Barbara Blomberg — Complete

by Georg Ebers

  CHAPTER IV.

  Dr. Mathys had himself carried in the litter from the Golden Cross toBarbara.

  This errand was a disagreeable one, for, though the Emperor's remarkthat he had yielded to the rare charm of this woman was not true, hiskindly heart had become warmly attached to Barbara. For the firsttime he saw in her the suffering which often causes a metamorphosis incertain traits in a sick person's character extend their transformingpower to the entire nature. Passionate love for her art gave her theability to maintain with punctilious exactness the silence which he hadbeen compelled to impose upon her, and the once impetuous, obstinatecreature obeyed his directions and wishes with the patience of a docilechild.

  The manner in which, after he permitted her to speak, she had disclosedin a low whisper her happy yet disquieting secret, hovered before himnow as one of the most pathetic incidents in a life full of variedexperiences.

  How touchingly deep misery and the greatest rapture, gloomy anxietyand radiant joy, bitter dread and sweet anticipation, despairinghelplessness and firm confidence had looked forth at him from thebeautiful face whose noble outlines were made still more delicate by theillness through which she had passed! He could not have refused even amore difficult task to this petitioner.

  Now he was returning from the Emperor, and he felt like a vanquishedgeneral.

  In what form was he to clothe the bad news which he was bringing to theconvalescent girl? Poor child! How heavily she had to atone for her sin,and how slight was his own and every other influence upon the man, greateven in his selfishness, who had had the power to render him a messengerof joy!

  While the physician was approaching the little castle, she of whom hewas so eagerly thinking awaited his return with feverish suspense. Yetshe was obliged at this very time to devote herself to a visitor. True,he was the only person whom she would not have refused to see at thishour.

  Wolf Hartschwert was with her.

  His first errand after the period of severe suffering through which hehad passed was to Barbara, earnestly as old Ursel had endeavoured toprevent him.

  He had found her under a linden tree in the garden.

  How they had met again!

  Wolf, pale and emaciated, advanced toward her, leaning on a cane, whileBarbara, with slightly flushed cheeks, reclined upon the pillows whichSister Hyacinthe had just arranged for her.

  Her head seemed smaller, her features had become more delicate and, inspite of the straw hat which protected her from the dazzling sunshine,he perceived that her severe illness had cost her her magnificentgolden hair. Still wavy, it now fell only to her neck, and gave her theappearance of a wonderfully handsome boy.

  The hand she extended to him was transparently thin, and when heclasped it in his, which was only a little larger, and did not seem muchstronger, and she had hoarsely whispered a friendly greeting, his eyesfilled with tears. For a time both were silent. Barbara was the firstto find words and, raising her large eyes beseechingly to his, said: "Ifyou come to reproach me--But no! You look pale, as though you had onlypartially recovered yourself, yet kind and friendly. Perhaps you do notknow that it was through my fault that all these terrible things havebefallen you."

  Here a significant smile told her that he was much better informed thanshe supposed, and, lowering her eyes in timid embarrassment, she asked,

  "Then you know who it was for whom this foolish heart----"

  Here her breath failed, and while she pressed her hand upon her bosom,Wolf said softly: "If you had only trusted me before! Many things wouldnot have happened, and much suffering might have been spared. You didwrong, Wawerl, certainly, but my guilt is the greater, and we were bothpunished--oh, how sorely!"

  Barbara, amid low sobbing, nodded assent, but he eagerly continued:"Quijada confided everything to me, and if he--you know--now forgets allother matters in the war and the anxieties of the general, and, youneed my counsel and aid, we will let what came between us he buried, andthink that we are brother and sister."

  The girl held out her hand to him, saying: "How long you have been abrother to me! But, as for your advice--Holy Virgin!--I know now lessthan ever how I am to fare; but I shall soon learn. I can say no more.It must be a severe trial to listen to me. Such a raven's croak fromthe throat which usually gave you pleasure, and to which you gladlylistened! Shall I myself ever grow accustomed to this discord? And you?Answer honestly--I should like to know whether it is very, very terribleto hear."

