One day Beethoven was mistaken for a beggar tramp and thrown into jail. How all this happened?
This anecdote was told by a certain Höfel, who was a professor in Wiener Neustadt. The story takes place in 1821, late summer or early autumn.
One evening he was sitting in the garden of the tavern called Zum Schleifen, with colleagues, friends and the Commissioner of the local police. It was already late evening, when the constable came in and told the commissioner, “Mr. Commissioner, we have arrested somebody who will give us no peace. He keeps on yelling that he is Beethoven; but he’s a ragamuffin, has no hat, an old coat, … nothing by which he can be identified.”
The Commissioner ordered to keep the vagrant arrested until morning, then he will come and sort out the problem. The party said goodbye and all returned home.
Around 11 o’clock in the night the Commissioner – already in bed – was waked by a policeman. He was informed that the arrested tramp keeps on yelling and demanding that Herzog, the Musical Director in Wiener Neustadt, be called to identify him.
The Commissioner, now curious, got out of bed and went to wake Herzog, too. The duo arrived at the jail, where the musician immediately identified him, saying “That is Beethoven!” The Musical Director took the exhausted composer home and gave him his best room to rest. Next day the mayor arrived and apologized, offering the state coach to take him home.
What happened to Beethoven? As the story emerged, the nature loving Beethoven, who at the time stayed in Baden for healing, one fine day went out for a walk. He put on some old coat, no hat and on he went. Lost in his thoughts (or in his raptus again), walked so long that when he came to his senses, he found himself lost, hungry and thirsty.
To find some direction, and probably something to eat, he began peering in the windows of houses. The strange looking beggar caught the attention and the police was called. Upon his arrest he said, “I am Beethoven!”, to which the constable answered, “Of course, why not? You’re a tramp: Beethoven doesn’t look so.”
