Volume I Part 17 (1/2)
To-day ill hardly permit an artist an extra half-inch of hair, and he roomed, very prosperous, businesslike, and, in appearance at least, athletic--even if he must ask his tailor to furnish the look of brawn Personally, I prefer the mode of to-day, but with to-day's fashi+on we should not have had Chopin, such music as he drew from his familiar and daemon, the piano, and such letters as he wrote about the Gladkovska to his friend Matuszynski:
”God forbid that she should suffer in any way onas my heart beats I shall not cease to adore her Tell her that even after my death my ashes shall be strewn under her feet”
While Chopin was thusconsolation elsewhere than in her music, even as Mozart's Aloysia had done This letter was sent on New Year's Day, 1831 After a few more references to her, her name vanishes from his letters, and the incident is closed It may best be summed up in the words of James Huneker, who is one of the feriters who has kept his sanity on the subject of Chopin:
”He never saw his Gladkovska again, for he did not return to Warsaw The lady was enius--to Joseph Grabovski, a rapher, Count Wodzinski, becaentleman was preferable to a lachrymose pianist Chopin must have heard of the attachment in 1831 Her name almost disappears from his correspondence Tie If she was fickle, he was inconstant, and so let us waste no pity on this episode, over which lakes of tears have been shed and rivers of ink have been spilt”
This saht Chopin to Paris, thenceforward his residence and hoht him into the most aristocratic dove-cotes, or salons, as they called them, and it is s and buttonholing for a while so like roses at his feet Even George Sand was a with hearts, and, in this e Sand was praise from Lady Hubert It seems that he could racefully as froe three flirtations of an evening, and begin a new series the very next day Apparently even distance was no barrier, for George Sand declares that he was at the sairl in Poland and another in Paris The Parisienne he cancelled from his list because, says Sand, when he called on her with another man, she offered the other man a chair before she asked Chopin to be seated Chopin conducted hi to Von Lenz, and such a sacrilege to the laws of precedence naturally was unpardonable
The Polish woman whom Sand refers to may have been the one woman hoe This was Maria Wodzinska Her two brothers had boarded years before at the pension which Chopin's father kept at Warsaw The acquaintance with the brothers was renewed in Paris, and when, in 1835, Chopin visited Dresden after a long journey to see his parents, he met the sister, Maria, then nineteen years old, and fell deeply and seriously in love with her According to her brother, rote a biographical romance on ”Chopin's Three Love Affairs,” Maria, while not classically a beauty, had an indefinable charm
”Her black eyes were full of sweetness, reverie, and restrained fire; a smile of ineffable voluptuousness played around her lips, and her h to serve her as a mantle”
They flirted at the piano and behind a fan, and he dedicated her a little waltz, and she drew his portrait As usual, the different biographers tell different stories, but frorapher of all, Frederick Neicks, decides that Chopin proposed and Maria deposed And here endeth the second of Chopin's three roe Sand, and the year 1837, when Chopin enty-eight and George Sand thirty-three
Thus far we have followed the standard authorities, but the year 1903 has doneChopin's life His letters to his family, and their letters to him, were believed to have perished They were in the possession of his sister Isabella Barcinska, and she was living in the palace of Count Zamoyski at Warsaw, in 1863, when a boeneral was passing
In revenge the soldiers sacked the palace, and burned what they did not carry off Chopin's portrait by Ary Scheffer, his piano, and his Paris furniture perished, and his papers were believed to be a their very existence secret until, after forty years, it was thought proper to give them to the public
M Karlovicz was entrusted with this honour, and _La Revue Musicale_ of Paris chosen as the e bulk, but I have been able to see only the first three instalments, of which two are family letters to him They are exuberant with tenderness, adreat fa with the son to lay up his sous against a rainy day,--advice which ood advice
Karlovicz says, with soeration: ”In his letters to his fa the nae Sand, always calls her 'My hostess,' soe to say, the plural, for instance, 'Elles si cheres, elles rirent pour tous,' or, 'Here the vigil is sad, because _les ned ”Fritz,” is a most cordial welcome to a man about to e Sand and Chopin to Louise, who had just visited the two lovers at Nohant in 1844 Sand tells her that her visit has been the best tonic he has ever had, and writes to the whole faive my life to unite them with him one day under ns himself ”Ton vieux” In his next he details with o's, a husband's discovery, and Mada raphe electro-ton, donne des resultats extraordinaires” He revels in puns and gossip
Karloviczletter in which Chopin called his sister Louise to Paris where he was dying; she cahter, and re him the last tendernesses in her power
This is all I have gleaned froraphy published in Warsaw in 1903 by Ferdinand Hoesick, and, according to Alfred Nossig, destined to upset the supreraphy This latest work is really the carrying out of the plans of Chopin's friend and fellow student, Julian Fontana, who shared joy and sorroith hiraphy On Chopin's death Liszt sprang into print with a rhapsody which led Fontana to defer his work At his death in 1869 he left it unfinished, bequeathing his documents to his son, who permitted Hoesick the use of them
Hoesick blames Chopin's notable melancholy to early experiences of love requited, indeed, but not united in e His love was as rathe as his raphy, says of Chopin: ”As his talent, so did his heart mature early” It was at Warsaw, in his early youth, that he found his first ideal Although his father, a Frenchman who had married a Polish woman, did not occupy a forehest circles In addition to his genius he had always the princely ith him
One of his admirers was the duchess Ludvika Czetvertynska, whose ure and aureole of hair reione Her friend, the Governor of Poland, the Grand Duke Konstantin, through her introduction accepted Chopin as one of his reatly admired Chopin's music
Whenever his violent terand duchess would send secretly for Chopin, ould seat hirand duke would appear in the drawing-room with his temper cured Thus was Chopin another David to a latter-day Saul Chopin was an intirand duke's son, Paul, whose instructor was a Count Moriolles It was his daughter, the Comtesse Alexandra, in whose eyes Chopin found inspiration; he improvised never so beautifully as when she sat next to him at the piano His adoration was no secret
He was often teased on account of the beautiful ”Mariolka,” as he called her In his letters to his friends, we findcomtesse loved him in turn But both knew that this love was hopeless, and therefore Chopin's musical expressions of his dreams for her are melancholy One remembrance of this attachment is the Rondo _a la Mazur_, Op 5, which he dedicated to the Comtesse de Moriolles
In 1830 Chopin toured the continent As in his later relation to George Sand, the passion of a poet, Alfred Musset, rivalled his, so at this time he found a rival in the Polish poet, Julius Slovaki The pretty, vivacious, and perhaps soirl, Comtesse Maria Wodzinska, was the bone of contention, or, rather, the ”rag and the bone and the hank of hair” of contention
It chanced that Chopin and Slovaki, whose works showedsimilarity, were also much alike in looks, in slenderness, dreaminess of feature, and even in expression of countenance Their very fates were like: both left their country never to return In their wandering through Europe, they stopped in the same capitals; both at last took up their residence in Paris, where both died of consumption It was these twins of fate whoirl
The ”black-eyed demoiselle,” as she was called by the poet and the ed so well, that her two adh Europe with her mother and brothers, and found an opportunity to meet Chopin in one, and Slovaki in another town, and to pass several weeks with each
It was Slovaki's turn to meet her in Geneva Here she inspired him to much verse, especially his ”In der Schweiz” But all this while the little vixen corresponded with Chopin He improvised in Paris on themes she composed, and then she repeated his inspirations to keep Slovaki hovering at her piano