Pyramus Kogel, on his return, saw nothing of the deep impression which
Wolf's visit had made upon Barbara. She merely mentioned it, and
carelessly said that the friend of her youth had been delighted with
the children.
The news that reached her ears about what was happening in the world
awakened her interest, it is true, but she took no trouble to ask for
tidings. When, the following year, her husband informed her that the
Emperor's only son was about to conclude a second marriage, with Mary
Tudor, of England, and Charles was to commit to Philip the sovereignty of
the Netherlands, Spain, Naples, and Milan, she received it as if she had
already known it.
What she learned through the neighbours of the increasing number of
executions of obdurate heretics she deemed the wise measures of a devout
and conscientious government.
To the children Barbara was a careful mother. She rarely went to visit
the Dubois couple. Frau Traut either could not or was not allowed to
tell her anything about her child, except that he was thriving under the
maternal care of Dona Magdalena, to whom he had been confided.
The next winter, during which Charles reached his fifty-fourth year, his
health failed so noticeably that the physicians despaired of his
recovery. The Brabant palace was constantly besieged by people of all
classes inquiring about the condition of the still honoured and by many
deeply beloved monarch, and Barbara almost daily asked for news of him.
She usually entered the palace clad in black and closely veiled, for she
had many acquaintances among the attendants.
Adrian was inaccessible, because his master could not spare him a single
hour, but she saw his substitute, Ogier Bodart, who had served the
Emperor in Ratisbon. From him she learned how the sufferer passed the
night, how the day promised, and whether the physician's opinion awakened
hope or fear. He even told her that his Majesty was occupying himself
with his last will, the payment of his debts, the arrangement of the
succession, and the choice of his burial place.
All this occupied Barbara's mind so deeply, and the long waiting to see
Bodart often robbed her of so much time, that her housewifely and
maternal duties suffered, yet her patient husband endured it a long while
indulgently. But once, when he summoned up courage and cautiously blamed
her, she quietly admitted that he was right, but added that she had never
concealed from him the tie which bound her to the Emperor Charles, and
now that Death was stretching his hand toward him, she must be permitted
to obtain news of his welfare.
The strong man silenced his dissatisfaction, and placed no obstacles in
her way. He was grateful for the maternal solicitude which she showed
the children.
His kindly nature secretly approved of her spending a longer time in the
Cathedral of St. Gudule than usual, praying for the royal sufferer who
was so seriously ill. The man whom she could not forget was dying and,
moreover, was his sovereign.
Spring at last brought an improvement in the monarch's health, and with
it Barbara's return to her household duties.
A great change took place in the Dubois home during the spring after
Charles's convalescence. The exhausting care of the Emperor had made
Adrian seriously ill and, in spite of the objections and bitter
complaints of his beloved and honoured master and his own desire to
continue in his service, he was forced to resign his office, which was
committed to his assistant Bodart.
One day Barbara met Dr. Mathys at the ex-valet's sick-bed. The kindly
leech was amazed at her youthful appearance, and also at the obstinacy
of her throat ailment; but he encouraged her, for he had recently seen
marvellous effects produced by the old Roman baths at Ems, which were
not difficult to reach, and advised her to use them as soon as possible.
She must inform him of the result, if he was permitted to visit the
Netherlands again.
Then Barbara asked if he intended to leave the master whose life was
preserved by his skill; but he only shook his big head, smiling, and said
that the Emperor and he belonged together, like the soul and the body,
but whether his Majesty would remain in Brabant much longer was an open
question.
Barbara now remembered Wolf's communication, and when the rumour spread
that the Emperor Charles was inclined to give up his rulership and
commit the sceptre and crown to his son Philip, she knew that this time
also Charles would execute the plan which he had matured after years of
consideration.
Through her friend she knew the motives which urged him to renounce power
and grandeur and retire to solitude; but to her it seemed certain that,
above all other reasons, longing for the fair, curly-headed boy, his son
and hers, had induced him to take this great and admirable step.
Gradually her maternal heart attributed to her John alone the desire of
the world-weary earthly pilgrim to lay aside the purple and return to
Spain.
Though Barbara at this time rarely left her own fireside, her husband
might often have wished that she would return to the conduct of the
previous winter, for he perceived the torturing anxiety which was
consuming her.
