Karl van Beethoven--A Wayward Ward and an Unwise
Guardian--Beethoven and His Nephew--An Ill-advised Foster-father
and a Graceless, Profligate Nephew--Effect on Beethoven’s
Character of the Guardianship--An Unsuccessful Attempt at
Self-destruction--Karl is Made a Soldier.
We are now to learn of the calamitous consequences of Beethoven’s
effort to be a foster-father to the son of his dead brother Kaspar. The
tale is one that has been fruitful of fiction in most of the writings
which have dealt with the life-history of the great composer; nor is
the circumstance to be wondered at. There is still some obscurity
in the story, and if there is anything in the melancholy lot of the
great man, next to his supreme affliction, calculated to challenge
the pity of the world, it is the manner in which his efforts to
attach to himself the one human being for whom he felt affection were
requited. There is no more pitiful picture in the history of great men
than that presented by his devotion to the lad in whom, for a reason
which must have seemed to him more inscrutable than his own physical
calamity, he could not inspire a spark of love or a scintilla of
gratitude. It was an unwise devotion and an ill-directed effort, but
that does not alter the case. From the beginning, all of his friends
recognized Beethoven’s unfitness for the office of guardian of his
nephew. He was incapacitated for it by his occupation, his irregular
mode of life, his lack of understanding of a child’s nature, his
irresolute mind, his infirmities of temper, and the wretchedness of
his domestic surroundings due to his ignorance of and indifference to
the things essential to the amenities and comforts of social life.
He did not assume the guardianship in a spirit of gentle obedience
to a dying brother’s request; he violently wrested it unto himself
alone in defiance of that brother’s last entreaties. There can be no
doubt but that he believed that in doing so he was performing a pious
duty toward his own flesh and blood and acting for the good of the
child and the welfare of the community. He was proud of the boy’s
intellectual gifts, which were out of the ordinary; he dreamed of
seeing him great and respected in the eyes of the world; he wanted
loving companionship now, and in his old age; he hungered for sympathy
and for help which would not keep him in bonds of obligation to
men whose disinterestedness he could not understand because of his
suspicious disposition; he desired to see by his side and in his kin
an incarnation of that polite learning and that practical knowledge
of worldly affairs which had been denied to him. All his aims were
laudable, all his desires natural and praiseworthy; but he was the last
man in the world to know how to attain them. There can be no doubt
that his stubborn insistence upon making himself the sole director
of the welfare of his ward cost him the sympathy, perhaps also the
respect and regard, of many of those whose counsel he was perforce
compelled to seek. For a long time until the final and woeful trial
came it separated him from the oldest and truest friend that he had
in Vienna--Stephan von Breuning. It tested the patience and tried the
forbearance of those who helped him in his mistaken zeal.
[Sidenote: BEETHOVEN’S MORAL NATURE MARRED]
Moreover, it may be said without harshness or injustice to his memory
that its consequences to his own moral nature were most deplorable. In
a mind and heart prone to equity and tenderness it developed a strange
capacity for cruel injustice. Aided by his native irresolution it
twisted his judgment and turned his conduct into paradox. To satisfy
his own love for the boy he strove fiercely to stifle a child’s natural
affection for its mother. He thought that love for himself would grow
out of hatred of the woman, though the passion which he tried to
evoke was abhorrent to every instinct of nature. It matters not that
the mother of Karl was profligate and lewd. Once a glimmer of that
fact dawned upon him. It was while he was struggling to prevent all
intercourse between the widow and her child in the early years that
he was compelled to admit that to a child under all circumstances a
mother is a mother still; but he made the confession to extenuate the
conduct of the boy, not to justify the solicitude of the woman. His
memory of his own mother, the sweet, patient sufferer of Bonn, was
to him like a benison his whole life long. “Who was happier than I
when I could still speak the sweet word ‘mother’ and have it heard,”
he wrote to Dr. Schade, who had helped him on his sorrowful journey
from Vienna to Bonn in 1787. But from the time that his brother Kaspar
died until he himself gave up the ghost he was unswervingly occupied
in preventing communication between Kaspar’s widow and her son. After
more than twelve years he found that what he had tried to eradicate
in the child, still lived in the youth. He had fought against nature
and failed; and the failure filled him with bitterness, added to his
hatred of the woman and his disappointment with the son. Such intensity
of malevolence, though it may have had its origin in the profoundest
conviction of virtuous purpose, could not fail to be prejudicial to
his own moral character. So, also, his solicitude for his ward’s
material welfare, which extended to a time when he should no longer
be able to make provision for him, seems to have warped his nature.
It weakened his pride; distorted his moral view; subjected him, not
always unjustly, to accusation of dishonesty in his dealings with his
patrons and publishers; made him parsimonious, and at the last brought
upon him the reproach of having begged alms of his English friends,
though possessed of property which might easily and quickly have been
converted into money to supply his last needs more than generously.
To protect him against indictment for these moral flaws, many of
Beethoven’s biographers thought, and still think, it necessary or
justifiable to veil the truth and magnify the transgressions of his
kindred and friends. His earliest apologists may have had other
reasons besides these for so doing; his present biographers have
none. By his own decree the world is entitled to know the truth.
