He began about this time to withdraw from large assemblies, and spent most of his time in communion with his muse, and among a small circle of friends. Always fastidious about his surroundings, he was even more so now; but he always received his intimate acquaintances with perfect good humour and true Chopin amiability. Franz Liszt, Ferdinand Hiller, and Baron von Stockhausen are, perhaps, the only living representatives of those interesting “soirées intimes” at Chopinʼs house in the Rue Chaussée dʼAntin. Liszt writes:—
“His apartment was only lighted by some wax candles, grouped round one of Pleyelʼs pianos, which he particularly liked for their slightly veiled yet silvery sonorousness, and easy touch, permitting him to elicit tones which one might think proceeded from one of those harmonicas of which romantic Germany has preserved the monopoly, and which were so ingeniously constructed by its ancient masters from the union of crystal and water.
“As the corners of the room were left in obscurity, all idea of limit was lost, so that there seemed no boundary save the darkness of space. Some tall piece of furniture, with its white cover, would reveal itself in the dim light; an indistinct form, raising itself like a spectre to listen to the sounds by which it had been evoked. The light concentrated round the piano glided wave-like along the floor mingling with the red flashes of fire-light. A solitary portrait, that of a pianist, a sympathetic friend and admirer, seemed invited to be the constant auditor of those sighing, murmuring, moaning tones which ebbed and flowed upon the instrument. By a strange accident, the polished surface of the mirror reflected, so as to double for our eyes, the beautiful oval with the silky curls which has so often been copied and of which countless engravings have been reproduced for the friends of the elegant composer.”
Among the frequent guests at this abode were: Heinrich Heine, the German poet, of whom Enault said that sarcasm had consumed his heart, and scepticism swallowed up his soul; Meyerbeer, the greatest dramatic musician of the day; Liszt, who astonished the world with his magnificent impassioned playing, and who, understanding the poetic soul of the Polish artist, paid a literary tribute in after years to his memory; Ferdinand Hiller,[26] a famous pianist and a warm and faithful friend of Chopin; Ary Schäffer, the most classic of the Romantic painters; Eugène Delacroix, who sought for harmony of colour in Chopinʼs enchanting music; Adolphe Nourrit, the celebrated singer, who, under the influence of melancholy, committed suicide; Baron von Stockhausen, ambassador of the King of Hanover at the French court, a pupil and admirer of Chopin; and besides these, a little band of his own countrymen, at whose head was the veteran Niemcewicz, who had such an ardent yearning for his fatherland that his one wish was to rest from his labours in his native soil; Mickiewicz, the greatest of Polish poets, who, ever dreaming of his beloved Lithuania, celebrated its beauty in verse worthy of a Homer; the favourite poet Witwicki; Matuszynski, Fontana, Erzymala, and last of all Mussetʼs “la femme à lʼœil sombre,” who empoisoned the later life of our artist, so that he might have said with a bleeding heart as Musset did, “et si je ne crois plus aux larmes, cʼest que je lʼai vu pleurer.” Only those who had seen Chopin receiving these friends and gracefully dispensing true Polish hospitality, and who had also been fortunate enough to hear him improvise, could say that they really knew him. The confidential talk of a small circle would put him in the best of humours, and he would often be as merry as in the early happy days of youth in his fatherʼs house, before he had become acquainted with the cares and troubles of life.