CHAPTER IV

“Sorrow” and “Ideal”

But it was not until the following year that he was to find his voice. One evening at the Opera, he noticed in a small part a young singer with a clear tone, fair hair, and an attractive mouth. He learned that her name was Constance Gladkowska, and that she was still a pupil at the Conservatory. The impression this girl produced on him was strong, but altogether pure and childlike. To get the ribbon that tied her hair, to die holding it hidden on his breast, would have satisfied his longings. And so delicate was this sentiment that at first he confided it to no one. Besides, another thought wrung him more: the thought of leaving Warsaw, because he well knew that he had exhausted its musical resources.

In July, 1829, his father furnished him with a little money, which had been saved with difficulty, and the young composer, on whom from all sides so many hopes were now centred, was able to leave for Vienna. His first visit there was to Haslinger, the music publisher, a great eulogist who received him with open arms and already called him “the new star of the North.” But Chopin, who was not yet twenty, was cautious and sceptical. He was presented to Count Gallenberg, the superintendent of the Imperial theatres; he was urged to give a concert. “What reassures Count Gallenberg,” he wrote to his family, “is that I shall not tax his purse. I am going to play for nothing. I am acting the disinterested and the dilettante. I am a musician for love of the art.”

The concert took place at the Imperial Theatre on the 11th of August, at seven in the evening. The orchestra played a Beethoven overture, some airs of Rossini. Then the delicate Chopin, already sickly looking, came on to the platform. An old lady sitting in the first row said in a whisper, “What a pity the young man doesn’t make a better appearance!” But Chopin’s whiteness was from rage rather than nervousness, because the orchestra, not having been able to decipher his _Variations_, had forced him to change the programme. He therefore improvised on a theme from _The White Lady_, then on the Polish air, _Chmiel_.

With the one exception of Liszt, no one has ever improvised like Chopin. Under his elegant hand there opened a new world of velvet tragedies, of ravishing sorrows, where each hearer trembled as he discovered a memory of his own griefs. And old men as well as young schoolgirls followed with delight these exquisite whisperings. But the power of poets—what is it, if not to draw singing from one’s own soul, the secret of which they know better than oneself?

So successful was this first concert that Chopin resolved to give another a week later. This time he played his _Krakoviak_, which the orchestra had rehearsed, and his _Variations_ on the _La ci darem_. Count Lichnowsky, Beethoven’s friend, was present and applauded wildly. The public, the musicians, and the critics could not conceal their surprise, for everything was new about Chopin, both the substance and the form. “The public recognized a great artist in this young man... On the ground of the originality of his playing and of his compositions one could almost attribute genius to him,” said the _Wiener Theaterzeitung_; and the _Allgemeine Musikalische_: “The exquisite delicacy of his touch, the indescribable dexterity of his technique, the finish of his _nuances_, which reflect the deepest sensitiveness, the clarity of his interpretation and of his compositions, which bear the marks of a great genius, all reveal a virtuoso favoured by nature, who has flashed above the horizon without previous heralding, like one of the most brilliant meteors.” One single criticism, that Chopin made of himself: he plays too softly, he lacks brilliance and resonance. “They are almost of one voice in saying I play too softly, too tenderly, rather, for this public,” he writes to his family. “They are accustomed to the great drums of their virtuosos. But I prefer them to say that I played too softly than too brutally.” And in another letter: “It is my way of playing, and I know it gives infinite pleasure to women and artists.”

Thereupon he left for Prague, accompanied to the diligence by all the Viennese musicians, whom he had conquered in so short a time. Even Czerny, with whom Chopin had several times played duets, was there. Chopin thought him “a fine man and more sensitive than his compositions.” He visited Prague, where he made the acquaintance of the famous violinist Pixis, and of Alexandre Klengel, the composer of forty-eight fugues considered the finest since Bach. Klengel interested Chopin greatly, and they spent half a dozen hours together, at the piano and in conversation. Then Frederick left for Dresden, viâ Teplitz, a watering-place on the frontier of Bohemia and Saxony, where he passed the evening at the château of Prince Clary.

A small but “respectable” company were assembled there: the men of the house, an Austrian general, an English naval captain, a Saxon general sewed up in decorations, some young men and girls. After tea, the Princess asked Chopin if he would “deign” to seat himself at the piano. The artist replied that he would “deign,” and asked for a subject for improvisation. The Prince’s _maître de musique_ proposed a theme from Rossini’s _Moses_, and Chopin launched forth upon embroideries so lovely that he was obliged to return to the piano four times. They tried to keep him at Teplitz, but he would not consent. A restlessness, a certain nervousness, pushed him on to continue his journey. Something was working deeply in him. Dresden hardly interested him. He stayed there a few days doing nothing, then left for Breslau, and returned at length to Warsaw on September 12th.

Three weeks later, while writing a waltz, he found out what ailed him. “I have, perhaps to my sorrow, found my ideal. For six months now I have dreamed of her each night, and I have never spoken a word to her. It was for her that I composed the _Adagio_ of my _Concerto_ (in F minor, op. 21), as well as the _Waltz_ (op. 70, no. 3), written only this morning and which I am sending to you. Notice the passage marked with a cross. No one, except you, will know the meaning of it. How happy I should be, my dear friend, if I could play it to you! In the fifth bar of the trio, the bass carries the melody as far as the high E flat, in the key of G flat. I should not tell you this, as I am sure you would have noticed it for yourself.”

