Chapter II: Paris--And an Episode

After the good leisurely fashion of the time, Chopin took nearly four weeks over his journey to Vienna. His first halting-place was Kalisz, where he was joined by his friend Woyciecowski, and thence the two travelled together through Breslau, Dresden and Prague, enjoying to the full that highest of human pleasures which is constituted by a clear road, brisk horses, and a single companion. The incidents, as recorded in his letters, are not of any great importance--impressions of the theatre at Breslau, renewal of old acquaintanceships at Dresden, and so forth--but the letters themselves are interesting, as showing how entirely he had recovered his spirits under the change of scene and circumstance. Everything is delightful, everybody is cordial, all prospects of the future career are painted in rose-colour, and the darkest moments of uncertainty are caused by his terror at the sight of the Saxon ladies, in their panoply of knitting-needles, or by the temptation, which he is at some pains to resist, of 'kicking out the bottom' from his first sedan chair. In a character so transparent, even these evanescent bubbles of humour acquire a certain significance. For the moment, Chopin's tone is equally free from regret or apprehension; for the moment, this exile from his country has succeeded in escaping from his recent self.

And yet, it was a bold challenge to fortune. On the one side, a world which is usually too busy to occupy itself with new aspirants, which grants no favour that cannot be claimed as a right, and is even less ready to show mercy to the conquered than to offer its applause to the conqueror: on the other, a boy of twenty-one, with delicate and fastidious appetites, with no experience of privation, no conception of the value of money, no settled habits of prudence or circumspection, equipped, it is true, with a flashing weapon of genius, but singularly ill provided with the ordinary armour of defence. It would have been no wonder if he had thought the bastions impregnable and the towers impossible to scale: if he had looked upon the camp life as coarse and uncouth, if he had found its discipline intolerable, its hardships degrading, and its pleasures typified by the rude laughter and boisterous jests of the canteen. Small wonder, either, if his comrades had set him down as a carpet-knight; an exquisite, better skilled to pay compliments to the women than to bear his part among the men; a dandy, whose chief care was the set of his clothes and the fragrance of his violets; a precisian, who was altogether devoid of redeeming vices; an idealist, who spent his days in pursuit of the unattainable, instead of taking life as it came, and letting ready action compensate for defective strategy. And in such an estimate there would have been a certain measure of truth. If, in order to be a good man, it is first necessary to be a good animal, we may admit at once that Chopin's virility was imperfect. There is no doubt that, to the end of his life, he was characterised by a super-sensitive refinement, which, fifty years ago, would have been described as feminine. But now, at the outset of his career, it is well to notice that he was by no means unprovided with the means of success. He was already one of the best pianists in Europe. He had discovered a secret of musical expression more readily understood and appreciated than that of any contemporary composer, with the exception of Mendelssohn. He was gifted with a great charm of manner, and an unusual power of making friends. And when it is added that he was only once in any great stress of poverty, it will be seen that his equipment was less incomplete than is generally imagined. After all, the dandies have played their part in history. Claverhouse was a dandy; Lovelace was a dandy; Sir Philip Sydney himself was censured by Milton for being 'vain and amatorious': and if a man can be something of a fop, and yet bear himself gallantly in the battle of arms, how much more shall he do so in the battle of life.

At the same time, we must confess that, in his first encounter with destiny, the hero was visited with a signal defeat. Before he had been a week in Vienna, news came that Warsaw had risen in revolt against the Russians; there was word of riot in the streets, of danger to the house; and Chopin, after a few hours of irresolution, started off to follow his friend Woyciecowski, who had gone at once to join the insurgents. On the way his determination broke down: his presence could avail nothing; it would only add to the disquietude of his parents; he had better wait for further tidings, for some message or injunction which would relieve him from taking the initiative. Without further thought he changed his plans, and returned to Vienna, waiting there in a transport of grief and anxiety for the letters which a man of prompter courage would have forestalled. As the days wore on, the bulletins grew more reassuring; for a time, at any rate, the cloud of peril rolled away from the city: the Poles had an army of 60,000 men in the field, and, in spite of the enormous forces of the Emperor Nicholas, were confident of success. Still Chopin lingered on, ready to start at the lightest summons, but not strong enough to take the first step of his own motion, until the noise of battle had passed to the Russian frontier, and he could write once more about his life and his surroundings.

Apparently the outlook was less encouraging than it had been in 1828. Vienna, since the death of Schubert, was passing through a period of musical inactivity, and the prospects of concert-giving were not very bright. Managers who had been ready enough to welcome Chopin when he played gratuitously, began to hang back now that he demanded payment; and the public, after its golden age of the classics, professed itself satisfied with the _kapellmeistermusik_ of Seyfried, and the dance-tunes of Strauss and Lanner. During the whole six months of Chopin's stay in the Austrian capital, he only gave one concert, and that, as we learn from M. Karasowski, was thinly attended and poorly paid. For the rest, his letters contain little more than the diary of a casual visitor:--operas at the Kärnthnerthor Theatre, dinners with his friend Dr Malfatti, a few criticisms of Thalberg, a few words of enthusiasm for Slavik; the whole lightened, every now and again, by some amusing story or some half-dozen lines of quaint description. His tone changes with every varying mood: at one moment he breaks into passionate regret that he is still absent from his home: at another he speaks of himself as enjoying his enforced idleness, as wonderfully restored in health, and as finding many acquaintances and much pleasant companionship. But it is clear that, whatever his temper, he was in no way to replenish his resources or advance his existing reputation.

By the middle of 1831 he had made up his mind to proceed to Paris. To return home would be merely to confess himself beaten: Italy was put out of the question by its political troubles; Berlin, with all its opportunities, was hardly the ideal residence for a Polish artist. All reasons pointed to the land with which he was in the closest sympathy: the land which had given birth to his father, which had been the ally of his nation, which had always shown its warmest hospitality to his countrymen. Accordingly he started on July 20, travelled slowly through Munich and Stuttgart, and finally arrived at his destination about the end of the autumn. His two halting-places are both of some moment in the history of his life. At Munich he gave his last public concert to a German-speaking audience, playing his E minor Concerto and his Fantasia on Polish Airs: at Stuttgart he heard the news that Warsaw had been captured by the Russians, and that the hopes of the revolution were lying under the ruin of its walls. Fortunately his parents were safe. There was no personal anxiety to embitter his grief at the national disaster. But, none the less, the blow sank deep, and left a scar which lasted indelibly. With all his weakness, Chopin had an intense love for his country, and the dirge[20] in which he mourned her downfall remains as one of the truest and saddest utterances of despairing patriotism.