  "You are still hoarse," was the reply. "Such things pass away in a fewweeks, and it will again be a pleasure to hear you sing."

  "Do you really think so?" she cried with sparkling, eyes.

  "Firmly and positively," answered the young knight in a tone of mosthonest conviction; but she repeated in joyous excitement, "Firmly andpositively," and then eagerly continued: "Oh, if you should be right,Wolf, how happy and grateful I would be, in spite of everything! But Ican talk no longer now. Come again to-morrow, and then the oftener thebetter."

  "Unfortunately, that can not be, gladly as I would do so," he answeredsadly, extending his hand in farewell. "In a few days I shall return toBrussels."

  "To remain with the regent?" asked Barbara eagerly.

  "No," he answered firmly. "After a short stay with her Majesty, I shallenter the service of Don Luis Quijada, or rather of his wife."

  "O-o-oh!" she murmured slowly. "The world seems wholly strange to meafter my long illness. I must first collect my thoughts, and that is nowutterly impossible. To-morrow, Wolf! Won't you come to-morrow? ThenI shall know better what is before me. Thanks, cordial thanks, and iftomorrow I deny myself to every one else, I will admit you."

  After Wolf had gone, Barbara gazed fixedly into vacancy. What did theaspiring young musician seek with a nobleman's wife in a lonely Spanishcastle? Were his wings broken, too, and did he desire only seclusion andquiet?

  But the anxiety which dominated her mind prevented her pursuing the samethought longer. Dr. Mathys had promised to tell her the result of hisconversation with the Emperor as soon as possible, and yet he had notreturned.

  Fool that she was!

  Even on a swift steed he could not have traversed the road back to thecastle if he had been detained only half an hour in the Golden Cross.It was impatience which made the minutes become quarters of an hour. Shewould have liked to go to the cool frigidarium again to watch for thephysician's litter; but she was warned, and had accustomed herselfto follow the doctor's directions as obediently as a dutiful child.Besides, Sister Hyacinthe no longer left her alone out of doors, andpossessed a reliable representative, who had won Barbara's confidenceand affection, in Frau Lamperi, the garde-robiere, whom the Queen ofHungary had not yet summoned.

  So she remained under the linden, and Dr. Mathys did not put her newlywon virtue of patience, which he prized so highly, to too severe atrial.

  Fran Lamperi had watched for him, and hastily announced that his litterhad already passed the Reichart pottery.

  Now Barbara did not turn her eyes from the garden door through which theman she ardently longed to see usually came, and when it opened and thestout, broad-shouldered leech, with his peaked doctor's hat, long staff,and fine linen kerchief in his right hand advanced toward her, shemotioned to the nun and the maid to leave them, and pressed her lefthand upon her heart, for her emotion at the sight of him resembledthe feeling of the prisoner who expects the paper with which the judgeenters his cell to contain his death-warrant.

  She thought she perceived her own in the physician's slow, almostlagging step. His gait was always measured; but if he had had good newsto bring, he would have approached more rapidly. A sign, a gesture, ashout would have informed her that he was bearing something cheering.

  But there was nothing of this kind.

  He did not raise his hat until he stood directly in front of her,and while mopping his broad, clamp brow and plump cheeks with hishandkerchief, she read in his features the confirmation of her worstfears.

  Now in his grave voice, whic
h sounded still deeper than usual, heuttered a curt "Well, it can't be helped," and shrugged his shoulderssorrowfully.

  This gesture destroyed her last hope. Unable to control herself longer,she cried out in the husky voice whose hoarse tone was increased by herintense agitation: "I see it in your face, Doctor; I must be preparedfor the worst."

  "Would to Heaven I could deny it!" he answered in a hollow tone; butBarbara urged him to speak and conceal nothing from her, not even theharshest news.

  The leech obeyed.