Schindler was embittered against Holz; Holz against Schindler; both
against Johann van Beethoven, the brother; Beethoven himself taught
his nephew to despise his uncle Johann as well as Schindler; and all
three--Schindler, Holz and Johann--commissioned to that end, reported
their observations of the lad’s shortcomings to his guardian. He
accepted everything they said against the boy as he did everything
they said against each other; indeed, his suspicious nature made him
prone to believe evil of everyone near to him; and we do not know of a
certainty that their reports were always within the bounds of strict
veracity. After the tragedy they were unanimous in condemnation of
the misguided, wayward, wicked youth and in praise of Beethoven’s
magnanimity and self-sacrifice; but the evidence of helpful advice,
warning and admonition to the mariner who was sailing a craft on a sea
full of dangers to which nature had made him blind is not plentiful.
Holz was young. He had scarcely finished sowing his own wild oats, and
he seems to have been more lenient in his judgment than his elders,
though just as convinced of the dangers into which the young man was
running during the fateful last two years; but the few practical
suggestions which we find him making do not seem to have been accepted.
He was himself, like everybody else, under suspicion in Beethoven’s
mind.
Concerning the details of the always disgraceful and at the end
tragical conduct of Beethoven’s nephew much obscurity is left after the
most painstaking study of the evidence to be found in the contemporary
documents which have been preserved; but it is to these documents
that appeal must be made if the truth is to be learned, not to the
generalizations of romancing biographers. Twenty-nine letters written
by Beethoven to the youth came into the hands of Beethoven after the
attempt at suicide and through Schindler into the Royal Library at
Berlin. However they may be viewed, they are a pathetic monument. They
are a deeply affecting memorial of his almost idolatrous love for one
wholly unworthy to receive it; but they also help measurably to explain
why Beethoven defeated his own benevolent intentions. In them the
paradoxes in his nature are piled one on top of the other. Alternately
they breathe tender affection, gentle admonition and violent
accusation; pride in the lad’s mental gifts, hope for his future, and
loathing of his conduct; proclamations of his own self-sacrificing
devotion set off against his ward’s ingratitude; pleadings that the boy
love him and hate his mother; proud condemnation and piteous prayers
for forgiveness; petitions for the boy’s reformation and promises of
betterment in his own conduct. They give out the light in which the
story must be told, though they contribute but little to the record
of concrete facts. They leave us to conjecture and surmise as to many
of the nephew’s motives and actual doings. It is from the pages of
the Conversation Books of 1825 and 1826 that practically all of the
attested truth concerning the happenings, their causes and effects,
must be learned. Letters and these records of conversations are at the
base of the following recital.[159]
[Sidenote: STUDY BECOMES IRKSOME TO KARL]
Karl was taken from his studies at the Blöchlinger Institute in the
fall of 1823 and matriculated at the University of Vienna, where he
pursued studies in philology from that time until the summer of 1825.
Though his gifts were unquestioned and his attainments such as to make
Beethoven eager to exploit them, he was not an industrious student.
He seems to have experienced a desire to abandon the career which his
uncle wished him to follow--that of a professor of languages, no
doubt--before he had sat under the university lectures a year. His
zeal for study soon evaporated, he spent much time in idle amusements,
neglected to visit his uncle with the regularity expected from him,
and soon broached the subject of a change in his intended pursuits.
As early as 1824 he expressed a desire to enter the army. The thought
was little short of appalling to Beethoven, who was obliged, however,
at last to listen to arguments in favor of a mercantile career. Karl
pointed out that a bookkeeper earned a great deal more money than a
professor, that trade was honorable, and that he intended to keep on
with his study of the languages, especially Greek, for his own pleasure
and intellectual profit. Meanwhile he had continued his attendance on
the lectures at the university, and it was not until towards the end
of the Easter semester of 1825 that Beethoven consented to the change,
entered him in the Polytechnic Institute, and arranged to have the
vice-director of the Institute, Dr. Reisser, appointed co-guardian in
place of Peters, with whom he took counsel as he also did, in great
likelihood, with Stephan von Breuning. There were two great admirers
of Beethoven’s music in the Institute, Reisser and Dr. Ignaz von
Sonnleithner, one of the teachers, and after Karl had been placed
under the supervision of a government official named Schlemmer, who
lived in the Alleegasse adjacent to the Karlskirche, with whom the lad
took lodgings, all seemed again to be well. He entered the Institute
about Easter, 1825, and, if his own statements are to be accepted
(Dr. Reisser, too, makes favorable reports of him), he made a good
beginning in his new studies. His Sundays and holidays during the
ensuing summer were spent with his uncle at Baden, where he was kept
at work, too assiduously perhaps, writing Beethoven’s letters, and
filling numerous other commissions. But his zeal did not endure. He
became negligent in his studies; work became irksome and the pleasures
of the city alluring. He was drawn willingly into the maelstrom of
Viennese life. He grew fond of billiards, dancing and the theatre;
he kept low company. Of all this there can be no doubt. Beethoven
kept himself informed as to his conduct through Holz, through his
brother, and sometimes went to Vienna himself to make inquiries. When
Karl comes to Baden, Beethoven charges him with his shortcomings and
there are unseemly scenes between the two. At first Karl seeks to be
conciliatory, but it is only too plain that he is not always frank and
truthful in his replies. The chronological course of events as learned
from the Conversation Books cannot be set down with exactitude; nor
is it necessary that it should. A young rake’s progress can easily
be imagined, but some incidents may be included in this narrative, as
showing the changing attitude of guardian and ward, uncle and nephew,
toward each other, and some of the steps which led to the final
catastrophe.
