That Beethoven stood in sore need of a wife to regulate his personal habits may well be assumed. Probably there never was a lodger who was more constantly in trouble than this irritable and absent-minded genius. Wholly absorbed in his music, he never seemed to realize that thumping the piano at all hours of the day and night might prove disagreeable to his fellow boarders. Even when not playing, he would think out his great themes, and fall into a fit of abstraction that might last for hours. He would stand beating the time, or he would pace the room shouting out his melodies with full voice. As an antidote to this excitement, he would pour water over his hands at frequent intervals, regardless of the damage to the floor and the ceiling below. He was fond of taking long walks, which he would not omit in wet weather, and when he returned on rainy days the furniture was sure to suffer. He indulged in the habit of shaving at his window, to the great amusement of the people passing by, and the intense chagrin of his landladies. As a result of these traits, he was forced to make frequent changes of base, and at one time he was paying rent in four different places at once.
The following story of Beethoven's absent-mindedness is vouched for by Moscheles: "When I came in early to find Beethoven, he was still abed; but feeling wide-awake and lively, he jumped up and placed himself at the window just as he was, in order to examine the 'Fidelio' numbers which I had arranged. Naturally a crowd of boys gathered under the window, whereupon he roared out, 'Now, what do those —— boys want?' Upon my pointing to his own scantily clad figure, he said, 'Yes, yes, you are quite right,' and immediately put on a dressing-gown."
Beethoven and his servants usually had hard times getting along with each other. He was utterly careless and untidy, and the utmost confusion reigned in his room. "Books and music were scattered in all directions," says a visitor. "Here the residue of a cold luncheon; there some full, some half-emptied, bottles. On the desk the hasty sketch of a new quartette; in another corner the remains of breakfast; on the pianoforte the scribbled hints for a noble symphony, yet little more than in embryo; hard by, a proof-sheet waiting to be returned; letters from friends, and on business, spread all over the floor; between the windows a goodly Stracchino cheese; on one side of it ample vestiges of a genuine Verona salami; and notwithstanding all this confusion, he constantly praised, with Ciceronian eloquence, his own neatness and love of order!" When something did go astray, he would complain bitterly that everything was done to annoy him; but, after a few moments of raving, he recovered his natural good humour.
Though never married, Beethoven was always in love. He had several attachments during his youthful days in Bonn, though none were really serious. Meeting again in later life with one of his early flames, the gifted singer, Magdalena Willman, he begged her to become his wife, but met with a refusal. "He was very ugly and half crazy," she said afterward in excuse. Most of the objects of his later affections were women of rank and position, but in early years he fell a prey to the charms of damsels in much more humble stations. According to his pupil, Ries: "Beethoven never visited me more frequently than when I lived in the house of a tailor, with three very handsome but thoroughly respectable daughters."
At twenty, he fell in love with Babette, daughter of the proprietress of a coffee-house that he frequented. That Babette's charms impressed others may be gathered from the fact that she afterward became the Countess Belderbusch. Three years later, Eleonora von Breuning was the recipient of his devotion, and he would no doubt have found a good wife in her if she, too, had not finally married some one else. The next important figure on the list was the Countess Babette de Keglevics, afterward Princess Odeschalchi, to whom Beethoven showed his feelings in the shape of the Sonata, Opus 7. The Baroness Ertmann he addressed as "Liebe, werthe, Dorothea Cecilia," while the Countess Erdödy received the still warmer greeting of "Liebe, liebe, liebe, liebe Gräfin." All of these women, and many others, were ready to stand almost any liberty from Beethoven, and they entertained the warmest affection for him. At a later date, the Countess Erdödy erected a temple in her park to the memory of Beethoven. That his affections were changeable, if intense, was admitted by the composer himself. On being teased about his conquest of a beautiful woman, he admitted that she had interested him longer than any of the others,—namely, seven whole months.
More serious was his feeling for the lovely young Countess Giulietta Giucciardi, one of his pupils. "Life has been made a little brighter to me lately," he writes, adding later, "This change has been brought about by a dear, fascinating girl, whom I love, and who loves me. After two years, I bask again in the sunlight of happiness, and now, for the first time, I feel what a truly happy state marriage might be." But, unfortunately, she was not of his rank in life, and later on we find her, too, marrying another. Beethoven would certainly have married her if he could have done so, and his epistles to her are full of many fervid expressions of love. At his death, some letters of the most passionate description were found in his desk, and for a time it was thought they were addressed to her, but they are now ascribed to the influence of her successor.
The Countess Therese von Brunswick, who next received Beethoven's devotion, had been one of his pupils, and had once been rapped over the knuckles by him for inefficiency. Twelve years later, in 1806, pupil and teacher were actually engaged,—secretly, to be sure, but with full knowledge and consent of her brother. Yet after four years of varying conditions the match was broken off, and the composer again forced to take refuge in the lonely comfort of his art.
But he found other consolation in the charms and the companionship of Bettina von Brentano, whom he met at this time. According to his letters, she was no whit behind any of the others in being his "dearest friend," "dearest girl," and "dearest, fairest sweetheart." Soon Beethoven was to see her, too, married to another, and, if he never succeeded in taking the fatal plunge himself, he could at least have the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that all the objects of his adoration had entered safely into the holy state of matrimony.
In 1811 he met Amalia Seebald, and soon afterward inscribed in her album the sentiment:
"Ludwig von Beethoven,
Whom if you ever would,
Forget you never should."