JUNE TO OCTOBER, 1839.
GEORGE SAND AND CHOPIN'S RETURN TO NOHANT.--STATE OF HIS HEALTH.--HIS
POSITION IN HIS FRIEND'S HOUSE.--HER ACCOUNT OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP.--HIS
LETTERS TO FONTANA, WHICH, AMONG MANY OTHER MATTERS, TREAT OF HIS
COMPOSITIONS AND OF PREPARATIONS TO BE MADE FOR HIS AND GEORGE SAND'S
ARRIVAL IN PARIS.
The date of one of George Sand's letters shows that the travellers were
settled again at Nohant on the 3rd of June, 1839. Dr. Papet, a rich
friend of George Sand's, who practised his art only for the benefit of
the poor and his friends, took the convalescent Chopin at once under
his care. He declared that his patient showed no longer any symptoms
of pulmonary affection, but was suffering merely from a slight chronic
laryngeal affection which, although he did not expect to be able to cure
it, need not cause any serious alarm.
On returning to Nohant, George Sand had her mind much exercised by the
question how to teach her children. She resolved to undertake the task
herself, but found she was not suited for it, at any rate, could not
acquit herself of it satisfactorily without giving up writing. This
question, however, was not the only one that troubled her.
In the irresolution in which I was for a time regarding the
arrangement of my life with a view to what would be best for
my dear children, a serious question was debated in my
conscience. I asked myself if I ought to entertain the idea
which Chopin had formed of taking up his abode near me. I
should not have hesitated to say "no," had I known then for
how short a time the retired life and the solemnity of the
country suited his moral and physical health. I still
attributed his despair and horror of Majorca to the excitement
of fever and the exces de caractere of that place. Nohant
offered pleasanter conditions, a less austere retreat,
congenial society, and resources in case of illness. Papet was
to him an enlightened and kind physician. Fleury, Duteil,
Duvernet, and their families, Planet, and especially Rollinat,
were dear to him at first sight. All of them loved him also,
and felt disposed to spoil him as I did.
Among those with whom the family at Nohant had much intercourse, and
who were frequent guests at the chateau, was also an old acquaintance
of ours, one who had not grown in wisdom as in age, I mean George Sand's
half-brother, Hippolyte Chatiron, who was now again living in Berry,
his wife having inherited the estate of Montgivray, situated only half a
league from Nohant.
His warmth of manner, his inexhaustible gaiety, the
originality of his sallies, his enthusiastic and naive
effusions of admiration for the genius of Chopin, the always
respectful deference which he showed to him alone, even in the
inevitable and terrible apres-boire, found favour with the
eminently-aristocratic artist. All, then, went very well at
first, and I entertained eventually the idea that Chopin might
rest and regain his health by spending a few summers with us,
his work necessarily calling him back to Paris in the winter.
However, the prospect of this kind of family union with a
newly-made friend caused me to reflect. I felt alarmed at the
task which I was about to undertake, and which I had believed
would be limited to the journey in Spain.
In short, George Sand presents herself as a sister of mercy, who,
prompted by charity, sacrifices her own happiness for that of another.
Contemplating the possibility of her son falling ill and herself being
thereby deprived of the joys of her work, she exclaims: "What hours
of my calm and invigorating life should I be able to devote to another
patient, much more difficult to nurse and comfort than Maurice?"
The discussion of this matter by George Sand is so characteristic of her
that, lengthy as it is, I cannot refrain from giving it in full.
A kind of terror seized me in presence of a new duty which I
was to take upon me. I was not under the illusion of passion.
I had for the artist a kind of maternal adoration which was
very warm, very real, but which could not for a moment contend
with maternal love, the only chaste feeling which may be
passionate.
I was still young enough to have perhaps to contend with love,
with passion properly so called. This contingency of my age,
of my situation, and of the destiny of artistic women,
especially when they have a horror of passing diversions,
alarmed me much, and, resolved as I was never to submit to any
influence which might divert me from my children, I saw a
less, but still possible danger in the tender friendship with
which Chopin inspired me.
Well, after reflection, this danger disappeared and even
assumed an opposite character--that of a preservative against
emotions which I no longer wished to know. One duty more in my
life, already so full of and so overburdened with work,
appeared to me one chance more to attain the austerity towards
which I felt myself attracted with a kind of religious
enthusiasm.
