His auditors, whom he, absorbed in his own thoughts and looking only at the keys, had entirely forgotten, listened with breathless attention.  When he had concluded his improvisation, he raised his eyes, and noticed a plainly- dressed lady who, leaning on the instrument, seemed to wish to read his soul with her dark fiery eyes. [Although a severe critic might object to the attitude of a lady leaning on a piano as socially and pictorially awkward, he must admit that from a literary point of view it is unquestionably more effective than sitting or standing by the door.] Chopin felt he was blushing under the fascinating glances of the lady [Bravo!  This is a master-touch]; she smiled [Exquisite!], and when the artist was about to withdraw from the company behind a group of camellias, he heard the peculiar rustling of a silk dress, which exhaled a fragrance of violets [Camellias, rustling silks, fragrance of violets!  What a profusion of beauty and sweetness!], and the same lady who had watched him so inquiringly at the piano approached him accompanied by Liszt.  Speaking to him with a deep, sweet voice, she made some remarks on his playing, and more especially on the contents of his improvisation.  Frederick listened to her with pleasure and emotion, and while words full of sparkling wit and indescribable poetry flowed from the lady’s eloquent lips [Quite a novel representation of her powers of conversation], he felt that he was understood as he had never been.

All this is undoubtedly very pretty, and would be invaluable in a novel, but I am afraid we should embarrass Karasowski were we to ask him to name his authorities.

Of this meeting at the house of the Marquis de C.—­i.e., the Marquis de Custine—­I was furnished with a third version by an eye-witness—­namely, by Chopin’s pupil Adolph Gutmann.  From him I learned that the occasion was neither a full-dress ball nor a chance gathering of a jour fixe, but a musical matinee.  Gutmann, Vidal (Jean Joseph), and Franchomme opened the proceedings with a trio by Mayseder, a composer the very existence of whose once popular chamber-music is unknown to the present generation.  Chopin played a great deal, and George Sand devoured him with her eyes.  Afterwards the musician and the novelist walked together a long time in the garden.  Gutmann was sure that this matinee took place either in 1836 or in 1837, and was inclined to think that it was in the first-mentioned year.

Franchomme, whom I questioned about the matinee at the Marquis de Custine’s, had no recollection of it.  Nor did he remember the circumstance of having on this or any other occasion played a trio of Mayseder’s with Gutmann and Vidal.  But this friend of the Polish pianist—­composer, while confessing his ignorance as to the place where the latter met the great novelist for the first time, was quite certain as to the year when he met her.  Chopin, Franchomme informed me, made George Sand’s acquaintance in 1837, their connection was broken