Pyramus Kogel, whom he knew by sight, to her. Then commending her to the
care of Fran Dubois, who was directed to gratify every reasonable wish,
he left the room. Meanwhile Barbara desired nothing except rest, but she
studiously refrained from addressing even a word to her new companion.
Besides, there was little time to do so, she was soon sound asleep.
When at the end of two hours she awoke, she found herself lying at full
length upon the bench, while a careful hand had removed her shoes, and
the pillows which had supported her weary back were now under her head.
During her slumber it had grown dark, and a small lamp, whose rays a
handkerchief shielded from her eyes, was standing on the stove in one
corner of the room.
Yet she was alone; but she had scarcely stirred when Frau Dubois
appeared with a maid-servant bearing a candelabrum with lighted candles.
The careful nurse asked in brief but pleasant words whether she felt
stronger, if it would be agreeable to her to have supper served in
fifteen minutes, and if she would allow her to help her.
“Willingly,” replied Barbara, very pleasantly surprised. Her companion,
as it were, anticipated her strongest wishes--to satisfy her hunger and
to change her dress.
She must be capable and, moreover, a woman of kindly, delicate feelings,
and it certainly was no fault of hers that she was intrusted with her
guardianship and that she belonged to no higher station in life. She was
only punishing herself by persisting in her silence and, as Frau Dubois
tended her like a watchful mother, though without addressing a single
word to her unasked, Barbara’s grateful heart and the satisfaction which
the valet’s wife inspired silenced her arrogance.
When an attendant laid the table for only one person, the girl kindly
invited Frau Dubois to dine with her; the former, however, had already
had her meal, but she said that she would be very glad to bear the young
lady company if she desired.
The first long conversation between the two took place at the table.
The pretty face of the native of the Rhine country, with its little
snub nose, which in youth must have lent a touch of gay pertness to
the well-formed features, was still unwrinkled, though Frau Dubois was
nearer fifty than forty. Her gray, nearly white hair, though ill-suited
to her almost youthful features, lent them a peculiar charm, and how
brightly her round, brown eyes still sparkled! The plain gown of fine
Brabant stuff fitted as if moulded to her figure, and it was difficult
to imagine anything neater than her whole appearance.
Adrian had certainly attained an exceptional position among his class,
yet Barbara wondered how he had won this woman, who apparently belonged
to a far higher station. And then what had brought her to this place and
her companionship?
She was to learn during the meal, for Frau Dubois not only answered her
questions kindly, but in a manner which showed Barbara sincere sympathy
for her position.
She was the daughter of a captain who had fallen in the Emperor
Charles’s service before Padua. The pension granted to his widow had not
been paid, and when, with her daughter, she sought an audience with the
commander in chief, the influential valet had seen the blooming girl,
and did not seek her hand in vain. Maternal joys had been denied her;
besides, Frau Dubois thought it hard that her husband was obliged to
accompany the Emperor, who could not spare him for a single day, on his
long and numerous journeys. Even the very comfortable life secured to
her by the distinguished valet, who was respected by men of the highest
rank, by no means consoled her for it.
The Emperor Charles knew this, and had given Adrian a pretty house in
the park of the Brussels palace, besides favouring him in other ways.
Now he had allowed him, before setting out for the war, to send for his
wife. On reaching Landshut, she had shared during a few hours the little
house which the monarch and general had chosen for his lodgings. The
imperial commander had not gone up to the citadel because he wished to
remain among his troops.
True, the little farmhouse on the “hohen Gred” which he occupied was
anything but a suitable abode for a powerful sovereign, for above the
ground floor it had only a single story with five small windows and
an unusually high roof. But, on the other hand, the regiments lying
encamped near it could be quickly reached. Another reason for making the
choice was that he could obtain rest here better than on the Trausnitz,
for his health was as bad as his appearance and his mood. He intended
to break up the headquarters on the day after to-morrow, so another
separation awaited the valet and his wife.
When the mounted messenger sent by Frau Lamperi reached Landshut, and
it was necessary to find a suitable companion for Barbara, the Emperor
himself had thought of Fran Dubois.
There had been no opposition to his wish. Besides, she said, his Majesty
meant kindly by Barbara and, so far as her power extended, everything
should be done to soften her hard destiny.
She knew the whole history of the girl intrusted to her care, yet she
would scarcely have undertaken the task committed to her had she not
been aware that every determination of the Emperor was immovable.
Besides, she could also strive to render the hard fate imposed upon the
poor girl more endurable.
Barbara had listened eagerly to the story without interrupting her; then
she desired to learn further particulars concerning the health of the
man from whom even now her soul could not be sundered and, finally, she
urged her to talk about herself.
So time passed with the speed of the wind. The candles in the
candelabrum were already half burned down when Fran Dubois at last urged
going to rest.
Barbara felt that she was fortunate to have found so kind and sensible a
companion and, while the Rhinelander was helping her undress, she begged
her in future to call her by her Christian name “Gertrud,” or, as people
liked to address her, “Frau Traut.”
CHAPTER VIII.
When Barbara rose from her couch the next morning it was no longer early
in the day. She had slept soundly and dreamlessly for several hours,
then she had been kept awake by the same thoughts which had pressed upon
her so constantly of late.
She would defy Charles’s cruel demand. The infuriating compulsion
inflicted upon her could only strengthen her resolve. If she was dragged
to a convent by force, she would refuse, at the ceremony of profession,
to become a nun.
She thought of a pilgrimage to induce Heaven to restore the lost melody
of her voice. But meanwhile the longing to see the Emperor Charles’s
face once more again and again overpowered her. On the other hand, the
desire to speak to him and upbraid him to his face for the wrong he had
done her was soon silenced; it could only spoil his memory of her if he
should hear the discordant tones which inflicted pain on her own ear.
Another train of thoughts had also kept her awake. How was her father
faring? Had he learned what she feared to confess to him? What had
befallen him, and what had the recruiting officer to tell of his fate?
She was to know soon enough, for she had scarcely risen from breakfast
when a ducal servant announced Sir Pyramus.
Barbara with anxious heart awaited his entrance, and as she stood there,
her cheeks slightly flushed and her large, questioning eyes fixed upon
the door, she seemed to Frau Traut, in spite of her short hair and the
loss of the rounded oval of her face, so marvellously beautiful that she
perfectly understood how she had succeeded in kindling so fierce a flame
in the Emperor’s heart, difficult as it was to fire.
Frau Traut did not venture to determine what made the blood mount into
Pyramus’s cheeks when Barbara at his entrance held out her slender white
hand, for she had left the room immediately after his arrival. But she
did not need to remain absent long; the interview ended much sooner than
she expected.
This young officer was certainly a man of splendid physique, with
handsome, manly features, yet she thought she perceived in his manner an
air of constraint which repelled her and, in fact, this gigantic soldier
was conscious that if, for a single moment, he relinquished the control
he imposed upon himself his foolish heart would play him a trick.
Barbara had seemed more beautiful than ever as she greeted him with
almost humble friendliness, instead of her former defiance. The hoarse
tone of her voice, once so musical, caused him so much pain that he
was on the verge of losing his power to keep his resolve to conceal
the feelings which, in spite of the insults she had heaped upon him, he
still cherished for her. While he allowed himself to look into her face,
he realized for the first time how difficult a task he had undertaken,
and therefore tried to assume an expression of indifference as he
began the conversation with the remark that the ride to the citadel was
detaining him from his duties longer than he could answer for in such
a stress of military business and, moreover, under the eyes of his
Majesty. Therefore it would only be possible to talk a very short time.
He had hurled forth this statement rather than spoken it; but Barbara,
smiling mournfully, replied that she could easily understand his
reluctance to lose so much time merely on her account.
“For your sake, my dear lady,” he replied with an acerbity which sounded
sufficiently genuine, “it might scarcely have seemed feasible to go so
far from the camp; but for the brave old comrade who was intrusted to my
care I would have made even more difficult things possible--and you are
his daughter.”
The girl nodded silently to show that she understood the meaning of his
words, and then asked how the journey had passed and what was the cause
of her father’s illness.
Everything had gone as well as possible, he replied, until they reached
Spain; but there the captain was tortured by homesickness. Nothing had
pleased him except the piety of the people. The fiery wine did not suit
him, the fare seemed unbearable, and the inability to talk with any one
except himself had irritated him to actual outbursts of rage. On the
neat Netherland ship which bore him homeward matters were better; nay,
while running into the harbour of Antwerp he had jested almost in his
old reckless manner. But when trying to descend the rope-ladder from the
high ship into the skiff in which sailors had rowed from the land, he
made a misstep with his stiff leg and fell into the boat.
A low cry of terror here escaped the lips of the deeply agitated
daughter, and Pyramus joined in her expressions of grief, declaring that
a chill still ran down his back whenever he thought of that fall. The
captain had been saved as if by a miracle. Yet the consequences were by
no means light, for when he, Pyramus, left him, he was barely able to
totter from one chair to another. A journey on horseback, the physician
said, would kill him, and a ride in a carriage over the rough roads
would also endanger his life. Several months must pass ere he could
think of returning home.
In reply to Barbara’s anxious question how the impatient man bore the
inactivity imposed upon him, her visitor answered, “Rebelliously enough,
but he has already grown quieter, and my sister is fond of him and takes
the best care of him.”
“Your sister?” asked Barbara abashed, holding out her hand again; but
he pretended not to notice it, and merely explained curtly that she had
come to the Netherlands with her husband. This enterprising man, like
himself, was a native of the principality of Grubenhagen in the Hartz
Mountains. At sixteen the wild fellow went out into the world to seek
his fortune, and had found it as a daring sailor. He returned a rich
man to seek a wife in his old home. Now he had gone on a voyage to the
Indies, and while his wife awaited his return she had gladly received
her brother’s old comrade. Nursing him would afford her a welcome
occupation during her loneliness. Her house lacked nothing, and Barbara
might comfort herself with the knowledge that the captain would have the
best possible care.
With these words he seemed about to leave her; but she stopped him with
the question, “And when the service summoned you away from him, had he
heard what his daughter----”
Here, flushing deeply, she paused with downcast eyes. Pyramus feasted a
short time on the spectacle of her humbled pride, but soon he could
no longer bear to see her endure such bitter suffering, and therefore
answered hastily, “If you mean what is said about you and his
Majesty the Emperor, he was told of it by an old comrade from this
neighbourhood.”
“And he?” she asked anxiously.
“He wrathfully ordered him out of the door,” replied the officer, and he
saw how her eyes filled with tears.
Then feeling how soft his own heart was also growing, he hurriedly said
farewell. Again she gratefully extended her hand, and he clasped it and
allowed himself the pleasure of holding it in his a short time. Then
bowing hastily, he left her.
She had been the Emperor’s toy, her voice had lost its melting melody,
and yet he thought there was no woman more to be desired, far as his
profession of recruiting had led him through all lands. This iron no
longer needed bending; but how fiercely the flames of suffering which
melted her obstinate nature must have burned! Surely he had not seen her
for the last time, and perhaps Fate would now help him to perform the
vow that he had made before her door in the dark entry of the house in
Ratisbon.
While Sir Pyramus was leaving her Barbara had heard a man’s voice in
Frau Traut’s room, but she scarcely noticed it. What she had learned
weighed heavily upon her soul.
Her father would not believe what was, nevertheless, the full,
undeniable truth. How would he deal with the certainty that he had
showed his old comrade the door unjustly when he at last came home and
she confessed all, all that she had sinned and suffered? She was sure
of one thing only--he, too, would not permit her child to be taken from
her; and she cherished a single hope--the blow which Fate had dealt by
destroying her tuneful voice would force him to pity, and perhaps induce
him to forgive her. Oh, if she could only have conjured him here, opened
her heart fully, freely to him, and learned from his own lips that he
approved of her resistance!
During this period of quiet reflection many sounds and shouts which she
had not heard before reached her room.
As they grew louder and more frequent, Barbara rose to approach the open
window, but ere she reached it Frau Taut returned.