If this is a sincere confession, we can only wonder at the height of
self-deception attainable by the human mind; if, however, it is meant
as a justification, we cannot but be surprised at the want of skill
displayed by the generally so clever advocate. In fact, George Sand has
in no instance been less happy in defending her conduct and in setting
forth her immaculate virtuousness. The great words "chastity" and
"maternity" are of course not absent. George Sand could as little leave
off using them as some people can leave off using oaths. In either case
the words imply much more than is intended by those from whose mouths or
pens they come. A chaste woman speculating on "real love" and "passing
diversions," as George Sand does here, seems to me a strange phenomenon.
And how charmingly naive is the remark she makes regarding her relations
with Chopin as a "PRESERVATIVE against emotions which she no longer
wished to know"! I am afraid the concluding sentence, which in its
unction is worthy of Pecksniff, and where she exhibits herself as an
ascetic and martyr in all the radiance of saintliness, will not have the
desired effect, but will make the reader laugh as loud as Musset is said
to have done when she upbraided him with his ungratefulness to her, who
had been devoted to him to the utmost bounds of self-abnegation, to
the sacrifice of her noblest impulses, to the degradation of her chaste
nature.
George Sand, looking back in later years on this period of her life,
thought that if she had put into execution her project of becoming the
teacher of her children, and of shutting herself up all the year round
at Nohant, she would have saved Chopin from the danger which, unknown
to her, threatened him--namely, the danger of attaching himself too
absolutely to her. At that time, she says, his love was not so great but
that absence would have diverted him from it. Nor did she consider his
affection exclusive. In fact, she had no doubt that the six months which
his profession obliged him to pass every year in Paris would, "after a
few days of malaise and tears," have given him back to "his habits of
elegance, exquisite success, and intellectual coquetry." The correctness
of the facts and the probability of the supposition may be doubted. At
any rate, the reasons which led her to assume the non-exclusiveness
of Chopin's affection are simply childish. That he spoke to her of a
romantic love-affair he had had in Poland, and of sweet attractions he
had afterwards experienced in Paris, proves nothing. What she says about
his mother having been his only passion is still less to the point. But
reasoning avails little, and the strength of Chopin's love was not put
to the test. He went, indeed, in the autumn of 1839 to Paris, but
not alone; George Sand, professedly for the sake of her children's
education, went there likewise. "We were driven by fate," she says,
"into the bonds of a long connection, and both of us entered into it
unawares." The words "driven by fate," and "entered into it unawares,"
sound strange, if we remember that they apply not to a young girl who,
inexperienced and confiding, had lost herself in the mazes of life,
but to a novelist skilled in the reading of human hearts, to a
constantly-reasoning and calculating woman, aged 35, who had better
reasons than poor Amelia in Schiller's play for saying "I have lived and
loved."
After all this reasoning, moralising, and sentimentalising, it is
pleasant to be once more face to face with facts, of which the following
letters, written by Chopin to Fontana during the months from June to
October, 1839, contain a goodly number. The rather monotonous publishing
transactions play here and there again a prominent part, but these
Nohant letters are on the whole more interesting than the Majorca
letters, and decidedly more varied as regards contents than those he
wrote from Marseilles--they tell us much more of the writer's tastes and
requirements, and even reveal something of his relationship to George
Sand. Chopin, it appears to me, did not take exactly the same view of
this relationship as the novelist. What will be read with most interest
are Chopin's directions as to the decoration and furnishing of his
rooms, the engagement of a valet, the ordering of clothes and a hat, the
taking of a house for George Sand, and certain remarks made en passant
on composers and other less-known people.
[I.]
...The best part of your letter is your address, which I had
already forgotten, and without which I do not know if I would
have answered you so soon; but the worst is the death of
Albrecht. [FOOTNOTE: See p.27 foot-note 7.]
You wish to know when I shall be back. When the misty and
rainy weather begins, for I must breathe fresh air.
Johnnie has left. I don't know if he asked you to forward to
me the letters from my parents should any arrive during his
absence and be sent to his usual address. Perhaps he thought
of it, perhaps not. I should be very sorry if any of them
miscarried. It is not long since I had a letter from home,
they will not write soon, and by this time he, who is so kind
and good, will be in good health and return.
I am composing here a Sonata in B flat minor, in which will be
the Funeral March which you have already. There is an allegro,
then a "Scherzo" in E flat minor, the "March," and a short
"Finale" of about three pages. The left hand unisono with the
right hand are gossiping [FOOTNOTE: "Lewa reka unisono z
prawa, ogaduja po Marszu."] after the March. I have a new
"Nocturne" in G major, which will go along with the Nocturne
in G minor, [FOOTNOTE: "Deux Nocturnes," Op.37.] if you
remember such a one.
