Revolution at Warsaw and Solitude at Vienna
Titus Woyciechowski rejoined Chopin at Kalisz. Older than he by
several years, he was in appearance and character just the opposite
of Frederick; a tall strong youth with clear, determined features,
speaking rarely, but with just as passionate a melomania. His huge
hands, chiselled to grasp the sword of his ancestors, as soon as they
rested on the keys of the piano developed an airy delicacy. Slender,
deep-eyed Frederick, however, with his complexion like a child’s, led
on a leash this powerful, submissive dog. They passed by Breslau, and
then went to Dresden, where a whole week evaporated in calls, parties,
and theatres.
Armed with letters of introduction, Chopin betook himself to pay his
respects to Mme. Dobrzyçka, a Pole and Grand Mistress of the Court of
Princess Augusta. This lady occupied an apartment of the royal castle.
She received him graciously, and invited him to spend an evening with
her in a little group of her friends. Chopin accepted, suspecting
strongly that he would have to pay with his art, but he made it a rule
never to refuse anything to his compatriots. On the appointed day
he made his entrance in the salons of the Grand Mistress, where he
found only three or four people; some ladies and a man of some thirty
years, clean shaven, whom he took to be a scholar or an abbé of the
Court. Mme. Dobrzyçka presented him to her guests: “One of our young
compatriots, M. Frederick Chopin, an artist of great talent, who won’t
refuse to let us hear one of his mazurkas, an echo of our far-off
country.” Chopin sat down at the piano. He felt inspired, his head
filled with poetry, his heart with memories; Constance, his sisters,
the ancient city of Warsaw, floated before his eyes. In a dozen ways,
he expressed them with that careless grace, that naked emotion which
owed nothing to any model. He was heard in the deepest silence. Then
the Grand Mistress rose and came to him, with tears in her eyes. “Thank
you. You have given a delightful hour to Their Royal Highnesses.”
With a deep bow she designated the two ladies and the clean-shaven
gentleman. They were the Infanta Augusta, her sister-in-law, and Prince
Jean, the future King of Saxony, whom he had taken for a doctor of
theology. Next day these personages sent him sealed letters addressed
to Their Majesties the King and Queen of the Two Sicilies and to His
Serene Highness the Prince of Lucca, recommending “Frederick Chopin, an
incomparable artist for whom the most brilliant future is in store.”
Under these happy auspices Frederick and Titus arrived in Vienna
towards the end of November. They set out to find an apartment and, for
50 florins a month, rented three rooms in Kohlmarkt.
But this fickle city had already forgotten the artist it had once
acclaimed. Haslinger, the publisher, refused to buy his works, and
Chopin would not consent to part with them for nothing. “Maybe he
thinks,” he said, “that if he affects to treat them as bagatelles I
shall take him seriously and give them to him for love. He is wrong. My
motto shall be: Pay, brute.” But these small cares faded suddenly away
when the events which were taking place in Poland began to filter into
the newspapers. On the 29th of November, indeed, the revolution broke
out in Warsaw. This ancient people, reduced to slavery, was attempting
once again to regain its liberty. They got their news in crumbs: on
November 29th, eighteen conspirators had set out for the Palais de
Belvédère, where the Grand Duke Constantin resided, in order to seize
him. But they were too late. “The bird had flown,” and, leading his
Russian troops, had already withdrawn from the walls of Warsaw. Freed
for the time, the entire town had arisen against its oppressors.
The next day a new Government was formed, the war of independence
proclaimed, and everywhere thousands of volunteers were enlisting.
From the very first Titus and Frederick were wild with enthusiasm.
Titus fitted himself out from head to foot, and without further delay
left to join his brothers in arms. Left alone, Chopin lamented his own
inaction, but what could he do with those delicate hands of his, with
his useless talent? On a gamble, without definite plan, he hired a
post-chaise and struck out on the trail of Titus. But he was unable to
overtake him and, in the sombre winter dusk, his warlike ardour seemed
suddenly so futile that he ordered his driver to turn about and go
back to Vienna. There he found a letter from his father, who, guessing
the feelings of his son, besought Frederick not to allow himself to be
turned from his career. Let the many sacrifices that had been made at
least be allowed to bear fruit! So Chopin stayed. But the ordeal was
hard to bear in this Austria of Metternich, entirely hostile to Poland.
The artists he knew avoided him, and more than once as he passed he
overheard the murmur that God’s only error was to have created the
Poles. His mail reached him now only after long delays and he lived in
anguish. He learned of the march of the Russian General Paskewitch on
Warsaw. Already he saw the town in flames, his family and Constance
massacred. He spent his time in writing, he who had such a horror of
letter paper. “I seem to be dreaming, to be still with you. These
voices which I hear, and which are unfamiliar to me, are like carnival
clackers. It is nothing to me to-day whether I live or die.... Why am I
left behind? Why am I not taking my share of the danger with you?” The
Christmas festivities only aggravated this drama of unrest. Dante was
right when he said that a happy memory is the worst misery of unhappy
days. That Christmas eve he went to the Church of St. Etienne, and
there, standing in the darkest corner under the dome, he leaned against
a Gothic pillar and dreamed of the family Christmas tree, lighted with
candles, of the modest presents he and his sisters gave each other, of
the traditional supper where the whole family gathered about the table
and broke the holy bread that the lay brothers of the convents had
distributed during Advent.