The visitor whom she had received was Adrian, her husband. He had
come up the Trausnitz to make all sorts of arrangements, for something
unusual was to happen which would bring even his Majesty the Emperor
here.
These tidings startled Barbara.
Suppose that Charles was now coming to influence her by the heavy weight
of his personality; suppose he----
But Frau Traut gave her no time to yield to these and other fears and
hopes; she added, in a quiet tone, that his Majesty merely intended to
invest his son-in-law, Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma, with the Order of
the Golden Fleece in the Trausnitz courtyard. It would be a magnificent
spectacle, and Barbara could witness it if she desired. One of the
rooms in the second story of the ladies’ wing where she lodged was still
untenanted, and her husband would be responsible if she occupied it,
only Barbara must promise not to attract attention to herself by any
sound or gesture.
She yielded to this demand with eager zeal, and when Frau Traut
perceived the girl’s pale cheeks again flushed she wondered at the rapid
excitability of this singular creature, and willingly answered the long
series of questions with which she assailed her.
Barbara especially desired to hear particulars about the mother of
Margaret of Parma, the wife of Ottavio Farnese, that Johanna Van der
Gheynst who gave this daughter to the Emperor.
Then Barbara learned that she was a Netherland girl of respectable
family, but of scarcely higher rank than her own; only she had
been adopted by Count Bon Haagestraaten before the Emperor made her
acquaintance.
“Was Johanna beautiful?” Barbara eagerly interrupted.
“I think you are far handsomer,” was the reply, “though she, too, was a
lovely creature.”
Then Barbara wished to learn whether she was fair or dark, lively or
quiet, and, finally, whether she had consented to give up her child; and
Frau Traut answered that Johanna had done this without resistance, and
her daughter was afterward reared first by the Duchess of Savoy, and
later by Queen Mary, the regent of the Netherlands.
“How wisely the young lady acted,” Frau Dubois concluded, “you yourself
know. A crown now adorns her child’s head for the second time, and you
will soon see how the Emperor Charles bestows honours upon her husband.
His Majesty understood how to provide for his daughter, who is his
first child. Her former marriage, it is true, was short. Alessandro de’
Medici, to whom she was wedded at almost too early an age, was murdered
scarcely a year after their nuptials. Her present husband, the Duke of
Parma, whom you will see, is, on the contrary, younger than she,
but since the unfortunate campaign against Algiers, in which he
participated, and after his recovery from the severe illness he endured
after his return home, they enjoy a beautiful conjugal happiness. His
Majesty is warmly attached to his daughter, and the great distinction
which he will bestow upon her husband to-day is given by no means least
to please his own beloved child, though her mother was only a Jollanna
van der Gheynst.”
Barbara had listened to these communications with dilated eyes, but the
speaker was now interrupted; the leech, Dr. Matthys, was announced, and
immediately entered the room.
Barbara’s outburst of rage had not lessened his sympathy for her, and in
the interest of science he desired to learn what effect his remedies had
had. Unfortunately, in spite of their use, no improvement was visible.
The strange absence of mind with which the girl, who usually answered
questions so promptly and decidedly, now seemed scarcely to hear them,
he attributed to the painful remembrance of her unseemly behaviour at
their last meeting, and therefore soon left her, by no means satisfied
with his visit. On the way, however, he told himself that it was unfair
to blame the bird which had just been captured for fluttering.
When the leech had retired, Barbara regretted that she had answered
him so indifferently. But the anticipation of seeing her imperial lover
again dominated every thought and feeling. Besides, she again and again
saw before her the figure of the young duke, whom she had never beheld,
but whom Charles had married to the daughter of that Johanna who was
said to have been neither more beautiful nor more aristocratic than she
herself.
Frau Traut saw compassionately that she could not remain long quietly
in any place, and that when the noon meal was served she scarcely tasted
food.
As soon as the first blast of the horns rose from the gate of the
citadel she urged departure like an impatient child, and her indulgent
companion yielded, though she knew that the stately ceremonial would not
begin for a long time.
The window which Adrian had assigned to the two women in a room
which was to be occupied by them alone afforded a view of the entire
courtyard, and from the arm-chair which Frau Traut had had brought for
her Barbara gazed down into it with strained attention.
The first sound of the horns had saluted Ottavio Farnese.
Mounted on a spirited charger, he held aloft, as gonfaloniere of the
Church, the proud banner to be whose bearer was deemed by the Dukes of
Parma one of their loftiest titles of honour.
He was greeted by the nobles present with loud acclamations, but
was still booted and attired as beseemed a horseman. The cavaliers,
officers, and pages who attended him entered the citadel in no regular
order. But as Ottavio swung himself from his magnificently formed,
cream-coloured steed, and issued orders to his train, Barbara could look
him directly in the face and, though she thought him neither handsome
nor possessed of manly vigour, she could not help admitting that she
had rarely seen a young man of equally distinguished bearing. His every
movement bore the impress of royal self-confidence, yet at the same time
was unconstrained and graceful.
Now he disappeared in the wing of the building that united the ladies’
rooms with the main structure opposite.
The Emperor Charles could not be here yet. His arrival would not have
been passed by so quietly, and the imperial banner did not float either
from the many-sided turret at the left end of the main building nor from
the lofty roof of the ancient Wittelsbach tower. Great nobles, mounted
on splendid chargers, constantly rode into the citadel, sometimes in
groups, and were saluted by the blast of horns; nimble squires led the
horses away, while ducal councillors, nobles, chamberlains, and ushers
received the distinguished guests of the citadel and conducted them
to the Turnitz, the huge banquet hall in the lower story of the main
building, where the best of everything undoubtedly stood ready for them.
But every arrangement had already been made for the approaching
ceremony--a broad wooden estrade was erected in the centre of the
courtyard, and richly decorated with garlands of flowers, blossoming
branches, flags, and streamers. At the back stood the Emperor’s throne,
covered with purple damask, and beside it numerous velvet cushions lay
piled one upon another, waiting to be used.
Barbara’s vivid imagination already showed her the course of this rare
spectacle, and she gladly and confidently expected that the Emperor must
turn his face toward her during the principal portion of the ceremony.
Now the carpet on the stage was drawn tighter by lackeys in magnificent
liveries, and the final touches were given to its decorations; now
priests entered the smaller building at the left of the courtyard. The
balcony on one of these buildings was adorned with flowers, and the
singers of St. Martin’s Church in Landshut gradually filled it. Now--but
here Barbara’s quiet observation suddenly ended; the air was shaken by
the roar of cannon from the bastions of the citadel, and the signals
of the warders’ horns blended with the thunder of the artillery. At
the same time the banners and streamers on every flagpole, stirred by a
light breeze from the east, began to wave in the sunny August air. Then
the blare of trumpets echoed, and a few minutes later from the Turnitz
and the covered staircase between the main building and the right win;
of the citadel the most brilliant body of men that Barbara had ever seen
poured into the courtyard. They were the Knights of the Golden Fleece
and the princes, counts, barons and knights, generals and colonels whom
the Emperor Charles had invited to the Trausnitz citadel to attend the
approaching solemn ceremonial.
What did she care for these dignitaries in gold, silver, and steel,
velvet and silk, gems and plumes, when the enthusiastic cheers of this
illustrious assemblage, the blare of trumpets, the thunder of cannon,
and the ringing of bells loudly proclaimed the approach of him who,
as their lord and master, stood far above them all? Would he appear on
horseback, or had he dismounted at the gate and was advancing on foot?
Neither. He was borne in a sedan chair. It was covered with gilding,
and the top of the arched roof and each of the four corners were adorned
with bunches of red and gold plumes, the colours of Philip of Burgundy,
who more than a hundred years before had founded the order of the Golden
Fleece.
Instead of lackeys, strong sergeants, chosen from the different
regiments, bore the sedan chair. The gentlemen of the court--Prince
Henry of Nassau, Baron Malfalconnet, and Don Luis Quijada, with Generals
Furstenberg and Mannsfeld, Count Hildebrand Madrucci, the Master of the
Teutonic Order, the Marchese Marignano, and others--were preceded by the
stiff, grave, soldierly figure of the Duke of Alba, and, by the side
of the platform, grandees and military commanders, Netherland lords,
Italian, German, and Austrian princes, counts, barons, and knights had
taken their places.
When the sedan chair was at last set on the ground in front of the
lowest step of the platform, Barbara thought that her heart would burst;
for while the singers in the balcony began the “Venite populi mundi,”
so familiar to her, and the cheers redoubled, Charles descended, and in
what a guise she saw him again! He looked ten years older, and she felt
with him the keen suffering which every step must cause.
This time it was not Quijada, but the Duke of Alba, who offered him
the support of his mailed arm, and, leaning on it, he ascended the low
stage.
While doing so he turned his back to Barbara, and as with bent figure
and outstretched head he wearily climbed the two stairs leading to the
platform, he presented a pitiable spectacle.
And have you loved this wreck of a man with all the fervour of your
heart? the girl asked herself; does it still throb faster for him? could
you even now expect from him a fairer happiness than from all these
handsome warriors and nobles in the pride of their manly vigour? To this
old man you have sacrificed happiness and honour, given up your father
and the noblest, best of friends!
Fierce indignation for her own folly suddenly seized upon her with such
overmastering power that she looked away from the sovereign toward the
singers, who were summoning the whole world to pay homage to yonder
broken-down man, as though he were a demigod.
A bitter smile hovered around her lips as she did so, but it vanished
as swiftly as it had come; for when she again fixed her eyes upon the
monarch, she would gladly have joined in the mighty hymn. As if by a
miracle, he had become an entirely different person. Now he stood before
the throne in the full loftiness and dignity of commanding majesty. A
purple mantle fell from his shoulders, and the Duke of Alba was placing
the crown on his head instead of the velvet cap.
Oh, no, she need not be ashamed of having loved this man, and she was
not; for she loved him still, and was fully and joyously aware that
whatever he suffered, whatever tortured and prematurely aged the man
still in his fourth decade, no one on earth equalled him in intellect
and grandeur.
And as pages then placed the velvet cushions on the carpet; as the Duke
of Parma, the gonfaloniere on whose head rested the blessing of
the representative of Christ, bent the knee before his imperial
father-in-law, and the proud Alba and the other Knights of the Golden
Fleece who were present did the same; as Charles, the grand master of
the order, took from the cushion the symbol of honour which Count Henry
of Nassau handed to him, and placed the golden sheepskin with the red
ribbon around Duke Ottavio’s neck, while the plaudits, the ringing of
bells, and the thunder of the artillery echoed more loudly than ever
from the stone walls of the courtyard, tears filled Barbara’s eyes
and, as when the Emperor passed at the head of the bridal procession in
Prebrunn, her voice again blended with the enthusiastic shouts of homage
to the man standing in majestic repose before the throne, the man who
was the most exalted of human beings.
She understood only a few words of the brief speech which the monarch
addressed to the new Knight of the Golden Fleece. She saw for the first
time the dignitaries of so many different nations upon whom she was
gazing down, and most of whom she did not even know by name. But what
did she care how they were called and who they were? Her eyes were fixed
only on Charles and the young man in the armour artistically inlaid with
gold, peach-coloured silver brocade, and white silk, who was kneeling
before him.
Suppose that a son of hers should be permitted to share such an honour;
suppose that Charles should some day bend down to her child and kiss his
brow with the paternal affection which he had just showed to the young
duke whom he had wedded to his daughter? And this daughter was the child
of a mother who was her sister in sorrow, and had been her superior in
nothing, neither in birth nor in beauty.
She said this to herself while she was intently watching the progress of
the solemn ceremonial. How lovingly and with what enthusiastic reverence
Ottavio was now gazing up into the face of his imperial father-in-law,
and with what grateful fervour, as the youngest Knight of the Fleece,
he kissed his hand! Not only outwardly but in heart--the warm light
of their eyes revealed it--these men, so unlike in age and gifts, were
united; yet Ottavio was not Charles’s own son, as another would have
been whom she wished to withhold from such a father, and in her selfish
blindness to withdraw from the path to the summit of all earthly
splendour and honour.
