velist ever got into print. 'Let me restore
them to Madame Sand,' said M. Dumas. 'And my duty?' asked the customs
official. 'If anybody ever claims the letters,' replied M. Dumas, 'I
authorise you to say that I stole them.' On this condition M. Dumas,
then a young man, obtained the letters, brought them back to Paris, and
restored them to Madame Sand, whose acquaintance he thus made. Madame
Sand burnt all her letters to Chopin, but she never forgot the service
that M. Dumas had rendered her."]

I have done my utmost to elucidate the tragic event which it is
impossible not to regard as one of the most momentous crises in Chopin's
life, and have succeeded in collecting besides the material already
known much that is new; but of what avail is this for coming to a final
decision if we find the depositions hopelessly contradictory, and the
witnesses more or less untrustworthy--self-interest makes George Sand's
evidence suspicious, the instability of memory that of others. Under
the circumstances it seems to me safest to place before the reader the
depositions of the various witnesses--not, however, without comment--and
leave him to form his own conclusions. I shall begin with the account
which George Sand gives in her Ma Vie:--

After the last relapses of the invalid, his mind had become
extremely gloomy, and Maurice, who had hitherto tenderly loved
him, was suddenly wounded by him in an unexpected manner about
a trifling subject. They embraced each other the next moment,
but the grain of sand had fallen into the tranquil lake, and
little by little the pebbles fell there, one after
another...All this was borne; but at last, one day, Maurice,
tired of the pin-pricks, spoke of giving up the game. That
could not be, and should not be. Chopin would not stand my
legitimate and necessary intervention. He bowed his head and
said that I no longer loved him.

What blasphemy after these eight years of maternal devotion!
But the poor bruised heart was not conscious of its delirium.
I thought that some months passed at a distance and in silence
would heal the wound, and make his friendship again calm and
his memory equitable. But the revolution of February came, and
Paris became momentarily hateful to this mind incapable of
yielding to any commotion in the social form. Free to return
to Poland, or certain to be tolerated there, he had preferred
languishing ten [and some more] years far from hi