“Roving restlessly from place to place, winning all hearts by his sweet, insinuating, lively melodies, his eccentricities making him an imposing figure to the young of both sexes, and an annoyance to the old, exciting the attention of everybody, and then suddenly disappearing, his person uniting in the most seductive manner aristocratic bearing and tone with indolent dissipation, his moods alternating between uproarious spirits and deep depression,—­in all ways he resembled a figure from some romantic poem, wholly unlike anything seen before in the history of German art.”

In 1813 he found himself at Prague, with the post of musical director to the opera.  In the company were two women who took hold of his heart; one, a spirit of evil, the other an angel of good.  The former was Theresa Brunetti, wife of a ballet-dancer, and mother of several children, the acquisition of which had robbed her of neither her fine, plump figure, nor her devotion to the arts of coquetry.  There is no improving upon the description of Max von Weber as given of this entanglement, so here it is at length, with all its frankness of exposure and its writhing humiliation: 

“He soon conceived for the handsome seductive woman a passion, which seemed to have deprived his otherwise clear mind of all common sense and reason, and which neither the flood of administrative affairs nor the cold breath of duty could extinguish.  Vain were all his efforts to conceal it.  In a very short time it became the topic of general remark; excited the ridicule or grave anxieties of his friends; involved him in a thousand disagreeable positions; lowered his character, without the slightest compensating advantage to his artistic career; and nigh dragged him down into an abyss beyond hope of rescue.

“The new opera-director was soon lodged in the house of the careless husband of the light woman.  She herself may have had some inclination for the man.  But as soon as she felt her true power over him, she held out her fair hand only to lead him into a life of torment.

“The woman’s power over her poor victim was immense.  He was dragged in her train, against his better reason, to country excursions, suppers, balls, at which, whilst he watched her every look, her every breath, to discover her slightest wish, although nigh dead with fatigue, she would be bestowing her attention on other men, wholly regardless of her slave.  Now again he would scour the town, in scorching heat or drenching rain, frequently sacrificing the only moments he could snatch from business for his dinner, to procure a ribbon, a ring, or some dainty, which she desired, and which was difficult to obtain; and on his return she would receive him perhaps with coldness and toss the prize aside.  Sometimes, when the proof became too evident that she had duped, deceived, betrayed him, the scenes between the two were fearful; and then she would cleverly find means of asserting that it was she who had the best right to be jealous, and thus turn the tables on him.  By every thought, in every action, in every moment of his life, there was but one feeling ever present—­’How will she receive me?’