She could gaze for hours into vacancy, absorbed in profound meditation
and reveries, or play on the harp and lute, softly humming old songs to
herself. If at such times Pyramus asked, lovingly and modestly, that he
might not expose himself to an angry rebuff, what was burdening her soul,
his wife gave evasive answers or told him about the physician's advice,
and described how different the lives of both would be if she could
regain the lost melody of her voice. But when he, who did not grudge
the woman he loved the very best of everything, joyfully offered from
his savings the sum necessary to send her and Frau Lamperi to Ems,
in order, if possible, to commence the cure at once, she asserted that,
for many reasons, she could not begin this summer the treatment which
promised so much. True, the bare thought that if might once again
be allotted to her to raise her heart in song filled her with the same
blissful hope as ever; but if the report, which constantly grew more
definite, did not deceive, the Emperor's formal abdication was close at
hand, and to attend this great event seemed to her a duty of the heart,
a necessity which she could not avoid. In many a quiet hour she told
herself that Charles, when he had divested himself of all his honours and
become a mere man like the rest of the world, would draw nearer to her
boy, and through him to her. As an ordinary mortal, he would be able to
love, like every other father, the child that attracted him to Spain.
If in his life of meditation, far from the tumult of the world, the
strife for knowledge should lead him to look back into the past, and in
doing so he again recalled the days to which he owed his greatest
happiness, could he help remembering her and her singing?
How often she had heard that the knowledge of self was the highest goal
of thought to the philosopher, and as such Charles would certainly retire
into seclusion, and, as surely as she desired to be saved, he had wronged
her and must then perceive it. Probably there were thousands of more
important things in which he had to bury himself, but the boy would
remind him of her and the injury which he had done.
Never had she more deeply admired the grandeur of her imperial lover, and
with entire confidence she believed that this stupendous act of
renunciation would mark the beginning of a new life for her and her
child.
September and the first half of October passed like a fevered dream.
The abdication would certainly take place,
Charles had resolved to transfer all the crowns which adorned him to his
son Philip, and retire to a Spanish monastery.
Barbara also learned when and where the solemn ceremony was to take
place. Day after day she again mingled with the visitors to the palace,
and on the twenty-first of October she saw the eleven Knights of the
Golden Fleece, to whom he wished to restore the office of grand master,
enter the palace chapel.
How magnificently these greatest of all dignitaries were attired! how all
that she saw of this rare event in the palace chapel reminded her of the
solemn ceremonial at the Trausnitzburg at Landshut, and her resolve to
surrender her child, that it might possess the same splendour and honours
as its sister's husband!
The wishes cherished at that time were still unfulfilled; but the father
would soon meet the son again, and the greater affection this peerless
boy aroused in Charles, the more surely he would know how to bestow on
him honours as high or higher than he gave the daughter of Johanna Van
der Gheynst.
Five days after the assembling of the Knights of the Golden Fleece, the
solemn ceremony of the abdication would take place in the great hall
which joined the palace chapel.
She must obtain admittance to it. Her husband did what he could to aid
her and soothe her excitement by the gratification of so ardent a wish,
but his efforts were vain.
Barbara herself, however, did not remain idle, and tried her fortune with
those of high and low estate whom she had known in the past.
She could not trust to forcing her way in on the day of the ceremony of
abdication, for every place in the limited space assigned to spectators
had been carefully allotted, and no one would be permitted to enter the
palace without a pass. When, after many a futile errand, she had been
refused also by the lord chamberlain, she turned her steps to Baron
Malfalconnet's palace.
He had just swung himself into the saddle, and Barbara found him greatly
changed. The handsome major-domo had grown gray, his bright face was
wrinkled, and his smiling lips now wore a new, disagreeable, almost cruel
expression of mockery. He probably recognised his visitor at once, but
the meeting seemed scarcely to afford him pleasure. Nevertheless, he
listened to her.
But as soon as he heard what she desired, he straightened himself in the
saddle, and cried: "When I wished to present you to his Majesty--do you
remember?--at Ratisbon, you hastily wheeled your horse and vanished.
Now, when you desire to bid farewell to our sovereign lord, I dutifully
follow the example you then set me."
As he spoke he put spurs to his horse and, kissing his hand to her,
dashed away. Barbara, wounded and disappointed, gazed after the pitiless
scoffer.