You know that I have four new mazurkas: one from Palma in E
minor, three from here in B major, A flat major, and C sharp
minor. [FOOTNOTE: Quatre mazurkas, Op. 41.] They seem to me
pretty, as the youngest children usually do when the parents
grow old.
Otherwise I do nothing; I correct for myself the Parisian
edition of Bach; not only the stroke-makers' [FOOTNOTE: In
Polish strycharz, the usual meaning of which is "brickmaker."
Chopin may have played upon the word. A mistake, however, is
likewise possible, as the Polish for engraver is sztycharz.]
(engravers') errors, but, I think, the harmonic errors
committed by those who pretend to understand Bach. I do not do
it with the pretension that I understand him better than they,
but from a conviction that I sometimes guess how it ought to
be.
You see I have praised myself enough to you.
Now, if Grzymata will visit me (which is doubtful), send me
through him Weber for four hands. Also the last of my Ballade
in manuscript, as I wish to change something in it. I should
like very much to have your copy of the last mazurkas, if you
have such a thing, for I do not know if my gallantry went so
far as to give you a copy.
Pleyel wrote to me that you were very obliging, and have
corrected the Preludes. Do you know how much Wessel paid him
for them? It would be well to know this for the future.
My father has written to me that my old sonata has been
published by Haslinger, and that the Germans praise it.
[FOOTNOTE: There must have been some misunderstanding; the
Sonata, Op. 4, was not published till 1851.]
I have now, counting those you have, six manuscripts; the
devil take them if they get them for nothing. Pleyel did not
do me any service with his offers, for he thereby made
Schlesinger indifferent about me. But I hope this will be set
right, f wrote to ask him to let me know if he had been paid
for the piano sent to Palma, and I did so because the French
consul in Majorca, whom I know very well, was to be changed,
and had he not been paid, it would have been very difficult
for me to settle this affair at such a distance. Fortunately,
he is paid, and very liberally, as he wrote to me only last
week.
Write to me what sort of lodgings you have. Do you board at
the club?
Woyciechowski wrote to me to compose an oratorio. I answered
him in the letter to my parents. Why does he build a sugar-
refinery and not a monastery of Camaldolites or a nunnery of
Dominican sisters!
[2.]
I give you my most hearty thanks for your upright, friendly,
not English but Polish soul.
Select paper (wall-paper) such as I had formerly, tourterelle
(dove colour), only bright and glossy, for the two rooms, also
dark green with not too broad stripes. For the anteroom
something else, but still respectable. Nevertheless, if there
are any nicer and more fashionable papers that are to your
liking, and you think that I also will like them, then take
them. I prefer the plain, unpretending, and neat ones to the
common shopkeeper's staring colours. Therefore, pearl colour
pleases me, for it is neither loud nor does it look vulgar. I
thank you for the servant's room, for it is much needed.
Now, as to the furniture: you will make the best of it if you
look to it yourself. I did not dare to trouble you with it,
but if you will be so kind, take it and arrange it as it ought
to be. I shall ask Grzymala to give money for the removal. I
shall write to him about it at once. As to the bed and writing-
desk, it may be necessary to give them to the cabinet-maker to
be renewed. In this case you will take the papers out of the
writing-desk, and lock them up somewhere else. I need not tell
you what you ought to do. Act as you like and judge what is
necessary. Whatever you may do will be well done. You have my
full confidence: this is one thing.
Now the second.
You must write to Wessel--doubtless you have already written
about the Preludes. Let him know that I have six new
manuscripts, for which I want 300 francs each (how many pounds
is that?). If you think he would not give so much, let me know
first. Inform me also if Probst is in Paris. Further look out
for a servant. I should prefer a respectable honest Pole. Tell
also Grzymala of it. Stipulate that he is to board himself; no
more than 80 francs. I shall not be in Paris before the end of
October--keep this, however, to yourself.
My dear friend, the state of Johnnie's health weighs sometimes
strangely on my heart. May God give him what he stands in need
of, but he should not allow himself to be cheated...However,
this is neither here nor there. The greatest truth in the
world is that I shall always love you as a most honest and
kind man and Johnnie as another.
I embrace you both, write each of you and soon, were it of
nothing more than the weather.--Your old more than ever long-
nosed
FREDERICK.
[3.]
According to your description and that of Grzymala you have
found such capital rooms that we are now thinking you have a
lucky hand, and for this reason a man--and he is a great man,
being the portier of George's house--who will run about to
find a house for her, is ordered to apply to you when he has
found a few; and you with your elegant tact (you see how I
flatter you) will also examine what he has found, and give
your opinion thereon. The main point is that it should be
detached, if possible; for instance, a little hotel. Or
something in a courtyard, with a view into a garden, or, if
there be no garden, into a large court-yard; nota bene, very
few lodgers--elegant--not higher than the second story.
