Page:Rolland - Beethoven, tr. Hull, 1927.pdf/40

 change has been brought about by the charm of a dear girl; she loves me and I love her. These are the first happy moments I have had for two years." He paid dearly for them. From the first, this love made him feel more keenly the misery of the infirmity which had overtaken him and the precarious conditions of his life which made it impossible for him to marry the one he loved. Moreover, Giulietta was a flirt, childish and selfish by nature; she made Beethoven suffer most cruelly, and in November 1803, she married Count Gallenberg. Such passions devastate the soul; indeed, when the spirit is already enfeebled by illness, as was Beethoven's, complete disaster is risked. This was the only time in Beethoven's life when he seems to have been on the point of succumbing. He passed the terrible crisis, however, and the details are given in a letter known as the Heiligenstadt Testament to his brothers Carl and Johann, with the following direction: "To be read and carried out after my death." It is an outcry of revolt, full of the most poignant grief. One cannot hear it without