Symphony of Seduction

by Christopher Lawrence

  To care for him, protect him, help him to flourish – the urges she had felt from the start, stronger than that of mere physical possession, all burned through her mind. Was this, finally, a true sort of love? She thought of her isolated childhood, a silly marriage devoid of feeling, the passing gratifications from the string of lovers, and suspected that even with her knowledge of human nature and sympathy for the independent spirit, she couldn’t tell if this new impulse to lose herself in that face was the ‘love’ that existed in the classics.

  Mallefille was still down in Nohant, teaching the children by day and obliging their mother by night whenever she happened to be around. He was an excellent being, George knew: stable, virile, owner of a level temperament, sturdy as an oak; everything Frédéric was not. Almost as strong as she was. What could she possibly give to such a self-sufficient life force? Nothing more; and merely receiving him in every sense was not an option. It certainly wasn’t Love.

  Her turmoil must have been obvious. When she recalled herself to the present moment she noticed the music had stopped. Chopin was looking at her with a tender curiosity, silently mouthing something while the others around the piano applauded. She narrowed her eyes to read his lips.

  Where have you been?

  George hurried over to Grzymala. They had kept in touch with the occasional exchange of letters during the past year.

  ‘Wojciech, we must talk,’ she said, drawing him aside as the consul’s wife, Madame Marliani, led Chopin in the opposite direction to meet a blushing circle of young women.

  ‘Madame Sand, I would prefer talk to the sterile business of writing letters,’ he said, smiling. ‘And we are speaking now about …?’

  ‘Frédéric, of course. He looks happier, tonight, doesn’t he?’

  ‘He does, madame. And I can imagine why.’

  ‘So can I, sadly. The last time he and I spoke, he told me about a likely engagement. Is this person going to make him happy?’

  ‘My dear George, that’s not the question you should ask —’

  ‘I’ll put it differently, if only to assure you that my concern isn’t the bad fruit of some petty jealousy. Chopin’s happiness, his life, are more important to me than his love. He is too fragile to resist great pain. Loving may be too much for him. If he can find restfulness with someone else, that sentiment alone may be enough. I don’t want to steal anybody from anybody.’ His face came back into her mind, the soft question he had just asked her.

  Grzymala was smiling.

  ‘This sounds terribly selfless, George. Could it be that —?’

  She cut him off again. ‘At the same time, I don’t want him to sacrifice himself to marriage out of a sense of duty to some childhood friend. The past is a limited thing.’ She turned her gaze away from Grzymala to the small, immaculately dressed figure across the room. ‘The future is infinity, an unknown. That is where feeling must flow.’

  Grzymala was struck by the change in her face. Normally, her features were languid, almost expressionless, apart from those huge eyes. Not tonight; she was radiant with animation. The cross-dressing man-slayer that Aurore Dupin presented to the literati had it bad – and all because of his sickly, brilliant compatriot.

  ‘George, perhaps it is equally pertinent to enquire whether you are being taken care of? Rumour has it so. At least, that’s what a little Hungarian bird has told me.’

  ‘There is wax at home upon which I sometimes place my seal. Someday I may wish to change the seal, and when the time comes I’ll do so with patience.’

  She would clear the way for Chopin, in other words, Grzymala understood.

  ‘I’ll tell this to our friend, with your permission, George,’ he said. ‘Because what I have been trying to tell you is that Frédéric is no longer engaged. He never was, in fact. And the young lady who may have been in question has long since been redirected towards more robust quarry by her family.’

  Her mouth dropped slightly. The thin cigar halted its journey to that thick lower lip.

  ‘Now, I’m not sure about the “seal”, as you call it, but you might want to go and check on the wax.’

  She felt the stare of blue-grey eyes.

  Chopin seemed unsure of what to do, so George guided him all the way.

  ‘Am I there?’ he asked.

  ‘You are, my dear child. Let yourself be. Move a little, if you like.’

  He did so with difficulty, panting with breathlessness rather than desire. Her own feeling was less the surge of physical pleasure she enjoyed with Mallefille, more a ripple of simple tenderness. Sex would not be a large part of whatever was to come, she predicted. That was all right; she’d had her fill.