At an early date in this period Beethoven had become suspicious of
the character of some of Karl’s associates, particularly of a lad
of his own age named Niemetz, whose acquaintance, it was said, he
made at his mother’s. Whether or not this is true cannot be proved;
but if Beethoven believed it that fact sufficed to convince him of
the young man’s moral turpitude. Certain it is that the mother knew
Niemetz and thought as well of him as the uncle thought ill, for one
of her exclamations after the attempt at self-destruction, reported
to Beethoven, was, “What will good Niemetz say!” Beethoven forbade
the association and a violent quarrel ensued in Baden, where Karl
introduced his friend to his uncle. It seems likely that the encounter
took place in a public room and that Beethoven could not wait until
he had reached the privacy of his lodgings before expressing his
dissatisfaction with the young man; for his remarks to Karl as well as
the latter’s replies are written in the book. Beethoven’s denunciations
stir up a spirit of defiance in his ward; he finally declares flatly
that Niemetz had cheered his unhappy hours at Blöchlinger’s and that he
would not now lie by saying that he would cease loving his friend or
admit that he had a bad character.
[Sidenote: BEETHOVEN PLEADS WITH HIS NEPHEW]
Beethoven learns that Karl goes to the theatre, has been seen in the
company of lewd women, frequents dancing places, plays billiards and
borrows money. Holz, who once suggests the advisability of assuming
the co-guardianship, thinks it might be a good thing could he attach
the young man to himself by becoming his often companion. He invites
him to a beerhouse to learn his drinking habits and reports favorably
upon them. He talks with Karl about the theatre and advises him to
go less to the Josephstadt playhouse and oftener to the Burg, where
classical pieces are played; and learning that Karl attends the former
because it costs him nothing, ventures the statement that his uncle
will allow him money for the theatre if he will but go to the better
place. Beethoven’s views on the subject are expressed in a letter:
“Let the theatre alone for the present.” After the wicked deed, Holz
reminded Beethoven that Johann van Beethoven had said that Karl knew
every strumpet in Vienna and that investigation had disclosed that he
was right. Karl goes to dances; Beethoven is so solicitous as to their
character that he expressed a desire to go to some of them with Holz so
as to learn what they are like, and Holz dissuades him on the ground
that he would be stared at and it would cause public comment; but he
offers to take him to a hall “of the reformed” in the Apollo Room,
where he would be less observed. Beethoven fears that Karl’s passion
for billiards will lead him astray, and Holz says he will sometime go
with the lad to see how well he plays and thus learn whether or not
he plays much.[160] Karl is now nearly 20 years old, but Beethoven
does not, or will not, know that he is no longer to be disciplined as
a child. He commands Schlemmer that he is not to be permitted to go
out at night except on written permission signed by him. He exhausts
Dr. Reisser’s patience with his frequent calls to learn of the young
man’s habits and conduct. He takes upon himself the task of the
ancient pedagogue and waits for him upon the steps of the Institute to
accompany him home. His illness and melancholy, due to his solitary
life in Baden, increase and he is haunted by premonitions of death. In
a Conversation Book he once writes what seems to be the title of an
imaginary composition “On the Death of Beethoven.” On June 9, 1825, he
writes to Karl: “You know how I live here. To this is added the cold
weather. This solitude weakens me still more, for my weakness really
often borders on a swoon. O, do not pain me more! The man with the
scythe will not give me much more time.” In the same summer: “God will
set me free from them. _Libera me domine de illis etc._” and “God be
with you and me. It will soon be all over with your faithful father.”
His loneliness oppresses him more and more as fears for his nephew’s
fate and recognition of his own impotency to avert it pursue him. “God
has never deserted me. Somebody will be found who will close my eyes,”
he writes on September 14. Tenderness and reproach alternate in the
letters written from Baden in the summer of 1825. With the young man’s
habits of extravagance he has no patience whatever. He insists on a
strict accounting for every florin which he allows him and is enraged
when he hears that Karl has not forgotten his boyish trick of borrowing
from the servants. He contrasts his own habits of thrift with the
prodigence of his ward: “I should have gotten along two years with the
walking-coat. True, I have the bad habit of always wearing an old coat
at home, but Mr. Karl--O, what a shame! And why? The money-bag Mr. L.
v. B-n is here only for this purpose.”
The thought of laying down the guardianship occupies his mind over and
over again and his friends without exception urge him to do it; but he
clings to the office, hoping against hope for his nephew’s reclamation.
Crises of apprehension and foreboding produce tender appeals and
piteous expostulations like these:
If you find me violent, ascribe it to my great concern for
yourself, beset as you are by many dangers.
I hope at least to receive a letter from you to-morrow. Do not make
me fear. O, think of my sufferings! By good right I ought to have
no cares of this kind; but what have I not experienced!
Reflect that I am sitting here and might easily fall ill.
God is my witness, I dreamed only of being rid of you and of this
miserable brother and the hideous family which he foisted upon me.
God hear my prayer for I can _never_ trust you again. Unfortunately
your father--or rather, not your father.
In the beginning of October, 1825, Karl absented himself from his
lodgings for several days. Where he went and what he did is a secret
held by the dead; but repentance of some sort, or consideration of the
fact that he was dependent upon his uncle, seems to have persuaded him
to write to Beethoven and beg his forgiveness. On the 5th of the month
Beethoven wrote from Baden:
Precious, dear son!
I have just received your letter. Already filled with anxiety I had
to-day determined to hurry to Vienna. God be thanked, it is not
necessary. Do but obey me and love and happiness of the soul paired
with human happiness will be at our side and you will consort an
intensive existence with the external, but it were better that the
_former_ dominate the _latter_.--_il fait trop froid_--I am to see
you on Saturday, then, write whether you are coming in the morning
or evening so that I may hasten to meet you.--I embrace you and
kiss you a thousand times not my _lost_ (prodigal) _but my new-born
son_. I wrote to Schlemmer--do not think harshly on that account--I
am still so full of fear.