She had knocked in vain where she might hope for consideration; only the
young man of middle height who, carrying a portfolio under his arm, now
approached her and raised his black secretary's cap, had been omitted,
though he, too, was one of the old Ratisbon friends, and his position
with the Bishop of Arras gave him a certain influence.
It was the little Maltese choir boy, Hannibal Melas, who owed so much to
her recommendation.
He asked sympathizingly what troubled her and, after Barbara had confided
to him what she had hitherto vainly desired, he referred her unasked to
his omnipotent master, who was to enter King Philip's service, and
proposed that she should come to his office early the next morning.
Thence he would try to take her to the minister, who had by no means
forgotten her superb singing. His Eminence had mentioned her kindly
very recently in a conversation with the leech.
The following morning Barbara went to the great statesman's business
offices. Hannibal was waiting for her.
It was on Saint Raphael's day, which had attracted his fellow-clerks
to a festival in the country. Granvelle had given the others leave of
absence, but wished to keep within call the industrious Maltese, on whose
zeal he could always rely.
Without stopping his diligent work at the writing-desk, the secretary
begged Barbara to wait a short time. He would soon finish the draught
of the new edict for which his Eminence and the Councillor Viglius were
waiting in the adjoining chamber. The pictures on the walls of the
fourth room were worth looking at.
Barbara followed his advice, but she paused in the third room, for
through the partly open door she heard Granvelle's familiar voice.
Curious to see what changes time had wrought, she peered through the by
no means narrow crack and overlooked the minister's spacious office,
where he was now entirely alone with the Councillor Viglius.
The Bishop of Arras had scarcely altered since their last meeting, only
his appearance had become somewhat more stately, and his clever, handsome
face was fuller.
The Councillor Viglius, whom Barbara looked directly in the face, did not
exactly profit by the contrast with Granvelle, for the small figure of
the Frieslander barely reached to the chin of the distinguished native of
tipper Burgundy, but his head presented a singular and remarkably vivid
colouring. The perfectly smooth hair and thick beard of this no longer
young man were saffron yellow, and his plump face was still red and white
as milk and blood. It was easy to perceive by his whole extremely
striking appearance that he was rightly numbered among the Emperor's
shrewdest councillors. Barbara had heard marvellous tales of his
learning, and it was really magnificent in compass and far more important
than his keen but narrow mind. This time the loquacious man was allowing
the Bishop of Arras to speak, and Barbara listened to his words and the
councillor's answers with eager attention.
They were talking about the approaching abdication, and who knew the
Emperor Charles better than these far-seeing men, who were so near his
person?
If only she had not been obliged to believe this, for what she heard from
them showed in sombre lines what her heart had clothed with golden
radiance.
Everything Wolf had told her concerning the motives which induced Charles
to devote himself for the remainder of his life to quiet contemplation
seemed to her as credible as to the knight himself. But he had received
what he knew from Queen Mary of Hungary, who interpreted her royal
brother's conduct like an affectionate sister, or thought it advisable
to represent it in the most favourable light.
It had not occurred to the warm-hearted, straightforward Wolf to doubt
the royal lady's statement; but Barbara had regarded her friend's
explanation of the Emperor's wonderful act of renunciation as she would
have gazed at a citadel founded on a rock with towers rising to the
clouds, and in imagination had followed to his solitude the world-weary
philosopher, the father yearning for the child he had missed so long.
But how pitilessly what she heard here overthrew the proud edifice! how
cruelly it destroyed what she had deemed worthy of the greatest
admiration, what had rendered her happy and reanimated her wishes
and her hopes!
The wise Granvelle foresaw how the world would judge his master's
abdication, and described it to the Frieslander. It bore a fateful
resemblance to the regent's interpretation, her friend's opinion, and her
own, and the shrewd Viglius accompanied this narrative with so scornful
a laugh that it made her heart ache.
"This is what will be said," concluded the Bishop of Arras, summing up
his previous statements, "of the wise scorner of the world upon the
throne, who cast aside sceptre and crown in order, as a pious recluse, to
secure the salvation of his soul and, like a second Diogenes, to listen
to the wealth of his thoughts and investigate the nature of things."
"If only the pure spring from which the Greek dipped water in the hollow
of his hand was not changed to a cellar full of fiery wine, his hermit
fare to highly seasoned pasties, stuffed partridges, frozen fruit juices,
truffled pheasants, and such things! But everybody to his taste! The
world will be deceived. Unless you wish to blind yourself, your
Eminence, you will admit that I have seen correctly the most powerful
motives for this unequalled act."
