r has been
with him. Now the days of the poor fellow are numbered, his sufferings
great. Sad lot!" Yes, Chopin's condition had become so hopeless that
his relations had been communicated with, and his sister, Louisa
Jedrzejewicz, [FOOTNOTE: The same sister who visited him in 1844, passed
on that occasion also some time at Nohant, and subsequently is mentioned
in a letter of Chopin's to Franchomme.] accompanied by her husband
and daughter, had lost no time in coming from Poland to Paris. For the
comfort of her presence he was, no doubt, thankful. But he missed and
deplored very much during his last illness the absence of his old,
trusted physician, Dr. Molin, who had died shortly after the composer's
return from England.

The accounts of Chopin's last days--even if we confine ourselves to
those given by eye-witnesses--are a mesh of contradictions which it is
impossible to wholly disentangle. I shall do my best, but perhaps the
most I can hope for is to avoid making confusion worse confounded.

In the first days of October Chopin was already in such a condition that
unsupported he could not sit upright. His sister and Gutmann did not
leave him for a minute, Chopin holding a hand of the latter almost
constantly in one of his. By the 15th of October the voice of the
patient had lost its sonority. It was on this day that took place the
episode which has so often and variously been described. The Countess
Delphine Potocka, between whom and Chopin existed a warm friendship, and
who then happened to be at Nice, was no sooner informed of her friend's
fatal illness than she hastened to Paris.

When the coming of this dear friend was announced to Chopin
[relates M. Gavard], he exclaimed: "Therefore, then, has God
delayed so long to call me to Him; He wished to vouchsafe me
yet the pleasure of seeing you." Scarcely had she stepped up
to him when he expressed the wish that she should let him hear
once more the voice which he loved so much. When the priest
who prayed beside the bed had granted the request of the dying
man, the piano was moved from the adjoining room, and the
unhappy Countess, mastering her sorrow and suppressing tier
sobs, had to force herself to sing beside the bed where her
friend was exhaling his life. I, for my part, heard nothing; I
do not know what she sang. This scene, this contrast, this
excess of grief had over-powered my-sensibility; I remember
only the moment when the death-