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Mrs Mayhew noting his detachment from the Palace group, and quite needlessly alarmed lest politeness should impel him to return to her sought out a strategic seat near the piano; though in truth Honor Desmond's masterly rendering of Chopin's heroic polonaise was, for her, no more than a complicated tumult of sound without sense, and her wrapt expression resulted from the fact that she was debating whether her durzi could possibly reproduce at sight the subtle simplicity of Mrs Desmond's evening gown.
I have not received a sou!" "Ah! really, that is too bad!" Great commotion among the friends. It was evident that the money given to the portiere had not arrived at its destination; but how to be assured of this? and what had become of it? Here was a curious enough fact, as if a little of the marvellous must always be mingled with Chopin's affairs.
This improvisation terminates like a dream, without other conclusion than a convulsive shudder; leaving the soul under the strangest, the wildest, the most subduing impressions. The "POLONAISE-FANTAISIE" is to be classed among the works which belong to the latest period of Chopin's compositions, which are all more or less marked by a feverish and restless anxiety.
So this brings us back to Paris and George Sand, and the year 1837, when Chopin was twenty-eight and George Sand thirty-three. Thus far we have followed the standard authorities, but the year 1903 has done much in the way of unveiling Chopin's life. His letters to his family, and their letters to him, were believed to have perished.
On one sublime theme after another he executed variations, putting into them sometimes Chopin's sorrow, Chopin's Raphael-like perfection; sometimes the stormy Dante's grandeur of Liszt the two musicians who most nearly approach Paganini's temperament.
One little anecdote is related in connection with this which throws some light on his wit, and a little pinch of sarcasm in it. "During the time of Chopin's greatest brilliancy and popularity, in the year 1835, he once played his musical portraits in a certain Polish salon, where the three daughters of the house were the stars of the evening.
Opus 68, the second of the Fontana set, was composed in 1830. The first, in C, is commonplace; the one in A minor, composed in 1827, is much better, being lighter and well made; the third, in F major, 1830, weak and trivial, and the fourth, in F minor, 1849, interesting because it is said by Julius Fontana to be Chopin's last composition.
He wrote of Chopin's "Études," in 1838: "My thoughts and consequently my fingers ever stumble and sprawl at certain crude modulations, and I find Chopin's productions on the whole too sugared, too little worthy of a man and an educated musician, though there is much charm and originality in the national color of his motive."
As to the houses which form the square, they are well and handsomely built, the block opposite the entrance making even some architectural pretensions. Madame Sand's, Madame Marliani's, and Chopin's houses, which bore respectively the numbers 5, 4, and 3, were situated on the right side, the last-mentioned being just in the first right-hand corner on entering from the out- court.
He shook his head, then bethought himself of something. "Alfred, you are acquainted with everybody in Europe. How is it you never told me about that strange Grabowski crowd you know, the granddaughter of Chopin's first love?" Brünfeld looked at him with instant curiosity. "You also?" he said. The young man blushed. After that he could never forgive! The other continued:
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