Know'st thou the crag, and all its cloudy grey,
Where scarce the muleteer may grope the way?
In caverns lurk the dragon's ancient brood,
Sheer falls the rock, and over it the flood.
Know'st thou it well? the way we know—
O there, O there, my father, let us go!"
Göethe—Wilhelm Meister.
The composer at last turned homeward once more, and on arrival at his rooms, without a word of preparation, took young Neate by the shoulders and placed him upon the three-legged chair before the pianoforte. The chair promptly broke; but, nothing disconcerted, the master replaced it with another almost equally crippled, and bade the young man play.
It may be imagined with what diffidence, what nervousness, and what sinking of heart, the Englishman essayed the Sonata Pathétique. He paused, breathless, at the conclusion, and awaited the verdict with anxiety.
"My son," said Beethoven, clapping him on the shoulder, "you will have to play a very long time before you discover that you know nothing. But cheer up! for the young there are infinities of hope." And he proceeded, with inconceivably kind care and patience, to give the youth such teaching as he had never imagined possible. That 'bitter, sarcastic' tongue of which folk complained, that irritable temper which often alarmed the master's young lady pupils—were now conspicuously absent. For he had a peculiar sympathy with young people at the outset of their career; and no trouble was too great for him to take on their behalf.
When at length, with cordial words of encouragement, he dismissed the Englishman, Beethoven for a moment was tempted to look back upon his own early days; when, always working very hard, either as a performer or a teacher, surrounded by unloving relations and uncongenial circumstances, he struggled upward, ever upward, impelled by some irresistible wind of destiny. Then he dwelt, involuntarily, upon the gathering clouds of his manhood—the secret dread of his encroaching deafness—the hidden sorrows of unrequited love.
"Such things," he thought, "have often brought me to the border of despair, and I have come very near to putting an end to my own life.... Yet it seemed impossible to quit this world for ever before I had done all that I felt I was destined to accomplish ... and how much of that is still before me! Ah! hard struggle to accomplish all which remains to be done, from the daily drudgery of necessity-work to the farthest journey, the highest flight! ... All this must be hewn out of thyself ... for thyself there is no further happiness than that which thou findest in thyself—thy art!" (Beethoven's Diary).
But now, with the coming of the evening hours, the composer might relax the tension of his thoughts, and find pleasure, so far as his infirmity allowed, in the society of his friends, and in talking over the newspapers. He was a well-read man, and took an eager interest in all the passing events of the day; moreover, when not in his 'serious working humour', he was a humorous, cheerful companion, full of fun and not averse from practical joking; a very different man from that 'savage personality, at loggerheads with mankind,' which he had appeared to the unsympathetic Goethe. For 'friends,' however, we had better substitute 'acquaintances'; because Beethoven declared: "I have only found two friends in the world with whom I have never had a misunderstanding. One is dead; the other still lives. Although we have heard nothing of each other for six years, I know that I still hold the place in his affections that he holds in mine."
A decided irascibility and uncertainty of temper, common to all deaf people, was apt to create rifts and coolnesses between Beethoven and those with whom he might be closely intimate. His whole warmth and abundance of affection was squandered upon his nephew Carl, the worthless son of a worthless father; an affection by no means reciprocated, which was fated only to cause fresh pangs to his much-enduring heart.
But, be that as it may, the Viennese were proud of their Beethoven—proud to be numbered among his associates. They bore him a species of personal attachment. He was part and parcel of themselves; though he moved in their midst, doubly remote from them, alike by his affliction and by his open distaste for 'the dissipations of a great and voluptuous city.' He would sit apart at a table, brooding over a long pipe and a glass of lager, his eyes half-closed; but if anyone spoke to him, or rather attempted to do so, he would always reply with ready courtesy and kindness. For, as he had written from the very depths of his heart:—
"O ye who think or say that I am rancorous, obstinate or misanthropical, what an injustice you do me! You little know the hidden cause of my appearing so. From childhood my heart and mind have been devoted to benevolent feelings, and to the thoughts of great deeds to be achieved in the future.... Born with an ardent, lively temperament, fond of social pleasures, I was early compelled to withdraw myself, and live a life of isolation from all men. At times, when I made an effort to overcome the difficulty, oh, how cruelly was I frustrated by the doubly painful experience of my defective hearing! ... Forgive me, then, if you see me turn away when I would gladly mix with you. Doubly painful is my misfortune, seeing that it is the cause of my being misunderstood. For me there can be no recreation in human intercourse, no conversation, no exchange of thoughts with my fellow-men. In solitary exile I am compelled to live."