THE STORY OF GEORGE SAND
To the student of feminine psychology there is no more curious andcomplex problem than the one that meets us in the life of the giftedFrench writer best known to the world as George Sand.
To analyze this woman simply as a writer would in itself be a long,difficult task. She wrote voluminously, with a fluid rather than afluent pen. She scandalized her contemporaries by her theories, and bythe way in which she applied them in her novels. Her fiction made her,in the history of French literature, second only to Victor Hugo. Shemight even challenge Hugo, because where he depicts strange andmonstrous figures, exaggerated beyond the limits of actual life, GeorgeSand portrays living men and women, whose instincts and desires sheunderstands, and whom she makes us see precisely as if we were admittedto their intimacy.
But George Sand puzzles us most by peculiarities which it is difficultfor us to reconcile. She seemed to have no sense of chastity whatever;yet, on the other hand, she was not grossly sensual. She possessed thematernal instinct to a high degree, and liked better to be a motherthan a mistress to the men whose love she sought. For she did seekmen's love, frankly and shamelessly, only to tire of it. In many casesshe seems to have been swayed by vanity, and by a love of conquest,rather than by passion. She had also a spiritual, imaginative side toher nature, and she could be a far better comrade than anything moreintimate.
The name given to this strange genius at birth was Amantine LucileAurore Dupin. The circumstances of her ancestry and birth were quiteunusual. Her father was a lieutenant in the French army. Hisgrandmother had been the natural daughter of Marshal Saxe, who washimself the illegitimate son of Augustus the Strong of Poland and ofthe bewitching Countess of Konigsmarck. This was a curious pedigree. Itmeant strength of character, eroticism, stubbornness, imagination,courage, and recklessness.
Her father complicated the matter by marrying suddenly a Parisian ofthe lower classes, a bird-fancier named Sophie Delaborde. His daughter,who was born in 1804, used afterward to boast that on one side she wassprung from kings and nobles, while on the other she was a daughter ofthe people, able, therefore, to understand the sentiments of thearistocracy and of the children of the soil, or even of the gutter.
She was fond of telling, also, of the omen which attended on her birth.Her father and mother were at a country dance in the house of a fellowofficer of Dupin's. Suddenly Mme. Dupin left the room. Nothing wasthought of this, and the dance went on. In less than an hour, Dupin wascalled aside and told that his wife had just given birth to a child. Itwas the child's aunt who brought the news, with the joyous comment:
"She will be lucky, for she was born among the roses and to the soundof music."
This was at the time of the Napoleonic wars. Lieutenant Dupin was onthe staff of Prince Murat, and little Aurore, as she was called, at theage of three accompanied the army, as did her mother. The child wasadopted by one of those hard-fighting, veteran regiments. The rough oldsergeants nursed her and petted her. Even the prince took notice ofher; and to please him she wore the green uniform of a hussar.
But all this soon passed, and she was presently sent to live with hergrandmother at the estate now intimately associated with hername--Nohant, in the valley of the Indre, in the midst of a richcountry, a love for which she then drank in so deeply that nothing inher later life could lessen it. She was always the friend of thepeasant and of the country-folk in general.
At Nohant she was given over to her grand-mother, to be reared in astrangely desultory sort of fashion, doing and reading and studyingthose things which could best develop her native gifts. Her father hadgreat influence over her, teaching her a thousand things withoutseeming to teach her anything. Of him George Sand herself has written:
Character is a matter of heredity. If any one desires to know me, hemust know my father.
Her father, however, was killed by a fall from a horse; and then thechild grew up almost without any formal education. A tutor, who alsomanaged the estate; believed with Rousseau that the young should bereared according to their own preferences. Therefore, Aurore read poemsand childish stories; she gained a smattering of Latin, and she wasdevoted to music and the elements of natural science. For the rest ofthe time she rambled with the country children, learned their games,and became a sort of leader in everything they did.
Her only sorrow was the fact that her mother was excluded from Nohant.The aristocratic old grandmother would not allow under her roof herson's low-born wife; but she was devoted to her little grandchild. Thegirl showed a wonderful degree of sensibility.
This life was adapted to her nature. She fed her imagination in aperfectly healthy fashion; and, living so much out of doors, sheacquired that sound physique which she retained all through her life.
