A great misfortune has happened to Karl accidentally by his own hand. I hope that he can yet be saved, especially by you if you come quickly. Karl has a bullet in his head, how, you shall learn—only quick, for God’s sake, quick!
In order to save time it was necessary to take him to his mother’s, where he now is—the address follows.
Holz took this letter for delivery but before he left the place a surgeon named Dögl had been called in. Smetana said that Dögl was a capable practitioner and that in order not to compromise him he would not come unless Dögl desired to see him in consultation. Karl expressed himself as satisfied and the case was left for the time being in Dögl’s hands. Beethoven went home, but Holz remained some time longer. The matter had to be reported to the police and Holz thought it best to do this himself, as he wanted to be able to inform Beethoven what the consequences of the young man’s act were likely to be in case of his recovery. He learned, and so reported, that there would be a severe reprimand and thereafter police surveillance. He told Beethoven that, after he had left him, Karl had said, “If he would only not show himself again!” and “If he would only quit his reproaches!” He had also threatened to tear the bandage from the wound if another word was spoken to him about his uncle.
On August 7th, the day being a Monday,[161] the wounded youth, who by his act was fallen into the hands of the law, was removed from his mother’s house to the general hospital by the police authorities. The deed was committed on a Sunday, as appears from parts of the conversations which took place between Holz and Beethoven after the fact was known. Holz says: “He left me yesterday, went straight into the city, bought the pistols and drove to Baden”; and later: “He sold his watch on Saturday and with the proceeds bought two new pistols.” The obvious conclusion would seem to be that Karl shot himself on Sunday, August 6; but there is evidence pointing to an earlier date. The police authorities were not informed until somewhat late in the day. An investigation had to be made and formalities complied with before the removal to the hospital could take place. Schlemmer, in reply to a question touching Karl’s indebtedness while Beethoven and Holz were probing for a cause, said that he had been paid “for this month, but not for August,” which indicates that the inquiry was made in July. On September 11th, discussing the disposition to be made of the nephew when he should leave the hospital and trying to persuade Beethoven to grant Karl’s request that he be permitted to visit his mother, Holz says: “In my opinion one day will make no difference, inasmuch as she was with him whole days after the shooting.” There are, besides, evidences that conversations were held for several days during which he was in the care of his mother. It is therefore probable that the nephew made the attempt upon his life on Sunday, July 30. Schindler says “in August” without giving a specific date. The evidence is not entirely conclusive; but if Beethoven consented to leave the would-be suicide in the hands of his mother for an entire week it was most likely because the police authorities commanded it; he did not yield her a day after her son came out of the hospital. At first, however, Beethoven’s spirit was broken by the awful blow and he may have been more pliant than usual. Holz, reporting to Beethoven, tells of an interview at the hospital when he met the woman at her son’s bedside. “If you have anything on your mind,” she enjoined, “tell your uncle now. You see, this is the time; he is weak, and now he will surely do anything you want.” Karl replied, sullenly: “I know nothing.” “How,” Holz explains to Beethoven, “can any one find out a single trace so long as he persists in remaining silent?” And he tells his friend of the lack of “mercy” in the weeping mother for denouncing the conduct of the guardian of her son!
No doubt the blow was a crushing one to Beethoven. On the fateful Sunday, or the day after, he met the wife of Stephan von Breuning and told her the tragical story. “And is he dead?” she inquired in tender solicitude. “No,” was the answer, “it was a glancing shot; he lives and there is hope that he will be saved. But the disgrace which he has brought upon me! And I loved him so!” The occurrence was soon noised about the city and much sympathy was expressed for Beethoven, as Holz took occasion to inform him. Schindler says that the blow bowed the proud figure of the composer and he soon looked like a man of seventy. To add to his sufferings he was compelled to learn that many persons placed part of the blame for the rash act upon him. Karl was placed in the “men’s three-florin” ward, which was under the care of a Dr. Gassner. He had an assistant named Dr. Seng, who told Gerhard von Breuning long after, how Beethoven had come to visit his nephew and described him as a “dissolute fellow” and “rascal,” one “who did not deserve to be visited” and had been “spoiled by kindness.”
