CHAPTER VI

“I doubt whether there is a city on Earth where more pianists are to be found than in Paris”

When the stage-coach in which Chopin rode had passed the walls of Paris, the young musician climbed up on the seat beside the driver. He hardly knew where to look, at the monuments or at a crowd so thick it might be thought another revolution. However, it was only the joy of living again that had brought the people into the streets and forced the horses down to a walk. The driver felt impressively at home among all these symbolic costumes of the bourgeois gentlemen, and pointed them out to his passenger. Each political group had its own livery. The School of Medicine and the Young French parties were distinguished by their beards and cravats. The Carlists had green waistcoats, the Republicans red, and the Saint Simoniens blue. Many strutted about in tailed coats, called _à la propriétaire_, which fell to their heels. There were artists dressed after Raphaël, with hair to their shoulders and wide-brimmed tam-o’-shanters. Others affected the Middle Ages,—numbers of women dressed as pages, as musketeers, as hunters. And in this swarm were hawkers brandishing their pamphlets: “Ask for _The Art of Making Love and Keeping It_; ask for _The Loves of the Priests_; ask for _The Archbishop of Paris and the Mme. la Duchesse de Berry_.” Frederick was at first somewhat scandalized. Later he was agreeably surprised to see a group of youths march by, crying: “Poland! Poland!” “That is in honour of General Ramorino, the Italian who is trying to deliver our Polish brothers from the Russian boot,” explained the driver. They were obliged to stop the carriage for the crowd to pass. Eventually they reached the posting station and Chopin dismounted, had his baggage loaded on a cabriolet, and betook himself to a house agent, who provided him with two rooms on the fifth floor at 27, Boulevard Poissonnière.

He liked these quarters because his windows had a balcony from which he could see the succession of boulevards. The endless perspective of trees hedged in between two rows of houses astonished him. “It is down there,” he thought, “that the history of France is being written.” Not far away, in the rue d’Enfer, M. de Chateaubriand was editing his memoirs and he too wrote: “What happenings have taken place before my very door! But after the trial of Louis XVI and the revolutionary uprisings, all trials and uprisings are insignificant.” And at the same time, a plainly dressed young woman was writing in her garret novels which she signed with the name George Sand, and exclaimed: “To live, how sweet! How good it is, in spite of griefs, husbands, boredom, debts, relatives, tittle-tattle, in spite of bitter pangs and tedious annoyances. To live, how intoxicating! To love, to be loved! That is happiness, that is Heaven!”

The day after his arrival Frederick plunged into the crowd and exulted in his solitude. It was more complete here than in the depths of the German forest, and it at once stimulated and frightened the artist. He floated with the tide, until suddenly the crowd thickened, became organized, and Chopin found himself carried along by a compact column who, with flags at their head, were marching to acclaim Ramorino. Then fear seized him in good earnest, and breaking away, he returned home by back streets, and climbed to his balcony where he witnessed from above that storm of enthusiasm. Shops were shut and a squadron of hussars arrived at a gallop and swept away the populace, who hissed and spat at the soldiers. Till midnight there was an uproar which approached a riot. And Chopin wrote to Titus: “I can’t tell you what a disagreeable impression the horrible voices of this angry mob gave me.” Decidedly he did not like noise, or crowds; politics were not in his line.

Music, music, his only escape, because it is the only way of thinking with the emotions. “Here alone can one know what singing is. With the exception of Pasta, I do not believe there is a greater singer in Europe than Malibran-Garcia.” He spent his evenings at the Académie Royale or at the Italian Opera. Veron managed the Académie, where Habeneck conducted. At the Italian Opera Rossini and Zamboni were in the bill. He heard Lablache and Malibran in _Il Barbieri di Siviglia_, in _Otello_, and in _L’Italiana in Algeri_. Under the stimulus of his pleasure he wrote again to Titus: “You can have no idea what Lablache is like. Some say that Pasta’s voice is weakening, but I have never in my life heard one so divine. Malibran has a range of three octaves; in her own _genre_ her singing is unique, uncanny. She plays Othello; Schroeder-Devrient, Desdemona. Malibran is small, the German larger. Sometimes you think Desdemona is going to strangle Othello.”

Chopin had a letter of introduction to Paër, who put him in touch with Cherubini, Rossini, and the pianist then more famous than any of the others, Kalkbrenner. With beating heart Chopin went to see this supreme master at his house. He was a tall man, stiff and cold, with the bearing of a diplomat, and an unstable glance. He put on the airs of a gentleman, was doubtless too polite, and certainly very pedantic. Marmontel says of him that his playing was smooth, sustained, harmonious, and perfectly even, and that it charmed more than it astonished; that his left hand had an unequalled dexterity and that he played, without moving his head or body, with splendid style in the grand manner. “A giant!” said Chopin. “He crushes everybody, myself included.” In Kalkbrenner the young artist specially admired the purist, the man who talked at the piano, the language of Cicero.