Who gave her the right to commit so great, so execrable a robbery?
What could she, the poor, deserted, scorned toy of a king--give to her
child, and what the mightiest of the mighty yonder?
If he was ready to claim as his own the young life which she expected
with hopeful yearning, it would thereby receive a benefit so vast,
a gift so brilliant that all the wealth of love and care which she
intended to bestow upon it vanished in darkness by comparison. Charles’s
resolve, which she had execrated as cruel, was harsh only against her
who had angered him, and who could give him so little more; for her
child it meant grandeur and splendour, and thereby, she thought in her
vain folly, the highest happiness attainable for human beings.
Still she gazed as though spellbound at the decorated stage, but the
ceremony was already rapidly approaching its close. The great nobles
surrounded the new Knight of the Fleece to congratulate him, the Duke
of Alba first; but vouchsafed a few brief, gracious words only to a few
dignitaries, and then, this time assisted by Quijada, descended to the
sedan chair.
Barbara had learned from Frau Traut that his Majesty knew that she was
here in the ladies’ apartments. Would he now raise his eyes to her,
though but for a brief space?
He was already standing at the door of the sedan chair, and until now
had kept his gaze bent steadily upon the ground. Meanwhile he must be
experiencing severe pain; she saw it by the lines around the corners of
his mouth. Now he placed his sound right foot upon the little step; now,
before drawing the aching left one after it, he turned toward Quijada,
whose hand was supporting him under the arm; and now--no, she was not
mistaken--now he raised his eyes with the speed of lightning toward the
ladies’ apartments, and for one short second his glance met hers. Then
his head vanished in the sedan chair.
Nevertheless, he had looked toward her, and this was a great boon. With
all her strength she made it her own, and soon she felt absolutely sure
that when he knew she was so near him he had been unable to resist the
desire to gaze once more into her face. Perhaps it was intended for a
precious farewell gift.
As soon as the sedan chair, amid cheers and the blare of trumpets,
had disappeared in the direction of the drawbridge and the great main
entrance, Barbara retired to her room. Frau Traut knew not whether she
ought to bless or bewail having obtained permission for her to witness
the bestowal of the Fleece.
At any rate, another great transformation had taken place in this
extremely impressionable young creature. Barbara’s impetuous nature
seemed destroyed and crushed, and the bright gaiety which had pleased
Frau Dubois so much the first day of their meeting had greatly
diminished. Only on special occasions her former fiery vivacity burst
forth, but the sudden flame expired as quickly as it had blazed and,
dreamily absorbed in her own thoughts, she obeyed her with the docility
of a child.
This swift and marked change in the disposition of her charge, whom
Quijada and her own husband had described as so totally different,
awakened her anxiety; yet it was easy to perceive that the volcano had
not burned out, but was merely quiescent for the time.
During the night the dull indifference which she showed in the day
abandoned her, and her attentive companion often heard her sobbing
aloud.
It did not escape Frau Tract’s notice that since Barbara had seen the
Emperor again in the Trausnitz courtyard a mental conflict had begun
which absorbed her whole being, but the girl did not permit her any
insight into her deeply troubled soul.
CHAPTER IX.
The Emperor Charles departed on the morning after the bestowal of the
Golden Fleece, and two days later Barbara willingly obeyed the leech’s
prescription to seek healing at the springs of Abbach on the Danube,
a few miles south of Ratisbon, which was almost in the way of those
returning thither from Landshut. The waters there had benefited the
Emperor Charles fourteen years before, and Barbara remained there with
Frau Traut and Lamperi, who had returned to her, until the trees had put
on their gay autumn robes and were casting them off to prepare for the
rest of winter.
The hope of regaining the melody of her voice induced her
conscientiously to follow the physician’s prescriptions but, like the
sulphur spring of Abbach,[??] they produced no considerable effect.
Barbara’s conduct had also altered in many respects.
The girl who had formerly devoted great attention to her dress, now
often needed to be reminded by Frau Dubois of her personal appearance
when she went with her to walk or to church.
She avoided all intercourse with other visitors to the spring after
Ratisbon acquaintances had intentionally shunned her.
The Wollers’ country residence, where she had formerly been a welcome
guest for weeks every summer, was near Abbach. Anne Mirl was betrothed,
and Nandl was on the eve of accepting a young suitor. Both were still
warmly attached to their cousin, although they had been told that, by an
open love intrigue, she had forfeited the right to visit the respectable
home of modest maidens. But the man who had honoured her with his love
was no less a personage than the Emperor Charles, and this circumstance
only increased the sympathy which the sisters felt for their
much-admired friend.
In spite of their mother’s refusal to permit them to ride to the
neighbouring town and visit Barbara, they did so, that they might try
to comfort her; but though their unfortunate cousin received them and
listened to them a short time, she earnestly entreated them to obey
their mother and not come again.
Frau Traut perceived that she not only desired to guard the
inexperienced girls from trouble, but that their visit disturbed her.
The thoughts which were in her mind so completely absorbed her that she
now studiously sought the solitude which she had formerly shunned like a
misfortune.
Even Pyramus Kogel’s short letter, informing her of her father’s
convalescence, and the news from the seat of war which Frau Traut
communicated to her to divert her thoughts, and which she had usually
anticipated with impatient expectation, awakened only a fleeting
interest. Toward the end of the first week in September her companion
could inform her that the Emperor Charles had met the Smalcalds
at Ingolstadt and, in spite of a severe attack of the gout, had
ridden--with his aching foot in linen bandages instead of in the
stirrup--from regiment to regiment, kindling the enthusiasm of his
troops by fiery words.
Then Barbara at last listened with more interest, and asked for other
details.
Frau Dubois, to whom her husband from time to time sent messengers from
the camp, now said that the encounter had not come to an actual battle
and a positive decision, but his Majesty had heeded the shower of
bullets less than the patter of a hailstorm, and had quietly permitted
Appian, the astronomer, to explain a chart of the heavens in his tent,
though the enemy’s artillery was tearing the earth around it.
But even this could not reanimate the extinguished ardour of Barbara’s
soul; she had merely said calmly: “We know that he is a hero. I had
expected him to disperse the heretics as the wolf scatters the sheep and
destroy them at a single blow.”
Then taking her rosary and prayer book, she went to church, as she did
daily at this time. She spent hours there, not only praying, but holding
intercourse with the image of the Madonna, from which she dill not avert
her eyes, as though it was a living being. The chaplain who had been
given to her associated with this devout tendency of his penitent the
hope that Barbara would decide to enter a convent; but she rebuffed in
the firmest manner every attempt to induce her to form this resolve.
In October the northeast wind brought cold weather, and Frau Traut
feared that remaining for hours in the chilly brick church would injure
her charge’s health, so she entreated Barbara to desist. But when the
latter, without heeding her warning, continued to visit the house of God
as before, and to stay the same length of time, Frau Dubois interposed a
firm prohibition, and on this occasion she learned for the first time
to what boundlessly vehement rebellion her charge could allow passion to
carry her. True, soon after Barbara, with winning tenderness, besought
her forgiveness, and it was readily granted, but Frau Traut knew of no
other expedient than to fix the first of November, which would come in a
few days, for their return to Ratisbon.
Barbara was startled.
During the night her companion heard her weeping vehemently, and her
kind heart led her to her bedside.
With the affectionate warmth natural to her, she entreated the unhappy
girl to calm herself, and to open her troubled heart to one who felt
as kindly toward her as a mother; and before these friendly words the
defiance, doubts, and fear which had closed Barbara’s heart melted.
“You may take it from me,” she cried, amid her streaming tears.
“What can a poor girl give it save want and shame? Its father, on the
contrary--If he adopts and rears it as his child--O Frau Traut! dare I,
who already love it more than my own life, rob it of the happiness to
which it has a right? If the Emperor acknowledges it, whether it is a
boy or a girl, merciful Heaven, to what Magnificence, what splendour,
what honour my child may attain! My brain often reels when I think of
it. The little daughter of Johanna Van der Gheynst a Duchess of Parma,
and why should he place the girl whom I shall perhaps give him in a more
humble position? Or if Heaven should grant me a son, his father will
raise him to a still greater height, and I have already seen him before
me a hundred times as he hangs the Fleece on the red ribbon round his
neck.”
Here her voice, still uncertain, failed, but she allowed Frau Traut to
clasp her to her heart and, in her joy at this decision, which relieved
her of a grave anxiety, to kiss her brow and cheeks. She had at last
perceived, the kindly consoler assured the weeping girl, what the most
sacred duty commanded, and the course that promised to render her, after
so much suffering, one of the happiest of mothers. All that had hovered
before her as glittering dreams would be fulfilled, and when her child,
as the Emperor’s, took precedence of the highest and greatest in the
land, she could say to herself that it owed this to the sacrifice which
she, its mother, had voluntarily made for its sake.
Barbara had told herself the same thing in many lonely hours, and most
frequently in the brick church at Abbach, opposite to the image of
the Mater dolorosa. She whose intercession never remained unheard had
yielded up, with an aching heart, her divine son, and she must imitate
her. And how much easier was her fate than that of the stainless virgin,
who beheld her child, the Redeemer of the world, die upon the cross,
while hers, if she resigned him, would attain the highest earthly
happiness!
Frau Traut by no means overlooked the vanity of these motives. She was
only too well aware that there is no greater boon for a child than the
mother’s loyal, anxious love, and Barbara’s delusion grieved her. She
would gladly have cried: “Keep your child, overwhelm it with love, be
good and unselfish, so that, in spite of your disgrace, it must honour
you.” But the Emperor’s command and her husband’s wish were paramount.
Besides, as Barbara was situated, it could not help being better for the
child if the father provided for its education.
The soul of her charge now lay before her like an open book. The
spectacle of the brilliant honour bestowed upon Duke Ottavio Farnese had
sowed in her heart the seeds which had now ripened to resolution. She
could not know that the vivandiere’s assistant on the highway, with her
abandoned child, had cast the first germ into Barbara’s mind. Moreover,
she was content to be able to send such welcome tidings to the camp.
The disclosure of the resolve which she had reached after such severe
conflicts exerted a beneficial influence upon Barbara. Her eyes again
sparkled brightly, and the indifference with which she had regarded
everything that happened to herself and those about her vanished.
For the first time she asked where she was to find shelter in Ratisbon;
the Emperor’s command closed Wolf’s house against her; the Prebrunn
castle was only a summer residence, unfit for winter use. So it was
necessary to seek new quarters, and Barbara did not lack proposals.
But the answer from camp must be awaited, and it came sooner than Frau
Dubois expected. The messenger who brought it was her husband. His
Majesty, he said, rejoiced at Barbara’s decision, and had commissioned
him to take her at once to Ratisbon and lodge her in the Golden Cross.
The imperial apartments were still at the monarch’s disposal, and the
owner of the house, whom Barbara did not wish to meet, had gone to Italy
to spend the winter.
Herr Adrian did not mention what a favour the sovereign was showing
Barbara by parting with his trusted servant for several days, but she
told herself so with joyful pride, for she had learned how greatly
Charles needed this man.
The Emperor had dismissed Quijada from attendance on his person. He
knew the Castilian’s value as a soldier, and would have deemed himself
forgetful of duty had he withheld so able an assistant from the great
cause which he was leading.
At the end of the first week in November Barbara again entered the
Golden Cross in Ratisbon. The great house seemed dead, but Adrian, in
his royal master’s name, provided for the comfort of the women, who had
been joined by Sister Hyacinthe.
In the name of Frau Dubois, to whom his Majesty gave it up, Adrian took
possession of the Golden Cross, and as such Barbara was presented to the
newly engaged servants, while his wife was known by them as a Frau Traut
from the Netherlands.
