Barbara Blomberg — Complete

by Georg Ebers

  CHAPTER X.

  Three years passed.

  Barbara occupied with her husband and the two sons she had given him apretty little house in the modest quarter of Saint-Gery in Brussels.

  Here the capital of wealthy, flourishing Brabant certainly looked veryunlike what she had expected from Gombert's stories; and how littleshare she had had hitherto in the splendour which on the drive toLandshut she had expected to find in Brussels!

  Since the musician had described the city, she had seen it distinctlybefore her in her vivid imagination. The lower portion, intersected bythe river Senne and numerous canals, belonged to the rich, industriouscitizens, the skilful artisans, and the common people; the upper, whichoccupied a hill, contained the great Brabant palace, the residence ofthe Emperor Charles. This edifice, which, though its exterior was almostwholly devoid of ornament, nevertheless presented a majestic aspect onaccount of its vast size, adjoined a splendid park, whose leafy groupsof ancient trees merged into the forest of Soignies. Here also stood thepalaces of the great nobles and, on the side of the hill which sloped tothe lower city, the Cathedral of St. Gudule towered proudly aloft.

  Much as Barbara had heard in praise of the magnificent market-place inthe lower city, with its marvellous Town Hall, it was always the upperportion of Brussels she beheld when she thought of the capital. She hadfelt that she belonged to this quarter, where all who had any claim toaristocracy 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 Brusselson the hill was doubly strong. True, there dwelt also those who had thegreatest power of attraction for her.

  She was just returning home from the palace park, where stood a pleasantsummer house in which Adrian Dubois lived with his wife and one child.It was this child especially that drew Barbara to the upper city asoften as possible, and constantly forced her thoughts to linger thereand still to follow the "higher" of the imperial motto, which everywhereelse she was compelled to renounce.

  True, a limit was fixed to these visits to the Dubois couple. For onewhole year Frau Traut had successfully concealed the child from themother; then Barbara had once met the boy outside the house, and the wayin which he was hurried out of her sight led to the conviction that thiswas her child, and Frau Dubois had imprudently betrayed the secret.

  From this time Barbara knew that her John had been confided to the careof the valet and his wife. At last Frau Traut had been unable to resisther entreaties, and allowed her to see her son and hold him a short timein her arms.

  He was a strong, splendid child, with his mother's thick, curling locksand large blue eyes. Barbara thought that she had never seen a handsomerboy; and not only the Dubois, who had yielded their whole hearts totheir nursling, but strangers also admired the magnificent developmentof this rare child. The young mother saw in him something grander, moreperfect than the children of other human beings, even than the two boyswhom she had given her husband, although little John usually repulsedher caresses.

  In granting Barbara permission to see her child often, Frau Trauttransgressed an explicit command of the Emperor and, to prevent the evilconsequences which her sympathy might entail, she allowed the motherto rejoice in the sight of her little son only once a month, and thenalways for a short time.

  During these interviews she was strictly forbidden to bestow even thesmallest gift upon the boy.

  To-day John had voluntarily approached the stranger to whom he owedhis life, but whose passionate caresses at their first meeting hadfrightened him, to show her the little wooden horse that Adrian had justgiven him. This had made her happy, and on the way home the memory ofher hidden treasure more than once brought a joyous smile to her lips.

  At home she first sought her children. Her husband, who had now beenappointed mustering officer, was on one of the journeys required by theservice, 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, whereher harp stood and the lutes hung which often for hours supplied theplace of her lost voice, and sat down at her spinning wheel.

  She turned it thoughtfully, but the thread broke, and her hands fellinto her lap. Her mind had again found the way to the house in the parkand to her John, her own, wonderful, imperial child, and lingered thereuntil from the next room the cry of an infant was heard and a woman'svoice singing it to sleep. Frau Lamperi, who had made herself a part ofthe little household, and beheld in its master the incarnation of everymanly virtue, was lulling the baby to rest. Beside it slept anotherchild, a boy two years old. Both were hers, yet, though the infantraised 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 solitudewas best endured. Her husband's journeys often led him through the wholeNetherlands 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 togain any.

  Loneliness, which she had dreaded in the heyday of her early youth, nolonger alarmed her, for quiet reveries and dreams led her back to thetime when life had been beautiful, when she had enjoyed the love ofthe greatest of mortals, and art had given her existence an exquisiteconsecration.