The master and the unknown played several pieces for each other. When Chopin had finished his _Concerto in E minor_, Kalkbrenner said to him: “You have the style of Cramer and the touch of Field,” which was without doubt the greatest compliment he could find. Divining in this unexpected disciple the great man of to-morrow, he explained his faults, trotted out again his lack of method, even pencilled his concerto. He tried to decipher it. But if he succeeded in the first part, he was stopped at the beginning of the second by insurmountable difficulties, for its technique was entirely new. Nevertheless, he stated with assurance that nothing short of three years of study under his direction would make Chopin master of a new piano school. Frederick was disquieted. Three years more study! What would his family say? “However, I will submit to it,” he thought, “if I can be sure of making a big advance.” But, by the time he had reached home again, he no longer doubted. “No, I will never be a copy of Kalkbrenner.... No, he shan’t destroy in me that hope, daring, I admit, but noble, _of creating a new world for myself_.” A quarter of a century earlier than Wagner, here in this young man of twenty years was the certainty of the same destiny.

We must be grateful to M. Nicolas Chopin for having upheld his son’s faith. “But, my dear fellow,” he wrote to him, “I cannot see how, with your capacities which he (Kalkbrenner) said he remarked, he can think that three more years of work under his eyes are necessary for you to become an artist and the head of a new school. You know that I have done everything I could to further your inclinations and develop your talent, that I have opposed you in nothing. You know also that the technique of playing took you only a short time to learn, and that your mind has been busier than your fingers. If others have spent whole days in practising scales, you have rarely passed an hour on the works of others. Experts can distinguish genius from its earliest moments, but they cannot prophesy the peak it will reach.”

Even more remarkable was the letter from his sister Louise, who had run to Elsner to lay before him the dilemma in which the whole family was plunged. The aged teacher, like the young sister, had soon found traces of a calculating self-interest in the proposal of the virtuoso. And they said so, they who had simple hearts, they who had faith. “Elsner was angry. He cried ‘Jealousy already,—three years, indeed!’ and tossed his head. Then he added: ‘I know Frederick. He is good, but he has no pride, no ambition; he is easily swayed. I shall write him what I think of all this.’ Sure enough, this morning he brought a letter which I am sending you. He went on talking to us about this business. We who judge men in the simplicity of our hearts thought Kalkbrenner the most honest man in the world; but Elsner was not altogether of this opinion. He said: ‘They recognized a genius in Frederick, and they are afraid of being supplanted by him. That is why they would like to have their hands on him for three years, so that they could stop the growth that Nature would develop if she were left alone.’ Elsner does not want you to imitate, and he expresses himself well when he says: ‘No imitation is worth the original.’ As soon as you begin imitating you cease to be creative, and, although you are young, your own conceptions may be better than those of many others.... Then, M. Elsner does not only want to see in you a concert player, a famous virtuoso, which is easier and less worth while, but he wants to see you attain the goal towards which Nature is urging you and for which she has made you. What irritated him extremely was, as he says, ‘the presumption and arrogance that after having run over your orchestration would pick up a pencil to strike out passages without ever having heard the concerto with the full effect of the orchestra.’ He says that it would have been quite another thing to have advised you when you write concerto, to shorten the _allegro_: but to make you erase what was already written, that he cannot pardon. Elsner compared it to taking a seemingly unnecessary pillar away from a house that had already been built, with the result of changing everything in eliminating what was deemed bad. I think that Elsner is right in declaring that to be superior it is necessary to excel not only one’s teachers but also one’s contemporaries. You can excel them by imitating them, but then, that is following in their tracks. And he says that you, who already know what is good and what is better, should now be making your own path. Your genius will guide you. One more thing, he said. ‘Frederick has drawn from his native soil this distinguishing particularity: the rhythm—shall I say?—which makes him as much more original and characteristically himself as his ideas are more noble than others.’ He would like you to retain that. We do not understand these things as well as you do, my dear little Fritz, and we cannot advise you; we can only send you our comments.”

It is beautiful, this letter. It is not literature, but it goes to the root of the matter. Frederick followed its councils and preferred to remain himself, even were it at the expense of a rapid success. Meanwhile, Kalkbrenner had the wisdom not to be annoyed at seeing this prize pupil refuse to allow himself to be convinced. Their friendship persisted. It was even Kalkbrenner who presented him to the directors of the famous house of Pleyel. Chopin attached himself to other artists, particularly to Hiller, pianist, composer, and musical critic, and to Franchomme, the celebrated violoncellist, both of whom aided him to organize his opening concert.

