Daguerreotype: The Mystery of Frédéric Chopin

by Lucyna Olejniczak

  Auntie had invited the talented young Polish musician along with them, and he’d accepted gladly. He was due to arrive that day, and stay as long as the gracious lady would allow it.

  Now, he was late, and they were all waiting anxiously to see if he’d arrive safely.

  They moved to the drawing room and began to set up the game, but before they could start playing they heard the distinctive squeak of a carriage’s wheels and the crunch of the gravel driveway beneath the hooves of horses. The coach came to a noisy stop in the driveway, right beside the entrance of the house.

  Marie was the first one outside, and watched with relief as their guest climbed out of the carriage. He was filthy, muddy, and exhausted, but at least he was alive.

  “My God, what happened?” Variations on the question were shouted by all the people gathered in the entryway, and the replies from the coachman, his assistant, and the passenger just added to the chaos.

  “Let’s get inside,” Uncle said, taking control of the situation as usual. “Young man, head inside and wash up, change into some dry clothes, and have something to eat. Then, you can tell us what happened.”

  Pale and tired, the young musician smiled appreciatively and hurried inside, trying not to leave muddy tracks on the floor. That was an impossible task, because he was soaked from head to toe.

  The help rushed out to unload the luggage, while the family and guests surrounded the coachman to hear his version of events. He evidently felt like the uncontested hero of the evening, and shooed his assistant off to tend to the horses with an impatient gesture while he told the story.

  “And all of a sudden, there was a terrible crash!” he said, putting heavy emphasis on the word ‘crash’. “I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I thought we’re done for. Time to leave this world, dear Julian – at least, that’s what I was thinking, since that’s my name.”

  “But what caused the crash?” Marie’s cousin demanded. “Did someone shoot at you? Was it robbers?”

  The coachman frowned and began to wipe the mud off his pant leg, looking displeased at being interrupted. He wiped his filthy hands on the other, even muddier leg, and continued indignantly.

  “How am I supposed to know what caused the crash? I just heard that terrible sound, then the coach began rolling into the ditch!” The man clearly didn’t plan on finishing his story quickly.

  The listeners held their breath, clearly understanding that all attempts to rush the story would just make it take longer to reach a conclusion.

  “I told you it was robbers!” someone said in a loud stage whisper.

  “Or maybe it was the werewolf after all?” Marie’s pimply cousin suggested. “It could have been his snapping jaws!”

  There was a small commotion amongst the gathered guests, and someone silenced the werewolf-lover with a not-so-playful smack. After a moment of scuffling, everything settled down again.

  “Please just tell us what happened, my good man,” Uncle said firmly. The coachman heaved a sigh.

  “…the axle broke,” the coachman admitted.

  “Oooh!” A collective sigh of disappointment rose from the gathered crowd. Looking thoroughly embarrassed, the coachman hurried off to the servants’ entrance, and that was the last they saw of him for the evening.

  Over dinner, the young Pole told them the tale again in great detail. It really had just been a broken axle, but it had snapped right in the middle of the woods, far away from civilization or any potential assistance. The coach had fallen into a particularly deep ditch, which had been full of mud after the recent downpours. The coachman, his young assistant, and petite musician had been stranded on their own in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully, they always kept a chest full of tools in the coach, just in case, and had managed to repair the axle after a few hours of hard labor. Pulling the coach back out of the ditch had proven to be more troublesome. They’d had to unload all the luggage, then use the horses to pull the thing out, but their hooves kept slipping in the mud, causing the animals to panic. It had already been getting dark by the time they’d managed to get the coach out of the ditch, with the horses struggling on one side and the men pushing from behind.

  By the time he finished telling the story, he looked utterly exhausted. They didn’t keep him too long. He retreated to his room right after the meal, but the excited guests didn’t retire until much later.