The letter has been mutilated and the remainder is unintelligible, all
but a request in bad French for matches. But his impatience to see the
returned prodigal was stronger than his purpose to wait for him in
Baden. He went to Vienna and evidently sent the following letter from
Karl’s lodgings:
My precious son:
Go no further--Come but to my arms, not a harsh word shall you
hear. O God, do not rush to destruction.... You shall be received
lovingly as ever. What to consider, what to do in the future--this
we will talk over affectionately. On my word of honor no
reproaches, since they would in no case do good now. Henceforth you
may expect from me only the most loving care and help. Do but come.
Come to the faithful heart of your father.
Beethoven.
_Volti sub._
Come home at once on getting this.
_Si vous ne viendres pas rous me tuerés surement lisès la lettre et
restés a la maison chez vous, venes de m’embrasser votre pere vous
vraiment adonné soyes assurés, que tout cela resterá entre nous._
(On the margin): Only for God’s sake come back home to-day. It
might bring you, who knows what danger. Hurry, hurry!
[Sidenote: THE NEPHEW RESENTS DISCIPLINE]
In the summer of 1826, Beethoven’s plans with reference to the
supervision of his nephew are divided between an abandonment of the
guardianship and taking the young man back into his own lodgings. The
latter alternative at least did not meet with Karl’s approval, who
pleads against it the great loss of time in coming and going to the
distant Institute; besides, he says, “it is only one year more and
then there will be no more separation.” With such feigned expressions
of gentle feeling, with smiles and occasional cajolings, Karl had
learned that he could at any time bend “the old fool,” as he once
called him in a letter to Niemetz, to his wishes. The fact is that
Beethoven’s attempts at discipline had long ago become irksome to his
nephew and his authority a burden which it was pleasant to forget in
the opportunities which freedom brought. He absents himself more and
more from Beethoven’s lodgings and spends less and less time at his
own. The “miserable brother” is told by Beethoven to find out why,
and reports the result of a talk which he had upon the subject with
Karl, who had replied, in effect: the reason he did not come oftener
was that he dreaded the noisy encounters which always followed and the
continual reminders of past transgressions. Also the turbulent scenes
between his uncle and the servants. Johann takes occasion to tell his
brother that he might win the young man to him by a different mode of
treatment. He is apprehensive of the consequences of idleness and urges
that as soon as Karl completes his studies at the Institute, a place
be found for him in either a local or foreign business house. “In the
latter case,” he continues, “place the guardianship in Bach’s hands.
You are as little able as I to run after him always.” Beethoven’s
concern is so great that he is willing to take counsel of Schindler,
whom he had so unsparingly and, we believe, unjustly denounced to his
nephew. Schindler is ready with advice, but first takes advantage of
the opportunity to air his grudge against Holz: “do not depend upon him
in this matter,” he says in a recorded conversation. Karl’s requests
for money excite his guardian’s misgivings and he demands to see the
receipts for tuition fees and other expenditures. The growing feeling
between guardian and ward, and some of its causes, are reflected in
the record of a conversation at Karl’s lodgings in 1826, when the
crisis is rapidly approaching. It is Karl who speaks, but the tenor of
Beethoven’s utterances is easily to be surmised:
You consider it insolence if, after you have upbraided me for hours
undeservedly, this time at least, I cannot turn from my bitter
feeling of pain to jocularity. I am not so frivolous as you think.
I can assure you that since the _attack_ on me in the presence of
this fellow I have been so depressed that the people in the house
observed it. The receipt for the 80 florins which were paid in May
I now positively know, after a search at home, I gave you; it must
and no doubt will be found. If I continue to work while you are
here it is not in a spirit of insolence, but because I believe that
you will not be offended if I do not permit your presence to keep
me from my labors, which are now really piling up on me--all the
more since we see each other _here_, where there is time, enough to
talk over all needful things. You are mistaken, too, when you think
that I wait for your coming to _become industrious_. You also seem
to accept as _my views_ what I repeat to you as the opinions of
others as, for instance, the word of Haslinger and the twaddle of
Frau Passy. I know very well what to think of such gossip, but did
not consider it my duty to inform you about it. I hope that what I
have said will serve to convince you of my real views and feelings
and put an end to the strain which has existed of late between us,
though not on my side by any means.
This is not the speech of filial love and obedience, but neither is
it the language of a naughty child. There ought to be no doubt but
that such exhibitions of independence and resentment, coupled with
intimations of still greater independence of conduct, frequently
filled Beethoven with consternation and apprehension. Once, to judge
of a recorded remark by Holz, Karl seems to have raised his hand in
physical violence against the uncle. Holz says: “I came in just as
he took you by the breast. At the door, as he was coming out.” It is
the only allusion to the incident in the book and we know none of the
particulars; but it and other scenes of tumult and the utterances which
they provoked must have inspired the dreadful conflict of emotions
which finds expression in a letter written at this time:
If for no other reason than that you obeyed me, at least, all
is forgiven and forgotten; more to-day by word of mouth, very
quietly--Do not think of me otherwise than as governed wholly by
thoughts for your well-being, and from this point of view judge my
acts. Do not take a step which might make you unhappy and shorten
_my_ life. I did not get asleep until 3 o’clock, for I coughed all
night long. I embrace you cordially and am convinced that you will
soon cease longer to _misjudge_ me; it is thus that I also judge of
your conduct yesterday. I expect you surely to-day at 1 o’clock.
Do not give me cause for further worry and apprehension. Meanwhile
farewell!
