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Thanks for your well thought out and referenced response, Bruce. It's great that you have so many editions to consult. It does seem like both ways would be acceptable, depending on the performer's ability and preference.

I often re-distribute passages to make them easier on my hands. Sometimes, when all else fails, I even omit a note or two. (Is nothing sacred anymore? )

But Chopin indicated LH thumbs for the B and C sharp at the end of bar 9 for one of his star pupils, Camille O'Meara-Dubois. Marked in brackets in the Polish National Edition and annotated as BruceD says. (Interestingly, exactly the same notes occur in the lower stave at the end of bar 9 of the Prelude in D flat major, Op. 28 No. 15 -- and there Chopin wrote the same LH thumbs for both O'Meara-Dubois and Jane Stirling.) A Parisian critic said of O'Meara's debut concert in 1852, "...this new and young virtuoso, whose playing is fine, delicate and distinguished like that of her illustrious teacher." Unless we believe her hands were incredibly small, a player of that ability would have had no problem executing the arpeggio, but Chopin indicated otherwise. It does take quite large hands to play the simultaneous chord while giving sufficient weight to the E sharp and avoiding smudging the E natural, which is why it makes sense for the RH to take the E sharp.

As to why there is LH arpeggiation on the 3rd beat of the following bar... it's at a poco ritenuto, easing up at the musical "top of the hill" before changing direction and then rather decoratively and coyly leading to the cadence. But earlier at the end of bar 9, at the chord in question, the melody/line is "just getting going", and if Chopin expects anything, I'd say it's a slight accelerando as that insistent RH pattern winds its way upwards. So I think a straight/simultaneous chord fits better in bar 9. Not that I think arpeggiation of the chord there is particularly "bad", just, er, not as good!

And to answer the original poster's question: I say, ye be not a blasphemer.

Y'all convinced me.

Would I play it that way??
I might.

Side note on rolling all three of the chords:

If we roll all three, it could be argued that you also need to roll the 1st LH chord in m. 10 even though it doesn't involve a great stretch.
We could say that being the 1st beat of the measure justifies doing it differently than the other ones -- but in this phrase I don't think it's a great argument, because I see this as a string that goes across the bar line. If I worked up this piece, I think I'd either roll all of them (including that extra one), or none of them except that last one.

I apologize for saying that nobody could play that chord all LH without arpeggiating. I was looking at the huge paws of some of my larger patients and also a chiropractor that I work with, and I was astonished all over again at how different their hands are from mine. And my hands aren't unusually small (and in fact are only slightly shorter than Chopin's, though less stretchy).

I think my Final Answer on this passage is that I'll take those upper notes of the chords with the RH, except for the chord that is marked to be arpeggiated.

Thanks for the useful discussion!

Elene

Just thought I'd clarify: his reasons for slapping me round the head would not be so much some vague 'musical purity' thing as for breaking the soprano line as is mentioned somewhere above. Either way, thanks all. Great input!