It is, therefore, advisable that we should make ourselves acquainted with the principal Polish dances; such an acquaintance, moreover, will not only help us to interpret aright Chopin’s mazurkas and polonaises, but also to gain a deeper insight into his ways of feeling and seeing generally.  Now the reader will become aware that the long disquisitions on Poland and the Poles at the commencement of this biography were not superfluous accessories.  For completeness’ sake I shall preface the description of the mazurka by a short one of the krakowiak, the third of the triad of principal Polish dances.  The informants on whom I shall chiefly rely when I am not guided by my own observations are the musician Sowinski and the poet Brodzinski, both Poles: 

The krakowiak [says Albert Sowinski in chant polonais] bubbles over with esprit and gaiety; its name indicates its origin.  It is the delight of the salons, and especially of the huts.  The Cracovians dance it in a very agitated and expressive manner, singing at the same time words made for the occasion of which they multiply the stanzas and which they often improvise.  These words are of an easy gaiety which remind one strangely of the rather loose [semi-grivoises] songs so popular in France; others again are connected with the glorious epochs of history, with the sweet or sad memories which it calls up, and are a faithful expression of the character and manners of the nation.

Casimir Brodzinski describes the dance as follows:—­

The krakowiak resembles in its figures a simplified polonaise; it represents, compared with the latter, a less advanced social state.  The boldest and strongest takes the position of leader and conducts the dance; he sings, the others join in chorus; he dances, they imitate him.  Often also the krakowiak represents, in a kind of little ballet, the simple course of a love-affair:  one sees a couple of young people place themselves before the orchestra; the young man looks proud, presumptuous, preoccupied with his costume and beauty.  Before long he becomes meditative, and seeks inspiration to improvise verses which the cries of his companions ask for, and which the time beaten by them provoke, as well as the manoeuvre of the young girl, who is impatient to dance.  Arriving before the orchestra after making a round, the dancer generally takes the liberty of singing a refrain which makes the young girl blush; she runs away, and it is in pursuing her that the young man displays all his agility.  At the last round it is the young man who pretends to run away from his partner; she tries to seize his arm, after which they dance together until the ritornello puts an end to their pleasure.

As a technical supplement to the above, I may say that this lively dance is in 2/4 time, and like other Polish dances has the rhythmical peculiarity of having frequently the accent on a usually unaccented part of the bar, especially at the end of a section or a phrase, for instance, on the second quaver of the second and the fourth bar, thus:—­