Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician Part 27

CHOPIN'S VISITS TO NOHANT IN 1837 AND 1838.--HIS ILL HEALTH.--HE DECIDES TO GO WITH MADAME SAND AND HER CHILDREN TO MAJORCA.--MADAME SAND'S ACCOUNT OF THIS MATTER AND WHAT OTHERS THOUGHT ABOUT IT.--CHOPIN AND HIS FELLOW--TRAVELLERS MEET AT PERPIGNAN IN THE BEGINNING OF NOVEMBER, 1838, AND PROCEED BY PORT-VENDRES AND BARCELONA TO PALMA.--THEIR LIFE AND EXPERIENCES IN THE TOWN, AT THE VILLA SON-VENT, AND AT THE MONASTERY OF VALDEMOSA, AS DESCRIBED IN CHOPIN'S AND GEORGE SAND'S LETTERS, AND THE LATTER'S "MA VIE" AND "UN HIVER A MAJORQUE."--THE PRELUDES.--RETURN TO FRANCE BY BARCELONA AND Ma.r.s.eILLES IN THE END OF FEBRUARY, 1839.

In a letter written in 1837, and quoted on p. 313 of Vol. I., Chopin said: "I may perhaps go for a few days to George Sand's." How heartily she invited him through their common friends Liszt and the Comtesse d'Agoult, we saw in the preceding chapter. We may safely a.s.sume, I think, that Chopin went to Nohant in the summer of 1837, and may be sure that he did so in the summer of 1838, although with regard to neither visit reliable information of any kind is discoverable. Karasowski, it is true, quotes four letters of Chopin to Fontana as written from Nohant in 1838, but internal evidence shows that they must have been written three years later.

We know from Mendelssohn's and Moscheles' allusions to Chopin's visit to London that he was at that time ailing. He himself wrote in the same year (1837) to Anthony Wodzinski that during the winter he had been again ill with influenza, and that the doctors had wanted to send him to Ems. As time went on the state of his health seems to have got worse, and this led to his going to Majorca in the winter of 1838-1839. The circ.u.mstance that he had the company of Madame Sand on this occasion has given rise to much discussion. According to Liszt, Chopin was forced by the alarming state of his health to go to the south in order to avoid the severities of the Paris winter; and Madame Sand, who always watched sympathetically over her friends, would not let him depart alone, but resolved to accompany him. Karasowski, on the other hand, maintains that it was not Madame Sand who was induced to accompany Chopin, but that Madame Sand induced Chopin to accompany her. Neither of these statements tallies with Madame Sand's own account. She tells us that when in 1838 her son Maurice, who had been in the custody of his father, was definitively entrusted to her care, she resolved to take him to a milder climate, hoping thus to prevent a return of the rheumatism from which he had suffered so much in the preceding year. Besides, she wished to live for some time in a quiet place where she could make her children work, and could work herself, undisturbed by the claims of society.

As I was making my plans and preparations for departure [she goes on to say], Chopin, whom I saw every day and whose genius and character I tenderly loved, said to me that if he were in Maurice's place he would soon recover. I believed it, and I was mistaken. I did not put him in the place of Maurice on the journey, but beside Maurice. His friends had for long urged him to go and spend some time in the south of Europe. People believed that he was consumptive. Gaubert examined him and declared to me that he was not. "You will save him, in fact,"

he said to me, "if you give him air, exercise, and rest."

Others, knowing well that Chopin would never make up his mind to leave the society and life of Paris without being carried off by a person whom he loved and who was devoted to him, urged me strongly not to oppose the desire he showed so a propos and in a quite unhoped-for way.

As time showed, I was wrong in yielding to their hopes and my own solicitude. It was indeed enough to go abroad alone with two children, one already ill, the other full of exuberant health and spirits, without taking upon myself also a terrible anxiety and a physician's responsibility.

