Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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I sent you before the New Year a bill of exchange for Wessel;
tell Pleyel that I have settled with Wessel.

[FOOTNOTE: The music-publisher Christian Rudolph Wessel, of
Bremen, who came to London in 1825. Up to 1838 he had Stodart,
and from 1839 to 1845 Stapleton, as partner. He retired in
1860, Messrs. Edwin Ashdown and Henry Parry being his
successors. Since the retirement of Mr. Parry, in 1882, Mr.
Ashdown is the sole proprietor. Mr. Ashdown, whom I have to
thank for the latter part of this note, informs me that Wessel
died in 1885.]

In a few weeks you will receive a Ballade, a Polonaise, and a
Scherzo.

Until now I have not yet received any letters from my parents.

I embrace you.

Sometimes I have Arabian balls, African sun, and always before
my eyes the Mediterranean Sea.

I do not know when I shall be back, perhaps as late as May,
perhaps even later.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Valdemosa, January 15, 1839:--

...We inhabit the Carthusian monastery of Valdemosa, a really
sublime place, which I have hardly the time to admire, so many
occupations have I with my children, their lessons, and my
work.

There are rains here of which one has elsewhere no idea: it is
a frightful deluge! The air is on account of it so relaxing,
so soft, that one cannot drag one's self along; one is really
ill. Happily, Maurice is in admirable health; his constitution
is only afraid of frost, a thing unknown here. But the little
Chopin [FOOTNOTE: Madame Marliani seems to have been in the
habit of calling Chopin "le petit." In another letter to her
(April 28, 1839) George Sand writes of Chopin as votre petit.
This reminds one of Mendelssohn's Chopinetto.] is very
depressed and always coughs much. For his sake I await with
impatience the return of fine weather, which will not be long
in coming. His piano has at last arrived at Palma; but it is
in the clutches of the custom-house officers, who demand from
five to six hundred francs duty, and show themselves
intractable.

...I am plunged with Maurice in Thucydides and company; with
Solange in the indirect object and the agreement of the
participle. Chopin plays on a poor Majorcan piano which
reminds me of that of Bouffe in "Pauvre Jacques." I pass my
nights generally in scrawling. When I raise my nose, it is to
see through the sky-light of my cell the moon which shines in
the midst of the rain on the orange trees, and I think no more
of it than she.

Madame Sand to M. A. M. Duteil; Valdemosa, January 20, 1839:--

...This [the slowness and irregularity of the post] is not the
only inconvenience of the country. There are innumerable ones,
and yet this is the most beautiful country. The climate is
delicious. At the time I am writing, Maurice is gardening in
his shirt-sleeves, and Solange, seated under an orange tree
loaded with fruit, studies her lesson with a grave air. We
have bushes covered with roses, and spring is coming in. Our
winter lasted six weeks, not cold, but rainy to a degree to
frighten us. It is a deluge! The rain uproots the mountains;
all the waters of the mountain rush into the plain; the roads
become torrents. We found ourselves caught in them, Maurice
and I. We had been at Palma in superb weather. When we
returned in the evening, there were no fields, no roads, but
only trees to indicate approximately the way which we had to
go. I was really very. frightened, especially as the horse
refused to proceed, and we were obliged to traverse the
mountain on foot in the night, with torrents across our legs.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Valdemosa, February 22, 1839:--

...You see me at my Carthusian monastery, still sedentary, and
occupied during the day with my children, at night with my
work. In the midst of all this, the warbling of Chopin, who
goes his usual pretty way, and whom the walls of the cell are
much astonished to hear.

The only remarkable event since my last letter is the arrival
of the so much-expected piano. After a fortnight of
applications and waiting we have been able to get it out of
the custom-house by paying three hundred francs of duty.
Pretty country this! After all, it has been disembarked
without accident, and the vaults of the monastery are
delighted with it. And all this is not profaned by the
admiration of fools-we do not see a cat.

Our retreat in the mountains, three leagues from the town, has
freed us from the politeness of idlers.

Nevertheless, we have had one visitor, and a visitor from
Paris!--namely, M. Dembowski, an Italian Pole whom Chopin
knew, and who calls himself a cousin of Marliani--I don't know
in what degree.

...The fact is, that we are very much pleased with the freedom
which this gives us, because we have work to do; but we
understand very well that these poetic intervals which one
introduces into one's life are only times of transition and
rest allowed to the mind before it resumes the exercise of the
emotions. I mean this in the purely intellectual sense; for,
as regards the life of the heart, it cannot cease for a
moment...