When she was thirteen, her grandmother sent the girl to a conventschool in Paris. One might suppose that the sudden change from the openwoods and fields to the primness of a religious home would have been agreat shock to her, and that with her disposition she might have brokenout into wild ways that would have shocked the nuns. But, here, aselsewhere, she showed her wonderful adaptability. It even seemed as ifshe were likely to become what the French call a devote. She gaveherself up to mythical thoughts, and expressed a desire of taking theveil. Her confessor, however, was a keen student of human nature, andhe perceived that she was too young to decide upon the renunciation ofearthly things. Moreover, her grandmother, who had no intention thatAurore should become a nun, hastened to Paris and carried her back toNohant.
The girl was now sixteen, and her complicated nature began to makeitself apparent. There was no one to control her, because hergrandmother was confined to her own room. And so Aurore Dupin, now insuperb health, rushed into every sort of diversion with all the zest ofyouth. She read voraciously--religion, poetry, philosophy. She was anexcellent musician, playing the piano and the harp. Once, in a spiritof unconscious egotism, she wrote to her confessor:
Do you think that my philosophical studies are compatible withChristian humility?
The shrewd ecclesiastic answered, with a touch of wholesome irony:
I doubt, my daughter, whether your philosophical studies are profoundenough to warrant intellectual pride.
This stung the girl, and led her to think a little less of her ownabilities; but perhaps it made her books distasteful to her. For awhile she seems to have almost forgotten her sex. She began to dress asa boy, and took to smoking large quantities of tobacco. Her naturalbrother, who was an officer in the army, came down to Nohant and taughther to ride--to ride like a boy, seated astride. She went about withoutany chaperon, and flirted with the young men of the neighborhood. Theprim manners of the place made her subject to a certain amount ofscandal, and the village priest chided her in language that was farfrom tactful. In return she refused any longer to attend his church.
Thus she was living when her grandmother died, in 1821, leaving toAurore her entire fortune of five hundred thousand francs. As the girlwas still but seventeen, she was placed under the guardianship of thenearest relative on her father's side--a gentleman of rank. When thewill was read, Aurore's mother made a violent protest, and caused amost unpleasant scene.
"I am the natural guardian of my child," she cried. "No one can takeaway my rights!"
The young girl well understood that this was really the parting of theways. If she turned toward her uncle, she would be forever classedamong the aristocracy. If she chose her mother, who, though married,was essentially a grisette, then she must live with grisettes, and findher friends among the friends who visited her mother. She could notbelong to both worlds. She must decide once for all whether she wouldbe a woman of rank or a woman entirely separated from the circle thathad been her father's.
One must respect the girl for making the choice she did. Understandingthe situation absolutely, she chose her mother; and perhaps one wouldnot have had her do otherwise. Yet in the long run it was bound to be amistake. Aurore was clever, refined, well read, and had had thetraining of a
fashionable convent school. The mother was ignorant andcoarse, as was inevitable, with one who before her marriage had beenhalf shop-girl and half courtesan. The two could not live longtogether, and hence it was not unnatural that Aurore Dupin shouldmarry, to enter upon a new career.
Her fortune was a fairly large one for the times, and yet not largeenough to attract men who were quite her equals. Presently, however, itbrought to her a sort of country squire, named Casimir Dudevant. He wasthe illegitimate son of the Baron Dudevant. He had been in the army,and had studied law; but he possessed no intellectual tastes. He wasoutwardly eligible; but he was of a coarse type--a man who, withpassing years, would be likely to take to drink and vicious amusements,and in serious life cared only for his cattle, his horses, and hishunting. He had, however, a sort of jollity about him which appealed tothis girl of eighteen; and so a marriage was arranged. Aurore Dupinbecame his wife in 1822, and he secured the control of her fortune.
The first few years after her marriage were not unhappy. She had a son,Maurice Dudevant, and a daughter, Solange, and she loved them both. Butit was impossible that she should continue vegetating mentally upon afarm with a husband who was a fool, a drunkard, and a miser. Hedeteriorated; his wife grew more and more clever. Dudevant resentedthis. It made him uncomfortable. Other persons spoke of her talk asbrilliant. He bluntly told her that it was silly, and that she muststop it. When she did not stop it, he boxed her ears. This caused abreach between the pair which was never healed. Dudevant drank more andmore heavily, and jeered at his wife because she was "always lookingfor noon at fourteen o'clock." He had always flirted with the countrygirls; but now he openly consorted with his wife's chambermaid.
