Barbara Blomberg — Volume 09, Georg Ebers [a book to read txt] 📗

which shadows life's pathway."

"Yes, indeed, Wolf," she replied dully, with a sorrowful shake of the head. "The gloomy night of which you speak has come, and it will last on and on with unvarying darkness, from year to year, perhaps until the end. What you call light is the remembrance of a single brief month of May. Does it possess the power to render me happy? No, my friend, a thousand times no! It only saves me from despair. But, in spite of everything"— and here her eyes sparkled radiantly—"in spite of all this, I would not change places with any one on earth; for, however dark clouds may conceal the sun, when in quiet hours it once breaks through them, Wolf, how brilliant everything grows around me!"

While speaking, she passed her hand across her brow and, as though seized with shame for her frank confession, exclaimed: "But we will let this subject drop. Only you must know one thing more. I shall never be wholly impoverished. What the past gave me was too rich and great; what I expect from the future is too precious for that. It is growing up in distant Spain and, if Heaven accepted the great sacrifice which I once made for the boy whom you call Geronimo, if he receives what I besought for him at that time and on every returning day, then, Wolf, I shall bear the burden of my woe like a light garland of rose leaves. Nay, more. Charles will regain his youth sooner than—be it in love or hate—he will ever forget me. This child guarantees that. It is and will always remain a bridge between us. He, too, can not forget the son, and if he does——"

"No, Barbara, no," interrupted Wolf, carried away by her passionate warmth. "The Emperor Charles is constantly thinking of his fair-haired boy. No one has told me so; but if he seeks in Spain the rest for which he longs, the thought of Geronimo—I am sure of that—is not the least powerful cause which draws him thither."

"Do you really think so?" asked Barbara with feverish anxiety.

"Yes," he answered firmly. "This very morning he commanded Don Luis to take the child from Leganes to Villagarcia and commit the education of Geronimo to his wife, that he may find him what he expects and desires."

Here he paused, and Barbara inquired uneasily, "And did he say nothing of
Geronimo's mother—of me?"

Wolf shook his head with silent compassion, and then reluctantly admitted: "I ventured to mention you, but, with one of those looks which no one can resist—you know them—he ordered me to be silent."

Barbara's cheeks flamed with resentment and shame, but she only said, smiling bitterly: "Grief is grief, and this new sorrow does not change the old one. He knows best that I am something more than the poor officer's wife in the Saint-Gory quarter; but I look down, with just pride, on all the others who believe me to be nothing else. Now and always, even long after I am dead, the world will be obliged to recognise the claim which elevates me far above the throng: I am the mother of an Emperor's son!"

She had uttered these words with uplifted head; but Wolf gazed in wondering admiration into the beautiful face, radiant with proud self- satisfaction.

He wished to leave her with this image before his soul, and therefore hurriedly extended his hand and said farewell, after promising to fulfil her entreaty never to come to Brussels without showing by a visit that he remembered her.

CHAPTER XIV.

Pyramus Kogel, on his return, saw nothing of the deep impression which Wolf's visit had made upon Barbara. She merely mentioned it, and carelessly said that the friend of her youth had been delighted with the children.

The news that reached her ears about what was happening in the world awakened her interest, it is true, but she took no trouble to ask for tidings. When, the following year, her husband informed her that the Emperor's only son was about to conclude a second marriage, with Mary Tudor, of England, and Charles was to commit to Philip the sovereignty of the Netherlands, Spain, Naples, and Milan, she received it as if she had already known it.

What she learned through the neighbours of the increasing number of executions of obdurate heretics she deemed the wise measures of a devout and conscientious government.

To the children Barbara was a careful mother. She rarely went to visit the Dubois couple. Frau Traut either could not or was not allowed to tell her anything about her child, except that he was thriving under the maternal care of Dona Magdalena, to whom he had been confided.

The next winter, during which Charles reached his fifty-fourth year, his health failed so noticeably that the physicians despaired of his recovery. The Brabant palace was constantly besieged by people of all classes inquiring about the condition of the still honoured and by many deeply beloved monarch, and Barbara almost daily asked for news of him. She usually entered the palace clad in black and closely veiled, for she had many acquaintances among the attendants.

Adrian was inaccessible, because his master could not spare him a single hour, but she saw his substitute, Ogier Bodart, who had served the Emperor in Ratisbon. From him she learned how the sufferer passed the night, how the day promised, and whether the physician's opinion awakened hope or fear. He even told her that his Majesty was occupying himself with his last will, the payment of his debts, the arrangement of the succession, and the choice of his burial place.

All this occupied Barbara's mind so deeply, and the long waiting to see Bodart often robbed her of so much time, that her housewifely and maternal duties suffered, yet her patient husband endured it a long while indulgently. But once, when he summoned up courage and cautiously blamed her, she quietly admitted that he was right, but added that she had never concealed from him the tie which bound her to the Emperor Charles, and now that Death was stretching his hand toward him, she must be permitted to obtain news of his welfare.