  Everyone moved to drawing room, telling stories about their own travelling adventures. The host’s brother, an older man with luxuriant sideburns, treated everyone to a story about his trip to South America, where he’d travelled as a naturalist, collecting interesting species of butterflies. Someone else mentioned Africa, and launched into tall tales about the unicorns that supposedly lived there, dragons with heads encrusted in precious jewels, and mandrake roots that screamed when plucked from the ground.

  “I heard,” an older lady said breathlessly, her face red with excitement, “that a bloodthirsty beast called a lamparthus lives in Africa. Apparently it slaughters all who cross its path – unless it meets a virgin, at which point it becomes meek and gentle as a lamb and weeps with emotion.”

  “And just where did you hear that, my love?” Her husband leaned towards her, looking embarrassed by the disbelieving glances the others threw at her.

  “Oh, I don’t remember. Someone told me about it.”

  “Did they also say something about people with eyes in their chests, or with no mouth so they had to eat through a tube up their nose?”

  “Yes, yes!” the woman cried, clapping her hands together. “You’ve heard about it, too?”

  “That was an article I read to you, my dear. It was about how people in antiquity imagined Africa to be. Pliny, I think. The talk about dragons and unicorns was from the same article.” He glanced at the man in the corner who had mentioned the mythical beasts. “You, sir, probably read the same article, in Les Voyages.”

  “Oh…” The man hesitated, blushing. “Perhaps it was that same article. I did have a copy of that magazine fall into my hands not too long ago…”

  An elderly gentleman, dressed in a worn crimson frock coat with lace at the neck and cuffs, suddenly woke up in his chair and looked around sleepily. “What? Dragons and unicorns now? What happened to the werewolves? I think I missed something.”

  Once they’d caught him up on the conversation, he grinned knowingly. He took a moment to brush some imaginary lint from his black velvet trousers, adjusted his white stockings, then took a deep, dramatic breath.

  “Ah, but you know,” he said in a mysterious tone. “The unicorns in Africa do truly exist, but they’re nothing like the way the fairy tales describe them.”

  He paused for drama, clearly enjoying the incredulous looks on the faces around him.

  “I have a friend in Parisian Geographical Society,” he continued, “which was founded about ten years ago. He told me all about his expeditions to Africa and of the animals living there. ‘Unicorn’ was how the people of old described the rhinoceros, since it has one horn on its head.”

  “I think the horn is on its nose, sir,” a well-read young lad said.

  “Isn’t your nose on your head?” the old man snapped, turning red with irritation. “Or is your nose on your backside?”

  “The horn is on its face, sir,” the young man argued, gesturing broadly with his hands. “On its muzzle. Saying it’s on its head implies that the horn is attached to its forehead.”

  “Gentlemen…” Uncle tried to interrupt. When he saw the elderly gentleman stand up, ready to bite back, he slapped his hand down on the arm rest. “Gentlemen! Enough! No more squabbling. You’re both correct, now please stop fighting.”

  “Right, people in the olden days would have called the rhinoceros a unicorn, because it was one horn,” the cousin who had been so enamored with the idea of the werewolf earlier said, catching on to Uncle’s attempt to distract both of them from the argument. “What about dragons, sir? Did your friend at the Geographical Society explain th
e origin of that myth?”

  “Well, I didn’t think to ask him,” the elderly man admitted. He shot a dark look at his young opponent, but allowed the others to move the subject along. “He did talk about some vicious beasts that live in the local rivers, the crocodiles. Perhaps those were the origin of the dragon myth.”

  The drawing room door opened, and Auntie stuck her head inside.

  “You’re not asleep yet?” she said, clearly surprised to see nearly the entire household relaxing within. Everyone was so focused on the old man’s tale that they barely noticed her appearance.

  “Auntie!” Marie leapt up and hurried over to grab her hand. “Come, sit with us and listen to Monsieur Lemartine. He’s telling us all about Africa and the terrible animals that live there.”

