To-day a cadet returned to his batallion who had been in Vienna on a furlough; and he reports having heard that you had been saved by an ice and are feeling well. I hope the report is true, no matter what the means may have been... Write me very soon about the state of your health ... I kiss you. Your loving son Charles.
Here Karl van Beethoven practically disappears from this history. He never saw his uncle in life again, nor even in death, for he was not present at the funeral—as indeed in those days of tardy communication and slow conveyance he could not be.
Scenes in the Composer’s Sick-room
Notwithstanding that they do not make a complete record, since the slate was also, and indeed largely, used by Beethoven’s visitors, and despite the fact that they have not been left intact, but bear evidences of mutilation and falsification, the Conversation Books furnish a more vivid and also a more pathetic picture of Beethoven’s sick-room than the writings of Schindler and Gerhard von Breuning. Busy about the couch of the patient we see his brother Johann and his nephew Karl, besides Schindler, Holz and Stephan von Breuning. The visits of the last are interrupted by illness and his official labors, but his son, the lad Gerhard, frequently lends a gracious touch to the scene by his familiar mode of address, his gossip about his father’s domestic affairs and his suggestions of intellectual pabulum for his august friend. He is a daily message-bearer between the two households. Even at a sacrifice of space it is necessary to recount a few incidents of small intrinsic interest in order that some errors in history may be rectified. Notwithstanding Schindler’s obvious efforts to have the contrary appear, Holz continues to be faithful in attendance, though his visits are not so numerous as they were during the weeks of Beethoven’s great trial in the summer. The reason was obvious and certainly not to his discredit, though Schindler attempted to belittle it. Holz took unto himself a wife about the time that Beethoven returned to Vienna. Thitherto he had been able to devote a large portion of the time not given to official duties to his friend. Now, this was no longer possible; nor was it necessary after Dr. Wawruch had assumed care of the case. Beethoven’s brother also returned to Vienna and Schindler found his way back to the composer’s side within a fortnight. It is Holz, however, who looks after the correction and publication of the last compositions, and collects his annuity; and if it were necessary, his apologists might find evidence of Beethoven’s confidence in his friendship and integrity in the fact that there is no indication that he ever questioned his honesty in money matters, while there is proof in Schindler’s own handwriting that Beethoven thought him capable of theft. It is pitiful that while Schindler is sacrificing himself in almost menial labors, Beethoven forces him to a pained protestation that he had returned the balance of a sum placed in his hands wherewith to make purchases. Schindler himself records the fact of Beethoven’s suspicion with sorrow. A livelier sense of gratitude took possession of the sufferer later and found expression in gifts of autograph scores (of the Ninth Symphony, for instance, now in the Royal Library[166] at Berlin), and a promise, which he was unable to fulfill, to take part in a concert for Schindler’s benefit.
Whether Schindler was always as scrupulously honest in his attitude towards the public as he was in his dealings with Beethoven may be doubted. There are mutilations, interlineations and erasures in the Conversation Books which it is difficult to believe were not made for the purpose of bolstering up mistaken statements in his biography, which had already been published when the documents passed out of his hands into the possession of the Royal Library. Here is a case in point: Schuppanzigh has called and reported that one of Beethoven’s quartets had been enthusiastically received by the public at a performance on the preceding Sunday (December 10, 1826). To what seems to have been an oral comment, Beethovens adds the words and music of the motto from the Quartet in F: “Muss es sein? Es muss sein.” This moves Schuppanzigh to say: “But does he”—(Beethoven, of course, whom Schuppanzigh addresses in the third person as usual)—“does he know that the dirty fellow has become my enemy on that account?” Here we have an unmistakable allusion to the anecdote about Dembscher and the origin of the Canon on the theme of the finale of the F major Quartet. A few pages later Schindler is the writer and has just brought the news of the arrival of the ring presented to Beethoven by the King of Prussia. He had been asked to carry the ring to Beethoven, but had been unwilling to accept it unless he could give Beethoven’s receipt for it in exchange. He adds the words “Es muss sein” as if in answer to a question by Beethoven. Now appear squeezed in between the music and the edge of the sheet the words: “The Old Woman (Die Alte) is again in need of her weekly allowance.” The handwriting is plainly of a different date and at the time of the conversation the “Old Woman” was not in Beethoven’s employ.[167] It is not easy to acquit Schindler of a sinister motive here nor to avoid the suspicion that it was his hand which made an attempt to obliterate the entry on December 5, which proves that Holz sent for Dr. Wawruch on that date and thus gives the lie to the infamous story about Karl and the billiard marqueur. The evidences of Schindler’s eagerness to encourage Beethoven’s detestation of his brother and his suspicion of his nephew are too numerous to be overlooked, and some of them may call for mention later.
An offer by Gerhard von Breuning to bring one of his school-books containing pictures of classic antiquities is an evidence of the lad’s familiarity with Beethoven’s literary tastes. It was Brother Johann, however, who suggested the novels of Sir Walter Scott for his entertainment, and the impression conveyed by the story that after beginning “Kenilworth” Beethoven threw the volume down with the angry remark: “To the devil with the scribbling! The fellow writes only for money,” that the composer would have no more of the novelist, is rudely disturbed by evidence that Beethoven read all of Scott’s works which were to be found in translation in the circulating library. Beethoven later himself calls for Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”; and his interest in international politics is so keen that he is not content with an abstract of Channing’s great speech of December 12, 1826, but expresses a desire to read a full report.
Dissatisfied with His Physician
While Beethoven’s friends are discussing with Dr. Wawruch the necessity of a second tapping, and Karl is packing his boxes for Iglau, the year 1826 ends. The surgeon Seibert seems to have advised a postponement of the operation. In a conversation on January 6, 1827, Schindler says to Beethoven: “Then Hr. Seibert was really right in still postponing the second operation, for it will probably make a third unnecessary.” There are now signs of Beethoven’s dissatisfaction with the attending physician. Gerhard von Breuning has much to say on the point in his little book, and Schindler joins in the criticism many years after Beethoven’s death; but in the Conversation Books he appears more than once as Wawruch’s defender. From von Breuning we learn that while at a later date Malfatti’s coming was awaited with eagerness and hailed with unfeigned gladness, Wawruch’s visits were ungraciously received, Beethoven sometimes turning his face to the wall and exclaiming “Oh! the ass!” when he heard his name announced. But in the first week of January, Schindler is still concerned in keeping up the patient’s faith in the skill of his physician. In a Conversation Book he writes shortly after the remark about the surgeon:
He understands his profession, that is notorious, and he is right in following a safe course.—I have a great deal of confidence in him, but I can not speak from experience.—However, he is known as an able man and is esteemed by his students. But as we are here concerned with a carum caput my advice from the beginning has been always to take into consultation a physician who is familiar with your constitution from medical treatment; such an one generally adopts very different measures.
Evidently, Beethoven renews his expression of distrust. Schindler continues: