“You cannot believe,” writes Stephen von Breuning, one of Beethoven’s devoted friends at Bonn, “what an indescribable impression the decay of his hearing has made upon Beethoven. Think what the feeling of unhappiness must be in one of such earnest character, besides his reserve and frequent distrust of his best friends and his irresolution in many things. For the most part, when he expresses his original feeling freely, intercourse with him is an actual exertion, as one can never feel absolutely free.”
True indeed; but was not the unfortunate one the most to be pitied? Let us hear what he says about it himself.
Early in 1802 Beethoven was attacked by an illness so dangerous that for the first time he had serious doubts whether he should recover. His friend, the celebrated Doctor Schmidt, checked the progress of the disease, and when he was fully restored sent him to Heiligenstadt, a village in the suburbs of Vienna. There in solitude, his mind busy with thoughts about death, he wrote the following document, a kind of will, addressed to his two brothers:
“_For my brothers_, Carl _and_ Johann Beethoven:
“Oh, you who consider or assert that I am hostile, obstinate, or misanthropic, what injustice you do me! You know not the secret causes of that which makes me appear so. My heart and my mind have been moved by the tender feelings of affection from childhood. I have always been disposed to perform great actions; but consider that for the last six years I have been afflicted with a hopeless complaint, aggravated by the unskilful treatment of physicians; that I have been disappointed from year to year in the hope of relief, and am at last obliged to submit to the endurance of an evil the removal of which may take years, if it can be removed at all. Born with an ardent, lively disposition, susceptible to the pleasures of society, I was forced at an early age to renounce them, and pass my life in seclusion. When I strove to rise above this, oh, how cruelly was I forced back by the doubly painful experience of my defective hearing! And yet, how could I say to people, ‘Speak louder—shout—for I am deaf’? How could I proclaim the defect of a sense that I had once in the highest perfection—a perfection which few of my colleagues ever surpassed? I could not! Forgive me then when you see me refrain from mingling with you, which I would very gladly do. My misfortune is doubly mortifying to me, for it causes me to be misunderstood. I am cut off from recreation in the society of my fellow-creatures, from the pleasures of conversation, and from the enjoyment of friendship. Well-nigh alone in the world, I dare not go into society more than is absolutely necessary. I am obliged to live like an exile. If I go into company, a painful anxiety seizes me lest I may be forced to betray my situation. This has been my condition also during the half year I have spent in the country. Enjoined by my sensible physician to spare my hearing as much as possible, I have been almost encouraged by him in my present disposition, though, carried away by fondness for society, I have allowed myself to be drawn into it. But how humiliating it was when one beside me could hear at a distance a flute that I could not hear, or a shepherd singing, and I could not distinguish a sound! Such things brought me to the verge of despair, and only my art restrained my hand from putting an end to my life. It seemed impossible for me to quit the world before I had completed the work which I felt myself set apart to do. So I endured this wretched life—a life so absolutely wretched that the slightest thing is capable of plunging me from the best into the worst condition. I am told I must be patient. I have been so. I hope I may be steadfast in my resolution to persevere until it shall please the inexorable Fates to cut the thread. I may be better, I may not. I am prepared for the worst,—I, who as early as my twenty-eighth year was forced to become a philosopher. It is not easy—it is harder for the artist than for any other. O God! Thou seest my misery. Thou knowest that, wretched as I am, I love my fellow-creatures, and am disposed to do good. O men! when you shall read this, reflect that you have wronged me; and let the child of affliction take comfort on finding one like himself, who, in spite of all the impediments of nature, yet did his utmost to obtain admittance into the ranks of worthy artists and worthy men.”[34]