within the price of forty francs....This, then, is the superb present which your honoured master asks you to get for him, with an eagerness worthy of the ardour which he carries into his gifts, and of the impatience which he puts into little things.

Charles Rollinat, a friend of George Sand’s, the brother of one of George Sand’s most intimate and valued friends, Francois Rollinat, published in “Le Temps” (September 1, 1874) a charming “Souvenir de Nohant,” which shows us the the chateau astir with a more numerous company:—­

The hospitality there [he writes] was comfortable, and the freedom absolute.  There were guns and dogs for those who loved hunting, boats and nets for those who loved fishing, a splendid garden to walk in.  Everyone did as he liked.  Liszt and Chopin composed; Pauline Garcia studied her role of the “Prophete”; the mistress of the house wrote a romance or a drama; and it was the same with the others.  At six o’clock they assembled again to dine, and did not part company till two or three o’clock in the morning.  Chopin rarely played.  He could only be prevailed upon to play when he was sure of perfection.  Nothing in the world would have made him consent to play indifferently.  Liszt, on the contrary, played always, well or badly.

[Footnote:  Charles Rollinat, a younger brother of Francois, went afterwards to Russia, where, according to George Sand (see letter to Edmond Plauchut, April 8, 1874), he was for twenty-five years “professeur de musique et haut enseignement, avec une bonne place du gouvernement.”  He made a fortune and lost it, retaining only enough to live upon quietly in Italy.  He tried then to supplement his scanty income by literary work (translations from the Russian).  George Sand, recalling the days of long ago, says:  “Il chantait comme on ne chante plus, excepte Pauline [Viardot-Garcia]!”]

Unfortunately, the greater portion of M. Rollinat’s so-called Souvenir consists of “poetry without truth.”  Nevertheless, we will not altogether ignore his pretty stories.

One evening when Liszt played a piece of Chopin’s with embellishments of his own, the composer became impatient and at last, unable to restrain himself any longer, walked up to Liszt and said with his English Phlegm:—­

  “I beg of you, my dear friend, if you do me the honour to play
  a piece of mine, to play what is written, or to play something
  else.  It is only Chopin who has the right to alter Chopin.”

  “Well! play yourself!” said Liszt, rising from his seat a
  little irritated,

  “With pleasure,” said Chopin.

At that moment a moth extinguished the lamp.  Chopin would not have it relighted, and played in the dark.  When he had finished his delighted auditors overwhelmed him with compliments, and Liszt said: 

  “Ah, my friend, you were right!  The works of a genius like you
  are sacred; it is a profanation to meddle with them.  You are a
  true poet, and I am only a mountebank.”