This brings us to the end of the known letters written by Chopin
and Madame Sand from Majorca. And now let us see what we can find
in George Sand's books to complete the picture of the life of her
and her party at Valdemosa, of which the letters give only more
or less disconnected indications. I shall use the materials at my
disposal freely and cautiously, quoting some passages in full,
regrouping and summing-up others, and keeping always in mind--
which the reader should likewise do--the authoress's tendency to
emphasise, colour, and embellish, for the sake of literary and
moral effect.

Not to extend this chapter too much, I refer the curious to
George Sand's "Un Hiver a Majorque" for a description of the
"admirable, grandiose, and wild nature" in the midst of which the
"poetic abode" of her and her party was situated--of the grandly
and beautifully-varied surface of the earth, the luxuriant
southern vegetation, and the marvellous phenomena of light and
air; of the sea stretching out on two sides and meeting the
horizon; of the surrounding formidable peaks, and the more
distant round-swelling hills; of the eagles descending in the
pursuit of their prey down to the orange trees of the monastery
gardens; of the avenue of cypresses serpentining from the top of
the mountain to the bottom of the gorge; of the torrents covered
with myrtles; in short, of the immense ensemble, the infinite
details, which overwhelm the imagination and outvie the poet's
and painter's dreams. Here it will be advisable to confine
ourselves to the investigation of a more limited sphere, to
inspect rather narrow interiors than vast landscapes.

As the reader has gathered from the preceding letters, there was
no longer a monastic community at Valdemosa. The monks had been
dispersed some time before, and the monastery had become the
property of the state. During the hot summer months it was in
great part occupied by small burghers from Palma who came in
quest of fresh air. The only permanent inhabitants of the
monastery, and the only fellow-tenants of George Sand's party,
were two men and one woman, called by the novelist respectively
the Apothecary, the Sacristan, and Maria Antonia. The first, a
remnant of the dispersed community, sold mallows and couch-grass,
the only specifics he had; the second was the person in whose
keeping were the keys of the monastery; and the third was a kind
of housekeeper who, for the love of God and out of neighbourly
friendship, offered her help to new-comers, and, if it was
accepted, did not fail to levy heavy contributions.

The monastery was a complex of strongly-constructed, buildings
without any architectural beauty, and such was, its circumference
and mass of stones that it would have been easy to house an army
corps. Besides the dwelling of the superior, the cells of the lay-
brothers, the lodgings for visitors, the stables, and other
structures, there were three cloisters, each consisting of twelve
cells and twelve chapels. The most ancient of these cloisters,
which is also the smallest, dates from the 15th century.

It presents a charming coup d'oeil. The court which it
encloses with its broken-down walls is the ancient cemetery of
the monks. No inscription distinguishes these tombs...The
graves are scarcely indicated by the swellings of the turf.

In the cells were stored up the remains of all sorts of fine old
furniture and sculpture, but these could only be seen through the
chinks, for the cells were carefully locked, and the sacristan
would not open them to anyone. The second cloister, although of
more recent date, was likewise in a dilapidated state, which,
however, gave it character. In stormy weather it was not at all
safe to pass through it on account of the falling fragments of
walls and vaults.

I never heard the wind sound so like mournful voices and utter
such despairing howls as in these empty and sonorous
galleries. The noise of the torrents, the swift motion of the
clouds, the grand, monotonous sound of the sea, interrupted by
the whistling of the storm and the plaintive cries of sea-
birds which passed, quite terrified and bewildered, in the
squalls; then thick fogs which fell suddenly like a shroud and
which, penetrating into the cloisters through the broken
arcades, rendered us invisible, and made the little lamp we
carried to guide us appear like a will-o'-the-wisp wandering
under the galleries; and a thousand other details of this
monastic life which crowd all at once into my memory: all
combined made indeed this monastery the most romantic abode in
the world.

I was not sorry to see for once fully and in reality what I
had seen only in a dream, or in the fashionable ballads, and
in the nuns' scene in Robert le Diable at the Opera. Even
fantastic apparitions were not wanting to us. [FOOTNOTE: "Un
Hiver a Majorque," pp. 116 and 117.]