Perhaps some corps de logis, but small, or something like
Perthuis's house, or even smaller. Lastly, should it be in
front, the street must not be noisy. In one word, something
you judge would be good for her. If it could be near me, so
much the better; but if it cannot be, this consideration need
not prevent you.
It seems to me that a little hotel in the new streets--such as
Clichy, Blanche, or Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, as far as Rue des
Martyrs--would be most suitable. Moreover, I send you a list
of the streets where Mr. Mardelle--the portier of the Hotel
Narbonne, Rue de la Harpe, No. 89, which belongs to George--
will look for a house. If in your leisure time you also looked
out for something in our part of the town, it would be very
nice. Fancy, I don't know why, but we think that you will find
something wonderfully good, although it is already late.
The price she wishes to pay is from 2,000 to 2,500 francs, you
might also give a couple of hundred francs more if anything
extra fine should turn up. Grzymala and Arago promised to look
out for something, but in spite of Grzymala's efforts nothing
acceptable has thus far been found. I have written to him that
he should employ you also in this business of mine (I say of
MINE, for it is just the same as if it were mine). I shall
write to him again to-day and tell him that I have asked you
to give your help and use all your talents. It is necessary
that there should be three bedrooms, two of which must be
beside each other and one separated, for instance, by the
drawing-room. Adjoining the third there will be required a
well-lighted cabinet for her study. The other two may be
small, this one, the third, also not very large. Besides this
a drawing-room and dining-room in proportion. A pretty large
kitchen. Two rooms for the servants, and a coal-cellar. The
rooms must of course have inlaid floors, be newly laid, if
possible, and require no repairs. But a little hotel or a
separate part of a house in a court-yard looking into a garden
would be most desirable. There must be tranquillity,
quietness, no blacksmith in the neighbourhood. Respectable
stairs. The windows exposed to the sun, absolutely to the
south. Further, there must be no smoke, no bad odour, but a
fine view, a garden, or at least a large court. A garden would
be best. In the Faubourg St. Germain are many gardens, also in
the Faubourg St. Honore. Find something quickly, something
splendid, and near me. As soon as you have any chance, write
immediately, don't be lazy; or get hold of Grzymala, go and
see, both of you, take et que cela finisse. I send you a plan
of the arrangement of the apartments. If you find something
like this, draw the plan, or take it at once, which will be
better than letting it slip out of your hands.
Mr. Mardelle is a decent man, and no fool, he was not always a
portier. He is ordered to go and see you whenever he finds
anything. You must also on your part be on the look-out, but
let us keep that between us. I embrace you and Johnnie also.
You will have our true gratitude when you find a house.
[a diagram of the apartments is inserted here in the letter.]
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| Study | Bedroom. | Drawing room. | Bedroom. | Servants' room. |
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| | Dining room | |
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| | | |
| | Lobby | |
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Pas de voisinage, surtout blacksmith, nor anything that
belongs to him. For God's sake I beg of you take an active
interest in the matter, my dear friend!
[4.]
I thank you for all your kind actions.
In the anteroom you will direct the grey curtains to be hung
which were in my cabinet with the piano, and in the bedroom
the same that were in the bedroom, only under them the white
muslin ones which were under the grey ones.
I should like to have a little press in my bedroom, unless
there be not room enough, or the drawing-room be too bare
between the windows.
If the little sofa, the same which stood in the dining-room,
could be covered with red, with the same stuff with which the
chairs are covered, it might be placed in the drawing-room;
but as it would be necessary to call in the upholsterer for
that, it may be difficult.
It is a good thing that Domaradzki is going to be married, for
surely he will give me back the 80 francs after the wedding. I
should like also to see Podczaski married, and Nakw.
(Nakwaska), and Anthony also. Let this remain between this
paper, myself, and you.
Find me a valet. Kiss Madame Leo (surely the first commission
will be the more pleasant to you, wherefore I relieve you of
the second if you will do the first).
Let me know about Probst, whether he is in Paris or not. Do
not forget Wessel. Tell Gutmann that I was much pleased that
he asked for me at least once. To Moscheles, should he be in
Paris, order to be given an injection of Neukomm's oratorios,
prepared with Berlioz's "Cellini" and Doehler's Concerto. Give
Johnnie from me for his breakfast moustaches of sphinxes and
kidneys of parrots, with tomato sauce powdered with little
eggs of the microscopic world. You yourself take a bath in
whale's infusion as a rest from all the commissions I give
you, for I know that you will do willingly as much as time
will permit, and I shall do the same for you when you are
married--of which Johnnie will very likely inform me soon.