Mme. Dudevant, on her side, would have nothing more to do with thisrustic rake. She formed what she called a platonic friendship--and itwas really so--with a certain M. de Seze, who was advocate-general atBordeaux. With him this clever woman could talk without being calledsilly, and he took sincere pleasure in her company. He might, in fact,have gone much further, had not both of them been in an impossiblesituation.
Aurore Dudevant really believed that she was swayed by a pure andmystic passion. De Seze, on the other hand, believed this mysticpassion to be genuine love. Coming to visit her at Nohant, he wasrevolted by the clownish husband with whom she lived. It gave him anesthetic shock to see that she had borne children to this boor.Therefore he shrank back from her, and in time their relation fadedinto nothingness.
It happened, soon after, that she found a packet in her husband's desk,marked "Not to be opened until after my death." She wrote of this inher correspondence:
I had not the patience to wait till widowhood. No one can be sure ofsurviving anybody. I assumed that my husband had died, and I was veryglad to learn what he thought of me while he was alive. Since thepackage was addressed to me, it was not dishonorable for me to open it.
And so she opened it. It proved to be his will, but containing, as apreamble, his curses on her, expressions of contempt, and all thevulgar outpouring of an evil temper and angry passion. She went to herhusband as he was opening a bottle, and flung the document upon thetable. He cowered at her glance, at her firmness, and at her coldhatred. He grumbled and argued and entreated; but all that his wifewould say in answer was:
"I must have an allowance. I am going to Paris, and my children are toremain here."
At last he yielded, and she went at once to Paris, taking her daughterwith her, and having the promise of fifteen hundred francs a year outof the half-million that was hers by right.
In Paris she developed into a thorough-paced Bohemian. She tried tomake a living in sundry hopeless ways, and at last she took toliterature. She was living in a garret, with little to eat, andsometimes without a fire in winter. She had some friends who helped heras well as they could, but though she was attached to the Figaro, herearnings for the first month amounted to only fifteen francs.
Nevertheless, she would not despair. The editors and publishers mightturn the cold shoulder to her, but she would not give up her ambitions.She went down into the Latin Quarter, and there shook off theproprieties of life. She assumed the garb of a man, and with her quickperception she came to know the left bank of the Seine just as she hadknown the country-side at Nohant or the little world at her conventschool. She never expected again to see any woman of her own rank inlife. Her mother's influence became strong in her. She wrote:
The proprieties are the guiding principle of people without soul andvirtue. The good opinion of the world is a prostitute who gives herselfto the highest bidder.
She still pursued her trade of journalism, calling herself a "newspapermechanic," sitting all day in the office of the Figaro and writingwhatever was demanded, while at night she would prowl in the streetshaunting the cafes, continuing to dress like a man, drinking sour wine,and smoking cheap cigars.
One of her companions in this sort of hand-to-mouth journalism was ayoung student and writer named Jules Sandeau, a man seven years youngerthan his comrade. He was at that time as indigent as she, and theirhardships, shared in common, brought them very close together. He wasclever, boyish, and sensitive, and it was not long before he had fallenat her feet and kissed her knees, begging that she would requite thelove he felt for her. According to herself, she resisted him for sixmonths, and then at last she yielded. The two made their home together,and for a while were wonderfully happy. Their work and their diversionsthey enjoyed in common, and now for the first time she experiencedemotions which in all probability she had never known before.
Probably not very much importance is to be given to the earlierflirtations of George Sand, though she herself never tried to stop themouth of scandal. Even before she left her husband, she was creditedwith having four lovers; but all she said, when the report was broughtto her, was this: "Four lovers are none too many for one with suchlively passions as mine."
This very frankness makes it likely that she enjoyed shocking her primneighbors at Nohant. But if she only played at love-making then, shenow gave herself up to it with entire abandonment, intoxicated,fascinated, satisfied. She herself wrote:
How I wish I could impart to you this sense of the intensity andjoyousness of life that I have in my veins. To live! How sweet it is,and how good, in spite of annoyances, husbands, debts, relations,scandal-mongers, sufferings, and irritations! To live! It isintoxicating! To love, and to be loved! It is happiness! It is heaven!