But Chopin was just then in a state of health that rea.s.sured everybody. With the exception of Grzymala, who saw more clearly how matters stood, we were all hopeful. I nevertheless begged Chopin to consider well his moral strength, because for several years he had never contemplated without dread the idea of leaving Paris, his physician, his acquaintances, his room even, and his piano. He was a man of imperious habits, and every change, however small it might be, was a terrible event in his life.

Seeing that Liszt--who was at the time in Italy--and Karasowski speak only from hearsay, we cannot do better than accept George Sand's account, which contains nothing improbable. In connection with this migration to the south, I must, however, not omit to mention certain statements of Adolph Gutmann, one of Chopin's pupils. Here is the substance of what Gutmann told me. Chopin was anxious to go to Majorca, but for some time was kept in suspense by the scantiness of his funds.

This threatening obstacle, however, disappeared when his friend the pianoforte-maker and publisher, Camille Pleyel, paid him 2,000 francs for the copyright of the Preludes, Op. 28. Chopin remarked of this transaction to Gutmann, or in his hearing: "I sold the Preludes to Pleyel because he liked them [parcequ'il les aimait]." And Pleyel exclaimed on one occasion: "These are my Preludes [Ce sont mes Preludes]." Gutmann thought that Pleyel, who was indebted to Chopin for playing on his instruments and recommending them, wished to a.s.sist his friend in a delicate way with some money, and therefore pretended to be greatly taken with these compositions and bent upon possessing them.

This, however, cannot be quite correct; for from Chopin's letters, which I shall quote I presently, it appears that he had indeed promised Pleyel the Preludes, but before his departure received from him only 500 francs, the remaining 1,500 being paid months afterwards, on the delivery of the ma.n.u.script. These letters show, on the other hand, that when Chopin was in Majorca he owed to Leo 1,000 francs, which very likely he borrowed from him to defray part of the expenses of his sojourn in the south.

[FOOTNOTE: August Leo, a Paris banker, "the friend and patron of many artists," as he is called by Moscheles, who was related to him through his wife Charlotte Embden, of Hamburg. The name of Leo occurs often in the letters and conversations of musicians, especially German musicians, who visited Paris or lived there in the second quarter of this century.

Leo kept house together with his brother-in-law Valentin. (See Vol. I., p. 254.)]

Chopin kept his intention of going with Madame Sand to Majorca secret from all but a privileged few. According to Franchomme, he did not speak of it even to his friends. There seem to have been only three exceptions--Fontana, Matuszynski, and Grzymala, and in his letters to the first he repeatedly entreats his friend not to talk about him. Nor does he seem to have been much more communicative after his return, for none of Chopin's acquaintances whom I questioned was able to tell me whether the composer looked back on this migration with satisfaction or with regret; still less did they remember any remark made by him that would throw a more searching light on this period of his life.

Until recently the only sources of information bearing on Chopin's stay in Majorca were George Sand's "Un Hiver a Majorque" and "Histoire de ma Vie." But now we have also Chopin's letters to Fontana (in the Polish edition of Karasowski's "Chopin") and George Sand's "Correspondance,"

which supplement and correct the two publications of the novelist.

Remembering the latter's tendency to idealise everything, and her disinclination to descend to the prose of her subject, I shall make the letters the backbone of my narrative, and for the rest select my material cautiously.

Telling Chopin that she would stay some days at Perpignan if he were not there on her arrival, but would proceed without him if he failed to make his appearance within a certain time, Madame Sand set out with her two children and a maid in the month of November, 1838, for the south of France, and, travelling for travelling's sake, visited Lyons, Avignon, Vaucluse, Nimes, and other places. The distinguished financier and well-known Spanish statesman Mendizabal, their friend, who was going to Madrid, was to accompany Chopin to the Spanish frontier. Madame Sand was not long left in doubt as to whether Chopin would realise his reve de voyage or not, for he put in his appearance at Perpignan the very next day after her arrival there. Madame Sand to Madame Marliani, [FOOTNOTE: The wife of the Spanish politician and author, Manuel Marliani. We shall hear more of her farther on.] November, 1838:-- Chopin arrived at Perpignan last night, fresh as a rose, and rosy as a turnip; moreover, in good health, having stood his four nights of the mail-coach heroically.