Your real and true Father.
We shall be alone, for which reason I shall not permit H. to
come--the less since I do not wish anything about yesterday to be
known.
Do come--Do not permit _my poor heart to bleed longer_.
[Sidenote: BEETHOVEN GROWS APPREHENSIVE]
A poor heart, indeed! One that knew not how to win the love for which
it hungered; and a mind “perplex’d in the extreme.” That love still
went out to the unworthy mother in spite of entreaties, warnings,
lamentations, threats. In May, 1826, already at Baden, Beethoven hears
that Karl has again visited her; and on the 22nd he writes:
Till now only suspicions, although I have received assurances from
one that there is again secret intercourse between you and your
mother. Am I again to experience the most abominable ingratitude?!
No; if the bond is broken, be it so. You will make yourself hated
by all impartial persons who hear of this ingratitude.... I ought
not to mix into these miserable affairs. If the pact oppresses you
then in God’s name--I leave you to Divine Providence. I have done
my duty and am ready to appear before the Supreme Judge. Do not
fear to come to me to-morrow. As yet I only suspect--God grant that
_nothing_ be true, for your misfortune would truly be incalculable
indifferently as the rascally brother and possibly your--mother
would take it.
Late in July, 1826, an intimation of some desperate purpose formed
and expressed by the nephew was carried to Beethoven. The date is
uncertain, but it was probably on Saturday, the 29th. The intention may
have been self-destruction, but it needed to be no more than a purpose
to go out into the world, beyond an irksome supervision, to fill
Beethoven’s soul with a terrible fear. He called Holz and together they
went to Schlemmer’s house in the Alleegasse. Schlemmer told all he knew
in a few phrases which must have seemed shrouded with a pall as they
fell upon the page of his book:
I learned to-day that your nephew intended to shoot himself before
next Sunday at the latest. As to the cause I learned only this
much, that it was by reason of his debts,--but not of a certainty;
he admitted only in part that they were the consequences of former
sins. I looked to see if there were signs of preparations. I found
a loaded pistol in a chest together with bullets and powder. I tell
you this so that you may act in the case as his father. The pistol
is in my keeping. Be lenient with him or he will despair.
Holz went at once to the Polytechnic Institute and there found Karl,
who agreed to go back with him to Schlemmer’s, but said that he must
first go to a friend’s house and get some papers. Holz engaged Dr.
Reisser in conversation while he waited for Karl to return. “A pistol!”
remarked Reisser, “the young comedy hero!” But Karl had lied; he did
not come back to the Institute and Holz returned to Beethoven with his
story:
He will not stay here. I could not detain him. He said he would go
to Schlemmer’s, but wanted to get his papers from a friend while I
talked with Reisser. He would not be gone more than a quarter of an
hour.
Beethoven apparently rebukes him for letting his ward out of his sight.
Holz:
He would have run away from you just the same. If he has made up
his mind to injure himself no one can prevent him. He has till
September 3 to make up his examinations.... He said to me: “What
good will it do you to detain me? If I do not escape to-day I will
at another time.”
Schlemmer reported the finding of another pistol. A new suspicion
seized upon the mind of Beethoven. For some reason, though he may
also have uttered it orally, he wrote it down in the book: “He will
drown himself.” Probably he did not want the bystanders to know his
thoughts, and the fear was therefore committed to the written page
for the instruction of Holz. What else was said at the time we do not
know, for the book here shows a mutilation; some pages are missing.
Perhaps Schindler removed them in later years to save the integrity of
his account; or they may have been torn out by Beethoven himself when,
some weeks later, Holz advised him to look through his books against
their possible demand for examination by the police magistrate; they
might contain references to affairs which he did not want to bring
into public discussion. The missing pages might have helped us in the
chronology of the story, but the main facts are before us without them.
It was resolved first to go to the house of Niemetz, who it was thought
might be privy to Karl’s intentions, and then if necessary, to call in
the help of the police.
[Sidenote: A BUNGLING ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE]
Meanwhile Karl, having given Holz the slip, went straight to a
pawnbroker and pledged his watch. With the money he bought two pistols,
powder and balls. He did not dare go to his lodgings for the pistols
which he had in readiness for the contemplated deed, and the new ones
were therefore necessary. For him the circumstance proved fortunate. He
drove out to Baden, and spent the night in writing letters. One was to
his uncle, and this he enclosed in one to his friend Niemetz. The next
morning, it being a Sunday, he climbed up to the ruins of Rauhenstein,
in the lovely Helenenthal which his uncle loved so well, and there
discharged both pistols toward his left temple. He was a bungler with
firearms. The first bullet flew past harmlessly; the second ripped
up the flesh and grazed the bone, but did not penetrate the skull.
Holz said afterwards that, had he taken with him the pistols which he
was obliged to leave at his lodgings, he would have been a dead man;
their barrels were charged with powder and ball to above the middle.
A teamster came upon him lying among the ruins and, no doubt at his
request, carried him to his mother’s house in the city. There Beethoven
found him, whether in a search for him or because of intelligence
brought by the teamster is not clear. The uncle is anxious to learn the
particulars of the tragedy, but he receives a sullen answer; “It is
done. Now, only a surgeon who can hold his tongue. Smetana, if he is
here. Do not plague me with reproaches and lamentations; it is past.
Later all matters may be adjusted.” “When did it happen?” Beethoven
asks and the mother writes the answer: “He has just come. The teamster
carried him down from a rock in Baden and has just driven out to
you.--I beg of you to tell the surgeon not to make a report or they
will take him away from here at once, and we fear the worst. There is a
bullet in his head on the left side.”
