Section 18 of 19 - Table of Contents
CHAPTER VIII.
Disappointment--Ill Health--Visit to England--Devotion of
Friends--Last Sacraments--Delphina Potocka--Louise--M. Gutman--
Death.
FROM the date of 1840, the health of Chopin, affected by so many
changes, visibly declined. During some years, his most tranquil
hours were spent at Nohant, where he seemed to suffer less than
elsewhere. He composed there, with pleasure, bringing with him
every year to Paris several new compositions, but every winter
caused him an increase of suffering. Motion became at first
difficult, and soon almost impossible to him. From 1846 to 1847,
he scarcely walked at all; he could not ascend the staircase
without the most painful sensation of suffocation, and his life
was only prolonged through continual care and the greatest
precaution.
Towards the Spring of 1847, as his health grew more precarious
from day to day, he was attacked by an illness from which it was
thought he could never recover. He was saved for the last time;
but this epoch was marked by an event so agonizing to his heart
that he immediately called it mortal. Indeed, he did not long
survive the rupture of his friendship with Madame Sand, which
took place at this date. Madame de Stael, who, in spite of her
generous and impassioned heart, her subtle and vivid intellect,
fell sometimes into the fault of making her sentences heavy
through a species of pedantry which robbed them of the grace of
"abandon,"--remarked on one of those occasions when the strength
of her feelings made her forget the solemnity of her Genevese
stiffness: "In affection, there are only beginnings!"
This exclamation was based upon the bitter experience of the
insufficiency of the human heart to accomplish the beautiful and
blissful dreams of the imagination. Ah! if some blessed examples
of human devotion did not sometimes occur to contradict the
melancholy words of Madame de Stael, which so many illustrious as
well as obscure facts seem to prove, our suspicions might lead us
to be guilty of much ingratitude and want of trust; we might be
led to doubt the sincerity of the hearts which surround us, and
see but the allegorical symbols of human affections in the
antique train of the beautiful Canephoroe, who carried the
fragile and perfumed flowers to adorn some hapless victim for the
altar!
Chopin spoke frequently and almost by preference of Madame Sand,
without bitterness or recrimination. Tears always filled his eyes
when he named her; but with a kind of bitter sweetness he gave
himself up to the memories of past days, alas, now. He stripped
of their manifold significance! In spite of the many subterfuges
employed by his friends to entice him from dwelling upon
remembrances which always brought dangerous excitement with them,
he loved to return to them; as if through the same feelings which
had once reanimated his life, he now wished to destroy it,
sedulously stifling its powers through the vapor of this subtle
poison. His last pleasure seemed to be the memory of the blasting
of his last hope; he treasured the bitter knowledge that under
this fatal spell his life was ebbing fast away. All attempts to
fix his attention upon other objects were made in vain, he
refused to be comforted and would constantly speak of the one
engrossing subject. Even if he had ceased to speak of it, would
he not always have thought of it? He seemed to inhale the poison
rapidly and eagerly, that he might thus shorten the time in which
he would be forced to breathe it!
Although the exceeding fragility of his physical constitution
might not have allowed him, under any circumstances, to have
lingered long on earth, yet at least he might have been spared
the bitter sufferings which clouded his last hours! With a tender
and ardent soul, though exacting through its fastidiousness and
excessive delicacy, he could not live unless surrounded by the
radiant phantoms he had himself evoked; he could not expel the
profound sorrow which his heart cherished as the sole remaining
fragment of the happy past. He was another great and illustrious
victim to the transitory attachments occurring between persons of
different character, who, experiencing a surprise full of delight
in their first sudden meeting, mistake it for a durable feeling,
and build hopes and illusions upon it which can never be
realized. It is always the nature the most deeply moved, the most
absolute in its hopes and attachments, for which all
transplantation is impossible, which is destroyed and mined in
the painful awakening from the absorbing dream! Terrible power
exercised over man by the most exquisite gifts which he
possesses! Like the coursers of the sun, when the hand of
Phaeton, in place of guiding their beneficent career, permits
them to wander at random, disordering the beautiful structure of
the celestial spheres, they bring devastation and flames in their
train! Chopin felt and often repeated that the sundering of this
long friendship, the rupture of this strong tie, broke all the
chords which bound him to life.
During this attack his life was despaired of for several days. M.
Gutman, his most distinguished pupil, and during the last years
of his life, his most intimate friend, lavished upon him every
proof of tender attachment. His cares, his attentions, were the
most agreeable to him. With the timidity natural to invalids, and
with the tender delicacy peculiar to himself, he once asked the
Princess Czartoryska, who visited him every day, often fearing
that on the morrow he would no longer be among the living: "if
Gutman was not very much fatigued? If she thought he would be
able to continue his care of him;" adding, "that his presence was
dearer to him than that of any other person." His convalescence
was very slow and painful, leaving him indeed but the semblance
of life. At this epoch he changed so much in appearance that he
could scarcely be recognized The next summer brought him that
deceptive decrease of suffering which it sometimes grants to
those who are dying. He refused to quit Paris, and thus deprived
himself of the pure air of the country, and the benefit of this
vivifying element.
