The Birth of the Poet
When he was asked, after one of his improvisations at the piano,
improvisations that were a mixture of brilliance that was always
slightly sombre, and of tenderness that was at once poignant and
dramatic, by what name this atavistic desolation that seemed too old
for his young existence should be called, he replied with the Polish
word _zal_. It was a word that he repeated, that he loved, a word
susceptible of varied meanings and which included sometimes every
tenderness and all humility, and sometimes only rancour, revolt, and
glacial vengeance. It is a word also that holds at one and the same
time connotations of inconsolable sorrow, and menace, or fruitless
bitterness, a word, in short, that could be applied to all those cruel
and poet Hamlets whom we call Slavs. From his sixteenth year _zal_ was
the bright enemy of his fortune, an enemy armed each day anew when one
has a romantic heart and when the destruction of oneself seems the most
brilliant solution of life. In knowing himself and then in cultivating
himself without opposition, Chopin accomplished the rare miracle of
becoming absolutely himself before life had taught him anything.
Himself against life, in spite of life. The sum of knowledge that was
necessary to him he possessed at sixteen. It was reduced to the seven
notes of the scale, which were sufficient for the expression of all
his thoughts. He was tortured by the need of no other nourishment than
the search for his own style. That was his method of attaining the
truth. Apart from his piano, the universe, indeed, was but literature.
Furthermore, his father allowed him to leave school at seventeen to
give himself up entirely to his music. He was given a little attic
study with an old piano and a table. There he wrote his first works.
And it was at this time that, testing his powers, he acquired the
astonishingly original touch and style that were soon to amaze the
artistic world. The following year, he composed his _Variations_ on
the _La ci darem la mano_ of Mozart, of which Schumann said as he
thumbed it over: “Eusebius came in softly the other day. You know
that ironic smile with which he tries to intrigue you. I was at the
piano... Eusebius put a piece of music before us, with these words,
‘Hats off, gentlemen—a genius!’ We were not to see the title. I turned
over the pages mechanically. The veiled joy of music without sound is
like something magical. And then, it has always seemed to me that each
composer offers to the eyes a physiognomy of notes that is the essence
of the man. Beethoven has a different look from Mozart, on paper. But
here I fancied that quite strange eyes, the eyes of a flower, the
eyes of a basilisk, the eyes of a peacock, the eyes of a virgin were
marvellously regarding me. But what was the astonishment of the hearers
on reading the title: opus 2... Chopin? I had never heard the name.”
Listen to the almost prophetic tone of that surprise: “Eyes of a
flower, eyes of a basilisk, eyes of a peacock, eyes of a virgin.” This
splendid musical portrait paints in completely the Polish swan testing
for the first time the flutter of his wings.
He took flight very shortly after, at the beginning of September, 1828,
on his first journey. A friend of his father’s, Professor Jaroçki, took
him to Berlin, where the professor had to attend a scientific meeting.
Frederick was in an ecstasy of enthusiasm. After five days of jolting
in the diligence the travellers reached the Prussian capital and put
up at the Hôtel du Kronprinz. Chopin’s first visit was to the factory
of the Kisting pianos, his second to the Academy of Singing, his third
to the Opera, where they were giving _Ferdinand Cortez_ by Spontini,
and _The Secret Marriage_ by Cimarosa. “I followed these operas with
great pleasure,” he wrote home, “but I must admit that the music of
Handel approaches most nearly the musical ideal that I have adopted....
To-morrow they give _Freyschutz_; that is exactly the music that I
want.” He saw Spontini at a distance, and the young Mendelssohn. He
dined at the Congress of Naturalists. “Yesterday there was a banquet
in honour of the scholars. What caricatures! I divided them into three
groups.” At the table he sat next a professor from Hamburg, who,
talking to Jaroçki, so far forgot himself as to take Chopin’s plate
for his own and begin drumming on it. “A true scientist, eh? Nothing
was lacking, not even the big deformed nose. I was on pins and needles
during the drumming, and when it was finished had nothing better to
do than to rub off the finger-marks with a napkin.” This incident was
the object of a long report in which can be seen his stubborn disgust.
Then there were the toilettes of the ladies. Details? None. That struck
closer home than the compulsory visits to the Geological Museum.
Finally, after a fortnight, they re-entered their travelling carriage
to take once more the road for Warsaw. Arriving at Zullichau, between
Frankfurt-am-Oder and Posen, they found a shortage of horses and were
obliged to stop and wait for fresh ones. What should they do? By chance
the postal relay station was also the tavern. Professor Jaroçki seized
the opportunity to dine. Chopin spied a piano. He opened it, sat
down and began to let his fingers wander. An old traveller came and
sat quietly near him, then another, then silently all the household,
the postmaster, his wife, his daughters, and the neighbours. What
a surprise was this nightingale blown by the wind from fairyland!
Suddenly the head of the postillion was framed in the window, and he
thundered out:
“All aboard! The horses are harnessed.”
“Devil take the spoil-sport,” replied the postmaster furiously.
They begged the young man, who had already arisen, to sit down again.
“Go on, _please_ go on,” said the ladies.
“I’ll give you extra horses if necessary,” added the postmaster.
And the old traveller said in his turn:
“Sir, I am an old-fashioned musician and I know what I am talking
about. I, also, play the piano. If Mozart had heard you, sir, he would
have taken your hand. I, a nobody, dare not....”
When Chopin stopped, this curious audience seized him and carried him
out in triumph.
A Schumann overwhelmed, that enthusiastic postmaster, that timid
musicaster trembling with emotion, these were the signs that a new poet
was born among men.