As to ourselves, we travelled slowly, quietly, and surrounded at all stations by our friends, who overwhelmed us with kindness.

As the weather was fine and the sea calm Chopin did not suffer much on the pa.s.sage from Port-Vendres to Barcelona. At the latter town the party halted for a while-spending some busy days within its walls, and making an excursion into the country-and then took ship for Palma, the capital of Majorca and the Balearic Isles generally. Again the voyagers were favoured by the elements.

The night was warm and dark, illumined only by an extraordinary phosph.o.r.escence in the wake of the ship; everybody was asleep on board except the steersman, who, in order to keep himself awake, sang all night, but in a voice so soft and so subdued that one might have thought that he feared to awake the men of the watch, or that he himself was half asleep. We did not weary of listening to him, for his singing was of the strangest kind. He observed a rhythm and modulations totally different from those we are accustomed to, and seemed to allow his voice to go at random, like the smoke of the vessel carried away and swayed by the breeze. It was a reverie rather than a song, a kind of careless divagation of the voice, with which the mind had little to do, but which kept time with the swaying of the ship, the faint sound of the dead water, and resembled a vague improvisation, restrained, nevertheless, by sweet and monotonous forms.

When night had pa.s.sed into day, the steep coasts of Majorca, dentelees au soleil du matin par les aloes et les palmiers, came in sight, and soon after El Mallorquin landed its pa.s.sengers at Palma. Madame Sand had left Paris a fortnight before in extremely cold weather, and here she found in the first half of November summer heat. The newcomers derived much pleasure from their rambles through the town, which has a strongly-p.r.o.nounced character of its own and is rich in fine and interesting buildings, among which are most prominent the magnificent Cathedral, the elegant Exchange (la lonja), the stately Town-Hall, and the picturesque Royal Palace (palacio real). Indeed, in Majorca everything is picturesque,

from the hut of the peasant, who in his most insignificant buildings has preserved the tradition of the Arabic style, to the infant clothed in rags and triumphant in his "malproprete grandiose," as Heine said a propos of the market-women of Verona. The character of the landscape, whose vegetation is richer than that of Africa is in general, has quite as much breadth, calm, and simplicity. It is green Switzerland under the sky of Calabria, with the solemnity and silence of the East.

But picturesqueness alone does not make man's happiness, and Palma seems to have afforded little else. If we may believe Madame Sand, there was not a single hotel in the town, and the only accommodation her party could get consisted of two small rooms, unfurnished rather than furnished, in some wretched place where travellers are happy to find "a folding-bed, a straw-bottomed chair, and, as regards food, pepper and garlic a discretion." Still, however great their discomfort and disgust might be, they had to do their utmost to hide their feelings; for, if they had made faces on discovering vermin in their beds and scorpions in their soup, they would certainly have hurt the susceptibilities of the natives, and would probably have exposed themselves to unpleasant consequences. No inhabitable apartments were to be had in the town itself, but in its neighbourhood a villa chanced to be vacant, and this our party rented at once.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Palma, November 14, 1838:--

I am leaving the town, and shall establish myself in the country: I have a pretty furnished house, with a garden and a magnificent view, for fifty francs per month. Besides, two leagues from there I have a cell, that is to say, three rooms and a garden full of oranges and lemons, for thirty-five francs PER YEAR, in the large monastery of Valdemosa.

The furniture of the villa was indeed of the most primitive kind, and the walls were only whitewashed, but the house was otherwise convenient, well ventilated--in fact, too well ventilated--and above all beautifully situated at the foot of rounded, fertile mountains, in the bosom of a rich valley which was terminated by the yellow walls of Palma, the ma.s.s of the cathedral, and the sparkling sea on the horizon.

