“Well, this will do for to-day,” says Beethoven, as he throws both the invitations on the table. “I feel at home with the Prince, and I can enjoy myself at Van Swieten’s. But I shall be late to bed. When Van Swieten tells me to come with my nightcap it means in plain language, ‘I will not let you off before midnight.’ Well, let it be so. He is, at least, a clever musician and a generous host. That’s all right. But when you are continually pestered by people who have not the slightest idea of music, and who only invite you that they may give their guests some piano-pounding, and then force you to play until the blood under your fingernails is on fire, the devil might stand it,—I won’t.”
“Well, the Prince will not be likely to force you to play, and Van Swieten just as little,” says Ries quietly.
“Yes, you are right. I will go, and am glad to go.”
And he goes. Between one and two in the morning he returns in a lively, cheerful mood which promises pleasant dreams. He is in bed in five minutes, and five minutes later is sleeping soundly. And so ends the day—one day in Beethoven’s life.
Although Beethoven lived to see happy days and happy times in beautiful Vienna, other days and other times succeeded them, darkened by a terrible fate which only a strong and lofty spirit like his could endure and even overcome.
One fine summer evening Beethoven and his pupil, Ries, took a pleasant ramble among the beautiful fields around Vienna. The setting sun flooded the earth with a sea of gold and purple. Rosy clouds slowly floated in the sky. High in air the lark sang its sweet-toned evening song. On a green hillock sat a shepherd lad, filling the fields and woods around with the pretty melody of his flute, which he had fashioned out of elder. Beethoven and Ries stopped and quietly enjoyed the wonderful beauty of the dying day.
“How beautifully the song of the lark blends with the shepherd’s melody,” said Ries. Beethoven leaned forward and listened. “Flute and lark? I do not hear them,” he said, with an expression of painful suspense on his face.
[Illustration: _He had lost his hearing. Ries tried to console and calm him_]
“There is the young shepherd, playing on his pipe. Do you not see him?”