CHAPTER VII

Happy Years, Working Years

“To-morrow,” he wrote to his family, “to-morrow I cross the seas.” He crossed the Boulevards and encountered Prince Valentin Radziwill.

This Radziwill family seems to have had a special influence on the life of Chopin. What beautiful analogies one could draw in comparing this encounter with such another when some pope, king, lord or _fermier-général_ changed in one instant the fortunes of an artist apparently condemned to the miscarriage of his genius. It seems that there are between art and opulence secret and unconscious fructifications. François I never seems to us more inspired than in paying the debts of Clément Marot or in welcoming Leonardo da Vinci on the terrace of Amboise, nor Jules II more sympathetic than when climbing the scaffoldings of Michelangelo. Never does Elizabeth of England seem more intelligent than when she commissions _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ from the pen of Shakespeare, and Fouquet, Treasurer-General, is remembered only because he subsidized La Fontaine. Had they dictated their biographies themselves, these great princes would doubtless have made no mention of such trivial gestures. In the same way, this Radziwill dreamed not of adding a meritorious line to his life when, meeting on the Boulevards this pitiful compatriot, he proposed to take him that very evening to see Baron de Rothschild. It is, however, from that casual proposal that the glory of Chopin dates.

Baron de Rothschild received the most exclusive society. Chopin was asked to play and he acceded with good grace. In a moment he captured the elegant world, and on the morrow was bombarded with invitations and requests for lessons. The Maréchale Lannes, Princess de Vaudemont, Count Apponyi, and Prince Adam Czartoryski made themselves his protectors. The lessons he gave cost no less than twenty francs an hour. He changed his lodgings twice and finally installed himself at No. 5 Chaussée d’Antin. Everybody began to talk of this poet who, in the evening, in the rare salons where he would consent to play, would people the darkness with a conclave of fairies. He called it “telling little musical stories.” They were tales of infinite variety, since it was above all in improvising that he showed his boldness. The incompleteness of his sketches opened the avenues of the imagination wherein the spirit lost itself. Chopin possessed to a high degree this power of suggestion, the artist’s most precious gift. He talked to himself, did not finish, and left to his hearers the pleasure of having clothed with notes for an instant forms and feelings which then evaporated into nothingness. “Divine gambols,” said Berlioz on hearing them. “A cloud of love, winter roses,” said Liszt. “By the wonderful gate,” he added, “Chopin leads you into a world where everything is a delightful miracle, a mad surprise, a miracle come true. But you must be initiated to know how to cross the threshold.” And Frederick confided once to his friend Franz:

“I am not at all the person to give concerts. The crowd intimidates me; I feel asphyxiated by their breaths, paralysed by their curious stares, mute before these strange faces. But you, you are destined for it, because when you don’t win your public, you know how to knock them dead.”

Chopin himself would not have had the strength. He only sought to win them. Furthermore, was it really this that he wanted? The public mattered so little to him. It was his own pain that he chanted and enchanted. He did not like to express himself through others and, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart apart, he interpreted none but himself.

For Chopin, as later for Wagner, the superfluous was the only necessity. The money that was now coming in more or less abundantly, was spent in poetic pleasures; a smart cabriolet, beautifully cut clothes, white gloves, expensive suppers. He took great pains with the furnishing of his apartment, putting in crystal lustres, carpets and silver, and he insisted on being supplied with flowers in all seasons. When his new women friends came—Countess Delphine Potoçka, Princess Marceline Czartoryska, Mlle. O’Meara, Princess de Beauvau, the rule was that they should bring a rose or orchids that the artist would put in a vase and endlessly contemplate, like a Japanese enraptured by a unique print.

Happy years, working years. Chopin composed a solid portion of his work. In 1833 he published five _Mazurkas_, the _Trio_ for piano, violin and violoncello, three _Nocturnes_, the twelve great _Etudes_ dedicated to Liszt, the _Concerto in E minor_, and in 1834 the _Grand Fantasia_ on Polish airs, the _Krakoviak_ for piano and orchestra, three more _Nocturnes_, the _Rondeau in E flat major_ dedicated to Caroline Hartmann, four new _Mazurkas_, and the _Grand Waltz in E flat major_. His works were played by the greatest of the virtuosi at many concerts: Liszt, Moschelès, Field, Kalkbrenner and Clara Wieck. Liszt said of him: “A sick-room talent,” and Auber: “All his life he slays himself.” For Chopin, in spite of his success, was still suffering from nostalgia, and one day when his friend and pupil Gutmann was playing the third _Etude_, in E major, Chopin, who said he had never written a lovelier melody, cried suddenly, “Oh, my country!” Truly, for this young man of twenty-four, the mother country was always the strongest passion. He gave a Dantesque sadness to this name of Poland, more powerful on his heart than the call of a mistress. The hurt must have been deep indeed for Orlowski, in writing to his people, to take note of it as of a tubercular illness. “Chopin is well and vigorous,” he says. “He turns all the women’s heads. The men are jealous. He is the fashion. Doubtless we shall soon be wearing gloves _à la Chopin_. But home-sickness is burning him up.” The fact was that Poland remained the living spring, the reservoir whence he drew his dreams and his sentiments, the only effective rhythm,—in sun, the dynamo of his energies. Inspiration is chance caught on the wing. But art is not found hidden like the dove in the magician’s hat. Perhaps it is only perfect self-knowledge, the true perception of one’s own limitations, and the modulations that life teaches to our youthful fine enthusiasms. The Marquis de Custine wrote to Chopin: “When I listen to you I always think myself alone with you, and even perhaps with greater than you! or at least with all that is greatest in you.”

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In the spring of ’34 Chopin and his friend Hiller went together to the Festival of Music at Aix-la-Chapelle. There they encountered Mendelssohn, who took a liking to the Pole and never tired of listening to his playing. He called him the first among pianists, and always reproached him, as well as Hiller, for the Parisian mania for a pose of despair. “I look like a schoolmaster,” he said, “while they resemble dandies and beaux.”

They returned by Düsseldorf and Cologne to Paris, where Chopin had the pleasure of seeing and entertaining his friend Matuszinski, who had just been made professor at the Ecole de Médecine. This was a period of the greatest serenity, for to his quiet fame Chopin could add the joy of daily companionship with one of his “brothers.” He exerted himself, entertained guests, played in public more than he usually