The strong man silenced his dissatisfaction, and placed no obstacles in her way. He was grateful for the maternal solicitude which she showed the children.

His kindly nature secretly approved of her spending a longer time in the Cathedral of St. Gudule than usual, praying for the royal sufferer who was so seriously ill. The man whom she could not forget was dying and, moreover, was his sovereign.

Spring at last brought an improvement in the monarch's health, and with it Barbara's return to her household duties.

A great change took place in the Dubois home during the spring after Charles's convalescence. The exhausting care of the Emperor had made Adrian seriously ill and, in spite of the objections and bitter complaints of his beloved and honoured master and his own desire to continue in his service, he was forced to resign his office, which was committed to his assistant Bodart.

One day Barbara met Dr. Mathys at the ex-valet's sick-bed. The kindly leech was amazed at her youthful appearance, and also at the obstinacy of her throat ailment; but he encouraged her, for he had recently seen marvellous effects produced by the old Roman baths at Ems, which were not difficult to reach, and advised her to use them as soon as possible. She must inform him of the result, if he was permitted to visit the Netherlands again.

Then Barbara asked if he intended to leave the master whose life was preserved by his skill; but he only shook his big head, smiling, and said that the Emperor and he belonged together, like the soul and the body, but whether his Majesty would remain in Brabant much longer was an open question.

Barbara now remembered Wolf's communication, and when the rumour spread that the Emperor Charles was inclined to give up his rulership and commit the sceptre and crown to his son Philip, she knew that this time also Charles would execute the plan which he had matured after years of consideration.

Through her friend she knew the motives which urged him to renounce power and grandeur and retire to solitude; but to her it seemed certain that, above all other reasons, longing for the fair, curly-headed boy, his son and hers, had induced him to take this great and admirable step.

Gradually her maternal heart attributed to her John alone the desire of the world-weary earthly pilgrim to lay aside the purple and return to Spain.

Though Barbara at this time rarely left her own fireside, her husband might often have wished that she would return to the conduct of the previous winter, for he perceived the torturing anxiety which was consuming her.

She could gaze for hours into vacancy, absorbed in profound meditation and reveries, or play on the harp and lute, softly humming old songs to herself. If at such times Pyramus asked, lovingly and modestly, that he might not expose himself to an angry rebuff, what was burdening her soul, his wife gave evasive answers or told him about the physician's advice, and described how different the lives of both would be if she could regain the lost melody of her voice. But when he, who did not grudge the woman he loved the very best of everything, joyfully offered from his savings the sum necessary to send her and Frau Lamperi to Ems, in order, if possible, to commence the cure at once, she asserted that, for many reasons, she could not begin this summer the treatment which promised so much. True, the bare thought that if might once again be allotted to her to raise her heart in song filled her with the same blissful hope as ever; but if the report, which constantly grew more definite, did not deceive, the Emperor's formal abdication was close at hand, and to attend this great event seemed to her a duty of the heart, a necessity which she could not avoid. In many a quiet hour she told herself that Charles, when he had divested himself of all his honours and become a mere man like the rest of the world, would draw nearer to her boy, and through him to her. As an ordinary mortal, he would be able to love, like every other father, the child that attracted him to Spain. If in his life of meditation, far from the tumult of the world, the strife for knowledge should lead him to look back into the past, and in doing so he again recalled the days to which he owed his greatest happiness, could he help remembering her and her singing?

How often she had heard that the knowledge of self was the highest goal of thought to the philosopher, and as such Charles would certainly retire into seclusion, and, as surely as she desired to be saved, he had wronged her and must then perceive it. Probably there were thousands of more important things in which he had to bury himself, but the boy would remind him of her and the injury which he had done.

Never had she more deeply admired the grandeur of her imperial lover, and with entire confidence she believed that this stupendous act of renunciation would mark the beginning of a new life for her and her child.

September and the first half of October passed like a fevered dream.

The abdication would certainly take place,

Charles had resolved to transfer all the crowns which adorned him to his son Philip, and retire to a Spanish monastery.

Barbara also learned when and where the solemn ceremony was to take place. Day after day she again mingled with the visitors to the palace, and on the twenty-first of October she saw the eleven Knights of the Golden Fleece, to whom he wished to restore the office of grand master, enter the palace chapel.

How magnificently these greatest of all dignitaries were attired! how all that she saw of this rare event in the palace chapel reminded her of the solemn ceremonial at the Trausnitzburg at Landshut, and her resolve to surrender her child, that it might possess the same splendour and honours as its sister's husband!

The wishes cherished at that time were still unfulfilled; but the father would soon meet the son again, and the greater affection this peerless boy aroused in Charles, the more surely he would know how to bestow on him honours