Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician Part 31

I enclose a note to Schlesinger, in which I give you full authority to act in this matter.

I feel better every day; nevertheless, you will pay the portier these fifty francs, to which I completely agree, for my doctor does not permit me to move from here before summer.

Mickiewicz's "Dziady" I received yesterday. What shall you do with my papers?

The letters you will leave in the writing-desk, and send the music to Johnnie, or take it to your own house. In the little table that stands in the anteroom there are also letters; you must lock it well.

My love to Johnnie, I am glad he is better.

Chopin to Fontana; March 17, 1839:--

I thank you for all your efforts. Pleyel is a scoundrel, Probst a scape-grace. He never gave me 1,000 francs for three ma.n.u.scripts. Very likely you have received my long letter about Schlesinger, therefore I wish you and beg of you to give that letter of mine to Pleyel, who thinks my ma.n.u.scripts too dear. If I have to sell them cheap, I would rather do so to Schlesinger than look for new and improbable connections. For Schlesinger can always count upon England, and as I am square with Wessel, he may sell them to whomsoever he likes. The same with the Polonaises in Germany, for Probst is a bird whom I have known a long time. As regards the money, you must make an unequivocal agreement, and do not give the ma.n.u.scripts except for cash. I send you a reconnaissance for Pleyel, it astonishes me that he absolutely wants it, as if he could not trust me and you.

Dear me, this Pleyel who said that Schlesinger paid me badly!

500 francs for a ma.n.u.script for all the countries seems to him too dear! I a.s.sure you I prefer to deal with a real Jew. And Probst, that good-for-nothing fellow, who pays me 300 francs for my mazurkas! You see, the last mazurkas brought me with ease 800 francs--namely, Probst 300 francs, Schlesinger 400, and Wessel 100. I prefer giving my ma.n.u.scripts as formerly at a very low price to stooping before these...I prefer being submissive to one Jew to being so to three. Therefore go to Schlesinger, but perhaps you settled with Pleyel.

Oh, men, men! But this Mrs. Migneron, she too is a good one!

However, Fortune turns round, I may yet live and hear that this lady will come and ask you for some leather; if, as you say, you are aiming at being a shoemaker. I beg of you to make shoes neither for Pleyel nor for Probst.

Do not yet speak to anyone of the Scherzo [Op. 39]. I do not know when I shall finish it, for I am still weak and cannot write.

As yet I have no idea when I shall see you. My love to Grzymala; and give him such furniture as he will like, and let Johnnie take the rest from the apartments. I do not write to him, but I love him always. Tell him this, and give him my love.

Wodzinski still astonishes me.

When you receive the money from Pleyel, pay first the landlord's rent, and send me immediately 500 francs. I left on the receipt for Pleyel the Op. blank, for I do not remember the following number.

Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Ma.r.s.eilles, April 22, 1839:--

...I was also occupied with the removal from one hotel to another. Notwithstanding all his efforts and inquiries, the good doctor was not able to find me a corner in the country where to pa.s.s the month of April.

I am pretty tired of this town of merchants and shopkeepers, where the intellectual life is wholly unknown; but here I am still shut up for the month of April.

Further on in the letter, after inviting Madame Marliani and her husband to come to Nohant in May, she proceeds thus:--

He [M. Marliani] loves the country, and I shall be a match for him as regards rural pleasures, while you [Madame Marliani]

will philosophise at the piano with Chopin. It can hardly be said that he enjoys himself in Ma.r.s.eilles; but he resigns himself to recover patiently.

The following letter of Chopin to Fontana, which Karasowski thinks was written at Valdemosa in the middle of February, ought to be dated Ma.r.s.eilles, April, 1839:--

As they are such Jews, keep everything till my return. The Preludes I have sold to Pleyel (I received from him 500 francs). He is ent.i.tled to do with them what he likes. But as to the Ballades and Polonaises, sell them neither to Schlesinger nor to Probst. But whatever may happen, with no Schonenberger [FOOTNOTE: A Paris music-publisher] will I have anything to do. Therefore, if you gave the Ballade to Probst, take it back, even though he offered a thousand. You may tell him that I have asked you to keep it till my return, that when I am back we shall see.

Enough of these...Enough for me and for you.

My very life, I beg of you to forgive me all the trouble; you have really been busying yourself like a friend, and now you will have still on your shoulders my removal. I beg Grzymala to pay the cost of the removal. As to the portier, he very likely tells lies, but who will prove it? You must give, in order to stop his barking.

