Dear Ries: Since Breuning did not scruple by his conduct to present my character to you and the landlord as that of a miserable, beggarly, contemptible fellow I single you out first to give my answer to Breuning by word of mouth. Only to the one and first point of his letter which I answer only in order to vindicate my character in your eyes. Say to him, then, that it never occurred to me to reproach him because of the tardiness of the notice, and that, if Breuning was really to blame for it, my desire to live amicably with all the world is much too precious and dear to me that I should give pain to one of my friends for a few hundreds and more. You know yourself that altogether jocularly I accused you of being to blame that the notice did not arrive on time. I am sure that you will remember this; I had forgotten all about the matter. Now my brother began at the table and said that he believed it was Breuning’s fault; I denied it at once and said that you were to blame. It appears to me that was plain enough to show that I did not hold him to blame. Thereupon Breuning jumped up like a madman and said he would call up the landlord. This conduct in the presence of all the persons with whom I associate made me lose my self-control; I also jumped up, upset my chair, went away and did not return. This behavior induced Breuning to put me in such a light before you and the house-steward, and to write me a letter also which I have answered only with silence. I have nothing more to say to Breuning. His mode of thought and action in regard to me proves that there never ought to have been a friendly relationship between him and me and such certainly will not exist in the future. I have told you all this because your statements degraded all my habits of thinking and acting. I know that if you had known the facts you would certainly not have made them, and this satisfies me.
Now I beg of you, dear Ries! immediately on receipt of this letter go to my brother, the apothecary, and tell him that I shall leave Baden in a few days and that he must engage the lodgings in Döbling immediately you have informed him. I was near to coming to-day; I am tired of being here, it revolts me. Urge him for heaven’s sake to rent the lodgings at once because I want to get into them immediately. Tell it to him and do not show him any part of what is written on the other page; I want to show him from all possible points of view that I am not so small-minded as he and wrote to him only after this (Breuning’s) letter, although my resolution to end our friendship is and will remain firm.
Your friend
Beethoven.
Not long thereafter there followed a second letter, which Ries gives as follows:
Baden, July 14, 1804.
If you, dear Ries, are able to find better quarters I shall be glad. I want them on a large quiet square or on the ramparts.... I will take care to be at the rehearsal on Wednesday. It is not pleasant to me that it is at Schuppanzigh’s. He ought to be grateful if my humiliations make him thinner. Farewell, dear Ries! We are having bad weather here and I am not safe from people; I must flee in order to be alone.
End of a Friendship Threatened
From a third letter, dated “Baden, July 24, 1804,” Ries prints the following excerpt:
... No doubt you were surprised at the Breuning affair; believe me, dear (friend), my eruption was only the outburst consequent on many unpleasant encounters between us before. I have the talent in many cases to conceal my sensitiveness and repress it; but if I am irritated at a time when I am more susceptible than usual to anger, I burst out more violently than anybody else. Breuning certainly has excellent qualities, but he thinks he is free from all faults and his greatest ones are those which he thinks he sees in others. He has a spirit of pettiness which I have despised since childhood. My judgment almost predicted the course which affairs would take with Breuning, since our modes of thinking, acting and feeling are so different, but I thought these difficulties might also be overcome;—experience has refuted me. And now, no more friendship! I have found only two friends in the world with whom I have never had a misunderstanding, but what men! One is dead, the other still lives. Although we have not heard from each other in nearly six years I know that I occupy the first place in his heart as he does in mine. The foundation of friendship demands the greatest similarity between the hearts and souls of men. I ask no more than that you read the letter which I wrote to Breuning and his letter to me. No, he shall never again hold the place in my heart which once he occupied. He who can think a friend capable of such base thoughts and be guilty of such base conduct towards him is not worth my friendship.