Barbara saw the bishop shake his head in dissent and, while she was
listening with strained ears to his explanation, Viglius, as if singing
bass to Granvelle's tenor, repeated again and again at brief intervals,
in a low tone, the one word, "Debts," while his green eyes sparkled,
sometimes as if asking assent, sometimes combatively.
He believed that the weight of financial cares was causing the Emperor
Charles's abdication. Like a wise man, he said, he would place his own
burden of debt upon his son's shoulders. His Majesty usually uttered
exactly the opposite of his real opinions, and therefore, in the outline
of his abdication speech, he twice emphasized how great a debt of
gratitude Don Philip owed him for the Heritage which while still alive
he bequeathed to him. True, besides the debts, crowns and kingdoms in
plenty passed to Charles's successor; but the father, so long as he drew
breath, would not give up the decision of the most important questions of
government, and therefore this abdication, after all, was merely an
excellent means of divesting himself of burdensome obligations,
embellished with a certain amount of humbug.
The Bishop of Arras made no weighty protest against this severe speech;
nay, he even said, in a tone of assent, that the Emperor Charles's
tireless intellect would continue to direct political events. Besides,
he could safely commit the execution of his conclusions and commands to
his obedient and dutiful heir.
"The world," he added, "will not fare badly by this arrangement; but you,
Viglius, can not forget the religious liberty which his Majesty promised
to the Germans."
"Not until the end of my life!" cried the Frieslander, his green eyes
flashing angrily.
Granvelle protested that this act of indulgence weighed heavily upon him
also; but at that time a refusal would have occasioned a new war, which,
according to human judgment, would have resulted in loss and the
establishment of heresy in the Netherlands. Maurice of Saxony, he
reminded the councillor, did not fall until a year later, and then
as a conqueror, on the battlefield.
His Majesty's abdication, he went on with calm deliberation, was,
however, not exactly as Viglius supposed. The desire to rid himself of
troublesome debts had only hastened the Emperor's resolution. The
principal motive for this momentous act he could state most positively to
be the increasing burden of his physical sufferings. To this was added
the feeling, usually found most frequently among gamblers, that the time
to win or, in his Majesty's case, to succeed was past. Lastly, Charles
really did long for less disturbance from the regular course of business,
the reception of ambassadors, the granting of audiences.
"In short," he concluded, "he wants to have an easier life, and, besides,
if the despatches and orders leave him time for it, to occupy himself
with his favourite amusements--his clocks and pieces of mechanism.
Finally, his sufferings remind him often enough of the approach of death,
and he hopes by religious exercises to secure his place in the kingdom of
heaven."
"So far as politics and the table give him leisure for it," interposed
the Frieslander. "He doesn't seem inclined to make his penance too
severe. Quijada is now preparing the penitential cell, and it is neither
in the burning Thebais nor in the arid sands of the desert, but in one of
the most delightful and charming places in Spain. May our sovereign find
there what he seeks! You are aware of the paternal joys which await him
through the boy Geronimo?"
"Where did you learn that?" Granvelle interrupted in a startled tone, and
Barbara held her breath and listened with twofold attention.
"From his Majesty himself," was the reply. "He intended his son for the
monastery. He longs to see him again, because he is said to be
developing magnificently; but he wished to know whether it would not be
safer to remove him from the world before his arrival, for, if necessary,
he could give up meeting him. If be should discover his father's
identity, it might easily fill him with vanity, and in Villagarcia he was
learning to prize knightly achievements above the service of the Most
High. It would not do to leave him in the world; unpleasant things might
come from it. As King Philip's sole heir was the sickly Don Carlos----"
"His son Geronimo might aspire to the crown," interrupted Granvelle.
"He expressed the same doubts to me also. What I heard of the child
induced me to plead that he might be allowed to grow up in the world
untrammelled. If any one understands how to defend himself against
unauthorized demands, it is Don Philip."
"So I, too, think, and advised," replied Viglius. "Poor boy! His father
of late holds on to thalers more than anxiously and, if I am correctly
informed, the education of his son has hitherto cost his Majesty no more
expense than the maintenance of the mother. Wise economy, your Eminence!
Or what shall it be called?"
"As you choose," replied the bishop in an irritated tone. "What do you
know about the boy's mother?"
