Chapter XXI (1)

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 MARSEILLES 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 assume, 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 circumstance 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 reassured
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 assist 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 manuscript. 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 passage 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 phosphorescence 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 passed 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 passengers 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-pronounced 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 mass 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 Marseilles 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 passed 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 assistance; 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 pass, 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 God knows when.

In a few days I shall live in the most beautiful part of the
world. Sea, mountains...whatever you wish. We are to have our
quarters in an old, vast, abandoned and ruined monastery of
Carthusians whom Mend [FOOTNOTE: Mendizabal] drove away as it
were for me. Near Palma--nothing more wonderful: cloisters,
most poetic cemeteries. In short, I feel that there it will be
well with me. Only the piano has not yet come! I wrote to
Pleyel. Ask there and tell him that on the day after my
arrival here I was taken very ill, and that I am well again.
On the whole, speak little about me and my manuscripts. Write
to me. As yet I have not received a letter from you.

Tell Leo that I have not as yet sent the Preludes to the
Albrechts, but that I still love them sincerely, and shall
write to them shortly.

Post the enclosed letter to my parents yourself, and write as
soon as possible.

My love to Johnnie. Do not tell anyone that I was ill, they
would only gossip about it.

[FOOTNOTE: to Madame Dubois I owe the information that Albrecht, an attache to the Saxon legation (a post which gave him a good standing in society) and at the same time a wine-merchant (with offices in the Place Vendome--his specialty being "vins de Bordeaux"), was one of Chopin's "fanatic friends." In the letters there are allusions to two Albrechts, father and son; the foregoing information refers to the son, who, I think, is the T. Albrecht to whom the Premier Scherzo, Chopin's Op. 20, is dedicated.]

Chopin to Fontana; Palma, December 14, 1838:--

As yet not a word from you, and this is my third or fourth
letter. Did you prepay? Perhaps my parents did not write.
Maybe some misfortune has befallen them. Or are you so lazy?
But no, you are not lazy, you are so obliging. No doubt you
sent my two letters to my people (both from Palma). And you
must have written to me, only the post of this place, which is
the most irregular in the world, has not yet delivered your
letters.

Only to-day I was informed that on the ist of December my
piano was embarked at Marseilles on a merchant vessel. The
letter took fourteen days to come from that town. Thus there
is some hope that the piano may pass the winter in the port,
as here nobody stirs when it rains. The idea of my getting it
just at my departure pleases me, for in addition to the 500
francs for freight and duty which I must pay, I shall have the
pleasure of packing it and sending it back. Meanwhile my
manuscripts are sleeping, whereas I cannot sleep, but cough,
and am covered with plasters, waiting anxiously for spring or
something else.

To-morrow I start for this delightful monastery of Valdemosa.
I shall live, muse, and write in the cell of some old monk who
may have had more fire in his heart than I, and was obliged to
hide and smother it, not being able to make use of it.

I think that shortly I shall be able to send you my Preludes
and my Ballade. Go and see Leo; do not mention that I am ill,
he would fear for his 1,000 francs.

Give my kind remembrances to Johnnie and Pleyel.

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

...What is really beautiful here is the country, the sky, the
mountains, the good health of Maurice, and the radoucissement
of Solange. The good Chopin is not in equally brilliant
health. He misses his piano very much. We received news of it
to-day. It has left Marseilles, and we shall perhaps have it
in a fortnight. Mon Dieu, how hard, difficult, and miserable
the physical life is here! It is beyond what one can imagine.

By a stroke of fortune I have found for sale a clean suite of
furniture, charming for this country, but which a French
peasant would not have. Unheard-of trouble was required to get
a stove, wood, linen, and who knows what else. Though for a
month I have believed myself established, I am always on the
eve of being so. Here a cart takes five hours to go three
leagues; judge of the rest. They require two months to
manufacture a pair of tongs. There is no exaggeration in what
I say. Guess about this country all I do not tell you. For my
part I do not mind it, but I have suffered a little from it in
the fear of seeing my children suffer much from it.

Happily, my ambulance is doing well. To-morrow we depart for
the Carthusian monastery of Valdemosa, the most poetic
residence on earth. We shall pass there the winter, which has
hardly begun and will soon end. This is the sole happiness of
this country. I have never in my life met with a nature so
delicious as that of Majorca.

...The people of this country are generally very gracious,
very obliging; but all this in words...

I shall write to Leroux from the monastery at leisure. If you
knew what I have to do! I have almost to cook. Here, another
amenity, one cannot get served. The domestic is a brute:
bigoted, lazy, and gluttonous; a veritable son of a monk (I
think that all are that). It requires ten to do the work which
your brave Mary does. Happily, the maid whom I have brought
with me from Paris is very devoted, and resigns herself to do
heavy work; but she is not strong, and I must help her.
Besides, everything is dear, and proper nourishment is
difficult to get when the stomach cannot stand either rancid
oil or pig's grease. I begin to get accustomed to it; but
Chopin is ill every time that we do not prepare his food
ourselves. In short, our expedition here is, in many respects,
a frightful fiasco.

