Dark Angel: In Search of Chopin

By Elizabeth Cowley Tyler

It is October 17, 1849, Chopin has just taken his last labored breath. Solange Dudevant Clésinger, George Sand’s unloved daughter, is at his bedside, but Sand herself is nowhere to be found. Solange, deeply grieved by the loss of Chopin, with whom she feels she has always been in love, takes a letter fragment from the last letter Sand wrote to Chopin breaking off their relationship. In the letter fragment, Sand accuses Chopin of taking sides with Solange in a family battle and tells him that this has sounded the death knell for their relationship. Married to a man she doesn’t love, Solange Dudevant Clésinger decides to try to find out why her mother abandoned Chopin and does not show up at his deathbed. She begins a search of the quays of Paris, claiming that she believes she saw her mother wandering them in the past few days. Her mother’s friend, Charlotte Marlinai, assures her that Sand is not in Paris but in her country home at Nohant. Something in Marliani’s evasive answers and her refusal to invite Solange into her home causes Solange to suspect that perhaps she is hiding her mother. In her attempt to avoid her hard drinking, abusive husband who is making his bid to sculpt Chopin’s funeral monument, Solange retreats to their home and begins a plan to try to find out where her mother is and why she didn’t appear at Chopin’s bedside. She begins a series of visits to the people closest to Chopin to try to learn as much as she can about the history of the relationship between Sand and Chopin and also to find out more about what people knew or didn’t know about her relationship with Chopin that could have triggered such enraged jealousy in her mother. She visits Charlotte again the next day to find her much more welcoming now that she isn’t trying to hide a lover from her husband. Charlotte begins the process of educating Solange about the history of Sand’s relationship with Chopin. Solange’s quest is interspersed with memories of past times in Chopin’s company and with fantasies of wished for greater intimacy with him. The influx of information that comes to her showing the initial deep bond between Chopin and Sand doesn’t dissuade Solange from believing that Chopin was truly in love with her as she was with him and that that was what caused Sand to eventually abandon him so cruelly. Solange alternates between a strong belief in the fact of the love between her and Chopin and in a need to discover evidence to prove the truth of it. Auguste Clésinger comes home drunk and angry because Solange is so preoccupied with her grief over Chopin that she has forgotten to join him at a dinner where he is to make his bid to sculpt the funeral monument. He comes upon her in the bath, abuses her verbally, and forces her to have sex with him. She seeks refuge the next day in the studio of Eugène Delacroix, a devoted friend of both Chopin and Sand. He says he has no idea where Sand is and why she didn’t appear at Chopin’s deathbed. Delacroix sees the bruise on her eye and promises to try to play the diplomat in mending the rupture between Solange and her husband. Solange seeks refuge in the Luxembourg Gardens and meets Count Albert Grzymala, a Polish ex-patriot and long-time friend of both Sand and Chopin. Grzymala, too, has no idea where Sand is and is deeply grieved by the loss of his dear friend, Chopin. He fills in some blanks for Solange about the early days of Sand’s relationship with Chopin. She tries to rationalize her jealousy over the truth of the deep bond between her mother and Chopin. Throughout her quest, Solange is visited with dreams both divine and nightmarish. Her next visit is to Jane Stirling, the Scotswoman who took care of Chopin at the end, paying his rent at 12 Place Vendôme and for his elaborate funeral at the Church of the Madeleine. Solange and Jane find comfort in one another and share a playing of one of Chopin’s nocturnes. Solange contrasts the purity of Jane’s love for Chopin with that of her mother and the dif

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450030533

Elizabeth Cowley Tyler

Elizabeth Cowley Tyler lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Elmira College and a Master of Arts in French from Middlebury College. She has lived and studied in London and Paris and has traveled extensively in France, Italy, England, Germany, and Russia. Prior published works includes a series of mystery novels: The Madeleine Murders, Murder at the Maison de Balzac, and Murder at Les Halles, featuring Inspector Henri Corbet of the Paris Police. Her literary novels include Pro Patri Mori, a Great War novel, Dark Angel, In Search of Chopin, a biographical novel. Hôtel Chopin, Tavistock Square, Vanishing Point, Italian Hours and Violet Hours are her most recent works.

