Beethoven, a character study; together with Wagner's indebtedness to Beethoven

by George Alexander Fischer

THE DAY'S TRIALS

Those who are furthest removed from us really believe that we are constituted just like themselves, for they understand exactly so much of us as we have in common with them, but they do not know how little, how infinitesimally little this is.

—Wagner: Letter to Liszt.

eethoven was in no sense a hero to his servants. In their eyes he was not the great artist, whose achievement was to go ringing down the ages; he was simply a crank or madman, who did not know his own mind half the time, from whom abuse was as likely to be predicated as gratuities, who could be ridiculed, neglected, circumvented with impunity. When the dereliction became glaring enough to arrest his attention, he would deliver himself of a volley of abuse which sometimes had to be made good by presents of money. At other times, he desired nothing so much as to be left alone.

That he found the world a more difficult problem than ever in these later years, goes without saying. "Have you been patient with every one to-day?" he asks himself in one of the note-books of this period, indicating the dawn of a perception that fate is too much for him, that it can be defied no longer, but rather must be propitiated. Had he answered his question, it would no doubt have been in the negative; but this attitude, so new to him, is significant. It comes up also in his letters to Zmeskall, in which he speaks of his patience in enduring the insolence of a butler, who had been sent him by Zmeskall.

Complaints about servants appear frequently in his correspondence. Peppe, the "elephant-footed," and Nanny, who seems to have had a particular faculty for making trouble, are specially in evidence. "I have endured much from N. (Nanny) to-day," he writes in a letter to his good friend Madame Streicher, who was very helpful to him in his domestic matters. On one occasion, when her conduct became unbearable, he threw books at her head. Strangely, this method of disciplining the refractory Nanny produced better results than could have been expected. He reports soon after to Madame Streicher, "Miss Nanny is a changed creature since I threw the half dozen books at her head. Possibly, by chance some of their contents may have entered her brain, or her bad heart. At all events we now have a repentant deceiver."

In another letter of this time he writes to the same lady, "Yesterday morning the devilry began again, but I made short work of it, and threw the heavy settle at B (another servant), after which we had peace for the remainder of the day." "Come Friday or Sunday," he writes Holz. "Better come on Friday, as Satanas in the kitchen is more endurable on that day." This advice to come on Friday when purposing to dine with him, is repeated in a subsequent letter to Holz. "If I could but rid myself of these canaille," he writes to another person, when complaining of the hostility and insolence of his servants.

That his own mode of life helped largely to bring about this state of things, did not make it any easier to bear. As stated, system was out of the question in this household. There was no regular time for meals, often no meals were thought of by the master while occupied with his work. When hungry, if nothing were forthcoming at home, he sought a restaurant. Careless in general as regards his food, abstemious to a degree in this respect, he was particular only on one matter, his coffee. He delighted in making it himself, often counting the beans that were required for each cup.

"My house resembles very much a shipwreck" is a remark attributed to him by Nohl. Even under favoring conditions, discipline was not to be expected, but matters were further complicated by Karl's mother, who made a practice of bribing the servants to get information about the young man. There is no doubt her influence tended to increase the discomfort and disorder that would have existed in any event. "Some devils of people have again played me such a trick that it is almost impossible for me to mix with human beings any more," he said in a letter to Madame Streicher, which remark Mr. Kalischer (Neue Beethovenbriefe, Berlin, 1902), attributes to intrigues against him by his sister-in-law.