George Sand was quite right in saying that this journey was an "awful fiasco."Art and literature did not gain much either by this expedition.
George Sand finished her novel entitled _Spiridion_ at Valdemosa.
She had commenced it before starting for Spain. In a volume on _Un hiver a Majorque_ she gave some fine descriptions, and also a harsh accusation of the monks, whom she held responsible for all the mishaps of the Sand caravan. She considered that the Majorcans had been brutalized and fanaticized, thanks to their influence. As to Chopin, he was scarcely in a state to derive any benefit from such a journey, and he certainly did not get any. He did not thoroughly appreciate the beauties of nature, particularly of Majorcan nature. In a letter to one of his friends he gives the following description of their habitation:--"Between rocks and sea, in a great deserted monastery, in a cell, the doors of which are bigger than the carriage entrances to the houses in Paris, you can imagine me, without white gloves, and no curl in my hair, as pale as usual. My cell is the shape of a large-sized bier. . . ."This certainly does not sound very enthusiastic. The question is whether he composed anything at all at Valdemosa. Liszt presents him to us improvising his Prelude in B flat minor under the most dramatic circumstances. We are told that one day, when George Sand and her children had started on an excursion, they were surprised by a thunderstorm. Chopin had stayed at home in the monastery, and, terrified at the danger he foresaw for them, he fainted.
Before they reached home he had improvised his _Prelude_, in which he has put all his terror and the nervousness due to his disease.
It appears, though, that all this is a legend, and that there is not a single echo of the stay at Valdemosa in Chopin's work.
The deplorable journey to Majorca dates from November, 1838 to March, 1839.
The intimacy between George Sand and Chopin continued eight years more.
In the summer Chopin stayed it Nohant. Eugene Delacroix, who was paying a visit there too, describes his presence as follows:
"At times, through the window opening on to the garden, we get wafts of Chopin's music, as he too is at work. It is mingled with the songs of the nightingales and with the perfume of the rose trees."Chopin did not care much for Nohant. In the first place, he only liked the country for about a fortnight at a time, which is very much like not caring for it at all. Then what made him detest the country were the inhabitants. Hippolyte Chatiron was terrible after he had been drinking. He was extremely effusive and cordial.
In the winter they first lived in the Rue Pigalle. George Sand used to receive Pierre Leroux, Louis Blanc, Edgar Quinet, Etienne Arago, and many other men. Chopin, who was not very intellectual, felt ill at ease amongst all these literary men, these reformers, arguers and speechifiers. In 1842, they emigrated to the Square d'Orleans. There was a sort of little colony established there, consisting of Alexandre Dumas, Dantan the caricaturist, the Viardots, Zimmermann, and the wife of the Spanish consul, Madame Marliani, who had attracted them all there. They took their meals together.
It was a regular phalinstery, and Chopin had very elegant tastes!
We must give George Sand credit for looking after him with admirable devotion. She certainly went on nursing her "invalid,"or her "dear skeleton," as she called him, but her infatuation had been over for a long time. The absolute contrast of two natures may be attractive at first, but the attraction does not last, and, when the first enthusiasm is over, the logical consequence is that they become disunited. This was what Liszt said in rather an odd but energetic way. He points out all that there was "intolerably incompatible, diametrically opposite and secretly antipathetic between two natures which seemed to have been mutually drawn to each other by a sudden and superficial attraction, for the sake of repulsing each other later on with all the force of inexpressible sorrow and boredom." Illness had embittered Chopin's character. George Sand used to say that "when he was angry he was terrifying." He was very intelligent, too, and delighted in quizzing people for whom he did not care. Solange and Maurice were now older, and this made the situation somewhat delicate.
Chopin, too, had a mania for meddling with family matters.
He quarrelled one day with Maurice. Another day George Sand was annoyed with her son-in-law Clesinger and with her daughter Solange, and Chopin took their side. This was the cause of their quarrel;it was the last drop that made the cup of bitterness overflow.
The following is a fragment of a letter which George Sand sent to Grzymala, in 1847: "For seven years I have lived with him as a virgin.
If any woman on earth could inspire him with absolute confidence, I am certainly that woman, but he has never understood. I know, too, that many people accuse me of having worn him out with my violent sensuality, and others accuse me of having driven him to despair by my freaks.
I believe you know how much truth there is in all this. He himself complains to me that I am killing him by the privations I insist upon, and I feel certain that I should kill him by acting otherwise."[29]
[29] Communicated by M. Rocheblave.
It has been said that when Chopin was at Nohant he had a village girl there as his mistress. We do not care to discuss the truth of this statement.
It is interesting to endeavour to characterize the nature of this episode in George Sand's sentimental life. She helps us herself in this.