  He panted harder.

  ‘That’s good, Frédéric. Let it happen.’

  He stopped. The beautiful face wide-eyed in the darkness.

  ‘Aurore, I don’t know if I should void myself in this way. This is all the strength I have. If we know that feeling is there, maybe I should reserve what is left for my work.’

  She ran her hands over his bare shoulders.

  ‘Little one, it’s my experience that the reservoir soon refills with creative energy. I can wake in the morning after a night like this and spend the whole day putting thousands of words onto paper. But if you’re more comfortable thinking that your teaspoon of semen will metabolise into a mazurka if left unspilled, I say: whatever keeps the music coming. Is it a mazurka tonight, or me?’

  ‘Give me some help again,’ he said, smiling.

  Minutes later, Chopin reached for his handkerchief, grateful that the gloom concealed the traces of red among his spittle.

  Her voice was suddenly low and musical.

  ‘One adores you, Frédéric. Did you enjoy yourself?’ she said.

  He stopped dabbing at his mouth.

  ‘Yes, George. It has been a long time.’

  ‘How long, if I may ask?’ She would need to talk to Mallefille when she returned to Nohant.

  ‘A lifetime, I suppose.’ He shook as he coughed. She sat up.

  ‘Do you know what, my dear? We are going to make you well. You need a thorough diagnosis of what is wrong with you, a young man of twenty-eight with a rich life ahead. And I know what the doctor will recommend.’

  ‘Sucking ice, like before.’

  ‘No – a change of climate. I can’t believe that a lifetime in the cold of Poland and Paris is good for the system. I’ve tried to bring you to my house in the country, and so far, you’ve resisted. Let’s look for a solution further afield, then; somewhere in the deeper south, beyond France, closer to the warm air of Africa. My son Maurice is suffering from rheumatism, and I want him to avoid a harsh winter as well. We can all go away, escape, breathe life-giving air, feel sun on our skin. Our friend the Spanish consul tells me how beautiful it is on the island of Majorca. If you still want to be with me in a few months’ time, would you come for an adventure? We’ll take a piano, of course.’

  Her eyes shone.

  ‘Madame George Sand, I have to say that as of tonight, I have been thoroughly seduced,’ he said, aware that Paris would soon know. What would it think?

  ‘Is that a yes, Monsieur Chopin? If I may quote you, will you be in touch?’

  He frowned, and sounded more serious than she expected. ‘I will have to think about it for a while, George.’

  ‘You do that, my dear,’ she said, patting his thin arm before rolling over quickly to the drawer of her bedside table. ‘Right now, this girl would kill for a cigarette.’

  POSTSCRIPT

  Chopin’s and Sand’s sojourn to Majorca in 1838–39 was a disaster that almost killed him. The winter was the most severe in living memory, bringing the composer’s health and mental wellbeing to the point of collapse. The couple beat a precipitate retreat from both the austere and poorly heated former monastery they had rented, and the hostility of the locals who were scandalised by the unmarried visitors openly living together. Sand later documented the experience in her book A Winter in Majorca.


  Fryderyk and George broke up in 1847 when he sided with her daughter during a long and acrimonious family dispute. They met for the last time in March 1848.

  Chopin died from tuberculosis the following year, aged thirty-nine.

  BUSTLE WITH THE BÄSLE

  The world’s greatest ever musical prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, had his virginity maintained in early adulthood by the constant presence of his parents. Despite the temptations of foreign cities, the answer to who would be the first to take the young genius to bed was all in the family.

  ‘We do indeed exactly suit each other, for she too is inclined to be a little wicked.’

  Wolfgang Mozart (1756–1791) in a letter to his father, Leopold, October 1777

  AUGSBURG, 11 OCTOBER 1777

  ‘Wolfgang – you’re pulling that strange face again. Try to relax a little, dear. We’ll be there soon.’

  He did look peculiar, twisting his mouth into a rictus, one hand playing with his malformed left ear, the other drumming on his right leg. What had seemed eccentric in a child was now more than a little embarrassing for an adult in mixed company.

