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The Emperor And The Poor Author
by
“I have it,” he exclaimed, a few days before his arrest. “I saw a friend visit Beethoven; I know they both entertained the same sentiments in regard to the Emperor– that man has the manuscripts.”
Where was that man? It was finding the needle in the hay stack– the pebble in the brook. Again the Emperor urged, and the Cytherian Cohort plied their cunning and perseverance. That friend of the poor author was found–he was tilling his garden, surrounded by his flower pots and children, on the outskirts of Prague, Bohemia. It was in vain he questioned his captors. He dropped his gardening implements–blessed his children–kissed them, and was hurried off, he knew not whither or wherefore! Shaubert was this man’s name; he was forty, a widower–a scholar, a poet–liberally endowed by wealth, and loved the women!
It was Baron —-‘s province to find out the weak points of each victim.
“If he has a particular regard for poetry, he does love the fine arts,” quoth the Baron, “and women are the queens of fine arts. I’ll have him!”
In the secret prison of Shaubert he found an old man, confined for–he could not learn what. Every day, the yet youthful and most fascinating, voluptuous and beautiful daughter of the old man, visited his cell, which was adjoining that of Shaubert’s. As she did so, it was not long before she found occasion to linger at the door of the widower, the poet–and sigh so piteously as to draw from the victim, at first a holy poem, and at length an amative love lay. Like fire into tow did this effusion of the poet’s quill inflame the breast and arouse the passions of the lovely Bertha; and in an obscure hour, after pouring forth the soul’s burden of most vehement love, the angel in woman’s form(!), with implements as perfect as the very jailor’s, opened all the bolts and bars, and led the captive forth to liberty! She would have the poet who had entranced her, fly and leave her to her fate! But poetry scorned such dastardy–it was but to brave the uncertainty of fate to stay, and torture to go–Bertha must fly with him. She had a father–could she leave him in bondage? No! She had rescued her lover–she braved more–released her parent in the next hour, by the same mysterious means, and giving herself up to the tempest of love, she shared in the flight of the poet. In a remote section of chivalric Bohemia, they found an asylum. But Bertha was as yet but the deliverer from bondage, if not death, of her soul’s idol; he, with all the warmth and gratitude of a dozen poets, worshipped at her feet and besought her to bless him evermore by sharing his fate and fortune. There was a something imposing, a something that brought the pearly tear to the heroic girl’s eye and made that lovely bosom undulate with most sad emotion. The poet pressed her to his heart–fell at her feet, and begged that if his life–property–children–be the sacrifice–but let him know the secret at once–he was her friend–defender–lover–slave. Another sigh, and the spell was broken.
“Why–ah! why were you a state prisoner–a secret prisoner in the —-?”
“Loved angel,” answered the poet, “I scarce can tell; indeed I have not the merest hint, in my own mind, to tell me for what I was arrested and thrown into prison!”
“Ah! sir,” sighed the lovely Bertha, “I can never then wed the man I love–I cannot brave the dangers of an unknown fate–at some moment least expected, to be torn from his arms–lost to him forever!”
“We can fly, dearest,” suggested the poet, “we can fly to other and more secure lands. In the sunshine of your sweet smile, my dear Bertha, obscurity–poverty would be nothing.”