My love to Johnnie, I will write to him when I am in better spirits. My health is improved, but I am in a rage. Tell Johnnie that from Anthony as well as from me he will have neither word nor money.

Yesterday I received your letter, together with letters from Pleyel and Johnnie.

If Clara Wieck pleased you, that is good, for n.o.body can play better than she does. When you see her give her my compliments, and also to her father.

Did I happen to lend you Witwicki's songs? I cannot find them.

I only ask for them in case you should chance to have them.

Chopin to Fontana; Ma.r.s.eilles, March 25 [should no doubt be April 25], 1839:--

I received your letter, in which you let me know the particulars of the removal. I have no words to thank you for your true, friendly help. The particulars were very interesting to me. But I am sorry that you complain, and that Johnnie is spitting blood. Yesterday I played for Nourrit on the organ, you see by this that I am better. Sometimes I play to myself at home, but as yet I can neither sing nor dance.

Although the news of my mother is welcome, its having been originated by Plat... is enough to make one consider it a falsehood.

The warm weather has set in here, and I shall certainly not leave Ma.r.s.eilles before May, and then go somewhere else in the south of France.

It is not likely that we shall soon have news from Anthony.

Why should he write? Perhaps to pay his debts? But this is not customary in Poland. The reason Raciborski appreciates you so much is that you have no Polish habits, nota bene, not those Polish habits you know and I mean.

You are staying at No. 26 [Chaussee d'Antin]. Are you comfortable? On what floor, and how much do you pay? I take more and more interest in these matters, for I also shall be obliged to think of new apartments, but not till after my return to Paris.

I had only that letter from Pleyel which he sent through you-- it is a month ago or more. Write to the same address, Rue et Hotel Beauveau.

Perhaps you did not understand what I said above about my having played for Nourrit. His body was brought from Italy and carried to Paris. There was a Requiem Ma.s.s for his soul. I was asked by his friends to play on the organ during the Elevation.

Did Miss Wieck play my Etude well? Could she not select something better than just this etude, the least interesting for those who do not know that it is written for the black keys? It would have been far better to do nothing at all.

[FOOTNOTE: Clara Wieck gave a concert in Paris on April 16, 1839. The study in question is No. 5 of Op. 10 (G flat major).

Only the right hand plays throughout on black keys.]

In conclusion, I have nothing more to write, except to wish you good luck in the new house. Hide my ma.n.u.scripts, that they may not appear printed before the time. If the Prelude is printed, that is Pleyel's trick. But I do not care.

Mischievous Germans, rascally Jews...! Finish the litany, for you know them as well as I do.

Give my love to Johnnie and Grzymaia if you see them.--Your

FREDERICK.

One subject mentioned in this letter deserves a fuller explanation than Chopin vouchsafes. Adolphe Nourrit, the celebrated tenor singer, had in a state of despondency, caused by the idea that since the appearance of his rival Duprez his popularity was on the wane, put an end to his life by throwing himself out of a window at Naples on the 8th of March, 1839.

[FOOTNOTE: This is the generally-accepted account of Nourrit's death.

But Madame Garcia, the mother of the famous Malibran, who at the time was staying in the same house, thought it might have been an accident, the unfortuante artist having in the dark opened a window on a level with the floor instead of a door. (See Fetis: Biographie universelle des Musiciens.)] Madame Nourrit brought her husband's body to Paris, and it was on the way thither that a funeral service was held at Ma.r.s.eilles for the much-lamented man and singer.

Le Sud, Journal de la Mediterranee of April 25, 1839, [FOOTNOTE: Quoted in L. M. Quicherat's Adolphe Nourrit, sa vie, son talent, son caractere]

shall tell us of Chopin's part in this service:--

At the Elevation of the Host were heard the melancholy tones of the organ. It was M. Chopin, the celebrated pianist, who came to place a souvenir on the coffin of Nourrit; and what a souvenir! a simple melody of Schubert, but the same which had so filled us with enthusiasm when Nourrit revealed it to us at Ma.r.s.eilles--the melody of Les Astres. [FOOTNOTE: Die gestirne is the original German t.i.tle of this song.]

A less colourless account, one full of interesting facts and free from conventional newspaper sentiment and enthusiasm, we find in a letter of Chopin's companion.