Like you, I also am a
prisoner, and like you also, a prisoner to my will. If you would use
your strength, one movement of your powerful muscles would tear your
bonds asunder, and your feet would bear you swiftly like wings
through the air. If I would use the present opportunity, which
beckons and smiles upon me, it would be only necessary to spring
upon your back and dash off into God's fair and lovely world. We
would reach our goal, we would be free, but we would both be lost;
we would be recaptured, and would bitterly repent our short dream of
self-acquired freedom. It is better for us both that we remain as we
are; bound, not with chains laid upon our bodies, but by wisdom and
discretion."
So saying, he smoothed tenderly the glossy throat of the gallant
steed, whose joyful neigh filled his heart with an inexplicable
melancholy.
"I must leave you," murmured he, shudderingly; "your lusty neighing
intoxicates my senses, and reminds me of green fields and fragrant
meadows; of the broad highways, and the glad feeling of liberty
which one enjoys when flying through the world on the back of a
gallant steed. No! No! I dare no longer look upon you; all my wisdom
and discretion might melt away, and I might be allured to seek for
myself that freedom which I must receive alone at the hands of the
king, in Berlin.
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