Chopin, working
away on one side, which mingle with the song of nightingales and
the scent of the roses.

He describes a quiet, monastic-like existence, simple and studious: "We
have not even the distraction of neighbors and friends around. In this
country everybody stays at home, to look after his oxen and his land.
One would become a fossil in a very short time."

The greatest event for the visitor was a village-festival--a wedding or
a Saint's day--when the rustic dances went on under the tall elms to the
roaring of the bagpipes. Peasant youths and peasant maids joined hands
in the _bourree_, the characteristic dance of the country; now, we fear,
surviving in tradition only, but then still popular. The great artist
was fired to paint a "Ste. Anne," patron-saint of Nohant, in honor of
the place, but his work progressed but slowly. He writes in August,
1846:--"I am frightfully lazy, I can do nothing, I hardly read; and yet
the days pass too quickly, for I must soon renounce this _vie de
chanoine_, and return into the furnace of stirring ideas, good and bad.
In Berry they have very few ideas, but they do just as well without."
Then he adds, "Chopin has been playing Beethoven to me divinely well.
That is worth all aestheticism."

Little theatrical entertainments of an original kind, presided over by
Madame Sand, and carried out by herself, her children, and their young
friends, became in time a prominent feature of life at Nohant. She thus
describes their nature and commencements:--

During the long evenings I took it into my head to devise for my
family theatricals on the old Italian pattern--_commedia
dell'arte_--plays in which the dialogue, itself extemporized, yet
follows the outlines of a written plan, placarded behind the
scenes. It is something like the charades acted in society, the
development of which depends on the talent contributed by the
actors. It was with these that we began, but little by little the
word of the charade disappeared. We acted wild _saynetes_,
afterwards comedies of plot and intrigue, finally dramas of event
and emotion.

All began with pantomime; and this was Chopin's invention. He sat
at the piano and extemporized, whilst the young people acted scenes
in dumb show and danced comic ballets. These charming
improvisations turned the children's heads and made their legs
nimble. He led them just as he ch