So ends a year which, on its artistic side, is little more than a line of cleavage between the two main divisions of the story. Before it, Chopin is a boy, studying with his masters, secure under the protection of his home, and looking with expectant eyes upon a great world of which he hardly knows the outskirts: after it, he is a man, holding his fate in his own hands, living in a foreign city, surrounded with new hopes, new occupations, and new friendships. As Warsaw in the first period, so Paris in the second is the centre on which every aspect of the life is focussed. Poland has played her part--she has ceased to be counted among the nations: for the future, it is French blood that claims its kindred, and French loyalty that offers its allegiance.

And, indeed, Chopin could have chosen no city which would give him less feeling of transference. He found Paris full of a cordial sympathy with everything Polish: dramas, founded on the insurrection, drawing crowds to the theatres; cries of '_Vive les Polonais_' echoing in the streets; ovations to General Ramorino, who had taken arms against Russia, and had not despaired of the Republic. A few letters of introduction served to open the doors of artistic society: Paër, Baillot, even Cherubini offered a kindly welcome to the newcomer: Hiller and Franchomme were soon among his fast friends: and the early days were passed in a rush of concert and opera, in admiration of the fine Conservatoire Orchestra, or in open-eyed wonder at the roulades of Pasta and Malibran.

A short time after his arrival, he went to call upon Kalkbrenner, in hopes that the great teacher would consent to give him lessons. Kalkbrenner heard him play, approved, noted some deviations from the established method, and offered to take him as a pupil if he would promise to serve a full apprenticeship of three years. The condition was somewhat prohibitive, for Chopin had his own way to make, and his own living to earn; but with characteristic docility he undertook to consider the proposal, and wrote off at once to Elsner for advice. The old master's answer was, on the whole, dissuasive. It was unadvisable, he said, that Chopin should restrict himself too closely to the piano: there were other forms of the art--quartetts, symphonies, and, above all, operas--which might establish his name on a more lasting foundation. Besides, a too continuous adherence to one method, however perfect, would tend to destroy individuality of touch and substitute a mere mechanical proficiency for the freedom of original thought. A genius 'should be allowed to follow his own path and make his own discoveries.' So, fortunately for Music, Chopin decided to decline the offer; though the cordiality of his relation with Kalkbrenner is testified by many passages of intimacy, and by the dedication of the E minor Concerto. There can be no doubt that the proposal was made in good faith, and that it was rejected with some hesitation. The only matters of comment are the modesty with which Chopin suggested a new period of studentship, and the grounds on which Elsner recommended him to dismiss the idea.

Early in 1832 Chopin made his first appearance before a Parisian public. The concert, organised for the benefit of the Polish refugees, was no great financial success, but it served to bring into notice the second concerto and some of the early mazurkas and nocturnes. One of the most interesting features in the programme was an enormous work of Kalkbrenner's for six pianofortes, played by the composer and Chopin in _concertino_, together with Hiller, Osborne, Stamaty and Sowinski as accompanists: a disposition of forces which plainly indicates that the newcomer was already recognised as a leader by some of the best executants in Paris. We may add that, artistically speaking, the _début_ was a veritable triumph. The audience applauded heartily, Mendelssohn offered his warmest congratulations, even Fétis grew genial and appreciative; and when, at a charity concert in March, Chopin succeeded in scoring a second victory, it is little wonder that he found his position established beyond dispute. He might well write to his friends at home,--'_Me voilà lancé._' The society of Paris lionised him with the same fervour as the society of Warsaw: evening after evening was occupied with visitors or filled with invitations: pupils began to present themselves; concert managers solicited his services; and before long he shared with Liszt the honour of being the most fashionable musician of the day. 'I move in the highest circles,' he writes, 'and I don't know how I got there. But you are credited with more talent if you have been heard at a _soirée_ of the English or Austrian Ambassador. Among the Paris artists I enjoy general esteem and friendship; men of reputation dedicate their compositions to me even before I have paid them the same compliment. Pupils from the Conservatoire--even private pupils of Moscheles, Herz and Kalkbrenner--come to me to take lessons. Really, if I were more silly than I am, I might imagine myself a finished artist; but I feel daily how much I have still to learn. Don't imagine that I am making a fortune: my carriage and my white gloves eat up most of the earnings. However, I am a revolutionary, and so don't care for money.'[21] Clearly, we are some way from the timid, apprehensive stranger, doubtful of his direction, uncertain of his future, who entered Paris a year before, with his country's sorrow still heavy upon his heart.

This fresh impulse of activity bore ample fruit, also, in composition. During the winter of 1832 were published the first two sets of Mazurkas; next year followed the first three Nocturnes, the first set of Études,[22] and the Variations on Herold's _Je vends des Scapulaires_, graceful embroideries of an exceedingly poor texture: while in 1834 came three more Nocturnes, another set of Mazurkas, a _Grande Valse Brilliante_ (Op. 18), and a Bolero. Besides these, Chopin arranged with Schlesinger for the publication of some of his existing manuscripts: the Pianoforte Trio, the Concerto in E minor, the Fantasia on Polish Airs, and the Krakowiak. Their success was almost instantaneous. No doubt there were a few dissentient voices: Field, the great burly Englishman, laid aside his pipe to growl out that his new rival had '_un talent de chambre de malade_:' Rellstab, the editor of the Berlin _Iris_, practised a few of the vitriolic epigrams which he was afterwards going to launch at Schumann: but beyond these there was very little doubt expressed by any musician who read the works, and none at all by any who heard their composer play them.

