his, I think,
must refer to the earlier years of Chopin's residence in
Paris.]

In his relations and conversations he seemed to take an
interest in what preoccupied the others; he took care not to
draw them out of the circle of their personality inorder to
lead them into his. If he gave up little of his time, he, to
make up for it, reserved to himself nothing of that which he
granted.

The presence of Chopin was, therefore, always heartily welcome
[fetee]. Not hoping to be understood [devine], disdaining to
speak of himself [de se raconter lui-meme], he occupied
himself so much with everything that was not himself that his
intimate personality remained aloof, unapproached and
unapproachable, under this polite and smooth [glissant]
surface where it was impossible to get a footing.

He pleased too much to make people reflect.

He hardly spoke either of love or of friendship.

He was not exacting like those whose rights and just demands
surpass by far what one would have to offer them. The most
intimate acquaintances did not penetrate to this sacred recess
where, withdrawn from all the rest of his life, dwelt the
secret motive power of his soul: a recess so concealed that
one scarcely suspected its existence.

Ready to give everything, he did not give himself.

The last dictum and part of the last but one were already quoted by
me in an earlier chapter, but for the sake of completeness, and
also because they form an excellent starting-point for the following
additional remarks on Chopin's friendships, I have repeated them here.
First of all, I venture to make the sweeping assertion that Chopin had
among his non-Polish friends none who could be called intimate in the
fullest sense of the word, none to whom he unbosomed himself as he
did to Woyciechowski and Matuszynski, the friends of his youth,
and Grzymala, a friend of a later time. Long cessation of personal
intercourse together with the diverging development of their characters
in totally unlike conditions of life cannot but have diminished the
intimacy with the first named. [FOOTNOTE: Titus Woyciechowski continued
to live on his estate Poturzyn, in the kingdom of Poland.] With
Matuszyriski Chopin remained in close connection till this friend's
death. [FOOTNOTE: Karasowski says in the first volume of his Polish
biography of Chopin that Matuszynski died on April 20, 1842; and in the
second that he died after Chop