CHOPIN AND GEORGE SAND.

THE LITTLE WHITE BLACK BIRD.

The game of tit for tat is rarely graceful or dignified. And yet the man who “turns the other cheek” has not appealed strongly to the robust sensibilities of any age. His behavior we cannot admire; it is too much that of Sterne’s ass, who says meekly to his tormentor, “Please do not hit me again—but if you will, you may.” Such a course surely no one of us can be called upon to follow. Besides, the animal acted merely on instinct, as one of a race of craven unfortunates, who while alive are peculiarly seductive to stripes, and whose hides after death, as we all know, are made into drums.

Perhaps the proper rule of conduct lies somewhere in between this hypocritical or recreant meekness on the one hand, and on the other that unchristian and vulgar manner of retaliation against which, it must have been, that the precept of the Bible was directed.

The “lex talionis” in its literal meaning, “an eye for an eye,” and “a tooth for a tooth,” is certainly barbarous; but surely if mine enemy has plucked out one of my eyes, and so increased considerably the market value of the one remaining, no dilettante in morals or the market would deny my right to sell the other dearly, nor my privilege to write a book upon my loss. Indeed, men’s enemies from the days of Solomon have never asked for more than this.

It has been impossible to discover the exact cause which led to the rupture between Chopin, the musician, and George Sand. However caused, this rupture was final and was followed almost at once by the novelist’s publication of her Lucrezia Floriani, in which, under the mask of Prince Karol, she caricatured the sensitive Chopin, holding him up to ridicule and contempt, and wounded him deeply. As we know, the excitement following this event and the mental distress and mortification connected with it threw the musician once more upon the sick bed, where he lingered a long time, really dangerously ill. We know too that he recovered. It was then that he wrote and distributed among the old friends of the “Nohant days,” and among the world of arts and letters in Paris, with which he and George Sand were so closely associated, a story called the “Little White Black Bird,” known to us of the present day, by tradition only.

And it is because this tradition, at least as far as I have learned, has reached but few people, that I have taken it upon myself to tell simply, as I have heard it, this story of the “Little White Black Bird,” which, as an act of retaliation, was, we must confess, a dignified and just one, and which apart from this, forms an allegory that is beautiful and perhaps instructive.

There was once a little white bird that lived in such a beautiful forest that one might think no creature with such a home and such a playground could fail to be happy. But in truth this little bird was far from happy, because of his loneliness, for in all that wood there seemed to be no white bird but himself. There were many other birds there, but they were all black; these had their mates and their nests where they rested at night, and whence early in the morning they would fly away together, making the silent woods echo with their song, peeping at the little elves, one of whom lives hidden away in each beautiful flower and plant, and sharing with each other all that they learned of the wonderful world about them. All this the white bird knew they did, for in his loneliness he watched them closely, following them often a long distance in their flights, grateful for even this companionship. And always he looked about him for that little white object, which vaguely, in his dreams perhaps, he felt he might one day find in this mysterious forest, and which might prove to be his mate.

And one bright happy day this happened: he found another little white bird who seemed to have suffered for companionship just as he had done, and they built their home upon a lofty tree and there they lived, and life seemed to him a wonderful thing and full of joy. For many days this lasted.

But at last there came a dark morning; all day the rain poured steadily down and the two little birds stood, huddled, side by side upon the tree, their feathers draggled and their bodies cold with the damp and wind. Since early morning the little white bird had been sad, and his heart full of misgivings, yet it was a great comfort to him through all the storm, to turn from time to time and look at the little figure at his side, and know that his precious companion was near him. But once as he looked, he seemed to see a wonderful change coming over the little bird. Could the dark light of the forest, he wondered, be misleading him: yet as he watched and watched he saw it all too clearly: his companion was becoming jet black, like the other birds he had seen about him in the forest. Soon the rain washed away the last little speck of white covering and then with an angry cry, knowing that she had been found out, she flew away, and doubtless joined her real companions in the wood. So thus he saw how he had been deceived, and that all along this had been merely a little black bird, painted white, who had at first, through the days of sunshine, played her part well, but who, at the coming of the first storm, had been shown forth in her true color.

The little “white black bird” and Chopin met but once again. The former in Ma Vie gives this laconic account of the meeting “Je serrai sa main tremblante et glacée. Je voulu lui parler, il s’echappa.”

Macpherson Wiltbank.