In the same book from which the above passage is extracted we
find also a minute description of the new cloister; the chapels,
variously ornamented, covered with gilding, decorated with rude
paintings and horrible statues of saints in coloured wood, paved
in the Arabic style with enamelled faience laid out in various
mosaic designs, and provided with a fountain or marble conch; the
pretty church, unfortunately without an organ, but with wainscot,
confessionals, and doors of most excellent workmanship, a floor
of finely-painted faience, and a remarkable statue in painted
wood of St. Bruno; the little meadow in the centre of the
cloister, symmetrically planted with box-trees, &c., &c.

George Sand's party occupied one of the spacious, well-
ventilated, and well-lighted cells in this part of the monastery.
I shall let her describe it herself.

The three rooms of which it was composed were spacious,
elegantly vaulted, and ventilated at the back by open
rosettes, all different and very prettily designed. These
three rooms were separated from the cloister by a dark passage
at the end of which was a strong door of oak. The wall was
three feet thick. The middle room was destined for reading,
prayer, and meditation; all its furniture consisted of a large
chair with a praying-desk and a back, from six to eight feet
high, let into and fixed in the wall. The room to the right of
this was the friar's bed-room; at the farther end of it was
situated the alcove, very low, and paved above with flags like
a tomb. The room to the left was the workshop, the refectory,
the store-room of the recluse. A press at the far end of the
room had a wooden compartment with a window opening on the
cloister, through which his provisions were passed in. His
kitchen consisted of two little stoves placed outside, but
not, as was the strict rule, in the open air; a vault, opening
on the garden, protected the culinary labours of the monk from
the rain, and allowed him to give himself up to this
occupation a little more than the founder would have wished.
Moreover, a fire-place introduced into this third room
indicated many other relaxations, although the science of the
architect had not gone so far as to make this fire-place
serviceable.

Running along the back of the rooms, on a level with the
rosettes, was a long channel, narrow and dark, intended for
the ventilation of the cell, and above was a loft in which the
maize, onions, beans, and other simple winter provisions were
kept. On the south the three rooms opened on a flower garden,
exactly the size of the cell itself, which was separated from
the neighbouring gardens by walls ten feet high, and was
supported by a strongly-built terrace above a little orange
grove which occupied this ledge of the mountain. The lower
ledge was covered with a beautiful arbour of vines, the third
with almond and palm trees, and so on to the bottom of the
little valley, which, as I have said, was an immense garden.

The flower garden of each cell had all along its right side a
reservoir, made of freestone, from three to four feet in width
and the same in depth, receiving through conduits placed in
the balustrade of the terrace the waters of the mountain, and
distributing them in the flower garden by means of a stone
cross, which divided it into four equal squares.

As to this flower garden, planted with pomegranate, lemon, and
orange trees, surrounded by raised walks made of bricks which,
like the reservoir, were shaded by perfumed arbours, it was
like a pretty salon of flowers and verdure, where the monk
could walk dry-footed on wet days.

Even without being told, we should have known that the artists
who had now become inmates of the monastery were charmed with
their surroundings. Moreover, George Sand did her utmost to make
life within doors comfortable. When the furniture bought from the
Spanish refugee had been supplemented by further purchases, they
were, considering the circumstances, not at all badly off in this
respect. The tables and straw-bottomed chairs were indeed no
better than those one finds in the cottages of peasants; the sofa
of white wood with cushions of mattress cloth stuffed with wool
could only ironically be called "voluptuous"; and the large
yellow leather trunks, whatever their ornamental properties might
be, must have made but poor substitutes for wardrobes. The
folding-beds, on the other hand, proved irreproachable; the
mattresses, though not very soft, were new and clean, and the
padded and quilted chintz coverlets left nothing to be desired.
Nor does this enumeration exhaust the comforts and adornments of
which the establishment could boast. Feathers, a rare article in
Majorca, had been got from a French lady to make pillows for
Chopin; Valenciennes matting and long-fleeced sheep skins covered
the dusty floor; a large tartan shawl did duty as an alcove
curtain; a stove of somewhat eccentric habits, and consisting
simply of an iron cylinder with a pipe that passed through the
window, had been manufactured for them at Palma; a charming clay
vase surrounded with a garland of ivy displayed its beauty on the
top of the stove; a beautiful large Gothic carved oak chair with
a small chest convenient as a book-case had, with the consent of
the sacristan, been brought from the monks' chapel; and last, but
not least, there was, as we have already read in the letters, a
piano, in the first weeks only a miserable Majorcan instrument,
which, however, in the second half of January, after much
waiting, was replaced by one of Pleyel's excellent cottage
pianos.

