Marie Wodzinska and the Dusk
In the summer of 1835, Chopin learned that his parents were going very
shortly to Carlsbad to take the cure and he decided on the spot to
get there first. The sentiments that bound him to his own people were
still the most vital that he knew. So he left, his heart melting with
tenderness. When he saw them, after five years of separation, he wrote
to his sisters, who had remained at Warsaw, with transports that might
have been mistaken for those of a rapturous lover.
“Our joy is indescribable. We do nothing but embrace one another... is
there any greater happiness? What a pity we are not all together! How
good God is to us! I write just anyhow; to-day it is better to think
of nothing at all, to rejoice in the happiness we have attained. That
is all I have to-day. Our parents have not changed; they are just the
same; they have only grown a little older. We walk together, holding
the arm of our sweet little mother... We drink, we eat together. We
coax and bully each other. I am simply overflowing with happiness.
These are the very habits, the very movements with which I grew up; it
is the same hand that I have not kissed for so long... And here it has
come true, this happiness, this happiness, this happiness!”
For their part, the father and mother found their son not in the least
changed. It was joy inexhaustible, but brief, and like a preface
to profounder emotions. For Frederick was invited to Dresden, to
his friends the Wodzinskis, and he already felt those annunciatory
quiverings, that exquisite fear, those physiological presentiments
which notify our inner being of the imminent conception of love.
In his father’s boarding-school Chopin had had as comrades the three
Wodzinski brothers, and since his childhood he had known their younger
sister Marie. This great land-owning family had moved to Geneva for
the education of the children, and had lived there during the years
of the Polish Revolution. They had lived at first in a house in the
Place St.-Antoine, and later in a villa on the shore of the lake,
and they had not been long in gathering round them the flower of
Genevese society and of the foreign colony. Familiar guests in their
drawing-rooms were Bonstetten, Sismondi, Mlle. Salandin de Crans,
Prince Louis Napoleon and Queen Hortense.
Marie was nineteen years old. The trace of Italian blood which flowed
in her veins (through the Orsettis, who had come from Milan to Poland
with Bona Sforza, the betrothed of one of the last kings of the dynasty
of Jagellons), this trace had made her dark-haired, lively, with great
black eyes and a full-lipped mouth the smile of which, a poet said, was
passion incarnate. Some called her ugly, others ravishing. This means
that in her face, half Slav, half Florentine, everything derived from
the expression. “The brunette daughter of Euterpe,” she was called by
Prince Napoleon, who liked to listen to her playing the piano while
he smoked his cigar in the Place St.-Antoine. For Marie practised
all sorts of minor talents; piano, singing, composing, embroidery,
painting, without the will or the ability to fix her preference. The
most pertinent thing about her, was her charm, the profound reaction,
possibly unconscious, of a very rich temperament. From her fourteenth
year she had been passionately loved. Readily she used her power over
men, disconcerting them with coquetry. Her imagination was rapid, her
memory exact.
Such was the childhood companion whom Chopin was to meet again at
Dresden, where the Wodzinski family were settled for a time. Frederick
was more curious than moved at seeing her again. He even wondered if
it were not simply a matter of musical interest, Marie having formerly
been one of his small pupils. She still occasionally sent him one of
her compositions. Had he not only a few weeks before replied to one of
these communications by sending her in turn a page of his own music?
“Having had to improvise in a drawing-room here the very evening that
I received it, I took for a subject the lovely theme of a Marie with
whom, years ago, I used to play hide-and-seek... To-day I take the
liberty of offering to my honourable colleague, Mlle. Marie, a little
waltz I have just written. May it give her a hundredth part of the
pleasure I felt when playing her _Variations_.”
So he arrived at Dresden. He saw her once again. He was won. He loved
her. This town, which he had already visited twice, seemed altogether
new and enchanting. In the mornings Marie and Frederick went out
together, filled with delicious melancholy. They walked along the
terrace of Bruhl and watched the flow of the Elbe, sat under the
chestnuts of the Grossgarten, or lingered in ecstasy in the Zwinger
Museum before Raphaël’s Madonna.
