CHAPTER X. The Last Days at Gneixendorf--A Brother’s Warning--Beethoven and His Kinspeople--The Fateful Journey to Vienna--The Fatal Illness--The Physicians and Their Treatment--The Nephew Exonerated from a Slanderous Accusation--Schindler’s Disingenuousness-- Dr. Malfatti Forgets a Resentment Harbored for more than a Decade--Beethoven and Handel’s Scores--A Gift of 100 Pounds Sterling from the London Philharmonic Society--Eventual Disposition of the Money--Metronome Marks for the Ninth Symphony--Death and Burial of Beethoven--His Estate 267 GENERAL INDEX 315 INDEX TO COMPOSITIONS 344 Chapter I The Contest for the Guardianship of Nephew Karl--The Conversation Books--A Wedding Song--In Travail with the Mass--The Year 1819. The key-note for much that must occupy us in a survey of the year 1819 is sounded by A New Year’s Greeting to Archduke Rudolph. Beethoven invokes all manner of blessings on the head of his pupil and patron and, begging a continuance of gracious benevolences for himself, sets forth a picture of his unhappy plight. A terrible occurrence has recently taken place in my family affairs which for a time robbed me of all my reasoning powers; and to this must be charged the circumstance that I have not called upon Y. R. H. in person nor made mention of the masterly Variations of my highly honored and exalted pupil, the favorite of the Muses. I do not dare to express either by word of mouth or in writing my thanks for the surprise and favor with which I have been honored, inasmuch as I occupy _much too humble_ a position, nor dare I, much as I would like and ardently as I long to do so, _requite like with like_. A little boy of eleven years runs away from his uncle to his indulgent mother whom he, for months at a time, has not been allowed to see, although both live within the same city limits. What else could be expected than that this should now and then occur? What should be thought of the child’s heart if it did not? And when it did, who but Beethoven would have felt more than a passing disturbance of his equanimity at an offense so natural under the circumstances? But to him it was a “terrible occurrence” which for a space robbed him of his reason. No one of ordinary sensibilities can read the story without strong feelings of compassion for him--not that the boy’s freak was in any sense in itself a grievous misfortune, but because the uncle’s sufferings occasioned by it were so real and intense.