Part 9 (1/2)

We hear people say that George Sand is no longer read It is to be hoped that _Mauprat_ is still read, otherwise our modern readers miss one of the finest stories in the history of novels This, then, is the point at which we have arrived in the evolution of George Sand's genius There may still be modifications in her style, and her talent may still be refreshed under various influences, but with _Mauprat_ she took her place in the first rank of great storytellers

VI

A CASE OF MATERNAL AFFECTION IN LOVE

CHOPIN

We have passed over George Sand's intercourse with Liszt and Madaives us an opportunity of saying a few e Sand by Jules Sandeau At the time of her rupture with his friend, Balzac had sided entirely with hiere_, we see the author of the _Conation with the blue stocking, as so cruel in her love, in terant Gradually, and when he knew er cooled down In March, 1838, he gave Madame Zulma Carraud an account of a visit to Nohant He found his coar by her fireside after dinner

”She had soe, sos and red trousers So much for the moral side

Physically, she had doubled her chin like a canoness She had not a single white hair, in spite of all her fearful ed Her beautiful eyes were just as bright, and she looked just as stupid as ever when she was thinking”

This is George Sand in her thirty-fifth year, as she was at the time of the fresh adventure we are about to relate

Balzac continues by giving us a few details about the life of the authoress It was very much like his own, except that Balzac went to bed at six o'clock and got up atand got up at noon He adds the following res:

”She is now in a very quiet retreat, and conde but disappointment in both herself

Her man was a rare one, that was really all”

In the course of their friendly conversation, George Sand gave him the subject for a novel which it would be rather aard for her to write The novel was to be _Galeriens_ or _Aalley-slaves” of love were Liszt and the Coe Sand at Chamonix, Paris and Nohant It was very evident that she could not write the novel herself

Balzac accordingly wrote it, and it figures in the _Cooult, the inspirer, and Liszt is the cohts that a love which no longer exists gives to a man over a woman The convict is always under the domination of the companion chained to him I am lost, and must return to the convict prison,” writes Balzac in this book Then, too, there is nohis portrait of Beatrix The fair hair that seeht, the forehead which looks transparent, the sweet, char, wonderfully shaped neck, and, above and beyond all, that air of a princess, in all this we can easily recognize ”the fair, blue-eyed Peri” Not content with bringing this illustrious couple into his novel, Balzac introduces other conteh his special as criticise Sand herself appear in this book She is Felicite des Touches, and her pen name is Camille Maupin ”Caenius, and she leads an exceptional life such as could not be judged in the same way as an ordinary existence” Some one asks how she writes her books, and the answer is: ”Just in the sa or your tapestry” She is said to have the intelligence of an angel and even aze, her dark complexion and her masculine ways, she is the exact antithesis of the fair Beatrix She is constantly being compared to the latter, and is evidently preferred to her It is very evident froets his information, and it is also evident that the friendshi+p between the tomen has cooled down

The cause of the coolness between thee Sand's infatuation for Chopin, whoe Sand wrote to Liszt from Nohant, in March, 1837: ”Tell Chopin that I hope he will come with you Marie cannot live without hioult: ”Tell Chopin that I idolize hie, but she certainly replied: ”Chopin coughs with infinite grace He is an irresolute h” This is certainly very feminine in its ferociousness

At the tie Sand's life, Chopin, the composer and virtuoso, was the favourite of Parisian _salons_, the pianist in vogue He was born in 1810, so that he was then twenty-seven years of age His success was due, in the first place, to his reat as in Paris

Chopin's delicate style was admirably suited to the dimensions and to the atards Chopin, I have consulted a biography by Liszt, a study by M Caue and the volume by M

Elie Poiree in the _Collection des musiciens celebres_, published by H Laurens

He confessed to Liszt that a crowd intimidated hi and paralyzed by the inquisitive eyes turned on him ”You were intended for all this,” he adds, ”as, if you do not win over your public, you can at least overwhelm it”

Chopin was ile and delicate, and had always been watched over and cared for He had grown up in a peaceful, united family, in one of those simple homes in which all the details of everyday life become less prosaic, thanks to an innate distinction of sentiious habits Prince Radziwill had watched over Chopin's education He had been received when quite young in the most aristocratic circles, and ”the most celebrated beauties had smiled on him as a youth” Social life, then, and feminine influence had thus helped to make him ultra refined It was very evident to every one who met him that he was a well-bred man, and this is quickly observed, even with pianists On arriving he loves were iuid Every one knew that he was delicate, and there was a rumour of an unhappy love affair It was said that he had been in love with a girl, and that her fae with him People said he was like his own music, the dreamy,face of the couor which seemed to emanate from the man and from his orked its way, in a subtle manner, into the hearts of his hearers Chopin did not care to know Lelia He did not like women writers, and he was rather alarraphy of Chopin, he tells us that the extremely sensitive artist, as so easily alarmed, dreaded ”this woman above all wos that the others could not have said He avoided her and postponed the introduction Madame Sand had no idea that she was feared as a sylph” She made the first advances It is easy to see what charmed her in him In the first place, he appealed to her as he did to all women, and then, too, there was the absolute contrast of their two opposite natures She was all force, of an expansive, exuberant nature

He was very discreet, reserved and mysterious It seems that the Polish characteristic is to lend oneself, but never to give oneself away, and one of Chopin's friends said of him that he was ”more Polish than Poland itself” Such a contrast e Sand was very sensitive to the charm of music But what she saw above all in Chopin was the typical artist, just as she understood the artist, a dreamer, lost in the clouds, incapable of any activity that was practical, a ”lover of the impossible” And then, too, he was ill

When Musset left Venice, after all the atrocious nights she had spent at his bedside, she wrote: ”Whom shall I have now to look after and tend?”

In Chopin she found some one to tend

About this time, she was anxious about the health of her son Maurice, and she thought she would take her family to Majorca This was a lamentable excursion, but it seemed satisfactory at first They travelled by way of Lyons, Avignon, Vaucluse and Ninan, Chopin arrived, ”as fresh as a rose” ”Our journey,” wrote George Sand, ”seems to be under the most favourable conditions” They then went on to Barcelona and to Pale Sand wrote a most enthusiastic letter: ”It is poetry, solitude, all that is most artistic and _chique_ on earth And what skies, what a country; we are delighted”(26) The disenchanth The first difficulty was to find lodgings, and the second to get furniture There was no wood to burn and there was no linen to be had It took two ht pounds at the custoreat difficulty, the forlorn travellers found a country-house belonging to a man named Gomez, which they were able to rent It was called the ”Windy House” The wind did not inconvenience them like the rain, which now commenced Chopin could not endure the heat and the odour of the fires His disease increased, and this was the origin of the great tribulations that were to follow

Buloz:

_Monday 13th_

MY DEAR CHRISTINE,