Mdme. Sand, in her _Lettres d'un Voyageur_, depicts the painful
lethargy which seizes the artist when, having incorporated the emotion
which inspired him in his work, his imagination still remains under
the dominance of the insatiate idea, without being able to find a new
incarnation. She was suffering in this way when the character of
Chopin excited her curiosity and suggested a healthful and happy
relief. Chopin dreaded to meet this modern Sibyl. The superstitious
awe he felt was a premonition whose meaning was hidden from him. They
met, and Chopin lost his fear in one of those passions which feed on
the whole being with a ceaseless hunger.
In the fall of 1837 Chopin yielded to a severe attack of the disease
which was hereditary in his frame. In company with Mdme. Sand, who had
become his constant companion, he went to the isle of Majorca, to find
rest and medicine in the balmy breezes of the Mediterranean. All the
happiness of Chopin's life was gathered in the focus of this
experience. He had a most loving and devoted nurse, who yielded to all
his whims, soothed his fretfulness, and watched over him as a mother
does over a child. The grounds of the villa where they lived were as
perfect as Nature and art could make them, and exquisite scenes
greeted the eye at every turn. Here they spent long golden days.
The feelings of Chopin for his gifted companion are best painted by
herself in the pages of _Lucrezia Floriani_, where she is the
"Floriani," Liszt "Count Salvator Albani," and Chopin "Prince
Karol"--"It seemed as if this fragile being was absorbed and consumed
by the strength of his affection.... But he loved for the sake of
loving.... His love was his life, and, delicious or bitter, he had not
the power of withdrawing himself a single moment from its domination."
Slowly she nursed him back into temporary health, and in the sunlight
of her love his mind assumed a gaiety and cheerfulness it had never
known before.
It had been the passionate hope of Chopin to marry Mdme. Sand, but
wedlock was alien alike to her philosophy and preference. After a
protracted intimacy, she wearied of his persistent entreaties, or
perhaps her self-development had exhausted what it sought in the
poet-musician. An absolute separation came, and his mistress buried
the episode in her life with the epitaph--"Two natures, one rich in
its exuberance, the other in its exclusiveness, could never really
mingle, and a whole world separated them." Chopin said--"All the cords
that bind me to life are broken." His sad summary of all was that his
life had been an episode which began and ended in Paris. What a
contrast to the being of a few years before, of whom it is
written--"He was no longer on the earth; he was in an empyrean of
golden clouds and perfumes; his imagination, so full of exquisite
beauty, seemed engaged in a monologue with God himself!"[C]
Both Liszt and Mdme. Dudevant have painted Chopin somewhat as a sickly
sentimentalist, living in an atmosphere of moonshine and unreality.
Yet this was not precisely true. In spite of his delicacy of frame and
romantic imagination, Chopin was never ill till within the last ten
years of his life, when the seeds of hereditary consumption developed
themselves. As a young man he was lively and joyous, always ready for
frolic, and with a great fund of humour, especially in caricature.
Students of human character know how consistent these traits are with
a deep undercurrent of melancholy, which colours the whole life when
the immediate impulse of joy subsides.
From the date of 1840 Chopin's health declined; but through the seven
years during which his connection with Mdme. Sand continued, he
persevered actively in his work of composition. The final rupture with
the woman he so madly loved seems to have been his death-blow. He
spoke of Mdme. Sand without bitterness, but his soul pined in the
bitter-sweet of memory. He recovered partially, and spent a short
season of concert-giving in London, where he was fêted and caressed by
the best society as he had been in Paris. Again he was sharply
assailed by his fatal malady, and he returned to Paris to die. Let us
describe one of his last earthly experiences, on Sunday, the 15th of
October 1849.
Chopin had lain insensible from one of his swooning attacks for some
time. His sister Louise was by his side, and the Countess Delphine
Potocka, his beautiful countrywoman and a most devoted friend, watched
him with streaming eyes. The dying musician became conscious, and
faintly ordered a piano to be rolled in from the adjoining room. He
turned to the countess, and whispered, feebly, "Sing." She had a
lovely voice, and, gathering herself for the effort, she sang that
famous canticle to the Virgin which, tradition says, saved Stradella's
life from assassins. "How beautiful it is!" he exclaimed. "My God! how
very beautiful!" Again she sang to him, and the dying musician passed
into a trance, from which he never fully aroused till he expired, two
days afterwards, in the arms of his pupil, M. Gutman.
Chopin's obsequies took place at the Madeleine Church, and Lablache
sang on this occasion the same passage, the "Tuba Mirum" of Mozart's
Requiem Mass, which he had sung at the funeral of Beethoven in 1827;
while the other solos were given by Mdme. Viardot Garcia and Mdme.
Castellan. He lies in Père Lachaise, beside Cherubini and Bellini.