of Chopin’s touching request to be buried by the side of Bellini.  Loath though I am to discredit so charming a story, duty compels me to state that it is wholly fictitious.  Chopin’s liking for Bellini and his music, how ever, was true and real enough.  Hiller relates that he rarely saw him so deeply moved as at a performance of Norma, which they attended together, and that in the finale of the second act, in which Rubini seemed to sing tears, Chopin had tears in his eyes.  A liking for the Italian operatic music of the time, a liking which was not confined to Bellini’s works, but, as Franchomme, Wolff, and others informed me, included also those of Rossini, appears at first sight rather strange in a musician of Chopin’s complexion; the prevalent musical taste at Warsaw, and a kindred trait in the national characters of the Poles and Italians, however, account for it.  With regard to Bellini, Chopin’s sympathy was strengthened by the congeniality of their individual temperaments.  Many besides Leon Escudier may have found in the genius of Chopin points of resemblance with Bellini as well as with Raphael—­two artists who, it is needless to say, were heaven-wide apart in the mastery of the craft of their arts, and in the width, height, and depth of their conceptions.  The soft, rounded Italian contours and sweet sonorousness of some of Chopin’s cantilene cannot escape the notice of the observer.  Indeed, Chopin’s Italicisms have often been pointed out.  Let me remind the reader here only of some remarks of Schumann’s, made apropos of the Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35:—­

It is known that Bellini and Chopin were friends, and that they, who often made each other acquainted with their compositions, may perhaps have had some artistic influence on each other.  But, as has been said, there is [on the part of Chopin] only a slight leaning to the southern manner; as soon as the cantilena is at an end the Sarmatian flashes out again.

To understand Chopin’s sympathy we have but to picture to ourselves Bellini’s personality—­the perfectly well-proportioned, slender figure, the head with its high forehead and scanty blonde hair, the well-formed nose, the honest, bright look, the expressive mouth; and within this pleasing exterior, the amiable, modest disposition, the heart that felt deeply, the mind that thought acutely.  M. Charles Maurice relates a characteristic conversation in his “Histoire anecdotique du Theatre.”  Speaking to Bellini about “La Sonnambula,” he had remarked that there was soul in his music.  This expression pleased the composer immensely.  “Oui, n’est-ce pas?  De l’ame!” he exclaimed in his soft Italian manner of speaking, “C’est ce que je veux...De L’ame!  Oh! je suis sensible!  Merci!...C’est que l’ame, c’est toute la musique!” “And he pressed my hands,” says Charles Maurice, “as if I had discovered a new merit in his rare talent.”  This specimen of Bellini’s conversation is sufficient to show that his linguistic accomplishments were very limited.  Indeed, as a good Sicilian he spoke Italian badly, and his French was according to Heine worse than bad, it was frightful, apt to make people’s hair stand on end.