  “But the most frightening thing is not animals, but the local people,” the old man continued. Auntie joined Marie on the sofa, and settled down to listen with the others. “They are the reason so many travelers perish in Africa. Truly blood-thirsty beasts! I’ll tell you a story—”

  “My dear sir,” Uncle interrupted in a suspiciously polite tone, “were these travelers you mention there on a peaceful expedition? They weren’t, by any chance, trying to capture the local people to sell them as slaves?”

  “Well…” Monsieur Lemartine hesitated, looking abashed. “I suppose some of them probably we, but the locals are just savages…”

  “Savages or not, they were in their own land and I think they have every right to defend themselves.” Uncle waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter now. Tell your story, sir. I’m curious to hear about the cruelty of these locals.”

  Lemartine frowned and began his story, though it was clear from his tone that he was slightly offended. “Well, the story pertains to a great traveler, the Scottish doctor, Mungo Park. He went to Africa in search of the river Niger, which was known to exist, but no one had reached it before…”

  “Maybe I should ask the help prepare something to drink?” Auntie asked in a stage whisper, glancing at her husband. He shot her a dark look to silence her, which she obeyed, yawning discreetly.

  “Park had tried to find this river before, when he’d been sent there by the British African Association in 1795, if I remember correctly,” Lemartine continued, pretending not to see the signs of boredom from his hostess. “Alas, as the monsoon season approached, he had to abort his mission for fear of contracting a fever.”

  “So he just stopped?” someone asked. “Without reaching his goal?” The people listing glanced at one another in disappointment.

  “He reached the river itself, but was unable to find its source, which was what he was looking for. He wasn’t able to find it during his second expedition ten years later either, because he was attacked and murdered by the locals. Such a terrible loss for science.” Lemartine glared pointedly at his host.

  “I read something about that,” Uncle said, nodding thoughtfully. “Wasn’t he the one the locals called ‘the angry white man’?”

  “I haven’t heard that description of him.”

  “I have. In Les Voyages, I think – one of last year’s issues. Park was armed with modern guns, while the locals just had bows and arrows. He jumped off a boat fleeing those arrows, and perished in the very river he was so desperate to explore. Your hero had a reputation for being extremely cruel and merciless towards the African people, who he considered nothing but living merchandise. Apparently both his expeditions were riddled with conflicts with the locals.”

  “My dear sir,” Lemartine protested, reddening with anger, “he was a scientist, an explorer, and had the right to—”

  “He had a duty, sir, and an obligation to act like a decent human being towards those poor people. The locals had the right to act as they did!”

  Auntie practically levitated off the couch, and clapped her hands.

  “All right, everyone! I do believe it’s time to retire.”

  “And he got what he deserved,” Uncle hissed, as he stormed out of the drawing room and did just that.

  The next morning, everything looked much different. Frederic, rested and refreshed, regaled everyone with a much more humorous rendition of the previous day’s events. The guests around the table burst out laughing at the sight of his dramatic and playful re-enactment.

  “That’s him!” Uncle wiped his eyes on a large checkered handkerchief, to brush away the tears of laughter. “That’s Julian!”

  The young man was just presenting a scene in the forest, where the coachman was encouraging the horses, his assistant, and his passenger to larger effort while they were trying to pull the coach from the mud.

  “Monsieur Musician,” he boomed in a perfect imitation of the coachman’s voice. “This is not one of your barrel organs, you need to put some strength into this. Use your legs and push! You’re just tickling the thing!”

  “But master…” The guests had no doubt that they were now hearing the words of the coachman’s assistant. “We’re pushing as hard as we can, right, but this mud is so thick we just can’t move it. Maybe you could help us?”

  “No!” The booming voice returned. “Someone has to supervise!”

  “But in the end, he had to muck in and help us,” the musician finished in his own voice, “or we would have been stuck there until Judgement Day. We ended up gathering together a bunch of twigs and branches and tossing those into the mud, so that the wheels would have something to find traction on. Then, all three of us pushed and the horses pulled, and we finally got the coach back up onto the road.”

