You welcomed me, my Tiedge, with the password Du, and I accept it. Short though our association was, yet we soon got to know one another and there was no longer any feeling of constraint between us – How grieved I was not to be able to see you and the others as well. I received your letter on Saturday evening. A parcel of music had to be sent off on Monday. I was beside myself with grief, so much so that I had to say with Alcibiades ‘After all man has no free will’. And then, after I had missed what was best of all, that is to say, a meeting with you both, and that purely on account of Hungary’s moustachios, the whole thing is now to be postponed for another month, i.e. until this joint product of Kotzebue and Beethoven is to be performed. [Anderson footnote: “’König Stephan’ and ‘Die Ruinen von Athen’ were a prologue and epilogue written by Kotzebue for the opening of the theatre at Pest on February 9, 1812, and set to music by Beethoven. Both works, Op. 117 and 113, were composed at Teplitz in three weeks.”] How annoyed I am! Again all of a sudden the Archduke decides not to become a priest. Hence since my return everything seems to be different from what it was before my arrival. I wonder whether one should allow one’s actions to be determined by considerations of those of another human being, [Anderson footnote: “The autograph breaks off with this comma.”]