According to Franchomme, he did not speak of it even to his friends. There seem to have been only three exceptions—Fontana, Matuszynski, and Grzymala, and in his letters to the first he repeatedly entreats his friend not to talk about him. Nor does he seem to have been much more communicative after his return, for none of Chopin's acquaintances whom I questioned was able to tell me whether the composer looked back on this migration with satisfaction or with regret; still less did they remember any remark made by him that would throw a more searching light on this period of his life.

Until recently the only sources of information bearing on Chopin's stay in Majorca were George Sand's "Un Hiver a Majorque" and "Histoire de ma Vie." But now we have also Chopin's letters to Fontana (in the Polish edition of Karasowski's "Chopin") and George Sand's "Correspondance," which supplement and correct the two publications of the novelist. Remembering the latter's tendency to idealise everything, and her disinclination to descend to the prose of her subject, I shall make the letters the backbone of my narrative, and for the rest select my material cautiously.

Telling Chopin that she would stay some days at Perpignan if he were not there on her arrival, but would proceed without him if he failed to make his appearance within a certain time, Madame Sand set out with her two children and a maid in the month of November, 1838, for the south of France, and, travelling for travelling's sake, visited Lyons, Avignon, Vaucluse, Nimes, and other places. The distinguished financier and well-known Spanish statesman Mendizabal, their friend, who was going to Madrid, was to accompany Chopin to the Spanish frontier. Madame Sand was not long left in doubt as to whether Chopin would realise his reve de voyage or not, for he put in his appearance at Perpignan the very next day after her arrival there. Madame Sand to Madame Marliani, [FOOTNOTE: The wife of the Spanish politician and author, Manuel Marliani. We shall hear more of her farther on.] November, 1838:- -

Chopin arrived at Perpignan last night, fresh as a rose, and rosy as a turnip; moreover, in good health, having stood his four nights of the mail-coach heroically. As to ourselves, we travelled slowly, quietly, and surrounded at all stations by our friends, who overwhelmed us with kindness.

As the weather was fine and the sea calm Chopin did not suffer much on the passage from Port-Vendres to Barcelona. At the latter town the party halted for a while-spending some busy days within its walls, and making an excursion into the country-and then took ship for Palma, the capital of Majorca and the Balearic Isles generally. Again the voyagers were favoured by the elements.

The night was warm and dark, illumined only by an extraordinary phosphorescence in the wake of the ship; everybody was asleep on board except the steersman, who, in order to keep himself awake, sang all night, but in a voice so soft and so subdued that one might have thought that he feared to awake the men of the watch, or that he himself was half asleep. We did not weary of listening to him, for his singing was of the strangest kind. He observed a rhythm and modulations totally different from those we are accustomed to, and seemed to allow his voice to go at random, like the smoke of the vessel carried away and swayed by the breeze. It was a reverie rather than a song, a kind of careless divagation of the voice, with which the mind had little to do, but which kept time with the swaying of the ship, the faint sound of the dead water, and resembled a vague improvisation, restrained, nevertheless, by sweet and monotonous forms.

When night had passed into day, the steep coasts of Majorca, dentelees au soleil du matin par les aloes et les palmiers, came in sight, and soon after El Mallorquin landed its passengers at Palma. Madame Sand had left Paris a fortnight before in extremely cold weather, and here she found in the first half of November summer heat. The newcomers derived much pleasure from their rambles through the town, which has a strongly-pronounced character of its own and is rich in fine and interesting buildings, among which are most prominent the magnificent Cathedral, the elegant Exchange (la lonja), the stately Town- Hall, and the picturesque Royal Palace (palacio real). Indeed, in Majorca everything is picturesque,

from the hut of the peasant, who in his most insignificant buildings has preserved the tradition of the Arabic style, to the infant clothed in rags and triumphant in his "malproprete grandiose," as Heine said a propos of the market-women of Verona. The character of the landscape, whose vegetation is richer than that of Africa is in general, has quite as much breadth, calm, and simplicity. It is green Switzerland under the sky of Calabria, with the solemnity and silence of the East.

But picturesqueness alone does not make man's happiness, and Palma seems to have afforded little else. If we may believe Madame Sand, there was not a single hotel in the town, and the only accommodation her party could get consisted of two small rooms, unfurnished rather than furnished, in some wretched place where travellers are happy to find "a folding-bed, a straw- bottomed chair, and, as regards food, pepper and garlic a discretion." Still, however great their discomfort and disgust might be, they had to do their utmost to hide their feelings; for, if they had made faces on discovering vermin in their beds and scorpions in their soup, they would certainly have hurt the susceptibilities of the natives, and would probably have exposed themselves to unpleasant consequences. No inhabitable apartments were to be had in the town itself, but in its neighbourhood a villa chanced to be vacant, and this our party rented at once.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Palma, November 14, 1838:—

I am leaving the town, and shall establish myself in the country: I have a pretty furnished house, with a garden and a magnificent view, for fifty francs per month. Besides, two leagues from there I have a cell, that is to say, three rooms and a garden full of oranges and lemons, for thirty-five francs PER YEAR, in the large monastery of Valdemosa.

The furniture of the villa was indeed of the most primitive kind, and the walls were only whitewashed, but the house was otherwise convenient, well ventilated—in fact, too well ventilated—and above all beautifully situated at the foot of rounded, fertile mountains, in the bosom of a rich valley which was terminated by the yellow walls of Palma, the mass of the cathedral, and the sparkling sea on the horizon.

Chopin to Fontana; Palma, November 15, 1838:—

[FOOTNOTE: Julius Fontana, born at Warsaw in 1810, studied music (at the Warsaw Conservatoire under Elsner) as an amateur and law for his profession; joined in 1830 the Polish insurrectionary army; left his country after the failure of the insurrection; taught the piano in London; played in 1835 several times with success in Paris; resided there for some years; went in 1841 to Havannah; on account of the climate, removed to New York; gave there concerts with Sivori; and returned to Paris in 1850. This at least is the account we get of him in Sowinski's "Les Musiciens polonais et slaves." Mr. A. J. Hipkins, who became acquainted with Fontana during a stay which the latter made in London in 1856 (May and early part of June), described him to me as "an honourable and gentlemanly man." From the same informant I learned that Fontana married a lady who had an income for life, and that by this marriage he was enabled to retire from the active exercise of his profession. Later on he became very deaf, and this great trouble was followed by a still greater one, the death of his wife. Thus left deaf and poor, he despaired, and, putting a pistol to one of his ears, blew out his brains. According to Karasowski he died at Paris in 1870. The compositions he published (dances, fantasias, studies, &c.) are of no importance. He is said to have published also two books, one on Polish orthography in 1866 and one on popular astronomy in 1869. The above and all the following letters of Chopin to Fontana are in the possession of Madame Johanna Lilpop, of Warsaw, and are here translated from Karasowski's Polish edition of his biography of Chopin. Many of the letters are undated, and the dates suggested by Karasowski generally wrong. There are, moreover, two letters which are given as if dated by Chopin; but as the contents point to Nohant and 1841 rather than to Majorca and 1838 and 1839, I shall place them in Chapter XXIV., where also my reasons for doing so will be more particularly stated. A third letter, supposed by Karasowski to be written at Valdemosa in February, I hold to be written at Marseilles in April. It will be found in the next chapter.]

My dear friend,—I am at Palma, among palms, cedars, cactuses, aloes, and olive, orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees, &c., which the Jardin des Plantes possesses only thanks to its stoves. The sky is like a turquoise, the sea is like lazuli, and the mountains are like emeralds. The air? The air is just as in heaven. During the day there is sunshine, and consequently it is warm—everybody wears summer clothes. During the night guitars and songs are heard everywhere and at all hours. Enormous balconies with vines overhead, Moorish walls…The town, like everything here, looks towards Africa…In one word, a charming life"!

Dear Julius, go to Pleyel—the piano has not yet arrived—and ask him by what route they have sent it.

The Preludes you shall have soon.

I shall probably take up my quarters in a delightful monastery in one of the most beautiful sites in the world: sea, mountains, palm trees, cemetery, church of the Knights of the Cross, ruins of mosques, thousand-year-old olive trees!…Ah, my dear friend, I am now enjoying life a little more; I am near what is most beautiful—I am a better man.

Letters from my parents and whatever you have to send me give to Grzymala; he knows the safest address.

Embrace Johnnie. [FOOTNOTE: The Johnnie so frequently mentioned in the letters to Fontana is John Matuszynski.] How soon he would recover here!

Tell Schlesinger that before long he will receive MS. To acquaintances speak little of me. Should anybody ask, say that I shall be back in spring. The mail goes once a week; I write through the French Consulate here.

Send the enclosed letter as it is to my parents; leave it at the postoffice yourself.

Yours,

CHOPIN.

George Sand relates in "Un Hiver a Majorque" that the first days which her party passed at the Son-Vent (House of the Wind)—this was the name of the villa they had rented—were pretty well taken up with promenading and pleasant lounging, to which the delicious climate and novel scenery invited. But this paradisaic condition was suddenly changed as if by magic when at the end of two or three weeks the wet season began and the Son-Vent became uninhabitable.

The walls of it were so thin that the lime with which our rooms were plastered swelled like a sponge. For my part I never suffered so much from cold, although it was in reality not very cold; but for us, who are accustomed to warm ourselves in winter, this house without a chimney was like a mantle of ice on our shoulders, and I felt paralysed. Chopin, delicate as he was and subject to violent irritation of the larynx, soon felt the effects of the damp.

We could not accustom ourselves to the stifling odour of the brasiers, and our invalid began to ail and to cough.

From this moment we became an object of dread and horror to the population. We were accused and convicted of pulmonary phthisis, which is equivalent to the plague in the prejudices regarding contagion entertained by Spanish physicians. A rich doctor, who for the moderate remuneration of forty-five francs deigned to come and pay us a visit, declared, nevertheless, that there was nothing the matter, and prescribed nothing.

