Daguerreotype: The Mystery of Frédéric Chopin

by Lucyna Olejniczak

  The walk will do me good, he thought. It’ll get the stink of cigar smoke out of my clothes, and hopefully that nosy concierge won’t smell the wine on me.

  Theoretically, he didn’t care much about her opinion, but he didn’t like the expression of disapproval on the woman’s face when he returned to his room in the attic after a night on the town. He always tried to sneak quietly past her door, but it seemed like she lay in wait for him. The door would pop open at the least opportune moment, and he’d find himself fixed with the basilisk eye of a nosy matron who thought he was little better than a common delinquent in a crooked top hat.

  “Oh, you, my lad, are going to get yourself in trouble one day, you’ll see…” she would say, wagging her finger. “This way of life doesn’t lead anywhere good. I once knew a man, who… Oh, why even bother telling you? Do young people these days ever listen to good advice? And I could be your mother, and you still wouldn’t listen to me.”

  That and similar speeches awaited him nearly every night when he returned home late.

  Hopefully today she won’t have a reason, he thought, brightening up. Maybe there would be enough time for him to sober up before he reached home. However, he was starting to feel all the wine he’d drunk. The cobbles suddenly seemed to bulge dangerously, trying to catch his feet, and the trees along the Seine River kept wandering onto the sidewalk to get in his way. He bounced off the wall separating the street from the riverbank, adjusted his top hat, and walked on with stiff and deliberate steps.

  What had happened during that soiree? He tried to remember what had left him so upset. Ah, yes. That coquette, the disgusting old man’s wife. Why had he let himself be fooled by her behavior? He’d been so convinced that he’d made an impression and it was just a matter of time until she suggested a tryst – and then she’d been shamelessly flirting with that ridiculous English dandy. Practically under the supervision of her aged husband, no less. What licentiousness!

  A cold wind blew across the Seine, knocking a shower of wet droplets from the leaves of the trees overhead A shiver ran down his spine. He put the collar of his coat up, and suddenly regretted not taking the coach after all. It wasn’t far, but it was easy to catch a cold in such weather. He had promised his father that he would take good care of his health…

  “Damn it!” he swore as he slipped on the wet cobbles. For a moment, he ran along with his nose nearly on the ground, trying to catch his balance, then he fell, spread-eagled, in front of a still-steaming heap of horse manure. Before he could properly vent is temper on a good bout of swearing, two giggling girls appeared in the empty street.

  “Did you see his face?” One of them was nearly doubled over with laughter.

  The unfortunate musician leapt back to his feet even faster than he’d lost them. He tried to dust his muddy clothing off with hesitant, nervous pats and put his wrinkled top hat back on his head at the same time. He needed to at least keep the last vestiges of his dignity.

  “’You, mademoiselle, are completely unfit to model!’” one of the girls said in a playfully deep voice, obviously mocking someone. “You are stiff as a board. Unacceptable! Simple unacceptable!”

  “And you, monsieur, aren’t a real master painter, because a true artist could paint even a wooden board!” This time it was a deliberately high-pitched voice, obviously to indicate a girl’s response to such impertinence.

  They aren’t laughing at me, the young Pole thought with relief. They were laughing at some artist, apparently. It seemed like they hadn’t even noticed him. But what were such young girls doing alone at night, without supervision? Could it be that those merry girls were the kind who would willingly keep men company, and exchange warmth for a little coin? If so… Well, what did he have to lose? The temptress from the party had piqued his appetite, only to have nothing come out of it. He touched the coin in his pocket. Maybe it would be enough? From experience, he knew that girls like that weren’t too expensive, nor were they very demanding.

  But this is Paris, he reminded himself. Everything is expensive in Paris.

  He entered the ring of light cast by a gas lantern, bowed gallantly, and addressed them in his best approximation of a seductive tone.

  “Are you ladies travelling alone tonight, without a chaperone? Please, would you allow me to escort you? I would be happy to offer my arm.”

