George Sand, some aspects of her life and writings Part 6

_Dans tin bois, sur une bruyere, Au pied d'un arbre vint s'a.s.seoir Un jeune homme vetu de noir Qui me ressemblail comme un frere._

_Le lui demandais mon chemin, Il tenait un luth d'ue main, De l'autre un bouquet d'eglantine.

Il me fit tin salut d'ami Et, se detournant a demu, Me montra du doigt la colline._

He really saw this "double," dressed in black, which was to visit him again later on. His _Nuit de decembre_ was written from it.

They now wanted to see Italy together. Musset had already written on Venice; he now wanted to go there. Madame de Musset objected to this, but George Sand promised so sincerely that she would be a mother to the young man that finally his own mother gave her consent. On the evening of December 12, 1833, Paul de Musset accompanied the two travellers to the mail-coach. On the boat from Lyons to Avignon they met with a big, intelligent-looking man. This was Beyle-Stendhal, who was then Consul at Civita-Vecchia. He was on his way to his post. They enjoyed his lively conversation, although he made fun of their illusions about Italy and the Italian character. He made fun, though, of everything and of every one, and they felt that he was only being witty and trying to appear unkind. At dinner he drank too much, and finished by dancing round the table in his great fur-lined boots. Later on he gave them some specimens of his obscene conversation, so that they were glad to continue their journey without him.

On the 28th the travellers reached Florence. The aspect of this city and his researches in the _Chroniques florentines_ supplied the poet with the subject for _Lorenzaccio_. It appears that George Sand and Musset each treated this subject, and that a _Lorenzaccio_ by George Sand exists. I have not read it, but I prefer Musset's version. They reached Venice on January 19, 1834, and put up at the Hotel Danieli. By this time they were at loggerheads.

The cause of their quarrel and disagreement is not really known, and the activity of retrospective journalists has not succeeded in finding this out. George Sand's letters only give details about their final quarrel.

On arriving, George Sand was ill, and this exasperated Musset. He was annoyed, and declared that a woman out of sorts was very trying. There are good reasons for believing that he had found her very trying for some time. He was very elegant and she a learned "white blackbird."

He was capricious and she a placid, steady _bourgeois_ woman, very hard-working and very regular in the midst of her irregularity. He used to call her "personified boredom, the dreamer, the silly woman, the nun," when he did not use terms which we cannot transcribe. The climax was when he said to her: "I was mistaken, George, and I beg your pardon, for I do not love you."

Wounded and offended, she replied: "We do not love each other any longer, and we never really loved each other."

They therefore took back their independence. This is a point to note, as George Sand considered this fact of the greatest importance, and she constantly refers to it. She was from henceforth free, as regarded her companion.

Illness kept them now at Venice. George Sand's illness first and then Musset's alarming malady. He had high fever, accompanied by chest affection and attacks of delirium which lasted six consecutive hours, during which it took four men to hold him.

George Sand was an admirable nurse. This must certainly be acknowledged.

She sat up with him at night and she nursed him by day, and, astonis.h.i.+ng woman that she was, she was also able to work and to earn enough to pay their common expenses. This is well known, but I am able to give another proof of it, in the letters which George Sand wrote from Venice to Buloz. These letters have been communicated to me by Madame Pailleron, _nee_ Buloz, and by Madame Landouzy, _veuve_ Buloz, whom I thank for the public and for myself. The following are a few of the essential pa.s.sages:

"February 4. _Read this when you are alone._

"MY DEAR BULOZ,--Your reproaches reach me at a miserable moment. If you have received my letter, you already know that I do not deserve them.

A fortnight ago I was well again and working. Alfred was working too, although he was not very well and had fits of feverishness. About five days ago we were both taken ill, almost at the same time. I had an attack of dysentery, which caused me horrible suffering. I have not yet recovered from it, but I am strong enough, anyhow, to nurse him. He was seized with a nervous and inflammatory fever, which has made such rapid progress that the doctor tells me he does not know what to think about it. We must wait for the thirteenth or fourteenth day before knowing whether his life is in danger. And what will this thirteenth or fourteenth day be? Perhaps his last one? I am in despair, overwhelmed with fatigue, suffering horribly, and awaiting who knows what future?

