Chapter 64
A few days later, at Soo-hyun's house.
Chairman Park Ki-jun entered the house accompanied by several workers. Looking around curiously, he said to Ji-ye, who had received him,
"Oh, thank you."
"No, Chairman. You could have just sent someone to install the audio system. You didn't have to come in person."
"Hehe, I came out of curiosity. How are you, Soo-hyun?"
"Yes. He has friends and is doing well in school."
"Ah, I see. I hope he receives a lot of good teachings."
Ji-ye laughed. 'Soo-hyun should have grown up in Warsaw. He came back to Korea to learn about emotions; there's no one here who can teach him how to play the piano.' The chairman knew this. He had told her before: "You have to tell me the right time for him to go study abroad, before it's too late."
Ji-ye just nodded.
"Where did Soo-hyun go?"
"He's home, it's Sunday. One moment."
'He's not one to stay in his room even when guests arrive, but strangely, he went in a while ago and hasn't come out.'
Ji-ye opened the door to Soo-hyun's room.
"Soo-hyun, the chairman is here…?"
The room was empty. Ji-ye tilted her head.
'Where did he go? He's not one to leave without saying anything.'
Chairman Park Ki-jun, who was on the sofa, smiled.
"That's a shame, but I can't help it. Isn't that the age when it's good to have friends? I'm very glad that Soo-hyun has friends. Please give him my regards."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Should I call him?"
"No, what did I say? Just tell them I came by."
"I feel embarrassed offering you such an expensive audio system."
"Haha, you really are like a mother to him."
"Haha, is that so?"
About ten minutes earlier, Soo-hyun was lying on his bed, thinking about his conversation with Kim Eun-joo. Her last words lingered in his mind: "I think what tormented Beethoven throughout his life was none other than 'music' itself."
'How painful must that have been? Did he endure the pain and continue composing just because that was all he had learned? I'm curious.'
Soo-hyun, who had been tossing and turning, suddenly woke up.
"Let's go first."
He opened the door that led to the Pianist's Village.
"Knock and come in, you punk!"
Beethoven, coming out of the bathroom, quickly pulled up his pants and shouted. On a normal day, he would have laughed, but Soo-hyun had a sad expression after learning about Beethoven's past.
"Does your stomach hurt a lot?"
"Wait a second."
Beethoven tapped his ear.
'Is his hearing aid not working well?'
Soo-hyun rushed over and took the device out of his pocket.
'The battery is dead. One moment.'
When Soo-hyun changed the battery and turned on the switch, a ringing sound was heard. Beethoven, whose expression brightened, patted Soo-hyun's head.
"You barge in without knocking, so from now on, just come in without knocking. I'll allow it."
"Ha ha…."
Beethoven grabbed Soo-hyun by the scruff of his neck and led him to a chair.
"Sit."
"Yes, sir."
"What did you just say?"
Soo-hyun said, nodding his head towards his stomach.
"I asked if your stomach hurt a lot."
"Oh, this? I have to live with this stomach ache now. Seriously, I have to poop even after I die. What a pitiful life!"
"…"
'Even after death.' Even though he said it as a joke, his words became a knife and stabbed Soo-hyun in the heart.
"What's with that pitiful look?" Beethoven said. He didn't like others feeling sorry for him.
"I just thought it might hurt."
"It hurts, but you can go to the bathroom. If you have time to worry about others pooping, you should practice more. Your fingers are still not strong enough."
Soo-hyun looked at his hands. Beethoven held up his large, thick hand.
"I've smashed several pianos. You can't play them well with those tiny little hands."
'Are you breaking the piano?'
"Yes. The piano back then was too weak. Tell me more, please."
Beethoven waved his hand as if it were nothing.
"Pianos used to be very small. The first piano, invented by Cristofori, was officially called 'gravicembalo col piano e forte'. The sound was flat and the action was too stiff. Even Johann Sebastian Bach criticized it."
"What do you mean the action is stiff?" Soo-hyun asked.
"A piano makes sound by striking a string with a hammer. You need a mechanical device to connect the keys and hammers, which is called the 'action'."
When Soo-hyun nodded, Beethoven continued,
"Later, Silbermann and Stein also made pianos, and they kept improving. I was the pianist who broke the most pianos in Vienna. I once broke six piano strings at once. That made Anton Reicha, who was turning the pages, complain that he was busier picking up broken strings. It was around 1818, when my damn ears weren't working well. An Englishman named Thomas Broadwood gave me a piano with a range of over six octaves. I was so happy. I even said that this piano was an altar where I could offer the most beautiful sacrifice of my soul to the god Apollo."
Soo-hyun was absorbed in the story. Beethoven continued,
"But the sacred altar became a tangle of broken strings. I needed a stronger piano. By the way, I should tell you about that guy, a conceited fellow named Daniel Steibelt. He had no musical depth. He dazzled the audience with his tremolo technique, while an Englishwoman shook her tambourine like crazy next to him."
Beethoven waved his hands as if shooing a fly.
"But one day I saw him in private, and do you know what he said after seeing the score of my piano trio?"
"I don't know, what did he say?"
"It's pretty good."
'Laughter is about to burst out. How big must the heart of someone who dares to say "That's pretty good" in front of Beethoven be?'
"So what happened?"
"What did I do? I challenged him! I invited a bunch of nobles and the public and we had a one-on-one fight."
"Wow!!"
"He played first. Well, it wasn't bad. I glanced at the boy's score, showed it to the audience, and put it upside down on the music stand. I played the first four bars roughly. Then I turned the theme upside down, varied it, and added a tremendous improvisation that overwhelmed the audience."
Soo-hyun clapped his hands.
"Wow! How cool! So what happened to Steibelt?"
Beethoven said with the aforementioned face.
"What happened? He ran away before I finished playing. The nobleman who supported him went to catch him and said, 'As long as there is a man named Beethoven in Vienna, I will not come back here.' Hahaha!"
'Beethoven bragging like a child. I guess all men are the same, no matter how old they are.'
"Have you never been defeated, sir?"
The answer was different from what he expected.
"Of course I have."
When he made a face like, "Huh? Who are you?", Beethoven shrugged.
"He was a German named Johann Cramer. I expressed my emotions better, but Kramer's technique was more perfect. I also admitted it. I said, 'Even if someone like me died and came back to life, I could never play like that!'."
This wasn't the eccentric Beethoven Soo-hyun knew. Beethoven patted Soo-hyun's shoulder, who had a perplexed expression.
"I couldn't stand pretense or hypocrisy, and I always acknowledged and praised honest artists."
'I see, that's what Mr. Beethoven was like. Was music itself really painful for someone like that?'
Soo-hyun stared at Beethoven, then opened his mouth with difficulty.
"Sir."
"Well."
"What was music to you, sir?"
"Hmm?"
"Music is a comfort to Mr. Young-hoo. But I still haven't found the meaning of my music. So I'm curious. What does music mean to you? Really, did music hurt you? I'll understand. If I had lived like you, music would have hurt me too."
Two conflicting thoughts collided in his head. Beethoven crossed his arms and said with an indifferent expression.
"For me, music was the voice of God. I just listened to it, even if I didn't want to hear it."
'The voice of God. For him, music seems to be an inspiration that comes like the voice of God.'
"How did the voice of God sound to you, sir?"
Beethoven laughed at Soo-hyun's question.
"I didn't hear it."
"Yes?"
"I had to create it because I could no longer hear anything, that voice. I had to create a reason to live."
- - - -
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