This confidence was addressed to Titus, the friend beloved above all others because he too was a musician, and Chopin found at once the two words that were henceforth to be the keys to his whole life: “sorrow” and “ideal.” They give an atmosphere. Perhaps they give too much; but if they have since then lost something of their meaning, can we not give back to them in spirit a living poetical value? In this Europe which was open to romanticism and fervently breathed a too magnificent vocabulary lived the faith that moves and the candour that engenders deeds of love and of history. An evil age, “An age of fools and follies,” says M. Charles Maurras. Perhaps. But an age in which ideas and dreams have more than a rhetorical value puts a high price on art. And no one was less satisfied than Chopin with mere words. Those which he himself used translate exactly the accents of his piano. When he wrote that to his sorrow he had discovered his ideal, doubtless he did not suspect what a true note he had struck. Here, fixed for ever, is the musical theme in which, thanks to him, millions of beings were to discover the joys of hopelessness.

In this sorrow, in this ideal, he was of course thinking of Constance Gladkowska. He wrote again some time later: “You cannot imagine how sad Warsaw seems to me. If I were not so happy with my family, I would not care for this place. Oh! how bitter it is to have no one with whom to share sorrow and joy! How dreadful when the heart is oppressed to be unable to unfold it. You know what I mean. Many times I pour into my piano what I should like to confide to you.”

He heard much music, and was greatly struck by the last of Beethoven’s trios. Never, he said, had he heard anything greater. He composed. He went to the Opera. Mlle. Gladkowska made her debut in Paër’s _Agnes_ and he admired her playing, her beauty, the range of her voice. “Her phrasing and _nuance_ are delicious. At first her voice trembled slightly, but she soon got over that. She was overwhelmed with applause.” He made her acquaintance, accompanied her at the piano, felt that he should die of sadness and uncertainty. Ought he to leave? Must he stay? He decided to accept an invitation from Prince Radziwill and went to spend one autumn week at Antonin. He was received as a personage, and played duets with the Prince, who was the author of an orchestration of _Faust_.

Two charming Eves graced this paradise—“I mean the two young princesses, pleasant, musical, and gentle creatures. As for the Princess Mother, she knows that it is not birth that makes a man.”

The young princesses knew it, too, and they amused themselves by taking lessons from this artist with the complexion of a girl. Wanda allowed him to play with her fingers, to which he had to teach the correct position. Elise did his portrait. “Princess Wanda has a real musical instinct. There is no need to be constantly saying to her: here, _crescendo_, there, _piano_... here more slowly, there faster... I had to promise to send her my _Polonaise in F minor_.” He wrote another Polonaise, for piano and violoncello. “It is a brilliant piece for women to play.” He did not forget Constance, even though Princess Elise was so ravishing. But he realized the possibility of being charmed in all innocence by two beings at once. Nor did he forget his dear Titus of the silent, savage heart. In a moment of expansion he wrote to him: “I might anoint my body with the rarest perfumes of Byzantium and you would still refuse to embrace me if I had not bound you by a kind of magnetic attraction. But there are secret forces in nature....”

Returning to Warsaw, he decided to give a concert which Constance would attend. She could not fail to understand that it was to her alone that he dedicated his young fame. The concert actually took place on the 17th of March, 1830, when he had just completed his twentieth year. The event aroused an extraordinary amount of attention. The hall was crowded. The programme, of the usual variegated order, announced music by Elsner, Kurpinski, a hunting-horn solo, some singing. Chopin’s part consisted of his _Concerto in F minor_ and a fantasia on national airs. But the effect was not all that he had hoped. The connoisseurs alone had realized and appreciated his originality as an artist. But Constance, sitting in the front row, smiled at him and he felt repaid.

A second concert, several days after the first, was a more brilliant success, and the _Rondo à la Krakoviak_ aroused acclamations. From all over the house came cries: “A third concert! A third concert!” This time it really seemed as though the critics, the crowd, and the musicians were of one accord in declaring Chopin Poland’s greatest pianist and composer. But the weeks slipped by without bringing him real happiness. His love for Titus and Constance both sustained and tormented him. He carried their letters next his heart. For them alone he composed, and his latest music seemed to him worthless till they had heard it. “Work drives me on. I am composing hard. Often I turn night into day and day into night. I live in a dream and sleep while I am awake. Yes, worse still, it is as though I must sleep for ever, for I am for ever feeling the same thing. But instead of gathering strength from this somnolence, I am tortured further and weaken myself the more....” He worked on his _Adagio in E major_, which was to be “romantic, calm, melancholy,” and to evoke “crowds of gentle memories. It should be like a reverie on a moonlit spring night.... What does it matter if it is bad? You will see in it my fault of doing badly against my will. But that is because, also against my will, something has entered my heart by way of my eyes. It drives me, torments me, although I love it and cherish it.”