Another physician came obligingly to our assistance; but the pharmacy at Palma was in such a miserable state that we could only procure detestable drugs. Moreover, the illness was to be aggravated by causes which no science and no devotion could efficiently battle against.

One morning, when we were given up to serious fears on account of the duration of these rains and these sufferings which were bound up together, we received a letter from the fierce Gomez [the landlord], who declared, in the Spanish style, that we held a person who held a disease which carried contagion into his house, and threatened prematurely the life of his family; in consequence of which he requested us to leave his palace with the shortest delay possible.

This did not cause us much regret, for we could no longer stay there without fear of being drowned in our rooms; but our invalid was not in a condition to be moved without danger, especially by such means of transport as are available in Majorca, and in the weather then obtaining. And then the difficulty was to know where to go, for the rumour of our phthisis had spread instantaneously, and we could no longer hope to find a shelter anywhere, not even at a very high price for a night. We knew that the obliging persons who offeredto take us in were themselves not free from prejudices, and that, moreover, we should draw upon them, in going near them, the reprobation which weighed upon us. Without the hospitality of the French consul, who did wonders in order to gather us all under his roof, we were threatened with the prospect of camping in some cavern like veritable Bohemians.

Another miracle came to pass, and we found an asylum for the winter. At the Carthusian monastery of Valdemosa there was a Spanish refugee, who had hidden himself there for I don't know what political reason. Visiting the monastery, we were struck with the gentility of his manners, the melancholy beauty of his wife, and the rustic and yet comfortable furniture of their cell. The poesy of this monastery had turned my head. It happened that the mysterious couple wished to leave the country precipitately, and—that they were as delighted to dispose to us of their furniture and cell as we were to acquire them. For the moderate sum of a thousand francs we had then a complete establishment, but such a one as we could have procured in France for 300 francs, so rare, costly, and difficult to get are the most necessary things in Majorca.

The outcasts decamped speedily from the Son-Vent. But before Senor Gomez had done with his tenants, he made them pay for the whitewashing and the replastering of the whole house, which he held to have been infected by Chopin.

And now let us turn once more from George Sand's poetical inventions, distortions, and exaggerations, to the comparative sobriety and trustworthiness of letters.

Chopin to Fontana; Palma, December 3, 1838:—

I cannot send you the MSS. as they are not yet finished. During the last two weeks I have been as ill as a dog, in spite of eighteen degrees of heat, [FOOTNOTE: That is, eighteen degrees Centigrade, which are equal to about sixty- four degrees Fahrenheit.] and of roses, and orange, palm, and fig trees in blossom. I caught a severe cold. Three doctors, the most renowned in the island, were called in for consultation. One smelt what I spat, the second knocked whence I spat, the third sounded and listened when I spat. The first said that I would die, the second that I was dying, the third that I had died already; and in the meantime I live as I was living. I cannot forgive Johnnie that in the case of bronchite aigue, which he could always notice in me, he gave me no advice. I had a narrow escape from their bleedings, cataplasms, and such like operations. Thanks to Providence, I am now myself again. My illness has nevertheless a pernicious effect on the Preludes, which you will receive God knows when.

In a few days I shall live in the most beautiful part of the world. Sea, mountains…whatever you wish. We are to have our quarters in an old, vast, abandoned and ruined monastery of Carthusians whom Mend [FOOTNOTE: Mendizabal] drove away as it were for me. Near Palma—nothing more wonderful: cloisters, most poetic cemeteries. In short, I feel that there it will be well with me. Only the piano has not yet come! I wrote to Pleyel. Ask there and tell him that on the day after my arrival here I was taken very ill, and that I am well again. On the whole, speak little about me and my manuscripts. Write to me. As yet I have not received a letter from you.

Tell Leo that I have not as yet sent the Preludes to the Albrechts, but that I still love them sincerely, and shall write to them shortly.

Post the enclosed letter to my parents yourself, and write as
soon as possible.

My love to Johnnie. Do not tell anyone that I was ill, they
would only gossip about it.

[FOOTNOTE: to Madame Dubois I owe the information that Albrecht, an attache to the Saxon legation (a post which gave him a good standing in society) and at the same time a wine-merchant (with offices in the Place Vendome—his specialty being "vins de Bordeaux"), was one of Chopin's "fanatic friends." In the letters there are allusions to two Albrechts, father and son; the foregoing information refers to the son, who, I think, is the T. Albrecht to whom the Premier Scherzo, Chopin's Op. 20, is dedicated.]

Chopin to Fontana; Palma, December 14, 1838:—

As yet not a word from you, and this is my third or fourth letter. Did you prepay? Perhaps my parents did not write. Maybe some misfortune has befallen them. Or are you so lazy? But no, you are not lazy, you are so obliging. No doubt you sent my two letters to my people (both from Palma). And you must have written to me, only the post of this place, which is the most irregular in the world, has not yet delivered your letters.

Only to-day I was informed that on the ist of December my piano was embarked at Marseilles on a merchant vessel. The letter took fourteen days to come from that town. Thus there is some hope that the piano may pass the winter in the port, as here nobody stirs when it rains. The idea of my getting it just at my departure pleases me, for in addition to the 500 francs for freight and duty which I must pay, I shall have the pleasure of packing it and sending it back. Meanwhile my manuscripts are sleeping, whereas I cannot sleep, but cough, and am covered with plasters, waiting anxiously for spring or something else.

To-morrow I start for this delightful monastery of Valdemosa. I shall live, muse, and write in the cell of some old monk who may have had more fire in his heart than I, and was obliged to hide and smother it, not being able to make use of it.

I think that shortly I shall be able to send you my Preludes and my Ballade. Go and see Leo; do not mention that I am ill, he would fear for his 1,000 francs.

Give my kind remembrances to Johnnie and Pleyel.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Palma, December 14, 1838:—

…What is really beautiful here is the country, the sky, the mountains, the good health of Maurice, and the radoucissement of Solange. The good Chopin is not in equally brilliant health. He misses his piano very much. We received news of it to-day. It has left Marseilles, and we shall perhaps have it in a fortnight. Mon Dieu, how hard, difficult, and miserable the physical life is here! It is beyond what one can imagine.

By a stroke of fortune I have found for sale a clean suite of furniture, charming for this country, but which a French peasant would not have. Unheard-of trouble was required to get a stove, wood, linen, and who knows what else. Though for a month I have believed myself established, I am always on the eve of being so. Here a cart takes five hours to go three leagues; judge of the rest. They require two months to manufacture a pair of tongs. There is no exaggeration in what I say. Guess about this country all I do not tell you. For my part I do not mind it, but I have suffered a little from it in the fear of seeing my children suffer much from it.

Happily, my ambulance is doing well. To-morrow we depart for the Carthusian monastery of Valdemosa, the most poetic residence on earth. We shall pass there the winter, which has hardly begun and will soon end. This is the sole happiness of this country. I have never in my life met with a nature so delicious as that of Majorca.

…The people of this country are generally very gracious, very obliging; but all this in words…

I shall write to Leroux from the monastery at leisure. If you knew what I have to do! I have almost to cook. Here, another amenity, one cannot get served. The domestic is a brute: bigoted, lazy, and gluttonous; a veritable son of a monk (I think that all are that). It requires ten to do the work which your brave Mary does. Happily, the maid whom I have brought with me from Paris is very devoted, and resigns herself to do heavy work; but she is not strong, and I must help her. Besides, everything is dear, and proper nourishment is difficult to get when the stomach cannot stand either rancid oil or pig's grease. I begin to get accustomed to it; but Chopin is ill every time that we do not prepare his food ourselves. In short, our expedition here is, in many respects, a frightful fiasco.

On December 15, 1838, then, the Sand party took possession of their quarters in the monastery of Valdemosa, and thence the next letters are dated.

Chopin to Fontana; "Palma, December 28, 1838, or rather
Valdemosa, a few miles distant from Palma":—

Between rocks and the sea, in a great abandoned Carthusian monastery, in one of the cells with doors bigger than the gates in Paris, you may imagine me with my hair uncurled, without white gloves, pale as usual. The cell is in the shape of a coffin, high, and full of dust on the vault. The window small, before the window orange, palm, and cypress trees. Opposite the window, under a Moorish filigree rosette, stands my bed. By its side an old square thing like a table for writing, scarcely serviceable; on it a leaden candlestick (a great luxury) with a little tallow-candle, Works of Bach, my jottings, and old scrawls that are not mine, this is all I possess. Quietness…one may shout and nobody will hear…in short, I am writing to you from a strange place.

Your letter of the 9th of December I received the day before yesterday; as on account of the holidays the express mail does not leave till next week, I write to you in no great hurry. It will be a Russian month before you get the bill of exchange which I send you.

Sublime nature is a fine thing, but one should have nothing to do with men—nor with roads and posts. Many a time I came here from Palma, always with the same driver and always by another road. Streams of water make roads, violent rains destroy them; to-day it is impossible to pass, for what was a road is ploughed; next day only mules can pass where you were driving yesterday. And what carriages here! That is the reason, Julius, why you do not see a single Englishman, not even an English consul.

Leo is a Jew, a rogue! I was at his house the day before my departure, and I told him not to send me anything here. I cannot send you the Preludes, they are not yet finished. At present I am better and shall push on the work. I shall write and thank him in a way that will make him wince.

But Schlesinger is a still worse dog to put my Waltzes [FOOTNOTE: "Trois Valses brillantes," Op. 34.] in the Album, and to sell them to Probst [FOOTNOTE: Heinrich Albert Probst founded in 1823 a music-shop and publishing-house at Leipzig. In 1831 Fr. Kistner entered the business (Probst-Kistner), which under his name has existed from 1836 down to this day. In the Chopin letters we meet Probst in the character of Breitkopf and Hartel's agent.] when I gave him them because he begged them for his father in Berlin. [FOOTNOTE: Adolf Martin Schlesinger, a music-publisher like his son Maurice Adolph of Paris, so frequently mentioned in these letters.] All this irritates me. I am only sorry for you; but in one month at the latest you will be clear of Leo and my landlord. With the money which you receive on the bill of exchange, do what is necessary. And my servant, what is he doing? Give the portier twenty francs as a New Year's present.

I do not remember whether I left any debts of importance. At all events, as I promised you, we shall be clear in a month at the latest.

To-day the moon is wonderful, I never saw it more beautiful.

By the way, you write that you sent me a letter from my people. I neither saw nor heard of one, and I am longing so much for one! Did you prepay when you sent them the letter?

Your letter, the only one I have hitherto received, was very badly addressed. Here nature is benevolent, but the people are thievish. They never see any strangers, and therefore do not know what to ask of them. For instance, an orange they will give you for nothing, but ask a fabulous sum for a coat- button.

Under this sky you are penetrated with a kind of poetical feeling which everything seems to exhale. Eagles alarmed by no one soar every day majestically over our heads.

For God's sake write, always prepay, and to Palma add always
Valdemosa.

I love Johnnie, and I think it is a pity that he did not altogether qualify himself as director of the children of some benevolent institution in some Nuremberg or Bamberg. Get him to write to me, were it only a few words.

I enclose you a letter to my people…I think it is already the third or fourth that I send you for my parents.

My love to Albrecht, but speak very little about me.

Chopin to Fontana; Valdemosa, January 12, 1839:—

I send you the Preludes, make a copy of them, you and Wolf; [FOOTNOTE: Edouard Wolff] I think there are no mistakes. You will give the transcript to Probst, but my manuscript to Pleyel. When you get the money from Probst, for whom I enclose a receipt, you will take it at once to Leo. I do not write and thank him just now, for I have no time. Out of the money which Pleyel will give you, that is 1,500 francs, you will pay the rent of my rooms till the New Year, 450 francs and you will give notice of my giving them up if you have a chance to get others from April. If not it will be necessary to keep them for a quarter longer. The rest of the amount, or 1,000 francs, you will return from me to Nougi. Where he lives you will learn from Johnnie, but don't tell the latter of the money, for he might attack Nougi, and I do not wish that anyone but you and I should know of it. Should you succeed in finding rooms, you could send one part of the furniture to Johnnie and another to Grzymala. You will tell Pleyel to send letters through you.

I sent you before the New Year a bill of exchange for Wessel; tell Pleyel that I have settled with Wessel.

[FOOTNOTE: The music-publisher Christian Rudolph Wessel, of Bremen, who came to London in 1825. Up to 1838 he had Stodart, and from 1839 to 1845 Stapleton, as partner. He retired in 1860, Messrs. Edwin Ashdown and Henry Parry being his successors. Since the retirement of Mr. Parry, in 1882, Mr. Ashdown is the sole proprietor. Mr. Ashdown, whom I have to thank for the latter part of this note, informs me that Wessel died in 1885.]

In a few weeks you will receive a Ballade, a Polonaise, and a
Scherzo.

Until now I have not yet received any letters from my parents.

I embrace you.

Sometimes I have Arabian balls, African sun, and always before
my eyes the Mediterranean Sea.

I do not know when I shall be back, perhaps as late as May,
perhaps even later.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Valdemosa, January 15, 1839:—

…We inhabit the Carthusian monastery of Valdemosa, a really sublime place, which I have hardly the time to admire, so many occupations have I with my children, their lessons, and my work.

There are rains here of which one has elsewhere no idea: it is a frightful deluge! The air is on account of it so relaxing, so soft, that one cannot drag one's self along; one is really ill. Happily, Maurice is in admirable health; his constitution is only afraid of frost, a thing unknown here. But the little Chopin [FOOTNOTE: Madame Marliani seems to have been in the habit of calling Chopin "le petit." In another letter to her (April 28, 1839) George Sand writes of Chopin as votre petit. This reminds one of Mendelssohn's Chopinetto.] is very depressed and always coughs much. For his sake I await with impatience the return of fine weather, which will not be long in coming. His piano has at last arrived at Palma; but it is in the clutches of the custom-house officers, who demand from five to six hundred francs duty, and show themselves intractable.

…I am plunged with Maurice in Thucydides and company; with Solange in the indirect object and the agreement of the participle. Chopin plays on a poor Majorcan piano which reminds me of that of Bouffe in "Pauvre Jacques." I pass my nights generally in scrawling. When I raise my nose, it is to see through the sky-light of my cell the moon which shines in the midst of the rain on the orange trees, and I think no more of it than she.

Madame Sand to M. A. M. Duteil; Valdemosa, January 20, 1839:—

…This [the slowness and irregularity of the post] is not the only inconvenience of the country. There are innumerable ones, and yet this is the most beautiful country. The climate is delicious. At the time I am writing, Maurice is gardening in his shirt-sleeves, and Solange, seated under an orange tree loaded with fruit, studies her lesson with a grave air. We have bushes covered with roses, and spring is coming in. Our winter lasted six weeks, not cold, but rainy to a degree to frighten us. It is a deluge! The rain uproots the mountains; all the waters of the mountain rush into the plain; the roads become torrents. We found ourselves caught in them, Maurice and I. We had been at Palma in superb weather. When we returned in the evening, there were no fields, no roads, but only trees to indicate approximately the way which we had to go. I was really very. frightened, especially as the horse refused to proceed, and we were obliged to traverse the mountain on foot in the night, with torrents across our legs.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Valdemosa, February 22, 1839:—

…You see me at my Carthusian monastery, still sedentary, and occupied during the day with my children, at night with my work. In the midst of all this, the warbling of Chopin, who goes his usual pretty way, and whom the walls of the cell are much astonished to hear.

The only remarkable event since my last letter is the arrival of the so much-expected piano. After a fortnight of applications and waiting we have been able to get it out of the custom-house by paying three hundred francs of duty. Pretty country this! After all, it has been disembarked without accident, and the vaults of the monastery are delighted with it. And all this is not profaned by the admiration of fools-we do not see a cat.

Our retreat in the mountains, three leagues from the town, has freed us from the politeness of idlers.

Nevertheless, we have had one visitor, and a visitor from Paris!—namely, M. Dembowski, an Italian Pole whom Chopin knew, and who calls himself a cousin of Marliani—I don't know in what degree.

…The fact is, that we are very much pleased with the freedom which this gives us, because we have work to do; but we understand very well that these poetic intervals which one introduces into one's life are only times of transition and rest allowed to the mind before it resumes the exercise of the emotions. I mean this in the purely intellectual sense; for, as regards the life of the heart, it cannot cease for a moment…

This brings us to the end of the known letters written by Chopin and Madame Sand from Majorca. And now let us see what we can find in George Sand's books to complete the picture of the life of her and her party at Valdemosa, of which the letters give only more or less disconnected indications. I shall use the materials at my disposal freely and cautiously, quoting some passages in full, regrouping and summing-up others, and keeping always in mind— which the reader should likewise do—the authoress's tendency to emphasise, colour, and embellish, for the sake of literary and moral effect.

Not to extend this chapter too much, I refer the curious to George Sand's "Un Hiver a Majorque" for a description of the "admirable, grandiose, and wild nature" in the midst of which the "poetic abode" of her and her party was situated—of the grandly and beautifully-varied surface of the earth, the luxuriant southern vegetation, and the marvellous phenomena of light and air; of the sea stretching out on two sides and meeting the horizon; of the surrounding formidable peaks, and the more distant round-swelling hills; of the eagles descending in the pursuit of their prey down to the orange trees of the monastery gardens; of the avenue of cypresses serpentining from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the gorge; of the torrents covered with myrtles; in short, of the immense ensemble, the infinite details, which overwhelm the imagination and outvie the poet's and painter's dreams. Here it will be advisable to confine ourselves to the investigation of a more limited sphere, to inspect rather narrow interiors than vast landscapes.

As the reader has gathered from the preceding letters, there was no longer a monastic community at Valdemosa. The monks had been dispersed some time before, and the monastery had become the property of the state. During the hot summer months it was in great part occupied by small burghers from Palma who came in quest of fresh air. The only permanent inhabitants of the monastery, and the only fellow-tenants of George Sand's party, were two men and one woman, called by the novelist respectively the Apothecary, the Sacristan, and Maria Antonia. The first, a remnant of the dispersed community, sold mallows and couch-grass, the only specifics he had; the second was the person in whose keeping were the keys of the monastery; and the third was a kind of housekeeper who, for the love of God and out of neighbourly friendship, offered her help to new-comers, and, if it was accepted, did not fail to levy heavy contributions.

The monastery was a complex of strongly-constructed, buildings without any architectural beauty, and such was, its circumference and mass of stones that it would have been easy to house an army corps. Besides the dwelling of the superior, the cells of the lay- brothers, the lodgings for visitors, the stables, and other structures, there were three cloisters, each consisting of twelve cells and twelve chapels. The most ancient of these cloisters, which is also the smallest, dates from the 15th century.

It presents a charming coup d'oeil. The court which it encloses with its broken-down walls is the ancient cemetery of the monks. No inscription distinguishes these tombs…The graves are scarcely indicated by the swellings of the turf.

In the cells were stored up the remains of all sorts of fine old furniture and sculpture, but these could only be seen through the chinks, for the cells were carefully locked, and the sacristan would not open them to anyone. The second cloister, although of more recent date, was likewise in a dilapidated state, which, however, gave it character. In stormy weather it was not at all safe to pass through it on account of the falling fragments of walls and vaults.

