he
evenings she and the young people went wandering by moonlight through
the cloisters, exploring the monkish cells and chapels. Maurice had
fortunately recovered his health completely, but poor Chopin's state,
aggravated by the damp weather and privations--for the difficulties in
obtaining a regular supply of provisions were immense--remained
throughout their stay a constant and terrible cause of anxiety and
responsibility to Madame Sand. From the islanders no sort of help or
even sympathy was forthcoming, and thievish servants and extortionate
traders were not the least of the annoyances with which the strangers
had to contend. In a letter to Francois Rollinat she gives a graphic
account of their misfortunes:--

It has rightly been laid down as a principle that where nature is
beautiful and generous, men are bad and avaricious. We had all the
trouble in the world to procure the commonest articles of food,
such as the island produces in abundance; thanks to the signal
dishonesty, the plundering spirit of the peasants, who made us pay
for everything three times what it was worth, so that we were at
their mercy under the penalty of dying of hunger. We could get no
one to serve us, because we were not _Christians_ [the travellers
passed for being "sold to the Devil" because they did not go to
Mass], and, besides, nobody would attend on a consumptive invalid.
However, for better for worse, we were established.... The place
was incomparably poetical; we did not see a living soul, nothing
disturbed our work; after waiting two months, and paying three
hundred francs extra, Chopin had at last received his piano, and
delighted the vaults of his cell with his melodies. Health and
strength were visibly returning to Maurice; as for me, I worked as
tutor seven hours a day: I sat up working on my own account half
the night; Chopin composed masterpieces, and we hoped to put up
with the remainder of our discomforts by the aid of these
compensations.

It was in the cells of Valdemosa that Madame Sand completed her novel of
Monastic life, _Spiridion_, then publishing in the _Revue des Deux
Mondes_. "For heaven's sake not so much mysticism!" prayed the editor of
her, now and then; and assuredly those readers for whom George Sand was
simply a purveyor of passionate romances, those critics who set her down
in their minds as exclusively a g