Part 4 (1/2)
Surely it is one of the most inexplicable of dramas. The whole period which it occupies is of less than two years: eighteen months have elapsed, and we have not yet seen the heroine. We only guess at her darkly from the hero's soliloquies, or the rare secrets which he commends to the bosom of his confidant. We are in the fourth act, and have advanced to no further situation than was disclosed in the opening scene. It is true that for a few weeks in the autumn of 1830 the two actors are brought into a closer relations.h.i.+p: that she sang for him at his concert in October, and that she gave him a ring on his departure from Warsaw: but then, just as we are beginning to attain to some comprehension of the plot, the curtain falls, and there has been neither recognition nor catastrophe. Nor is the epilogue any less inconclusive.
The farewell gift, which should have been the beginning of a more intimate romance, is virtually the end of the whole story. After Chopin had left his home, he seems to have held no further communication, other than indirect, with the woman whom he believed himself to love; in a few months her name has dropped out of his letters: and when she married, about a year later, he is said to have heard the news with a momentary outburst of brief anger, and then to have dismissed it from his recollection. And even during the days of his thraldom, he can forget his troubles whenever he is interested in his work. It is only when he is wearied or overwrought that the image of his love recurs, with its invariable train of forebodings and regrets: forebodings that he will find inaccessible a height which he never tries to climb: regrets for lost opportunities which he has never attempted to seize. As to her own att.i.tude in the matter, we are even more at fault. We have no means of determining to what extent she looked with favour upon his suit, or to what extent she even trusted in its sincerity. We have no right to impute blame to her: we have no standpoint for imputation. All we can say is, that if Chopin's pa.s.sion had been wholly visionary, this is the way in which it would have expressed itself. Of the joy, the hope, the impetus of true love there is not one recorded word: his highest point of stimulation is the desire to 'tell his piano' of the sorrow that she has brought him: his brightest hope of communion with her is that when he dies his ashes may be spread out under her feet.
It is pleasanter to look upon the more active side of Chopin's last summer in Warsaw. In spite of the social distractions which the season inevitably brought in its retinue, he worked away steadily at his E minor Concerto, finished it by the middle of August, and produced it, with his usual good fortune, at his third and last concert, on October 11. In addition, he composed what he modestly calls 'a few insignificant pieces,' and sketched or projected some works of larger scale--a concerto for two pianos, a polonaise with orchestra, and the like.
Whether these ever came into complete existence is a matter of dispute: here, as elsewhere, the record of Chopin's life is too broken and imperfect to admit any tone of certainty: but, in either event, they testify to some acceptance of the 'beat.i.tude of labour.' The results of a man's effort are a free gift to succeeding generations; it is in the effort itself that he finds his own reward.
As the winter approached, plans for departure grew more definite and more concrete. Chopin had cried 'Wolf' so often that his friends might well be excused for doubting the reality of his intentions, but this time it appeared that he was actually in earnest, and at the beginning of November he started. Even now he had no very clear idea of his destination. It was to be Vienna first, so much was certain, but after Vienna it might be Berlin, where Prince Radziwill could ensure him introductions, or it might be Italy, where he could bear his credentials to royalty at Milan, or it might be Paris, which was then the goal of almost every artist in Europe. 'I am going out into the wide world,' he writes, with a touch of knight-errantry foreign to his usual nature.
Curiously enough, he seems to have had from the beginning a presentiment that he would never return to Poland; and when, at the first stage from Warsaw, Elsner met him with the pupils of the Conservatorium, and presented him with a silver cup full of Polish earth, the strange little ceremonial must have added force and ratification to his thought.
Moreover, the presentiment came true. The nineteen years of life which remained to him only widened his separation from his native country; his exile, though voluntary, proved to be none the less irrevocable; and as the towers of Warsaw sank behind him on the horizon, there faded with them all but the memory of a home which he was never to see again.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] So says Karasowski, who was intimately acquainted with the Chopins, and was entrusted by them with the materials for an authoritative biography. The monument in the Holy Cross Church at Warsaw gives March 2, 1809, as the date. Liszt and Fetis both give 1810. It is a salient instance of the carelessness with which the records of Chopin's life have been treated.
