The Crown and the Scarab

Prague, January 1612.

The castle windows were frosted over. The cold seemed to have penetrated the very stones — and the Emperor's bones as well. Rudolf II was dying. He no longer left his private apartments, far from the courtiers, far from his brother Matthias who was already waiting in the antechambers.

That evening, he asked for two objects to be brought to him.
The first was the Imperial Crown. Solid gold, set with sapphires, rubies, and the legendary Emerald of Charlemagne. It weighed heavily — a symbol of a power that had crumbled piece by piece, treaty by treaty.
The second was a small cedarwood box. Inside, on a bed of red silk, lay a beetle. A coleopteran with wing cases iridescent in green and gold, perfectly still, mounted with meticulous precision by the naturalists of the cabinet.
Rudolf sat in his armchair, a blanket across his knees. He signalled to his servant to place both objects on the low table, side by side. The Crown on the left. The Scarab on the right.
He looked at them for a long while. The flame of a single candle danced between them.
— Come closer, he murmured to his personal physician, Johannes Pistorius.
— Sire?
— Look. Which of the two will survive?
Pistorius hesitated.
— The Crown, Sire. It is the symbol of the Holy Empire. It will be worn by others.
— No, said Rudolf. The Crown is made for heads. And heads rot. Heads are cut off. Heads forget. When Matthias wears it, it will no longer be the same crown. It will be a tool, not a mystery.
He stretched out a trembling hand toward the scarab. He did not touch it, for fear of breaking it.
— This one... It is dead. And yet it is perfect. It will not age. It will not betray. It will not lose Hungary. It will remain green. It will remain whole. In a hundred years, in a thousand years, someone will open this box and it will be exactly as it is tonight.

Rudolf caught sight of himself in the dark reflection of the nearby display case. He saw a stooped old man, skin mottled, breath shallow.
— I have spent my life collecting the world, Pistorius. Stones, horns, clocks, insects. I believed I possessed these things. But it is they who possess me. It is they who will remain. I am merely the dust that settles upon them.

He rose with difficulty and took a step toward the table. He lifted the crown with both hands. It was cold. He raised it slightly, then set it back down on the wood with a dull thud.
— Too heavy.
Then he pointed to the scarab.
— This one weighs nothing. And yet it contains everything I have loved. Silence. Still beauty. Order.
Rudolf returned to his chair. He closed his eyes.
— When I am gone, Matthias will sell the curiosities. He will melt down the gold to pay for his wars. He will scatter the books. But perhaps... perhaps someone, somewhere, will keep this box. And in that box, something of me will remain. Not the Emperor — but the man who saw beauty in an insect's wing.
The physician did not reply. There was nothing to say. The truth lay there on the table. The crown was a temporal burden. The scarab was a miniature eternity.

Rudolf died a few days later. It is said that when his chamber was cleared, the crown had already been claimed by Matthias's heralds. But the small cedarwood box was found forgotten in a drawer, overlooked by those who took everything else, for it was worth nothing.
The scarab was still there. Green. Motionless. More emperor than the man who was no more.