148.
TO HERR KAUKA.
Vienna, April 8, 1815.
It seems scarcely admissible to be on the friendly terms on which I consider myself with you, and yet to be on such unfriendly ones that we should live close to each other and never meet!!!!![1] You write "tout à vous." Oh! you humbug! said I. No! no! it is really too bad. I should like to thank you 9000 times for all your efforts on my behalf, and to reproach you 20,000 that you came and went as you did. So all is a delusion! friendship, kingdom, empire; all is only a vapor which every breeze wafts into a different form!! Perhaps I may go to Töplitz, but it is not certain. I might take advantage of that opportunity to let the people of Prague hear something--what think you? if indeed you still think of me at all! As the affair with Lobkowitz is now also come to a close, we may write Finis, though it far from fine is for me.
Baron Pasqualati will no doubt soon call on you again; he also has taken much trouble on my account. Yes, indeed! it is easy to talk of justice, but to obtain it from others is no easy matter. In what way can I be of service to you in my own art? Say whether you prefer my celebrating the monologue of a fugitive king, or the perjury of a usurper--or the true friends, who, though near neighbors, never saw each other? In the hope of soon hearing from you--for being now so far asunder it is easier to hold intercourse than when nearer!--I remain, with highest esteem,
Your ever-devoted friend,
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.
[Footnote 1: Kauka evidently had been recently in Vienna without visiting Beethoven.]
149.
TO HERR KAUKA.
1815.
MY DEAR AND WORTHY K.,--
I have just received from the Syndic Baier in R. the good news that you told him yourself about Prince F.K. As for the rest, you shall be perfectly satisfied.