The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume III

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

Chapter X

The Last Days in Gneixendorf—A Brother’s Warning—Beethoven and his Kinspeople—The Fateful Journey to Vienna—Sickness—Schindler’s Disingenuousness—Conduct of the Physicians—Death and Burial.

The Conversation Books add nothing to the picturesque side of the account of Beethoven’s sojourn in Gneixendorf as it has been drawn from other sources. They indicate that there were some days of peace and tranquility, and that not only Johann, but his wife and nephew also, were concerned with making the composer comfortable and providing him with such diversion as place and opportunity afforded. At the outset Beethoven seems to have been in a conciliatory mood even towards the woman whom he so heartily despised; and her willingness to please him is obvious. She talks with him about various things, praises Karl’s musical skill, which the nephew demonstrates by playing four-hand marches with his great uncle. She discusses his food with him, and if he ever was suspicious of the honesty in money matters of herself and her family, he hides his distrust and permits her brother, the baker, to collect money for him in Vienna, and the woman to go thither to fetch it. There are frequent walks into the country round about and drives to neighboring villages, and it would seem from one of Karl’s speeches that sometimes argument and warning were necessary to dissuade Beethoven from undertaking promenades in inclement weather. Characteristic of the suspicious nature which his dreadful malady had developed in him to an abnormal degree, and confirmatory also of Michael Krenn’s remark that he was always called upon to give an account of the conversations at table, is the evidence that the wife, Karl and even a woman boarder are questioned as to the goings-out and comings-in of the inmates of the house. Before the departure from Gneixendorf, Karl begins to chafe under his uncle’s discipline. Johann is occupied with the affairs of the estate and Karl does errands for him as well as his greater uncle in Krems, whither he is willing to journey on foot as often as necessary, perhaps oftener, for there are soldiers stationed at the village, there is a theatre, English circus riders give an exhibition (to which Karl offers to accompany the composer) and, what is perhaps more to the young man’s liking, there is a billiard-room. Of this fact, however, we are informed later by a remark recorded in the Conversation Books by Johann after the return to Vienna. The old suspicions touching the reasons for Karl’s absence from Wasserhof again arise to plague Beethoven’s mind, nor are they dissipated by Madame van Beethoven’s repeated assurances that he will return soon. It is plain that the young man is taken to task, not only for these absences, but also for what his uncle looked upon as moody and defiant silences when suffering rebuke. Thus we read:

You ask me why I do not talk. Because I have enough. Yours is the right to command; I must endure everything.... I can give no answer as to what you say; the best I can do is to hear and remain silent, as is my duty.

At a later period, when Beethoven has apparently upbraided the young man for his unwillingness to return to Vienna, Karl retorts:

If you want to go, good; if not, good again. But I beg of you once more not to torment me as you are doing; you might regret it, for I can endure much, but not too much. You treated your brother in the same way to-day without cause. You must remember that other people are also human beings.—These everlastingly unjust reproaches!—Why do you make such a disturbance? Will you let me go out a bit to-day? I need recreation. I’ll come again later.—I only want to go to my room.—I am not going out, I want only to be alone for a little while.—Will you not let me go to my room?

A Return to Vienna Precipitated

Karl was a young man of nearly twenty years; thriftless, no doubt; indolent, no doubt; fond of his ease and addicted to idle pleasures, no doubt—but still a man; and no matter how much he ought to have been willing to sacrifice himself to make his uncle happy, it is a question if there was any way in the world to that sure and permanent result. He was not wise enough, nor self-sacrificing enough, to do that which not a single one of the composer’s maturer friends, not even Stephan von Breuning, had been able to do. Once in the Books he shows a disposition to resort to the wheedling tactics which had been frequently successful in earlier years, and urges as a reason for tarrying longer in Gneixendorf that it will make possible their longer companionship. He is pleading for a week’s longer stay: Breuning had said that he should not present himself to the Fieldmarshal until no evidences of the recent “incident” were longer visible; in a week more the scar would not be noticeable, nor would a stay be necessary had he provided himself with pomade; then he remarks: “The longer we are here the longer we shall be together; for when we are in Vienna I shall, of course, have to go away soon.” It was after this speech that he made the remark already referred to about the cheapness of fire-wood. Karl had plainly grown more than content with his life in Gneixendorf and there is evidence to show that Beethoven had begun to fear that he was wavering in his determination to enter the army. Some drastic measure or occurrence was necessary to change the native irresolution of Beethoven’s mind. Schindler, in his desire to paint all the Beethovens, with the exception of the composer, with the blackest pigments on his imaginative palette, does not scruple to accuse Karl of undue intimacy with his aunt and offers this as a reason for the departure. To this no reference can be found in the pages of the Conversation Books, unless it be a remark which preceded Karl’s outburst, last recorded. Here he tells his uncle that all his “talk about intrigues needs no refutation.” The reference is vague and it is extremely unlikely that the intrigues meant were those involved in the vile insinuation of Schindler, for a reason which will be made apparent presently. The house at Gneixendorf was not fitted for tenancy in winter; the weather was growing boisterous; Madame van Beethoven had left the men to their own devices and gone to her town-house. This, apparently, was the state of affairs when Johann handed a letter to his brother which could have no other result than to bring about a decision to go back to Vienna at the earliest possible moment, and to carry with him a heart full of bitterness which could only be intensified by the sufferings which attended upon his journey. The letter bears no date, but an allusion to the fact that von Breuning had allowed Karl a fortnight for recuperation and he had already been two months at Gneixendorf, is proof that it was written near the end of November. That the brothers discussed it and cognate matters while it was in their hands is evidenced by the fact that it contains on its back the words in Johann’s writing: “Let us leave this until the day you go.—An old woman.—She has her share and will get no more.” The letter was as follows:

My dear Brother: