In an article by Ludomira Missiuro entitled 'W celi Szopena', published in the periodical 'Świat' [The World], 1933, no. 22, pp. 6-7 (public domain, reprinted from the KUL University Library), the author recounted her journey to Valldemossa on Majorca, where she visited Chopin's so-called cell, located in a former Carthusian monastery. In 1838, Chopin, Sand and her children travelled to Majorca, where they spent a total of three months, two of them in Valldemossa. The original mementoes of their stay in the cell include a gothic chair and a Majorcan piano, which now houses a private museum of Fryderyk Chopin and George Sand, with numerous mementoes of both artists purchased in later years.

A modernised reading of the text.

A crackly Cook's bus drops into the quiet street of Walldemosa several times a week. It stops in front of the entrance to the monastery in a square, surrounded by plane trees, dumps the coterie of tourists and pulls up to the street bar della Cartuja to take a half-hour breather before continuing on its way. Wasps buzz over the cloudy lemonade, and the regulars surround the Cox's chauffeur, who looks indulgently at the tourists crawling around the monastery.
- Where is Chopin's cell - Cellule de Chopin, a cell of Chopin and agreed, not difficult Majorcan - celda, directed at the tour guide.

The long, white, beautifully vaulted monastery cloister. There used to be a row of cells, each with three rooms, belonging to the Carthusian order. Two years before Chopin's arrival, the order was evicted and the cells were rented for a minimal fee. The monastery was half-ruined and empty. Now they are private dwellings, rebuilt, separated, according to the taste of the owners. A multilingual mass crowds at the door, next to which a plaque is embedded, announcing that this cell was inhabited by Chopin and Sand during their stay in Majorca. A second party storms to the adjacent door, next to which is a plaque with an inscription, edited by the Chopin Society in Paris, paying tribute to the memory of the great Pole and stating that he stayed in this
cell and not another. Alongside Chopin's name, engraved in gold and in bold letters, is the golden name of P. Ganche, president of the committee. Like a racing advertisement, the tourists' eyes are drawn to the large English inscription hung under the vault on
canvas: "This is a real cell and here sits an authentic Chopin piano".

Anyway, access to one cell, as well as the other, is forbidden. Some nice ladies stand on the threshold and defend access.
- You can look through the door
- They finally give in - but you are not allowed inside.
- But why not? - the disappointed tourists ask.
- Forbidden.

They end up poking their noses into the entrance hall, which overlooks part of the cell and a patch of flower garden. Everyone looks devoutly at some carved Majorcan furniture and a few paintings on the walls. With sour faces, the tourists leave the monastery. As a consolation, they are shown a completely furnished pharmacy - la Botica - in the old monastery annex, with rows of large jars on shelves containing God knows what decoctions of herbs for itching, for toothache or for love. In wide flasks pink and green
translucent liquids are gushing out. White tins mesmerise with complicated names
Latin names and original drawings. All of this decoration from a century ago is complemented by
a stubby goose feather stuck imaginatively into an inkwell. An American woman
tries to see if the ink hasn't dried out over these hundred years.

Those who benefit most are those who have stepped out in front of the monastery and grasp with their eyes the panorama of which George Sand said there was no equal in the world. - Nothing has changed here. The curved line of hills lies heavy beyond the valley full of almond trees, oranges, lemons, bananas; behind the ridge of the mountains stretches a distant plain, seemingly boundless; at the foot of the monastery shoot plumes of palm trees, and the crowns of olives merge on the terraces into a silvery
shell. Half an hour passes - we've still got a hundred or so kilometres to go - the port of Soleru, Pollensa and the notorious mercurial Formentor with golf, jazz and a hotel for a hundred pesetas a day. No wonder, then, that the chauffeur, after the aperitif, summons everyone with a shrill siren, as if a duck were a runaway chicken.

Again, a central square with bars.
- This is the street of Ramon Lula, a very wise man, an apostle of the faith from the 13th century, writer, theologian, physicist, educator, doctor and architect in one person. And this is where Blessed Catherine lived

Thomas - he gives historical explanations, a Spaniard, glad to boast his English.

Confused and angry travellers settle into their seats.

