Appointment of a Joint Guardianship
Bach seems to have advised Beethoven to visit two of the judges, Winter and Schmerling, and himself had an interview with the boy, who told his uncle what the advocate had questioned him about. For the nonce Karl was on his good behavior. Blöchlinger reported favorably on his studies to Bernard, and in a Conversation Book the boy apologized to his uncle for some statements derogatory to him which he had made to the Magistrates. “She promised me so many things,” he said, “that I could not resist her; I am sorry that I was so weak at the time and beg your forgiveness; I will not again permit myself to be led astray. I did not know what results might follow when I told the Magistrates what I did; but if there is another examination I will retract all the falsehoods I uttered.” The magisterial commission which followed on March 29, had plainly been held at the instance of the Appellate Court. Beethoven was solemnly admonished, and in answer to questions declared: (1) that he still demanded the guardianship of his nephew under the will and would not relinquish his claim; (2) that he requested the appointment of Councillor Peters as associate guardian; (3) that he demanded that Madame van Beethoven be excluded from the guardianship as she had been by the Landrecht, and (4) he reiterated his readiness to provide financially for the care of his ward; he would accept an associate guardian, but not a sole guardian, as he was convinced that no guardian would care for his nephew as well as he. In insisting on a renewed declaration on these points it is likely that the Court of Appeals had some hope that Beethoven might voluntarily renounce or modify his claims or the Magistrates recede from their attitude. Neither contingency occurred, however, and on April 8 the reviewing court issued its decree in Beethoven’s favor, he and Peters being appointed joint guardians (gemeinschaftliche Vormünde), the mother and Nussböck being deposed. The widow now played her last card:—she appealed to the Emperor, who upheld the Court of Appeals. There was nothing for the Magistracy to do except to notify the result of the appeals to Beethoven, Madame van Beethoven, Peters and Nussböck. This was done on July 24.
Beethoven had won at last. But at what a cost to himself, his art, the world! What time, what labor, what energy had he not taken away from his artistic creations! What had he not expended in the way of peace of mind, of friendship, of physical comfort, of wear of brain and nerve-force, for the privilege of keeping the boy to himself, of watching unmolested over his physical welfare and directing his intellectual and moral training unhindered! Surely such sacrifices, inspired, as we know they were, by a transcendent sense of duty and profoundest love, merited the rich reward of which he had dreamed—the devotion of one who ought to have been all that a son could be, the happiness of seeing the object of his love grow into a brilliant man and a useful citizen. Was it vouchsafed him? Let us not in the midst of his present happiness look too far into the future. Now his joy is unbounded. He breaks into a jubilation when, in conveying the news to Pinterics—that Pinterics who had sung the bass in “Ta, ta, ta,” in honor of Mälzel: “Dr. Bach was my representative in this affair and this Brook (Bach) was joined by the sea, lightning, thunder, a tempest, and the magisterial brigantine suffered complete shipwreck!” Schindler says that “his happiness over the triumph which he had won over wickedness and trickery, but also because of the supposed salvation from physical danger of his talented nephew, was so great that he worked but little or not at all all summer—though this was perhaps more apparent than real, the sketchbooks disclosing from now on only empty pages.” A wise qualification, for though the sketchbooks may have been empty, there is evidence enough elsewhere of hard work. Yet the Mass was not finished, and for this unfortunate circumstance the guardianship trial was no doubt largely to blame. To this subject we shall return presently.
Of Peters, who was appointed joint guardian with Beethoven of the nephew, little is known beyond what we learn from Beethoven and Peters’s contributions to the Conversation Books. He was a tutor in the house of Prince Lobkowitz and had been on terms of friendship with Beethoven since 1816; his appointment by the court is a confirmation of Beethoven’s tribute to him as a man of intellectual parts and of good moral character. His wife had a good voice and was a great admirer of Beethoven, who presented her with a copy of the song cycle “An die ferne Geliebte.” A letter, once in the possession of John Ella in London, which may be of earlier date than 1821, to which year it is, however, most naturally assigned in view of the allusion to the “state burden” (the nephew), runs as follows:
How are you? Are you well or ill? How is your wife? Permit me to sing something for you:
Canon (Lively)
Saint Peter was a rock! St.
Canon (Drawn out and dragged)
Bernardus was a Saint? Ber-