I never heard the wind sound so like mournful voices and utter such despairing howls as in these empty and sonorous galleries. The noise of the torrents, the swift motion of the clouds, the grand, monotonous sound of the sea, interrupted by the whistling of the storm and the plaintive cries of sea- birds which passed, quite terrified and bewildered, in the squalls; then thick fogs which fell suddenly like a shroud and which, penetrating into the cloisters through the broken arcades, rendered us invisible, and made the little lamp we carried to guide us appear like a will-o'-the-wisp wandering under the galleries; and a thousand other details of this monastic life which crowd all at once into my memory: all combined made indeed this monastery the most romantic abode in the world.

I was not sorry to see for once fully and in reality what I had seen only in a dream, or in the fashionable ballads, and in the nuns' scene in Robert le Diable at the Opera. Even fantastic apparitions were not wanting to us. [FOOTNOTE: "Un Hiver a Majorque," pp. 116 and 117.]

In the same book from which the above passage is extracted we find also a minute description of the new cloister; the chapels, variously ornamented, covered with gilding, decorated with rude paintings and horrible statues of saints in coloured wood, paved in the Arabic style with enamelled faience laid out in various mosaic designs, and provided with a fountain or marble conch; the pretty church, unfortunately without an organ, but with wainscot, confessionals, and doors of most excellent workmanship, a floor of finely-painted faience, and a remarkable statue in painted wood of St. Bruno; the little meadow in the centre of the cloister, symmetrically planted with box-trees, &c., &c.

George Sand's party occupied one of the spacious, well- ventilated, and well-lighted cells in this part of the monastery. I shall let her describe it herself.

The three rooms of which it was composed were spacious, elegantly vaulted, and ventilated at the back by open rosettes, all different and very prettily designed. These three rooms were separated from the cloister by a dark passage at the end of which was a strong door of oak. The wall was three feet thick. The middle room was destined for reading, prayer, and meditation; all its furniture consisted of a large chair with a praying-desk and a back, from six to eight feet high, let into and fixed in the wall. The room to the right of this was the friar's bed-room; at the farther end of it was situated the alcove, very low, and paved above with flags like a tomb. The room to the left was the workshop, the refectory, the store-room of the recluse. A press at the far end of the room had a wooden compartment with a window opening on the cloister, through which his provisions were passed in. His kitchen consisted of two little stoves placed outside, but not, as was the strict rule, in the open air; a vault, opening on the garden, protected the culinary labours of the monk from the rain, and allowed him to give himself up to this occupation a little more than the founder would have wished. Moreover, a fire-place introduced into this third room indicated many other relaxations, although the science of the architect had not gone so far as to make this fire-place serviceable.

Running along the back of the rooms, on a level with the rosettes, was a long channel, narrow and dark, intended for the ventilation of the cell, and above was a loft in which the maize, onions, beans, and other simple winter provisions were kept. On the south the three rooms opened on a flower garden, exactly the size of the cell itself, which was separated from the neighbouring gardens by walls ten feet high, and was supported by a strongly-built terrace above a little orange grove which occupied this ledge of the mountain. The lower ledge was covered with a beautiful arbour of vines, the third with almond and palm trees, and so on to the bottom of the little valley, which, as I have said, was an immense garden.

The flower garden of each cell had all along its right side a reservoir, made of freestone, from three to four feet in width and the same in depth, receiving through conduits placed in the balustrade of the terrace the waters of the mountain, and distributing them in the flower garden by means of a stone cross, which divided it into four equal squares.

As to this flower garden, planted with pomegranate, lemon, and orange trees, surrounded by raised walks made of bricks which, like the reservoir, were shaded by perfumed arbours, it was like a pretty salon of flowers and verdure, where the monk could walk dry-footed on wet days.

Even without being told, we should have known that the artists who had now become inmates of the monastery were charmed with their surroundings. Moreover, George Sand did her utmost to make life within doors comfortable. When the furniture bought from the Spanish refugee had been supplemented by further purchases, they were, considering the circumstances, not at all badly off in this respect. The tables and straw-bottomed chairs were indeed no better than those one finds in the cottages of peasants; the sofa of white wood with cushions of mattress cloth stuffed with wool could only ironically be called "voluptuous"; and the large yellow leather trunks, whatever their ornamental properties might be, must have made but poor substitutes for wardrobes. The folding-beds, on the other hand, proved irreproachable; the mattresses, though not very soft, were new and clean, and the padded and quilted chintz coverlets left nothing to be desired. Nor does this enumeration exhaust the comforts and adornments of which the establishment could boast. Feathers, a rare article in Majorca, had been got from a French lady to make pillows for Chopin; Valenciennes matting and long-fleeced sheep skins covered the dusty floor; a large tartan shawl did duty as an alcove curtain; a stove of somewhat eccentric habits, and consisting simply of an iron cylinder with a pipe that passed through the window, had been manufactured for them at Palma; a charming clay vase surrounded with a garland of ivy displayed its beauty on the top of the stove; a beautiful large Gothic carved oak chair with a small chest convenient as a book-case had, with the consent of the sacristan, been brought from the monks' chapel; and last, but not least, there was, as we have already read in the letters, a piano, in the first weeks only a miserable Majorcan instrument, which, however, in the second half of January, after much waiting, was replaced by one of Pleyel's excellent cottage pianos.

[FOOTNOTE: By the way, among the many important and unimportant doubtful points which Chopin's and George Sand's letters settle, is also that of the amount of duty paid for the piano. The sum originally asked by the Palma custom-house officers seems to have been from 500 to 600 francs, and this demand was after a fortnight's negotiations reduced to 300 francs. That the imaginative novelist did not long remember the exact particulars of this transaction need not surprise us. In Un Hiver a Majorque she states tha the original demand was 700 francs, and the sum ultimately paid about 400 francs.]

These various items collectively and in conjunction with the rooms in which they were gathered together form a tout-ensemble picturesque and homely withal. As regards the supply of provisions, the situation of our Carthusians was decidedly less brilliant. Indeed, the water and the juicy raisins, Malaga potatoes, fried Valencia pumpkins, &c., which they had for dessert, were the only things that gave them unmixed satisfaction. With anything but pleasure they made the discovery that the chief ingredient of Majorcan cookery, an ingredient appearing in all imaginable and unimaginable guises and disguises, was pork. Fowl was all skin and bones, fish dry and tasteless, sugar of so bad a quality that it made them sick, and butter could not be procured at all. Indeed, they found it difficult to get anything of any kind. On account of their non- attendance at church they were disliked by the villagers of Valdemosa, who sold their produce to such heretics only at twice or thrice the usual price. Still, thanks to the good offices of the French consul's cook, they might have done fairly well had not wet weather been against them. But, alas, their eagerly- awaited provisions often arrived spoiled with rain, oftener still they did not arrive at all. Many a time they had to eat bread as hard as ship-biscuits, and content themselves with real Carthusian dinners. The wine was good and cheap, but, unfortunately, it had the objectionable quality of being heady.

These discomforts and wants were not painfully felt by George Sand and her children, nay, they gave, for a time at least, a new zest to life. It was otherwise with Chopin. "With his feeling for details and the wants of a refined well-being, he naturally took an intense dislike to Majorca after a few days of illness." We have already seen what a bad effect the wet weather and the damp of Son-Vent had on Chopin's health. But, according to George Sand, [FOOTNOTE: "Un Hiver a Marjorque," pp. 161-168. I suspect that she mixes up matters in a very unhistorical manner; I have, however, no means of checking her statements, her and her companion's letters being insufficient for the purpose. Chopin certainly was not likely to tell his friend the worst about his health.] it was not till later, although still in the early days of their sojourn in Majorca, that his disease declared itself in a really alarming manner. The cause of this change for the worse was over-fatigue incurred on an excursion which he made with his friends to a hermitage three miles [FOOTNOTE: George Sand does not say what kind of miles] distant from Valdemosa; the length and badness of the road alone would have been more than enough to exhaust his fund of strength, but in addition to these hardships they had, on returning, to encounter a violent wind which threw them down repeatedly. Bronchitis, from which he had previously suffered, was now followed by a nervous excitement that produced several symptoms of laryngeal phthisis. [FOOTNOTE: In the Histoire de ma Vie George Sand Bays: "From the beginning of winter, which set in all at once with a diluvian rain, Chopin showed, suddenly also, all the symptoms of pulmonary affection.">[ The physician, judging of the disease by the symptoms that presented themselves at the time of his visits, mistook its real nature, and prescribed bleeding, milk diet, &c. Chopin felt instinctively that all this would be injurious to him, that bleeding would even be fatal. George Sand, who was an experienced nurse, and whose opportunities for observing were less limited than those of the physician, had the same presentiment. After a long and anxious struggle she decided to disregard the strongly- urged advice of the physician and to obey the voice that said to her, even in her sleep: "Bleeding will kill him; but if you save him from it, he will not die," She was persuaded that this voice was the voice of Providence, and that by obeying it she saved her friend's life. What Chopin stood most in need of in his weakness and languor was a strengthening diet, and that, unfortunately, was impossible to procure:—

What would I not have given to have had some beef-tea and a glass of Bordeaux wine to offer to our invalid every day! The Majorcan food, and especially the manner in which it was prepared when we were not there with eye and hand, caused him an invincible disgust. Shall I tell you how well founded this disgust was? One day when a lean chicken was put on the table we saw jumping on its steaming back enormous Mattres Floh, [FOOTNOTE: Anglice "fleas.">[ of which Hoffmann would have made as many evil spirits, but which he certainly would not have eaten in gravy. My children laughed so heartily that they nearly fell under the table.