  With sincere compassion he saw how her face blanched at his informationthat, owing to the pressure of duties which the commencement of the warimposed upon him, his Majesty would be unable to visit her here. Butwhen, to sweeten the bitter potion, he had added that when her throatwas well again, and her voice had regained its former melody, themonarch would once more gladly listen to her, he was startled; for,instead of answering, she merely shrugged her shoulders contemptuously,while her face grew corpselike in its pallor. He would have beenbest pleased to end his report here, but she could not be spared thesuffering to which she was doomed, and pity demanded that the tortureshould be ended as quickly as possible. So, to raise her courage,he began with the Emperor's congratulations, and while her eyes weresparkling brightly and her pale cheeks were crimsoned by a fleetingflush, he went on, as considerately as he could, to inform her of theEmperor's resolution, not neglecting while he did so to place it in amilder light by many a palliating remark.

  Barbara, panting for breath, listened to his report without interruptinghim; but as the physician thought he perceived in the varying expressionof her features and the wandering glance with which she listened tokensthat she did not fully understand what the Emperor required of her, hesummed up his communications once more.

  "His Majesty," he concluded, "was ready to recognise as his own theyoung life to be expected, if she would keep the secret, and decide tocommit it to his sole charge from its arrival in the world; but, on theother hand, he would refuse this to her and to the child if she did notagree to impose upon herself sacrifice and silence."

  At this brief, plain statement Barbara had pressed her hands upon hertemples and stretched her head far forward toward the physician. Now shelowered her right hand, and with the question, "So this is what I mustunderstand?" impetuously struck herself a blow on the forehead.

  The patient man again raised his voice to make the expression of themonarch's will still plainer, but she interrupted him after the firstfew words with the exclamation: "You can spare yourself this trouble,for the meaning of the man whose message you bear is certainly evidentenough. What my poor intellect fails to comprehend is only--do youhear?--is only where the faithless traitor gains the courage to make meso unprecedented a demand. Hitherto I was only not wicked enough to knowthat there--there was such an abyss of abominable hard-heartedness, suchfiendish baseness, such----"

  Here an uncontrollable fit of coughing interrupted her, but Dr. Mathyswould have stopped her in any case; it was unendurable to him tolisten longer while the great man who was the Emperor, and whom he alsohonoured as a man, was reviled with such savage recklessness.

  As in so many instances, Charles's penetration had been superior to his;for he had not failed to notice to what tremendous extremes this girl'shasty temper could carry her. What burning, almost evil passion hadflamed in her eyes while uttering these insults! How perfectly righthis Majesty was to withdraw from all association with a woman of soirresponsible a nature!

  He repressed with difficulty the indignation which had overpowered himuntil her coughing ceased, then, in a tone of stern reproof, he declaredthat he could not and ought not to listen to such words. She whom theEmperor Charles had honoured with his love would perhaps in the futurelearn to recognise his decision as wise, though it might offend her now.When she had conquered the boundless impetuosity which so ill beseemedher, she herself would probably perceive how immeasurably deep and widewas the gulf which separated her from the sacred person of the man who,next to God, was the highest power on earth. Not only justice but dutywould command the head of the most illustrious family in the world toclaim the sole charge of his child, that it might be possible to trainit unimpeded to the lofty position of the father, instead of the humbleone of the mother.

  Hitherto Barbara had remained silent, but her breath had come moreand more quickly, the tremor of the nostrils had increased; but at thephysician's last remark she could control herself no longer, and burstforth like a madwoman: "And you pretend to be my friend, pretend to bea fairminded man? You are the tool, the obedient echo of the infamouswretch who now stretches his robber hand toward my most preciouspossession! Ay, look at me as though my frank speech was rousing thegreatest wrath in your cowardly soul! Where was the ocean-deep gulf whenthe perjured betrayer clasped me in his arms, uttered vows of love, andcalled himself happy because his possession of me would beautify theevening of his life? Now my voice has lost its melting music, and hesends his accomplice to leave the mute 'nightingale'--how often he hascalled me so!--to her fate."

