mother and daughter, the former objecting to the latter's frequent
visits to Chopin, and using this as a pretext to break with him. Gutmann
said to me that Chopin was fond of Solange, though not in love with her.
But now we have again got into the current of gossip, and the sooner we
get out of it the better.

Before I draw my conclusions from the evidence I have collected, I must
find room for some extracts from two letters, respectively written on
August 9, 1847, and December 14,1847, to Charles Poncy. The contents
of these extracts will to a great extent be a mystery to the reader, a
mystery to which I cannot furnish the key. Was Solange the chief subject
of George Sand's lamentations? Had Chopin or her brother, or both, to do
with this paroxysm of despair?

After saying how she has been overwhelmed by a chain of chagrins, how
her purest intentions have had a fatal issue, how her best actions have
been blamed by men and punished by heaven as crimes, she proceeds:--

And do you think I have reached the end? No, all I have told
you hitherto is nothing, and since my last letter I have
exhausted all the cup of life contains of tribulation. It is
even so bitter and unprecedented that I cannot speak of it, at
least I cannot write it. Even that would give me too much
pain. I will tell you something about it when I see you...I
hoped at least for the old age on which I was entering the
recompense of great sacrifices, of much work, fatigue, and a
whole life of devotion and abnegation. I asked for nothing but
to render happy the objects of my affection. Well, I have been
repaid with ingratitude, and evil has got the upper hand in a
soul which I wished to make the sanctuary and the hearth of
the beautiful and the good. At present I struggle against
myself in order not to let myself die. I wish to accomplish my
task unto the end. May God aid me! I believe in Him and
hope!...Augustine has suffered much, but she has had great
courage and a true feeling of her dignity; and her health,
thank God, has not suffered.

[FOOTNOTE: Augustine Brault was according to the editor of the
Correspondance a cousin of George Sand's; George Sand herself
calls her in Ma Vie her parent, and tells us in a vague way
how her connection with this young lady gave occasion to
scandalous libels.]

The next quotation is from the letter dated Nohant, December 14, 1847.
Desirez is the wife of Charles Poncy