In the spring of 1834, Chopin took a holiday and went off with Hiller to attend the Niederrheinische Musikfest at Aix-la-Chapelle. We have a very pleasant account of this expedition: the two friends met Mendelssohn, shared a box with him, and returned, after the Festival, to his new home in Dusseldorf, where they drank coffee and played skittles, and banqueted on music to their hearts' content. There is a characteristic picture, too, of an evening at Schadow's: the room full of eager, talkative art students, Hiller and Mendelssohn occasionally quieting the hubbub with a Fantasia or a Capriccio, Chopin sitting silent and unknown in a remote corner until he was forced to 'drop his disguise' and take his place at the piano. 'After that,' says Hiller, 'they looked at him with altogether different eyes.'

Back in Paris, he resumed his teaching, and completed his second set of Études, published later as Op. 25. During the winter season he appeared four times in public, once for Berlioz at the Conservatoire, twice in Pleyel's rooms, and once at a great charity concert in the Italian Opera-house. But it is clear that he was growing disinclined to face what he calls the 'intimidation' of the crowd. He rarely did himself full justice on the platform: he was at his happiest in some friend's room, where he could pour out his fancies to the dim twilight, and forget the few motionless figures that were listening at his side. 'More than three,' said Charles Lamb, 'and it degenerates into an audience.' Chopin was more liberal in fixing his limit, but he understood the degeneration. All the best accounts which we have received of his playing come from those who heard him _en petit comité_--Heine, George Sand, Delacroix--and it is significant that, after his appearance at the Théâtre Italien, he allowed nearly four years to pass before emerging again from his seclusion. It does not appear that this distaste for the multitude in any way embittered him. It is an excess of eloquence to describe his preference for the drawing-room as 'a malignant cancer,' which 'cruelly tortured and slowly consumed his life.'[23] He was in no lack of money, or of friends, or of reputation, and he was the last man in the world to--

Beg of Hob and Dick
Their needless vouches,

or trouble himself because some upstart tribune could surpass him in popularity.

In the summer and autumn of 1835, Chopin left Paris for a more extended tour. He began with Carlsbad, where his father was staying under doctor's orders, and after a short stay there proceeded to Dresden, where he met his old schoolfellows the Wodzinskis, and took the opportunity to fall in love with their sister Marie. We have very little certain knowledge about this new romance. There were a few pleasant days together, a Valse,[24] improvised at the moment of parting, and sent afterwards from Paris, 'pour Mademoiselle Marie,' and a later interview at Marienbad in 1836, where, we are told, Chopin offered marriage and was refused. But it seems clear that he only saw her upon these two occasions, and that his rejection, if it ever occurred, produced no very serious effect on his spirits. There were a great many harmless flirtations during his Paris life: flowers that sprang up in a light soil and withered under the next day's sun, and it is possible that this was only a growth of the same garden, somewhat deeper in root, and somewhat more ample in blossom. After all, Chopin was little more than a boy,--Polish, artistic, impressionable, fond by preference of the society of women: it is no matter for surprise if, in the intervals of being the Shelley of music, he found some pleasure in posing as its Tom Moore.

From Dresden he went on to Leipsic, and there made the acquaintance of Schumann and the Wiecks. It was nothing less than a meeting of the Davidsbund: Florestan, Chiarina and Félix Meritis gathered round him at the piano, while old Master Raro, who was in a bad temper that afternoon, stood in the next room, with the door ajar, and listened to the party which he would not compromise his dignity by joining. Mendelssohn proved the most congenial of companions, Schumann the kindest and most appreciative of critics, and Clara Wieck, then a girl of sixteen, convinced her sceptical visitor that there was at least 'one lady in Germany who could play his compositions.' The visit was all too short, but pupils were clamouring at home, publishers had received nothing all the year except the Scherzo in B minor, and the rent of rooms in the Chaussée d'Antin was a good deal higher than that in the Boulevard Poissonnière. So Chopin had to bring his holiday to a close, and to return to Paris with a store of new memories and a consciousness of new triumphs.

The chief incidents of 1836 were a couple of flying visits: one to London in July, one to Marienbad and Leipsic in September. The import of the latter has already been noted; at the former, Chopin was introduced to the Broadwoods as M. Fritz, and, as usual, threw off his incognito at the first touch of the pianoforte. During this year his health, which had hitherto been good, gave way under an attack of influenza, which was followed by a second early in 1837. But, in spite of illness, he contrived to get through plenty of work, and his list of publications for the year is unusually large: the F minor Concerto in April, the G minor Ballade in June, the Andante Spianato and Polonaise in July, followed in the same month by the two Polonaises, Op. 26, and the two Nocturnes, Op. 37. No doubt many of these were of earlier composition, but it must be remembered that to Chopin it was not the inception of a work which was laborious. Melodies came to him as easily as to Mozart; it was after they had been brought to birth that the toil began; anxious elaboration of phrase, hesitating selection of alternatives: here a cadence to be re-written, there a harmony to be rearranged; often a whole round of changes rung, only that the passage might return, after all, to its original form. In the whole process of production, the part which seems to have given him most trouble was the clerk's work of correcting the proof-sheets. No composer, except Schumann, has left us so many conjectural readings; no composer, without exception, has allowed so many misprints to pass unnoticed. It is a curious, though not an inexplicable paradox that the conscientiousness with which he revised his manuscripts should have brought a reaction of indifference to the printed page. He took so long making up his mind that when he had once arrived at a decision he accepted it as the end of his responsibilities.

It was in 1837 that he met the woman whose influence over his life has been so fiercely attacked and so deplorably misunderstood. His biographers, indeed, in their treatment of George Sand, cannot easily be acquitted of some recklessness of statement and some unjustifiable licence of language. It is no light matter to bring grave charges on evidence avowedly imperfect, to give currency to idle rumour and malicious innuendo, to aid in casting unjust aspersions on the memory of a noble name. It is no light matter that these calumnies, many of which are as far below the level of quotation as they are beyond the possibility of belief, should be employed to barb some flippant epigram or envenom some sneering comment. Words which had their origin in the unscrupulous heat of political controversy[25] have been accepted as the cool and deliberate utterances of reason and judgment. The distortions of a false and cruel romance have been reproduced as if they contained testimony, not, indeed, final, but worthy of serious regard. In the imperfection of the record opportunity has been found for discreditable conjectures, for baseless imputations of motive, and for an ultimate decision which betrays itself by its eagerness to condemn.