  Here she faltered, and her cheeks glowed with excitement as, with herclinched hand on her brow, she continued: "Must everything be changedand overturned because this traitor is the Emperor, and the betrayedonly the child of a man who, though plain, is worthy of all honour, andwho, besides, was not found on the highway, but belongs to the class ofknights, from whom even the proudest races of sovereigns descend?You trample my father and me underfoot, to exalt the grandeur of yourmaster. You make him the idol, to humble me to a worm; and what yougrant the she-wolf--the right of defence when men undertake to rob herof her young--you deny me, and, because I insist upon it, I must be adeluded, unbridled creature."

  Here she sobbed aloud and covered her face with her hands; but Dr.Mathys had been obliged to do violence to his feelings in order not toput a speedy end to the fierce attack. Her glance had been like thatof an infuriated wild beast as the rage in her soul burst forth withelementary power, and the sharpness of her hoarse voice still piercedhim to the heart.

  Probably the man of honour whom she had so deeply-insulted feltjustified in paying her in the same coin, but the mature and experiencedphysician knew how much he must place to the account of the physicalcondition of this unfortunate girl, and did not conceal from himselfthat her charges were not wholly unjustifiable. So he restrainedhimself, and when she had gained control over the convulsive sobbingwhich shook her bosom, he told her his intention of leaving her and notreturning until he could expect a less hostile reception. Meanwhileshe might consider whether the Emperor's decision was not worthyof different treatment. He would show his good will to her anew byconcealing from his Majesty what he had just heard, and what she, at nodistant day, would repent as unjust and unworthy of her.

  Then Barbara angrily burst forth afresh: "Never, never, never will thathappen! Neither years nor decades would efface the wrong inflicted uponme to-day. But oh, how I hate him who makes this shameful demand--yes,though you devour me with your eyes--hate him, hate him! I do so evenmore ardently than I loved him! And you? Why should you conceal it? Fromkindness to me? Perhaps so! Yet no, no, no! Speak freely! Yes, you must,must tell him so to his face! Do it in my name, abused, ill-treated as Iam, and tell him----"

  Here the friendly man's patience gave out, and, drawing his little broadfigure stiffly up, he said repellently: "You are mistaken in me, mydear. If you need a messenger, you must seek some one else. You havetaken care to make me sincerely regret having discharged this office foryour sake. Besides, your recovery will progress without my professionalaid; and, moreover, I shall leave Ratisbon with my illustrious master ina few days."

  He turned his back upon her as he spoke. When toward evening theEmperor asked him how Barbara had received his decision, he shruggedhis shoulders and answered: "As was to be expected. She thinks herselfill-used, and will not give up the child."

  "She will have a different view in the convent," replied the Emperor."Quijada shall talk with her to-morrow, and
De Soto and the piousnuns here will show her where she belongs. The child--that matter issettled--will be taken from her."

  The execution of the imperial will began on the very next morning. Firstthe confessor De Soto appeared, and with convincing eloquence showedBarbara how happily she could shape her shadowed life within the sacredquiet of the convent. Besides, the helpless creature whose comingshe was expecting with maternal love could rely upon the father'srecognition and aid only on condition that she yielded to his Majesty'sexpressed will.

  Barbara, though with no little difficulty, succeeded in maintaining hercomposure during these counsels and the declaration of the servant ofthe Holy Church. Faithful to the determination formed during the night,she imposed silence upon herself, and when De Soto asked for a positiveanswer, she begged him to grant her time for consideration.

  Soon after Don Luis Quijada was announced. This time he did not appearin the dark Spanish court costume, but in the brilliant armour of theLombard regiment whose command had been entrusted to him.

  When he saw Barbara, for the first time after many weeks, he wasstartled.

  Only yesterday she had seemed to Wolf Hartschwert peerlessly beautiful,but the few hours which had elapsed between the visit of the physicianand the major-domo had sadly changed her. Her large, bright eyes werereddened by weeping, and the slight lines about the corners of the mouthhad deepened and lent her a severe expression.