  Anna Maria Mozart sighed. She knew what was going on inside that extraordinary head. His eyes had that glazed look. What a pity. The autumn colours in the countryside outside Augsburg were so beautiful; copper and yellow leaves starting to flutter down from the trees. And sitting in the coach with her was her only living son, whom any casual observer would have taken for an imbecile.

  ‘Wolfgang!’ she repeated. His lips snapped back together, the weak chin receded to its usual position, and the slightly protruding eyes regained their focus.

  ‘I’m fine, Mamma,’ he said, smoothing his profuse fair hair with both hands.

  Mozart’s mind was working so quickly, and he was so stimulated by what it was doing, that he found it impossible to control himself, channelling the nervous energy to his extremities. The clip-clop of the horses’ feet had suggested a rhythm to him, then a tune over the top, and then another, the harmonies and the entire structure of a piano sonata movement assembling in his head without any effort. Within moments, the piece existed from beginning to end, all its internal parts completely worked out, so that he could turn it around and upside down, examine it from every angle. He put it to one side when another melody drifted in, an entirely new one, this one with the sound of a soprano’s voice. An arietta was taking shape.

  That made two pieces. It had been a busy five minutes.

  The trick was to find a clear half-hour in which to write it all down. Wolfgang could wait, though. The finished music was filed away in his memory and would stay there unchanged until he found a stable surface and a sheet of manuscript paper. The transfer to pen and ink was a mechanical process, requiring neither peace and quiet nor any further creative thought. He could do it later while he talked to the little cousin he’d heard so much about. His Bäsle.

  ‘How long are we staying in Augsburg, Mamma?’ he said, addressing his mother with the same inflection as when he was five; the pitch of the young man lower, of course – but not much.

  ‘Long enough for me to rest from this part of the journey, dear,’ she said. ‘Your uncle Franz has arranged a few meetings with good people in town. You can play for them, make some new contacts. And you should spend time with your cousin. She’s nineteen now; you haven’t seen each other since you were little. We should all enjoy ourselves before moving on to Mannheim.’

  Mannheim. That was their real destination. Anna and Leopold both knew their son was too brilliant for Salzburg. Wolfgang had been bored by the drudgery of working for the ghastly Archbishop Colloredo, having to grind out church music to order, being treated like a servant. He had quit that summer, and the bastard cleric had responded by sacking Leopold from his duties as court musician as well.

  ‘God will drop a turd on his head, Papa,’ Wolfgang said. ‘He can lick my arse. I fart at him whenever I see him. It’s great to think of the smells collecting in that ermine of his. When he enters a room, everyone will know they’re in the presence of a huge stinking pile of shit.’ The family exploded into laughter.

  Anna smiled at the recollection. Really, there’s nothing funnier than a Salzburg joke.

  ‘You’ll need a job, boy,’ said Leopold, when they finished wiping their eyes. ‘Mannheim’s the place, that famous court whose rays are like those of the sun, illuminating all of Germany. And when you’re settled there, we’ll all join you – when we can afford it. Meanwhile, take your mother.’

  ‘Papa! I’m all grown up! I can do this alone.’

  ‘You need looking after, Wolfgang. And to be frank, I don’t trust you to behave yourself. You can stop in to see my younger brother in Augsburg on the way. He’s lost all his five daughters excepting Maria Anna, and could do with the company.’

  He turned to his wife. ‘This trip will take at least a year. I’ll miss you, my dear. You must make sure Wolfgang works hard and plays little – apart from his music, of course.’

  She looked at him with moistening eyes. ‘And you must keep well while we’re away, my love. Shove your arse in your mouth and shit in the bed until it bursts.’

  ‘Darling wife, you say the sweetest things.’ They held each other, chuckling.

  The carriage took them through the centre of Augsburg, past the cathedral of St Mary and rows of medieval guild houses, before turning into the Frauentorstrasse and coming to a halt before a four-storey terracotta-coloured façade.

  ‘I wish your father was with us, my dear,’ said Anna Maria. ‘He was born in this house.’

