Chopin's letter To his sister Ludwika, Warsaw
Paris 26/12/1847- 06/01/1848
I did not respond immediately because I am terribly busy. Besides, Ms. Rozières certainly responded to Ludwika immediately, and will have written that I am well and that I am up to my neck in work. Thank you very much for the bust of my godfather. He has a more genius physiognomy, but surely the one who sculpted it is an ordinary fellow and unintentionally left his mark on it.
Through the chamberlain Walewski, I have sent a small necessaire for Ludwika from my good Scotswoman, and now, by the usual means, some prints for the New Year. Gavard gave me his engravings for Ludwika (half of which I had had with me for some time, waiting for an opportunity to send them). Once in a while, I will bring them myself. Let Ludwika thank him, if she wishes. Furthermore, there are Bosphore and Historie de Pris for Ludwika; L'Irlande, Rome and La France for Izabela. Paul et Virginie for little Ludka. For Kalasanty: Les Gentilhommes et les Madeleines, and for Bartek: Les Professeur, to make him laugh a bit. The day before yesterday I spent Christmas Eve in the most prosaic way, but I thought of you. I send you my best wishes, as every year. Lorka is here; I see her often. She is aged; now you would find her better. She leaves for Dresden this week. It pleases me to speak of you with her, she loves you sincerely. I met the daughter of Princess Michalowa, wife of Michat, and also her husband. I give lessons to Mrs. Calergi; in truth, she plays very well and is very successful in the great Parisian world from all points of view. Sol (Solange) is with her father in Gascony. She saw her mother (George Sand) passing through. She was at Nohant with the Duvernets, but her mother received her coldly and told her that she could only return to Nohant when she had separated from her husband. Sol saw her bridal chamber transformed into a little theater, her boudoir into a wardrobe for actors, and she writes to me that her mother spoke to her only of financial matters. Her brother was playing with the dog and all he found to say to her was: "- Veux-tu manger quelque chose ?"! She saw neither her cousin nor the others; in short, these two visits had no effect, because when she returned the next day she was received even more coldly. However, the mother told her to write to her, and Solange must have done so. Now the mother (George) seems to be more angry with her son-in-law than with her daughter, although in her famous letter (the poisonous letter) she wrote to me that the son-in-law is not bad but it is her daughter who makes him so. One might think that she wanted to get rid of both her daughter and me at the same time, because we were a nuisance to her. She will remain in correspondence with Solange, so that her maternal heart, which cannot be completely without news of her daughter, will be quieted for a while and thus silence her conscience. She will think she is in the right and will proclaim me her enemy only because I took the son-in-law's side (whom she cannot stand only because he married her daughter, whereas I opposed this marriage as best I could).
A strange creature, with all her intelligence! She has been seized by a frenzy, shaking her life and that of her daughter; it will end badly even with her son, I foresee and confirm it. To excuse herself, she would want to find faults in those who love her, who believe in her, who have never wronged her and who she cannot bear near her because they are the mirror of her conscience. That is why she has not written me a line anymore, that is why she will not come to Paris this winter, and why she has not said a word about me to her daughter. I do not regret having helped her through the eight most delicate years of her life, when her daughter was growing up, when she was educating her son; I do not regret all that I have suffered, but I regret that her daughter, this plant so perfectly tended and kept sheltered from all storms, was broken by maternal hands with an imprudence and a lightness that could be excused in a twenty-year-old woman but not in one of forty. What has been and is no more is not written in the annals. Mrs. S. (Sand) can have only a good memory of me when she returns in thought to her past. For the moment she is in the strangest maternal paroxysm, in which she plays the role of a better and more just mother than she actually is; it is a kind of fever for which there is no medicine, especially when it insinuates itself into a mind with a fertile imagination that has unstable ground beneath its feet. Besides, "even the cypresses have their whims". Meanwhile, the winter here is not very fierce. There is a lot of influenza going around, but I have had enough of my usual cough and I am not afraid of the flu as you are of cholera. Every now and then I inhale my homeopathic vials, I give much"} ,
Home lessons and I am here, how can I.
Every day I want to write to you and this letter, started last year, I will finish it on January 6, 1848. Yesterday Lorka left for Dresden. Her stepsister is marrying Olizar. Before she left, we had lunch together at Mrs. Ryszczewska's, to whom I am also very fond. Now that they have aged, they are better than when they were too young. I don't know if I wrote to you that good father Wojciech has suffered a serious financial collapse, he has had great troubles and will still have more, because the man in whom he had all his trust, whose skill was known and appreciated by all bankers and all people of the trade, deceived him and fled. Little by little everything becomes clear; he is as transparent as water and suffers the greatest consequences, and those who were in the same enterprise will have smaller losses than they initially imagined. This enterprise is the Northern Railway Station depot. There they store the goods that are then shipped in all directions. The business was good and clean, but the gentleman running it illegally misappropriated sums, not having the right to do so; then he could not pay what was due and disappeared, leaving all the troubles on the shoulders of our Wojciech, who has now partly untangled himself, but not yet completely. I write these things to you so that bad news does not reach you, since there are many charitable people in the world. A new novel by Mrs. S. (Sand) is coming out in "Les Débats" (in the style of Berry's novellas, like L'Étain), which begins very well. It is titled Francois le Champi. In the countryside, 'Champi' are what illegitimate children are called, who are commonly given in adoption to poor women, paid for this by hospitals. There is also talk of her memoirs; but in a letter to Mrs. Marliani, Mrs. S. wrote that it would rather be about her thoughts matured around art, literature, etc., and not what is generally meant by memoirs. Besides, indeed, it would be too early for such a thing, because dear Mrs. S. will still have many adventures in her life before growing old; and many beautiful things and many bad things will still happen to her. Mrs. Obreskow is here and speaks to me a lot about my little mother every time we see each other. I have promised her that we would dine together once a week.
F.Chopin