No inhabitant of Ratisbon was informed of the return of their young
fellow-citizen, and Barbara only went out of doors with her companion
early in the morning or in the twilight, and always closely veiled. But
few persons had seen her after her illness, and on returning home she
often mentioned the old acquaintances whom she had met without
being recognised by them. The apartments she occupied were warm and
comfortable. The harp and lute had been sent from Prebrunn with the rest
of her property, and though she would not have ventured to sing even a
single note, she resolved to touch their chords again. Playing on the
harp afforded her special pleasure, and Frau Traut fancied she could
understand her thoughts while doing so. The tones often sounded as
gentle as lullabies, often as resonant and impetuous as battle songs.
In reply to a question from her companion, Barbara confessed that while
playing she sometimes imagined that she beheld a lovely girl, sometimes
a young hero clad in glittering armour, with the Golden Fleece on his
neck, rushing to battle against the infidels.
When the women were sitting together in the evening, Barbara urged her
companion, who was familiar with the court and with Charles’s former
life, to tell her about the Netherlands and Spain, Brussels and
Valladolid, the wars, the monarch’s wisdom, the journeys of Charles,
his intercourse with men and women, his former love affairs, his married
life, his relatives and children, and again and again of Johanna Van der
Gheynst, the mother of the Duchess Margaret of Parma. In doing so the
clever native of Cologne never failed to draw brilliant pictures of the
splendour of the imperial court. As a matter of course, Brussels, the
favourite residence of the Dubois couple, was most honoured in the
narrative, and Barbara could never hear enough of this superb city.
Maestro Gombert had already aroused her longing for it, and Frau Traut
made her, as it were, at home there.
So December and Christmas flew by. New Year’s and Epiphany also passed,
and when January was over and the month of February began, a guest
arrived in Ratisbon from the household of the Emperor, who was now
holding his court at Ulm. It was Dr. Mathys, the leech, who readily
admitted that he had come partly by his Majesty’s desire, partly from
personal interest in Barbara’s welfare.
The physician found her in the same mood as after the relapse. Obedient,
calm, yielding, only often overpowered by melancholy and bitter thoughts
and feelings, yet, on the other hand, exalted by the fact that the
Emperor Charles, for her sake, was now depriving himself also of this
man, whom he so greatly needed.
She awaited the fateful hour with anxious expectation. The twenty-fourth
of February was the Emperor’s birthday, and if it should come then, if
the father and child should see the light of the world on the same day
of the almanac, surely it must seem to Charles a favourable omen.
And behold!
On the day of St. Matthias--that is, the twenty-fourth of February,
Charles’s birthday-at noon, Frau Traut, radiant with joy, could despatch
the waiting messenger to Ulm with the tidings that a son had just been
born to his Majesty.
The next morning the child was baptized John by the chaplain who
accompanied the women, because this apostle had been nearest to the
Saviour’s heart.
The young mother was not permitted to rejoice at the sight of her babe.
Charles had given orders in advance what should be done hour by hour,
and believed he was treating the mother kindly by refusing to allow her
to enjoy the sight of the newborn child which could not remain with her.
This caused much weeping and lamenting, and such passionate excitement
that the bereaved mother nearly lost her life; but Dr. Mathys devoted
the utmost care to her, and did not leave Ratisbon until after three
weeks, when he could commit the nursing to the experienced Sister
Hyacinths.
But for the trouble in her throat, Barbara would have been physically as
well as ever; her mental suffering was never greater.
She felt robbed and desolate, like the bird whose nestlings are stolen
by the marten; for all that might have made her ruined life precious had
been taken, and the man to whom she had surrendered her dearest treasure
did not even express, by one poor word, his gratitude and joy. No, he
seemed to have forgotten her as well as her future.
Frau Traut had left her with the promise that she would sometimes send
her news of her boy’s health, yet she, too, remained silent, and was
deceiving her confidence. She could not know that the promise-breaker
thought of her often enough, but that she had been most strictly
forbidden by her imperial master to tell the boy’s mother his abode or
to hold any further intercourse with her.
How little Charles must care for her, since he now showed such deep
neglect and found no return for all that she had sacrificed to him save
cruel sternness! Yet the precious gift for which he was indebted to her
must have afforded special pleasure to the man who attached such great
value to omens, for it gave him the right to cherish the most daring
hopes for the future of his boy. The fact that he was born on his
father’s birthday seemed to her an especial favour of heaven, and the
old chaplain, who still remained with her, had discovered other singular
circumstances which foreshadowed that the son would become the father’s
peer; for on the twenty-fourth of February Charles V had been crowned,
and on the same day he had won at Pavia his greatest victory.
This had been the most brilliant day in the ruler’s life, so rich in
successes, and now it had also become the birthday of the boy whom she
had given him and resigned that he might lead it to grandeur, splendour,
and magnificence.
Nothing was more improbable than that the man whose faithful memory
retained everything, and whose active mind discovered what escaped the
notice of others, should have overlooked this sign from heaven. And yet
she vainly waited for a token of pleasure, gratitude, remembrance. How
this pierced the soul and corroded the existence of the poor deserted
girl, the bereaved mother, the unfortunate one torn from her own sphere
in life!
At last, toward the end of March, the message so ardently desired
arrived. A special courier brought it, but how it was worded!
A brief expression of his Majesty’s gratification at the birth of the
healthy, well-formed boy; then, in blunt words, the grant of a small
annual income and an additional gift, with the remark that his Majesty
was ready, to increase both generously, and, moreover, to give her
ambition every support, if Barbara would enter a convent. If she should
persist in remaining in the world, what was granted must be taken from
her as soon as she broke her promise to keep secret what his Majesty
desired to have concealed.
The conclusion was: “And so his Majesty once more urges you to renounce
the world, which has nothing more important to offer you than memories,
which the convent is the best place to cherish. There you will regain
the favour of Heaven, which it so visibly withdrew from you, and
also the regard of his Majesty, which you forfeited, and he in his
graciousness, and in consequence of many a memory which he, too, holds
dear, would gladly show you again.”
This letter bore the signature of Don Luis Quijada, and had been written
by a poor German copyist, a wretched, cross-eyed fellow, whom Wolf had
pointed out to her, and whose hand Barbara knew. From his pen also came
the sentence under the major-domo’s name, “The Golden Cross must be
vacated during the month of April.”
When Barbara had read these imperial decisions for the second and the
third time, and fully realized the meaning of every word, she clinched
her teeth and gazed steadily into vacancy for a while. Then she laughed
in such a shrill, hoarse tone that she was startled at the sound of her
own voice, and paced up and down the room with long strides.
Should she reject what the most powerful and wealthy sovereign in the
world offered with contemptible parsimony? No! It was not much, but it
would suffice for her support, and the additional gift was large enough
to afford her father a great pleasure when he came home.
Pyramus Kogel’s last letter reported that his condition was improving.
Perhaps he might soon return. Then the money would enable her to weave
a joy into the sorrow that awaited him. It had always been a humiliating
thought that he had lost his own house and was obliged to live in a
hired one, and at least she could free him from that.
It was evident enough that her pitiful allowance did not proceed from
the Emperor’s avarice; Charles only wished to force her to obey his wish
to shut her for the rest of her life in a cloister. The mother of his
son must remain concealed from the world; he desired to spare him in
after years the embarrassment of meeting the woman whose birth was so
much more humble than his own and his father’s. Want should drive her
from the world, and, to hasten her flight, the shrewd adept in reading
human nature showed her in the distance the abbess’s cross, and tried
thereby to arouse her ambition.
But in her childhood and youth Barbara had been accustomed to still
plainer living than she could grant herself in future, and she would
have been miserable in the most magnificent palace if she had been
compelled to relinquish her independence. Rather death in the Danube
than to dispense with it!
She was young, healthy, and vigorous, and it seemed like voluntary
mutilation to resign her liberty at twenty-one. But even had she felt
the need of the lonely cell, quiet contemplation, and more severe
penance than had been imposed upon her in the confessional, she would
still have remained in the world; for the more plainly the letter showed
how eagerly Charles desired to force her out of it, the more firmly
she resolved to remain in it. How many hopes this base epistle had
destroyed; it seemed as though it had killed the last spark of love in
her soul!
Too much kindness leads to false paths scarcely more surely than the
contrary, and the Emperor’s cruel decision destroyed and hardened
many of the best feelings in Barbara’s heart, and prepared a place for
resentment and hatred.
The great sovereign’s love, which had been the sunshine of her life, was
lost; her child had been taken from her; even the home that sheltered
her, and which hitherto she had regarded as a token of its father’s
kindly care, was now withdrawn. A new life path must be found, but
she would not set out upon it from the Golden Cross, where her brief
happiness had bloomed, but from the place where she had experienced the
penury of her childhood and early youth.
The very next afternoon she moved into Wolf’s house. Sister Hyacinthe
was obliged to return to her convent, so no one accompanied her except
Frau Lamperi. She had become attached to Barbara, and therefore remained
in her service instead of returning to the Queen of Hungary. True, she
had not determined to do so until her mistress had promised to remain
only a few weeks in Ratisbon at the utmost, and then move to Brussels,
where she longed to be.
Ratisbon was no home for the Emperor’s former favourite. Life in her
native city would have been one long chain of humiliations, now that she
had nothing to offer her fellow-citizens except the satisfaction of a
curiosity which was not always benevolent.
But where should she go, if not to the country where her child’s father
lived, where, she had reason enough to believe, the infant would be
concealed, and where she might hope to see again and again at a distance
the man to whom hate united her no less firmly than love?
This prospect offered her the greatest attraction, and yet she desired
nothing, nothing more from him except to be permitted to watch his
destiny. It promised to be no happy one, but this fact robbed the wish
of no charm.
Besides, the desire for a richer life again began to stir within her
soul, and what sustenance for the eye and ear Gombert, Frau Traut, and
now also Lamperi promised her in Brussels!
Her means would enable her to go there with the maid and live in a quiet
way. If her father forgave her and would join her in the city, she would
rejoice. But he was bound to Ratisbon by so many ties, and had so many
new tales to relate in its taprooms, that he would certainly return to
it. So she must leave him; it was growing too hot for her here.
She found old Ursel cheerful, and was less harshly received than at
her last visit. True, Barbara came when she was in a particularly happy
mood, because a letter from Wolf stated that he already felt perfectly
at home in Quijada’s castle at Villagarcia, and that Dona Magdalena
de Ulloa was a lady of rare beauty and kindness of heart. Her musical
talent was considerable, and she devoted every leisure hour to playing
on stringed instruments and singing. True, there were not too many, for
the childless woman had made herself the mother of the poor and sick
upon her estates, and had even established a little school where he
assisted her as singing-master.
So Barbara was at least relieved from self-reproach for having brought
misfortune upon this faithful friend. This somewhat soothed her sorely
burdened heart, and yet in her old, more than plain lodgings, with their
small, bare rooms, she often felt as though the walls were falling upon
her. Besides, what she saw from the open window in Red Cock Street was
disagreeable and annoying.
When evening came she went to rest early, but troubled dreams disturbed
her sleep.
The dawn which waked her seemed like a deliverance, and directly after
mass she hurried out of the gate and into the open country.
On her return she found a letter from her father.
Pyramus Kogel was its bearer, and he had left the message that he would
return the next day. This time her father had written with his own hand.
The letters were irregular and crooked enough, but they were large, and
there were not too many of them. He now knew what people were saying
about her. It had pierced the very depths of his old heart and darkened
his life. But he could not curse her, because she was his only child,
and also because he told himself how much easier her execrable vanity
had made the Emperor Charles’s game. Nor would he give her up as lost,
and his travelling companion. Pyramus, who was like a son to him, was
ready to aid him, for his love was so true and steadfast that he still
wished to make her his wife, and offered through him to share everything
with her, even his honourable name.
If misfortune had made her modest, if it had crushed her wicked
arrogance, and she was still his own dear child, who desired her
father’s blessing, she ought not to refuse the faithful fellow who would
bring her this letter, but accept his proposal. On that, and upon that
alone, his forgiveness would depend; it was for her to show how much or
how little she valued it.