It must be said at the outset that the record is manifestly imperfect. All the letters which Chopin wrote from Paris to his parents have disappeared, burned during a popular outburst at Warsaw in 1863. The loss of these documents is, of course, beyond calculation. It is true that M. Karasowski, the only one of Chopin's biographers who ever saw them, declares that they threw little or no light upon the matter;[26] it is also true that Chopin was a bad correspondent, with odd fits of intermission and reticence; but, at the same time, it is impossible to help feeling that we have to hear the cause after the principal plea has been withdrawn. We are therefore dependent partly on the accounts which have been left us by George Sand herself, partly on the testimony of third persons; and it is needless to add that, before accepting any statement, we must satisfy ourselves as to the credibility of the witness. _Ex parte_ assertions, on whatever side they are adduced, can only be regarded as valuable in so far as they conform to the ordinary laws of evidence.

First, then, as to George Sand's character. Here we have, fortunately, a complete consensus on the part of those writers to whose name and authority the greatest weight can be attached. Matthew Arnold describes her as 'that great soul, simple, affectionate, without vanity, without pedantry, human, equitable, patient, kind,' and pours a full measure of scorn on those 'who have degraded her cry for love into the cravings of a sensual passion.'[27] Sainte-Beuve knew her intimately for thirty years, and this is the way in which he writes about her:--'Elle est femme, et très femme, mais elle n'a rien des petitesses du sexe, ni des ruses, ni des arrière-pensées: elle aime les horizons larges et vastes, et c'est là qu'elle va d'abord: elle s'inquiète du bien de tous, de l'amélioration du monde, ce qui est au moins le plus noble mal des âmes et la plus généreuse manie.'[28] Delacroix bears eloquent witness to her devotion and unselfishness:[29] Heine almost forgets to mock as he bows before the woman 'whose every thought is fragrant':[30] Mrs Browning, the purest and most spiritual of idealists, bent to kiss her hand at the first interview, and speaks of her throughout with sisterly affection and sympathy.[31] And all this testimony is as nothing when compared with that of her own writings. Grant that her earlier novels contain a note of revolt, that her generous and enthusiastic temper led her for a time into the error of Saint-Simonism: it is yet certain that she believed herself to be writing in defence of Religion and humanity against a decadent Church and a maladministered government. And it is impossible to read her autobiography, and still more her letters, without the conviction that she was a good as well as a great woman, lacking, perhaps, in reticence and self-restraint, too frank of speech in face of oppression and wrong, but wholly devoid of any taint of luxury, wholly free from the meaner passions, wholly intent on helping all who needed her counsel or assistance. The truthfulness of the _Histoire de ma Vie_ is attested in plain words by no less an authority than M. Edmond de Goncourt,[32] whose verdict in the matter will probably be accepted as conclusive. The truthfulness of the letters will be evident to anyone who takes the trouble to compare them with one another, and with the independent record of the period which they embrace. In one word, the intrinsic probability of George Sand's account is at least sufficient to throw the _onus probandi_ upon her adversaries.

And when we turn to the other side, we are at once struck with a want of definite aim in the attack. Animated with the belief that Chopin was ill-used, impelled by a not unnatural desire to protect him at all hazards, his biographers have accredited George Sand with the incongruous vices of antagonistic temperaments, and have given us a picture, not of a bad woman, but of an impossible monster. Again, there are some charges which, in themselves, it is of no moment to prefer. It would be merely idle to accuse St Louis of atheism, or Bayard of treachery. It would be a waste of effort to call Nelson a coward, or Latimer an apostate. And equally, when one of our authors affirms that George Sand 'was never at a loss to justify any act, be it ever so cruel and abject,'[33] we can only condole with him on having selected, out of all existing adjectives, the two most entirely inapplicable to the character of which he treats. For the grosser accusations, the best answer is silence. They are no more worth denying than the calumnies of 'Lui et Elle': indeed, like that 'abominable book,'[34] they stand self-refuted. It is only a matter for regret that they have ever been allowed to emerge from their obscurity, and to darken, even for a moment, the intercourse of two noble lives.

From a misunderstanding of George Sand's character, there is but a short step to a misjudgment of her connection with Chopin. It has been represented as a _liaison_ in our vulgarised English sense of the term: it was in reality a pure and cordial friendship, into which there entered no element of shame and no taint of degradation. Its closest parallel may be found in the relation between Teresa Malvezzi and Leopardi, a relation only to be questioned by those who hold that a sweet and gracious comradeship of man and woman is an impossibility. She was the older in years, she was far the older in character: her feeling for Chopin is well expressed in her own phrase as '_une sorte d'affection maternelle_': for ten years she encouraged him in his work, tended him in his sickness, offered him welcome in his holiday: and when at last the rupture came, it was brought about against her will, and maintained, by unforeseen accidents, against her expectation. In short, to describe Chopin as her 'discarded lover' is to make two mistakes of fact in two words.

At first, it is true, they saw but little of each other. For one reason, the fastidious artist was somewhat repelled by the unconventionality of George Sand's surroundings; for a second, they were both busy--he with his pupils, she with her books and with the education of her daughter, Solange. However, it is probable that, in 1837, he formed one of the usual summer party at Nohant, and that he forgot his unreasoning dislike in the kindliness and hospitality which filled that most delightful of châteaux. During the winter he was occupied with fresh publications--the second Scherzo, the Impromptu in A flat, and some smaller pieces--and then came a third attack of influenza, which for a time rendered all further work impracticable. In February 1838, he was well enough to accept an invitation to Court; next month he had so far recovered as to play in a concert at Rouen: but during the spring his illness returned in the form of a serious bronchial affection, and the doctor, whom he called in for consultation, peremptorily ordered him abroad.