Chopin to Fontana; Palma, November 15, 1838:--

[FOOTNOTE: Julius Fontana, born at Warsaw in 1810, studied music (at the Warsaw Conservatoire under Elsner) as an amateur and law for his profession; joined in 1830 the Polish insurrectionary army; left his country after the failure of the insurrection; taught the piano in London; played in 1835 several times with success in Paris; resided there for some years; went in 1841 to Havannah; on account of the climate, removed to New York; gave there concerts with Sivori; and returned to Paris in 1850. This at least is the account we get of him in Sowinski's "Les Musiciens polonais et slaves." Mr. A. J. Hipkins, who became acquainted with Fontana during a stay which the latter made in London in 1856 (May and early part of June), described him to me as "an honourable and gentlemanly man." From the same informant I learned that Fontana married a lady who had an income for life, and that by this marriage he was enabled to retire from the active exercise of his profession. Later on he became very deaf, and this great trouble was followed by a still greater one, the death of his wife. Thus left deaf and poor, he despaired, and, putting a pistol to one of his ears, blew out his brains. According to Karasowski he died at Paris in 1870. The compositions he published (dances, fantasias, studies, &c.) are of no importance. He is said to have published also two books, one on Polish orthography in 1866 and one on popular astronomy in 1869. The above and all the following letters of Chopin to Fontana are in the possession of Madame Johanna Lilpop, of Warsaw, and are here translated from Karasowski's Polish edition of his biography of Chopin. Many of the letters are undated, and the dates suggested by Karasowski generally wrong. There are, moreover, two letters which are given as if dated by Chopin; but as the contents point to Nohant and 1841 rather than to Majorca and 1838 and 1839, I shall place them in Chapter XXIV., where also my reasons for doing so will be more particularly stated. A third letter, supposed by Karasowski to be written at Valdemosa in February, I hold to be written at Ma.r.s.eilles in April. It will be found in the next chapter.]

My dear friend,--I am at Palma, among palms, cedars, cactuses, aloes, and olive, orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees, &c., which the Jardin des Plantes possesses only thanks to its stoves. The sky is like a turquoise, the sea is like lazuli, and the mountains are like emeralds. The air? The air is just as in heaven. During the day there is sunshine, and consequently it is warm--everybody wears summer clothes.

During the night guitars and songs are heard everywhere and at all hours. Enormous balconies with vines overhead, Moorish walls...The town, like everything here, looks towards Africa...In one word, a charming life!

Dear Julius, go to Pleyel--the piano has not yet arrived--and ask him by what route they have sent it.

The Preludes you shall have soon.

I shall probably take up my quarters in a delightful monastery in one of the most beautiful sites in the world: sea, mountains, palm trees, cemetery, church of the Knights of the Cross, ruins of mosques, thousand-year-old olive trees!...Ah, my dear friend, I am now enjoying life a little more; I am near what is most beautiful--I am a better man.

Letters from my parents and whatever you have to send me give to Grzymala; he knows the safest address.

Embrace Johnnie. [FOOTNOTE: The Johnnie so frequently mentioned in the letters to Fontana is John Matuszynski.] How soon he would recover here!

Tell Schlesinger that before long he will receive MS. To acquaintances speak little of me. Should anybody ask, say that I shall be back in spring. The mail goes once a week; I write through the French Consulate here.

Send the enclosed letter as it is to my parents; leave it at the postoffice yourself.

Yours,

CHOPIN.

George Sand relates in "Un Hiver a Majorque" that the first days which her party pa.s.sed at the Son-Vent (House of the Wind)--this was the name of the villa they had rented--were pretty well taken up with promenading and pleasant lounging, to which the delicious climate and novel scenery invited. But this paradisaic condition was suddenly changed as if by magic when at the end of two or three weeks the wet season began and the Son-Vent became uninhabitable.

