The following two extracts tell us more about the intimate home-life at Nohant and in the Court d’Orleans than anything we have as yet met with.

  Madame Sand to her son; October 17, 1843:—­

  Tell me if Chopin is ill; his letters are short and sad.  Take
  care of him if he is ailing.  Take a little my place.  He would
  take my place with so much zeal if you were ill.

  Madame Sand to her son; November 16, 1843:—­

If you care for the letter which I have written you about her [Solange], ask Chopin for it.  It was for both of you, and it has not given him much pleasure.  He has taken it amiss, and yet I did not wish to annoy him, God forbid!  We shall all see each other soon again, and hearty embraces [de bonnes bigeades] [footnote:  Biger is in the Berry dialect “to kiss.”] all round shall efface all my sermons.

In another of George Sand’s letters to her son—­it is dated November 28, 1843—­we read about Chopin’s already often-mentioned valet.  Speaking of the foundation of a provincial journal, “L’Eclaireur de l’Indre,” by herself and a number of her friends, and of their being on the look-out for an editor who would be content with the modest salary of 2,000 francs, she says:—­

This is hardly more than the wages of Chopin’s domestic, and to imagine that for this it is possible to find a man of talent!  First measure of the Committee of Public Safety:  we shall outlaw Chopin if he allows himself to have lackeys salaried like publicists.

Chopin treated George Sand with the greatest respect and devotion; he was always aux petits soins with her.  It is characteristic of the man and exemplifies strikingly the delicacy of his taste and feeling that his demeanour in her house showed in no way the intimate relation in which he stood to the mistress of it:  he seemed to be a guest like any other occasional visitor.  Lenz wishes to make us believe that George Sand’s treatment of Chopin was unworthy of the great artist, but his statements are emphatically contradicted by Gutmann, who says that her behaviour towards him was always respectful.  If the lively Russian councillor in the passages I am going to translate describes correctly what he heard and saw, he must have witnessed an exceptional occurrence; it is, however, more likely that the bad reception he received from the lady prejudiced him against her.

Lenz relates that one day Chopin took him to the salon of Madame Marliani, where there was in the evening always a gathering of friends.

George Sand [thus runs his account of his first meeting with the great novelist] did not say a word when Chopin introduced me.  This was rude.  Just for that reason I seated myself beside her.  Chopin fluttered about like a little frightened bird in its cage, he saw something was going to happen.  What had he not always feared on this terrain?  At the first pause in the conversation,