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The names of the sisters Countess Potocka and Princesse de Beauvau call up at once that of their mother, Countess Komar. Many of these here enumerated are repeatedly mentioned in the course of this book, some will receive particular attention in the next chapter. Now we will try to get a glimpse of Chopin in society. Emile de Girardin."
These were the words Chopin whispered when he opened his eyes and saw, beside his sister Louise, the Countess Delphine Potocka, who had hurried from a distance as soon as she was notified that his end was drawing near.
To the amiable Princess de Beauvau he dedicated his famous Polonaise in F sharp minor, op. 44, written in the brilliant bravura style for pianists of the first force. To Delphine, Countess Potocka, he dedicated the loveliest of his valses, op. 64, No. 1, so well transcribed by Joseffy into a study in thirds."
Therefore the picture of the Grafin Potocka in the Berlin gallery is not that of Chopin's devoted friend. Here is another Count Tarnowski story. It touches on a Potocka episode. "Chopin liked and knew how to express individual characteristics on the piano.
The Countess Delphine Potocka, between whom and Chopin existed a warm friendship, and who then happened to be at Nice, was no sooner informed of her friend's fatal illness than she hastened to Paris. Scarcely had she stepped up to him when he expressed the wish that she should let him hear once more the voice which he loved so much.
Poor genius! he must even have a woman sing his swan-song for him! Potocka is best known by a familiar portrait that you will find in a thousand homes. But how the higher criticism undermines the gospel of tradition! The truth is that Chopin denied ever having been in love with her or she with him, and Huneker even claims that the famous portrait of her is not of her at all.
The wretched beast, accustomed to being in the open air for he was kept on a chain in the courtyard was so enraged at finding himself in my room that he tried to fly at me. I admit that I was dreadfully frightened. About this time I painted the portrait of a Polish lady, the Countess Potocka.
In the same way in the waltz, there is an obvious mingling of the gay and the sad, the tender and the debonair. Chopin thought he was writing a waltz. He really was writing "Delphine Potocka." He, too, was from Poland, and that circumstance of itself drew them to each other from the time when they first met in France.
In the figure in which he had to choose two ladies, he whispered to Helene that he meant to choose Countess Potocka who, he thought, had gone out onto the veranda, and glided over the parquet to the door opening into the garden, where, seeing Balashev and the Emperor returning to the veranda, he stood still. They were moving toward the door.
Chopin and the Countess Delphine Potocka "Her voice was destined to be the last which should vibrate upon the musician's heart. Perhaps the sweetest sounds of earth accompanied the parting soul until they blended in his ear with the first chords of the angels' lyres." It is thus Liszt describes the voice of Countess Delphine Potocka as it vibrated through the room in which Chopin lay dying.
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