Frederic Chopin as a Man and Musician, vol 2 | Page 6

of gloves and profound bows. Her fondness for male garments
is as characteristic as Chopin's connoisseurship of the female toilette; it
did not end with her student life, for she donned them again in 1836
when travelling in Switzerland.
The whole of Chopin's person was harmonious. "His appearance," says
Moscheles, who saw him in 1839, "is exactly like his music [ist
identificirt mit seiner Musik], both are tender and schwarmerisch."
[FOOTNOTE: I shall not attempt to translate this word, but I will give
the reader a recipe. Take the notions "fanciful," "dreamy," and
"enthusiastic" (in their poetic sense), mix them well, and you have a
conception of schwarmerisck.]
A slim frame of middle height; fragile but wonderfully flexible limbs;
delicately-formed hands; very small feet; an oval, softly- outlined head;
a pale, transparent complexion; long silken hair of a light chestnut
colour, parted on one side; tender brown eyes, intelligent rather than
dreamy; a finely-curved aquiline nose; a sweet subtle smile; graceful
and varied gestures: such was the outward presence of Chopin. As to
the colour of the eyes and hair, the authorities contradict each other
most thoroughly. Liszt describes the eyes as blue, Karasowski as dark
brown, and M. Mathias as "couleur de biere." [FOOTNOTE: This
strange expression we find again in Count Wodzinski's Les trois
Romans de Frederic Chopin, where the author says: "His large limpid,
expressive, and soft eyes had that tint which the English call auburn,
which the Poles, his compatriots, describe as piwne (beer colour), and
which the French would denominate brown."] Of the hair Liszt says
that it was blonde, Madame Dubois and others that it was cendre, Miss
L. Ramann that it was dark blonde, and a Scotch lady that it was dark
brown. [FOOTNOTE: Count Wodzinski writes: "It was not blonde, but
of a shade similar to that of his eyes: ash-coloured (cendre), with
golden reflections in the light."] Happily the matter is settled for us by
an authority to which all others must yield--namely, by M. T.
Kwiatkowski, the friend and countryman of Chopin, an artist who has
drawn and painted the latter frequently. Well, the information I
received from him is to the effect that Chopin had des yeux bruns
tendres (eyes of a tender brown), and les cheveux blonds chatains
(chestnut-blonde hair). Liszt, from whose book some of the above
details are derived, completes his portrayal of Chopin by some

characteristic touches. The timbre of his voice, he says, was subdued
and often muffled; and his movements had such a distinction and his
manners such an impress of good society that one treated him
unconsciously like a prince. His whole appearance made one think of
that of the convolvuli, which on incredibly slender stems balance
divinely-coloured chalices of such vapourous tissue that the slightest
touch destroys them.
And whilst Liszt attributes to Chopin all sorts of feminine graces and
beauties, he speaks of George Sand as an Amazon, a femme-heros, who
is not afraid to expose her masculine countenance to all suns and winds.
Merimee says of George Sand that he has known her "maigre comme
un clou et noire comme une taupe." Musset, after their first meeting,
describes her, to whom he at a subsequent period alludes as femme a
l'oeil sombre, thus:- -
She is very beautiful; she is the kind of woman I like--brown, pale,
dull-complexioned with reflections as of bronze, and strikingly
large-eyed like an Indian. I have never been able to contemplate such a
countenance without inward emotion. Her physiognomy is rather torpid,
but when it becomes animated it assumes a remarkably independent
and proud expression.
The most complete literary portrayal of George Sand that has been
handed down to us, however, is by Heine. He represents her as Chopin
knew her, for although he published the portrait as late as 1854 he did
not represent her as she then looked; indeed, at that time he had
probably no intercourse with her, and therefore was obliged to draw
from memory. The truthfulness of Heine's delineation is testified by the
approval of many who knew George Sand, and also by Couture's
portrait of her:--
George Sand, the great writer, is at the same time a beautiful woman.
She is even a distinguished beauty. Like the genius which manifests
itself in her works, her face is rather to be called beautiful than
interesting. The interesting is always a graceful or ingenious deviation
from the type of the beautiful, and the features of George Sand bear
rather the impress of a Greek regularity. Their form, however, is not
hard, but softened by the sentimentality which is suffused over them
like a veil of sorrow. The forehead is not high, and the delicious
chestnut-brown curly hair falls parted down to the shoulders. Her eyes

are somewhat dim, at least they are