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Copyright © 2010 by Elizabeth Cowley Tyler.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a biographical novel about Frédérick Chopin told from the imagined point

of view of Solange Dudevant, George Sand’s unloved daughter. It is a dramatic

rendering of certain relationships and events in Chopin’s life seen through

the lens of the author’s imagination.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/12/2020

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CONTENTS

For Frédérick Chopin on the occasion of his 200th birthday.

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Portrait of Chopin by Eugène Delacroix

(French 1798-1863), Louvre, Paris

. . . but the poison was in the wound,

and the wound remained ever open . . . 

Lolita

Valdimir Nabakov

CHAPTER I

12 Place Vendôme, Paris

October 17, 1849

Do you still suffer? The doctor asks.

No longer. Chopin barely whispers.

I lean my ear into my dear Chopin’s dark, distorted face. He no longer gasps for air, but still breathes, his breath a faint, sad whistle, and I seize his limp hand to cradle it in mine.

Mother is nowhere to be found, and, yet, I could swear I saw her wandering the quays the other day. How can she ignore him at a time like this? And all because she thinks he’s in love with me. If that were true, I should not have married Auguste whose whisky breath fills the air as he waits for Chopin to die so he can make the death mask.

I must hold myself together and straighten my back in an effort to do so. The small bedchamber, lit with three dying candles, exudes a mixture of odors: the sulphurous tang of medicine, the salty brine of sweat and the acrid taint of torture. It’s so close that I am in danger of suffocating along with my dear Chopin.

The doctor leans forward, listens to Chopin’s chest. He has taken his last breath.

He’s gone all black, I mumble.

He has suffocated, my child. The doctor removes Chopin’s hand from mine.

I must work quickly. The whisky breath floats over my shoulder, and I turn to look up into my husband’s red beard.

Let me stay here for just a minute.

Solange, the world awaits the death mask. I have little time to get it. I move back and lean on the mantle of the fireplace while Auguste goes to a table to mix water into the waiting plaster.

We’ll get his hand, too. His eagerness assaults my sorrow.

Chopin’s devoted sister, Ludwika, has come all the way from Poland to be with her brother during his last weeks. Through her soft sobs she says, He wants his body opened up so that he won’t risk being buried alive.

Auguste approaches my dead darling and begins to cover his face with a white, wet plaster, patting it into every crevice of the dear forehead, nose, mouth.

We’ll have to wait for it to dry. I’ll make a model of the hand now. He takes Chopin’s left hand and begins to mold it into a cast. Those glorious hands! What joy they gave on the piano, that light touch, the inventive fingering, the nuance of poetry in all he did. How patient he was with my ham-fisted attempts to learn the scales, the Beethoven sonatas, his own Nocturnes, Preludes and Etudes. Delacroix says he’s the truest artist he knows; he’s the only artist I know.

His mouth is so distorted. Ludwika shudders as Auguste removes the dried mask from my darling’s face.

He struggled so hard to breathe at the end. Here, I’ll cover it again. Auguste puts the offending mask on a table and comes forward with yet more wet plaster. This time he molds it to the features and then shapes them into a smoother, more ideal configuration. When the white plaster dries, he removes the mask and hands it to Ludwika.

That’s better. Ludwika weeps into her handkerchief. They must give me his heart. He wants me to take it back to Warsaw.

I lean my arm onto the mantle piece and sob, not caring about the sound. My sorrow is deep and reaches back to all of the sorrows I have ever known, the griefs of a lifetime, the grief of not being loved by my mother, the grief of being abandoned by my father, sold as chattel to the highest bidder, living with a man I don’t love.

You must take deep breaths, my child. Sit down here. The pain will pass. My body shakes as the doctor leads me to a chair.

I want to stay with him as long as I can.

There are several artists waiting to do the deathbed sketches. Then he must be taken away for the autopsy. I’m afraid we’ll be in the way now. The doctor lifts my elbow, eases me out of the chair and points me towards the door to the salon. Auguste turns around from his work table, dries his hands on a large towel and looks very pleased with himself.

Yes, Sol, we’ll only be in the way now.

I hate the sound of his voice. The doctor leads me out into the salon decorated in Chopin’s impeccable taste, white and oyster grey. He guides me to the sofa where my darling would lie to give his lessons when he was too ill to stand. But it’s when I see the piano yawning open at the end of the room that I fear my grief will devour me. I rush over, sit down and stroke the keys.

He will miss you, but the universe will provide him with another. I play a D Minor scale, a key of rich sadness. I can’t resist trying to embrace the grand instrument, but as I reach out to do this, Auguste comes from behind.

