Page:Rolland - Beethoven, tr. Hull, 1927.pdf/117

no special aptitude for music; but she has done so much by application and perseverance that she can play your Sonatas, Variations, etc.; and as music is always the greatest relaxation for Wegeler, she is thus able to give him many happy hours. Julius has some talent for music, but up to the present it has been neglected; for the last six months, he has been learning the violoncello with zest and pleasure; and as he has a good teacher in Berlin I believe that he will get on well. The two children are tall and resemble their father, they also possess that fine cheery disposition which Wegeler, thanks to God, has not even yet lost. . . . He takes great pleasure in playing the themes of your Variations; the old ones have the greater preference, but he oftens plays the new ones, too, with incredible patience. Your Opferlied is placed above everything. Wegeler never goes to his room without putting it on the piano. So, dear Beethoven, you can see how lasting and real a thing is the remembrance which we always have of you! Tell us then just once that this is not worth less to you, and that we are not quite forgotten. If it were not so difficult to do as one wishes, we should already have been to Vienna to see my brother, and have the pleasure of seeing you again; but such a journey is out of the question now that our son is at Berlin. Wegeler has told you how everything goes with us—we should do wrong to complain. Even the most difficult