Ah, how I should like to have you beside me!...You cannot imagine how sad it is to have nobody to whom I can open my troubled heart.  You know how easily I make acquaintances, how I love human society—­such acquaintances I make in great numbers—­but with no one, no one can I sigh.  My heart beats as it were always “in syncopes,” therefore I torment myself and seek for a rest—­for solitude, so that the whole day nobody may look at me and speak to me.  It is too annoying to me when there is a pull at the bell, and a tedious visit is announced while I am writing to you.  At the moment when I was going to describe to you the ball, at which a divine being with a rose in her black hair enchanted me, arrives your letter.  All the romances of my brain disappear? my thoughts carry me to you, I take your hand and weep...When shall we see each other again?...Perhaps never, because, seriously, my health is very bad.  I appear indeed merry, especially when I am among my fellow-countrymen; but inwardly something torments me—­a gloomy presentiment, unrest, bad dreams, sleeplessness, yearning, indifference to everything, to the desire to live and the desire to die.  It seems to me often as if my mind were benumbed, I feel a heavenly repose in my heart, in my thoughts I see images from which I cannot tear myself away, and this tortures me beyond all measure.  In short, it is a combination of feelings that are difficult to describe...Pardon me, dear Titus, for telling you of all this; but now I have said enough...I will dress now and go, or rather drive, to the dinner which our countrymen give to- day to Ramorino and Langermann...Your letter contained much that was news to me; you have written me four pages and thirty-seven lines—­in all my life you have never been so liberal to me, and I stood in need of something of the kind, I stood indeed very much in need of it.

   What you write about my artistic career is very true, and I
   myself am convinced of it.

   I drive in my own equipage, only the coachman is hired.

I shall close, because otherwise I should be too late for the post, for I am everything in one person, master and servant.  Take pity on me and write as often as possible!—­Yours unto death,

   Frederick.

In the postscript of this letter Chopin’s light fancy gets the better of his heavy heart; in it all is fun and gaiety.  First he tells his friend of a pretty neighbour whose husband is out all day and who often invites him to visit and comfort her.  But the blandishments of the fair one were of no avail; he had no taste for adventures, and, moreover, was afraid to be caught and beaten by the said husband.  A second love-story is told at greater length.  The dramatis personae are Chopin, John Peter Pixis, and Francilla Pixis, a beautiful girl of sixteen, a German orphan whom the pianist-composer, then a man of about forty-three, had adopted, and who afterwards became known as a much-admired singer.  Chopin made their acquaintance in Stuttgart, and remarks that Pixis said that he intended to marry her.  On his return to Paris Pixis invited Chopin to visit him; the latter, who had by this time forgotten pretty Francilla, was in no hurry to call.  What follows must be given in Chopin’s own words:—­