"Nothing," replied the Frieslander, "except what my friend Mathys told
me lately. He said that before she lost her voice she was a perfect
nightingale. She might recover it at Ems, and so the leech proposed to
the Emperor to give her a sum of money for this purpose."
"And his Majesty?" asked Granvelle.
"Remained faithful to his habit of not sullying his reputation by
extravagance," replied the Frieslander, laughing.
"Suffering, misfortune!" sighed Granvelle. "As a long period of rain
produces fungi in the woods, so this terrible pair calls to life one
pettiness after another in the rare man in whom once every trait of
character was great and glorious. I knew the boy's mother. Many things
might be said of her, among them good, nay, the best ones. As to the
boy, his Majesty informed Don Philip of his existence. It was in
Augsburg. He does not seem at all suited for the monastic life, and
therefore I shall continue to strive to preserve him from it."
"And if his Majesty decides otherwise?"
"Then, of course--" answered Granvelle, shrugging his shoulders. "But
the draught must be composed, and there are more important matters for us
to discuss."
As he spoke he rang the bell on the table at his side, and Hannibal
obeyed his master's summons. In doing so he passed Barbara, who started
as if bewildered when she heard him approach.
He went up to her in great surprise, but ere he could utter the first
words she clutched his arm, whispering: "I am going, Hannibal. His
Eminence did not entirely forget me. If he can receive me, send word to
my house."
Scarcely able to control herself, Barbara set out on her way home. The
words she had heard had shaken the depths of her soul like an earthquake.
The news that Charles intended to confine in a monastery the boy whom she
had given up to him that he might bestow upon him whatever lay within his
imperial power poisoned her joy in the future. How often this man lead
inflicted bleeding wounds upon her heart! Now he trampled it under his
cruel feet. Two convictions had lent her the strength not to despair:
she felt sure that his love for her could never have been extinguished
had the power of her art aided her to warm Charles's heart, and she was
still more positive that the father would raise to splendour and
magnificence the boy whom she had given him.
And now?
He had refused the leech's request to help her regain the divine gift to
which, according to his own confession, he owed the purest joys; and her
strong, merry child he, its own father, condemned to disappear and wither
in the imprisonment of a cloister. This must not be, and on her way home
she formed plan after plan to prevent it.
Pyramus attributed her sometimes depressed, sometimes irritable manner to
the disappointment of her wish.
What she had just learned and had had inflicted upon her filled her with
hatred of life.
Her two boys scarcely dared to approach their mother, who, unlike her
usual self, harshly rebuffed them.
At twilight Hannibal Melas appeared, full of joyous excitement.
Granvelle sent Barbara word that the doorkeeper Mangin would show her a
good seat. His Eminence desired to be remembered to her, and said that
only those who had been closely associated with his Majesty would be
admitted to this ceremony, and he knew that she ranked among the first of
these.
Barbara's features brightened and, as she saw how happy it made the
Maltese to be the bearer of so pleasant a message, she forced herself
to give a joyous expression to her gratitude. In the evening, and during
a sleepless night, she considered whether she should make use of the
invitation. What she had expected for herself and her child from
Charles's abdication had been mere chimeras of the brain, and what could
this spectacle offer her? She would only behold with her eyes what she
had often enough imagined with the utmost distinctness--the great monarch
divested of his grandeur and all his dignities.
But Granvelle's message that she was one cf those who stood nearest to
the abdicating sovereign constantly echoed in her ears, and her absence
from this ceremony would have seemed to her unnatural--nay, an offence
against something necessary.
Her husband was pleased with the great minister's kindness to his wife.
He had nothing to do in the palace, but he intended to look for the
children, who had gone there before noon with Frau Lamperi, that they
might get the best possible view of the approach of the princes and
dignitaries.
Barbara herself was to use a litter. The ex-'garde-robiere' had helped
her put on her gala attire, and Pyramus assured his wife that every one
would consider her the handsomest and most elegant lady in the galleries.
She knew that he was right, and listened with pleasure, deeply as
resentment and disappointment burdened her soul.
Then the knocker on the door rapped. The litter-bearers had probably
come. But no! The Flemish maid, who had opened the door, announced that
a messenger was waiting outside with a letter which he could deliver only
to the master or the mistress.
