nthusiastic foreigner who had read
her works with delight. She received the infliction good-naturedly, for
on my return to La Chatre I found a message left at the inn by a servant
from Nohant that Madame Sand would be glad to see me if I called. The
mid-day breakfast at Nohant was not yet over when I reached the house,
and I found a large party assembled. I entered with some trepidation, as
well I might, considering how I had got there; but the simplicity of
Madame Sand's manner put me at ease in a moment. She named some of those
present; amongst them were her son and daughter, the Maurice and Solange
[303] so familiar to us from her books, and Chopin[304] with his
wonderful eyes. There was at that time nothing astonishing in Madame
Sand's appearance. She was not in man's clothes, she wore a sort of
costume not impossible, I should think (although on these matters I
speak with hesitation), to members of the fair sex at this hour amongst
ourselves, as an outdoor dress for the country or for Scotland. She made
me sit by her and poured out for me the insipid and depressing beverage,
_boisson fade et melancolique_, as Balzac called it, for which English
people are thought abroad to be always thirsting,--tea. She conversed of
the country through which I had been wandering, of the Berry peasants
and their mode of life, of Switzerland, whither I was going; she touched
politely, by a few questions and remarks, upon England and things and
persons English,--upon Oxford and Cambridge, Byron, Bulwer. As she
spoke, her eyes, head, bearing, were all of them striking; but the main
impression she made was an impression of what I have already mentioned,
--of _simplicity_, frank, cordial simplicity. After breakfast she led
the way into the garden, asked me a few kind questions about myself and
my plans, gathered a flower or two and gave them to me, shook hands
heartily at the gate, and I saw her no more. In 1859 M. Michelet[305]
gave me a letter to her, which would have enabled me to present myself
in more regular fashion. Madame Sand was then in Paris. But a day or two
passed before I could call, and when I called, Madame Sand had left
Paris and had gone back to Nohant. The impression of 1846 has remained
my single impression of her.

Of her gaze, form, and speech, that one impression is enough; better
perhaps than a mixed impression from seeing her at sundry times and
after successive changes. But as the first anniversary of her death