"7th July.
"Good morning!
"Even before I rise my thoughts throng to thee, my immortal beloved, at times with joy, then again mournfully, waiting to hear if fate be favourable to us. I can only live entirely with thee, or not at all. Yes! I am resolved to wander apart from thee until the moment shall arrive when I may fly into thine arms, may feel my home in thee, and send my soul encompassed by thine into the world of spirits. Yes, alas! it must be so! Thou wilt be prepared, for thou knowest my faithfulness. Never can another possess my heart; never, never. Oh God! why must I fly from what is so dear to me?—and yet my life in V—— is, as at present, a sorrowful one. Thy love made me at once the happiest and the most miserable of men. At my age I require a uniformity, an evenness of life; and can this be possible in our relations?—Angel! I have just heard that the post goes out every day; and must stop that thou mayest receive this letter soon.—Be calm; only by calmly viewing our existence can we attain our aim of passing our lives together. Be calm; love me—to-day—yesterday—what longing, what tears for thee—for thee—for thee—my Life! my All! Farewell! Oh! continue to love me—never misjudge the faithful heart of thy lover. L.
"Ever thine,
"Ever mine,
"Ever each other's."
It was indeed the case that no other love ever did "possess his heart" in the same way. This was, if not his first, at least his only real love. Such letters as these Beethoven wrote to no one else; the contrast between them and the three following (addressed to Bettina Brentano, afterwards Madame von Arnim) will be at once apparent:—
"Vienna, August 11, 1810.
"Dearest Friend,—Never has there been a more beautiful spring than this year; I say so, and feel it too, because in it I first made your acquaintance. You have yourself seen that in society I am like a fish on the sand, which writhes, and writhes, and cannot get off until some benevolent Galatea throws it back into the mighty ocean. I was, indeed, quite out of my element, dearest friend, and was surprised by you at a time when discouragement had completely mastered me—but how quickly it vanished at your glance! I knew at once that you must be from some other sphere than this absurd world, in which, with the best will, one cannot open one's ears. I am a miserable being, and yet I complain of others!!—But you will forgive me for this with that good heart which looks out of your eyes, and that intelligence which is hidden in your ears,—at least they know how to flatter by the way in which they listen.
"My ears are, alas! a partition wall through which I cannot easily have any friendly intercourse with men. Otherwise!—perhaps!—I should have felt more assured with you; but I could only understand the full, intelligent glance of your eyes, which has so taken hold of me, that I shall never forget it. Dear friend, dearest girl!—Art! who understands her? with whom can I discuss this great goddess?... How dear to me are the few days in which we chatted together, or, I should say, rather corresponded! I have preserved all the little notes with your witty, charming, most charming answers, and so I have to thank my defective hearing that the best part of those hasty conversations is written down. Since you left I have had vexatious hours—hours of shadow in which I can do nothing. I wandered in the Schönbrunn Allée for about three hours after you left, but no angel met me who could have taken possession of me as you did, my Angel.
"Pardon, dearest friend, this deviation from the original key, but such intervals I must have as a relief to my heart. So you have written about me to Goethe, have you not? I could bury my head in a sack, so that I might not hear or see anything of all that is going on in the world, because I shall not meet you again, dearest angel, but I shall receive a letter from you soon. Hope sustains me, as she does half the world; through all my life she has been my companion. What would otherwise have become of me?—I send you 'Kennst du das Land,' written with my own hand, as a remembrance of the hour in which I first knew you. I send you also another, which I have composed since I took leave of you; my dearest Herz!"