In collaboration with Jules Sandeau, she wrote a novel called Rose etBlanche. The two lovers were uncertain what name to place upon thetitle-page, but finally they hit upon the pseudonym of Jules Sand. Thebook succeeded; but thereafter each of them wrote separately, JulesSandeau using his own name, and Mme. Dudevant styling herself GeorgeSand, a name by which she was to be illustrious ever after.
As a novelist, she had found her real vocation. She was not yet wellknown, but she was on the verge of fame. As soon as she had writtenIndiana and Valentine, George Sand had secured a place in the world ofletters. The magazine which still exists as the Revue des Deux Mondesgave her a retaining fee of four thousand francs a year, and many otherpublications begged her to write serial stories for them.
The vein which ran through all her stories was new and piquant. As wassaid of her:
In George Sand, whenever a lady wishes to change her lover, God isalways there to make the transfer easy.
In other words, she preached free love in the name of religion. Thiswas not a new doctrine with her. After the first break with herhusband, she had made up her mind about certain matters, and wrote:
One is no more justified in claiming the ownership of a soul than inclaiming the ownership of a slave.
According to her, the ties between a man and a woman are sacred onlywhen they are sanctified by love; and she distinguished between loveand passion in this epigram:
Love seeks to give, while passion seeks to take.
At this time, George Sand was in her twenty-seventh year. She was notbeautiful, though there was something
about her which attractedobservation. Of middle height, she was fairly slender. Her eyes weresomewhat projecting, and her mouth was almost sullen when in repose.Her manners were peculiar, combining boldness with timidity. Heraddress was almost as familiar as a man's, so that it was easy to beacquainted with her; yet a certain haughtiness and a touch ofaristocratic pride made it plain that she had drawn a line which nonemust pass without her wish. When she was deeply stirred, however, sheburst forth into an extraordinary vivacity, showing a nature richlyendowed and eager to yield its treasures.
The existence which she now led was a curious one. She still visitedher husband at Nohant, so that she might see her son, and sometimes,when M. Dudevant came to town, he called upon her in the apartmentswhich she shared with Jules Sandeau. He had accepted the situation, andwith his crudeness and lack of feeling he seemed to think it, if notnatural, at least diverting. At any rate, so long as he could retainher half-million francs, he was not the man to make trouble about hisformer wife's arrangements.
Meanwhile, there began to be perceptible the very slightest rift withinthe lute of her romance. Was her love for Sandeau really love, or wasit only passion? In his absence, at any rate, the old obsession stillcontinued. Here we see, first of all, intense pleasure shading off intoa sort of maternal fondness. She sends Sandeau adoring letters. She isafraid that his delicate appetite is not properly satisfied.
Yet, again, there are times when she feels that he is irritating andill. Those who knew them said that her nature was too passionate andher love was too exacting for him. One of her letters seems to makethis plain. She writes that she feels uneasy, and even frightfullyremorseful, at seeing Sandeau "pine away." She knows, she avows, thatshe is killing him, that her caresses are a poison, and her love aconsuming fire.
It is an appalling thought, and Jules will not understand it. He laughsat it; and when, in the midst of his transports of delight, the ideacomes to me and makes my blood run cold, he tells me that here is thedeath that he would like to die. At such moments he promises whatever Imake him promise.
This letter throws a clear light upon the nature of George Sand'stemperament. It will be found all through her career, not only that shesought to inspire passion, but that she strove to gratify it afterfashions of her own. One little passage from a description of herwritten by the younger Dumas will perhaps make this phase of hercharacter more intelligible, without going further than is strictlynecessary:
Mme. Sand has little hands without any bones, soft and plump. She is bydestiny a woman of excessive curiosity, always disappointed, alwaysdeceived in her incessant investigation, but she is not fundamentallyardent. In vain would she like to be so, but she does not find itpossible. Her physical nature utterly refuses.
The reader will find in all that has now been said the true explanationof George Sand. Abounding with life, but incapable of long stretches ofardent love, she became a woman who sought conquests everywhere withoutgiving in return more than her temperament made it possible for her todo. She loved Sandeau as much as she ever loved any man; and yet sheleft him with a sense that she had never become wholly his. Perhapsthis is the reason why their romance came to an end abruptly, and notaltogether fittingly.
She had been spending a short time at Nohant, and came to Paris withoutannouncement. She intended to surprise her lover, and she surely didso. She found him in the apartment that had been theirs, with his armsabout an attractive laundry-girl. Thus closed what was probably theonly true romance in the life of George Sand. Afterward she had manylovers, but to no one did she so nearly become a true mate.