It happened that George Sand was also contemplating a visit to the South of Europe. Her son Maurice, was suffering from rheumatism: she thought it advisable to save him from the risks of a Parisian December: after some debate, she decided to try Majorca, of which her friend Count Valdemosa had given her an enthusiastic description. Chopin, who was her guest during part of the summer, heard the plan discussed, and, feeling somewhat disheartened at the prospects of a lonely voyage, asked leave to make one of the party. His proposal was accepted with frank good-nature; and, after a few weeks of hesitation and uncertainty, he followed the Sands to Perpignan, crossed with them to Barcelona, and proceeded first to Palma, and then to a little up-country villa, where they hoped to establish themselves for the winter.

Never, since the days of the Ten Thousand, was there a more disastrous expedition. No doubt the scenery was magnificent enough to justify all Count Valdemosa's patriotism, but it was compensated by every form of _petite misère_ which a malicious destiny could devise. The house was draughty and ill-constructed: the food was detestable; the peasants were ignorant, superstitious savages, to whom, as to most barbarians, stranger was synonymous with enemy. Chopin's failure to attend Mass on the first Sunday exposed him to the gravest suspicion; and when it was rumoured that his absence was due to ill-health, suspicion ripened into the hostility of panic terror. It became difficult to procure the necessaries of life; it became almost impossible to obtain any service or neighbourly assistance; the whole countryside passed sentence of outlawry upon the newcomers; and as climax of inhospitality, the landlord heard that one of his tenants was consumptive, and immediately turned the whole party out of doors.

All this was bad enough, but it would have been tolerable if only the climate had remained propitious. Unfortunately, after a fortnight's delusive sunshine, the winter broke into a passion of wind and rain. The woods stood dripping and shivering; the mountain roads turned into impassable torrents; and the exiles, driven for shelter to the cells of a disused monastery, found their days heavy with imprisonment, and their nights ghostly with the voices of the storm. It is not surprising that Chopin's nerve began to give way. His material privations he could bear with some fortitude, but he was powerless to banish the vague, nameless apprehensions which spoke in every echo, and haunted every shadowy corner. It required all George Sand's courage and devotion to render his life endurable. It was in her strength that his weakness found support; it was her sympathy and kindness that soothed him, as a mother soothes a sick child. On her, indeed, devolved the whole administration of the household. Overwhelmed as she was with literary work, she yet found time to teach her children, to tend her patients, to clothe empty rooms and bleak walls with some appearance of warmth and comfort. She was never weary, never despondent, never out of humour, and whatever of brightness came to lighten those wintry days of stress and hardship was but the reflection of her unclouded serenity.

During these fluctuations of fear and solace, of convalescence and relapse, Chopin can hardly have completed any work of importance. The Preludes, which are sometimes referred to his sojourn in Majorca, seem to have been composed before he left Paris; and as they are the only publications of the year 1839, we may reasonably conclude that there was nothing else ready. It is possible that one or two of them may have been written at Valdemosa, whence also may have come the inception of the Ballade in F major, the two Polonaises, Op. 40, and the Funeral March Sonata. But none of these look like productions of the sick-room; and it is clear that, as the winter advanced, Chopin grew less and less capable of any sustained effort. Unmistakable symptoms of consumption made their appearance; the local doctors proved wholly incompetent to deal with the case; at last, it became only a question of waiting until the season was warm enough for a journey home. At the end of February, Chopin nerved himself to face the fatigue of travel, and returned to the shores of France in desperate search of the health, for lack of which he had left them.

At Marseilles he stayed for nearly three months,[35] under charge of Dr Cauvière, who, without concealing the gravity of the disease, told his patient that, with proper care, he might yet count on many years of life and work. There can be no doubt that Chopin's death-warrant had been signed, but it is equally sure that his sentence was one which could allow a long respite, and encourage the continued hope of deferment. Every man stands liable to an unread mandate of execution. Every man goes through the world, like Hernani, waiting for the summons of the fatal horn. Life, in all true reckoning, is counted not by years but by actions; and it is better to lavish the few decades of Schubert or Mozart than to hoard a long, inglorious cycle that has outworn its hopes and outlived its memories. No career is unhappy, however brief it be, that does not fail of its purpose.

And of failure in any form Chopin had unusually little experience. Even at this dark time we hear of rapid recovery, of regained strength and courage, of a summer filled with pleasant days and noble achievement. The cloud of trouble, which had hung over the forests of Valdemosa, lay far removed from the smooth lawns and sunny glades of Nohant; and there, amid music and children's laughter, and a concourse of friendly faces, the winter of discontent was very speedily forgotten. For the next few years, with the exception of 1840, he made a practice of spending his summer vacation at the château. Life looked more simple in the light of George Sand's simplicity and goodness; beneath her example it was easy to disregard all personal anxieties, and to turn with fresh resolution to the service of Art. Besides, under that hospitable roof, there were always other comrades to share the welcome. At one time Liszt would come, radiant with the triumphs of his last European tour; at another, Mickiewicz, ablaze with some fresh project of social regeneration; at another, Delacroix, busy with his _St Anne_; or Louis Blanc, intent on a new chapter of his History. Over the whole house was spread a clear, wholesome atmosphere of work, braced with a high seriousness of aim, and made genial with kindly aid and brilliant converse. We may well believe the statement of George Sand that Chopin always wrote his best at Nohant.

For some part of every winter, too, they were near neighbours in Paris. At first they occupied two adjoining houses in the Rue Pigalle; later they moved to the Cour d'Orléans, where Chopin took No. 3 on one side of the court; George Sand No. 5 on the other; and their friend Madame Marliani completed the phalanstery by installing herself between them. Here was established that famous _salon_, the memory of which recalls the better days of the Hôtel Rambouillet. Indeed, though some few names of the classic age are unsurpassed, at no time could Catherine de Vivonne have gathered so notable an assemblage of talent as that which thronged the rooms of the new Arthenice. Chapelain, Godeau, Voiture, the Scudérys, even Boileau himself are but dim and uncertain lights beside Dumas and Balzac, Gautier and Heine, Lamennais and Arago and Sainte-Beuve. Here was something better than madrigals and anagrams and the _carte du tendre_; something which helped to mould the life of a nation, and bore its effect on the whole course of European thought. It was amid these surroundings--now at Paris, now at Nohant--that Chopin lived and worked, stimulated by all that was best in contemporary art, encouraged by the sympathy of his peers and the cordial admiration of his listeners.