The winter of 1847 to 1848 was filled with a painful and
continual succession of improvements and relapses.
Notwithstanding this, he resolved in the spring to accomplish his
old project of visiting London. When the revolution of February
broke out, he was still confined to bed, but with a melancholy
effort, he seemed to try to interest himself in the events of the
day, and spoke of them more than usual. M. Gutman continued his
most intimate and constant visitor. He accepted through
preference his cares until the close of his life.
Feeling better in the month of April, he thought of realizing his
contemplated journey, of visiting that country to which he had
intended to go when youth and life opened in bright perspective
before him. He set out for England, where his works had already
found an intelligent public, and were generally known and
admired.
[Footnote: The compositions of Chopin were, even at that time,
known and very much liked in England. The most distinguished
virtuosi frequently executed them. In a pamphlet published in
London by Messrs. Wessel and Stappletou, under the title of AN
ESSAY ON THE WORKS OF F.CHOPIN, we find some lines marked by just
criticism. The epigraph of this little pamphlet is ingeniously
chosen, and the two lines from Shelley could scarcely be better
applied than to Chopin:
"He was a mighty poet--and
A subtle-souled Psychologist."
The author of this pamphlet speaks with enthusiasm of the
"originative genius untrammeled by conventionalities, unfettered
by pedantry;...of the outpourings of an unworldly and tristful
soul--those musical floods of tears, and gushes of pure
joyfulness--those exquisite embodiments of fugitive thoughts--
those infinitesimal delicacies, which give so much value to the
lightest sketch of Chopin." The English author again says: "One
thing is certain, viz.: to play with proper feeling and correct
execution, the PRELUDES and STUDIES of Chopin, is to be neither
more nor less than a finished pianist, and moreover to comprehend
them thoroughly, to give a life and tongue to their infinite and
most eloquent subtleties of expression, involves the necessity of
being in no less a degree a poet than a pianist, a thinker than a
musician. Commonplace is instinctively avoided in all the works
of Chopin; a stale cadence or a trite progression, a humdrum
subject or a hackneyed sequence, a vulgar twist of the melody or
a worn-out passage, a meagre harmony or an unskillful
counterpoint, may in vain be looked for throughout the entire
range of his compositions; the prevailing characteristics of
which, are, a feeling as uncommon as beautiful, a treatment as
original as felicitous, a melody and a harmony as new, fresh,
vigorous, and striking, as they are utterly unexpected and out of
the common track. In taking up one of the works of Chopin, you
are entering, as it were, a fairyland, untrodden by human
footsteps, a path hitherto unfrequented but by the great composer
himself; and a faith, a devotion, a desire to appreciate and a
determination to understand are absolutely necessary, to do it
any thing like adequate justice.... Chopin in his POLONAISES and
in his MAZOURKAS has aimed at those characteristics, which
distinguish the national music of his country so markedly from,
that of all others, that quaint idiosyncrasy, that identical
wildness and fantasticality, that delicious mingling of the sad
and cheerful, which invariably and forcibly individualize the
music of those Northern nations, whose language delights in
combinations of consonants...."]
He left France in that mood of mind which the English call "low
spirits." The transitory interest which he had endeavored to take
in political changes, soon disappeared. He became more taciturn
than ever. If through absence of mind, a few words would escape
him. They were only exclamations of regret. His affection for the
limited number of persons whom he continued to see, was filled
with that heart-rending emotion which precedes eternal farewells!
Art alone always retained its absolute power over him. Music
absorbed him during the time, now constantly shortening, in which
he was able to occupy himself with it, as completely as during
the days when he was full of life and hope. Before he left Paris,
he gave a concert in the saloon of M. Pleyel, one of the friends
with whom his relations had been the most constant, the most
frequent, and the most affectionate; who is now rendering a
worthy homage to his memory, occupying himself with zeal and
activity in the execution of a monument for his tomb. At this
concert, his chosen and faithful audience heard him for the last
time!
He was received in London with an eagerness which had some effect
in aiding him to shake off his sadness, to dissipate his mournful
depression. Perhaps he dreamed, by burying all his former habits
in oblivion, he could succeed in dissipating, his melancholy! He
neglected the prescriptions of his physicians, with all the
precautions which reminded him of his wretched health. He played
twice in public, and many times in private concerts. He mingled
much in society, sat up late at night, and exposed himself to
considerable fatigue, without permitting himself to be deterred
by any consideration for his health. He was presented to the
Queen by the Duchess of Sutherland, and the most distinguished
society sought the pleasure of his acquaintance. He went to
Edinburgh, where the climate was particularly injurious to him.