As it was, she ended her association with Sandeau, and each pursued aseparate path to fame. Sandeau afterward became a well-known novelistand dramatist. He was, in fact, the first writer of fiction who wasadmitted to the French Academy. The woman to whom he had beenunfaithful became greater still, because her fame was not onlynational, but cosmopolitan.
For a time after her deception by Sandeau, she felt absolutely devoidof all emotions. She shunned men, and sought the friendship of MarieDorval, a clever actress who was destined afterward to break the heartof Alfred de Vigny. The two went down into the country; and thereGeorge Sand wrote hour after hour, sitting by her fireside, and showingherself a tender mother to her little daughter Solange.
This life lasted for a while, but it was not the sort of life thatwould now content her. She had many visitors from Paris, among themSainte-Beuve, the critic, who brought with him Prosper Merimee, thenunknown, but later famous as master of revels to the third Napoleon andas the author of Carmen. Merimee had a certain fascination of manner,and the predatory instincts of George Sand were again aroused. One day,when she felt bored and desperate, Merimee paid his court to her, andshe listened to him. This is one of the most remarkable of herintimacies, since it began, continued, and ended all in the space of asingle week. When Merimee left Nohant, he was destined never again tosee George Sand, except long afterward at a dinner-party, where the twostared at each other sharply, but did not speak. This affair, however,made it plain that she could not long remain at Nohant, and that shepined for Paris.
Returning thither, she is said to have set her cap at Victor Hugo, whowas, however, too much in love with himself to care for any one,especially a woman who was his literary rival. She is said for a timeto have been allied with Gustave Planche, a dramatic critic; but shealways denied this, and her denial may be taken as quite truthful.Soon, however, she was to begin an episode which has been more famousthan any other in her curious history, for she met Alfred de Musset,then a youth of twenty-three, but already well known for his poems andhis plays.
Musset was of noble birth. He would probably have been better for aplebeian strain, since there was in him a touch of the degenerate. Hismother's father had published a humanitarian poem on cats. Hisgreat-uncle had written a peculiar novel. Young Alfred was nervous,delicate, slightly epileptic, and it is certain that he was given todissipation, which so far had affected his health only by making himhysterical. He was an exceedingly handsome youth, with exquisitemanners, "dreamy rather than dazzling eyes, dilated nostrils, andvermilion lips half opened." Such was he when George Sand, then sevenyears his senior, met him.
There is something which, to the Anglo-Saxon mind, seems far moreabsurd than pathetic about the events which presently took place. Awoman like George Sand at thirty was practically twice the age of thisnervous boy of twenty-three, who had as yet seen little of the world.At first she seemed to realize the fact herself; but her vanity led herto begin an intrigue, which must have been almost wholly withoutexcitement on her part, but which to him, for a time, was everything inthe world.
Experimenting, as usual, after the fashion described by Dumas, she wentwith De Musset for a "honeymoon" to Fontainebleau. But they could notstay there forever, and presently they decided upon a journey to Italy.Before they went, however, they thought it necessary to get formalpermission from Alfred's mother!
Naturally enough, Mme. de Musset refused consent. She had read GeorgeSand's romances, and had asked scornfully:
"Has the woman never in her life met a gentleman?"
She accepted the relations between them, but that she should be askedto sanction this sort of affair was rather too much, even for a Frenchmother who has become accustomed to many strange things. Then there wasa curious happening. At nine o'clock at night, George Sand took a caband drove to the house of Mme. de Musset, to whom she sent up a messagethat a lady wished to see her. Mme. de Musset came down, and, finding awoman alone in a carriage, she entered it. Then George Sand burst forthin a torrent of sentimental eloquence. She overpowered her lover'smother, promised to take great care of the delicate youth, and finallydrove away to meet Alfred at the coach-yard.
They started off in the mist, their coach being the thirteenth to leavethe yard; but the two lovers were in a merry mood, and enjoyedthemselves all the way from Paris to Marseilles. By steamer they wentto Leghorn; and finally, in January, 1834, they took an apartment in ahotel at Ve
nice. What had happened that their arrival in Venice shouldbe the beginning of a quarrel, no one knows. George Sand has told thestory, and Paul de Musset--Alfred's brother--has told the story, buteach of them has doubtless omitted a large part of the truth.