  With the loss of her voice--she was now aware of it--many of the bestthings in her life had also ceased to exist. Her singing might perhapshave lured back her inconstant lover, and had she come to Brusselspossessing the mastery of her voice which was hers during that happytime in May, her life would have assumed a totally different form.

  Gombert, who had induced her to move hither, had urged her with the bestintentions during their drive to Landshut to change her residence. Whenhe did so, however, Barbara was still connected with the Emperor, andhe was animated by the hope that the trouble in her throat would betemporary.

  It would have been easy to throw wide to a singer of her ability thedoors of the aristocratic houses which were open to him; for, except hisprofessional comrades, he associated only with the wealthy nobles in theupper part of the city, who needed him for the brilliant entertainmentswhich they understood how to arrange so superbly. The Oranges, Egmont,Aremberg, Brederode, Aerschot, and other heads of the highest nobilityin Brabant would have vied with one another to present her to theirguests, receive her at their country seats, and invite her to jointheir riding parties. Where, on the contrary, could he expect to find afriendly reception for the wife of a poor officer belonging to the lowernobility, who was said to have forfeited the Emperor's favour, whocould offer nothing to the ear, and to the eye only a peculiar style ofbeauty, which she could enhance neither by magnificent attire nor by anyother arts?

  Had she been still the Emperor Charles's favourite, or had he bestowedtitles and wealth upon her, more might have been done for her; but asit was, nothing was left of the favour bestowed by the monarch savethe stain upon her fair name. Deeply as Gombert regretted it, he couldtherefore 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 wivesof artists, positively refused to receive the voiceless singer with thetarnished reputation.

  Worthy Appenzelder associated exclusively with men, and thus of herRatisbon friends not one remained except Massi, the violinist, and theMaltese choir boy, Hannibal Melas.

  The little fellow had lost his voice, but had remained in Brusselsand, in fact, through Barbara's intercession; for she had ventured torecommend the clever, industrious lad to the Bishop of Arras in a letterwhich reminded him of his kindness in former days, and the latter hadbeen gracious, and in a cordial reply thanked her for her friendlyremembrance. Hannibal had remained in the minister's service and, as heunderstood several languages and proved trustworthy, was receive
d amonghis private secretaries.

  The violinist Massi remained faithful and, as he became her husband'sfriend also, he was always a welcome guest in her house.

  Her father had returned to Ratisbon. After he had acted as godfather tothe oldest boy, Conrad, he could be detained no longer. Homesickness hadobtained too powerful a hold upon him.

  True, Barbara and her husband did everything in their power to make lifein their home pleasant; but he needed the tavern, and there either thecarousing was so noisy that it became too much for him, or people oftenhad very violent political discussions about liberty and faith, whichhe only half understood, though they used the Flemish tongue. And theDanube, the native air, the familiar faces! In short, he could not staywith his children, though he dearly loved his little godson Conrad; andit pleased him to see his daughter more yielding and ready to renderservice than ever before, and to watch her husband, who, as the sayingwent at home, "was ready to let her walk over him."

  The husband's intention of making the unbending iron pliant was whollychanged; the recruiting officer whom his companions and subordinatesknew and feared as one of the sternest of their number, showed himselfto Barbara the most yielding of men. The passionate tenderness withwhich he loved her had only increased with time, and the stern soldier'ssubjection to her will went so far that, even when he would gladly haveexpressed disapproval, he usually omitted to do so, because he dreadedto lessen the favour which she showed him in place of genuine love, andwhich he needed. Besides, she gave him little cause for displeasure; shedid 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 hisheart. He had learned the coolness of her nature in his first attemptsto woo her in Ratisbon and, as at that time, he whom the servicefrequently detained from her for long periods regarded it as a merit.

  So he wrote her father letters expressing his gratification, and thereplies which the captain sent to Brussels were in a similar tone.

  Barbara had obtained for him his own house, for which he had longed. Hefelt comfortable there, and what he lacked in his home he found at theRed Cock or the Black Bear. An elderly Landshut widow, a relative, actedas his housekeeper and provided in the best possible manner for hiscomfort.