- How much of the destination did this Chopin inhabit,
or maybe it's some kind of blag at all... We are again taken aback by the space, brimming with
greenery and sunshine. The blind windows of houses seem to wink goodbye to us,
and the baroque tower of the Carthusians rises above the styleless walls of the monastery like
an emerald flower. an emerald flower. We drive into a flood of silvery olives whose twisted, fantastic trunks, similar to Dante's seersucker, are several hundred years old, or perhaps more.

With patience and persistence you can achieve more than one thing. In this inaccessible cell I was
later a daily visitor. I looked at the Majorcan dolls in folk costumes made by P. Sand, smiled at 'Poor Jacques', over which hangs framed notes. A bust of Chopin stands on it, the violin of the little boy who played beside the maestro during the grey, damp evenings, and Mrs Sand's carelessly thrown shawl. According to the drawings of the writer's son Maurice, according to the description in "Winter on Mallorca" and according to the old plan, this is actually Chopin's cell. Chamber concerts are held in this room. Large festivals, dedicated to the works of Chopin, or to contemporary Polish and Spanish music, take place in the patio or in the old chapel. The owners of the cell, the Ferra family, have dedicated the entire downstairs, i.e. three rooms, to a small museum, while they themselves live on the annexed floor. They have collected beautiful stylish furniture from Mallorca, old paintings and precious trinkets. But these are by no means part of the furnishings of this cell from a century ago. Shopen and Sand had the simplest white wood chairs, a couple of chests, a straw doodle from Valencia that looked like a 'sun-gilded gazebo', a bug-ridden high gothic chair that the sacristan brought for Shopen from the chapel, a couple of linen cushions for decoration, a pair of vases from Felanix, and the pinnacle of grandeur was the portières made from a traveller's blanket, hung in the alcove.
- How do we understand the existence of two of Chopin's targets? - I ask the lady of the house, sitting in the garden, full of roses, dahlias, balsams, levconias, - and caressing a chubby angora basking in the sun.
- Very simply. The owner of the neighbouring cell is the second-generation heir of the banker to whom Chopin left a Pleyel piano a conto bills, used for 18 days during his stay in Majorca. Having the piano, he bought a cell to go with it.
- And why were both cells closed?
-because there were clashes in front of the public. A man was placed in front of the cell door with a sign on his cap saying that he was from Chopin's cell, and tourists were led to it. A closure decree came from Palma. Articles were written afterwards, pamphlets were distributed, in a word, a campaign.

What is it all about - I think - glamour, ambition, because I don't think it's about earning money. Cook's tours pay something, but after all, Mr Quetglas is a wealthy man and Mr Ferra is a well-known landscape painter in Mallorca.

At the entrance to the hotel, I meet a familiar American woman with white hair and the slender lines of a youngster.

- The lady from Cartuja? From Chopin's cell? -
At this point an ironic, sympathetic smile - and after a moment's hesitation:
- Or perhaps the lady wants to see the real Chopin's cell after all?

A ticket with a word of recommendation and I'm looking at the third cell! Soft, huge clubs, bearskins, a chaotic selection of books, a gramophone, the power of photographs, silver old candlesticks, carved antique tables, central heating, a telephone - in a word, America. "America" sits in front of me in a lovely Japanese dressing gown, gold slippers - original, interesting, 100% sex appeal. Plane, yacht, villas in Spain, France, peacekeeper - Chinese, secretary - Italian, ex-husband - tobacco king. Why not add Chopin's cell to this collection?

- I don't tell anyone about it, by the way, but it is only from my window that one can see the sea on the horizon, mentioned so often by George Sand in her book, and by Chopin in his letters, and that orange tree which Maurice drew, and mainly the rozasa. Is it not the same one of which the Master wrote to Fontana: - "my bed on straps under a filigree mauritanian rozasa" -.

- Is it the same? - I must admit that it is lovely in its delicate pink colouring and Arabic drawing. A round, openwork window peeking out from under the vaulted ceiling towards the cloistered cloister. But both the roses in the room and the orange trees in the garden are additions to each of the previous cells, and the 'silver ribbon of the sea', I confess, I didn't notice at all. Maybe the day wasn't clear enough, maybe my eyesight is short, or maybe it only appears to a select few.

The impressions of Valldemossa by a Danish journalist come to mind involuntarily: - "If even in each of the 3 presumed destinations I thought of the genius of Chopin, I don't think it was too much".

I do the same and am comforted.