He passed the holidays largely alone in his room, which he thus
describes: “It is large and has three windows; the bed faces them, my
marvellous piano is at the right, the sofa at the left, between the
windows a mirror and in the centre of the room a big mahogany table.
The floor is waxed. It is quiet. In the morning an unbearably stupid
servant wakens me. I get up and have my coffee, which I often take
cold, as playing makes me forget breakfast. About nine o’clock my
German teacher arrives. After that I play. Then Hummel (the son of
the composer) comes to work on my portrait while Nidecki studies my
concerto. I stay in my dressing-gown until noon. Then a funny little
German, Herr Leidenfrost, arrives, with whom I go for a walk on the
pavement. Then I go to lunch wherever I may be invited or else at the
_Café Zur Böhmischen Köchin_, which is frequented by all the University
students.... Afterwards I make calls, come in at dusk, dress, arrange
my hair, dress, and go to some party or other. About eleven or twelve
o’clock, never later, I come home, play, cry, laugh, read, go to bed,
and dream of you.”
In this same letter to his friend Matuszinski, he adds on Christmas Day
(1830):
“I wanted so desperately to have a letter from you. You know why. What
joy news of my angel of peace gives me! How I should like to sound all
the chords, not only those that evoke stormy feelings but those that
sound the _lieder_ whose half-stilled echoes yet hover on the shores of
the Danube.... But I cannot live as I please.... You advise me to make
a poet’s choice. Don’t you realize that I am the most irresolute being
on earth, and that I have made only one single fortunate choice in my
whole life? All these dinners, parties, concerts, balls, bore me. I
am overwhelmed with them. I cannot do what I wish; I must be dressed,
powdered, shod, have my hair dressed, and play the quiet man in the
drawing-room, only to return home and thunder on the piano. I have no
confidant, I have to ‘do the polite’ with everybody. Forgive these
complaints, my dear Jean, they calm me and give me relief. One point in
your letter made me very gloomy. Has there been any change? Has anyone
been ill? I could easily believe it of such a tender being.... Reassure
her and tell her that as long as my strength permits, till death,
yes, until after death, my ashes shall be scattered under her feet.
More... all this is not enough, and you may tell her much more.... I
should have done it myself, but for the dread of people’s gossip. Be my
interpreter to her. The day before yesterday I dined at a Mme. Bayer’s,
a Pole whose name is Constance. I love her society because of this
reminder. Her music, her handkerchiefs, her napkins are marked with
_her_ initial.”
“January 1, 1831.—I received your letter. I do not know what is taking
place in me. I love you all more than my life. Write to me. So you are
with the army? Our poor families! What are all our friends doing? I
live with you. I should like to die for you, for all of you. If you
leave, how can you deliver my message? Look after my family. One might
believe evil.... How sadly the year begins for me. Perhaps I shall not
see its end. Embrace me. Are you leaving for the war? Return a colonel.
Ah! why cannot I be even your drummer boy! If you think it unnecessary,
do not give her my note. I don’t remember what I wrote. You may read
it. It is perhaps the first and the last.”
Then he notes in his little pocket-diary: “This bed, where I sleep ...
perhaps it has already held a corpse. Who was it? Was he more wicked
than I? Had he parents, sisters, a mistress? Now all is peace for him.
I am sure that to die is the noblest human act. Or, on the other hand,
is birth the noblest?...” Later a few scattered lines about Constance:
“Did she love me or is she playing a part? How hard it is to guess.
Yes, or no? Yes, no, yes, no?... Yes, surely. But God’s will be done.”
Thus Chopin stands wholly self-revealed, nervous, lonely, horribly
sensitive. All the pains of the world are latent in him, and a few
simple joys. But the _man_ developed with extreme slowness. The poet
clung to his youth, which had furnished the difficulties he needed. He
had given himself over, as women do, unconsciously to suffering, and
it was by that alone that he was to become adult.
Yet the two years since his first love for Constance Gladkowska
had already produced admirable work. It was not without a certain
pride that Chopin bound into his work such pages as the _Waltz in D
flat major_ (op. 70, no. 3), in which he had earlier called Titus’s
attention to a confidential passage, the sketches of his _Etudes_,
the first of his _Nocturnes_ and the two _Concertos_ (in E minor, op.
