Barbara Blomberg — Complete

by Georg Ebers

  CHAPTER XI.

  After the short walk in the park of his palace, during which Barbara hadmet him in the dusk, the Emperor Charles had dined with his son Philipand the Queen of Hungary. Now he entered his spacious study.

  His feet were refusing their support more and more, and the fingers ofhis right hand, which the gout was now crippling, found it hard to grasphis cane.

  He sank back in his arm-chair exhausted, closed his eyes, and laid hishand upon the clever pointed head of the greyhound which lay at hisfeet.

  The short walk and the fiery wine which he had again enjoyed inabundance at dinner had increased the pain from which he was now neverfree, day or night, and it was some time ere Adrian could succeed inpropping his infirm body comfortably.

  At last Charles passed his handkerchief across his perspiring brow, andcalled to the majordomo.

  Quijada eagerly approached, and the valet was respectfully leaving theroom, but the Emperor's summons stopped him.

  "I have something," Charles began, no longer able to maintain completecontrol over his voice, which was sometimes interrupted by the shortnessof 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 underthe trees. True, it avoided approaching me. What still remains usefulin this miserable body! But my eyes are sharp yet, and I recognised thespectre--it is the Ratisbon singer."

  "Your Majesty knows," replied Quijada, "what befell her after the birthof the child, and that she is now living here in Brussels; but I wasstrictly 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," remarkedCharles, gazing fixedly into vacancy. "Wherever I appear in public I seethis woman, always this woman! It is not only the basilisk's eye thathas constraining power. I can not help perceiving her, yet I have aslittle desire to meet her gaze as to encounter vanity, worldly pleasure,folly, sin."

  "Then," cried Quijada angrily, "it will be advisable to transfer herhusband, who is in your Majesty's service, from here to Andalusia or tothe New World."

  "As if she would accompany him!" exclaimed the monarch with a scornfullaugh. "No, my friend. This woman did not marry for her own pleasure,but to cause me sorrow or indignation. She succeeded, too, to a certainextent; but I do not war with women, least of all with one who isso unhappy. If we send her husband--who, moreover, is a usefulfellow--across the ocean, she will stay here in Brussels, and we shallfare like the maid-servants who killed the cocks, and were then wakedby the mistress of the house still earlier than before. Besides, one whoearnestly seeks his true salvation will not remove from his path sucha living memento, such a walking monitor of past sins and follies; and,finally, this woman is not wholly wrong in deeming herself anunusual person, cruelly as Heaven has destroyed her best gift. On noaccount--you hear me--shall she be wounded or injured for my sake solong as she reminds me only by her eyes that in happier days we wereclosely connected. But to-day the ghost ventured to draw nearer to methan is seemly, and I recognise the object. It entered the park, not onmy account, but the boy's--and, Adrian, from your house. I demand thewhole truth! Did she find the way to the boy, and was your wife, who isusually a prudent woman, unwise enough to allow her to feast her eyesupon him?"

  "She is the child's mother," the valet answered gently, "and yourMajesty knows--"

  "I know," Charles interrupted the faithful attendant in a sterner tonethan he commonly used to him, "that you were most positively forbiddento permit any one to approach the boy, least of all the person who gazesat him with greedy eyes, and from whom might proceed measureless perils.Your wife, Adrian, who is tenderly attached to the child, will nowsuffer the most painfully for the disobedience. It must go away fromhere, go at once, and to a distant country--to Spain. If politics andHeaven permit, I shall soon follow.--You, Luis, will now arrange withAdrian the best plan for the removal. The work must be accomplished inthe utmost secrecy. The boy shall grow up in the wholesome air of thecountry. No one who surrounds him must be permitted even to suspect towhom he owes his life. This child shall be simple in his habits, devout,and modest, far from flattery and spoiling, among other lads of plainfamilies, who know nothing of heresy and court follies. This innocentchild's soul, at least, shall not be corrupted at its root. Iconsecrated him to the Saviour, and as a pure sacrifice he must receivehim from his father's hand. I have given him a beautiful charge. In themonastery his prayers will remove the guilt of him who gave him life.The pardon for which the mother refused to strive, the son, consecratedto Jesus Christ our Lord, will struggle to obtain."