Together they paid a call on that Grand Mistress of the Court who had a
few years before taken such pride in producing Chopin for Their Saxon
Highnesses. In the evening the family visited one of Marie’s uncles,
Palatin Wodzinski, who had presided at the last meeting of the Polish
Senate before the fall of Warsaw. Exiled, the greater part of his
wealth confiscated, the old man was now living at Dresden, the second
capital of his ancient kings, surrounded by his prints, his books and
his medals. He was an aristocratic little man, with a smooth face and
a white wig. In his day he had soldiered, had received Napoleon at
Wilna, and had been taken prisoner at Leipzig, at the side of the dying
Poniatowski. He had the serious defect of a dislike for music, and now
that they were playing every evening at his house he spent his time
observing, rather peevishly, that his little niece was turning her
shining eyes on this maker of mazurkas. Still more did he disapprove
of certain sighs and whisperings that came from a corner of the room
where this inseparable couple isolated themselves under the very nose
of everybody. So he coughed loudly, adjusted his toupée, and addressed
his sister-in-law:—
“An artist, a little artist without a future... Ah! that is not what I
have dreamt of for your daughter.”
“Two children,” replied the Countess, laughing. “An old friendship.”
“We all know where that leads to...”
“But he is a child of the house, just as Antoine, Félix and Casimir
were Professor Chopin’s children. Why sadden the poor boy? He is so
tender, so obliging.”
And Frederick continued his love duets at the piano or on the terrace,
in spite of the Palatin’s rebuking eyebrows and under the mother’s
indulgent eyes. A whole month slipped by in these passionate new
experiences. Then he had to think of leaving. One September morning he
went up for the last time to the salon where the girl was awaiting him.
A handful of roses strewed the table. She took one and gave it to him.
The hour of eleven struck from the clock on the Frauenkirche. Chopin
stood rigidly before her, pale, his eyes fixed. Perhaps he was thinking
of that death of the self—that parting always is, whatever it promises
for the future. Or was he listening to the melodic rhythm of his pain?
In any case the only expression of sorrow that welled to the surface
was the theme of a waltz. He sat down at the piano and played it,
hiding thus all the cries of his loneliness.
Later, Marie called it _La Valse de l’Adieu_. It is worth noting that
Chopin, restrained by an insurmountable pride, never published it.
He did write it out, however, recopied it, and gave it to his friend
on that last day with this very simple dedication: “For Mlle. Marie,
Dresden, September, 1835.” Fontana published it after the death of the
composer (Posthumous Works, op. 69, no. 1, _Waltz in A flat major_).
One wants to catch in it “the murmur of two lovers’ voices, the
repeated strokes of the clock, and the rumble of wheels scorching the
pavement, the noise of which covers that of repressed sobs.” It is
possible, after all, in spite of Schumann and his mute language. Be
that as it may, Chopin kept the flower Marie gave him. We shall find it
later, placed in an envelope and marked by him for whom sorrow and the
ideal had always the scent of an autumn rose.
* * * * *
On his way back, Chopin stopped at Leipzig, where he again saw
Mendelssohn, who took him straight to Wieck, his daughter, Clara, and
Robert Schumann. The small house of the Wiecks’ that day sheltered the
three greatest composers of the age.
After his arrival in Paris, Chopin shut himself up at home in order
to live in close relationship with the loved face that now bloomed in
his desert. He wrote. He received letters. These were, on both sides,
a little flat, because neither of them knew how to talk well except
through music. But what of it? A lover’s pen is not necessarily
literary nor abounding in sentiments. There are even those who, in
their exigency, scorn the worn vocabulary of love. To the novices and
the pure, the palest nuances are enough to show the naked heart. Listen
with Chopin’s delicate ear to the gossamer letters of Marie Wodzinska:
“Though you do not like either to receive or to write letters,
I nevertheless want to profit by the departure of M. Cichowski
to send you news of Dresden since you left. So I am annoying you
again, but no longer by my playing. On Saturday, when you had gone,
all of us went about sadly, with our eyes full of tears, in the
room where only a few minutes before we had still had you with us.
Father came in presently, and was so sorry not to have been able
to say good-bye. Every minute or so Mother, in tears, would speak
of some traits of ‘her fourth son Frederick,’ as she called you.
Félix looked quite cast down: Casimir tried to make his jokes as
usual, they did not come off that day as he played the jester,
half-crying. Father teased us and laughed himself only to keep from
crying. At eleven the singing master arrived; the lesson went very
badly, we could not sing. You were the subject of all conversation.
