Yet all these years there was one person who knew the secret—­the woman who as a school-girl had placed the wreath of immortelles on Beethoven’s grave for her much-loved Countess Therese Brunswick.  Through this act of devotion Miriam Tenger seemed to become to the Countess a tie that stretched back to her past, and though they saw each other only at long intervals, Miriam’s presence awakened anew the old memories in the Countess’s heart, and from her she heard piecemeal, and with pauses of years between, the story of hers and Beethoven’s romance.

Therese was the daughter of a noble house.  Beethoven was welcome both as teacher and guest in the most aristocratic circles of Vienna.  The noble men and women who figure in the dedications of his works were friends, not merely patrons.  Despite his uncouth manners and appearance, his genius, up to the point at least when it took its highest flights in the “Ninth Symphony” and the last quartets, was appreciated; and he was a figure in Viennese society.  The Brunswick house was one of many that were open to him.  The Brunswicks were art lovers.  Franz, the son of the house, was the composer’s intimate friend.  The mother had all possible graciousness and charm, but with it also a passionate pride in her family and her rank, a hauteur that would have caused her to regard an alliance between Therese and Beethoven as monstrous.  Therese was an exceptional woman.  She had an oval, classic face, a lovely disposition, a pure heart and a finely cultivated mind.  The German painter, Peter Cornelius, said of her that any one who spoke with her felt elevated and ennobled.  The family was of the right mettle.  The Countess Blanka Teleki, who was condemned to death for complicity in the Hungarian uprising of 1848, but whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment—­she finally was released in 1858,—­was Therese’s niece, and is said to have borne a striking likeness to her.  It may be mentioned that Giulietta Guicciardi, of the “Moonlight Sonata,” was Therese’s cousin.  There seems no doubt that the composer was attracted to Giulietta before he fell in love with his “Immortal Beloved.”  That is why his biographers were so ready to believe that the letter was addressed to the lady with the romantic name and identified with one of his most romantic works.

Therese herself told Miriam that one day Giulietta, who had become the affianced of Count Gallenberg, rushed into her room, threw herself at her feet like a “stage princess,” and cried out:  “Counsel me, cold, wise one!  I long to give Gallenberg his conge and marry the wonderfully ugly, beautiful Beethoven, if—­if only it did not involve lowering myself socially.”  Therese, who worshipped the composer’s genius and already loved him secretly, turned the subject off, fearful lest she should say, in her indignation at the young woman who thought she would be lowering herself by marrying Beethoven, something that might lead to an irreparable breach.  “Moonlight Sonata,” or no “Moonlight Sonata,” there are two greater works by the same genius that bear the Brunswick name,—­the “Appassionata,” dedicated to Count Franz Brunswick, and the sonata in F-sharp major, Opus 78, dedicated to Therese, and far worthier of her chaste beauty and intellect than the “Moonlight.”