This took place on the 26th of February, 1832, in the Salons Pleyel. Frederick had got it up with the greatest care amid constantly renewed difficulties. He had recruited for the occasion five violinists (among them Urhan, Liszt’s friend, and Baillot), who were to play Beethoven’s _Quintette_. Mlles. Tomeoni and Isambert were to sing. Kalkbrenner, Stamati, Hiller, Osborne, Sowinski and Chopin were to play a _Grande Polonaise_ for six pianos, composed by Kalkbrenner himself; then Chopin was to play his _Concerto in F minor_ and his _Variations on the “La ci darem”_ of Mozart. The _Grande Polonaise_ for six pianos disquieted him. “It is a mad idea, isn’t it?” he wrote to Titus. “One of the grand pianos is very large: it is Kalkbrenner’s; another is very small: that is mine.” He never loved show. Besides, concerts for the general public were always odious to him. So on this evening of February 26th, there stepped on the platform a very pale young man, whose attitude betrayed a very sincere annoyance much more than it did a dramatic inspiration. The hall was only half-filled and that mostly with Poles, critics and musicians. In the front row could be seen the handsome features of Liszt. A stunning silence descended when Chopin had slipped his first caresses over the keyboard.

Then there arose from the piano a voice such as no one, ever, had heard before. Yet each recognized in it the cry of his innermost self. It was neither a tale, nor a brilliant commentary, but the simple song of life; an authentic revelation; the essential word of the heart. By means of a delicate rightness, which is the strength of the pure, Chopin transported these connoisseurs. Liszt himself, whose “doubled and redoubled applause was not sufficient to express his enthusiasm,” saw here the revelation of “a new phase of poetic feeling side by side with innovations in the form of the art.” From that evening he gave him his warm friendship. Fétis, the sharp but influential critic, declared: “Here is a young man who, abandoning himself to his natural feelings, and following no model, has discovered, if not a complete renovation of piano music, at least a part of what we have long been vainly seeking: an abundance of original ideas which fit into no earlier classification.”

Chopin accepted these eulogies without pride and without false modesty, because he totally lacked all vanity. The receipts were counted; they barely sufficed to cover expenses. But that was nothing in comparison to another disappointment: the French public had not attended. The artist’s object, therefore, had not been achieved. When, towards midnight, he returned to his room, Chopin believed that fate had pronounced an unfavourable verdict, and he conceived the idea of leaving for America.

He had hardly any money left. His friends were still few, being limited to a small number of artists and compatriots. Ah, how happy Meyerbeer must be, having just had produced his _Robert the Devil_, a mine of gold and glory! Chopin confided to Titus: “Chance brought me here. Here one can certainly breathe freely. But perhaps one also sighs more, too. Paris is everything that you want it to be. Here you can amuse yourself, be bored, laugh, cry, do whatever you like without anyone giving you a glance. I doubt whether there is a city on earth where more pianists are to be found than in Paris, or more asses and virtuosi. Ah, how I wish I had you with me. If you only knew how sad it is not to be able to relieve one’s soul. I like the society of people. I make friends easily, and am up to my ears in acquaintances; but there is no one, no one who can understand me. My heart always beats, so to speak, in swoons, and I resent it and should like a pause,—solitude,—with not a single soul to see me or speak to me all day long. Above all, I detest hearing my bell ring when I am writing to you.”

However, it rang a good deal, that little bell, and was mostly pulled by that worst of the bores, the deadly, the awful, the ridiculous Sowinski. “He is just coming in to see me. It is something big, and strong, and it wears a tiny moustache; it sits down at the piano and improvises without knowing why. It bangs, it knocks, it crosses its hands without rhyme or reason; for five minutes at a time it batters a defenceless key. It has enormous fingers made rather to hold the reins and the whip somewhere in the wilds of the Ukraine. It has no other virtues than a tiny moustache and a big heart.... When shall we see each other again? Maybe never, because I assure you that my health is wretched. Outwardly, I am gay, but within I am consumed. Dark forebodings, restlessness, insomnia, home-sickness, indifference to everything. Pleasure in life, then immediately afterwards,—longing for death....”

Other friends come and go through Chopin’s little apartment: Albert Grzymala, Count Plater, Liszt, Berlioz, who arrives from Rome and has great plans, Polish refugees. But money these young people have practically none, and Frederick, in spite of the “little reinforcements” that his father sends him, sees his resources vanish.

As for love, that was a luxury of which he must not think. The memory of Constance faded after Isabelle informed her brother of the marriage of that faithless one: “Like you I marvel that anyone could be so callous. It is easy to see that a fine château was a greater attraction. She had feeling only in her singing!” But chastity is the natural estate of the poor, and pleasure was a word that Chopin did not even understand. Living just below him, however, was a fresh, pretty woman. They met sometimes on the stairs, smiled, occasionally exchanged a few words. She heard from his room the passionate harmonies that this handsome male angel invented... for whom? Once she said to him:

“Come and see me some evening. I am often alone and I adore music.”

He refused, blushing. Yet a regret escaped him on paper, in his cold room: “I should have found a hearth, a fire. It would be nice to warm myself at it.”