11, and in F minor, op. 21). If in construction, in skeleton, they
still owe much to Hummel, in their flesh and blood they are entirely
Chopin. The orchestral parts are weak because he was not able to _think
orchestrally_, but the piano parts have an originality and poetry that
bear the stamp of eternity. Liszt later said of the _adagio_ of the
_Second Concerto_, for which Chopin had a marked predilection, that
the whole piece had “an ideal perfection,” that “his sentiment by
turn radiant and full of pity, evoked a magnificent country bathed in
light, some dowered valley of Tempe that one might have selected as the
site of a tragic tale, a heartbreaking scene. It might be called an
irreparable sorrow enfolding the human heart against a background of
the incomparable splendour of nature.”
There is truth in these somewhat florid words. But it is difficult
to reduce to the average vocabulary what slips so swiftly out of
ordinary experience and opens to our most complex senses an entirely
new universe. An analysis of music is the most futile of intellectual
exercises, because it can build on nothing but emotion. Look at
concert audiences. They are made up for the most part of lovers and old
people. For they understand, remember, and seek again this powerful
inexpressible thing in which they find the best that is in themselves.
Even Chopin still did not know what he was giving. He was hampered by
classic forms. But he carried in him the joy of a growing knowledge,
developed and assimilated in his first sorrows.
The winter dragged on as best it could, and Chopin, with somewhat
more pleasure than he admitted, went from party to party. He let his
whiskers grow, or rather one whisker, the other was not necessary,
“because I only show my right profile to the audience.” He spent many
an evening at the house of Dr. Malfatti, Court Physician and former
doctor to Beethoven, a happy sybarite and philanthropist who lived in
a smart villa surrounded by a garden. And then spring returned and
the doctor’s peach and cherry trees were covered with pink and white
snow. There, on St. John’s Day, they had a fête by moonlight. Out on
the terrace, in the bridal air that rose from the orangery, wafted by
the fountain sprays, Chopin played, while the Viennese listened to the
sad-eyed foreigner who in sombre colours paraphrased a joyous waltz of
Strauss.
He went to concerts, met plenty of musicians but, Slavik the violinist
excepted (another Paganini, who played ninety-six staccato notes with
a single sweep of his bow), none of them impressed him greatly. Vienna
offered him nothing to love. Waltzes, nothing but waltzes, were played
on all sides, and although they were laughed at, still the editors
would publish nothing else. He was ill and admitted it to his friends,
but forbade them to inform his family. He planned another departure,
and had his passport arranged without knowing very definitely whether
he should name France, Germany, or England. Italy attracted him also,
but there were revolutions in Bologna, Milan, Ancona, Rome. In his
indecision, he might have settled the matter by a throw of dice had
that not been to tempt fate somewhat. He ended by deciding on London
and, at all events, had added to the passport: “by way of Paris.” For
the moment he was pacified and furnished with a few landmarks on which
to fasten his imagination. He packed, made his good-bye calls, and
reserved a seat in the diligence for July 20 (1831).
A few days before his departure, a letter reached him from his
compatriot, Witwicki, the writer, a family friend. It touched his most
sensitive spot. “... Keep always in view the idea of nationality,
nationality and yet again nationality. It is a word that means little
for an ordinary artist, but not for a talent like yours. There is
native melody just as there is a native climate. The mountains, the
forests, the waters, and the meadows have their native voice, an inner
voice, though not every soul is aware of it.... Every time I think of
it, dear M. Frederick, I nurse the sweet hope that you shall be the
first to be able to imbibe the vast treasures of Slav melody. Seek out
the popular Slav melodies as the mineralogist seeks out the stones and
minerals of the mountains and the valleys. I hear that in Vienna you
fret and languish. I can put myself in your place; no Pole could be
happy when the life or death of his own country is in question. But
remember always, dear friend, that you left us not to languish but to
perfect yourself in your art and to become the consolation and glory of
your family and your country.”
He left on July 20th and, by way of Salzburg, reached Munich, where he
stayed for several weeks. Then he set out again, and reached Stuttgart.
There, on the 8th of September, he learned of the capture of Warsaw by
the Russians. Under the shock of this frightful news he turned to his
piano and his grief burst into harrowing improvisation. This was the
first germ of the _Etude in C minor_ (op. 10, no. 12) that is called
_The Revolutionary_. “What a change! What a disaster!... Who could have
foreseen it?” he wrote, several weeks later.
These words may sound somewhat feeble. But Chopin did not love great,
strong words. In him emotion always took on a moderate accent.
Nevertheless, in his pocket-notebook he gave free rein to his feelings:
“The suburbs burned! Matuszinski and Titus surely killed! Paskewitch
and that dog Mohilew flee from the beloved town. Moscow commands the
world! Oh, God, where are you? Are you there and do not venge yourself?
Are you not surfeited with Russian massacres? Or else,—or else,—are
you not yourself, indeed, only a Muscovite?”
The young exile little suspected that he was to be, according to
Paderewski’s beautiful metaphor, the ingenious smuggler who would
enable the prohibited Polonism to escape across the frontiers in his
portfolios of music, the priest who would carry to the scattered Poles
the sacrament of nationalism.