It is October 17, 1849, Chopin has just taken his last labored
breath. Solange Dudevant Clesinger, George Sand's unloved daughter,
is at his bedside, but Sand herself is nowhere to be found.
Solange, deeply grieved by the loss of Chopin, with whom she feels
she has always been in love, takes a letter fragment from the last
letter Sand wrote to Chopin breaking off their relationship. In the
letter fragment, Sand accuses Chopin of taking sides with Solange
in a family battle and tells him that this has sounded the death
knell for their relationship. Married to a man she doesn't love,
Solange Dudevant Clesinger decides to try to find out why her
mother abandoned Chopin and does not show up at his deathbed. She
begins a search of the quays of Paris, claiming that she believes
she saw her mother wandering them in the past few days. Her
mother's friend, Charlotte Marlinai, assures her that Sand is not
in Paris but in her country home at Nohant. Something in Marliani's
evasive answers and her refusal to invite Solange into her home
causes Solange to suspect that perhaps she is hiding her mother. In
her attempt to avoid her hard drinking, abusive husband who is
making his bid to sculpt Chopin's funeral monument, Solange
retreats to their home and begins a plan to try to find out where
her mother is and why she didn't appear at Chopin's bedside. She
begins a series of visits to the people closest to Chopin to try to
learn as much as she can about the history of the relationship
between Sand and Chopin and also to find out more about what people
knew or didn't know about her relationship with Chopin that could
have triggered such enraged jealousy in her mother. She visits
Charlotte again the next day to find her much more welcoming now
that she isn't trying to hide a lover from her husband. Charlotte
begins the process of educating Solange about the history of Sand's
relationship with Chopin. Solange's quest is interspersed with
memories of past times in Chopin's company and with fantasies of
wished for greater intimacy with him. The influx of information
that comes to her showing the initial deep bond between Chopin and
Sand doesn't dissuade Solange from believing that Chopin was truly
in love with her as she was with him and that that was what caused
Sand to eventually abandon him so cruelly. Solange alternates
between a strong belief in the fact of the love between her and
Chopin and in a need to discover evidence to prove the truth of it.
Auguste Clesinger comes home drunk and angry because Solange is so
preoccupied with her grief over Chopin that she has forgotten to
join him at a dinner where he is to make his bid to sculpt the
funeral monument. He comes upon her in the bath, abuses her
verbally and forces her to have sex with him. She seeks refuge the
next day in the studio of Eugene Delacroix, a devoted friend of
both Chopin and Sand. He says he has no idea where Sand is and why
she didn't appear at Chopin's deathbed. Delacroix sees the bruise
on her eye and promises to try to play the diplomat in mending the
rupture between Solange and her husband. Solange seeks refuge in
the Luxembourg Gardens and meets Count Albert Grzymala, a Polish
ex-patriot and long-time friend of both Sand and Chopin. Grzymala,
too, has no idea where Sand is and is deeply grieved by the loss of
his dear friend, Chopin. He fills in some blanks for Solange about
the early days of Sand's relationship with Chopin. She tries to
rationalize her jealousy over the truth of the deep bond between
her mother and Chopin. Throughout her quest, Solange is visited
with dreams both divine and nightmarish. Her next visit is to Jane
Stirling, the Scotswoman who took care of Chopin at the end, paying
his rent at 12 Place Vendome and for his elaborate funeral at the
Church of the Madeleine. Solange and Jane find comfort in one
another and share a playing of one of Chopin's nocturnes. Solange
contrasts the purity
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