All that would have seemed very well to me if poor Chopin could have endured it.... While battering our rocks, the wind and the sea sang in a sublime tone. The immense and deserted cloisters were cracking overhead. Had I written there that part of _Lélia_ which is enacted in a monastery, I could have made it better and more real. But my poor friend’s chest was daily growing worse. Fine weather did not return. A chambermaid whom I had brought with me from France, and who until then had resigned herself, thanks to a large salary, to do our cooking and keep our rooms tidy, was beginning to consider her work too fatiguing. The moment had arrived when, having wielded the broom and boiled the saucepan myself, I too must have given way to fatigue; for, besides my tutor’s work, my literary pursuits, the continuous care demanded by the state of my patient, and the mortal anxiety he caused me, I was eaten up with rheumatism. In Majorca the use of chimneys is unknown. By paying an exorbitant price we succeeded in getting somebody to build a grotesque stove for us, a sort of iron caldron which gave us the headache and parched our chests. In spite of that, the humidity of the convent was such that our clothing grew mouldy on our backs.... We at last decided to go away, at whatever cost, although Chopin had not even strength enough to drag himself along.... We were obliged to travel three leagues along outlandish paths in a _birlocho_, that is to say, a wheelbarrow! GEORGE SAND: _Letter to M. François Rollinat_, March, 1839, in ‘Letters of George Sand.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: “Madame Sand” at Nohant.] It seems to me but the other day that I saw her, yet it was in the August of 1846, more than thirty years ago. I saw her in her own Berry, at Nohant, where her childhood and youth were passed, where she returned to live after she became famous, where she died and has now her grave.... The château of Nohant, in which Madame Sand lived, is a plain house by the roadside, with a walled garden. Down in the meadows, not far off, flows the Indre, bordered by trees....