  Whoever met the stately mustering officer alone or arm in arm with hisbeautiful young wife, whose golden hair had grown out again, musthave believed him a happy man; and so he would have been had not somesingular habits which Barbara possessed made him uneasy. At first thereveries into which she often sank, and which were so unlike her formerself, had been still worse. He did not know that the improvement hadtaken place since she had discovered her John's abode and been permittedsometimes to see him. Barbara's husband and father supposed that thechild which she had given to the Emperor was dead; both had placed thisinterpretation upon her brief statement that it had been taken from her,and afterward delicacy of feeling prevented any other allusion to thispainful subject.

  Besides this proneness to reverie, Barbara's husband was sometimesdisturbed by the carelessness with which she neglected the mostimportant domestic matters if there was an entertainment or exhibitionwhich the Emperor Charles attended; and, finally, there was something inher manner to the children, whom Pyramus loved above all things, whichdisturbed, incensed, and wounded him, yet which he felt that neitherthreats nor stern interposition could change.

  He possessed no defence against the reveries except a warning or ajesting word. Delight in brilliant spectacles was doubtless natural toher disposition, and as Pyramus not only loved but esteemed her, it wasrepugnant to his feelings to watch her. Yet when, nevertheless, heonce followed her steps, he had found her, according to her expressedintention, among other women in St. Gudule's Cathedral. Her eyes, whichhe watched intently, were constantly turned toward the great personageswhose presence adorned the festival--the Emperor and Queen Mary ofHungary.

  These expeditions were evidently not to meet a lover, yet from that hourhe cherished a conviction, mingled with a bitter sense of resentment,that she went to the festivals which his Majesty attended in order tosee the man whom she had once loved, and whose image even now she couldnot wholly efface from her imagination, perhaps also from her heart.

  For her manner to the children, on the contrary, he could find noplausible explanation. Her love for them was unmistakable. Yet what wasthe meaning of the compassionate manner with which she treated them,talked to them, spoke of them, until it nearly drove him frantic? Sheoften treated the healthy, merry older boy as if he was ill and neededcomfort, and the pretty infant in the cradle was addressed in the sameway.

  If he summoned up his courage and openly reproved her, she alwaysanswered in general terms, such as: "What do you mean? Are we not allborn to suffer?" or, "Shall we envy them because they have entered lifeto endure pain and to die?"

  Not until Pyramus, with sorrowful emotion, entreated her not to speak ofthe children as if they had been given to them for a punishment and notfor a joy, she imposed a certain degree of constraint upon herself andchanged her manner of speech; yet the expression of her eyes revealedthat 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 admittedthat the sight of the two dear children who were wholly hers alwaysreminded her of the third who had been taken from her, whom she waspermitted to see very rarely, and only in secret, yet who, beside theothers, seemed like a young lion beside modest lambs.

  She cherished no desire for a new love, though the lukewarm blending ofgratitude and good will which she bestowed upon her husband did not evenremotely deserve this lofty name.

  There was no lack of gallants in Brussels who noticed and wereattracted by her, but whoever knew or had heard of Pyramus Kogelavoided interfering with his rights; for he was numbered among the bestswordsmen in Brussels, and the air with which the tender-hearted husbandwore his long rapier was decidedly threatening.

  Besides, Barbara herself also knew how to protect herself against anyintrusiveness with haughty sharpness.

  To-day she was especially glad that Pyramus was absent on an inspectingtour. She had gratefully enjoyed the meeting with her John. Never hadthe light of his blue eyes seemed so sunny, his head with its fair curlsso angelic in its beauty. His voice, too, had enraptured her by itsreally bewitching melody. The maternal gift of song would certainlydescend to him, and perhaps it was allotted to the Emperor's son toamaze 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 slippedbehind a statue as quickly as possible, and he could scarcely haverecognised her, for the gloaming had already merged into partialdarkness; but the mere thought of having been so near him quickened thepulsation of her heart.

  The little gentleman at his side with the stiffly erect bearing andpompous walk was his son Philip, who was now visiting his father inBrussels, and expected to leave in a few days. How insignificant was thefigure of the heir of so many crowns! How the brother whom she had givento his imperial father would some day tower above him!

  She again imagined all these things in the quiet of her room. Thethought of this child cheered her heart, but it contracted again as sheremembered the series of bitter humiliations which she had experiencedin Brussels. Among the courtiers whom she had known so well in Ratisbonnot one vouchsafed her anything more than a passing greeting; and theQueen of Hungary, to whom she would gladly have poured out her heart,had refused her repeated entreaties for an audience.