Barbara deciphered this epistle with varying emotions.
Was there no room for unselfish love in the breast of any man?
Her father, even he, was seeking to profit by that which united him to
his only child. To keep it, and to secure his blessing, she must give
her hand to the unloved soldier who had shown him kindness and won his
affection.
She again glanced indignantly over the letter, and now read the
postscript also. “Pyramus,” it ran, “will remain only a short time in
Germany, and go from there directly to Brussels, where he is on duty,
and thence to me in Antwerp.”
Barbara started, her large eyes sparkled brightly, and a faint flush
suddenly suffused her cheeks. The “plus ultra” was forever at an end for
her. Her boy was living in Brussels near his father; there she belonged,
and she suddenly saw herself brought so near this unknown, brilliant
city that it seemed like her real home. Where else could she hope to
rid herself of the nightmares that oppressed her except where she was
permitted to see the man from whom nothing could separate her, no matter
how cruelly he repulsed her?
The only suitable place for her, he thought, was the cloister. No man,
he believed in his boundless vanity, could satisfy the woman who had
once received in his love.
He should learn the contrary! He should hear--nay, perhaps he should
see--that she was still desired, in spite of the theft which he had
committed, in spite of the cruelty with which Fate had destroyed the
best treasure that it had generously bestowed.
The recruiting officer was certainly a handsome man and, moreover, of
noble birth. Her father wished to have him for a son, and would forgive
her if she gave him the hand for which he shed.
So let him be the one who should take her to Brussels, and to whom she
would give the right of calling himself her husband.
Here her brow contracted in a frown, for the journey on which she was to
set out with him would lead not only to the Netherlands, but through her
whole life, perhaps to the grave.
Deep resentment seized upon her, but she soon succeeded in conquering
it; only the question what she had to give her suitor in return for his
loyal love could not be silenced. Yet was it she who summoned him? Did
he not possess the knowledge of everything that might have deterred
another from wooing her? Had she not showed him more than plainly how
ill he had succeeded in gaining her affection? If, nevertheless, he
insisted upon winning her, he must take her as she was, though the
handsome young man would have had a good right to a heart full of
love. Hers, so long as the gouty traitor lived who had ruined her whole
existence, could never belong entirely to another.
Once she had preferred the handsome, stately dancer to all other men.
Might not this admiration of his person be revived? No--oh, no! And it
was fortunate that it was so, for she no longer desired to love--neither
him nor any one else. On the other hand, she resolved to make his
life as pleasant as lay in her power. When what she granted him had
reconciled her father to her, and she was in Brussels, perhaps she
would find strength to treat Pyramus so that he would never repent his
fidelity.
In the afternoon she longed to escape from the close rooms into the
fresh air, and turned her steps toward Prebrunn, in order to see
once more the little castle which to her was so rich in beautiful and
terrible memories.
On the way she met Frau Lerch. The old woman had kept her keenness
of vision and, though Barbara tried to avoid her, the little ex-maid
stopped her and asked scornfully:
“Here in Ratisbon again, sweetheart? How fresh you look after your
severe illness!--yet you’re still on shank’s mare, instead of in the
gold coach drawn by white horses.”
Barbara abruptly turned her back upon her and went home.
As she was passing the Town Hall Pyramus Kogel left it, and she stopped
as he modestly greeted her.
Very distinguished and manly he looked in his glittering armour,
with the red and yellow sash and the rapier with its large, flashing
basket-hilt at his side; yet she said to herself: “Poor, handsome
fellow! How many would be proud to lean on your arm! Why do you care for
one who can never love you, and to whom you will appear insignificant to
the end?”
Then she kindly clasped the hand which he extended, and permitted him to
accompany her home. On the Haidplatz she asked him whether he had read
the letter which he brought from her father.
He hesitatingly assented. Barbara lowered her eyes, and added softly:
“It is my own dear father to whom you have been kind, and my warmest
gratitude is due to you for it.”
The young officer’s heart throbbed faster; but as they turned into Red
Cock Street she asked the question:
“You are going from here to Brussels, are you not?”
“To Brussels,” he repeated, scarcely able to control his voice.
She raised her large eyes to him, and, after a hard struggle, the words
escaped her lips:
“I learned in Landshut, and it was confirmed by my father’s letter, that
you are aware of what I am accused, and that you know--I committed the
sin with which they charge me.”
In the very same place where, on an evening never to be forgotten, he
had received the first sharp rebuff from Barbara, she now confessed her
guilt to him--he doubtless noticed it. It must have seemed like a sign
from heaven that it was here she voluntarily approached him, nay, as it
were, offered herself to him. But he loved her, and he would have deemed
it unchivalrous to let her feel now that their relation to one another
had changed. So he only exclaimed with joyous confidence:
“And yet, Barbara, I trustfully place happiness and honour in your
beloved hands. You have long been clear to me, but now for the first
time I believe confidently and firmly that I have found in you the
very wife for me. The bitter trial imposed upon you--I knew it in
Landshut--bowed your unduly obstinate nature, and if you only knew
how well your modest manner becomes you! So I entreat permission to
accompany you home.”
Barbara nodded assent, and when he had mounted the steep staircase of
the house before her he stopped in front of the narrow door, and a proud
sense of satisfaction came over him at the thought that the vow which he
had made in this spot was now fulfilled.
Her father had failed to bend this refractory, wonderfully beautiful
iron; he had hoped to try with better fortune, but Fate had anticipated
him, and he was grateful.
Full of blossoming hopes, he now asked, with newly awakened confidence,
whether she would permit him to cross her threshold as a suitor and
become his dear and ardently worshipped wife, and the low “Yes” which he
received in response made him happy.
A few days after he married her, and journeyed with her on horseback to
the Netherlands.
On the way tidings of the battle of Muhlberg reached them. The Emperor
Charles had utterly routed the Protestants. He himself announced his
great victory in the words, “I came, I saw, and God conquered.”
When Pyramus told the news to his young wife, she answered quietly, “Who
could resist the mighty monarch!”
In Brussels she learned that the Emperor had taken the Elector of Saxony
captive on the battlefield, but the Landgrave of Hesse had been betrayed
into his power by a stratagem which the Protestants branded as base
treachery, and used to fill all Germany with the bitterest hatred
against him; but here Barbara’s wrath flamed forth, and she upbraided
the slanderous heretics. It angered her to have the great sovereign
denied his due reverence in her own home; but secretly she believed in
the breach of faith.
CHAPTER X.
Three years passed.
Barbara occupied with her husband and the two sons she had given him a
pretty little house in the modest quarter of Saint-Gery in Brussels.
Here the capital of wealthy, flourishing Brabant certainly looked very
unlike what she had expected from Gombert’s stories; and how little
share she had had hitherto in the splendour which on the drive to
Landshut she had expected to find in Brussels!
Since the musician had described the city, she had seen it distinctly
before her in her vivid imagination. The lower portion, intersected by
the river Senne and numerous canals, belonged to the rich, industrious
citizens, the skilful artisans, and the common people; the upper, which
occupied a hill, contained the great Brabant palace, the residence of
the Emperor Charles. This edifice, which, though its exterior was almost
wholly devoid of ornament, nevertheless presented a majestic aspect on
account of its vast size, adjoined a splendid park, whose leafy groups
of ancient trees merged into the forest of Soignies. Here also stood the
palaces of the great nobles and, on the side of the hill which sloped to
the lower city, the Cathedral of St. Gudule towered proudly aloft.
Much as Barbara had heard in praise of the magnificent market-place in
the lower city, with its marvellous Town Hall, it was always the upper
portion of Brussels she beheld when she thought of the capital. She had
felt that she belonged to this quarter, where all who had any claim to
aristocracy lived; here, near the palace and the beautiful leafy trees,
her future home had been in her imagination.
The result was different, and now the longing for the brilliant Brussels
on the hill was doubly strong. True, there dwelt also those who had the
greatest power of attraction for her.
She was just returning home from the palace park, where stood a pleasant
summer house in which Adrian Dubois lived with his wife and one child.
It was this child especially that drew Barbara to the upper city as
often as possible, and constantly forced her thoughts to linger there
and still to follow the “higher” of the imperial motto, which everywhere
else she was compelled to renounce.
True, a limit was fixed to these visits to the Dubois couple. For one
whole year Frau Traut had successfully concealed the child from the
mother; then Barbara had once met the boy outside the house, and the way
in which he was hurried out of her sight led to the conviction that this
was her child, and Frau Dubois had imprudently betrayed the secret.
From this time Barbara knew that her John had been confided to the care
of the valet and his wife. At last Frau Traut had been unable to resist
her entreaties, and allowed her to see her son and hold him a short time
in her arms.
He was a strong, splendid child, with his mother’s thick, curling locks
and large blue eyes. Barbara thought that she had never seen a handsomer
boy; and not only the Dubois, who had yielded their whole hearts to
their nursling, but strangers also admired the magnificent development
of this rare child. The young mother saw in him something grander, more
perfect than the children of other human beings, even than the two boys
whom she had given her husband, although little John usually repulsed
her caresses.
In granting Barbara permission to see her child often, Frau Traut
transgressed an explicit command of the Emperor and, to prevent the evil
consequences which her sympathy might entail, she allowed the mother
to rejoice in the sight of her little son only once a month, and then
always for a short time.
During these interviews she was strictly forbidden to bestow even the
smallest gift upon the boy.
To-day John had voluntarily approached the stranger to whom he owed
his life, but whose passionate caresses at their first meeting had
frightened him, to show her the little wooden horse that Adrian had just
given him. This had made her happy, and on the way home the memory of
her hidden treasure more than once brought a joyous smile to her lips.
At home she first sought her children. Her husband, who had now been
appointed mustering officer, was on one of the journeys required by the
service, which rarely permitted him to remain long in his own house.
Barbara did not miss him; nay, she was happiest during his absence.
After glancing into the nursery, she retired to her quiet chamber, where
her harp stood and the lutes hung which often for hours supplied the
place of her lost voice, and sat down at her spinning wheel.
She turned it thoughtfully, but the thread broke, and her hands fell
into her lap. Her mind had again found the way to the house in the park
and to her John, her own, wonderful, imperial child, and lingered there
until from the next room the cry of an infant was heard and a woman’s
voice singing it to sleep. Frau Lamperi, who had made herself a part of
the little household, and beheld in its master the incarnation of every
manly virtue, was lulling the baby to rest. Beside it slept another
child, a boy two years old. Both were hers, yet, though the infant
raised its voice still louder, she remained at the spinning wheel,
dreaming on.
In this way, and while playing on the harp and the lutes, her solitude
was best endured. Her husband’s journeys often led him through the whole
Netherlands and the valley of the Rhine as far as Strasbourg and Basle,
and her father had returned to Ratisbon.
She had found no new friends in Brussels, and had not endeavoured to
gain any.
Loneliness, which she had dreaded in the heyday of her early youth, no
longer alarmed her, for quiet reveries and dreams led her back to the
time when life had been beautiful, when she had enjoyed the love of
the greatest of mortals, and art had given her existence an exquisite
consecration.
With the loss of her voice--she was now aware of it--many of the best
things in her life had also ceased to exist. Her singing might perhaps
have lured back her inconstant lover, and had she come to Brussels
possessing the mastery of her voice which was hers during that happy
time in May, her life would have assumed a totally different form.
Gombert, who had induced her to move hither, had urged her with the best
intentions during their drive to Landshut to change her residence. When
he did so, however, Barbara was still connected with the Emperor, and
he was animated by the hope that the trouble in her throat would be
temporary.
It would have been easy to throw wide to a singer of her ability the
doors of the aristocratic houses which were open to him; for, except his
professional comrades, he associated only with the wealthy nobles in the
upper part of the city, who needed him for the brilliant entertainments
which they understood how to arrange so superbly. The Oranges, Egmont,
Aremberg, Brederode, Aerschot, and other heads of the highest nobility
in Brabant would have vied with one another to present her to their
guests, receive her at their country seats, and invite her to join
their riding parties. Where, on the contrary, could he expect to find a
friendly reception for the wife of a poor officer belonging to the lower
nobility, who was said to have forfeited the Emperor’s favour, who
could offer nothing to the ear, and to the eye only a peculiar style of
beauty, which she could enhance neither by magnificent attire nor by any
other arts?