Smetana was the physician who had treated Karl when he was a boy at
Giannatasio’s school. Beethoven knew him as a friend. To him he wrote:
A great misfortune has happened to Karl accidentally by his own
hand. I hope that he can yet be saved, especially by you if you
come quickly. Karl has a _bullet_ in his head, how, you shall
learn--only quick, for God’s sake, quick!
In order to save time it was necessary to take him to his mother’s,
where he now is--the address follows.
Holz took this letter for delivery but before he left the place a
surgeon named Dögl had been called in. Smetana said that Dögl was a
capable practitioner and that in order not to compromise him he would
not come unless Dögl desired to see him in consultation. Karl expressed
himself as satisfied and the case was left for the time being in Dögl’s
hands. Beethoven went home, but Holz remained some time longer. The
matter had to be reported to the police and Holz thought it best to
do this himself, as he wanted to be able to inform Beethoven what the
consequences of the young man’s act were likely to be in case of his
recovery. He learned, and so reported, that there would be a severe
reprimand and thereafter police surveillance. He told Beethoven that,
after he had left him, Karl had said, “If he would only not show
himself again!” and “If he would only quit his reproaches!” He had
also threatened to tear the bandage from the wound if another word was
spoken to him about his uncle.
On August 7th, the day being a Monday,[161] the wounded youth, who by
his act was fallen into the hands of the law, was removed from his
mother’s house to the general hospital by the police authorities.
The deed was committed on a Sunday, as appears from parts of the
conversations which took place between Holz and Beethoven after the
fact was known. Holz says: “He left me yesterday, went straight into
the city, bought the pistols and drove to Baden”; and later: “He sold
his watch on Saturday and with the proceeds bought two new pistols.”
The obvious conclusion would seem to be that Karl shot himself on
Sunday, August 6; but there is evidence pointing to an earlier date.
The police authorities were not informed until somewhat late in the
day. An investigation had to be made and formalities complied with
before the removal to the hospital could take place. Schlemmer, in
reply to a question touching Karl’s indebtedness while Beethoven and
Holz were probing for a cause, said that he had been paid “for this
month, but not for August,” which indicates that the inquiry was made
in July. On September 11th, discussing the disposition to be made of
the nephew when he should leave the hospital and trying to persuade
Beethoven to grant Karl’s request that he be permitted to visit his
mother, Holz says: “In my opinion _one_ day will make no difference,
inasmuch as she was with him whole days after the shooting.” There are,
besides, evidences that conversations were held for several days during
which he was in the care of his mother. It is therefore probable that
the nephew made the attempt upon his life on Sunday, July 30. Schindler
says “in August” without giving a specific date. The evidence is not
entirely conclusive; but if Beethoven consented to leave the would-be
suicide in the hands of his mother for an entire week it was most
likely because the police authorities commanded it; he did not yield
her a day after her son came out of the hospital. At first, however,
Beethoven’s spirit was broken by the awful blow and he may have been
more pliant than usual. Holz, reporting to Beethoven, tells of an
interview at the hospital when he met the woman at her son’s bedside.
“If you have anything on your mind,” she enjoined, “tell your uncle
now. You see, this is the time; he is weak, and now he will surely do
anything you want.” Karl replied, sullenly: “I know nothing.” “How,”
Holz explains to Beethoven, “can any one find out a single trace so
long as he persists in remaining silent?” And he tells his friend of
the lack of “mercy” in the weeping mother for denouncing the conduct of
the guardian of her son!
No doubt the blow was a crushing one to Beethoven. On the fateful
Sunday, or the day after, he met the wife of Stephan von Breuning and
told her the tragical story. “And is he dead?” she inquired in tender
solicitude. “No,” was the answer, “it was a glancing shot; he lives
and there is hope that he will be saved. But the disgrace which he has
brought upon me! And I loved him so!” The occurrence was soon noised
about the city and much sympathy was expressed for Beethoven, as Holz
took occasion to inform him. Schindler says that the blow bowed the
proud figure of the composer and he soon looked like a man of seventy.
To add to his sufferings he was compelled to learn that many persons
placed part of the blame for the rash act upon him. Karl was placed
in the “men’s three-florin” ward, which was under the care of a Dr.
Gassner. He had an assistant named Dr. Seng, who told Gerhard von
Breuning long after, how Beethoven had come to visit his nephew and
described him as a “dissolute fellow” and “rascal,” one “who did not
deserve to be visited” and had been “spoiled by kindness.”
[Sidenote: REASONS FOR THE DEED]
Strenuous efforts were made by Beethoven through Holz and others to
discover what direct cause had led the misguided young man to attempt
to end his life. The inquiries made of him at the hospital during the
weeks spent there brought scarcely more information from his lips
than the first question asked by his mother. Schindler seems to have
been persuaded that it was his failure to pass his examinations at
the Polytechnic Institute; but this theory is not tenable. Aside from
the fact that he had time till September 3 to make up his neglected
studies, he never himself advanced this as an excuse or explanation,
but explicitly denied it. In the hospital he told Holz that it would
have been easy for him to make himself fit to pass, but that, having
made up his mind to do away with himself long before, he had not
thought it worth while to continue his studies. “He said that he
was tired of life,” Holz reports to Beethoven, “because he saw in
it something different from what you wisely and righteously could
approve.” He also phrased it thus: “Weariness of imprisonment.” To the
examining police magistrate Karl said that his reason for shooting
himself was that Beethoven “tormented him too much,” and also “I grew
worse because my uncle wanted me to be better.” To Beethoven’s question
if Karl had railed against him, Schlemmer replied: “He did not rail,
but he complained that he always had trouble.” Holz’s explanation many
years after to Otto Jahn was that Beethoven was “rigorous to excess
in his treatment and would not allow him the slightest extravagance.”