  At least, that’s what he tried to say, but the wine slurred his speech, and all that came out was some kind of unintelligible gibberish. His walking stick fell to the ground with an impressive crash, just as he was trying to mumble the last words.

  The girls squealed and hurried to the other side of the street. One of them ran off, while the other stood there for a moment, as if she were unable to decide the best course of action. Suddenly, as if woken from lethargy, she stirred and raced off after her friend.

  The young man, leaning over to pick up his cane, caught sight of the girl’s lovely eyes and pale, beautiful face framed by straight, dark hair.

  I have no luck in love today, he thought sadly, staring after the fleeing girls. Even the women of the night don’t want me.

  He resumed walking back to his small, empty, cold room on the top floor of the building. In his mind’s eye, he saw the girl’s face again.

  A streetwalker, and yet she looked so innocent, he thought to himself. One could be easily mistaken.

  Paris sure was a surprising place. Very surprising.

  Chapter Four

  A colorful, multilingual crowd moved slowly along the walls hung with giant canvases, which until that moment many of them had only seen in photographs and reproductions.

  I remembered most of them from my previous visits to the Louvre, but I’d still felt a strange kind of euphoria as I left the subway, which lingered throughout the first hour or so of the tour. As always, I’d felt the fluttering of excited butterflies in my chest as I passed through the gate, crossed the courtyard, walked by the famous glass pyramid, and descended the spiral staircase into the heart of the museum. I felt like a child in a toyshop as I meandered around the cavernous halls, but as time passed my excitement began to fade into fatigue. There was definitely such a thing as too much stimulation.

  After several hours, I’d had quite enough. I felt that strange warping of perception that came with exhaustion, and the world around me ceased to reach me. I sat down heavily on one of the comfortable benches in the middle of the room, and discreetly slipped my shoes off.

  “I need to sit down,” I groaned. “Before I fall down.”

  “No arguments here,” Tadeusz replied. “I had no idea the Louvre was this huge. You’d really need put aside a few days just to see it all. It’s impossible to do in one visit.”

  We watched the people around us, and noticed that most of the other patrons acted in one of two distinct fashions: some passed quickly, barely glancing at the paintings, while others stopped and stared with great interest, meticulously studying the information on the metal plaques below the paintings or in their guide books.

  Three playful young boys ran across the parquet, their sneakers squeaking on the polished floor. Their father, paying absolutely no attention to his offspring whatsoever, was one of the ones taking their time. He approached nearly every one of the paintings, taking off his gold-framed glasses to admire the surface texture and fine brush strokes up close. Then he’d take a few steps back, put his glasses back on, and contemplate the whole picture from a distance.

  “Dad! Daaad! Hurry up!” His kids, obviously bored senseless, tried to urge him to move on, but he waved them away impatiently.

  Two men stopped by the gigantic painting in front of us. The older one, a refined and elegant gentleman of about fifty, explained something to the younger one, who watched him attentively. They were speaking in English, and the shreds of conversation that reached us made it obvious that the man was talking about the art of painting.

  “Do you think he’s a guide?” I whispered to Tadeusz, without taking my eyes off the men. Ther
e was something fascinating about the older man.

  “I have no idea. They look pretty friendly, what with the way they’re gazing at one another. Maybe they’re a couple?”

  “You and your imagination.” I sighed, exasperated. “More likely one of them is a professor, and the other is his student or a younger colleague. It looks like an interesting lecture. Maybe we could listen? Better than wandering from painting to painting like a pair of clueless tourists, since we didn’t buy the guide book.”

  “Yeah, but did you see the price of the thing?”

  I rolled my eyes and nodded. Of course I’d noticed. There were free brochures and maps available at the information counter downstairs, but they did little more than allow us to pinpoint our current location and move from one exhibit to the next. According to the map, we were on the second floor, Richelieu Wing, in the French Paintings - XIV-XVII Centuries section.

  “Enough rest, we’re wasting time.” Tadeusz hopped up and presented his hand to me with a flourish.

  I reached carefully under the seat with my foot to retrieve my shoes, and panicked for a moment. Where had it gone?