  She stepped gingerly from the compartment, feeling the twinges of her fifty-six years. Wolfgang bounded out behind her, a little chevalier with his elaborate hat, vivid red coat with gold braid, and sword. The weapon rattled against his short legs as he surged past his mother to the front door now opening to the street.

  ‘Little Wolfgang!’ said Uncle Franz. ‘How you’ve … grown!’ He faltered on the platitude because his nephew didn’t appear to have grown much at all. Franz Mozart was Leopold’s junior by some eight years and looked even more so because he smiled often. His older brother’s default expression was a frown.

  The day had clouded over. In the gloom of the front room, Wolfgang was at first unaware of the small figure by the hearth until it stepped forward to be presented by Franz.

  ‘This is your cousin, Wolfgang: Marianne.’

  Mozart’s mother looked from one to the other with approval. ‘Franz – you can see they’re related.’

  Wolfgang could see it, too. Hair the same colour as his curled out from a small embroidered bonnet, and her blue eyes were just as widely spaced, giving her face an openness and candour that so many had remarked on in him. She was as petite as her cousin, with the same hint of petulance in the shape of the mouth. He liked the slope of shoulders defined by the shawl she wore, and the way its end hung teasingly from her teenage bust.

  She looked him over as well, noticing that his skin was as pale as porcelain next to the colour of his coat, and his face pockmarked like so many who’d suffered the childhood pox. He looked ready for a laugh, though – as he did right away, the unnervingly large eyes lighting up at the prospect of a week with his new playmate.

  ‘My little cousin! Hello, cuzz-wuzz! My Bäsle. I’m so pleased to meet you, I could almost drop one from my boat right here on the floor!’

  Marianne laughed more than he did. ‘Away you go then, Wolfy-boof!’ she said. ‘Be our guest. Let’s hear you sing from that end!’

  Anna Maria clapped her hands with delight. ‘I see the Bäsle has the family sense of humour.’

  Franz pasted a smile on his face. Must be from your side of the family.

  ‘Show me a piano, a spinet, a violin, a block of wood – anything,’ said Wolfgang, his hands flapping. ‘Now that I have a new funny-bunny, this calls for a song. My arse and I can improvise a fugue. Sing me anything and I’ll turn it into an opera for you on the spot.’

 
; The two cousins ran together out of the room, shrieking.

  ‘He can, you know,’ his mother said to her brother-in-law. ‘Turn anything into an opera, that is. It’s almost frightening.’

  Franz tried not to look too dubious. He’d heard that Wolfgang was ‘special’. Still, he’d expected a reputed genius of twenty-one to be more eloquent.

  ‘Whoops, there goes another one!’ the prodigy yelled from the stairs. ‘Not just the wind that time! Pick it up, cousin! Chuck the muck!’ They yapped like puppies.

  ‘Takes me back to when they were just toddlers,’ Franz said, hoping it sounded like a compliment.

  ‘The joy of children, isn’t it?’ Anna Maria replied. ‘That’s Wolfgang’s special quality, the purity of a child. We’ve tried to ensure he hasn’t lost it. Pure in spirit, pure in mind, pure in body. It’s our guarantee of his continuing good behaviour.’

  The Bäsle sat next to her cousin at the keyboard, watching him toy with the melodies of any ditties she could name, playing them forwards and backwards, turning them into mock-Italian arias, mixing them with other tunes, throwing colours around the room. She had never felt the presence of such a powerful intellect, such a supremely organisational force – not even in church.

  ‘Wolfgang, how do you do that?’ She knew it was an unanswerable question.

  He looked at his hands. ‘You mean: do this?’ He arpeggiated up and down the keys. ‘I’ve been doing it since I was four. You think about it for a while at the start – and then you don’t. Or you think you don’t. You reach a point where it thinks you. Without it, I don’t exist.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither do I. And I don’t have to. It,’ he said, trilling a note with his fingers, ‘knows everything I don’t.’ He placed his hand on his heart. ‘It has been to places still unknown to me.’

  ‘I thought you’d been all around Europe.’

  ‘True. I’ve been on the road almost half my life. But I don’t mean cities and countries. I mean feelings – experiences.’