An unexpected treat was given him by the arrival of a celebrated German singer, Sontag, who gave a series of six concerts. To her Prince Radziwill presented Chopin, who experienced a moment of enthusiasm. She was not beautiful, but charming beyond description, and she enchanted the circle in which she moved. Frederick was allowed the honour of seeing her in her morning peignoir, and brought Constance to her. But the transit of the singer was no more than a meteoric interlude and Chopin slid back into his uncertainties. Departure seemed more and more necessary for his musical development, and on the other hand the fear of losing his love paralysed him. On September 4th he wrote to Titus:

“I have fits of fury. I still have not budged. I haven’t the strength to name a day for leaving. I have a presentiment that if I leave Warsaw I shall never see my home again. I believe that I am going away to die. How sad it must be not to die where one has always lived! How dreadful it would be for me to see at my deathbed an indifferent doctor or servant instead of all my own folk! I should like to stay with you for a few days; perhaps I might find some peace again. But as I cannot, I limit myself to roaming the streets, crushed by my sadness, and I return—but why? To pursue my fancies. Man is rarely happy. If he is destined to only a few short hours of bliss, why should he renounce his illusions. They too are fugitive.”

More curious still is his letter of September 18th, where he makes this singular confession:

“You are mistaken in thinking, like so many others, that my heart is the reason for my prolonging my stay here. Be assured that I could rise above all if it were a question of my own self, and that, if I were in love, I could manage to dominate for several more years my sad and sterile passion. Be convinced of one thing, I beg, that is, that I too consider my own good and that I am ready to sacrifice everything for the world. For the world;—I mean, for the eye of the world; in order that this public opinion which has so much weight with us may contribute to my sorrow. Not to that secret suffering that we hide within ourselves, but to what I might call our outward pain... As long as I am in good health, I shall work willingly all my life. But must I work more than my strength permits? If it is necessary, I can do twice what I do to-day. You may not be master of your own thoughts, but I am always. Nothing could make me drop them as the leaves from the trees. For me, even in winter, there is always verdure. Of course, I am speaking only of the head! In the heart, on the other hand... good Lord! there is tremendous heat! No wonder the vegetation there is luxurious.... Your letters lie upon my heart, next to the ribbon (Constance’s), for though they do not know each other, these inanimate objects nevertheless feel that they come from friendly hands.”

In short, this irresolute knew well that the very base of his nature was his musical instinct; that this instinct would conquer all, his desires, his comfort, his peace; that his “secret suffering,” if it was inevitably necessary, still amounted to less than that stubborn march towards a future of melody and solitude.

Coming out of church one day he saw Constance. “My eyes caught her glance. I tore off into the street and it took a quarter of an hour to pull myself together. Sometimes I am so mad that it is terrifying. But on Saturday week I leave, come what may. I shall pack my music in my trunk, her ribbon in my soul, my soul under my arm and,—away I go, in the diligence!”

Finally, on October 11th, he gave a last concert, in which Mlle. Gladkowska assisted. Frederick played his whole _Concerto in E minor_, a work that he had just finished, and a _Fantasia on Polish Airs_. Mlle. Gladkowska, dressed in white and crowned with roses, sang the cavatine from Rossini’s _Lady of the Lake_. “You know the theme: _O quante lagrime per te versai_,” wrote Chopin to Titus. “She rendered the _tutto detesto_ to the G flat admirably. Zielinski said the G alone was worth a thousand ducats. After leading her off the stage I played my _Fantasia_ on the setting of the moon. This time at least I understood myself, the orchestra understood itself and the audience understood us.... Now nothing remains but to strap my trunk. My outfit is ready, my orchestrations are recopied, my handkerchiefs hemmed, my new trousers have been tried on.” What was he still waiting for?

It was as though destiny offered him one final chance. He did not take it.

The 1st of November, 1830, was the date fixed; he was to leave for Vienna. In the morning a whole troupe set forth. Elsner, friends, musicians, conducted him as far as Wola, the historic suburb where, in earlier times, the election of the kings had taken place. They held a banquet. They played a cantata composed by Elsner in his honour. They sang:

“May your talent, native of our soil, Display itself in all and everywhere, Be you on the Danube’s shores, Or by the Spree, the Tiber or the Seine. Cherish the customs of your fathers, And, by the notes of your music, Our mazurkas and our Kracoviennes, Sing the glory of your native land. Yes, you shall realize our dreams. Know always, Chopin, that you by song Shall glorify your native land.”

Chorus:

“To leave your fatherland is naught, Because your soul remains with us. We raise our prayers for your happiness, And shall cherish your memory in our hearts.”

He is pale, the young prince, when they present him with a silver cup filled with his native soil. And now he bursts into sobs.

* * * * *

As for Constance, she never saw him again. Two years later she married a country gentleman. Then, the blue eyes that the poet had loved,—by what strange trick of fate should they be deprived of light? Constance became blind. Sometimes, however, she would sit once more at the piano and sing that lovely song: _Quante lagrime per te versai_.... Someone who knew her towards the end of her life told how “from her eyes, which remained starry in spite of their blindness,” would then fall the tears.