How can I give myself up to literature or to anything in the world at such a time? I only know that our entire fortune, at present, consists of sixty francs, that we shall have to spend an enormous amount at the chemist's, for the nurse and doctor, and that we are at a very expensive hotel. We were just about to leave it and go to a private house. Alfred cannot be moved now, and even if everything should go well, he probably cannot be moved for a month. We shall have to pay one term's rent for nothing, and we shall return to France, please G.o.d. If my ill-luck continues, and if Alfred should die, I can a.s.sure you that I do not care what happens after to me. If G.o.d allows Alfred to recover, I do not know how we shall pay the expenses of his illness and of his return to France. The thousand francs that you are to send me will not suffice, and I do not know what we shall do. At any rate, do not delay sending that, as, by the time it arrives, it will be more than necessary. I am sorry about the annoyance you are having with the delay for publis.h.i.+ng, but you can now judge whether it is my fault. If only Alfred had a few quiet days, I could soon finish my work. But he is in a frightful state of delirium and restlessness. I cannot leave him an instant. I have been nine hours writing this letter. Adieu, my friend, and pity me.

"GEORGE.

"Above everything, do not tell any one, not any one in the world, that Alfred is ill. If his mother heard (and it only needs two persons for telling a secret to all Paris) she would go mad. If she has to be told, let who will undertake to tell her, but if in a fortnight Alfred is out of danger, it is useless for her to grieve now. Adieu."

"February 13, 1834.

"My friend, Alfred is saved. There has been no fresh attack, and we have nearly reached the fourteenth day without the improvement having altered. After the brain affection inflammation of the lungs declared itself, and this rather alarmed us for two days. . . . He is extremely weak at present, and he wanders occasionally. He has to be nursed night and day. Do not imagine, therefore, that I am only making pretexts for the delay in my work. I have not undressed for eight nights. I sleep on a sofa, and have to get up at any minute. In spite of this, ever since I have been relieved in my mind about the danger, I have been able to write a few pages in the mornings while he is resting. You may be sure that I should like to be able to take advantage of this time to rest myself. Be a.s.sured, my friend, that I am not short of courage, nor yet of the will to work. You are not more anxious than I am that I should carry out my engagements. You know that a debt makes me smart like a wound. But you are friend enough to make allowances for my situation and not to leave me in difficulties. I am spending very wretched days here at this bedside, for the slightest sound, the slightest movement causes me constant terror. In this disposition of mind I shall not write any light works. They will be heavy, on the contrary, like my fatigue and my sadness.

"Do not leave me without money, I beseech you, or I do not know what will happen to me. I spend about twenty francs a day in medicine of all sorts. We do not know how to keep him alive. . . ."

These letters give the lie to some of the gossip that has been spread abroad with regard to the episode of the Hotel Danieli. And I too, thanks to these letters, shall have put an end to a legend! In the second volume of Wladimir Karenine's work on George Sand, on page 61, we have the following words--

"Monsieur Plauchut tells us that, according to Buloz, Musset had been enticed into a gambling h.e.l.l during his stay in Venice, and had lost about four hundred pounds there. The imprudent young man could not pay this debt of honour, and he never would have been able to do so. He had to choose between suicide or dishonour. George Sand did not hesitate a moment. She wrote at once to the manager of the _Revue_, asking him to advance the money." And this debt was on her shoulders for a long time.

The facts of the case are as follows, according to a letter from George Sand to Buloz: "I beseech you, as a favour, to pay Alfred's debt and to write to him that it is all settled. You cannot imagine the impatience and the disturbance that this little matter cause him. He speaks to me of it every minute, and begs me every day to write to you about it. He owes these three hundred and sixty francs (L14 8_s_.) to a young man he knows very little and who might talk of it to people. . . . You have already advanced much larger sums to him. He has always paid you back, and you are not afraid that this would make you bankrupt. If, through his illness, he should not be able to work for a long time, my work could be used for that, so be at ease. . . . Do this, I beseech you, and write him a short letter to ease his mind at once. I will then read it to him, and this will pacify one of the torments of his poor head. Oh, my friend, if you only knew what this delirium is like! What sublime and awful things he has said, and then what convulsions and shouts! I do not know how he has had strength enough to pull through and how it is that I have not gone mad myself. Adieu, adieu, my friend."

