Following Schindler’s narrative we learn that Beethoven’s woeful experience at the rehearsal led to a resolution on his part to make another effort to be healed of his deafness. He went to Dr. Smetana, who prescribed medicaments to be taken inwardly, thereby indicating, as Schindler asserts, that he had no expectation of effecting a cure, but wanted only to occupy Beethoven’s mind, knowing what to expect from so impatient, wilful and absent-minded a patient; for Beethoven was as unready to follow a physician’s advice as a musician’s, and was more likely to injure himself with overdoses of drugs than to invite the benefit which the practitioner hoped for by obedience to the prescription. The usual thing happened; not only with Dr. Smetana’s treatment, but also with that of the priest, Pater Weiss, whom he had consulted some 18 years before and to whom he now returned. For a while he thought that the oil which the priest dropped into his ears was beneficial, and Pater Weiss himself expressed the belief that the left ear, at least, might permanently be helped; but Beethoven grew skeptical, as he always did unless he experienced immediate relief, his work monopolized his attention, and despite the priest’s solicitations he abandoned the treatment and yielded himself to his fate. Thenceforward no one heard him lament because of his deafness. The compositions which were in Beethoven’s hands at the close of the year were those which had occupied him in the earlier months. The Mass, several times completed but never complete so long as it was within reach, received what must now be looked upon as its finishing touches; progress was made on the Ninth Symphony and thought given to a quartet, perhaps several quartets. The Bagatelles for Pianoforte grouped under Op. 119, some of which had been published a year before (Nos. 7-11), were finished; Nos. 1 to 6 were ready for the publisher by the end of 1822--the autograph manuscript bearing the inscription “Kleinigkeiten, 1822 Novemb.” Nottebohm thinks that Nos. 2 to 5 were conceived between 1800 and 1804; a sketch for No. 5 (C minor, _Risoluto_) is found among sketches made in 1802 for the Sonata in C minor Op. 30; Lenz says sketches for No. 3 (in D, _a l’Allemande_) are among sketches for the last movement of the “Eroica” Symphony; No. 6 (G major) is sketched on a sheet containing experimental studies for a passage in the _Credo_ of the Mass; sketches for Nos. 2 and 4 are among suggestions of a melody for Goethe’s “Erlkönig,” indicating an early period which cannot be determined. Of Nos. 7-11, enough has been said in a previous chapter. The piece published as No. 12 and added to the set by Diabelli after Beethoven’s death was originally a song with pianoforte accompaniment and had its origin in 1800 at the latest. Whether or not Beethoven made the pianoforte piece out of the projected song, on which point nothing of significance can be said, it is certain that it does not belong to