with physical union. Such an attitude was repugnant to her. What wretched woman had given him so poor an idea of physical love? ‘So he has had a mistress unworthy of him?’” (Winegarten 211-212).
Chopin did love various women, like Maria Wodzinska, but there is possible evidence that part of the reason he was holding back may have been his ambiguous sexuality. There is no lack of support for the fact he did love a young Polish man named Titus Woyiechowski, a close friend with whom he shared a correspondence. While there may not have been a sexual union between the two, there was definitely a love shared between them like the situation between Sand’s daughter, Solange, and Chopin. Yet, in their correspondence it is difficult to preclude a homo-erotic interpretation regarding Chopin and Woyiechowski “His letters are often addressed to ‘DEAREST LIFE’ and end ‘I have no one but you’, or ‘I want you and I expect you clean-shaven’, or ‘you are the only person I live’, or ‘Unto death, I will be your most affectionate’, or ‘I kiss you heartily, right on the mouth, may I?’ He also confided to Titus that he would express in his composition feelings that he would never articulate in words” (Jack 279).
In a way, the above is important because Chopin’s idealized, artistic concept of love and sexuality allowed a more artistic and deeper union to blossom between he and Sand than the typical affair based on physical passion alone. Often, in her nurturing of him, her sacrifices for him, and her nursing of him while coughing up buckets of blood, she resembled mother more than lover. Yet, the relationship was as close as either of them would ever come to enjoying the order and conventions of happily married existence. There was a fairly settled domesticity to their time together, and they worked well together. Sand’s novels like Winter in Majorca and Lucrezia Floriani depict experiences from their...