  “What’s with that face?” Tadeusz asked, looking at me oddly.

  I furrowed my brow in concentration, and swept my foot in wider circles. After a few failed attempts – and several startled looks from the elderly Japanese man sitting nearby – I finally found them and fished them out.

  “Nothing! Everything’s fine! Let’s go.”

  Later, as we were passing through another gallery, we heard a calm, gentle, and slightly familiar voice.

  “Look at this, for example,” the voice said. I glanced around and saw the refined man and his companion, who we’d seen earlier, standing in front of The Penitent Magdalene by Georges de la Tour. I looked up at the canvas, which depicted a young woman in a white blouse and dark crimson skirt, tied around the waist with a simple cord. On her knees, gently illuminated by golden light of a candle, lay a skull. The woman’s hand rested atop it, a gentle, almost maternal gesture. The other hand propped up her chin, and she appeared to be gazing thoughtfully at a wooden cross lying on the table nearby.

  I discreetly moved closer, drawing Tadeusz along by his sleeve.

  “Look at the symbols we see here, and the apparent contradictions,” the man murmured. “Mary Magdalene’s pose does not show the classic attitudes of repentance as we know it. Repentance is usually expressed by kneeling, laying spread-eagled to symbolize the cross, or at least a bowing of the head to indicate a sense of guilt about whatever sins are being repented. Here, she looks very calm and relaxed.”

  I stopped trying to hide the fact that I was listening in. La Tour was one of my favorite 17th century painters. The gentleman noticed, and gave me a friendly smile.

  “Do you agree, ma’am?” he asked.

  I felt myself flush a little, and smiled back at him. “Sorry for eavesdropping, but your discourse was very interesting. I hope you don’t mind?”

  “Oh, not at all.” He glanced back and forth between us, and beckoned for us to join them. “If you two are interested in the subject, then I am honored to have your attention. My name is Mark Kozlovsky, and this is my friend, Richard Hill. We recently moved to Paris from America.”

  “Kozlovsky?” I echoed, suddenly interested. “Do you by any chance have Polish roots?”

  “Why, yes I do,” he said with a surprised smile. “And you…?”

  “We’re Polish, yes. It’s nice to meet a fellow countryman, of sorts.”

  “My grandfather was born in Kraków,” Mark explained. “His parents emigrated to the United States when he was still a child.”

  “Oh!” Tadeusz stared at him incredulously. “We’re from Kraków. What a coincidence!”

  The grandfather, as it turned out, had been the last person in the family who spoke Polish. Mark explained that he didn’t speak the language, except for the word ‘pieroszki’, which to him meant ‘delicious Polish dumpling’.

  After a moment of chatting about our shared heritage, we returned to the subject of art.

  “You mentioned symbols,” Tadeusz began, being the great lover of art that he was. “I have to admit, I’ve always focused on the aesthetic aspects of this painting: the darkness of the background, and the details brought out by the candle’s light. To be honest, I don’t know all that much about symbolism.”

  “This particular painting is full of symbols,” Mark explained. “Let’s start with the background, which is rusty brown, like most of La Tour’s paintings. In 17th century symbolism, that colors symbolizes nothingness, or a void.”

  “And white symbolizes innocence or chastity,” I added. “Sometimes, it can also symbolize joy. Mary Magdalene is wearing a white blouse, perhaps to symbolize her new-found purity or happiness, but the rest of her outfit is pointedly neglected – a reminder of her past?”

  “And her skirt is red,” Mark pointed out, looking very pleased by our interest. “How would you interpret that?”

  “Red is associated with Hell,” I replied. “It was also the color of prostitutes, who dressed in bright red robes to draw the attention of prospective clients.”

  Mark nodded approvingly. “Correct, but there is also some positive symbolism associated with that color. Red is the color of blood, strength, vitality. Statues of deities representing nature’s fertile forces were often painted that color.”

  “That’s in pagan belief systems,” Tadeusz pointed out. “I’m not too familiar with it, but I think in Christianity…”

  “…it symbolizes the infinite love of God, martyrdom and the resurrection of Christ,” Mark finished for him.

