There were times during his youth when Chopin felt some scruples about his illegitimate connection with Aurora Dudevant-Sand, when he sincerely wished that he could lead her to the altar, and cursed the fate which hindered him. Afterwards he consoled himself with the thought that the firmness of the bond on both sides made it sacred, and unquestionably nothing on earth would have moved him to separate from her.
George Sand thought otherwise. This fanciful woman, with her keen susceptibilities for the beautiful, had loved the young, interesting, and celebrated composer; but the dejected invalid was an incumbrance. Her change of feeling was first manifested by occasional sullen looks and by the increasing shortness of her visits to the sick room. Chopin felt much pained, but was silent, for according to his ideas it would have been dishonourable on his part to cause a breach. His strength of will was impaired by broken health, and he submitted patiently to innumerable little mortifications which, however, wounded him deeply; his moral sense told him that he ought to atone for the wrong he had done in taking this woman unlawfully to himself.
He was grieved at the complaints she often made in his presence of the fatigue of nursing him; he begged her to leave him alone and go out into the open air; he entreated her not to give up her amusements for his sake, but to go to the theatre and give parties, &c.; he should be quiet and contented if he knew that she were happy. At last, before the sick man had dreamed of a separation, an heroic expedient, as Count Stanisla Tarnowski says, was resorted to. George Sand had written a romance, entitled, “Lucrezia Floriani,” of which the following is a brief summary.
“Prince Charles, a man of a noble and sympathetic character, but sickly, nervous, jealous, proud, and full of aristocratic notions, falls passionately in love with Lucrezia, a woman no longer young, who has given up love and the world, and lives only for her children and to do good. She is a famous artist, who does not pretend to be better than she is, but who is better than she is said to be. This consuming love causes Prince Charles a severe illness which endangers his life. Lucrezia saves him and loves him; but, foreseeing that this love would be a misery to her, conceals it. Prince Charlesʼs feelings, however, growing more and more passionate and again threatening his safety, the object of his adoration gives herself up to him.”