Had she been still the Emperor Charles’s favourite, or had he bestowed
titles and wealth upon her, more might have been done for her; but as
it was, nothing was left of the favour bestowed by the monarch save
the stain upon her fair name. Deeply as Gombert regretted it, he could
therefore do nothing to make her residence in Brussels more agreeable.
He was not even permitted to open his own house to her, since his wife,
who was neither more jealous nor more scrupulous than most other wives
of artists, positively refused to receive the voiceless singer with the
tarnished reputation.
Worthy Appenzelder associated exclusively with men, and thus of her
Ratisbon friends not one remained except Massi, the violinist, and the
Maltese choir boy, Hannibal Melas.
The little fellow had lost his voice, but had remained in Brussels
and, in fact, through Barbara’s intercession; for she had ventured to
recommend the clever, industrious lad to the Bishop of Arras in a letter
which reminded him of his kindness in former days, and the latter had
been gracious, and in a cordial reply thanked her for her friendly
remembrance. Hannibal had remained in the minister’s service and, as he
understood several languages and proved trustworthy, was received among
his private secretaries.
The violinist Massi remained faithful and, as he became her husband’s
friend also, he was always a welcome guest in her house.
Her father had returned to Ratisbon. After he had acted as godfather to
the oldest boy, Conrad, he could be detained no longer. Homesickness had
obtained too powerful a hold upon him.
True, Barbara and her husband did everything in their power to make life
in their home pleasant; but he needed the tavern, and there either the
carousing was so noisy that it became too much for him, or people often
had very violent political discussions about liberty and faith, which
he only half understood, though they used the Flemish tongue. And the
Danube, the native air, the familiar faces! In short, he could not stay
with his children, though he dearly loved his little godson Conrad; and
it pleased him to see his daughter more yielding and ready to render
service than ever before, and to watch her husband, who, as the saying
went at home, “was ready to let her walk over him.”
The husband’s intention of making the unbending iron pliant was wholly
changed; the recruiting officer whom his companions and subordinates
knew and feared as one of the sternest of their number, showed himself
to Barbara the most yielding of men. The passionate tenderness with
which he loved her had only increased with time, and the stern soldier’s
subjection to her will went so far that, even when he would gladly have
expressed disapproval, he usually omitted to do so, because he dreaded
to lessen the favour which she showed him in place of genuine love, and
which he needed. Besides, she gave him little cause for displeasure; she
did her duty, and strove to render his outward life a pleasant one.
Even after her father had left her she remained a wife who satisfied his
heart. He had learned the coolness of her nature in his first attempts
to woo her in Ratisbon and, as at that time, he whom the service
frequently detained from her for long periods regarded it as a merit.
So he wrote her father letters expressing his gratification, and the
replies which the captain sent to Brussels were in a similar tone.
Barbara had obtained for him his own house, for which he had longed. He
felt comfortable there, and what he lacked in his home he found at the
Red Cock or the Black Bear. An elderly Landshut widow, a relative, acted
as his housekeeper and provided in the best possible manner for his
comfort.
Whoever met the stately mustering officer alone or arm in arm with his
beautiful young wife, whose golden hair had grown out again, must
have believed him a happy man; and so he would have been had not some
singular habits which Barbara possessed made him uneasy. At first the
reveries into which she often sank, and which were so unlike her former
self, had been still worse. He did not know that the improvement had
taken place since she had discovered her John’s abode and been permitted
sometimes to see him. Barbara’s husband and father supposed that the
child which she had given to the Emperor was dead; both had placed this
interpretation upon her brief statement that it had been taken from her,
and afterward delicacy of feeling prevented any other allusion to this
painful subject.
Besides this proneness to reverie, Barbara’s husband was sometimes
disturbed by the carelessness with which she neglected the most
important domestic matters if there was an entertainment or exhibition
which the Emperor Charles attended; and, finally, there was something in
her manner to the children, whom Pyramus loved above all things, which
disturbed, incensed, and wounded him, yet which he felt that neither
threats nor stern interposition could change.
He possessed no defence against the reveries except a warning or a
jesting word. Delight in brilliant spectacles was doubtless natural to
her disposition, and as Pyramus not only loved but esteemed her, it was
repugnant to his feelings to watch her. Yet when, nevertheless, he
once followed her steps, he had found her, according to her expressed
intention, among other women in St. Gudule’s Cathedral. Her eyes, which
he watched intently, were constantly turned toward the great personages
whose presence adorned the festival--the Emperor and Queen Mary of
Hungary.
These expeditions were evidently not to meet a lover, yet from that hour
he cherished a conviction, mingled with a bitter sense of resentment,
that she went to the festivals which his Majesty attended in order to
see the man whom she had once loved, and whose image even now she could
not wholly efface from her imagination, perhaps also from her heart.
For her manner to the children, on the contrary, he could find no
plausible explanation. Her love for them was unmistakable. Yet what was
the meaning of the compassionate manner with which she treated them,
talked to them, spoke of them, until it nearly drove him frantic? She
often treated the healthy, merry older boy as if he was ill and needed
comfort, and the pretty infant in the cradle was addressed in the same
way.
If he summoned up his courage and openly reproved her, she always
answered in general terms, such as: “What do you mean? Are we not all
born to suffer?” or, “Shall we envy them because they have entered life
to endure pain and to die?”
Not until Pyramus, with sorrowful emotion, entreated her not to speak of
the children as if they had been given to them for a punishment and not
for a joy, she imposed a certain degree of constraint upon herself and
changed her manner of speech; yet the expression of her eyes revealed
that she felt no really glad, unconstrained joy in her sons.
Though she denied it, she knew how to explain this manner to herself;
for, after her attention had been directed to it, she secretly admitted
that the sight of the two dear children who were wholly hers always
reminded her of the third who had been taken from her, whom she was
permitted to see very rarely, and only in secret, yet who, beside the
others, seemed like a young lion beside modest lambs.
She cherished no desire for a new love, though the lukewarm blending of
gratitude and good will which she bestowed upon her husband did not even
remotely deserve this lofty name.
There was no lack of gallants in Brussels who noticed and were
attracted by her, but whoever knew or had heard of Pyramus Kogel
avoided interfering with his rights; for he was numbered among the best
swordsmen in Brussels, and the air with which the tender-hearted husband
wore his long rapier was decidedly threatening.
Besides, Barbara herself also knew how to protect herself against any
intrusiveness with haughty sharpness.
To-day she was especially glad that Pyramus was absent on an inspecting
tour. She had gratefully enjoyed the meeting with her John. Never had
the light of his blue eyes seemed so sunny, his head with its fair curls
so angelic in its beauty. His voice, too, had enraptured her by its
really bewitching melody. The maternal gift of song would certainly
descend to him, and perhaps it was allotted to the Emperor’s son to
amaze his generation by the presence of hero and singer in one person,
like a second King David.
Twilight had already shadowed the paths when she left the Dubois house,
and on her way home she saw the Emperor approaching. She had slipped
behind a statue as quickly as possible, and he could scarcely have
recognised her, for the gloaming had already merged into partial
darkness; but the mere thought of having been so near him quickened the
pulsation of her heart.
The little gentleman at his side with the stiffly erect bearing and
pompous walk was his son Philip, who was now visiting his father in
Brussels, and expected to leave in a few days. How insignificant was the
figure of the heir of so many crowns! How the brother whom she had given
to his imperial father would some day tower above him!
She again imagined all these things in the quiet of her room. The
thought of this child cheered her heart, but it contracted again as she
remembered the series of bitter humiliations which she had experienced
in Brussels. Among the courtiers whom she had known so well in Ratisbon
not one vouchsafed her anything more than a passing greeting; and the
Queen of Hungary, to whom she would gladly have poured out her heart,
had refused her repeated entreaties for an audience.
CHAPTER XI.
After the short walk in the park of his palace, during which Barbara had
met him in the dusk, the Emperor Charles had dined with his son Philip
and the Queen of Hungary. Now he entered his spacious study.
His feet were refusing their support more and more, and the fingers of
his right hand, which the gout was now crippling, found it hard to grasp
his cane.
He sank back in his arm-chair exhausted, closed his eyes, and laid his
hand upon the clever pointed head of the greyhound which lay at his
feet.
The short walk and the fiery wine which he had again enjoyed in
abundance at dinner had increased the pain from which he was now never
free, day or night, and it was some time ere Adrian could succeed in
propping his infirm body comfortably.
At last Charles passed his handkerchief across his perspiring brow, and
called to the majordomo.
Quijada eagerly approached, and the valet was respectfully leaving the
room, but the Emperor’s summons stopped him.
“I have something,” Charles began, no longer able to maintain complete
control over his voice, which was sometimes interrupted by the shortness
of breath that had recently attacked him, “to say to you also--”
Here he hesitated, pointed to the window which overlooked the park,
then, with a keen glance at the valet’s face, continued:
“A ghost wanders about there. I have already seen it several times under
the trees. True, it avoided approaching me. What still remains useful
in this miserable body! But my eyes are sharp yet, and I recognised the
spectre--it is the Ratisbon singer.”
“Your Majesty knows,” replied Quijada, “what befell her after the birth
of the child, and that she is now living here in Brussels; but I was
strictly forbidden to mention her name in your Majesty’s presence.”
“That command closed my lips also,” said the valet.
“But what the hearing rejected forced itself upon the sight,” remarked
Charles, gazing fixedly into vacancy. “Wherever I appear in public I see
this woman, always this woman! It is not only the basilisk’s eye that
has constraining power. I can not help perceiving her, yet I have as
little desire to meet her gaze as to encounter vanity, worldly pleasure,
folly, sin.”
“Then,” cried Quijada angrily, “it will be advisable to transfer her
husband, who is in your Majesty’s service, from here to Andalusia or to
the New World.”
“As if she would accompany him!” exclaimed the monarch with a scornful
laugh. “No, my friend. This woman did not marry for her own pleasure,
but to cause me sorrow or indignation. She succeeded, too, to a certain
extent; but I do not war with women, least of all with one who is
so unhappy. If we send her husband--who, moreover, is a useful
fellow--across the ocean, she will stay here in Brussels, and we shall
fare like the maid-servants who killed the cocks, and were then waked
by the mistress of the house still earlier than before. Besides, one who
earnestly seeks his true salvation will not remove from his path such
a living memento, such a walking monitor of past sins and follies; and,
finally, this woman is not wholly wrong in deeming herself an
unusual person, cruelly as Heaven has destroyed her best gift. On no
account--you hear me--shall she be wounded or injured for my sake so
long as she reminds me only by her eyes that in happier days we were
closely connected. But to-day the ghost ventured to draw nearer to me
than is seemly, and I recognise the object. It entered the park, not on
my account, but the boy’s--and, Adrian, from your house. I demand the
whole truth! Did she find the way to the boy, and was your wife, who is
usually a prudent woman, unwise enough to allow her to feast her eyes
upon him?”
“She is the child’s mother,” the valet answered gently, “and your
Majesty knows--”
“I know,” Charles interrupted the faithful attendant in a sterner tone
than he commonly used to him, “that you were most positively forbidden
to permit any one to approach the boy, least of all the person who gazes
at him with greedy eyes, and from whom might proceed measureless perils.
Your wife, Adrian, who is tenderly attached to the child, will now
suffer the most painfully for the disobedience. It must go away from
here, go at once, and to a distant country--to Spain. If politics and
Heaven permit, I shall soon follow.--You, Luis, will now arrange with
Adrian the best plan for the removal. The work must be accomplished in
the utmost secrecy. The boy shall grow up in the wholesome air of the
country. No one who surrounds him must be permitted even to suspect to
whom he owes his life. This child shall be simple in his habits, devout,
and modest, far from flattery and spoiling, among other lads of plain
families, who know nothing of heresy and court follies. This innocent
child’s soul, at least, shall not be corrupted at its root. I
consecrated him to the Saviour, and as a pure sacrifice he must receive
him from his father’s hand. I have given him a beautiful charge. In the
monastery his prayers will remove the guilt of him who gave him life.