Chopin's most ardent wish was to get away from Majorca and back to France. But for some time he was too weak to travel, and when he had got a little stronger, contrary winds prevented the steamer from leaving the port. The following words of George Sand depict vividly our poor Carthusian friends' situation in all its gloom:—

As the winter advanced, sadness more and more paralysed my efforts at gaiety and cheerfulness. The state of our invalid grew always worse; the wind wailed in the ravines, the rain beat against our windows, the voice of the thunder penetrated through our thick walls and mingled its mournful sounds with the laughter and sports of the children. The eagles and vultures, emboldened by the fog, came to devour our poor sparrows, even on the pomegranate tree which shaded my window. The raging sea kept the ships in the harbours; we felt ourselves prisoners, far from all enlightened help and from all efficacious sympathy. Death seemed to hover over our heads to seize one of us, and we were alone in contending with him for his prey.

If George Sand's serenity and gaiety succumbed to these influences, we may easily imagine how much more they oppressed Chopin, of whom she tells us that—

the mournful cry of the famished eagle and the gloomy desolation of the yew trees covered with snow saddened him much longer and more keenly than the perfume of the orange trees, the gracefulness of the vines, and the Moorish song of the labourers gladdened him.

The above-quoted letters have already given us some hints of how the prisoners of Valdemosa passed their time. In the morning there were first the day's provisions to be procured and the rooms to be tidied—which latter business could not be entrusted to Maria Antonia without the sacrifice of their night's rest. [FOOTNOTE: George Sand's share of the household work was not so great as she wished to make the readers of Un Hiver a Majorque believe, for it consisted, as we gather from her letters, only in giving a helping hand to her maid, who had undertaken to cook and clean up, but found that her strength fell short of the requirements.] Then George Sand would teach her children for some hours. These lessons over, the young ones ran about and amused themselves for the rest of the day, while their mother sat down to her literary studies and labours. In the evening they either strolled together through the moonlit cloisters or read in their cell, half of the night being generally devoted by the novelist to writing. George Sand says in the "Histoire de ma Vie" that she wrote a good deal and read beautiful philosophical and historical works when she was not nursing her friend. The latter, however, took up much of her time, and prevented her from getting out much, for he did not like to be left alone, nor, indeed, could he safely be left long alone. Sometimes she and her children would set out on an expedition of discovery, and satisfy their curiosity and pleasantly while away an hour or two in examining the various parts of the vast aggregation of buildings; or the whole party would sit round the stove and laugh over the rehearsal of the morning's transactions with the villagers. Once they witnessed even a ball in this sanctuary. It was on Shrove- Tuesday, after dark, that their attention was roused by a strange, crackling noise. On going to the door of their cell they could see nothing, but they heard the noise approaching. After a little there appeared at the opposite end of the cloister a faint glimmer of white light, then the red glare of torches, and at last a crew the sight of which made their flesh creep and their hair stand on end—he-devils with birds' heads, horses' tails, and tinsel of all colours; she-devils or abducted shepherdesses in white and pink dresses; and at the head of them Lucifer himself, horned and, except the blood-red face, all black. The strange noise, however, turned out to be the rattling of castanets, and the terrible-looking figures a merry company of rich farmers and well-to-do villagers who were going to have a dance in Maria Antonia's cell. The orchestra, which consisted of a large and a small guitar, a kind of high-pitched violin, and from three to four pairs of castanets, began to play indigenous jotas and fandangos which, George Sand tells us, resemble those of Spain, but have an even bolder form and more original rhythm. The critical spectators thought that the dancing of the Majorcans was not any gayer than their singing, which was not gay at all, and that their boleros had "la gravite des ancetres, et point de ces graces profanes qu'on admire en Andalousie." Much of the music of these islanders was rather interesting than pleasing to their visitors. The clicking of the castanets with which they accompany their festal processions, and which, unlike the broken and measured rhythm of the Spaniards, consists of a continuous roll like that of a drum "battant aux champs," is from time to time suddenly interrupted in order to sing in unison a coplita on a phrase which always recommences but never finishes. George Sand shares the opinion of M. Tastu that the principal Majorcan rhythms and favourite fioriture are Arabic in type and origin.

Of quite another nature was the music that might be heard in those winter months in one of the cells of the monastery of Valdemosa. "With what poesy did his music fill this sanctuary, even in the midst of his most grievous troubles!" exclaims George Sand. I like to picture to myself the vaulted cell, in which Pleyel's piano sounded so magnificently, illumined by a lamp, the rich traceries of the Gothic chair shadowed on the wall, George Sand absorbed in her studies, her children at play, and Chopin pouring out his soul in music.

It would be a mistake to think that those months which the friends spent in Majorca were for them a time of unintermittent or even largely-predominating wretchedness. Indeed, George Sand herself admits that, in spite of the wildness of the country and the pilfering habits of the people, their existence might have been an agreeable one in this romantic solitude had it not been for the sad spectacle of her companion's sufferings and certain days of serious anxiety about his life. And now I must quote a. long but very important passage from the "Histoire de ma Vie":—

The poor great artist was a detestable patient. What I had feared, but unfortunately not enough, happened. He became completely demoralised. Bearing pain courageously enough, he could not overcome the disquietude of his imagination. The monastery was for him full of terrors and phantoms, even when he was well. He did not say so, and I had to guess it. On returning from my nocturnal explorations in the ruins with my children, I found him at ten o'clock at night before his piano, his face pale, his eyes wild, and his hair almost standing on end. It was some moments before he could recognise us.

He then made an attempt to laugh, and played to us sublime things he had just composed, or rather, to be more accurate, terrible or heartrending ideas which had taken possession of him, as it were without his knowledge, in that hour of solitude, sadness, and terror.

It was there that he composed the most beautiful of those short pages he modestly entitled "Preludes." They are masterpieces. Several present to the mind visions of deceased monks and the sounds of the funeral chants which beset his imagination; others are melancholy and sweet—they occurred to him in the hours of sunshine and of health, with the noise of the children's laughter under the window, the distant sound of guitars, the warbling of the birds among the humid foliage, and the sight of the pale little full-blown roses on the snow.

Others again are of a mournful sadness, and, while charming the ear, rend the heart. There is one of them which occurred to him on a dismal rainy evening which produces a terrible mental depression. We had left him well that day, Maurice and I, and had gone to Palma to buy things we required for our encampment. The rain had come on, the torrents had overflowed, we had travelled three leagues in six hours to return in the midst of the inundation, and we arrived in the dead of night, without boots, abandoned by our driver, having passed through unheard-of dangers. We made haste, anticipating the anxiety of our invalid. It had been indeed great, but it had become as it were congealed into a kind of calm despair, and he played his wonderful prelude weeping. On seeing us enter he rose, uttering a great cry, then he said to us, with a wild look and in a strange tone: "Ah! I knew well that you were dead!"

When he had come to himself again, and saw the state in which we were, he was ill at the retrospective spectacle of our dangers; but he confessed to me afterwards that while waiting for our return he had seen all this in a dream and that, no longer distinguishing this dream from reality, he had grown calm and been almost lulled to sleep while playing the piano, believing that he was dead himself. He saw himself drowned in a lake; heavy and ice-cold drops of water fell at regular intervals upon his breast, and when I drew his attention to those drops of water which were actually falling at regular intervals upon the roof, he denied having heard them. He was even vexed at what I translated by the term imitative harmony. He protested with all his might, and he was right, against the puerility of these imitations for the ear. His genius was full of mysterious harmonies of nature, translated by sublime equivalents into his musical thought, and not by a servile repetition of external sounds. His composition of this evening was indeed full of the drops of rain which resounded on the sonorous tiles of the monastery, but they were transformed in his imagination and his music into tears falling from heaven on his heart.

Although George Sand cannot be acquitted of the charge of exaggerating the weak points in her lover's character, what she says about his being a detestable patient seems to have a good foundation in fact. Gutmann, who nursed him often, told me that his master was very irritable and difficult to manage in sickness. On the other hand, Gutmann contradicted George Sand's remarks about the Preludes, saying that Chopin composed them before starting on his journey. When I mentioned to him that Fontana had made a statement irreconcilable with his, and suggested that Chopin might have composed some of the Preludes in Majorca, Gutmann maintained firmly that every one of them was composed previously, and that he himself had copied them. Now with Chopin's letters to Fontana before us we must come to the conclusion that Gutmann was either under a false impression or confirmed a rash statement by a bold assertion, unless we prefer to assume that Chopin's labours on the Preludes in Majorca were confined to selecting, [FOOTNOTE: Internal evidence suggests that the Preludes consist (to a great extent at least) of pickings from the composer's portfolios, of pieces, sketches, and memoranda written at various times and kept to be utilised when occasion might offer.] filing, and polishing. My opinion—which not only has probability but also the low opus number (28) and the letters in its favour—is that most of the Preludes, if not all, were finished or sketched before Chopin went to the south, and that a few, if any, were composed and the whole revised at Palma and Valdemosa. Chopin cannot have composed many in Majorca, because a few days after his arrival there he wrote: from Palma (Nov. 15, 1838) to Fontana that he would send the Preludes soon; and it was only his illness that prevented him from doing so. There is one statement in George Sand's above-quoted narrative which it is difficult to reconcile with other statements in "Un Hiver a Majorque" and in her and Chopin's letters. In the just- mentioned book (p. 177) she says that the journey in question was made for the purpose of rescuing the piano from the hands of the custom-house officers; and in a letter of January 15, 1839, to her friend Madame Marliani (quoted on p. 31), which does not contain a word about adventures on a stormy night, [They are first mentioned in the letter of January 20, 1839, quoted on p. 32.] she writes that the piano is still in the clutches of the custom-house officers. From this, I think, we may conclude that it must have taken place after January 15. But, then, how could Chopin have composed on that occasion a Prelude included in a work the manuscript of which he sent away on the lath? Still, this does not quite settle the question. Is it not possible that Chopin may have afterwards substituted the new Prelude for one of those already forwarded to France? To this our answer must be that it is possible, but that the letters do not give any support to such an assumption. Another and stronger objection would be the uncertainty as to the correctness of the date of the letter. Seeing that so many of Chopin's letters have been published with wrong dates, why not also that of January 12? Unfortunately, we cannot in this case prove or disprove the point by internal evidence. There is, however, one factor we must be especially careful not to forget in our calculations—namely, George Sand's habitual unconscientious inaccuracy; but the nature of her narrative will indeed be a sufficient warning to the reader, for nobody can read it without at once perceiving that it is not a plain, unvarnished recital of facts.

