, vague and vanishing, sweet and
melancholy. But there is an end to this as to all such dreams. Those
harassing, exasperating gloomy thoughts (Tempo di Polacca) return.
The sharp corners which we round so pleasantly and beautifully in our
reconstructions of the past make themselves only too soon felt in the
things of the present, and cruelly waken us to reality and its miseries.

The Polonaise, Op. 53 (in A flat major; published in December, 1843),
is one of the most stirring compositions of Chopin, manifesting an
overmastering power and consuming fire. But is it really the same
Chopin, is it the composer of the dreamy nocturnes, the elegant waltzes,
who here fumes and frets, struggling with a fierce, suffocating rage
(mark the rushing succession of chords of the sixth, the growling
semiquaver figures, and the crashing dissonances of the sixteen
introductory bars), and then shouts forth, sure of victory, his bold and
scornful challenge? And farther on, in the part of the polonaise where
the ostinato semiquaver figure in octaves for the left hand begins, do
we not hear the trampling of horses, the clatter of arms and spurs, and
the sound of trumpets? Do we not hear--yea, and see too--a high-spirited
chivalry approaching and passing? Only pianoforte giants can do justice
to this martial tone-picture, the physical strength of the composer
certainly did not suffice.

The story goes that when Chopin played one of his polonaises in the
night-time, just after finishing its composition, he saw the door
open, and a long train of Polish knights and ladies, dressed in antique
costumes, enter through it and defile past him. This vision filled the
composer with such terror that he fled through the opposite door, and
dared not return to the room the whole night. Karasowski says that the
polonaise in question is the last-mentioned one, in A flat major; but
from M. Kwiatkowski, who depicted the scene three times, [FOOTNOTE: "Le
Reve de Chopin," a water-colour, and two sketches in oils representing,
according to Chopin's indication (d'apres l'avis de Chopin), the
polonaise.] learned that it is the one in A major, No. 1 of Op. 40,
dedicated to Fontana.

I know of no more affecting composition among all the productions
of Chopin than the "Polonaise-Fantaisie" (in A flat major), Op. 61
(published in September, 1846). What an unspeakable, unfathomable
wretchedness reveals itself in these sounds! We gaze on a boundless
desolation. These l