It is likely that on their long journey each had learned too much ofthe other. Thus, Paul de Musset says that George Sand made herselfoutrageous by her conversation, telling every one of her mother'sadventures in the army of Italy, including her relations with thegeneral-in-chief. She also declared that she herself was born within amonth of her parents' wedding-day. Very likely she did say all thesethings, whether they were true or not. She had set herself to wage waragainst conventional society, and she did everything to shock it.
On the other hand, Alfred de Musset fell ill after having lost tenthousand francs in a gambling-house. George Sand was not fond ofpersons who were ill. She herself was working like a horse, writingfrom eight to thirteen hours a day. When Musset collapsed she sent fora handsome young Italian doctor named Pagello, with whom she had struckup a casual acquaintance. He finally cured Musset, but he also curedGeorge Sand of any love for Musset.
Before long she and Pagello were on their way back to Paris, leavingthe poor, fevered, whimpering poet to bite his nails and thinkunutterable things. But he ought to have known George Sand. After that,everybody knew her. They knew just how much she cared when sheprofessed to care, and when she acted as she acted with Pagello noearlier lover had any one but himself to blame.
Only sentimentalists can take this story seriously. To them it has asort of morbid interest. They like to picture Musset raving andshouting in his delirium, and then, to read how George Sand sat onPagello's knees, kissing him and drinking out of the same cup. But tothe healthy mind the whole story is repulsive--from George Sand'sappeal to Mme. de Musset down to the very end, when Pagello came toParis, where his broken French excited a polite ridicule.
There was a touch of genuine sentiment about the affair with JulesSandeau; but after that, one can only see in George Sand ahalf-libidinous grisette, such as her mother was before her, with aperfect willingness to experiment in every form of lawless love. As forMusset, whose heart she was supposed to have broken, within a year hewas dangling after the famous singer, Mme. Malibran, and writing poemsto her which advertised their intrigue.
After this episode with Pagello, it cannot be said that the life ofGeorge Sand was edifying in any respect, because no one can assume thatshe was sincere. She had loved Jules Sandeau as much as she could loveany one, but all the rest of her intrigues and affinities were in thenature of experiments. She even took back Alfred de Musset, althoughthey could never again regard each other without suspicion. George Sandcut off all her hair and gave it to Musset, so eager was she to keephim as a matter of conquest; but he was tired of her, and even thistheatrical trick was of no avail.
She proceeded to other less known and less humiliating adventures. Shetried to fascinate the artist Delacroix. She set her cap at FranzLiszt, who rather astonished her by saying that only God was worthy tobe loved. She expressed a yearning for the affections of the elderDumas; but that good-natured giant laughed at her, and in fact gave hersome sound advice, and let her smoke unsentimentally in his study. Shewas a good deal taken with a noisy demagogue named Michel, a lawyer atBourges, who on one occasion shut her up in her room and harangued heron sociology until she was as weary of his talk as of his wooden shoes,his shapeless greatcoat, his spectacles, and his skull-cap, Balzac felther fascination, but cared nothing for her, since his love was given toMme. Hanska.
In the meanwhile, she was paying visits to her husband at Nohant, whereshe wrangled with him over money matters, and where he would once haveshot her had the guests present not interfered. She secured her dowryby litigation, so that she was well off, even without her literaryearnings. These were by no means so large as one would think from herpopularity and from the number of books she wrote. It is estimated thather whole gains amounted to about a million francs, extending over aperiod of forty-five years. It is just half the amount that Trollopeearned in about the same period, and justifies his remark--"adequate,but not splendid."
One of those brief and strange intimacies that marked the career ofGeorge Sand came about in a curious way. Octave Feuillet, a man ofaristocratic birth, had set himself to write novels which portrayed thecynicism and hardness of the upper classes in France. One of thesenovels, Sibylle, excited the anger of George Sand. She had not knownFeuillet before; yet now she sought him out, at first in order toberate him for his book, but in the end to add him to her variegatedstring of lovers.
It has been said of Feuillet that he was a sort of "domesticatedMusset." At any rate, he was far less sensitive than Musset, and GeorgeSand was about seventeen years his senior. They parted after a shorttime, she going her way as a writer of novels that were very differentfrom her earlier ones, while Feuillet grew more and more cynical andeven stern, as he lashed the abnormal, neuropathic men and women abouthim.