  With uplifted gaze he interrupted himself. His eyes flashed with a fierylight, and his voice gained an imperious tone, which showed no trace ofthe asthmatic trouble that had just affected it as he added: "But thesecret which even the reckless mother has hitherto known how to guardmust 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 Spainis favourable. Our son, Don Philip, will return in three weeks toValladolid. The child can be carried in his train. It will disappearamong the throng, for an actual army forms the tail of the comet. I willhear 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 littleJohn, who regarded him and his wife as his parents, had become asdear to the childless couple as if he was their own. To part from thebeautiful, frank, merry boy would darken Frau Traut's whole life. He,Adrian, had warned her, but she had been unable to resist the entreatiesof the sorely punished mother. Cautiously as Barbara's visits had beenmanaged, the infirm monarch's eye had maintained its keenness of visionhere also.

  Now his wife must pay dearly for her weakness and disobedience. FrauTraut was threatened, too, with another loss. Massi, the most intimatefriend of their house, also expected to return to Spain in the InfantPhilip'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, whocould whistle so beautifully and knew how to play for him upon a bladeof grass or a comb; but this was not the only reason which made Adrianthink of giving the Emperor's son to the musician's care for the journeyto Spain, where Massi's wife and daughter were awaiting his return atLeganes, near Madrid. In this healthfully located village lived a pastorand a sacristan of whom the musician had spoken, and who perhaps latermight take charge of the child's education.

  Adrian informed Don Luis and then the monarch of all this, and asQuijada knew Massi to be a trustworthy man, and described him to hisroyal master, Charles entered into negotiations with him.

  The result was that a formal compact was concluded between Dubois andthe musician, which granted the violinist considerable emoluments, butbound him and his family by oath to maintain the most absolute secrecyconcerning the child's origin. Moreover, Massi himself knew nothingabout the boy's parents except that they belonged to the mostaristocratic circles, and he was inclined to believe little John to beQuijada's son.

  The sovereign himself examined the agreement, and at its close made FrauTraut take a special oath to preserve the most absolute secrecy abouteverything concerning the boy to every one, even Barbara.

  What Adrian had expected happened. The Emperor's command to take herdarling from her affected his wife most painfully. With eyes reddened byweeping, and an aching heart, she awaited the day of departure.

  On the evening before the journey she was sitting by the child's couchto enjoy the sight of him as much as possible. Wholly absorbed in gazingat his infantile grace and patrician beauty, she did not hear the dooropen,
and started in terror at the sound of footsteps close behind her.

  Her husband had ushered the Emperor and Quijada, on whose arm hewas leaning, into the nursery without announcing his entrance. Sheinvoluntarily pressed her finger on her lips to intimate that the childmust not be roused from its slumber; but the gesture was instantlyfollowed by the profound bow due to the sovereign, and then, with tearsin her eyes, she held the light so that it might fall upon the face ofthe lovely child.

  A flush tinged the livid features of the invalid, prematurely agedmonarch, and at a wave of his hand the foster-mother left him and hiscompanion alone with the little one. Charles gazed suspiciously aroundthe small, neat room.

  Not until he had assured himself that he was alone did he look closelyat the son who lay with flushed cheeks on the white pillows of hislittle bed in the sound slumber of childhood.

  Rarely had he seen a more beautiful boy. How finely chiselled were thesechildish features, how thick and wavy the curls that clustered aroundhis head! The golden lustre which shone from them had also brightenedhis mother's hair. And the smile on the cherry lips of the slightly openmouth. That, too, was familiar to him. The child had inherited it fromBarbara. Memories which had long since paled in his soul, oppressed bysuffering 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 callit his own, and if, as he intended, it grew up an innocent, happylad, it would also become a genuine man, with a warm heart and simple,upright nature, not a moving marble figure, inflated by pompousself-conceit, incapable of any deep feeling, any untrammelled emotion,like his son Philip. Then it might happen that from love, from a realliving impulse of the heart, he would fall upon his neck; then----

  He stretched both hands towards the little bed and, obeying a mightyimpulse of paternal affection, bent toward the boy to kiss him. But erehis lips touched the child's he again gazed around him like a thief whois afraid of being caught. At last he yielded to the longing which urgedhim, 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 blendedwith the pleasure.