It would be interesting to know which were the compositions that Chopin produced at Valdemosa. As to the Prelude particularly referred to by George Sand, it is generally and reasonably believed to be No. 6 (in B minor). [FOOTNOTE: Liszt, who tells the story differently, brings in the F sharp minor Prelude. (See Liszt's Chopin, new edition, pp. 273 and 274.)] The only compositions besides the Preludes which Chopin mentions in his letters from Majorca are the Ballade, Op, 38, the Scherzo, Op. 39, and the two Polonaises, Op. 40. The peevish, fretful, and fiercely-scornful Scherzo and the despairingly-melancholy second Polonaise (in C minor) are quite in keeping with the moods one imagines the composer to have been in at the time. Nor is there anything discrepant in the Ballade. But if the sadly-ailing composer really created, and not merely elaborated and finished, in Majorca the superlatively-healthy, vigorously-martial, brilliantly-chivalrous Polonaise in A major, we have here a remarkable instance of the mind's ascendency over the body, of its independence of it. This piece, however, may have been conceived under happier circumstances, just as the gloomy Sonata, Op. 35 (the one in B flat minor, with the funeral march), and the two Nocturnes, Op. 37—the one (in G minor) plaintive, longing, and prayerful; the other (in G major) sunny and perfume-laden— may have had their origin in the days of Chopin's sojourn in the Balearic island. A letter of Chopin's, written from Nohant in the summer of 1839, leaves, as regards the Nocturnes, scarcely room for such a conjecture. On the other hand, we learn from the same letter that he composed at Palma the sad, yearning Mazurka in E minor (No. 2 of Op. 41).

As soon as fair weather set in and the steamer resumed its. weekly courses to Barcelona, George Sand and her party hastened to leave the island. The delightful prospects of spring could not detain them.

Our invalid (she says) did not seem to be in a state to stand the passage, but he seemed equally incapable of enduring another week in Majorca. The situation was frightful; there were days when I lost hope and courage. To console us, Maria Antonia and her village gossips repeated to us in chorus the most edifying discourses on the future life. "This consumptive person," they said, "is going to hell, first because he is consumptive, secondly, because he does not confess. If he is in this condition when he dies, we shall not bury him in consecrated ground, and as nobody will be willing to give him a grave, his friends will have to manage matters as well as they can. It remains to be seen how they will get out of the difficulty; as for me, I will have Inothing to do with it,— Nor I—Nor I: and Amen!"

In fact, Valdemosa, which at first was enchanting to them, lost afterwards much of its poesy in their eyes. George Sand, as we have seen, said that their sojourn was I in many respects a frightful fiasco; it was so certainly as far as Chopin was concerned, for he arrived with a cough and left the place spitting blood.

The passage from Palma to Barcelona was not so pleasant as that from Barcelona to Palma had been. Chopin suffered much from sleeplessness, which was caused by the noise and bad smell of the most favoured class of passengers on board the Mallorquin—i.e., pigs. "The captain showed us no other attention than that of begging us not to let the invalid lie down on the best bed of the cabin, because according to Spanish prejudice every illness is contagious; and as our man thought already of burning the couch on which the invalid reposed, he wished it should be the worst." [FOOTNOTE: "Un Hiver a Majorque," pp. 24—25.]

On arriving at Barcelona George Sand wrote from the Mallorquin and sent by boat a note to M. Belves, the officer in command at the station, who at once came in his cutter to take her and her party to the Meleagre, where they were well received by the officers, doctor, and all the crew. It seemed to them as if they had left the Polynesian savages and were once more in civilised society. When they shook hands with the French consul they could contain themselves no longer, but jumped for joy and cried "Vive La France!"

A fortnight after their leaving Palma the Phenicien landed them at Marseilles. The treatment Chopin received from the French captain of this steamer differed widely from that he had met with at the hands of the captain of the Mallorquin; for fearing that the invalid was not quite comfortable in a common berth, he gave him his own bed. [FOOTNOTE: "Un Hiver a Majorque," p. 183.]

An extract from a letter written by George Sand from Marseilles on March 8, 1839, to her friend Francois Rollinat, which contains interesting details concerning Chopin in the last scenes of the Majorca intermezzo, may fitly conclude this chapter.

Chopin got worse and worse, and in spite of all offers of service which were made to us in the Spanish manner, we should not have found a hospitable house in all the island. At last we resolved to depart at any price, although Chopin had not the strength to drag himself along. We asked only one—a first and a last service—a carriage to convey him to Palma, where we wished to embark. This service was refused to us, although our FRIENDS had all equipages and fortunes to correspond. We were obliged to travel three leagues on the worst roads in a birlocho [FOOTNOTE: A cabriolet. In a Spainish Dictionary I find a birlocho defined as a vehicle open in front, with two seats, and two or four wheels. A more detailed description is to be found on p. 101 of George Sand's "Un Hiver a Marjorque.">[ that is to say, a brouette.

On arriving at Palma, Chopin had a frightful spitting of blood; we embarked the following day on the only steamboat of the island, which serves to transport pigs to Barcelona. There is no other way of leaving this cursed country. We were in company of 100 pigs, whose continual cries and foul odour left our patient no rest and no respirable air. He arrived at Barcelona still spitting basins full of blood, and crawling along like a ghost. There, happily, our misfortunes were mitigated! The French consul and the commandant of the French maritime station received us with a hospitality and grace which one does not know in Spain. We were brought on board a fine brig of war, the doctor of which, an honest and worthy man, came at once to the assistance of the invalid, and stopped the hemorrhage of the lung within twenty-four hours.

From that moment he got better and better. The consul had us driven in his carriage to an hotel. Chopin rested there a week, at the end of which the same vessel which had conveyed us to Spain brought us back to France. When we left the hotel at Barcelona the landlord wished to make us pay for the bed in which Chopin had slept, under the pretext that it had been infected, and that the police regulations obliged him to burn it.

Chapter XXII.

STAY AT MARSEILLES (FROM MARCH TO MAY, 1839) AS DESCRIBED IN CHOPIN'S AND MADAME SAND'S LETTERS.—HIS STATE OF HEALTH.— COMPOSITIONS AND THEIR PUBLICATION.—PLAYING THE ORGAN AT A FUNERAL SERVICE FOR NOURRIT.—AN EXCURSION TO GENOA.—DEPARTURE FOR NOHANT.

As George Sand and her party were obliged to stop at Marseilles, she had Chopin examined by Dr. Cauviere. This celebrated physician thought him in great danger, but, on seeing him recover rapidly, augured that with proper care his patient might nevertheless live a long time. Their stay at Marseilles was more protracted than they intended and desired; in fact, they did not start for Nohant till the 22nd of May. Dr. Cauviere would not permit Chopin to leave Marseilles before summer; but whether this was the only cause of the long sojourn of the Sand party in the great commercial city, or whether there were others, I have not been able to discover. Happily, we have first-hand information— namely, letters of Chopin and George Sand—to throw a little light on these months of the pianist-composer's life. As to his letters, their main contents consist of business matters— wranglings about terms, abuse of publishers, &c. Here and there, however, we find also a few words about his health, characteristic remarks about friends and acquaintances, interesting hints about domestic arrangements and the like—the allusion (in the letter of March 2, 1839) to a will made by him some time before, and which he wishes to be burned, will be read with some curiosity.

An extract or two from the letter which George Sand wrote on March 8, 1839, to Francois Rollinat, launches us at once in medias res.

At last we are in Marseilles. Chopin has stood the passage very well. He is very weak here, but is doing infinitely better in all respects, and is in the hands of Dr. Cauviere, an excellent man and excellent physician, who takes a paternal care of him, and who answers for his recovery. We breathe at last, but after how many troubles and anxieties!…Write to me here to the address of Dr. Cauviere, Rue de Rome, 71.

Chopin charges me to shake you heartily by the hand for him.
Maurice and Solange embrace you. They are wonderfully well.
Maurice has completely recovered.

Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 2, 1839:—

You no doubt learned from Grzymala of the state of my health and my manuscripts. Two months ago I sent you from Palma my Preludes. After making a copy of them for Probst and getting the money from him, you were to give to Leo 1,000 francs; and out of the 1,500 francs which Pleyel was to give you for the Preludes I wrote you to pay Nougi and one term to the landlord. In the same letter, if I am not mistaken, I asked you to give notice of my leaving the apartments; for were this not done before April, I should be obliged to retain them for the next quarter, till July.

The second batch of manuscripts may have now reached you; for it must have remained a long time at the custom-house, on the sea, and again at the custom-house.

I also wrote to Pleyel with the Preludes that I give him the
Ballade (which I sold to Probst for Germany) for 1,000 francs.
For the two Polonaises I asked 1,500 francs for France,
England, and Germany (the right of Probst is confined to the
Ballade). It seems to me that this is not too dear.

In this way you ought to get, on receiving the second batch of manuscripts, from Pleyel 2,500 francs, and from Probst, for the Ballade, 500 or 600 francs, I do not quite remember, which makes altogether 3,000 francs.

I asked Grzymala if he could send me immediately at least 500 francs, which need not prevent him from sending me soon the rest. Thus much for business.

Now if, which I doubt, you succeed in getting apartments from next month, divide my furniture amongst you three: Grzymala, Johnnie, and you. Johnnie has the most room, although not the most sense, judging from the childish letter he wrote to me. For his telling me that I should become a Camaldolite, let him take all the shabby things. Do not overload Grzymala too much, and take to your house what you judge necessary and serviceable to you, as I do not know whether I shall return to Paris in summer (keep this to yourself). At all events, we will always write one another, and if, as I expect, it be necessary to keep my apartments till July, I beg of you to look after them and pay the quarterly rent.