The walls of it were so thin that the lime with which our rooms were plastered swelled like a sponge. For my part I never suffered so much from cold, although it was in reality not very cold; but for us, who are accustomed to warm ourselves in winter, this house without a chimney was like a mantle of ice on our shoulders, and I felt paralysed. Chopin, delicate as he was and subject to violent irritation of the larynx, soon felt the effects of the damp.

We could not accustom ourselves to the stifling odour of the brasiers, and our invalid began to ail and to cough.

From this moment we became an object of dread and horror to the population. We were accused and convicted of pulmonary phthisis, which is equivalent to the plague in the prejudices regarding contagion entertained by Spanish physicians. A rich doctor, who for the moderate remuneration of forty-five francs deigned to come and pay us a visit, declared, nevertheless, that there was nothing the matter, and prescribed nothing.

Another physician came obligingly to our a.s.sistance; but the pharmacy at Palma was in such a miserable state that we could only procure detestable drugs. Moreover, the illness was to be aggravated by causes which no science and no devotion could efficiently battle against.

One morning, when we were given up to serious fears on account of the duration of these rains and these sufferings which were bound up together, we received a letter from the fierce Gomez [the landlord], who declared, in the Spanish style, that we held a person who held a disease which carried contagion into his house, and threatened prematurely the life of his family; in consequence of which he requested us to leave his palace with the shortest delay possible.

This did not cause us much regret, for we could no longer stay there without fear of being drowned in our rooms; but our invalid was not in a condition to be moved without danger, especially by such means of transport as are available in Majorca, and in the weather then obtaining. And then the difficulty was to know where to go, for the rumour of our phthisis had spread instantaneously, and we could no longer hope to find a shelter anywhere, not even at a very high price for a night. We knew that the obliging persons who offeredto take us in were themselves not free from prejudices, and that, moreover, we should draw upon them, in going near them, the reprobation which weighed upon us. Without the hospitality of the French consul, who did wonders in order to gather us all under his roof, we were threatened with the prospect of camping in some cavern like veritable Bohemians.

Another miracle came to pa.s.s, and we found an asylum for the winter. At the Carthusian monastery of Valdemosa there was a Spanish refugee, who had hidden himself there for I don't know what political reason. Visiting the monastery, we were struck with the gentility of his manners, the melancholy beauty of his wife, and the rustic and yet comfortable furniture of their cell. The poesy of this monastery had turned my head. It happened that the mysterious couple wished to leave the country precipitately, and--that they were as delighted to dispose to us of their furniture and cell as we were to acquire them. For the moderate sum of a thousand francs we had then a complete establishment, but such a one as we could have procured in France for 300 francs, so rare, costly, and difficult to get are the most necessary things in Majorca.

The outcasts decamped speedily from the Son-Vent. But before Senor Gomez had done with his tenants, he made them pay for the whitewashing and the replastering of the whole house, which he held to have been infected by Chopin.

And now let us turn once more from George Sand's poetical inventions, distortions, and exaggerations, to the comparative sobriety and trustworthiness of letters.

Chopin to Fontana; Palma, December 3, 1838:--

I cannot send you the MSS. as they are not yet finished.

During the last two weeks I have been as ill as a dog, in spite of eighteen degrees of heat, [FOOTNOTE: That is, eighteen degrees Centigrade, which are equal to about sixty- four degrees Fahrenheit.] and of roses, and orange, palm, and fig trees in blossom. I caught a severe cold. Three doctors, the most renowned in the island, were called in for consultation. One smelt what I spat, the second knocked whence I spat, the third sounded and listened when I spat. The first said that I would die, the second that I was dying, the third that I had died already; and in the meantime I live as I was living. I cannot forgive Johnnie that in the case of bronchite aigue, which he could always notice in me, he gave me no advice. I had a narrow escape from their bleedings, cataplasms, and such like operations. Thanks to Providence, I am now myself again. My illness has nevertheless a pernicious effect on the Preludes, which you will receive G.o.d knows when.