"Do not deceive me," he begged, "be always my beloved son. What a horrible discord it would be if you were to be false to me, as many persons maintain that you already are.... Good-bye, he who has not given you life but who has certainly preserved it, and who has taken all possible care with your moral development, with an affection more than paternal, begs you from the bottom of his heart to follow the only true path of the good and the just. Your faithful foster-father."[57] After having cherished all kinds of dreams for the future of this nephew, who was not lacking in intelligence and whom he wished to take up a University career, Beethoven had to consent to make a merchant of him. But Carl frequented gambling dens and contracted debts. By a sad phenomenon, more frequent than one believes, the moral grandeur of his uncle, instead of doing him good, made him worse. It exasperated him, impelling him to revolt, as he said in those terrible words where his miserable soul appears so plainly, "I have become worse because my uncle wished me to do better." He reached such a state that in the summer of 1826 he shot himself in the head with a pistol. He did not die from it, but it was Beethoven who just missed dying. He never recovered from this terrible fright.[58] Carl recovered; he lived to the end to cause suffering to his uncle, whose death he hastened in no slight measure. Nor was he with him at the hour of his death. "God has never abandoned me," wrote Beethoven to his nephew, some years before. "He will find someone to close my eyes." This was not to be the one whom he called "his son."[59] * * * * * It was from the depth of this abyss that Beethoven undertook to chant his immortal _Ode to Joy_. It was the plan of his whole life. As early as 1793, he had thought of it at Bonn.[60] All his life he wished to celebrate Joy; and to make it the climax of one of his great works. He was always striving to find the exact form of the Hymn, and the work where he could place it. He was far from being decided, even in his _Ninth Symphony_. Until the very last moment, he was on the point of putting off the _Ode to Joy_ to a _Tenth_ or _Eleventh Symphony_. One ought to notice that the _Ninth Symphony_ is not entitled _Choral Symphony_, but as it is now invariably called, _Symphony with a Final Chorus on the Ode to Joy_. It narrowly missed having another conclusion. In July, 1823, Beethoven still thought of giving it an instrumental _finale_, which he used later on for the quartet Op: 132. Both Czerny and Sonnleithner say that even after the performance in May, 1824, Beethoven had not abandoned this idea.