Pyramus went into the entry, and his long absence was already making
Barbara uneasy, when he returned with bowed head and, after many words of
preparation, informed her that her father was very ill and, finally, that
apoplexy had put a swift and easy end to his life.
Then a great and genuine grief seized upon her with all its power.
Everything that the simple-hearted, lovable man, who had guarded her
child hood so tenderly and her girlhood with such solicitude and
devotion, had been to her, returned to her memory in all its vividness.
In him she had lost the last person whose right to judge her conduct she
acknowledged, the only one whom she had good reason to be sure cared for
her welfare
as much as, nay, perhaps more than, his own.
The litter, Granvelle's message, the Emperor's abdication ceremony,
everything that had just wounded, angered, and disturbed her, was
forgotten.
She gently refused the consolation of her husband, who in the captain had
lost a dear friend and sincerely mourned his death, and entreated him to
leave her alone; but when her sons returned and joyously described the
magnificent spectacle on which they had feasted their eyes outside of the
palace, she drew them toward her with special tenderness, and tried to
make them understand that they would never again see the good grandfather
who had loved them all so dearly.
But the older boy, Conrad, only gazed at her wonderingly, and asked why
she was weeping; and the younger one did not understand her at all, and
went on talking about the big soldier who wanted to lift him on his
piebald horse. To the child death is only slumber, and life being awake
to new games and pleasures.
Barbara said this to her husband when he wished to check the merry
laughter of the little ones, and then went to her chamber.
There she strove to think of the dead man, and she succeeded, but with
the memory of the sturdy old hero constantly blended the image of the
feeble man who to-day was voluntarily surrendering all the gifts of
fortune which she--oh, how willingly! would have received for the son
whom he desired to withdraw from the world.
The next morning Hannibal Melas came to ask what had kept her from the
ceremony. He learned it in the entry from Frau Lamperi, and Barbara's
tearful eyes showed him what deep sorrow this loss had caused her. Her
whole manner expressed quiet melancholy. This great, pure grief had come
just at the right time, flowing, like oil upon the storm-lashed waves,
over hatred, resentment, and all the passionate emotions by which she had
previously been driven to the verge of despair.
She did not repulse the witness of her lost happiness, and listened
attentively while Hannibal told her about the memorable ceremony which he
had attended.
True, his description of the lofty hall in the Brabant palace where it
took place, the chapel adjoining it, and the magnificent decorations of
flowers and banners that adorned it, told nothing new to Barbara. She
was familiar with both, and had seen them garlanded, adorned with flags
and coats of arms, and even witnessed the erection of the stage in the
hall and the stretching of the canopy above it.
The Emperor had appeared upon the platform at the stroke of three,
leaning upon his crutch and the shoulder of William of Orange. His son
Philip and the Queen of Hungary followed, and all took their seats upon
the gilded thrones awaiting them. The blithe, pleasant Archduke
Maximilian of Austria, the Duke of Savoy, who was expecting a great
winning card in the game of luck of his changeful life, the Knights
of the Golden Fleece, and the highest of the Netherland nobles, the
councillors, the governor, and the principal military officers also
had places upon the stage.
Barbara knew every name that Hannibal mentioned. It seemed as if she saw
the broken-down Emperor, his son Philip with his head haughtily thrown
back, his favourite, the omnipotent minister, Ruy Gomez, the Prince of
Eboli, who with his coal-black hair and beard would have resembled
Quijada if, instead of the soldierly frankness of the major-domo, an
uneasy, questioning expression had not lurked in his dark eyes, the
brilliant Bishop of Arras, who had again so kindly placed her under
obligation to him, and the Frieslander Viglius, who had dropped into her
soul the wormwood whose bitterness she still tasted, and whose motto,
"The life of mortals is a watch in the night," seemed to flash from his
green eyes. Not a single woman had been admitted to the distinguished
assembly of the States-General, the city magistrates, and illustrious
invited guests, who as spectators sat on benches and chairs opposite to
the stage, and this placed the kindness of Granvelle, whom the Netherland
dignitaries were said to detest, in a still brighter light.
The ceremony had been opened by the great speech of Philibert of
Brussels, which the young Maltese described as a masterpiece of the
finest rhetorical art. At the close of this address a solemn silence
pervaded the hall, for the Emperor Charles had risen to take leave of his
faithful subjects.