There really was a gambling debt, then, but we do not know exactly where it was contracted. It amounted to three hundred and sixty francs, which is very different from the ten thousand francs and the threat of suicide.

And now we come to the pure folly! Musset had been attended by a young doctor, Pietro Pagello. He was a straightforward sort of young man, of rather slow intelligence, without much conversation, not speaking French, but very handsome. George Sand fell in love with him. One night, after having scribbled a letter of three pages, she put it into an envelope without any address and gave it to Pagello. He asked her to whom he was to give the letter. George Sand took the envelope back and wrote on it: "To stupid Pagello." We have this declaration, and among other things in the letter are the following lines: "You will not deceive me, anyhow. You will not make any idle promises and false vows. . . . I shall not, perhaps, find in you what I have sought for in others, but, at any rate, I can always believe that you possess it.

. . . I shall be able to interpret your meditations and make your silence speak eloquently. . . ." This shows us clearly the kind of charm George Sand found in Pagello. She loved him because he was stupid.

The next questions are, when did they become lovers, and how did Musset discover their intimacy? It is quite certain that he suspected it, and that he made Pagello confess his love for George Sand.(20) A most extraordinary scene then took place between the three of them, according to George Sand's own account. "Adieu, then," she wrote to Musset, later on, "adieu to the fine poem of our sacred friends.h.i.+p and of that ideal bond formed between the three of us, when you dragged from him the confession of his love for me and when he vowed to you that he would make me happy. Oh, that night of enthusiasm, when, in spite of us, you joined our hands, saying: 'You love each other and yet you love me, for you have saved me, body and soul." Thus, then, Musset had solemnly abjured his love for George Sand, he had engaged his mistress of the night before to a new lover, and was from henceforth to be their best friend. Such was the ideal bond, such the sacred friends.h.i.+p! This may be considered the romantic escapade.

(20) On one of George Sand's unpublished letters to Buloz the following lines are written in the handwriting of Buloz:

"In the morning on getting up he discovered, in an adjoining room, a tea-table still set, but with only one cup.

"'Did you have tea yesterday evening?'

"'Yes,' answered George Sand, 'I had tea with the doctor.'

"'Ah, how is it that there is only one cup?'

"'The other has been taken away.'

"'No, nothing has been taken away. You drank out of the same cup.'

"'Even if that were so, you have no longer the right to trouble about such things.'

"'I have the right, as I am still supposed to be your lover.

You ought at least to show me respect, and, as I am leaving in three days, you might wait until I have gone to do as you like.'

"The night following this scene Musset discovered George Sand, crouching on her bed, writing a letter.

"'What are you doing?' he asked.

"'I am reading,' she replied, and she blew out the candle.

"'If you are reading, why do you put the candle out?'

"'It went out itself: light it again.'

"Alfred de Musset lit it again.

"'Ah, so you were reading, and you have no book. Infamous woman, you might as well say that you are writing to your lover.' George Sand had recourse to her usual threat of leaving the house. Alfred de Musset read her up: 'You are thinking of a horrible plan. You want to hurry off to your doctor, pretend that I am mad and that your life is in danger. You will not leave this room. I will keep you from anything so base. If you do go, I will put such an epitaph on your grave that the people who read it will turn pale,'

said Alfred with terrible energy.

"George Sand was trembling and crying.

"'I no longer love you,' Alfred said scoffingly to George Sand.

"'It is the right moment to take your poison or to go and drown yourself.'

"Confession to Alfred of her secret about the doctor.

Reconciliation. Alfred's departure. George Sand's affectionate and enthusiastic letters."