Only not to Ox, for that is my party.
[5.]
My dear friend,--In five, six, or seven days I shall be in
Paris. Get things prepared as quickly as possible; if not all,
let me find at least the rooms papered and the bed ready.
I am hastening my arrival as the presence of George Sand is
necessary on account of a piece to be played. [FOOTNOTE:
"Cosima." The first representation, at the Comedie Francaise,
did not take place until April, 1840.] But this remains
between us. We have fixed our departure for the day after to-
morrow; thus, counting a few days for delay, we shall see each
other on Wednesday or Thursday.
Besides the different commissions I gave you, especially that
in the last letter about her house, which after our arrival
will be off your shoulders--but till then, for God's sake, be
obliging--besides all this, I say, I forgot to ask you to
order for me a hat from my Duport in your street, Chaussee
d'Antin. He has my measure, and knows how light I want it and
of what kind. Let him give the hat of this year's shape, not
too much exaggerated, for I do not know how you are dressing
yourself just now. Again, besides this, call in passing at
Dautremont's, my tailor's, on the Boulevards, and order him to
make me at once a pair of grey trousers. You will yourself
select a dark-grey colour for winter trousers; something
respectable, not striped, but plain and elastic. You are an
Englishman, so you know what I require. Dautremont will be
glad to hear that I am coming. Also a quiet black velvet
waistcoat, but with very little and no loud pattern, something
very quiet but very elegant. Should he not have the best
velvet of this kind, let him make a quiet, fine silk
waistcoat, but not too much open. If the servant could be got
for less than 80 francs, I should prefer it; but as you have
already found one, let the matter rest.
My very dear friend, pardon me once more for troubling you,
but I must. In a few days we shall see each other, and embrace
for all this.
I beg of you, for God's sake, do not say to any Poles that I
am coming so soon, nor to any Jewess either, as I should like
to reserve myself during the first few days only for you,
Grzymala, and Johnnie. Give them my love; to the latter I
shall write once more.
I expect that the rooms will be ready. Write constantly to me,
three times a day if you like, whether you have anything to
say or not. Before leaving here I shall once more write to
you.
Monday.
You are inappreciable! Take Rue Pigal [Pigalle], both houses,
without asking anybody. Make haste. If by taking both houses
you can diminish a little the price, well; if not, take them
for 2,500 francs. Do not let them slip out of your hands, for
we think them the best and most excellent. SHE regards you as
my most logical and best--and I would add: the most splenetic,
Anglo-Polish, from my soul beloved--friend.
[6.]
The day after to-morrow, Thursday, at five o'clock in the
morning, we start, and on Friday at three, four, certainly at
five o'clock, I shall be in Rue Tronchet, No. 5. I beg of you
to inform the people there of this, I wrote to Johnnie to-day
to retain for me that valet, and order him to wait for me at
Rue Tronchet on Friday from noon. Should you have time to call
upon me at that time, we would most heartily embrace each
other. Once more my and my companion's most sincere thanks for
Rue Pigalle.
Now, keep a sharp look-out on the tailor, he must have the
clothes ready by Friday morning, so that I can change my
clothes as soon as I come. Order him to take them to Rue
Tronchet, and deliver them there to the valet Tineau--if I
mistake not, that is his name. Likewise the hat from Dupont,
[FOOTNOTE: In the preceding letter it was Duport] and for that
I shall alter for you the second part of the Polonaise till
the last moment of my life. Yesterday's version also may not
please you, although I racked my brains with it for at least
eighty seconds.
I have written out my manuscripts in good order. There are six
with your Polonaises, not counting the seventh, an impromptu,
which may perhaps be worthless--I do not know myself, it is
too new. But it would be well if it be not too much in the
style of Orlowski, Zimmermann, or Karsko-Konski, [FOOTNOTE:
Chopin's countryman, the pianist and composer Antoine Kontski]
or Sowinski, or other similar animals. For, according to my
reckoning, it might fetch me about 800 francs. That will be
seen afterwards.
As you are such a clever man, you might also arrange that no
black thoughts and suffocating coughs shall annoy me in the
new rooms. Try to make me good. Change, if you can, many
episodes of my past. It would also not be a bad thing if I
should find a few years of great work accomplished. By this
you will greatly oblige me, also if you would make yourself
younger or bring about that we had never been born.--Your old
FREDERICK.