[17] The Polonaise in B flat minor, 'Adieu an Wilhelm Kolberg,' appears to have been written on Chopin's departure for Reinerz in 1826. But Fontana calls the three, which were published posthumously as Op. 71, 'les trois premieres Polonaises.' Two of them were composed in 1827-8 and the third in 1829.
[18] Not the E minor Concerto, as M. Karasowski a.s.serts. The fact is put beyond dispute by a letter of May 15, 1830, in which Chopin says that the Adagio of the latter work is still unfinished. Both movements, by the way, are marked _Larghetto_ in the score.
[19] See the letter of Sept. 4, 1830, quoted by Professor Niecks.
II
PARIS--AND AN EPISODE
After the good leisurely fas.h.i.+on of the time, Chopin took nearly four weeks over his journey to Vienna. His first halting-place was Kalisz, where he was joined by his friend Woyciecowski, and thence the two travelled together through Breslau, Dresden and Prague, enjoying to the full that highest of human pleasures which is const.i.tuted by a clear road, brisk horses, and a single companion. The incidents, as recorded in his letters, are not of any great importance--impressions of the theatre at Breslau, renewal of old acquaintances.h.i.+ps at Dresden, and so forth--but the letters themselves are interesting, as showing how entirely he had recovered his spirits under the change of scene and circ.u.mstance. Everything is delightful, everybody is cordial, all prospects of the future career are painted in rose-colour, and the darkest moments of uncertainty are caused by his terror at the sight of the Saxon ladies, in their panoply of knitting-needles, or by the temptation, which he is at some pains to resist, of 'kicking out the bottom' from his first sedan chair. In a character so transparent, even these evanescent bubbles of humour acquire a certain significance. For the moment, Chopin's tone is equally free from regret or apprehension; for the moment, this exile from his country has succeeded in escaping from his recent self.
And yet, it was a bold challenge to fortune. On the one side, a world which is usually too busy to occupy itself with new aspirants, which grants no favour that cannot be claimed as a right, and is even less ready to show mercy to the conquered than to offer its applause to the conqueror: on the other, a boy of twenty-one, with delicate and fastidious appet.i.tes, with no experience of privation, no conception of the value of money, no settled habits of prudence or circ.u.mspection, equipped, it is true, with a flas.h.i.+ng weapon of genius, but singularly ill provided with the ordinary armour of defence. It would have been no wonder if he had thought the bastions impregnable and the towers impossible to scale: if he had looked upon the camp life as coa.r.s.e and uncouth, if he had found its discipline intolerable, its hards.h.i.+ps degrading, and its pleasures typified by the rude laughter and boisterous jests of the canteen. Small wonder, either, if his comrades had set him down as a carpet-knight; an exquisite, better skilled to pay compliments to the women than to bear his part among the men; a dandy, whose chief care was the set of his clothes and the fragrance of his violets; a precisian, who was altogether devoid of redeeming vices; an idealist, who spent his days in pursuit of the unattainable, instead of taking life as it came, and letting ready action compensate for defective strategy. And in such an estimate there would have been a certain measure of truth. If, in order to be a good man, it is first necessary to be a good animal, we may admit at once that Chopin's virility was imperfect. There is no doubt that, to the end of his life, he was characterised by a super-sensitive refinement, which, fifty years ago, would have been described as feminine. But now, at the outset of his career, it is well to notice that he was by no means unprovided with the means of success. He was already one of the best pianists in Europe.