Sol, get hold of yourself. We’re all grieved. Come along. He pulls me away from the piano. I follow him unable to challenge his hypocrisy.

Later that morning when I am at home in my parlor, pacing back and forth from the fireplace to the window, watching while Auguste strides down the sidewalk to join his friends to drink and to put in a bid to sculpt Chopin’s funeral monument, I put my hand in the pocket of my morning dress and find the page of the letter I have brought with me from Chopin’s apartment. I smooth the page and begin to read the words written in Mother’s hand, words I have been anxious to read again since I discovered the page last evening in Chopin’s study.

Look after her, then, since it is she to whom you think you must devote yourself. I shall not hold it against you, but you will understand that I am going to maintain my right to play the part of the outraged mother, and henceforth nothing will induce me to allow the authority and dignity of my role to be slighted. I have had enough of being a dupe and a victim. I forgive you, from now on I shall not utter one word of reproach, for you have made a sincere confession. It surprises me, somewhat, but, if having made it, you feel freer and easier in your mind, I shall not suffer from this strange volt-face.

Adieu, my friend. May you soon recover from all your ills; I hope you will now (I have my reasons for thinking so); and I shall thank God for this queer end to nine years of exclusive friendship. Let me hear now and then how you are. There is no point in ever discussing other matters.

It must be a page from one of the last letters Mother wrote to Chopin, and he must have been reading the letter near the end, must have neglected to put all of the pages together.

Look after her, then, since it is she to whom you think you must devote yourself. How gently she hands me over to the man she considers a traitor and how magnanimous she is in her forgiveness! For a moment, I feel uneasy about having taken the letter fragment. Surely someone will miss it. I must return it, but not for a while, not until I can get an opportunity to see the other pages.

The sorrow washes over me again, and I lean my arm on the mantle, cradle my head against it, my weeping a soft whimper. I long for the company of someone who may share in my sorrow and, later in the afternoon, I visit Mother’s friend, Charlotte Marliani, at Square d’Orléans.

She finally answers my desperate pounding on her door.

Solange!

Chopin is dead!

Oh, my dear. I know she has probably heard the news by now, but I’m not really here to deliver news.

He died in my arms early this morning. I don’t care that it’s not quite true. I was holding his hand, and he would have been in my arms if he could have.

Oh, my dear, come in. I enter the large foyer of her apartment.

I want to tell Mother. Do you know where she’s staying? If anyone would know, it would be Charlotte, even though I know she doesn’t condone my mother’s justification of her horrible treatment of Chopin.

Why, dear, she’s at Nohant.

But that can’t be. A few days ago I saw her wandering the quays. She was dressed in a black cape and wandering aimlessly. She must have been told about Chopin’s decline.

But, dear, she’s at Nohant. I have a letter.

Charlotte stands there, doesn’t offer to let me enter any further than the foyer, and I begin to wonder if she’s hiding Mother.

I can still recognize my own mother, can’t I? I turn on my heel and head for the door.

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Chopin’s Death Mask by Auguste Clésinger

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Models of Chopin’s left hand by Auguste Clésinger

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Photograph of Chopin’s piano

CHAPTER II

Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris

I rush up two flights of a dank, dark staircase to our rooms on the second floor. To get to my parlor, I must pass through Auguste’s studio, full of half-finished sculpted figures, which seem to mock me as I hurry through to the other side. He’s still out celebrating—he wouldn’t see it that way, but that’s really what he’s doing—celebrating and lobbying for the commission to sculpt Chopin’s funeral monument for his tomb in Père Lachaise.

My heart is a rock as hard as the plaster around me. The tears come again and with them the memories. I was ten years old when I first met Chopin. Mother, the notorious novelist, George Sand, told us that we would travel south to Majorca for my brother Maurice’s arthritis. I was thrilled to be brought back from the horrible school run by the English ladies to which Mother had consigned me, delighted to travel with my mother and brother, even though I knew that if I were the one with arthritis, such a trip would never be made on my behalf. No matter. I welcomed the reprieve.

We left Paris, the four of us, Mother, Maurice, myself and our maid, in a lovely carriage which rattled along the dusty roads with great authority. Mother’s mood was joyous, and when she was like that, she was such fun. Maurice and I loved singing with her and playing all sorts of guessing games as we bumped along. I