  A hundred considerations had doubtless crowded upon her during thenight, yet she by no means repented having showed the leech what shethought of the betrayer in purple and the demand which he made upon her.De Soto's attempt at persuasion had only increased her defiance. Insteadof reflecting and thinking of her own welfare and of the future of thebeloved being whose coming she dreaded, yet who seemed to her the mostprecious gift of Heaven, she strengthened herself more and more in thebelief that it was due to her own dignity to resist the Emperor's cruelencroachments upon her liberty. She knew that she owed Dr. Mathys a debtof gratitude, but she thought herself freed from that duty since he hadmade himself the blind tool of his master.

  Now the Spaniard, who had never been her friend, also came to urgethe Emperor's will upon her. Toward him she need not force herself tomaintain the reserve which she had exercised in her conversation withthe confessor.

  On the contrary!

  He should hear, with the utmost plainness, what she thought of theEmperor's instructions. If he, his confidant, then showed him that therewas one person at least who did not bow before his pitiless power, andthat hatred steeled her courage to defy him, one of the most ardentwishes of her indignant, deeply wounded heart would be fulfilled. Theonly thing which she still feared was that her aching throat mightprevent her from freely pouring forth what so passionately agitated hersoul.

  She now confronted the inflexible nobleman, not a feature in whoseclear-cut, nobly moulded, soldierly face revealed what moved him.

  When, in a businesslike tone, he announced his sovereign's will,she interrupted him with the remark that she knew all this, and haddetermined to oppose her own resolve to his Majesty's wishes.

  Don Luis calmly allowed her to finish, and then asked: "So you refuse totake the veil? Yet I think, under existing circumstances, nothing couldbecome you better."

  "Life in a convent," she answered firmly, "is distasteful to me, andI will never submit to it. Besides, you were hardly commissioned todiscuss what does or does not become me."

  "By no means," replied the Spaniard calmly; "yet you can attribute theremark to my wish to serve you. During the remainder of our conference Iwill silence it, and can therefore be brief."

  "So much the better," was the curt response. "Well, then, so you insistthat you will neither keep the secret which you have the honour ofsharing with his Majesty, nor----"

  "Stay!" she eagerly interrupted. "The Emperor Charles took care to makethe bond which united me to him cruelly hateful, and therefore I am notat all anxious to inform the world how close it once was."

  Here Don Luis bit his lips, and a frown contracted his brow. Yet hecontrolled himself, and asked with barely perceptible excitement,"Then I may inform his Majesty that you would be disposed to keep thissecret?"

  "Yes," she answered curtly.

  "But, so far as the convent is concerned, you persist in your refusal?"

  "Even a noble and kind man would never induce me to take the veil."

  Now Quijada lost his composure, and with increasing indignationexclaimed: "Of all the men on earth there is probably not one who caresas little for the opinion of an arrogant woman wounded in her vanity. Hestands so far above your judgment that it is insulting him to undertakehis defence. In short, you will not go to the convent?"

  "No, and again no!" she protested bitterly. "Besides, your promise oughtto bind you to still greater brevity. But it seems to please your noblenature to insult a defenceless, ill-treated woman. True, perhaps it isdone on behalf of the mighty man who stands so far above me."

  "How far, you will yet learn to your harm," replied Don Luis, oncemore master of himself. "As for the child, you still seem determinedto withhold it from the man who will recognise it as his solely on thiscondition?"

  Barbara thought it time to drop the restraint maintained with so muchdifficulty, and half with the intention of letting Charles's favouritehear the anguish that oppressed her heart, half carried away by theresentment which filled her soul, she permitted it to overflow and, inspite of the pain which it caused her to raise her voice, she ceasedwhispering, and cried: "You ask to hear what I intend to do? Nothing,save to keep what is mine! Though I know how much you dislike me, DonLuis Quijada, I call upon you to witness whether I have a right to thischild and to consideration from its father; for when you, his messengerof love, led me for the first time to the man who now tramples me socruelly under his feet, you yourself heard him greet me as the sun whichwas again rising for him. But that is forgotten! If his will is notexecuted, mother and child may perish in darkness and misery. Well,then, will against will! He has the right to cease to love me and tothrust me from him, but it is mine to hate him from my inmost soul, andto make my child what I please. Let him grow up as Heaven wills, and ifhe perishes in want and shame, if he is put in the pillory or dies onthe scaffold, one mission at least will be left for me. I will shriekout to the world how the royal betrayer provided for the welfare of hisown blood!"