Reasons for the Deed
Strenuous efforts were made by Beethoven through Holz and others to discover what direct cause had led the misguided young man to attempt to end his life. The inquiries made of him at the hospital during the weeks spent there brought scarcely more information from his lips than the first question asked by his mother. Schindler seems to have been persuaded that it was his failure to pass his examinations at the Polytechnic Institute; but this theory is not tenable. Aside from the fact that he had time till September 3 to make up his neglected studies, he never himself advanced this as an excuse or explanation, but explicitly denied it. In the hospital he told Holz that it would have been easy for him to make himself fit to pass, but that, having made up his mind to do away with himself long before, he had not thought it worth while to continue his studies. “He said that he was tired of life,” Holz reports to Beethoven, “because he saw in it something different from what you wisely and righteously could approve.” He also phrased it thus: “Weariness of imprisonment.” To the examining police magistrate Karl said that his reason for shooting himself was that Beethoven “tormented him too much,” and also “I grew worse because my uncle wanted me to be better.” To Beethoven’s question if Karl had railed against him, Schlemmer replied: “He did not rail, but he complained that he always had trouble.” Holz’s explanation many years after to Otto Jahn was that Beethoven was “rigorous to excess in his treatment and would not allow him the slightest extravagance.” The chief cause, in greatest probability, was that he had hopelessly involved himself in debts by a dissolute life. Schindler told Beethoven that he not only played billiards but played with low persons, coachmen and the like; and that he did not always play honestly. There is a memorandum in a Conversation Book which discloses that Beethoven received specific reports about his conduct, and noted them for reference: “One night in the Prater.—2 nights did not sleep at home.” Beethoven stinted him the matter of pocket-money, and the scores of reckonings in the Conversation Books show how close was the watch kept upon every kreutzer placed in his hands. So he had recourse to borrowing and no doubt, though the fact does not appear plainly in the books, he went into debt at the places which he frequented for pleasure. When he shot himself he had paid his lodging bill for the month but owed his tutor. A matter which gave Beethoven great concern was the discovery that he had disposed of some of the composer’s books at an antiquary’s. This was theft, a penal offence, and Beethoven seems to have been in great trepidation lest the fact, and something more dreadful still which he did not know, be discovered by the magistrate charged with an examination into the case. Under the Austrian code an attempt at suicide seems to have been an offence against the Church and guilty persons were remanded in the care of priests who imparted religious instruction until a profession of conversion could be recorded. In the case of Karl, this medicine for the mind and soul was administered by a Redemptorist, and, the Liguorian penances being proverbially strict, Holz inspired the hope in Beethoven that Karl’s secret would be discovered by the priest. “These Liguorians are like leeches,” is one of his remarks to the composer while Karl is lying at the hospital. It is pathetic to note that Beethoven himself, willing as he was to charge his nephew with prevarication, extravagance, deception and frivolity, yet sought an explanation for the act outside of these delinquencies. In his hand appears a note in a Conversation Book: “Mental aberration and insanity; the heat, too—afflicted with headaches since childhood.”
Planning a Military Life for Karl
Immediately after Karl’s removal to the hospital Holz visited him and made a long report to Beethoven, from which it appears that there was no delay in considering plans for the future. In fact, a prompt decision was necessary, for it was the penal aspect of the case which had the greatest terrors for Beethoven. Holz says: “Here you see ingratitude as clear as the sun! Why do you want further to restrain him? Once with the military, he will be under the strictest discipline, and if you want to do anything more for him you need only make him a small allowance monthly. A soldier at once.... Do you still doubt? This is a marvellous document.” The last remark may have been called out, indeed, it seems more than probable that it was, by the letter written by the nephew on the eve of his attempt—a letter which has never been found. Holz also urges: “Resign the guardianship; this will make an impression on him.” Beethoven must now needs listen to upbraidings because of his lenient treatment of his ward: “If your good nature had not so often got the better of your firmness you would have driven him away long ago”; but Beethoven still hungers for the ingrate’s love. He asks about his feelings towards himself. Holz answers: “He said it was not hatred of you which he felt, but something entirely different”; and then he puts the question: “Did he mean fear?”