Félix kept asking me for the _Waltz_ (the last thing of yours we
had received and heard). All of us found pleasure in it, they in
listening and I in playing, because it reminded us of the brother
who had just left us. I took it to be bound; the German opened his
eyes wide when he saw a single page (he did not know by whom it
had been written). No one to dinner; we kept staring at your place
at the table, then too at ‘Fritz’s little corner.’ The small chair
is still in place and probably will be as long as we keep this
apartment. In the evening we were taken to my aunt’s to spare us
the sadness of this first evening without you. Father came to fetch
us saying that it was as impossible for him as it had been for us,
to stay in the house that day. It was a great relief to leave the
spot that kept renewing our sorrow. Mother talks to me of nothing
but you and Antoine. When my brother goes to Paris, think a little
of him, I beg you. If you only knew what a devoted friend you have
in him,—a friend such as one rarely finds! Antoine is good-hearted,
too much so, because he is always the dupe of others. And he is
very careless; he never thinks of anything, or rarely, at least...
When by some miracle you have an impulse to write: ‘How are you?
I am well. I have no time to write further,’ add, I beg, _yes_ or
_no_ to the question I want to ask you: Did you compose ‘_If I were
a little sun up there, for none but you would I want to shine_’? I
received this a day or so ago and I have not the courage to sing
it, because I fear, if it is yours, that it would be altogether
changed, like _Wojak_, for instance. We continually regret that
you are not named _Chopinski_, or at least that there is not some
indication to show that you are Polish, because then the French
would not be able to dispute with us the honour of being your
compatriots. But this is too long. Your time is so precious that it
is really a crime to make you spend it reading my scrawls. Besides,
I know you do not read them all through. Little Marie’s letter will
be stuck away in a corner after you have read a few lines. So I
need not reproach myself further about stealing your time.
“Good-bye (simply). A childhood friend needs no fine phrases.
Mother embraces you tenderly. Father and my mother embrace you
sincerely (no, that is too little) in the most—I do not yet know
how to say it myself. Joséphine, not having been able to say
good-bye, asks me to express her regrets. I asked Thérèse: ‘What
shall I say to Frederick for you?’ She answered: ‘kiss him and give
him my regards.’
“Good-bye,
“Maria.
“P.S. When you started out, you left the pencil of your portfolio
on the piano. This must have been inconvenient on the way; as for
us, we are keeping it respectfully as a relic. Once again, thank
you very much for the little vase. Mlle. Wodzinska came in this
morning with a great discovery. ‘Sister Maria, I know how they say
Chopin in Polish,—Chopena!’”
Frederick replied, sent his music, and above all, composed. The year
1836 opened under the sign of Marie. He published the _Concerto in F
minor_ and the _Grande Polonaise_ for piano and orchestra. He wrote the
_Ballade in G minor_, which is the monument to his love.
It is not deliberately that an artist discovers and then fashions the
residue of his amorous experiences. He receives his joys and sufferings
within himself and leaves them to ferment. It is only after the rude
labour of his conflicts with himself, after the corrosion of each of
his illusions, under the salt of his tears, that the costly fruit of
which he bears the germ can be born. From this obscure chemistry, from
the disillusionment which Marie’s letters, little by little, brought to
him, came the _Ballade in G minor_ (op. 23). Schumann called it one of
the most bitter and personal of Chopin’s works. He might have added,
the saddest, and thus the most passionate, for there is no passion
without pain. Here we see passion itself crucified, and hear its cries.
How powerful is the instinct of the poet to submit his pain to the form
of narrative, like a heroic tale! For in theory the ballad is a song
with accompaniment. Under this form of legend Chopin transposed the
ancient malady of man, which had become for a second time his own. It
is in this way, by what it tells us of him, involuntarily, that the
_Ballade in G minor_, irresistible in its unique and unhappy sentiment,
retains an accent that flatters us. It convinces us that we also are
marked by the sign of love.
Schumann, who saw him again that summer, at Leipzig, tells of the
magical hours they spent together at the piano. To listen to the
dreamer was to become oneself the dream of his spirit. But nothing
could be more exasperating than Chopin’s habit of drawing his finger
rapidly from one end of the keyboard to the other at the end of each
piece, as though forcibly to drive away the dream he had created.
A curious detail: in the original edition of the _Ballade_, there
appears in the last bar of the introduction a _D_, evidently written
with an _E_ flat and corrected later. Saint-Saëns writes on this
subject: “This supposed _E_ gives a dolorous accent which is quite
in keeping with the character of the piece. Was it a misprint? Was
it the original intention of the author? This note marks a dissonant
accent, an effect of surprise. But dissonances, sought out to-day like
truffles, were then distrusted. From Liszt, whom I questioned on the
subject, I could obtain only this reply: ‘I prefer the _E flat_....’ I
concluded from this evasive answer that Chopin, in playing the ballad,
sounded the _D_; but I am still convinced that the _E flat_ was his
original idea and that cowardly and clumsy friends persuaded him to the
D.”