Unlike most musicians, Chopin was fond of teaching, and was almost uniformly popular as a master. It is hard to understand how his finely-strung temperament could have endured the strain and irritation of pianoforte lessons, but we have abundant testimony as to the gentleness and tact with which he corrected errors or pointed out nuances of expression. Even on 'stormy days,' his anger was nothing more than a cry of physical pain, and he always softened at once if the culprit showed any symptoms of distress. When things went well, he was the most admirable of teachers; kindly alert, suggestive, often protracting the lesson for two or three hours, and sometimes closing it with the best of all rewards, an improvisation. The qualities which he regarded as paramount were delicacy of touch, intelligence of conception, purity of feeling: in his eyes the only sin worse than affectation was the correct mechanical dexterity that is too dull to be affected. Not, of course, that he undervalued accuracy; every student, however accomplished, had to begin with Clementi's _Gradus_, and to tread the whole course of studies and exercises; but he was far too great an artist to see any finality in a mere Academic precision. 'Mettez y donc toute votre âme' was his injunction; and in all education there is no better rule.

Yet it is curious that not one of his pupils has succeeded in making a name of European mark. Filtsch might have done so had not death cut short his career in the early promise of boyhood, but to the rest--Gutmann, Lysberg, Mikuli, Tellefsen--the record of public favour has been singularly indifferent. No doubt many members of his school were amateurs, who, with all their training, never entered the arena: some, like George Mathias, were satisfied to embody in their own teaching the traditions of their master's method; but when all allowances have been granted, it still remains true that Chopin never communicated his secret. Perhaps his secret was incommunicable; perhaps, like his style in composition, it was not so much a method as a manner; something too intimate and personal to be expressed in the concrete language of principle and formula. We know that in later years he began a systematic treatise on the pianoforte, but we may guess that it was not ill-health alone which led him to destroy it unfinished.

The recovery of new vigour and new interests brought him back once more to the uncongenial atmosphere of the concert-room. In the winter of 1839, he played for a second time at the Tuileries; in 1841 and 1842, he appeared twice in Pleyel's rooms, where he presented some of his own most recent compositions to an audience mainly consisting of friends and pupils. And if his activity as a pianist was rare and intermittent, he made up for the deficiency by the number and importance of his published works. The Sonata in B flat minor was printed in May 1840, and then followed a long series of Scherzos and Ballades, of Nocturnes and Impromptus, of Waltzes, Polonaises, and Mazurkas, many of them incontestable masterpieces, all of them valuable contributions to the literature of Music. If we except the Studies and the Preludes, there is nothing in the whole of Chopin's previous production that may hold comparison with the harvest of these abundant years.

Meantime, his health was varying with an almost mercurial instability. On his better days he would be buoyant, gay, even extravagant, playing fantastic tricks at the pianoforte, or mimicking his rivals with inimitable skill and good-natured satire: on his worse he would appear peevish and fretful, not from ill-humour, but from sheer exaggeration of sensibility. To his present mood there was no such thing as a trifle. He broke into fierce anger at a stupid joke of Meyerbeer's, which a moment's thought would have allowed him to disregard. He quarrelled permanently and irrevocably with Liszt over some trivial slight which would never have ruffled the composure of a healthier mind. Like many men of impulsive and nervous temper, Chopin could only half forgive. George Sand says of him, finely and truly, that 'he had no hatreds;' but he equally lacked that broad humane sense of pardon which obliterates the fault as the tide obliterates a footprint upon the shore. If he once felt himself wounded, he could wish no ill to his adversary, but the scar remained.

At the beginning of May 1844, he was prostrated by the sudden news of his father's death. The shock, falling unexpectedly upon an enfeebled frame, was too heavy for him to resist, and during a long anxious fortnight he lay seriously, even dangerously ill. George Sand, with ready sympathy, at once came to the rescue. She wrote his letters to his mother. She summoned one of his sisters from Warsaw. She left her work to watch by his sickbed, nursed him with maternal solicitude, and at the first sign of recovery carried him off to Nohant for convalescence. There he seems once more to have restored to equilibrium the delicate balance of his life. His correspondence with Franchomme catches something of its old lightness of tone; he discusses, with evident interest, the fortunes of his manuscripts and the prospects of his coming work: best of all, he returns to his piano, and at last charms his sorrow asleep. The next two years passed so quietly and uneventfully that they have left hardly any mark on the course of his career. In 1845 he published the Berceuse and the Sonata in B minor, in 1846 the Barcarolle, the Polonaise-Fantasie, and a few Mazurkas and Nocturnes; but even in his art the record is meagre, and in his life it is almost non-existent. We have half-a-dozen unimportant letters, we have half-a-dozen lines of anecdote or conjecture, and the rest is silence. It was the dead, heavy, ominous stillness which precedes a storm.

In 1847 the storm broke, shattering in its fall the closest and most intimate of Chopin's friendships. Its occasion was a quarrel with Maurice Sand, the causes of which, though they are nowhere explicitly related, are by no means difficult to divine. A short time before, George Sand had adopted a distant cousin called Augustine Brault, a quiet, colourless, inoffensive girl, whom she had rescued from the influences of a bad home.[36] Maurice was fond of his cousin; indeed, idle report accredited him with a deeper feeling: Chopin disliked her, and rather resented her appearance as an intrusion. Again, in May 1847, occurred the marriage of Solange Sand with M. Clesinger, a marriage of which, at the time, Chopin alone disapproved. Given Maurice's impetuous character and Chopin's nervous irritability, the matter needs no more recondite explanation. We can well imagine the words of pointed criticism and disdainful rejoinder, the interchange of sharp retorts, the gradual development of a contention which, as we know, culminated in Maurice's threat to leave his home. George Sand tried to make peace: Chopin, barely recovered from a new attack of illness,[37] regarded her interference as an act of hostility: and after a few words of bitter reproach, 'the first,' she says, 'which he ever offered me,' he turned and left her in open anger. It is easy to bring charges of ingratitude, of fickleness, of help forgotten and services ill requited. We are more concerned to note that a rage so sudden and implacable can be traced to no other than a physical origin. Chopin's condition was still serious enough to cause grave anxiety, and his outburst of petulance was not an aggression of deliberate unkindness, but a half-conscious aberration of disease. George Sand herself had no thought that the breach was permanent. Early in 1848 she voluntarily sought a reconciliation, and when the attempt failed--for busy tongues had been at work in the meantime--she bore her trouble without a word of complaint or a thought of rancour. Years afterwards she could write of Chopin, 'He was always the same to me.'

