Actually, it’s not Aurora that is more familiar, but George Sand – this is her literary pseudonym, which became her middle name
Many people do not like George Sand, no matter how much she has done for literature. So what if she has more than 40 novels that all of Europe read? It doesn’t justify her human actions…
When she met Chopin, George Sand was already a famous writer: she wore trousers, professed free love, and was divorced. Chopin’s love for George Sand was not instantaneous like that of Romeo for Juliet. Karasowski remembers having read in one of those letters of the composer which perished in 1863: “Yesterday I met George Sand…; she made a very disagreeable impression upon me.” Hiller in his Open Letter to Franz Liszt writes: “One evening you had assembled in your apartments the aristocracy of the French literary world – George Sand was of course one of the company. On the way home Chopin said to me: “What a repellent [antipathische] woman the Sand is! But is she really a woman? I am inclined to doubt it.”
The following extracts from some letters of George Sand's throw light on her relation to Chopin in the early part of 1837: Nohant, March 28, 1837. [To Franz Liszt.] ...Come and see us as soon as possible. Love, esteem, and friendship claim you at Nohant. Love (Marie [FOOTNOTE: The Comtesse d'Agoult.]) is some what ailing, esteem (Maurice and Pelletan [FOOTNOTE: The former, George Sand's son; the latter, Eugene Pelletan, Maurice's tutor.]) pretty well, and friendship (myself) obese and in excellent health. Marie told me that there was some hope of Chopin. Tell Chopin that I beg of him to accompany you; that Marie cannot live without him, and that I adore him. I shall write to Grzymala personally in order to induce him also, if I can, to come and see us. I should like to be able to surround Marie with all her friends, in order that she also may live in the bosom of love, esteem, and friendship.
They were completely different: Chopin – the very aristocracy and restraint, George Sand – shocking and energy. It is all the more surprising that they lived together for 10 years. For George Sand, this is a record, as a rule, she could not stand it for so long time.
“This woman has no heart,” Heine later wrote, “it is excusable to cheat on a healthy person, but it is unforgivable to leave a dying one.”
Yes, it was so… After all, Chopin suffered from tuberculosis, and during the first years George Sand even liked to “nurse” him. But then she got tired of this and just left, and even made it so that supposedly Chopin was to blame for this.
“She promised that I would die in her arms” – maybe this is a myth, but Chopin allegedly said this before his death. He was only 39 years old…
But what is not a myth is his last mazurka, this is Farewell to this world. Mazurka f-moll, opus 68, no.8 (at the moment, opus 68, no.4)
The source: Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician, Volume 2, by Frederick Niecks