  The laughter around the table drove the young man to greater and greater drama. Every new face he put on brought a new gale of laughter from his audience.

  “Oh dear… I haven’t had so much fun in a long time.”

  “My stomach hurts from laughing!”

  “I’ve got the hiccups because of you, young sir.”

  “You should become an actor.”

  “Thank you,” Frederic bowed and smiled, “but I better stick with my barrel-organ.”

  “Well, you are doing a beautiful job with it,” Auntie said.

  “Not as beautiful as I’d wish.”

  “You’re too modesty. I hear Liszt and Schumann can’t stop singing your praises.”

  “They’re wonderful people.”

  “And great musicians, aren’t they?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “What do you think of them?”

  “I think that only Bach and Mozart truly deserve to be called great musicians.”

  “What kind of a romantic are you?” one of the men asked. “You’d rank the boredom of Bach over the fantastical glory of Schumann and Liszt?”

  “Oh, I’m not a romantic at all,” the composer said with a wink.

  After breakfast, all the guests went out into the garden to take advantage of the lovely May weather. The neatly-trimmed paths invited all who saw them to take a stroll amongst the blossoming trees and shrubs, listening to the natural music of birdsong.

  Marie took the young musician’s arm, and led him over to sit on a stone bench beneath a tree. This was the first moment since they’d left Paris that she’d had a chance to speak with him alone, and she already missed their endless discussions. Since that night at the Opera, Frederic had become a frequent guest at their Parisian town house. Of the two young women who lived there, he seemed to prefer Marie’s company of her cousin Juliette. Juliette’s outgoing nature seemed to intimidate him, while Marie was perfectly happy to just listen and engage in quiet conversations about topics of mutual interest. He seemed to appreciate that.

  They played cards together after Sunday dinners, made each other laugh to the point of tears with stories both real and fictional, and gossiped about the acquaintances they found distasteful. However, she had noticed that he always kept her at something of a distance, as a woman, which she resented a little. When she’d asked about it, he’d claimed that she resembled someone he’d once loved, and he respected her
too much to go beyond friendship.

  Oh, let him stop respecting me so much already, Marie often found herself thinking, with an impatient sigh.

  “What a lovely garden,” he commented, looking around with an expression of genuine enthusiasm. “The only thing missing is lilacs. At this time of year back home, there are lilacs in bloom everywhere. In the countryside, the gardens, the parks… My godmother’s garden had so many that the scent would almost suffocate you, especially in the evenings.”

  He closed his eyes and continued in a dreamy voice, absently moving his fingers across his knee as if he were playing a non-existent piano. “Every morning, there would be a vase of freshly-cut lilacs on the dining table, still heavy with morning dew. Or sometimes it would be a spray of lily-of-the-valley stalks, which grew like weeds in the garden. Just like here.” He pointed to the tiny white flowers, blooming beside the path. “Those ones we always picked without feeling guilty. Oh, how they smelled on our bedside tables! They made our dreams lovely and innocent, like the lilies themselves. But of all flowers, my favorite is the spring violets that grow wild in the forest. They smell so much sweeter, and so much stronger than the ones in our garden.”

  “You miss home,” Marie said, and it wasn’t a question.

  “Very much,” he admitted quietly, almost as if speaking to himself.

  They sat in silence for a while, each immersed in their own thoughts. In the distance, they heard the laughs and shouts of people enjoying themselves.

  “I do so love the springtime,” Marie said, attempting to change the subject. “I love watching everything wake up from its winter sleep and spring to life.”

  “While we’re here enjoying the springtime and the flowers, people are dying in Paris,” Fredrick replied, and she caught a note of sadness in his voice. “Every day, you see carts passing, filled to the brim with corpses. The smell of rot is everywhere. I… I feel like a deserter…”

  Marie fell silent, startled by the young man’s sudden change of mood. Before she could say anything, Juliette ran up to them. She pulled a face when she saw their serious expressions, but didn’t hesitate to interrupt them.