  Richard, our accidental guide’s companion, joined the discussion. “Some of the symbols are a bit more obvious. That whip on the table, for example, was a tool sometimes used in repentance.”

  “Yes and no.” Mark smiled mysteriously. “The whip can also be an expression of anger and a tool to punish infidels, but in biblical texts it is also mentioned as a means to secure eternal life. ‘You beat him with the rod, and save his soul from the abyss’,” he recited from memory.

  “I give up,” Tadeusz said, looking at Mark with genuine admiration. “You must be an art historian, right?”

  “No, I’m just a humble art-lover,” he said, sketching a bow. “By profession, I’m actually a musicologist.”

  “What intrigues me is the cord she’s using as a belt,” I mused. “I suppose that’s symbolic, too?”

  “You’re right,” Mark replied. “That cord is a belt in its simplest form. The belt was considered to be the symbol of strength, purity and sacrifice. It was also supposedly the symbol of someone living a respectable life.”

  “Respectable?” Richard glanced at him, amused. “We’re talking about Mary Magdalene, the prostitute.”

  “True indeed, and yet it does symbolize respectability. In the Middle Ages, women of negotiable virtue were forbidden to wear belts. As I said at the start, this piece is full of symbols and apparent contradictions. Here we have another contradiction. Who, then, was Mary Magdalene?”

  We were greatly impressed by the depth of our new friend’s knowledge. Not long after we left the Louvre, Tadeusz and I found ourselves discussing him as we walked along the Seine on our way back to the apartment.

  “What a person!” Tadeusz exclaimed. “So much knowledge! I’m very impressed. That colleague of his was very nice, too, though he seemed a little shy. It’s a pity we’re not staying in Paris longer, I’d love to meet up with them again sometime. What a shame.”

  “I wonder if Chopin visited the Louvre when he was here, and looked at the same masterpieces as us?” I wondered aloud.

  “Are you still thinking that Marie’s mysterious lover was Chopin himself?”

  “I’m not really sure. It’s rather unlikely, but not impossible. After all, he was known as a bit of a ladies’ man, had a hot temper, and – most importantly - he was in Paris at that time. So, why not? Until we find out who Marie’s love
r really was, it’s easier to think that it was Chopin. Anyway, maybe we’ll know more in a few days, once we’ve had a chance to look over the other letters.”

  Tadeusz spread his arms wide, and rolled his eyes heavenwards in a comical gesture of resignation.

  “Have it your way, you stubborn woman. But, one thing is certain: even if Chopin did visit the Louvre, which is quite probable, he wouldn’t have been able to admire La Tour’s work. It was only discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century.”

  “Mister Know-it-All,” I teased. “Alright, I’ll agree with you on that, but only that. Now, I’m kidnapping you and dragging you off to the Latin district, so we can have some dinner. What do you think?”

  “Well, I do like being kidnapped by beautiful women.” Tadeusz put his arms around me and squeezed gently. “Then it’s back home to sleep, since we’re supposed to head out to Trigny in the morning.”

  “Sleep?!” I cried indignantly. “Only children and old men sleep in Paris; we’re going to party until dawn. This is Paris, darling, and not Kozia Wólka. Let’s go check out Pigalle Square!”

  “For the chestnuts, right? Not the cabarets and sex-shops?”

  “Well, of course!”

  Chapter Five

  The car rolled down Rivoli Street and turned right, then we followed the Seine. I was sad to be leaving Paris again so soon. There was so much more I wanted to show Tadeusz, to spend some more time together, but unfortunately we were in a hurry. Sophie and Claude were waiting for us at their chateau in Trigny, and we were due to return to Poland in a week. Although they’d only invited us for the weekend, I knew what their hospitality was like. It was doubtful we’d be able to slip away to spend some more time in the city before we had to head home.

  Besides, Marie’s letters were waiting for us. We’d need the extra time to read them all, so I said my goodbyes to Paris now. I felt regret, as I always did; Paris never failed to leave me hungry for more.