The chief cause, in greatest probability, was that he had hopelessly
involved himself in debts by a dissolute life. Schindler told Beethoven
that he not only played billiards but played with low persons, coachmen
and the like; and that he did not always play honestly. There is a
memorandum in a Conversation Book which discloses that Beethoven
received specific reports about his conduct, and noted them for
reference: “One night in the Prater.--2 nights did not sleep at home.”
Beethoven stinted him the matter of pocket-money, and the scores of
reckonings in the Conversation Books show how close was the watch
kept upon every kreutzer placed in his hands. So he had recourse to
borrowing and no doubt, though the fact does not appear plainly in
the books, he went into debt at the places which he frequented for
pleasure. When he shot himself he had paid his lodging bill for the
month but owed his tutor. A matter which gave Beethoven great concern
was the discovery that he had disposed of some of the composer’s books
at an antiquary’s. This was theft, a penal offence, and Beethoven seems
to have been in great trepidation lest the fact, and something more
dreadful still which he did not know, be discovered by the magistrate
charged with an examination into the case. Under the Austrian code an
attempt at suicide seems to have been an offence against the Church
and guilty persons were remanded in the care of priests who imparted
religious instruction until a profession of conversion could be
recorded. In the case of Karl, this medicine for the mind and soul
was administered by a Redemptorist, and, the Liguorian penances being
proverbially strict, Holz inspired the hope in Beethoven that Karl’s
secret would be discovered by the priest. “These Liguorians are like
leeches,” is one of his remarks to the composer while Karl is lying at
the hospital. It is pathetic to note that Beethoven himself, willing
as he was to charge his nephew with prevarication, extravagance,
deception and frivolity, yet sought an explanation for the act outside
of these delinquencies. In his hand appears a note in a Conversation
Book: “Mental aberration and insanity; the heat, too--afflicted with
headaches since childhood.”
[Sidenote: PLANNING A MILITARY LIFE FOR KARL]
Immediately after Karl’s removal to the hospital Holz visited him and
made a long report to Beethoven, from which it appears that there
was no delay in considering plans for the future. In fact, a prompt
decision was necessary, for it was the penal aspect of the case which
had the greatest terrors for Beethoven. Holz says: “Here you see
ingratitude as clear as the sun! Why do you want further to restrain
him? Once with the military, he will be under the strictest discipline,
and if you want to do anything more for him you need only make him a
small allowance monthly. A soldier at once.... Do you still doubt? This
is a marvellous document.” The last remark may have been called out,
indeed, it seems more than probable that it was, by the letter written
by the nephew on the eve of his attempt--a letter which has never been
found. Holz also urges: “Resign the guardianship; this will make an
impression on him.” Beethoven must now needs listen to upbraidings
because of his lenient treatment of his ward: “If your good nature had
not so often got the better of your firmness you would have driven him
away long ago”; but Beethoven still hungers for the ingrate’s love. He
asks about his feelings towards himself. Holz answers: “He said it was
not hatred of you which he felt, but something entirely different”; and
then he puts the question: “Did he mean fear?”
The day after the deed, Stephan von Breuning, himself unable to come,
sent Gerhard to his friend with a message: his parents wanted him to
take his meals with them so as not to be alone. Then Breuning comes,
and now he will receive advice on the advisability of a military life
from one fitted to give it, for von Breuning is a court councillor in
the war department. “A military life will be the best discipline for
one who cannot endure freedom; and it will teach him how to live on
little,” is one of Breuning’s first utterances.
Holz continues his visits to the hospital and his reports. His help was
now invaluable and he gave it unselfishly and ungrudgingly, winning
that measure of gratitude from Beethoven which found expression in the
letter empowering him to write his biography. He tells Beethoven that
Karl receives visits from four physicians four times a day. That the
magistrate is investigating the case and will send a priest to give the
patient religious instruction, and that his release from the hands of
the police authorities must wait upon his “complete conversion”; but
so long as there is danger of too much mental strain this instruction
will not be given. At ease in his mind touching the physical condition
of his ward, Beethoven is kept in a state of anxiety about the inquiry,
which is so protracted as to excite his apprehension that something
awful may be disclosed. He wants to go himself to see the “Minister”
(of Police, evidently) and dreads the ordeal of examination. “The court
will not annoy you,” Holz, tells him; “the mother and Karl at the
worst.”
Dr. Bach joined Breuning, Schindler and Holz in advising Beethoven to
resign the guardianship; but while the other three favored placing
Karl in the army, Bach urged that he be sent off at once to some
business house in Trieste, Milan or Hamburg without waiting for him
to make up his studies and pass the examination which seems necessary
to Beethoven. “Away with him from Vienna!” is the general cry, but
Beethoven hesitates; he still thinks that he must keep his ward
under his eye. In the Conversation Book he writes: “I wanted only to
accomplish his good; if he is abandoned now, something might happen.”
Meanwhile von Breuning in pursuance of his plan consulted Baron von
Stutterheim and persuaded him to give the young man a cadetship in
his regiment, and on September 11 Breuning is able to communicate
the success of his efforts to Beethoven who, as soon as he began to
consider the military proposition at all, had thought of his old
friend, General von Ertmann, the husband of his “Dorothea-Cäcilia.”
