I have done my utmost to elucidate the tragic event which it is impossible not to regard as one of the most momentous crises in Chopin’s life, and have succeeded in collecting besides the material already known much that is new; but of what avail is this for coming to a final decision if we find the depositions hopelessly contradictory, and the witnesses more or less untrustworthy—­self-interest makes George Sand’s evidence suspicious, the instability of memory that of others.  Under the circumstances it seems to me safest to place before the reader the depositions of the various witnesses—­not, however, without comment—­and leave him to form his own conclusions.  I shall begin with the account which George Sand gives in her Ma Vie:—­

After the last relapses of the invalid, his mind had become extremely gloomy, and Maurice, who had hitherto tenderly loved him, was suddenly wounded by him in an unexpected manner about a trifling subject.  They embraced each other the next moment, but the grain of sand had fallen into the tranquil lake, and little by little the pebbles fell there, one after another...All this was borne; but at last, one day, Maurice, tired of the pin-pricks, spoke of giving up the game.  That could not be, and should not be.  Chopin would not stand my legitimate and necessary intervention.  He bowed his head and said that I no longer loved him.

What blasphemy after these eight years of maternal devotion!  But the poor bruised heart was not conscious of its delirium.  I thought that some months passed at a distance and in silence would heal the wound, and make his friendship again calm and his memory equitable.  But the revolution of February came, and Paris became momentarily hateful to this mind incapable of yielding to any commotion in the social form.  Free to return to Poland, or certain to be tolerated there, he had preferred languishing ten [and some more] years far from his family, whom he adored, to the pain of seeing his country transformed and deformed [denature].  He had fled from tyranny, as now he fled from liberty.

I saw him again for an instant in March, 1848.  I pressed his trembling and icy hand.  I wished to speak to him, he slipped away.  Now it was my turn to say that he no longer loved me.  I spared him this infliction, and entrusted all to the hands of Providence and the future.

I was not to see him again.  There were bad hearts between us.  There were good ones too who were at a loss what to do.  There were frivolous ones who preferred not to meddle with such delicate matters; Gutmann was not there.

I have been told that he had asked for me, regretted me, and loved me filially up to the very end.  It was thought fit to conceal this from me till then.  It was also thought fit to conceal from him that I was ready to hasten to him.

Liszt’s account is noteworthy because it gives us the opinion of a man who knew the two principal actors in the drama intimately, and had good opportunities to learn what contemporary society thought about it.  Direct knowledge of the facts, however, Liszt had not, for he was no longer a friend either of the one or the other of the two parties:—­