A good deal to do, enjoying life a little as well, very busy all at once and also unable to resist being idle now and then, all these factors have until now prevented me from sending you a reply – You can still have everything I offered you; and now I am giving you in addition the music to Goethe’s Egmont, which consists of ten numbers, overture, entr’acte music and so forth [Opus 84]. For this work I am asking the sum of fourteen hundred gulden in silver or at the assimilated rate, at the same valuation as the 250 gulden for the oratorio and so forth – I can’t make any other arrangement without being a loser. I have cut down my fee for your sake, although you don’t deserve such consideration from me. For your behavior is often so unaccountable that only someone like myself who is on the whole very much prejudiced in your favour would want to go on dealing with you – I myself would like my association with you to continue in some way or other – But at the same time I cannot be a loser – When you write to me, please enclose once more the list of the works which I have offered you, so that there may be no misunderstanding – But reply at once so that I may not be held up any longer, the more so as Egmont is to be performed in a few days and offers will be made to me for the music – Let me add that the cost of living in Vienna has risen still further and that the amount of money one needs is terrifying. Hence from this point of view, as indeed in every respect, my fee now is certainly not too high. My 4000 gulden, on which I can no longer live (and, moveover, Kinsky has not yet paid me a farthing, although his contribution is guaranteed) are not worth even a thousand gulden in assimilated coinage – I shall tell you more tomorrow – Make haste with your reply.
Ludwig van Beethoven