Hardly had I recovered – when my illness sent me back to bed again for two whole weeks – Is it any wonder? – We no longer have even decent bread fit to eat – T/he enclosure will show you the exchange rate on Saturday, the day I received your letter. The sum of 250 (two hundred and fifty) gulden A.C. has now been for a long time on deposit. I have no control over it. It has been handed over to someone else. So I don’t know how to obtain this silver. My brother is not here. If he were, he might perhaps contrive to find some means of changing the draft I have received into silver. I told one of my friends about this today. He is a banker. He said that all I could do would be to return the draft to you, seeing that the rate of exchange was fluctuating every moment, that it was to be expected that silver would rise even more in value, and that at present it was difficult to determine the rate of exchange –
So I request you to proceed as we arranged, i.e. to have the 250 gulden paid to me in assimilated coinage, let us say, in pieces of twenty at the House of Herr Kunz & Co. in Vienna. A fairly long time ago I transferred this very sum to a certain person and I am now obliged to restore it to him in silver – It would please me if you would do this as soon as possible. For this person has been waiting for it for a long time; and I always thought that the works would reach you more quickly – I feel too weak today to send you a longer reply to your pleasant communication. But in a few days I will answer all the other points in your letter –
Be fond of your most devoted
Beethoven