The pardon for which the mother refused to strive, the son, consecrated
to Jesus Christ our Lord, will struggle to obtain.”
With uplifted gaze he interrupted himself. His eyes flashed with a fiery
light, and his voice gained an imperious tone, which showed no trace of
the asthmatic trouble that had just affected it as he added: “But the
secret which even the reckless mother has hitherto known how to guard
must be kept. Not even your wife, Luis, not even our sister, Queen Mary,
must learn what is being accomplished.”
Then he added more quietly: “The opportunity to take the boy to Spain
is favourable. Our son, Don Philip, will return in three weeks to
Valladolid. The child can be carried in his train. It will disappear
among the throng, for an actual army forms the tail of the comet. I will
hear your proposal to-morrow. Who is to take charge of him on the way?
Where can a suitable shelter for the boy be found in Spain?”
This announcement fell upon the valet like a thunderbolt, for little
John, who regarded him and his wife as his parents, had become as
dear to the childless couple as if he was their own. To part from the
beautiful, frank, merry boy would darken Frau Traut’s whole life. He,
Adrian, had warned her, but she had been unable to resist the entreaties
of the sorely punished mother. Cautiously as Barbara’s visits had been
managed, the infirm monarch’s eye had maintained its keenness of vision
here also.
Now his wife must pay dearly for her weakness and disobedience. Frau
Traut was threatened, too, with another loss. Massi, the most intimate
friend of their house, also expected to return to Spain in the Infant
Philip’s train, to spend the remainder of his days there in peace.
Permission to depart had been granted to him a few hours before.
Little John was fond of this frequent visitor of his foster-parents, who
could whistle so beautifully and knew how to play for him upon a blade
of grass or a comb; but this was not the only reason which made Adrian
think of giving the Emperor’s son to the musician’s care for the journey
to Spain, where Massi’s wife and daughter were awaiting his return at
Leganes, near Madrid. In this healthfully located village lived a pastor
and a sacristan of whom the musician had spoken, and who perhaps later
might take charge of the child’s education.
Adrian informed Don Luis and then the monarch of all this, and as
Quijada knew Massi to be a trustworthy man, and described him to his
royal master, Charles entered into negotiations with him.
The result was that a formal compact was concluded between Dubois and
the musician, which granted the violinist considerable emoluments, but
bound him and his family by oath to maintain the most absolute secrecy
concerning the child’s origin. Moreover, Massi himself knew nothing
about the boy’s parents except that they belonged to the most
aristocratic circles, and he was inclined to believe little John to be
Quijada’s son.
The sovereign himself examined the agreement, and at its close made Frau
Traut take a special oath to preserve the most absolute secrecy about
everything concerning the boy to every one, even Barbara.
What Adrian had expected happened. The Emperor’s command to take her
darling from her affected his wife most painfully. With eyes reddened by
weeping, and an aching heart, she awaited the day of departure.
On the evening before the journey she was sitting by the child’s couch
to enjoy the sight of him as much as possible. Wholly absorbed in gazing
at his infantile grace and patrician beauty, she did not hear the door
open, and started in terror at the sound of footsteps close behind her.
Her husband had ushered the Emperor and Quijada, on whose arm he
was leaning, into the nursery without announcing his entrance. She
involuntarily pressed her finger on her lips to intimate that the child
must not be roused from its slumber; but the gesture was instantly
followed by the profound bow due to the sovereign, and then, with tears
in her eyes, she held the light so that it might fall upon the face of
the lovely child.
A flush tinged the livid features of the invalid, prematurely aged
monarch, and at a wave of his hand the foster-mother left him and his
companion alone with the little one. Charles gazed suspiciously around
the small, neat room.
Not until he had assured himself that he was alone did he look closely
at the son who lay with flushed cheeks on the white pillows of his
little bed in the sound slumber of childhood.
Rarely had he seen a more beautiful boy. How finely chiselled were these
childish features, how thick and wavy the curls that clustered around
his head! The golden lustre which shone from them had also brightened
his mother’s hair. And the smile on the cherry lips of the slightly open
mouth. That, too, was familiar to him. The child had inherited it from
Barbara. Memories which had long since paled in his soul, oppressed by
suffering and disappointment, regained their vanished forms and colours,
and for the first time in many months a smile hovered upon his lips.
What an exquisite image of the Creator was this child! and he might call
it his own, and if, as he intended, it grew up an innocent, happy
lad, it would also become a genuine man, with a warm heart and simple,
upright nature, not a moving marble figure, inflated by pompous
self-conceit, incapable of any deep feeling, any untrammelled emotion,
like his son Philip. Then it might happen that from love, from a real
living impulse of the heart, he would fall upon his neck; then----
He stretched both hands towards the little bed and, obeying a mighty
impulse of paternal affection, bent toward the boy to kiss him. But ere
his lips touched the child’s he again gazed around him like a thief who
is afraid of being caught. At last he yielded to the longing which urged
him, and kissed little John--his, yes, his own son--first on his high,
open brow, and then on his red lips.
How sweet it was! Yet while he confessed this a painful emotion blended
with the pleasure.
He had again thought of Barbara, of her first kiss and the other joys
of the fairest May-time of his life, and the anxious fear stole upon him
that he might give sin a power over his soul which, after undergoing a
heavy penance, he thought he had broken.
Nothing, nothing at all, he now said to himself, ought to bind him to
the woman whom he had effaced from the book of his life as unworthy,
rebellious, lost to salvation; and, in a totally different mood, he
again gazed at the child. It already wore the semblance of an angel in
the gracious Virgin’s train, and it should be dedicated to her and her
divine Son.
Then the boy drew his little arm from under his head.
How strong he was! how superbly the chest of this child not yet four
years old already arched! This bud, when it had bloomed to manhood,
might prove itself, as he himself had done in his youth, the stronger
among the strong. He carefully examined the harmoniously developed
little muscles. What a knight this child promised to become! Surely
it was hardly created for quiet prayer and the inactive peace of the
cloister! He was still free to dispose of the boy. If he should intrust
his physical development to the reliable Quijada, skilled in every
knightly art, and to Count Lanoi, famed as a rider and judge of horses;
confide the training of his mind and soul to the Bishop of Arras, the
learned Frieslander Viglius, or any other clever, strictly religious
man, he might become a second Roland and Bayard--nay, if a crown fell to
his lot, he might rival his great-grandfather, the Emperor Max, and--in
many a line he, too, had done things worthy of imitation--him, his
father. The possession of this child would fill his darkened life with
sunshine, his heart, paralyzed by grief and disappointment, with fresh
pleasure in existence throughout the brief remainder of his earthly
pilgrimage. If he, the father, acknowledged him and aided him to become
a happy, perhaps a great man, this lovely creature might some day be a
brilliant star in the firmament of his age.
Here he paused. The question, “For how long?” forced itself upon him.
He, too, during the short span of youth had been a hero and a victorious
knight. With secure confidence he had undertaken to establish for
himself and his family a sovereignty of the world which should include
the state and the Church. “More, farther,” had been his motto, and to
what stupendous successes it had led him! Three years before he had
routed at Muhlberg his most powerful rivals. As prisoners they still
felt his avenging hand.
And now? At this hour?
The hope of the sovereignty of the world lay shattered at his feet. The
wish to obtain the German imperial crown for his heir and successor,
Philip, had proved unattainable. It was destined for his brother,
Ferdinand of Austria, and afterward for the latter’s son, Maximilian.
To lead the defeated German Protestants back to the bosom of the Holy
Church appeared more and more untenable. Here in the Netherlands the
heretics, in consequence of the Draconian severity of the regulations
which he himself had issued, had been hung and burned by hundreds, and
hitherto he had gained nothing but the hatred of the nation which he
preferred to all others. His bodily health was destroyed, his mind had
lost its buoyancy, and he was now fifty years old. What lay before him
was a brief pilgrimage--perchance numbering only a few years--here on
earth, and the limitless eternity which would never end. How small
and trivial was the former in comparison with the latter, which had
no termination! And would he desire to rear for the space of time that
separates the grave from the cradle the child for whom he desired
the best blessings, instead of securing for him salvation for the
never-ceasing period of eternal life?
No! This beauty, this strength, should be consecrated to no vain secular
struggle, but to Heaven. The boy when he matured to a correct judgment
would thank him for this decision, which was really no easy one for his
worldly vanity.
Then he reverted to the wish with which he had approached the child’s
couch. The son, from gratitude, should take upon himself for his father
and, if he desired, also for his refractory mother, what both had
neglected--the care for their eternal welfare--in prayer and penance.
By consecrating him to Heaven and rearing him for a peaceful existence
in God, far from the vain pleasures of the world and the court he had
done his best for his son and, as if he feared that the sight of his
beautiful, strong boy might shake his resolution, he turned away from
him and called Quijada.
While Charles in a fervent, silent prayer commended John to the favour
of Heaven, the most faithful of his attendants was gazing at the
sovereign’s son. Hitherto Heaven had denied him the joy of possessing a
child. How he would have clasped this lovely creature to his heart if it
had been his! What a pleasure it would have been to transmit everything
that was excellent and clever in himself to this child! To devote it to
a monastic life was acting against the purpose of the Providence that
had dowered it with such strength and beauty.
The Emperor could not, ought not to persist in this intention.
While he was supporting his royal master through the dark park he
ventured to repeat what Adrian and his wife had told him of the strength
and fearlessness of the little John, and then to remark what rare
greatness this boy promised to attain as the son of such a father.
“The highest of all!” replied Charles firmly. “He only is truly great
who in his soul feels his own insignificance and deems trivial all the
splendour and the highest honours which life can offer; and to this
genuine greatness, Luis, I intend to rear this young human plant whose
existence is due to weakness and sin.”
Quijada again summoned up his courage, and observed:
“Yet, as the son of my august ruler, this child may make claims which
are of this world.”
“What claims?” cried the Emperor suspiciously. “His birth?--the law
gives him none. What earthly possessions may perhaps come to him he will
owe solely to my favour, and it would choose for him the only right way.
Claims--mark this well, my friend--claims to the many things which
will remain of my greatness and power when I have closed my pilgrimage
beneath the sun, can be made by one person only--Don Philip, my oldest
son and lawful heir.”
Not until after he had rested in his study did Charles resume the
interrupted conversation, and say:
“It may be that this boy will grow up into a more brilliant personality
than my son Philip; but you Castilians and faithful servants of the Holy
Church ought to rejoice that Heaven has chosen my lawful son for
your king, for he is a thorough Spaniard, and, moreover, cautious,
deliberate, industrious, devout, and loyal to duty. True, he knows not
how to win love easily, but he possesses other means of maintaining what
is his and still awaits him in the future. My pious son will not let
the gallows become empty in this land of heretical exaltation. Had the
Germans put him in my place, he would have become a gravedigger in their
evangelical countries. He never gave me what is called filial affection,
not even just now in the parting hour; yet he is an obedient son who
understands his father. Instead of a heart, I have found in him other
qualities which will render him capable of keeping his heritage in these
troubled times and preserving the Holy Church from further injury. If I
were weaker than I am, and should rear yonder splendid boy, who charmed
you also, Luis, under my own eyes with paternal affection, many an
unexpected joy might grow for me; but I still have an immense amount of
work to do, and therefore lack time to toy with a child. It is my duty
to replace this boy’s claims, which I can not recognise, with higher
ones, and I will fulfill it.”
CHAPTER XII.
During this conversation the violinist Massi had been to take leave of
Barbara. Pyramus, after a short stay at home, had been obliged to depart
again to an inspection in Lowen, and the musician was sorry not to find
his friend. He did not know to whom the child that had been intrusted
to his care belonged, and, as he had bound himself by a solemn oath to
maintain secrecy toward every one, he did not utter a word to Barbara
about the boy and the obligations which he had undertaken.