He was much debilitated upon his return from Scotland; his
physicians wished him to leave England immediately, but he
delayed for some time his departure. Who can read the feelings
which caused this delay!...He played again at a concert given for
the Poles. It was the last mark of love sent to his beloved
country--the last look--the last sigh--the last regret! He was
feted, applauded, and surrounded by his own people. He bade them
all adieu,--they did not know it was an eternal Farewell! What
thoughts must have filled his sad soul as he crossed the sea to
return to Paris! That Paris so different now for him from that
which he had found without seeking in 1831!
He was met upon his arrival by a surprise as painful as
unexpected. Dr. Molin, whose advice and intelligent prescriptions
had saved his life in the winter of 1847, to whom alone he
believed himself indebted for the prolongation of his life, was
dead. He felt his loss painfully, nay, it brought a profound
discouragement with it; at a time when the mind exercises so much
influence over the progress of the disease, he persuaded himself
that no one could replace the trusted physician, and he had no
confidence in any other. Dissatisfied with them all, without any
hope from their skill, he changed them constantly. A kind of
superstitious depression seized him. No tie stronger than life,
no more powerful as death, came now to struggle against this
bitter apathy! From the winter of 1848, Chopin had been in no
condition to labor continuously. From time to time he retouched
some scattered leaves, without succeeding in arranging his
thoughts in accordance with his designs. A respectful care of his
fame dictated to him the wish that these sketches should be
destroyed to prevent the possibility of their being mutilated,
disfigured, and transformed into posthumous works unworthy of his
hand.
He left no finished manuscripts, except a very short WALTZ, and a
last NOCTURNE, as parting memories. In the later period of his
life he thought of writing a method for the Piano, in which he
intended to give his ideas upon the theory and technicality of
his art, the results of his long and patient studies, his happy
innovations, and his intelligent experience. The task was a
difficult one, demanding redoubled application even from one who
labored as assiduously as Chopin. Perhaps he wished to avoid the
emotions of art, (affecting those who reproduce them in serenity
of soul so differently from those who repeat in them their own
desolation of heart,) by taking refuge in a region so barren. He
sought in this employment only an absorbing and uniform
occupation, he only asked from it what Manfred demanded in vain
from the powers of magic: "forgetfulness!" Forgetfulness--granted
neither by the gayety of amusement, nor the lethargy of torpor!
On the contrary, with venomous guile, they always compensate in
the renewed intensity of woe, for the time they may have
succeeded in benumbing it. In the daily labor which "charms the
storms of the soul," (DER SEELE STURM BESCHWORT,) he sought
without doubt forgetfulness, which occupation, by rendering the
memory torpid, may sometimes procure, though it cannot destroy
the sense of pain. At the close of that fine elegy which he names
"The Ideal," a poet, who was also the victim of an inconsolable
melancholy, appeals to labor as a consolation when a prey to
bitter regret; while expecting an early death, he invokes
occupation as the last resource against the incessant anguish of
life:
"And thou, so pleated, with her uniting,
To charm the soul-storm into peace,
Sweet toil, in toil itself delighting,
That more it labored, less could cease,
Though but by grains thou aidest the pile
The vast eternity uprears,
At least thou strikest from TIME the while
Life's debt--the minutes--days--and years."
Bulwer's translation of SCHILLER'S "Ideal."
Beschoeftigung, die nie ermattet
Die langsam schafft, doch nie zerstoert,
Die zu dem Bau der Ewigkeiten
Zwar Sandkorn nur, fuer Sandkorn reicht,
Doch von der grossen Schuld der Zeiten
Minute, Tage, Jahre streicht.
Die Ideale--SHILLER.
The strength of Chopin was not sufficient for the execution of
his intention. The occupation was too abstract, too fatiguing. He
contemplated the form of his project, he spoke of it at different
times, but its execution had become impossible. He wrote but a
few pages of it, which were destroyed with the rest.
At last the disease augmented so visibly, that the fears of his
friends assumed the hue of despair. He scarcely ever left his
bed, and spoke but rarely. His sister, upon receiving this
intelligence, came from Warsaw to take her place at his pillow,
which she left no more. He witnessed the anguish, the
presentiments, the redoubled sadness around him, without showing
what impression they made upon him. He thought of death with
Christian calm and resignation, yet he did not cease to prepare
for the morrow. The fancy he had for changing his residence was
once more manifested, he took another lodging, disposed the
furnishing of it anew, and occupied himself in its most minute
details. As he had taken no measures to recall the orders he had
given for its arrangement, they were transporting his furniture
to the apartments he was destined never to inhabit, upon the very
day of his death!
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