Most estimable Leonore!
My most precious friend!
Not until I have lived almost a year in the capital do you receive a letter from me, and yet you were most assuredly perpetually in my liveliest memory. Often in thought I have conversed with you and your dear family, though not with that peace of mind which I could have desired. It was then that the wretched misunderstanding hovered before me and my conduct presented itself as most despicable. But it was too late. O, what would I not give could I obliterate from my life those actions so degrading to myself and so contrary to my character. True, there were many circumstances which tended to estrange us, and I suspect that tales whispered in our ears of remarks made one about the other were chiefly that which prevented us from coming to an understanding. We both believed that we were speaking from conviction; whereas it was only in anger, and we were both deceived. Your good and noble character, my dear friend, is sufficient assurance to me that you forgave me long ago. But we are told that the sincerest contrition consists in acknowledgment of our faults; and to do this has been my desire. And now let us drop the curtain on the affair, only drawing from it this lesson—that when friends quarrel it is much better to have it out face to face than to turn to a go-between.
With this you will receive a dedication from me to you concerning which I only wish that the work were a larger one and more worthy of you. I was plagued here to publish the little work, and I took advantage of the opportunity, my estimable E., to show my respect and friendship for you and my enduring memory of your family. Take this trifle and remember that it comes from a friend who respects you greatly. Oh, if it but gives you pleasure, my wishes will be completely fulfilled. Let it be a reminder of the time when I spent so many and such blessed hours at your home. Perhaps it will keep me in your recollection until I eventually return to you, which, it is true, is not likely to be soon. But how we shall rejoice then, my dear friend—you will then find in your friend a happier man, from whose visage time and a kindlier fate shall have smoothed out all the furrows of a hateful past.
If you should chance to see B. Koch, please say to her that it is not nice of her never once to have written to me. I wrote to her twice and three times to Malchus, but no answer. Say to her that if she doesn’t want to write she might at least urge Malchus to do so. In conclusion I venture a request; it is this: I should like once again to be so happy as to own a waistcoat knit of hare’s wool by your hands, my dear friend. Pardon the immodest request, my dear friend, but it proceeds from a great predilection for everything that comes from your hands. Privately I may also acknowledge that a little vanity is also involved in the request; I want to be able to say that I have something that was given me by the best and most estimable girl in Bonn. I still have the waistcoat which you were good enough to give me in Bonn, but it has grown so out of fashion that I can only treasure it in my wardrobe as something very precious because it came from you. You would give me much pleasure if you were soon to rejoice me with a dear letter from yourself. If my letters should in any way please you I promise in this to be at your command so far as lies in my power, as everything is welcome to me which enables me to show how truly I am
Your admiring,
true friend
L. v. Beethoven.
P.S. The V. [variations] you will find a little difficult to play, especially the trills in the coda; but don’t let that alarm you. It is so contrived that you need play only the trill, leaving out the other notes because they are also in the violin part. I never would have composed a thing of the kind had I not often observed that here and there in Vienna there was somebody who, after I had improvised of an evening, noted down many of my peculiarities, and made parade of them next day as his own. Foreseeing that some of these things would soon appear in print, I resolved to anticipate them. Another reason that I had was to embarrass the local pianoforte masters. Many of them are my deadly enemies and I wanted to revenge myself on them, knowing that once in a while somebody would ask them to play the variations and they would make a sorry show with them.
Except Beethoven’s memorandum, “Schuppanzigh 3 times each W.; Albrechtsberger 3 times each W.”, which indicates his change of instructors, there is nothing to be recorded until, probably in May or June (1794), we come to the fragment of another letter to Eleonore von Breuning also contained in Wegeler’s “Notizen” (p. 60), which has particular interest both as showing how bitterly his conscience reproached him for acts inconsistent with the forbearance and command of temper due to friendship, but in which he ever remained too apt to indulge, and as adding some implied confirmation of the argument previously made in relation to the compositions of the Bonn period. In this letter he acknowledges receipt of a cravat embroidered by Eleonore and protests that thoughts of her generosity and his unworthiness had brought him to tears. He continues: “Do pray believe me that little as I have deserved it, my friend (let me always call you such), I have suffered much and still suffer from the loss of your friendship.... As a slight return for your kind recollection of me I take the liberty of sending these Variations and the Rondo with violin (accompaniment). I have a great deal to do or I should have transcribed the Sonata I promised you long ago. It is a mere sketch in manuscript, and to copy it would be a difficult, etc.” The letter is signed: “The friend who still reveres you, Beethowen” (sic).[70]
In January, 1794, Elector Max had paid a short visit to Vienna, where, perhaps, it was determined that Beethoven should remain “without salary until recalled.” After the declaration of war by the Empire against France, the electorate, as a German state, could no longer remain neutral; and thus it came to pass that in October the victorious French army marched into Bonn. The Elector fled to Frankfort-on-the-Main, November 6th, thence to Münster, while his court and all such as were obnoxious to the republican authorities dispersed in all directions for safety.
One of these fugitives, a young man of twenty-nine years but already the Rector of the University, to “save his head” hastened away to Vienna—Dr. Wegeler. He reached that capital in October and found Beethoven not in the “room on the ground floor” where “it was not necessary to pay the housekeeper more than 7 florins,” but living as a guest in the family of Prince Karl Lichnowsky; and this explains sufficiently the cessation of those records of monthly payments before noticed.