On December 15, 1838, then, the Sand party took possession of their quarters in the monastery of Valdemosa, and thence the next letters are dated.

Chopin to Fontana; "Palma, December 28, 1838, or rather Valdemosa, a few miles distant from Palma":--

Between rocks and the sea, in a great abandoned Carthusian
monastery, in one of the cells with doors bigger than the
gates in Paris, you may imagine me with my hair uncurled,
without white gloves, pale as usual. The cell is in the shape
of a coffin, high, and full of dust on the vault. The window
small, before the window orange, palm, and cypress trees.
Opposite the window, under a Moorish filigree rosette, stands
my bed. By its side an old square thing like a table for
writing, scarcely serviceable; on it a leaden candlestick (a
great luxury) with a little tallow-candle, Works of Bach, my
jottings, and old scrawls that are not mine, this is all I
possess. Quietness...one may shout and nobody will hear...in
short, I am writing to you from a strange place.

Your letter of the 9th of December I received the day before
yesterday; as on account of the holidays the express mail does
not leave till next week, I write to you in no great hurry. It
will be a Russian month before you get the bill of exchange
which I send you.

Sublime nature is a fine thing, but one should have nothing to
do with men--nor with roads and posts. Many a time I came here
from Palma, always with the same driver and always by another
road. Streams of water make roads, violent rains destroy them;
to-day it is impossible to pass, for what was a road is
ploughed; next day only mules can pass where you were driving
yesterday. And what carriages here! That is the reason,
Julius, why you do not see a single Englishman, not even an
English consul.

Leo is a Jew, a rogue! I was at his house the day before my
departure, and I told him not to send me anything here. I
cannot send you the Preludes, they are not yet finished. At
present I am better and shall push on the work. I shall write
and thank him in a way that will make him wince.

But Schlesinger is a still worse dog to put my Waltzes
[FOOTNOTE: "Trois Valses brillantes," Op. 34.] in the Album,
and to sell them to Probst [FOOTNOTE: Heinrich Albert Probst
founded in 1823 a music-shop and publishing-house at Leipzig.
In 1831 Fr. Kistner entered the business (Probst-Kistner),
which under his name has existed from 1836 down to this day.
In the Chopin letters we meet Probst in the character of
Breitkopf and Hartel's agent.] when I gave him them because he
begged them for his father in Berlin. [FOOTNOTE: Adolf Martin
Schlesinger, a music-publisher like his son Maurice Adolph of
Paris, so frequently mentioned in these letters.] All this
irritates me. I am only sorry for you; but in one month at the
latest you will be clear of Leo and my landlord. With the
money which you receive on the bill of exchange, do what is
necessary. And my servant, what is he doing? Give the portier
twenty francs as a New Year's present.

I do not remember whether I left any debts of importance. At
all events, as I promised you, we shall be clear in a month at
the latest.

To-day the moon is wonderful, I never saw it more beautiful.

By the way, you write that you sent me a letter from my
people. I neither saw nor heard of one, and I am longing so
much for one! Did you prepay when you sent them the letter?

Your letter, the only one I have hitherto received, was very
badly addressed. Here nature is benevolent, but the people are
thievish. They never see any strangers, and therefore do not
know what to ask of them. For instance, an orange they will
give you for nothing, but ask a fabulous sum for a coat-
button.

Under this sky you are penetrated with a kind of poetical
feeling which everything seems to exhale. Eagles alarmed by no
one soar every day majestically over our heads.

For God's sake write, always prepay, and to Palma add always
Valdemosa.

I love Johnnie, and I think it is a pity that he did not
altogether qualify himself as director of the children of some
benevolent institution in some Nuremberg or Bamberg. Get him
to write to me, were it only a few words.

I enclose you a letter to my people...I think it is already
the third or fourth that I send you for my parents.

My love to Albrecht, but speak very little about me.

Chopin to Fontana; Valdemosa, January 12, 1839:--

I send you the Preludes, make a copy of them, you and Wolf;
[FOOTNOTE: Edouard Wolff] I think there are no mistakes. You
will give the transcript to Probst, but my manuscript to
Pleyel. When you get the money from Probst, for whom I enclose
a receipt, you will take it at once to Leo. I do not write and
thank him just now, for I have no time. Out of the money which
Pleyel will give you, that is 1,500 francs, you will pay the
rent of my rooms till the New Year, 450 francs and you will
give notice of my giving them up if you have a chance to get
others from April. If not it will be necessary to keep them
for a quarter longer. The rest of the amount, or 1,000 francs,
you will return from me to Nougi. Where he lives you will
learn from Johnnie, but don't tell the latter of the money,
for he might attack Nougi, and I do not wish that anyone but
you and I should know of it. Should you succeed in finding
rooms, you could send one part of the furniture to Johnnie and
another to Grzymala. You will tell Pleyel to send letters
through you.

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.