He had discovered a secret of musical expression more readily understood and appreciated than that of any contemporary composer, with the exception of Mendelssohn. He was gifted with a great charm of manner, and an unusual power of making friends. And when it is added that he was only once in any great stress of poverty, it will be seen that his equipment was less incomplete than is generally imagined. After all, the dandies have played their part in history. Claverhouse was a dandy; Lovelace was a dandy; Sir Philip Sydney himself was censured by Milton for being 'vain and amatorious': and if a man can be something of a fop, and yet bear himself gallantly in the battle of arms, how much more shall he do so in the battle of life.
At the same time, we must confess that, in his first encounter with destiny, the hero was visited with a signal defeat. Before he had been a week in Vienna, news came that Warsaw had risen in revolt against the Russians; there was word of riot in the streets, of danger to the house; and Chopin, after a few hours of irresolution, started off to follow his friend Woyciecowski, who had gone at once to join the insurgents. On the way his determination broke down: his presence could avail nothing; it would only add to the disquietude of his parents; he had better wait for further tidings, for some message or injunction which would relieve him from taking the initiative. Without further thought he changed his plans, and returned to Vienna, waiting there in a transport of grief and anxiety for the letters which a man of prompter courage would have forestalled. As the days wore on, the bulletins grew more rea.s.suring; for a time, at any rate, the cloud of peril rolled away from the city: the Poles had an army of 60,000 men in the field, and, in spite of the enormous forces of the Emperor Nicholas, were confident of success.
Still Chopin lingered on, ready to start at the lightest summons, but not strong enough to take the first step of his own motion, until the noise of battle had pa.s.sed to the Russian frontier, and he could write once more about his life and his surroundings.
Apparently the outlook was less encouraging than it had been in 1828.
Vienna, since the death of Schubert, was pa.s.sing through a period of musical inactivity, and the prospects of concert-giving were not very bright. Managers who had been ready enough to welcome Chopin when he played gratuitously, began to hang back now that he demanded payment; and the public, after its golden age of the cla.s.sics, professed itself satisfied with the _kapellmeistermusik_ of Seyfried, and the dance-tunes of Strauss and Lanner. During the whole six months of Chopin's stay in the Austrian capital, he only gave one concert, and that, as we learn from M. Karasowski, was thinly attended and poorly paid. For the rest, his letters contain little more than the diary of a casual visitor:--operas at the Karnthnerthor Theatre, dinners with his friend Dr Malfatti, a few criticisms of Thalberg, a few words of enthusiasm for Slavik; the whole lightened, every now and again, by some amusing story or some half-dozen lines of quaint description. His tone changes with every varying mood: at one moment he breaks into pa.s.sionate regret that he is still absent from his home: at another he speaks of himself as enjoying his enforced idleness, as wonderfully restored in health, and as finding many acquaintances and much pleasant companions.h.i.+p. But it is clear that, whatever his temper, he was in no way to replenish his resources or advance his existing reputation.
By the middle of 1831 he had made up his mind to proceed to Paris. To return home would be merely to confess himself beaten: Italy was put out of the question by its political troubles; Berlin, with all its opportunities, was hardly the ideal residence for a Polish artist. All reasons pointed to the land with which he was in the closest sympathy: the land which had given birth to his father, which had been the ally of his nation, which had always shown its warmest hospitality to his countrymen. Accordingly he started on July 20, travelled slowly through Munich and Stuttgart, and finally arrived at his destination about the end of the autumn. His two halting-places are both of some moment in the history of his life. At Munich he gave his last public concert to a German-speaking audience, playing his E minor Concerto and his Fantasia on Polish Airs: at Stuttgart he heard the news that Warsaw had been captured by the Russians, and that the hopes of the revolution were lying under the ruin of its walls. Fortunately his parents were safe.
There was no personal anxiety to embitter his grief at the national disaster. But, none the less, the blow sank deep, and left a scar which lasted indelibly. With all his weakness, Chopin had an intense love for his country, and the dirge[20] in which he mourned her downfall remains as one of the truest and saddest utterances of despairing patriotism.