Such is the simplest and most credible version of the story. It offends against no inductions, it violates no probabilities, it is supported by the plain statement of the only authority who had first-hand knowledge, as well as by circumstantial evidence from outside. Of the two other accounts, the more serious and important is that of M. Karasowski. M. Franchomme, who begins by accusing George Sand of literal assault and battery,[38] may, perhaps, be disregarded in spite of the uncertainty of Professor Niecks. But the attack on _Lucrezia Floriani_ involves such grave issues, and contains such perilous half-truths, that it merits some detailed consideration. We must remember that there are two separate points at stake: first, whether the novel had any share in bringing about the rupture; second, whether it was or was not unjustifiable.

To both these questions M. Karasowski returns answer in the affirmative. George Sand, he tells us, finding it impossible to effect a separation by cold looks and petty slights, 'resorted to the heroic expedient' of caricaturing Chopin in a romance. The portrait of Prince Karol was drawn by her with the deliberate intent to wound, with the desire of forcing a quarrel upon the lover whose fidelity had outlasted her own. Let the reader consider this charge for a moment. Here is a sick man, near to death, weak, helpless, sensitive to the least injury, and we are asked to believe that the woman who has held unbroken friendship with him for ten years, the woman whose generosity and compassion are admitted even by her enemies, has taken the opportunity to stab him with a poisoned weapon. The crime is so base, so wanton, so far removed not only from George Sand's character, but from the common level of sane humanity, that we should require the strongest testimony before we could believe it possible. Until it be proved, we have only one view upon the case--_reclamitat istiusmodi suspicionibus ipsa natura_.

Fortunately, on the first point we have the clear evidence of fact. _Lucrezia Floriani_ was written during the winter of 1846, and was read by Chopin, chapter after chapter, as it proceeded. If, then, Chopin had taken offence at the book, the rupture would have occurred, as M. Karasowski positively declares that it did, 'in the beginning of 1847.' This is certainly not the case. Chopin, who spent the spring at Paris, was in friendly correspondence with George Sand in May,[39] and either paid, or at least projected, his usual visit to Nohant in the summer.[40] It is not credible that he, of all men, would have offered himself as a guest to the woman whom he believed to have held him up to ridicule. Add to this George Sand's poignant distress at the estrangement; add her categorical denial of the charge of portraiture; add the fact that there is a perfectly simple explanation outside of the whole matter, and this side of the case may be regarded as closed. Whatever may be said about the merits of _Lucrezia Floriani_, two things are certain--one that it was not intended by George Sand as a cause of quarrel, the other that it was not so accepted at the time by Chopin. Grant that, at a later period, his friends persuaded him of a resemblance, which, but for them, he would never have imagined. They knew that he had broken with George Sand; they took his side with a natural partisanship; the weapon lay ready to their grasp; without further thought or consideration they put it in employment. There are some minds which always look for the 'originals' in a work of fiction. Any chance trick of manner or turn of phrase is sufficient for recognition--Numa Roumestan is Gambetta, Harold Skimpole is Leigh Hunt, Falstaff is Sir John Oldcastle, and the rest of it. The scandal is easily set afloat, and no man ever listens to a contradiction.

This brings us to the second point. Is Prince Karol a portrait of Chopin? and is his relation with Lucrezia a description of the ten-years' friendship? To answer these questions in the negative, it is only necessary to read the novel. Prince Karol is an idle, disconsolate dreamer, and his story a tedious analysis of the more unamiable aspect of passion. Their points of resemblance with their supposed prototypes are exhausted in a few superficial accidents; in their essential qualities they are far removed. Where is Chopin's humour, or his buoyancy, or his generosity, or his genius? Where is the life of work which it was the function of friendship to solace and encourage? The whole book is one discordant love-duet, full of recriminations and complaints, of selfish affection and suspicion and jealousy. Nothing could be more unlike the phalanstery of the Cour d'Orléans, or the frank, free comradeship of Nohant. And more, it is notorious that in all George Sand's novels there is no real characterisation, much less its attendant vice of portraiture. 'The artistic weakness of Madame Sand,' says Mr Henry James, 'is that she never described the actual.' Here, then, as elsewhere, Chopin's biographers are accusing her of the one fault which is diametrically opposite to her nature. So far from her characters being drawn from life, they were never even corrected by life. They breathe a romantic atmosphere of their own, now fresh with the purity of La Petite Fadette, now charged with the electric passion of Valentine or Indiana, but at no time identical with the warm vital air of true experience.

Here, then, the case may be summed up. The novel was not conceived with the intention of describing Chopin; the character of the hero is not Chopin's character; the story of the hero is not Chopin's story. At the time when the book was written, George Sand had no expectation of a quarrel with her friend; she had certainly no desire to provoke one. He, for his part, read the work through 'without the least inclination to deceive himself,' without umbrage, without suspicion. The estrangement, to whatever cause it was due, did not take place until after the interval of some months; and among all conflicting explanations, that of a breach with Maurice Sand is the most complete and the most probable. Surely, in the face of this evidence, it is not too much to ask that the accusation of portraiture be withdrawn.