The parting was a sad one to the young wife, for in Massi she lost not
only a tried friend, but as it were a portion of her former life. He had
been a witness of the fairest days which Fate had granted her; he had
heard her sing when she had been justified in feeling proud of her art;
and he had been intimate with Wolf Hartschwert, whom she remembered with
affectionate interest, though he had only informed her once in a brief
letter that he was prospering in Villagarcia and his new position. While
with tearful eyes she bade Massi farewell, she gave him messages of
remembrance to Wolf; and the violinist, no less agitated than herself,
promised to deliver them. He was hopefully anticipating a cheerful
evening of life in the midst of his family. Existence had promised
Barbara higher things, but she seemed to have found the power to be
content. At least he had heard no complaint from her lips, and her
husband had often told him of the happiness which he had obtained
through her in marriage. So he could leave her without anxiety; but she,
even in the hour of parting, was too proud to offer him a glimpse of her
desolate life, whose fairest ornaments were memories.
When he left her the young wife felt still poorer than before, and
during the sleepless night which in imagination she had spent with her
imperial child in the Dubois house, and in the days of splendour and
misery at Ratisbon, she determined to clasp once more the hand of her
departing friend when he set out with the Infant Philip’s train.
Although it was to start early in the morning, she was in the square in
ample time, partly because she hoped to see the Emperor in the distance.
The throng that followed Philip really did resemble an army.
Barbara had already often seen the short, slender ‘Infant’, with his
well-formed, fair head and light, pointed beard, who held himself so
stiffly erect, and carried his head as high as if he considered no one
over whom his glance wandered worthy of so great an honour.
It seemed strange to her, too, how well this man, naturally so
insignificant in person, succeeded in giving his small figure the
appearance of majestic dignity. But how totally unlike him his father
must have looked in his youth! There was something austere, repellent,
chilling, in the gaze which, while talking with others, he usually
fixed upon the ground, and, in fact, in the whole aspect of the son. How
brightly and frankly, on the contrary, his father’s eyes, in spite of
all his suffering, could sparkle even now! How easy it would be for him
to win hearts still!
If he would only come!
But this time he did not accompany his son. Philip was on horseback, but
a magnificent empty coach in the procession would receive him as soon as
he left Brussels.
He wished to present a gallant appearance in the saddle on his
departure, and a more daintily, carefully clad cavalier could scarcely
be imagined.
His garments fitted like a glove, and were of faultless fineness. Queen
Mary, the regent, rode at his side, and the Brabant nobles, the heads of
the Brussels citizens, and his Spanish courtiers formed his retinue. The
leaders of the Netherland nobility were figures very unlike in stature
and size to Philip; but he could vie in haughty majesty with any of
them. Not a limb, not an expression lacked his control a single instant.
He desired to display to these very gentlemen in every inch of his
person his superior power and grandeur, and especially not to be
inferior to them in chivalrous bearing.
To a certain extent he succeeded in doing so; but his aunt, Queen Mary,
seemed unwilling to admit it, for just when he showed his arrogant
dignity most plainly a smile by no means expressive of reverence hovered
around the mouth of the frank royal huntress.
Barbara had soon wearied of gazing at the magnificent garments and
horses of these grandees. As Charles did not appear, the only person in
the endless procession who attracted her attention was Massi, whom she
soon discovered on his insignificant little horse; but he did not heed
her eager signals, for he was talking earnestly to the occupant of the
large litter borne by two mules that moved beside him.
Barbara tried to force her way to him, and when she succeeded her cheeks
suddenly burned hotly, and a swift dread checked her progress; for from
the great window of the litter a wonderfully beautiful little head,
covered with fair curls, looked forth, and two little arms were extended
toward the violinist.
How gleefully this child’s eyes sparkled! how his whole little figure
seemed instinct with joy and life while gazing at the horseman at the
side of the street who was having a hard struggle with his refractory
stallion!
No one knew this boy better than she, for it was her own son, the
imperial child she had given to the Emperor. At the same time she
thought of her other two boys, and her face again wore a compassionate
expression. Not they, but this little prince from fairyland was her
first-born, her dearest, her true child.
But where were they taking her John? What had Massi to do with him? Why
should the boy be in Philip’s train?
There was only one explanation. Her child was being conveyed to Spain.
Had the father heard that she had discovered his abode, and did he wish
to remove it from the mother whom he hated?
Was it being taken there merely that it might grow up a Castilian?
Did Charles desire to rear it there to the grandeur and splendour for
whose sake she had yielded him?
Yet whatever was in view for John, he would be beyond her reach as soon
as the ship to which he was being conveyed weighed anchor.
But she would not, could not do without seeing him! The light of day
would be darkened for her if she could no longer hope to gaze at least
now and then into his blue eyes and to hear the sound of his clear,
childish tones.
“This too! this too!” she hissed, as if frantic; and as the guards
forced her out of the procession she followed it farther and farther
through the heat and dust, as though attracted by some magnetic power.
Her feet moved involuntarily while her gaze rested on the litter, and
she caught a glimpse sometimes of a golden curl, sometimes of a little
hand, sometimes of the whole marvellously beautiful fair head.
Not until the train stopped and the lords, ladies, and gentlemen who
were escorting Philip turned their horses and left him did she recollect
herself. To follow these horsemen, coaches, carts, litters, and
pedestrians just as she was would have been madness. Her place was
at home with her husband and children. Ten times she repeated this to
herself and prepared to turn back; but the force which drew her to her
child was stronger than the warning voice of reason.
At any rate, she must speak to Massi and learn where he was taking the
boy. He had not yet seen her; but now, as the train stopped, she forced
her way to him.
Amazed at meeting her, he returned her greeting, and granted her request
to let her speak with him a few minutes.
Greatly perplexed, he swung himself from the saddle, flung his bridle to
a groom, and followed her under a mountain-ash tree which stood by the
roadside. Barbara had used the time of his dismounting to gaze at her
child again, and to impress his image upon her soul. She dared not call
to him, for she had sworn to keep the secret, and the boy, who so often
repulsed her eager advances, would perhaps have turned from her if she
had gone close to him and attempted to kiss him through the window.
This reserve was so hard for her that her eyes were full of tears when
Massi approached to ask what she desired. She did not give him time for
even a single question, but with frantic haste inquired who the boy in
the litter was, and where he intended to take him.
But her friend, usually so obliging, curtly and positively refused to
give her any information. Then forming a hasty resolve, Barbara besought
him if it were possible to take her with him to his home. Life in her
own house had become unendurable. If a nurse was wanted for this child,
no matter to whom it might belong, let him give her the place. She
would devote herself to the boy day and night, more faithfully than any
mother, and ask no wages for it, only she would and must go to Spain.
Massi had listened to her rapid words in warm; nay, he was thoroughly
startled. The fire that flashed from Barbara’s blue eyes, the anguish
which her quivering features expressed, suggested the thought that she
had lost her reason, and with sympathizing kindness he entreated her to
think of his friend her husband, and her splendid boys at home. But when
she persisted that she must go to Spain, he remembered that a bond
of love had once united her to his friend Wolf Hartschwert, and in
bewilderment he asked if it was the knight who attracted her there.
“If you think so, yes,” she exclaimed. “Only I must go to Spain, I must
go to Spain!”
Again Massi was seized with the conviction that he was dealing with a
madwoman, and as the procession started he only held out his hand to
her once more, earnestly entreated her to calm herself, sent his
remembrances to her husband and children, and then swung himself into
the saddle.
Barbara remained standing by the side of the road as if turned to stone,
gazing after the travellers until the dust which they raised concealed
them from her gaze. Then she shook her head and slowly returned to
Brussels.
Pyramus would come home at noon. Lamperi and the maid might provide the
meal and attend to the rest of the household affairs. It was far past
twelve, and it would still be a long time before she went home, for
she must, yes, must go up to the palace park and to the Dubois house to
inquire where her soul must seek her child in future.
Her feet could scarcely support her when she entered the dwelling.
Startled at her appearance, Frau Traut compelled the exhausted woman to
sit down. How dishevelled, nay, wild, Barbara, who was usually so well
dressed, looked! But she, too, that day did not present her usual dainty
appearance, and her eyes and face were reddened by weeping. Barbara
instantly noticed this, and it confirmed her conjecture. This woman,
too, was bewailing the child which the cruel despot had torn from her.
“He is on the way to Spain!” she cried to the other. “There is nothing
to conceal here.”
Frau Traut started, and vehemently forbade Barbara to say even one word
more about the boy if she did not wish her to show her the door and
close it against her forever.
But this was too much for the haughty mother of the Emperor’s son.
The terrible agitation of her soul forced an utterance, and in wild
rebellion she swore to the terrified woman that she would burden herself
with the sin of perjury and break the silence to which she had bound
herself if she did not confess to her where Massi was taking her boy.
She would neither seek him nor strive to get possession of him, but
if she could not imagine where and with what people he was living, she
would die of longing. She would have allowed herself to be abused and
trodden under foot in silence, but she would not suffer herself to be
deprived of the last remnant of her maternal rights.
Here Adrian himself entered the room; but Barbara was by no means calmed
by his appearance, and with a fresh outburst of wrath shrieked to his
face that he might choose whether he would confide to her, the mother,
where his master was taking the child or see her rush from here to the
market place and call out to the people what she had promised, for the
boy’s sake, to hold secret.
The valet saw that she would keep her word and, to prevent greater
mischief, he informed her that the violinist Massi was commissioned to
take her son to Spain to rear him in his wife’s native place until his
Majesty should alter his plans concerning him.
This news produced a great change in the tortured mother. With
affectionate, repentant courtesy, she thanked the Dubois couple and,
when Frau Traut saw that she was trying to rearrange her hair and dress,
she helped her, and in doing so one woman confessed to the other what
she had lost in the child.
Adrian’s yielding had pleased Barbara. Besides, during the years of
her intercourse with Massi she had heard many things about his
residence--nay, every member of his household--and therefore she could
now form a picture of his future life.
So she had grown quieter, though by no means perfectly calm.
Her husband, who must have already returned from his journey, and had
not found her at home, would scarcely receive her pleasantly, but she
cared little for that if only he had not been anxious about her, and in
his joy at seeing her again did not clasp her tenderly in his arms. That
would have been unbearable to-day. She would have liked it best if Massi
would really have taken her with him as her child’s nurse to Leganes,
his residence. Thereby she would have reached the place where she
thought she belonged--by the side of the child, in whom she beheld
everything that still rendered her life worth living.
Nevertheless, on her way home she thought with maternal anxiety of her
two boys; but the nearer she approached the unassuming quarter of the
city where she lived the more vividly she felt that she did not belong
there, but in the part of Brussels whence she came.
Her own home was far more richly and prettily furnished than her old one
in Red Cock Street, but it did not yet satisfy her desires, and she did
not feel content in it. To-day a slight feeling of aversion even came
over her as she thought of it.
Perhaps the best plan would have been for her to put an end to this
misery, and, instead of returning, make a pilgrimage to Compostella
in Spain, and while doing so try to find her John in Leganes. But even
while yielding to these thoughts Barbara felt how sinful they were. Did
not her little house look attractive and pretty? It was certainly the
prettiest and neatest in the neighbourhood, and as she drew nearer
pleasure at the thought of seeing her children again awoke. An unkind
reception from her husband would have been painful, after all.
But she was to receive no greeting at all from him. Pyramus had been
detained on the way. Barbara felt this as a friendly dispensation of
Providence. But something else spoiled her return home. Conrad,
her oldest boy, two-year-old Conrad, who was already walking about,
beginning to prattle prettily, and who could show the affection of his
little heart with such coaxing tenderness, came toward her crying, and
when she took him up rested his little burning head against her cheek.
The little fellow’s forehead and throat were aching.
Some illness was coming on.