The last great emotional crisis in George Sand's life was that whichcenters around her relations with Frederic Chopin. Chopin was thegreatest genius who ever loved her. It is rather odd that he loved her.She had known him for two years, and had not seriously thought of him,though there is a story that when she first met him she kissed himbefore he had even been presented to her. She waited two years, and inthose two years she had three lovers. Then at last she once more metChopin, when he was in a state of melancholy, because a Polish girl hadproved unfaithful to him.
It was the psychological moment; for this other woman, who was adevourer of hearts, found him at a piano, improvising a lamentation.George Sand stood beside him, listening. When he finished and looked upat her, their eyes met. She bent down without a word and kissed him onthe lips.
What was she like when he saw her then? Grenier has described her inthese words:
She was short and stout, but her face attracted all my attention, theeyes especially. They were wonderful eyes--a little too close together,it may be, large, with full eyelids, and black, very black, but by nomeans lustrous; they reminded me of unpolished marble, or rather ofvelvet, and this gave a strange, dull, even cold expression to hercountenance. Her fine eyebrows and these great placid eyes gave her anair of strength and dignity which was not borne out by the lower partof her face. Her nose was rather thick and not over shapely. Her mouthwas also rather coarse, and her chin small. She spoke with greatsimplicity, and her manners were very quiet.
Such as she was, she attached herself to Chopin for eight years. Atfirst they traveled together very quietly to Majorca; and there, justas Musset had fallen ill at Venice, Chopin became feverish and aninvalid. "Chopin coughs most gracefully," George Sand wrote of him, andagain:
Chopin is the most inconstant of men. There is nothing permanent abouthim but his cough.
It is not surprising if her nerves sometimes gave way. Acting as sicknurse, writing herself with rheumatic fingers, robbed by every oneabout her, and viewed with suspicion by the peasants because she didnot go to church, she may be perhaps excused for her sharp words when,in fact, her deeds were kind.
Afterward, with Chopin, she returned to Paris, and the two lived openlytogether for seven years longer. An immense literature has grown aroundthe subject of their relations. To this literature George Sand herselfcontributed very largely. Chopin never wrote a word; but what he failedto do, his friends and pupils did unsparingly.
Probably the truth is somewhat as one might expect. During the firstperiod of fascination, George Sand was to Chopin what she had been toSandeau and to Musset; and with her strange and subtle ways, she hadundermined his health. But afterward that sort of love died out, andwas succeeded by something like friendship. At any rate, this womanshowed, as she had shown to others, a vast maternal kindness. Shewrites to him finally as "your old woman," and she does wonders in theway of nursing and care.
But in 1847 came a break between the two. Whatever the mystery of itmay be, it turns upon what Chopi
n said of Sand:
"I have never cursed any one, but now I am so weary of life that I amnear cursing her. Yet she suffers, too, and more, because she growsolder as she grows more wicked."
In 1848, Chopin gave his last concert in Paris, and in 1849 he died.According to some, he was the victim of a Messalina. According toothers, it was only "Messalina" that had kept him alive so long.
However, with his death came a change in the nature of George Sand.Emotionally, she was an extinct volcano. Intellectually, she was at hervery best. She no longer tore passions into tatters, but wrotenaturally, simply, stories of country life and tales for children. Inone of her books she has given an enduring picture of theFranco-Prussian War. There are many rather pleasant descriptions of herthen, living at Nohant, where she made a curious figure, bustling aboutin ill-fitting costumes, and smoking interminable cigarettes.
She had lived much, and she had drunk deep of life, when she died in1876. One might believe her to have been only a woman of perpetualliaisons. Externally she was this, and yet what did Balzac, that greatmaster of human psychology, write of her in the intimacy of a privatecorrespondence?
She is a female bachelor. She is an artist. She is generous. She isdevoted. She is chaste. Her dominant characteristics are those of aman, and therefore, she is not to be regarded as a woman. She is anexcellent mother, adored by her children. Morally, she is like a lad oftwenty; for in her heart of hearts, she is more than chaste--she is aprude. It is only in externals that she comports herself as a Bohemian.All her follies are titles to glory in the eyes of those whose soulsare noble.
A curious verdict this! Her love-life seems almost that of neither mannor woman, but of an animal. Yet whether she was in reality responsiblefor what she did, when we consider her strange heredity, her wretchedmarriage, the disillusions of her early life--who shall sit in judgmenton her, since who knows all?