For your sincere and truly affectionate letter you have an answer in the second Polonaise. [FOOTNOTE: See next foot- note.] It is not my fault that I am like a mushroom that poisons when you unearth and taste it. I know I have never in anything been of service to anyone, but also not of much to myself.

I told you that in the first drawer of my writing-desk near the door there was a paper which you or Grzymala or Johnnie might unseal on a certain occasion. Now I beg of you to take it out and, WITHOUT READING IT, BURN IT. Do this, I entreat you, for friendship's sake. This paper is now of no use.

If Anthony leaves without sending you the money, it is very much in the Polish style; nota bene, do not say to him a word about it. Try to see Pleyel; tell him I have received no word from him, and that his pianino is entrusted to safe hands. Does he agree to the transaction I proposed to him?

The letters from home reached me all three together, with yours, before going on board the vessel. I again send you one.

I thank you for the friendly help you give me, who am not strong. My love to Johnnie, tell him that I did not allow them, or rather that they were not permitted, to bleed me; that I wear vesicatories, that I am coughing a very little in the morning, and that I am not yet at all looked upon as a consumptive person. I drink neither coffee nor wine, but milk. Lastly, I keep myself warm, and look like a girl.

Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 6, 1839:—

My health is still improving; I begin to play, eat, walk, and speak, like other men; and when you receive these few words from me you will see that I again write with ease. But once more of business. I would like very much that my Preludes should be dedicated to Pleyel (surely there is still time, for they are not yet printed) and the Ballade to Robert Schumann. The Polonaises, as they are, to you and to Kessler. If Pleyel does not like to give up the dedication of the Ballade, you will dedicate the Preludes to Schumann.

[FOOTNOTE: The final arrangement was that Op. 38, the
"Deuxieme Ballade," was dedicated to Robert Schumann; Op. 40,
the "Deux Polonaises," to Julius Fontana; the French and the
English edition of Op. 28, "Vingt-quatre Preludes," to Camille
Pleyel, and the German editon to J. C. Kessler.]

Garczynski called upon me yesterday on his way back from Aix; he is the only person that I have received, for I keep the door well shut to all amateurs of music and literature.

Of the change of dedication you will inform Probst as soon as
you have arranged with Pleyel.

From the money obtained you will give Grzymala 500 francs, the
rest, 2,500 francs, you will send me as soon as possible.

Love me and write.

Pardon me if I overwhelm you too much with commissions, but do not be afraid, these are not the last. I think you do willingly what I ask you.

My love to Johnnie.

Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 10, 1839:—

Thanks for your trouble. I did not expect Jewish tricks from Pleyel; but if it is so, I beg of you to give him the enclosed letter, unless he makes no difficulties about the Ballade and the Polonaises. On the other hand, on receiving for the Ballade 500 francs from Probst, you will take it to Schlesinger. If one has to deal with Jews, let it at least be with orthodox ones. Probst may cheat me still worse; he is a bird you will not catch. Schlesinger used to cheat me, he gained enough by me, and he will not reject new profit, only be polite to him. Though a Jew, he nevertheless wishes to pass for something better.

Thus, should Pleyel make the least difficulties, you will go to Schlesinger, and tell him that I give him the Ballade for France and England for 800 francs, and the Polonaises for Germany, England, and France for 1,500 francs (should he not be inclined to give so much, give them for 1,400, 1,300, and even for 1,200 francs). If he mentions the Preludes, you may say that it is a thing long ago promised to Pleyel—he wished to be the publisher of them; that he asked them from me as a favour before my departure from Paris—as was really the case. You see, my very dear friend, for Pleyel I could break with Schlesinger, but for Probst I cannot. What is it to me if Schlesinger makes Probst pay dearer for my manuscripts? If Probst pays dear for them to Schlesinger, it shows that the latter cheats me, paying me too little. After all, Probst has no establishment in Paris. For all my printed things Schlesinger paid me at once, and Probst very often made me wait for money. If he will not have them all, give him the Ballade separately, and the Polonaises separately, but at the latest within two weeks. If he does not accept the offer, then apply to Probst. Being such an admirer of mine, he must not pay less than Pleyel. You will deliver my letter to Pleyel only if he makes any difficulties.

Dear me! this Pleyel who is such an adorer of mine! He thinks, perhaps, that I shall never return to Paris alive. I shall come back, and shall pay him a visit, and thank him as well as Leo.

I enclose a note to Schlesinger, in which I give you full authority to act in this matter.

I feel better every day; nevertheless, you will pay the portier these fifty francs, to which I completely agree, for my doctor does not permit me to move from here before summer.

Mickiewicz's "Dziady" I received yesterday. What shall you do with my papers?

The letters you will leave in the writing-desk, and send the music to Johnnie, or take it to your own house. In the little table that stands in the anteroom there are also letters; you must lock it well.

My love to Johnnie, I am glad he is better.

Chopin to Fontana; March 17, 1839:—

I thank you for all your efforts. Pleyel is a scoundrel, Probst a scape-grace. He never gave me 1,000 francs for three manuscripts. Very likely you have received my long letter about Schlesinger, therefore I wish you and beg of you to give that letter of mine to Pleyel, who thinks my manuscripts too dear. If I have to sell them cheap, I would rather do so to Schlesinger than look for new and improbable connections. For Schlesinger can always count upon England, and as I am square with Wessel, he may sell them to whomsoever he likes. The same with the Polonaises in Germany, for Probst is a bird whom I have known a long time. As regards the money, you must make an unequivocal agreement, and do not give the manuscripts except for cash. I send you a reconnaissance for Pleyel, it astonishes me that he absolutely wants it, as if he could not trust me and you.

Dear me, this Pleyel who said that Schlesinger paid me badly! 500 francs for a manuscript for all the countries seems to him too dear! I assure you I prefer to deal with a real Jew. And Probst, that good-for-nothing fellow, who pays me 300 francs for my mazurkas! You see, the last mazurkas brought me with ease 800 francs—namely, Probst 300 francs, Schlesinger 400, and Wessel 100. I prefer giving my manuscripts as formerly at a very low price to stooping before these…I prefer being submissive to one Jew to being so to three. Therefore go to Schlesinger, but perhaps you settled with Pleyel.

Oh, men, men! But this Mrs. Migneron, she too is a good one! However, Fortune turns round, I may yet live and hear that this lady will come and ask you for some leather; if, as you say, you are aiming at being a shoemaker. I beg of you to make shoes neither for Pleyel nor for Probst.

Do not yet speak to anyone of the Scherzo [Op. 39]. I do not know when I shall finish it, for I am still weak and cannot write.

As yet I have no idea when I shall see you. My love to Grzymala; and give him such furniture as he will like, and let Johnnie take the rest from the apartments. I do not write to him, but I love him always. Tell him this, and give him my love.

Wodzinski still astonishes me.

When you receive the money from Pleyel, pay first the landlord's rent, and send me immediately 500 francs. I left on the receipt for Pleyel the Op. blank, for I do not remember the following number.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Marseilles, April 22, 1839:—

…I was also occupied with the removal from one hotel to another. Notwithstanding all his efforts and inquiries, the good doctor was not able to find me a corner in the country where to pass the month of April.

I am pretty tired of this town of merchants and shopkeepers, where the intellectual life is wholly unknown; but here I am still shut up for the month of April.

Further on in the letter, after inviting Madame Marliani and her husband to come to Nohant in May, she proceeds thus:—

He [M. Marliani] loves the country, and I shall be a match for him as regards rural pleasures, while you [Madame Marliani] will philosophise at the piano with Chopin. It can hardly be said that he enjoys himself in Marseilles; but he resigns himself to recover patiently.

The following letter of Chopin to Fontana, which Karasowski thinks was written at Valdemosa in the middle of February, ought to be dated Marseilles, April, 1839:—

As they are such Jews, keep everything till my return. The Preludes I have sold to Pleyel (I received from him 500 francs). He is entitled to do with them what he likes. But as to the Ballades and Polonaises, sell them neither to Schlesinger nor to Probst. But whatever may happen, with no Schonenberger [FOOTNOTE: A Paris music-publisher] will I have anything to do. Therefore, if you gave the Ballade to Probst, take it back, even though he offered a thousand. You may tell him that I have asked you to keep it till my return, that when I am back we shall see.

Enough of these…Enough for me and for you.

My very life, I beg of you to forgive me all the trouble; you have really been busying yourself like a friend, and now you will have still on your shoulders my removal. I beg Grzymala to pay the cost of the removal. As to the portier, he very likely tells lies, but who will prove it? You must give, in order to stop his barking.

My love to Johnnie, I will write to him when I am in better spirits. My health is improved, but I am in a rage. Tell Johnnie that from Anthony as well as from me he will have neither word nor money.

Yesterday I received your letter, together with letters from
Pleyel and Johnnie.

If Clara Wieck pleased you, that is good, for nobody can play
better than she does. When you see her give her my
compliments, and also to her father.

Did I happen to lend you Witwicki's songs? I cannot find them.
I only ask for them in case you should chance to have them.

Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 25 [should no doubt be April 25], 1839:—

I received your letter, in which you let me know the particulars of the removal. I have no words to thank you for your true, friendly help. The particulars were very interesting to me. But I am sorry that you complain, and that Johnnie is spitting blood. Yesterday I played for Nourrit on the organ, you see by this that I am better. Sometimes I play to myself at home, but as yet I can neither sing nor dance.

Although the news of my mother is welcome, its having been originated by Plat…is enough to make one consider it a falsehood.

The warm weather has set in here, and I shall certainly not leave Marseilles before May, and then go somewhere else in the south of France.