I reproduce this detail for the lovers of sources, for those who like
to surprise in the heart not the sweetest tones, but the most pure.
They will understand the distinction.
* * * * *
Thus Chopin worked, economized, and prepared for his next meeting with
Marie. He refused an invitation from Mendelssohn, who wanted him to
come to Düsseldorf for a music festival. He refused Schumann, although
he had signed his invitation “with love and adoration.” He reserved
all his forces for a trip to Marienbad, which he finally took in July,
1836.
On a radiant summer morning Chopin reached the wooded hills round the
little Austrian watering place where his loved one was awaiting him.
The effect was so powerful that he closed his eyes as from a shock of
pain. In that instant, even before seeing her, a presentiment came to
him that he had reached the summit of his joy. He knew the unreasonable
agony advanced by false joys, finished, experienced, emptied,
almost before they have begun to exist. However, Marie’s agitated
face steadied him and gave him back his confidence. But a shade of
uneasiness, a slight tendency on the part of Marie and her mother to be
more ceremonious than they had been the year before, left him anxious.
Nevertheless, they resumed the intimate family life which he loved.
Forebodings fled. There were walks in that agreeable country-side,
musical séances, evening talks, stories of his Paris life, memories.
Frederick shone with his talent for mimicry. He imitated famous
artists, assaulted the keys with a great waving of arms and hands,
went, as he said, “pigeon-shooting.” The Wodzinskis lived in a villa.
In their garden spread a tall lime-tree. During the hot hours of the
afternoon Marie and Frederick took refuge in its shade and the girl
sketched in charcoal the ever slightly grave features of this friend
who was at once so childlike and so mature.
On August 24th they all returned to the beloved town of Dresden. There
they spent two more weeks. Two weeks which were to lead fatally to
the crisis. At dusk on the 7th of September, two days before Chopin’s
departure, he asked Marie to be his wife. She consented. That is all we
know, except that the Countess also gave her consent but imposed the
condition of secrecy. They were obliged to hide the decision from the
father, whom they would without doubt persuade, but whose family pride
made a rapid consent improbable. Besides, he thought Chopin in delicate
health. Frederick departed, carrying with him this promise and his own
despair. He knew that the presentiment of Marienbad had not deceived
him, and already he had lost his faith in happiness.
However the Wodzinskis wrote to him,—especially the Countess. Marie
added little postscripts. Here is Mme. Wodzinska’s first letter:—
“_14 Sept., ’36._
“Dear Frederick:
“As we agreed I am sending you a letter... I should have sent it
two days ago if it had not been for a tooth which I had extracted
and from which I suffered greatly. I cannot sufficiently regret
your departure on Saturday; I was ill that day and could not put my
mind on _the dusk_. We spoke of it too little.
“The next day I could have talked of it further. M. de Girardin
says: ‘To-morrow is always a great day.’ We have it still ahead of
us. Do not think I retract what I said,—no. But we must discuss
the path to follow. I only beg of you to keep the secret. Keep it
well, because everything depends on that... On October 15th I shall
be at Warsaw. I shall see your parents and your sisters; I shall
tell them that you are well and in excellent spirits: however, I
shall say nothing of _the dusk_.... Good-bye, go to bed at eleven
o’clock and until January 7th drink _eau de gomme_. Keep well, dear
Fritz: I bless you with all my soul, like a loving mother.
“P.S. Marie sends you some slippers. They are a little big, but
she says you are to wear woollen stockings. This is the judgment
of Paris, and I trust you will be obedient; haven’t you promised?
Anyway, remember that this is a period of probation.”
_The dusk_, it was so, among themselves, that they called Chopin’s
love. No chance name was ever more appropriate.
To a letter which her brother Casimir sent off the next day, Marie
added these lines: “We cannot console ourselves for your departure; the
three days that have just passed have seemed like centuries; have they
to you? Do you miss your friends a little? Yes,—I answer for you, and
I do not think I am mistaken; at least I want to believe not. I tell
myself that this _yes_ comes from you (because you would have said it,
wouldn’t you?).