So ends a year which, on its artistic side, is little more than a line of cleavage between the two main divisions of the story. Before it, Chopin is a boy, studying with his masters, secure under the protection of his home, and looking with expectant eyes upon a great world of which he hardly knows the outskirts: after it, he is a man, holding his fate in his own hands, living in a foreign city, surrounded with new hopes, new occupations, and new friends.h.i.+ps. As Warsaw in the first period, so Paris in the second is the centre on which every aspect of the life is focussed. Poland has played her part--she has ceased to be counted among the nations: for the future, it is French blood that claims its kindred, and French loyalty that offers its allegiance.
And, indeed, Chopin could have chosen no city which would give him less feeling of transference. He found Paris full of a cordial sympathy with everything Polish: dramas, founded on the insurrection, drawing crowds to the theatres; cries of '_Vive les Polonais_' echoing in the streets; ovations to General Ramorino, who had taken arms against Russia, and had not despaired of the Republic. A few letters of introduction served to open the doors of artistic society: Paer, Baillot, even Cherubini offered a kindly welcome to the newcomer: Hiller and Franchomme were soon among his fast friends: and the early days were pa.s.sed in a rush of concert and opera, in admiration of the fine Conservatoire Orchestra, or in open-eyed wonder at the roulades of Pasta and Malibran.
A short time after his arrival, he went to call upon Kalkbrenner, in hopes that the great teacher would consent to give him lessons.
Kalkbrenner heard him play, approved, noted some deviations from the established method, and offered to take him as a pupil if he would promise to serve a full apprentices.h.i.+p of three years. The condition was somewhat prohibitive, for Chopin had his own way to make, and his own living to earn; but with characteristic docility he undertook to consider the proposal, and wrote off at once to Elsner for advice. The old master's answer was, on the whole, dissuasive. It was unadvisable, he said, that Chopin should restrict himself too closely to the piano: there were other forms of the art--quartetts, symphonies, and, above all, operas--which might establish his name on a more lasting foundation. Besides, a too continuous adherence to one method, however perfect, would tend to destroy individuality of touch and subst.i.tute a mere mechanical proficiency for the freedom of original thought. A genius 'should be allowed to follow his own path and make his own discoveries.' So, fortunately for Music, Chopin decided to decline the offer; though the cordiality of his relation with Kalkbrenner is testified by many pa.s.sages of intimacy, and by the dedication of the E minor Concerto. There can be no doubt that the proposal was made in good faith, and that it was rejected with some hesitation. The only matters of comment are the modesty with which Chopin suggested a new period of students.h.i.+p, and the grounds on which Elsner recommended him to dismiss the idea.
Early in 1832 Chopin made his first appearance before a Parisian public.
The concert, organised for the benefit of the Polish refugees, was no great financial success, but it served to bring into notice the second concerto and some of the early mazurkas and nocturnes. One of the most interesting features in the programme was an enormous work of Kalkbrenner's for six pianofortes, played by the composer and Chopin in _concertino_, together with Hiller, Osborne, Stamaty and Sowinski as accompanists: a disposition of forces which plainly indicates that the newcomer was already recognised as a leader by some of the best executants in Paris. We may add that, artistically speaking, the _debut_ was a veritable triumph. The audience applauded heartily, Mendelssohn offered his warmest congratulations, even Fetis grew genial and appreciative; and when, at a charity concert in March, Chopin succeeded in scoring a second victory, it is little wonder that he found his position established beyond dispute. He might well write to his friends at home,--'_Me voila lance._' The society of Paris lionised him with the same fervour as the society of Warsaw: evening after evening was occupied with visitors or filled with invitations: pupils began to present themselves; concert managers solicited his services; and before long he shared with Liszt the honour of being the most fas.h.i.+onable musician of the day. 'I move in the highest circles,' he writes, 'and I don't know how I got there. But you are credited with more talent if you have been heard at a _soiree_ of the English or Austrian Amba.s.sador.