It is not likely that we shall soon have news from Anthony. Why should he write? Perhaps to pay his debts? But this is not customary in Poland. The reason Raciborski appreciates you so much is that you have no Polish habits, nota bene, not those Polish habits you know and I mean.

You are staying at No. 26 [Chaussee d'Antin]. Are you comfortable? On what floor, and how much do you pay? I take more and more interest in these matters, for I also shall be obliged to think of new apartments, but not till after my return to Paris.

I had only that letter from Pleyel which he sent through you— it is a month ago or more. Write to the same address, Rue et Hotel Beauveau.

Perhaps you did not understand what I said above about my having played for Nourrit. His body was brought from Italy and carried to Paris. There was a Requiem Mass for his soul. I was asked by his friends to play on the organ during the Elevation.

Did Miss Wieck play my Etude well? Could she not select something better than just this etude, the least interesting for those who do not know that it is written for the black keys? It would have been far better to do nothing at all. [FOOTNOTE: Clara Wieck gave a concert in Paris on April 16, 1839. The study in question is No. 5 of Op. 10 (G flat major). Only the right hand plays throughout on black keys.]

In conclusion, I have nothing more to write, except to wish you good luck in the new house. Hide my manuscripts, that they may not appear printed before the time. If the Prelude is printed, that is Pleyel's trick. But I do not care. Mischievous Germans, rascally Jews…! Finish the litany, for you know them as well as I do.

Give my love to Johnnie and Grzymaia if you see them.—Your

FREDERICK.

One subject mentioned in this letter deserves a fuller explanation than Chopin vouchsafes. Adolphe Nourrit, the celebrated tenor singer, had in a state of despondency, caused by the idea that since the appearance of his rival Duprez his popularity was on the wane, put an end to his life by throwing himself out of a window at Naples on the 8th of March, 1839. [FOOTNOTE: This is the generally-accepted account of Nourrit's death. But Madame Garcia, the mother of the famous Malibran, who at the time was staying in the same house, thought it might have been an accident, the unfortuante artist having in the dark opened a window on a level with the floor instead of a door. (See Fetis: Biographie universelle des Musiciens.)] Madame Nourrit brought her husband's body to Paris, and it was on the way thither that a funeral service was held at Marseilles for the much-lamented man and singer.

Le Sud, Journal de la Mediterranee of April 25, 1839, [FOOTNOTE: Quoted in L. M. Quicherat's Adolphe Nourrit, sa vie, son talent, son caractere] shall tell us of Chopin's part in this service:—

At the Elevation of the Host were heard the melancholy tones of the organ. It was M. Chopin, the celebrated pianist, who came to place a souvenir on the coffin of Nourrit; and what a souvenir! a simple melody of Schubert, but the same which had so filled us with enthusiasm when Nourrit revealed it to us at Marseilles—the melody of Les Astres. [FOOTNOTE: Die gestirne is the original German title of this song.]

A less colourless account, one full of interesting facts and free from conventional newspaper sentiment and enthusiasm, we find in a letter of Chopin's companion.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Marseilles, April 28, 1839:—

The day before yesterday I saw Madame Nourrit with her six children, and the seventh coming shortly…Poor unfortunate woman! what a return to France! accompanying this corpse, and she herself super-intending the packing, transporting, and unpacking [charger, voiturer, deballer] of it like a parcel!

They held here a very meagre service for the poor deceased, the bishop being ill-disposed. This was in the little church of Notre-Dame-du-Mont. I do not know if the singers did so intentionally, but I never heard such false singing. Chopin devoted himself to playing the organ at the Elevation, what an organ! A false, screaming instrument, which had no wind except for the purpose of being out of tune. Nevertheless, YOUR LITTLE ONE [votre petit] made the most of it. He took the least shrill stops, and played Les Astres, not in a proud and enthusiastic style as Nourrit used to sing it, but in a plaintive and soft style, like the far-off echo from another world. Two, at the most three, were there who deeply felt this, and our eyes filled with tears.

The rest of the audience, who had gone there en masse, and had been led by curiosity to pay as much as fifty centimes for a chair (an unheard-of price for Marseilles), were very much disappointed; for it was expected that he would make a tremendous noise and break at least two or three stops. They expected also to see me, in full dress, in the very middle of the choir; what not? They did not see me at all; I was hidden in the organ-loft, and through the balustrade I descried the coffin of poor Nourrit.

Thanks to the revivifying influences of spring and Dr. Cauviere's attention and happy treatment, Chopin was able to accompany George Sand on a trip to Genoa, that vaga gemma del mar, fior delta terra. It gave George Sand much pleasure to see again, now with her son Maurice by her side, the beautiful edifices and pictures of the city which six years before she had visited with Musset. Chopin was probably not strong enough to join his friends in all their sight-seeing, but if he saw Genoa as it presents itself on being approached from the sea, passed along the Via Nuova between the double row of magnificent palaces, and viewed from the cupola of S. Maria in Carignano the city, its port, the sea beyond, and the stretches of the Riviera di Levante and Riviera di Ponente, he did not travel to Italy in vain. Thus Chopin got at last a glimpse of the land where nine years before he had contemplated taking up his abode for some time.

On returning to Marseilles, after a stormy passage, on which Chopin suffered much from sea-sickness, George Sand and her party rested for a few days at the house of Dr. Cauviere, and then set out, on the 22nd of May, for Nohant.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Marseilles, May 20, 1839:—

We have just arrived from Genoa, in a terrible storm. The bad weather kept us on sea double the ordinary time; forty hours of rolling such as I have not seen for a long time. It was a fine spectacle, and if everybody had not been ill, I would have greatly enjoyed it…

We shall depart the day after to-morrow for Nohant. Address your next letter to me there, we shall be there in eight days. My carriage has arrived from Chalon at Arles by boat, and we shall post home very quietly, sleeping at the inns like good bourgeois.

CHAPTER XXIII.

JUNE TO OCTOBER, 1839.

GEORGE SAND AND CHOPIN'S RETURN TO NOHANT.—STATE OF HIS HEALTH.- -HIS POSITION IN HIS FRIEND'S HOUSE.—HER ACCOUNT OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP.—HIS LETTERS TO FONTANA, WHICH, AMONG MANY OTHER MATTERS, TREAT OF HIS COMPOSITIONS AND OF PREPARATIONS TO BE MADE FOR HIS AND GEORGE SAND'S ARRIVAL IN PARIS.

The date of one of George Sand's letters shows that the travellers were settled again at Nohant on the 3rd of June, 1839. Dr. Papet, a rich friend of George Sand's, who practised his art only for the benefit of the poor and his friends, took the convalescent Chopin at once under his care. He declared that his patient showed no longer any symptoms of pulmonary affection, but was suffering merely from a slight chronic laryngeal affection which, although he did not expect to be able to cure it, need not cause any serious alarm.

On returning to Nohant, George Sand had her mind much exercised by the question how to teach her children. She resolved to undertake the task herself, but found she was not suited for it, at any rate, could not acquit herself of it satisfactorily without giving up writing. This question, however, was not the only one that troubled her.

In the irresolution in which I was for a time regarding the arrangement of my life with a view to what would be best for my dear children, a serious question was debated in my conscience. I asked myself if I ought to entertain the idea which Chopin had formed of taking up his abode near me. I should not have hesitated to say "no," had I known then for how short a time the retired life and the solemnity of the country suited his moral and physical health. I still attributed his despair and horror of Majorca to the excitement of fever and the exces de caractere of that place. Nohant offered pleasanter conditions, a less austere retreat, congenial society, and resources in case of illness. Papet was to him an enlightened and kind physician. Fleury, Duteil, Duvernet, and their families, Planet, and especially Rollinat, were dear to him at first sight. All of them loved him also, and felt disposed to spoil him as I did.

Among those with whom the family at Nohant had much intercourse, and who were frequent guests at the chateau, was also an old acquaintance of ours, one who had not grown in wisdom as in age, I mean George Sand's half-brother, Hippolyte Chatiron, who was now again living in Berry, his wife having inherited the estate of Montgivray, situated only half a league from Nohant.

His warmth of manner, his inexhaustible gaiety, the originality of his sallies, his enthusiastic and naive effusions of admiration for the genius of Chopin, the always respectful deference which he showed to him alone, even in the inevitable and terrible apres-boire, found favour with the eminently-aristocratic artist. All, then, went very well at first, and I entertained eventually the idea that Chopin might rest and regain his health by spending a few summers with us, his work necessarily calling him back to Paris in the winter.

However, the prospect of this kind of family union with a newly-made friend caused me to reflect. I felt alarmed at the task which I was about to undertake, and which I had believed would be limited to the journey in Spain.

In short, George Sand presents herself as a sister of mercy, who, prompted by charity, sacrifices her own happiness for that of another. Contemplating the possibility of her son falling ill and herself being thereby deprived of the joys of her work, she exclaims: "What hours of my calm and invigorating life should I be able to devote to another patient, much more difficult to nurse and comfort than Maurice?"

The discussion of this matter by George Sand is so characteristic of her that, lengthy as it is, I cannot refrain from giving it in full.

A kind of terror seized me in presence of a new duty which I was to take upon me. I was not under the illusion of passion. I had for the artist a kind of maternal adoration which was very warm, very real, but which could not for a moment contend with maternal love, the only chaste feeling which may be passionate.

I was still young enough to have perhaps to contend with love, with passion properly so called. This contingency of my age, of my situation, and of the destiny of artistic women, especially when they have a horror of passing diversions, alarmed me much, and, resolved as I was never to submit to any influence which might divert me from my children, I saw a less, but still possible danger in the tender friendship with which Chopin inspired me.

Well, after reflection, this danger disappeared and even assumed an opposite character—that of a preservative against emotions which I no longer wished to know. One duty more in my life, already so full of and so overburdened with work, appeared to me one chance more to attain the austerity towards which I felt myself attracted with a kind of religious enthusiasm.