But the project failed, and Breuning carried the day for his plan and
agreed to accept the guardianship which had been laid down by Reisser.
The Court Councillor goes at matters in a practical way; he brings to
Beethoven von Stutterheim’s advice as to the allowance: he must not
give more than 12 florins in silver a month, as that was all that the
richest cadet in the service received.
Karl was unwilling to see his uncle, and Beethoven knew it. The latter
wrote to his nephew, however, and the affectionate tenor of the letters
met with the disapproval of both Holz and Schindler. Beethoven hoped
with them to win back his nephew’s love, but his advisers told him
they would do no good. He seems to have thought it necessary to learn
Karl’s opinion before consenting to von Breuning’s plan. He visited
Karl at the hospital, who, after asking his uncle to say as little as
possible about that which was past alteration, said that a military
life was the one in which he could be most satisfied and that he was
entirely capable of making a firm resolve and adhering to it. As a
cadet, promotion would be open to him. Beethoven, in planning to keep
the young man in Vienna, had suggested to his advisers that the mother
might be sent away--to Pressburg or Pesth. After it had been fixed that
Karl should enter the army as soon as possible after his discharge from
the hospital, the question arose as to what disposition should be made
of him in the interim. Beethoven was unalterably opposed to his being
with his mother even for a day. In an interview he brought the subject
up and began to berate her as usual; but Karl interrupted him:
[Sidenote: A SON DEFENDS HIS MOTHER]
I do not want to hear anything derogatory to her; it is not for
me to be her judge. If I were to spend the little time for which
I shall be here with her it would be only a small return for all
that she has suffered on my account. Nothing can be said of a
harmful influence on me even if it should happen, if for no other
reason than the brevity of the time. In no event shall I treat her
with greater coldness than has been the case heretofore ... let be
said what will.... (He tells his uncle that his mother will offer
no objection to his new calling.) All the less, therefore, can I
deny her wish to be with me now, as I shall in all likelihood not
be here again soon. It is self-evident that this will not prevent
you and me from seeing each other as often as you wish.
Very reluctantly Beethoven gave his consent that his nephew should
become a soldier, and he continued his solicitude for him, as is
disclosed by letters to Holz and von Breuning. His first thought was
to send him to a military institute and have him graduated as an
officer. This proved impracticable. Now he lays down three conditions
as to the cadetship: he must not be treated as a culprit, not be
compelled to live so meanly as to preclude his advancement, not be too
much restricted as to food and drink. The plans for this disposition
were made. He was to be presented to von Stutterheim as soon as he
was discharged from the hospital, take the oath of service the next
day, and leave Vienna for Iglau, where von Stutterheim’s regiment was
stationed, within five or six days. He was discharged as cured on
September 25. Breuning, who had assumed the guardianship, now found
himself confronted by a serious embarrassment. Where should the young
man be sent while the preparations for his entry into the military
service were making? Karl did not want to go to his uncle’s, nor did
von Breuning want to send him there, and frankly tells Beethoven his
reason: “If he were here you would talk to him too much and that would
cause new irritation; for he testified in the police court that the
reason why he had taken the step was because you harassed him too
much.” Beethoven feared that the magistrate might allow him to go to
his mother’s, and to guard against this he wrote two letters to that
official, a man kindly disposed toward him, named Czapka. In the first
he wrote:
I earnestly beg of you, since my nephew will be well in a few days,
to direct that he be not permitted to leave the hospital with
anybody but me and Mr. v. Holz. It must not possibly be allowed
that he be near his mother, this utterly depraved person. Her bad
and wickedly malicious character, the belief that she often tempted
Karl to lure money from me, the probability that she divided
sums with him and was also in the confidence of Karl’s dissolute
companion, the notice which she attracts with her illegitimate
daughter, the likelihood that at his m--’s he would make the
acquaintance of women who are anything but virtuous, justify my
solicitude and my request. Even the mere habit of being in the
company of such a person cannot possibly lead a young man to
virtue.
In a second letter he suggests that the magistrate admonish the
young man and give him to understand that he will be under police
surveillance while he is with his uncle. Beethoven’s brother was again
in Vienna. He had repeated his offer to give the composer a temporary
home and his nephew a harbor of refuge at Gneixendorf; but haste
was imperative, both on account of his business affairs and Karl’s
status. In three days the business of finishing the corrections in
the manuscript copy of the Ninth Symphony which was to be sent to the
King of Prussia, placing it in the hands of Haslinger, who was to have
it bound, and writing the letter to the King, was disposed of and on
September 28 the two brothers and their nephew set out for Gneixendorf.
FOOTNOTES:
[159] Beethoven’s letters to his nephew are presented in the original
in Vol. V of Thayer’s biography as completed by Dr. Deiters and revised
by Dr. Riemann. Also copious extracts from the Conversation Books.
These books, in Thayer’s transcript, have been consulted anew by the
present writer in his presentation of the case which he believes to
be in the spirit of Thayer, as he tried also to make the account
of the legal controversy over the guardianship. Nevertheless, the
editor believes it only right to assume full responsibility for his
utterances. The letters may be found in translation in Vol. II of Mr.
Shedlock’s edition of the Kalischer collection.
[160] It was Herbert Spencer who remarked to a young man who had beaten
him at billiards that while to be able to play well was a praiseworthy
accomplishment, such playing as he had just witnessed betokened an
ill-spent life.
[161] The date was obtained by Thayer from the records of the hospital
on September 22, 1862. F. Helm, then Director of the hospital,
certified to the facts of reception, treatment and discharge, but
stated that no history of the case could be found in the records.