e
situation must have been embarrassing for all concerned, less so in
reality for the master than for the others. Absorbed in the composition
of the new finale, and also in the finishing up of the great C sharp
minor Quartet, he was for the most part oblivious to anything unusual in
his surroundings. Johann's wife, with the policy of her class, bore no
resentment, or at least showed none outwardly. A pleasant room on the
ground floor was fitted up for him, but the welcome must have been a
cold one at best.

No doubt the Gutsbesitzer took much pleasure in showing off his
possessions to the brother whom he knew had little esteem for him at
heart. He paraded his own importance in the neighborhood, taking the
composer on business visits to prominent people. On these occasions he
would not usually introduce his brother, treating him as a kind of
appendage. The master, deep in the thought of creative work, was, no
doubt, to a great extent unconscious of this sordidness. At all events
he gave no sign. But he contributed very little to the social well-being
of the family. Two aims only seem to have occupied his mind at this
time: the welfare of his nephew, and the carrying to completion of a few
great works already sketched or begun. These included a Tenth Symphony,
(for the Philharmonic Society of London), the Oratorio, The Victory of
the Cross, for the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, music to
Goethe's Faust, which latter he must have been in good mood for,--as
well as an overture on Bach. "I hope yet," he writes from Johann's home,
"to bring some great works into the world, and then like an old child,
to close my earthly career somewhere among good people." He worked with
feverish haste in the latter years of his life, whenever his health
permitted, even abandoning his books in favor of his work. Failing
health prevented him from forcing it ahead as in former years, but he
worked up to the limit of his powers.

His habits while composing have been referred to in a previous chapter,
namely, that he was in the habit of singing, stamping, gesticulating,
while under the spell of his inspiration. This kind of thing was new to
the maid who looked after his room, and she managed to extract amusement
from it. Beethoven finally discovered her laughing at him, and forthwith
bundled her out of the room, giving orders that no female would be
admitted again. One of the men about the place, Michael Kren, was then
engaged, who perfo