BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, February 18, 1824

In the morning, Beethoven makes his shopping list of things that need to be bought today:
+Shaving soap.
+Washing soap.
+Razor.

Having learned from getting far too many applicants when they ran their advertisement for a housekeeper three times around the New Year, Ludwig and Karl run their advertisement in today’s Intelligenzblatt supplement to the Wiener Zeitung at 320 only once. The text is largely the same, with some slight differences.

“A craftsman’s widow who can read and write and cook well, and who has also already worked as a cook in good houses, is sought as a housekeeper under advantageous conditions. Further details can be obtained every day at 2 p.m. in Ungargasse No.323 on the back staircase on the first floor [second floor American], door Nr. 12.”

Frau Lehmann, the housekeeper candidate proposed by unpaid assistant Anton Schindler, comes by Beethoven’s apartment for an interview. Because she currently has a position, she will need to give two weeks notice from Monday. As far as the kitchen is concerned, it is merely a matter of getting to know Beethoven’s tastes. She will give her notice right away tomorrow, to speed it up, so it will be only two weeks from tomorrow.

Nephew Karl comes after Frau Lehmann departs, although he had wanted to meet her, and asks whether his uncle hired her. [Given her statement about definitely giving notice, he appears to have done so, though they will still interview multiple applicants tomorrow.] Karl is surprised that no applicants have shown up in response to the advertisement printed in today’s Wiener Zeitung. Uncle Ludwig is not happy that there are so few with cooking experience. Karl notes that asking specifically for craftsmen’s widows makes that even rarer. But at least no baronesses will come, making reference to the overly aristocratic applicants they have had in the past.

So far as the “old woman” Barbara Holzmann is concerned, she can be kept on a while longer; it’s not worth the trouble to employ yet another woman.

Later, Beethoven reads the newspapers at a coffee house and makes reference to the Astronomical Calculation Tables for the Year 1824 by Johann Veyhelin. [This last appeared in the Intelligenzblatt in the February 12 issue, so he was browsing through old newspapers.]

Conversation Book 56, 25v-27r.