[FOOTNOTE: By the way, among the many important and unimportant
doubtful points which Chopin's and George Sand's letters settle,
is also that of the amount of duty paid for the piano. The sum
originally asked by the Palma custom-house officers seems to have
been from 500 to 600 francs, and this demand was after a
fortnight's negotiations reduced to 300 francs. That the
imaginative novelist did not long remember the exact particulars
of this transaction need not surprise us. In Un Hiver a Majorque
she states tha the original demand was 700 francs, and the sum
ultimately paid about 400 francs.]

These various items collectively and in conjunction with the
rooms in which they were gathered together form a tout-ensemble
picturesque and homely withal. As regards the supply of
provisions, the situation of our Carthusians was decidedly less
brilliant. Indeed, the water and the juicy raisins, Malaga
potatoes, fried Valencia pumpkins, &c., which they had for
dessert, were the only things that gave them unmixed
satisfaction. With anything but pleasure they made the discovery
that the chief ingredient of Majorcan cookery, an ingredient
appearing in all imaginable and unimaginable guises and
disguises, was pork. Fowl was all skin and bones, fish dry and
tasteless, sugar of so bad a quality that it made them sick, and
butter could not be procured at all. Indeed, they found it
difficult to get anything of any kind. On account of their non-
attendance at church they were disliked by the villagers of
Valdemosa, who sold their produce to such heretics only at twice
or thrice the usual price. Still, thanks to the good offices of
the French consul's cook, they might have done fairly well had
not wet weather been against them. But, alas, their eagerly-
awaited provisions often arrived spoiled with rain, oftener still
they did not arrive at all. Many a time they had to eat bread as
hard as ship-biscuits, and content themselves with real
Carthusian dinners. The wine was good and cheap, but,
unfortunately, it had the objectionable quality of being heady.

These discomforts and wants were not painfully felt by George
Sand and her children, nay, they gave, for a time at least, a new
zest to life. It was otherwise with Chopin. "With his feeling for
details and the wants of a refined well-being, he naturally took
an intense dislike to Majorca after a few days of illness." We
have already seen what a bad effect the wet weather and the damp
of Son-Vent had on Chopin's health. But, according to George
Sand, [FOOTNOTE: "Un Hiver a Marjorque," pp. 161-168. I suspect
that she mixes up matters in a very unhistorical manner; I have,
however, no means of checking her statements, her and her
companion's letters being insufficient for the purpose. Chopin
certainly was not likely to tell his friend the worst about his
health.] it was not till later, although still in the early days
of their sojourn in Majorca, that his disease declared itself in
a really alarming manner. The cause of this change for the worse
was over-fatigue incurred on an excursion which he made with his
friends to a hermitage three miles [FOOTNOTE: George Sand does
not say what kind of miles] distant from Valdemosa; the length
and badness of the road alone would have been more than enough to
exhaust his fund of strength, but in addition to these hardships
they had, on returning, to encounter a violent wind which threw
them down repeatedly. Bronchitis, from which he had previously
suffered, was now followed by a nervous excitement that produced
several symptoms of laryngeal phthisis. [FOOTNOTE: In the
Histoire de ma Vie George Sand Bays: "From the beginning of
winter, which set in all at once with a diluvian rain, Chopin
showed, suddenly also, all the symptoms of pulmonary affection."]
The physician, judging of the disease by the symptoms that
presented themselves at the time of his visits, mistook its real
nature, and prescribed bleeding, milk diet, &c. Chopin felt
instinctively that all this would be injurious to him, that
bleeding would even be fatal. George Sand, who was an experienced
nurse, and whose opportunities for observing were less limited
than those of the physician, had the same presentiment. After a
long and anxious struggle she decided to disregard the strongly-
urged advice of the physician and to obey the voice that said to
her, even in her sleep: "Bleeding will kill him; but if you save
him from it, he will not die," She was persuaded that this voice
was the voice of Providence, and that by obeying it she saved her
friend's life. What Chopin stood most in need of in his weakness
and languor was a strengthening diet, and that, unfortunately,
was impossible to procure:--

What would I not have given to have had some beef-tea and a
glass of Bordeaux wine to offer to our invalid every day! The
Majorcan food, and especially the manner in which it was
prepared when we were not there with eye and hand, caused him
an invincible disgust. Shall I tell you how well founded this
disgust was? One day when a lean chicken was put on the table
we saw jumping on its steaming back enormous Mattres Floh,
[FOOTNOTE: Anglice "fleas."] of which Hoffmann would have made
as many evil spirits, but which he certainly would not have
eaten in gravy. My children laughed so heartily that they
nearly fell under the table.