  "Enough!" interrupted Don Luis in mingled wrath and horror. "I willnot and can not listen longer while gall and venom are poured upon thesacred head of the greatest of men."

  "Then leave me!" cried Barbara, scarcely able to use her voice. "Thisroom, at least, will be mine until I can no longer accept even shelterfrom the traitor who--you used the words yourself--instilled venom andbitter gall into my soul."

  Quijada, with a slight bend of the head, turned and left the room.

  When the door closed behind him, Barbara, with panting breath andflashing eyes, threw herself into an arm-chair, content as if she hadbeen relieved of a heavy burden, but the Emperor's envoy mounted thehorse on which he had come, and rode away.

  He fared as the leech had done the day before. Barbara's infamous abusestill fired his blood, but he could not conceal from himself that thisunfortunate woman had been wronged by his beloved and honoured master.In truth, he had more than once heard the ardent professions of lovewith which Charles had greeted and dismissed her, and his chivalrousnature rebelled against the severity with which he made her suffer forthe cruelty of Fate that had prematurely robbed her of what had been tohim her dearest charm.

  Before he went to Prebrunn, Dr. Mathys had counselled him not to forgetduring the disagreeable reception awaiting him that he was dealing withan irritable invalid, and the thoroughly noble man resolved to rememberit as an excuse. The Emperor Charles should learn only that Barbararefused to submit to his arrangements, that his harshness deeply woundedher and excited her quick temper. He was unwilling to expose himselfagain to an outburst of her rage, and he would therefore
intrust toanother the task of rendering her more docile, and this other was WolfHartschwert.

  A few days before he had visited the recovering knight, and obtainedfrom him a decision whose favourable nature filled him with secret joywhenever he thought of it.

  Wolf had already learned from the valet Adrian the identity of theperson to whom he had been obliged to yield precedence in Barbara'sheart, and how generously Quijada had kept silence concerning thewound which he had dealt him. When Don Luis freely forgave him for theunfortunate misunderstanding for which he, too, was not wholly free fromblame, Wolf had thrown himself on his knees and warmly entreated himto dispose of him, who owed him more than life, as he would of himself.Then, opening his whole heart, he revealed what Barbara had been tohim, and how, unable to control his rage, he had rushed upon him when hethought he had discovered, in the man who had just asked him to go faraway from the woman he loved, her betrayer.

  After this explanation, Quijada had acquiesced in the knight's wish thathe should give him the office offered on that luckless evening, and henow felt disposed also to intrust to him further negotiations with thesinger.

  In the report made to the Emperor, Don Luis suppressed everything whichcould offend him; but Charles remained immovable in his determinationto withdraw the expected gift of Fate, from its first entrance into theworld, from every influence except his own. Moreover, he threatened thatif the blinded girl continued to refuse to enter the convent and yieldup the child, he would withdraw his aid from both. After a sleeplessnight, however, he remarked, on the following morning, that he perceivedit to be his duty, whatever might happen, to assume the care of thechild who was entitled to call him its father. What he would do for themother must depend upon her future conduct. This was another instancehow every trespass of the bounds of the moral order which the Churchordains and hallows entails the most sorrowful consequences even herebelow. Precisely because he was so strongly attached to this unfortunatewoman, once so richly gifted, he desired to offer her the opportunity toobtain pardon from Heaven, and therefore insisted upon her retiring tothe convent. His own guilt was causing him great mental trouble and, infact, notwithstanding the arduous labour imposed upon him by the war,the most melancholy mood again took possession of him.

  The day before his departure to join the army which was gathered near byat Landshut, he withdrew once more into the apartment draped with sablehangings.

  When he was informed that Barbara wished to leave the Prebrunn castle,he burst into a furious passion, and commanded that she should be keptthere, even if it was necessary to use force.