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CHAPTER 40
to his close friends, one gets an insight into his mental agony, especially during the early
stage of his illness, when he rebelled, as is typical of so many disabled people and des
cribed in this book on paraplegia, against his fate, combined with the fear of being
detected. In his letter of i January 1800, to Amenda, a theologian, he wrote: '. . . Your
Beethoven is livingan unhappy life, quarrelling with nature and its Creator, often cursing
the latter because He surrenders His creatures to the merest accident that sometimes
breaks and destroys the most beautiful blossoms. Know that my noblest faculty,
my hearing, has gradually deteriorated.' In fact,in due course he became completely deaf.
It is a well-known fact that patients in the rebellious frame of mind against their
disability curse not only God but also, naturally, their medical advisers, especially those
who give false hopes to their patients, and, again, Beethoven is a classical example.
In his famous 'Heiligenstadt Will', 1804, he recorded to his brothers his horror of his
impending deafness: *I was ever eager to accomplish great deeds but reflect now that for
six years I have been a hopeless case, aggravated by senseless physicians, cheated year
after year in the hope for improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a
lasting malady. . . . For me there can be no recreation in the society of my fellows, refined
intercourse and mutual exchange of thoughts, only just as little as the greatest needs
demand do I mix with society, I must live like an exile.' Yet in the same document, one
can already find the first signs of his determination to come to terms with his disability
and to rise above it. He wrote—'I would have put an end to my life, only art it was
that withheld me, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I produced all that I felt
was called upon me to produce and so I endured this wretched existence. . .
.' Actually,
while his deafness made an end to his career as a solo pianist, his inner ear, fortunately for
the community at large and for all times, remained unaffected by his illness, which,
although forcing him to withdraw into loneliness, made him direct his indomitable
creative energy to his compositions. Utilizing all his remaining spiritual potentialities,
he rose through his disability to that brilliant genius which made his work and name
immortal.
Everyone who has experience in the rehabilitation of the severely physically handi
capped will agree, that all disabled are in some way like the servants described in the
Gospel according to St Matthew. We have all been entrusted with talents in life, and when
the challenge comes to some of us in the nature of some physical disaster we employ
these talents according to our individual personalities, conditioned by environmental and
hereditary factors. Some, like the servants entrusted with five or two talents, rise nobly
to the occasion and with great courage and self-discipline use their talents to build up
for themselves a new scheme of life. Some examples have been given in this book. They
are rewarded for their endeavours by regaining their self-confidence and self-respect and,
in spite of their remaining disability, become useful and respected members of society.
But there are some who, like the third servant who buried his talent in the earth, make
no effort to utilize their remaining spiritual potentialities but instead resign themselves
hopelessly into their disability, regardless of whether they have been entrusted with one
or many talents. For these, there is no reward of self-achievement and self-dignity, for,
in addition to their physical handicap, their soul is crippled, which makes them outcasts
of society.
