at a chamber concert. Beethoven wants to know what he was doing there, and the nephew replies: “He wants to acquire taste; he is continually crying _bravo_.” So also Holz relates, in 1826, that Johann had certainly heard the Quartet in E-flat major ten times, yet when it was played in that year he said he was hearing it for the first time.[57] Beethoven needed Johann’s help; he had a good opinion of his business ability, and it is possible that he had learned something of tolerance from the trials and tribulations which his quarrels with his other sister-in-law had brought him. It is certain that after a separation of nine years from his brother he was not merely desirous but eager for a perfect reconciliation and a closer union. Johann offers his help, but it is Beethoven who expresses the wish that the two may live together, it is Beethoven who asks his brother to come to him and help him negotiate the sale of his compositions. Johann no doubt conducted some negotiations without his brother’s knowledge, but not without authority; and so far as the Mass is concerned it is put into the brother’s hands only after Johann has lent Beethoven 200 florins and the Mass has been promised not only to Peters but to Simrock before him. No doubt Johann exceeded his authority; at least, something had come to the ears of Count Moritz Lichnowsky, probably from Beethoven himself, which made him say in the conversation already cited, “You ought to forbid him doing business or carrying on correspondence without your signature. Perhaps he has already closed a contract in your name”; but would it not have been better for Beethoven’s present reputation for business honesty--if we must distinguish between the ethics of the counting-house and those of the rest of the world--if he had closed and kept the contracts which he had made when he called his brother to help him with his correspondence? Schindler accuses Johann of having persuaded Beethoven to take unfit lodgings; but Beethoven expressly exonerates him from blame. He reproaches Johann for not having provided his brother with money to pay his debts or offering his security for them; but Johann lent him 200 florins before he went to Baden and probably did not see why he should burden his own business enterprises in order to enable Beethoven to keep the bank shares intact for the nephew. He was willing to be helpful, however, and repeatedly offered his brother a house on his estate, and in 1824 tried to persuade him to take one rent free; but Beethoven’s antipathy to his sister-in-law would not let him accept.