One might have heard a leaf fall, a spicier walk, as, supported by the
arm of William of Orange, he raised the notes of his address and began to
read.
At this information Barbara remembered how Maurice of Saxony had
supported the Emperor at the May festival at Prebrunn. William of
Orange, too, was still young. She had often seen him, and what deep
earnestness rested on his noble brow! how open and pure was the glance
of his clear eyes, yet how penetrating and inexorably keen it could also
be! She had noticed this at the assembly of the Knights of the Golden
Fleece, when he looked at King Philip with bitter hate or certainly with
dislike and scorn. Was this man chosen to avenge Charles's sins upon his
son and heir? Could the Prince of Orange be destined to deal with the
new king as Maurice of Saxony had treated his imperial father? Would the
resentment which, since the day before, had again filled her soul have
permitted her to prevent it had she possessed the power?
The Emperor's speech had treated of his broken health and the necessity
of living in a milder climate. Then Don Philip had been described by his
father as a successor whose wisdom equalled his experience. This called
a smile to Barbara's lips.
Philip was said to be an industrious, devout man, fond of letter-writing,
and full of intrigue, but only his father would venture to compare him
with himself, with Charles V.
He, the son, probably knew how vacant and lustreless his eyes were, for
he usually fixed them on the ground; and what fulness of life, what a
fiery soul had sparkled only a short time ago, when she saw him in the
distance, from those of the man whom she certainly was not disposed to
flatter!
Then the Emperor had reviewed his whole reign, mentioned how many wars he
had waged, how many victories he had won and, finally, had reminded his
son of the gratitude he owed a father who during his lifetime bestowed
all his possessions upon him and, as it were, descended into the grave in
order to make him earlier the heir of all his power and wealth.
Now Barbara fancied that again--she knew not for what hundredth time--the
Frieslander's exclamation, "Debts! debts!" rang in her ears, and at the
same time she thought of the boy in Spain who had here been disinherited,
and must be hidden in a monastery that the other son of the same father,
the diminutive upstart Philip, puffed up with arrogance, might sleep more
quietly. For one son the unjust man whom she loved was ready to die
before his last hour came, in order to give him all that he possessed;
for the other he could find nothing save a monk's cowl. Instead of the
yearning for John, of which Wolf had spoken and she, blind fool,
believed, he thought of him with petty fears of the claims by which he
might injure his favoured brother. No warm impulse of paternal
tenderness stirred the breast of the man whose heart was hardened, who
understood how to divest himself of the warmest love as he now cast aside
the crown and the purple of royalty.
These torturing thoughts so powerfully affected Barbara that she only
half heard what Hannibal was saying about the Emperor's admonition to his
son to hold fast to justice, law, and the Catholic Church. But when
Granvelle's faithful follower, in an agitated tone, went on to relate how
Charles had besought the forgiveness of Providence for all the sins and
errors which he had committed, and added that he would remember all who
had rendered him happy by their love and obedience in every prayer which
he addressed to the Being to whom the remnant of his life should be
devoted, the ex-singer's breath came quicker, her small hands clinched,
and the question whether she had failed in love and obedience before he
basely cast her off forced itself upon her mind, and with it the other,
whether he would also include in his prayers her whom he had ill-treated
and mortally insulted.
These thoughts lent her features so gloomy an expression that it would
have offended the Emperor Charles's ardent admirer if he had noticed it.
But the scene which, with tears in his eyes, he now described absorbed
his attention so completely that he forgot everything around him and, as
it were, gazed into his own soul while picturing to himself and his
listener how the monarch, with a pallid, ashen countenance, had sunk back
upon his throne and wept like a child.
At this spectacle the whole assembly, even the sternest old general, had
been overwhelmed by deep emotion, and the spacious hall echoed with the
sobs and groans of graybeards, middle-aged men and youths, warriors and
statesmen.
Here the young man's voice failed and, weeping, with unfeigned emotion he
covered his agitated face with his handkerchief.
When he regained his composure he saw, with a shade of disappointment,
that Barbara's eyes had remained dry during the description of an event
in which he himself and so many stronger men had shed burning tears.
Yet, when Barbara was again alone she could not drive from her mind the
image of her broken-down, weeping lover. Doubtless she often felt moved
to think of him with deep pity; but she soon remembered the conversation
to which she had listened in the apartments of the Bishop of Arras, and
her belief in the genuineness of those tears vanished.