Another winter of illness and inaction filled the measure of Chopin's trouble with the further anxiety of straitened means. In February 1848, he was forced by sheer poverty to drag himself from his lodging, and endure once more the labour and fatigue of a concert. It is worth noting that he had at the time a score of manuscripts, the sale of which would have relieved him: but they fell below his standard of self-criticism, and he chose rather to sacrifice his inclination than to offer to the world any work which he regarded as unworthy of his powers. Possibly he looked upon his recent Violoncello Sonata as the beginning of the end: in any case, he held his hand for the future, and allowed no other of his compositions to be published. There is a real heroism in this determination to give only of his best. We might well have forgiven him if he had yielded to pressing need, and taken the readiest means of evading an ordeal which, even in his days of health, he had always feared and detested. But, from first to last, his artistic career was singularly free from any taint of money-worship. The generosity, which had so often aided poor dependents or exiled compatriots, found its complement in a pride that would buy neither ease nor comfort at the cost of reputation.

In the latter part of February came the outbreak of the revolution, and Chopin's further stay in Paris was rendered impossible. At no time could he have heard the presage of war with the enthusiasm of Wagner or the carelessness of Haydn: in his present state of infirmity and depression it would have been mere madness to remain. He therefore accepted a cordial invitation to England, crossed the channel with his pupil Tellefsen for companion, and, about the end of April, established himself in London, where he was soon surrounded with all the help which kindness and sympathy can bestow. His visit to this country, which was of little less than a year's duration, seems at first to have been beneficial to him. His rooms in Dover Street were crowded with visitors, his days 'passed,' as he says, 'like lightning;' he was even persuaded to leave his retirement and give two recitals at the house of his friend Mrs Sartoris. From August to October he travelled northward, giving concerts at Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and enjoying with evident pleasure the hospitality that met him at every stage. Yet even here we may notice a tone of weariness in his letters, a sense of effort, made rather to satisfy some external claim than to answer to any inward stimulus. Now and again he can shake it off, and write with something of his old buoyancy of spirits; then the burden returns, heavy with a weight of listless indifference, or with a galling load of pain. And at the approach of November there came an ominous change for the worse. The stress of the summer produced an inevitable reaction, the frail body sank back into weakness and suffering, the ebbing life throbbed every day with a fainter pulse. Through the winter months he lay tossing with impatience till he could regain strength enough to escape. London had become unbearable. 'Another day here,' he writes in January, 'and I shall go mad or die.' The whole mind is overstrung, jarred into discord at a touch, or relapsing, not into quietude, but into the silence of despair.

His friends carried him back to Paris, where he lingered in slow wasting disease until the autumn. A few days before his death, George Sand, whose daughter was among the watchers at his bedside, came to his lodging and asked to see him. We can well imagine the yearning anxiety with which she stood for a moment on the threshold of reconciliation, and the bitter disappointment when Gutmann closed the door and refused her admittance. He was afraid, he tells us, that Chopin was too weak to bear the agitation of such a meeting, that the memories of past friendship and past estrangement were too heavily fraught with peril to be recalled.[41] It may be that the decision was right, and yet Chopin spoke of her and wondered at her absence. The fire of life is sacred in its lowest embers, yet a breath of love might have fanned them into a purer flame. In all Chopin's story, there is nothing more pathetic than the narrow chasm which kept asunder two severed hearts at the very point of union.

On the morning of October 17, it was known that the end had come. The tidings, though they could hardly have been unexpected, were heard through the length and breadth of Paris with the greatest regret and consternation. Everyone who had known Chopin felt his death as a personal sorrow; one had been honoured by his friendship, another enriched by his bounty, another gladdened by some kind word or some pleasant greeting; there was no chance acquaintance but had felt his ray of reflection from the master's life. For the rest, the whole world was poorer for the loss of a genius, whose bare forty years of time had sufficed to create a new musical language, and uphold a new idea of art. All preparations were made to celebrate the funeral with befitting pomp. At the Madeleine Mozart's _Requiem_ was sung over the bier, the procession was joined by almost every man of note in Paris, and at Père la Chaise, the coffin, covered with flowers and sprinkled with Polish earth, was laid in a place of honour among the great French musicians. The country of his adoption had cherished the exile in his life; in his death, it was her privilege to show him honour.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] The so-called Étude in C minor, Op. 10, No. 12.

[21] Letter to Dziewanowski (abridged), Jan. 1833.

[22] Chopin had certainly composed some of these before his arrival in Paris.

[23] Professor Niecks' _Chopin_, Vol. i. p. 284.

[24] Valse in A flat, Op. 69, No. 1.

[25] See the pamphlet entitled _Une Contemporaine_, published during the Revolution of 1848.

[26] Karasowski, Vol. ii. p. 327.

[27] George Sand, by Matthew Arnold. _Fortnightly Review_, June 1877.

[28] Sainte-Beuve. _Portraits Contemporains_, i. 523.

[29] Letter to Pierret, June 22, 1842.

[30] 'Alles was sie fühlt und denkt haucht Tiefsinn und Anmuth.' Heine, _Lutetia_, 'George Sand.'

[31] See the letters of Feb. 15 and Ap. 7, 1852, quoted in Mrs Sutherland Orr's _Life of Robert Browning_.

[32] _Journal_, Vol. iii. p. 242 (Dec. 1, 1868).

[33] Professor Niecks' _Chopin_, Vol. ii. p. 197.

[34] See the Essay on George Sand, in Mr Henry James' _French Poets and Novelists_.

[35] There was a short visit to Genoa in the early part of May.

[36] M. Brault's character can best be gauged from his pamphlet, _Une Contemporaine_. See also the _Histoire de ma vie_, and George Sand's letter of Aug. 9.

[37] See George Sand's letter to Gutmann, May 12.

[38] 'George Sand was a woman with a woman's ideal of gentleness, of the "charm of good manners" as essential to civilisation.'--Matthew Arnold, _Fortnightly Review_, June 1877. See Professor Niecks' _Chopin_, Vol. ii. p. 200.

[39] See George Sand's letter to Gutmann, May 12, 1847.

[40] Liszt declares that the rupture took place at Nohant. If so, this alternative is settled.

[41] See Professor Niecks' _Chopin_, Vol. ii. p. 318.