“The slippers are finished; I am sending them to you. I am chagrined
that they should be too large, in spite of the fact that I gave your
shoe as a measure, _carissimo maestro_, but the man is a common German.
Dr. Paris consoles me by saying this is good for you as you should wear
very warm woollen stockings this winter.
“Mamma has had a tooth out, which has made her very weak. She has
had to stay in bed ever since. In two weeks we leave for Poland. I
shall see your family, which will be a joy for me, and that sweet
Louise,—will she remember me? Good-bye, _mio carissimo maestro_. Do not
forget Dresden for the present, or in a little while Poland. Good-bye,
_au revoir_. Ah, if it could be soon!
“Maria.
“Casimir says that the Sluzewo piano is in such ramshackle condition
that it cannot be used. So think about a Pleyel. In the happy days, not
like to-day (as far as we are concerned), I hope to hear you play on
the same piano. _Au revoir, au revoir, au revoir!_ That gives me hope.”
Such is the most passionate letter Chopin ever received from Marie
Wodzinska. In October another letter from the Countess, another
postscript from Marie.
“_October 2nd—Dusk._
“Thank you ever so much for the autographs. Will you please send
some more? (Mamma makes me write this.) Now we are leaving at once
for Warsaw. How I shall rejoice to see all your family and next
year _you_!... Good-bye, till _May_, or _June_ at the latest. I
recommend to your memory your very faithful secretary.
“Marie.”
In January, 1837, Countess Wodzinska was disturbed about a Pleyel piano
Chopin had sent her. She thanked him for a new supply of autographs,
and added this slightly ambiguous sentence at the end of her letter:
“From now on we must inform ourselves still more prudently about our
loved one.” Marie put in her postscript, her “imposition,” one would
like to say.
“Mother has been scolding. I thank you so much,—so much. And when we
see each other again I shall thank you even more kindly. You can see
how lazy I am about writing, because to put off my thanks till our
next meeting spares me many words to-day. Mamma has described to you
our way of life. There is nothing left for me to say, except that it
is thawing; which is great news, isn’t it? This tranquil life we lead
here is what we need, so I like it,—for the present, I mean, because
I should not like it to be always so. One takes what comes with as
good grace as possible, when things cannot be different from what they
are. I occupy myself a little to kill time. Just now I have Heine’s
_Germany_, which interests me enormously.
“But I must stop and leave you to God’s grace. I hope I do not need
to repeat to you the assurance of the sentiments of your faithful
secretary.
“Marie.”
This time Chopin must have discovered in the colourless words not the
least gleam of _the dusk_. The night had completely fallen. He took
down the album Marie had given him the year before to write in it a
page of music. For a year the pages had remained virgin. Chopin said:
“I could not have written anything at all in it, not if I had tried a
hundred years.”
Now he could fill it, because he realized that Marie’s love was dead.
So he wrote on the first page a _Lento con gran expressione_ and eight
other melodies to the words of Witwicki and Miçkiewicz. Soon after, he
received in reply this letter, the last:—
“_For Frederick Chopin._
“I can only write you a few words to thank you for the lovely
scrapbook you have sent me. I shall not try to tell you with what
pleasure I received it, as it would be in vain. Accept, I beg you,
the assurance of the gratitude I owe you. Believe in the life-long
attachment of our whole family for you, and particularly of your
naughtiest pupil and childhood friend. Good-bye. Mamma sends her
dearest love. Thérèse is always talking of her ‘Chopena.’
“Good-bye,—think of us,
“Maria.”
It is hard to say whether it was heart or intelligence that was wanting
in this young woman. Besides,—it scarcely matters. Love is not within
the compass of all little girls any more than happiness is made for
difficult souls. “Perhaps we are worth more than happiness,” said Liszt
to Mme. d’Agoult.
Chopin accepted the breaking of his engagement in silence. But neither
his heart nor his body recovered, ever. His friend Camille Pleyel took
him to London for a few days, to distract him. There he was very ill.
His latent tuberculosis seems to have begun its ravages at that time.
The Marquis de Custine wrote him: “You have gained in sympathy, in
poetry; the melancholy of your compositions goes deeper into the heart
than ever before. One is alone with you even in the midst of the crowd.
It is not a piano, it is a soul...”
* * * * *
Chopin gathered the notes of Marie Wodzinska and placed them, with the
rose of Dresden, in an envelope on which he wrote these two Polish
words: “_Moïa Biéda_,” my grief. They found this poor packet, after his
death, tied with a loving ribbon.