Chopin's most ardent wish was to get away from Majorca and back
to France. But for some time he was too weak to travel, and when
he had got a little stronger, contrary winds prevented the
steamer from leaving the port. The following words of George Sand
depict vividly our poor Carthusian friends' situation in all its
gloom:--

As the winter advanced, sadness more and more paralysed my
efforts at gaiety and cheerfulness. The state of our invalid
grew always worse; the wind wailed in the ravines, the rain
beat against our windows, the voice of the thunder penetrated
through our thick walls and mingled its mournful sounds with
the laughter and sports of the children. The eagles and
vultures, emboldened by the fog, came to devour our poor
sparrows, even on the pomegranate tree which shaded my window.
The raging sea kept the ships in the harbours; we felt
ourselves prisoners, far from all enlightened help and from
all efficacious sympathy. Death seemed to hover over our heads
to seize one of us, and we were alone in contending with him
for his prey.

If George Sand's serenity and gaiety succumbed to these
influences, we may easily imagine how much more they oppressed
Chopin, of whom she tells us that--

the mournful cry of the famished eagle and the gloomy
desolation of the yew trees covered with snow saddened him
much longer and more keenly than the perfume of the orange
trees, the gracefulness of the vines, and the Moorish song of
the labourers gladdened him.

The above-quoted letters have already given us some hints of how
the prisoners of Valdemosa passed their time. In the morning
there were first the day's provisions to be procured and the
rooms to be tidied--which latter business could not be entrusted
to Maria Antonia without the sacrifice of their night's rest.
[FOOTNOTE: George Sand's share of the household work was not so
great as she wished to make the readers of Un Hiver a Majorque
believe, for it consisted, as we gather from her letters, only in
giving a helping hand to her maid, who had undertaken to cook and
clean up, but found that her strength fell short of the
requirements.] Then George Sand would teach her children for some
hours. These lessons over, the young ones ran about and amused
themselves for the rest of the day, while their mother sat down
to her literary studies and labours. In the evening they either
strolled together through the moonlit cloisters or read in their
cell, half of the night being generally devoted by the novelist
to writing. George Sand says in the "Histoire de ma Vie" that she
wrote a good deal and read beautiful philosophical and historical
works when she was not nursing her friend. The latter, however,
took up much of her time, and prevented her from getting out
much, for he did not like to be left alone, nor, indeed, could he
safely be left long alone. Sometimes she and her children would
set out on an expedition of discovery, and satisfy their
curiosity and pleasantly while away an hour or two in examining
the various parts of the vast aggregation of buildings; or the
whole party would sit round the stove and laugh over the
rehearsal of the morning's transactions with the villagers. Once
they witnessed even a ball in this sanctuary. It was on Shrove-
Tuesday, after dark, that their attention was roused by a
strange, crackling noise. On going to the door of their cell they
could see nothing, but they heard the noise approaching. After a
little there appeared at the opposite end of the cloister a faint
glimmer of white light, then the red glare of torches, and at
last a crew the sight of which made their flesh creep and their
hair stand on end--he-devils with birds' heads, horses' tails,
and tinsel of all colours; she-devils or abducted shepherdesses
in white and pink dresses; and at the head of them Lucifer
himself, horned and, except the blood-red face, all black. The
strange noise, however, turned out to be the rattling of
castanets, and the terrible-looking figures a merry company of
rich farmers and well-to-do villagers who were going to have a
dance in Maria Antonia's cell. The orchestra, which consisted of
a large and a small guitar, a kind of high-pitched violin, and
from three to four pairs of castanets, began to play indigenous
jotas and fandangos which, George Sand tells us, resemble those
of Spain, but have an even bolder form and more original rhythm.
The critical spectators thought that the dancing of the Majorcans
was not any gayer than their singing, which was not gay at all,
and that their boleros had "la gravite des ancetres, et point de
ces graces profanes qu'on admire en Andalousie." Much of the
music of these islanders was rather interesting than pleasing to
their visitors. The clicking of the castanets with which they
accompany their festal processions, and which, unlike the broken
and measured rhythm of the Spaniards, consists of a continuous
roll like that of a drum "battant aux champs," is from time to
time suddenly interrupted in order to sing in unison a coplita on
a phrase which always recommences but never finishes. George Sand
shares the opinion of M. Tastu that the principal Majorcan
rhythms and favourite fioriture are Arabic in type and origin.