  He had again thought of Barbara, of her first kiss and the other joysof the fairest May-time of his life, and the anxious fear stole upon himthat he might give sin a power over his soul which, after undergoing aheavy penance, he thought he had broken.

  Nothing, nothing at all, he now said to himself, ought to bind him tothe woman whom he had effaced from the book of his life as unworthy,rebellious, lost to salvation; and, in a totally different mood, heagain gazed at the child. It already wore the semblance of an angel inthe gracious Virgin's train, and it should be dedicated to her and herdivine 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 fouryears old already arched! This bud, when it had bloomed to manhood,might prove itself, as he himself had done in his youth, the strongeramong the strong. He carefully examined the harmoniously developedlittle muscles. What a knight this child promised to become! Surelyit was hardly created for quiet prayer and the inactive peace of thecloister! He was still free to dispose of the boy. If he should intrusthis physical development to the reliable Quijada, skilled in everyknightly 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, thelearned Frieslander Viglius, or any other clever, strictly religiousman, he might become a second Roland and Bayard--nay, if a crown fell tohis lot, he might rival his great-grandfather, the Emperor Max, and--inmany a line he, too, had done things worthy of imitation--him, hisfather. The possession of this child would fill his darkened life withsunshine, his heart, paralyzed by grief and disappointment, with freshpleasure in existence throughout the brief remainder of his earthlypilgrimage. If he, the father, acknowledged him and aided him to becomea happy, perhaps a great man, this lovely creature might some day be abrilliant 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 victoriousknight. With secure confidence he had undertaken to establish forhimself and his family a sovereignty of the world which should includethe state and the Church. "More, farther," had been his motto, and towhat stupendous successes it had led him! Three years before he hadrouted at Muhlberg his most powerful rivals. As prisoners they stillfelt his avenging hand.

  And now? At this hour?

  The hope of the sovereignty of the world lay shattered at his feet. Thewish 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 HolyChurch appeared more and more untenable. Here in the Netherlands theheretics, in consequence of the Draconian severity of the regulationswhich he himself had issued, had been hung and burned by hundreds, andhitherto he had gained nothing but the hatred of the nation which hepreferred to all others. His bodily health was destroyed, his mind hadlost its buoyancy, and he was now fifty years old. What lay before himwas a brief pilgrimage--perchance numbering only a few years--here onearth, and the limitless eternity which would never end. How smalland trivial was the former in comparison with the latter, which hadno termination! And would he desire to rear for the space of time thatseparates the grave from the cradle the child for whom he desiredthe best blessings, instead of securing for him salvation for thenever-ceasing period of eternal life?

  No! This beauty, this strength, should be consecrated to no vain secularstruggle, but to Heaven. The boy when he matured to a correct judgmentwould thank him for this decision, which was really no easy one for hisworldly vanity.

  Then he reverted to the wish with which he had approached the child'scouch. The son, from gratitude, should take upon himself for his fatherand, if he desired, also for his refractory mother, what both hadneglected--the care for their eternal welfare--in prayer and penance.

  By consecrating him to Heaven and rearing him for a peaceful existencein God, far from the vain pleasures of the world and the court he haddone his best for his son and, as if he feared that the sight of hisbeautiful, strong boy might shake his resolution, he turned away fromhim and called Quijada.

  While Charles in a fervent, silent prayer commended John to the favourof Heaven, the most faithful of his attendants was gazing at thesovereign's son. Hitherto Heaven had denied him the joy of possessing achild. How he would have clasped this lovely creature to his heart if ithad been his! What a pleasure it would have been to transmit everythingthat was excellent and clever in himself to this child! To devote it toa monastic life was acting against the purpose of the Providence thathad 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 heventured to repeat what Adrian and his wife had told him of the strengthand fearlessness of the little John, and then to remark what raregreatness this boy promised to attain as the son of such a father.

  "The highest of all!" replied Charles firmly. "He only is truly greatwho in his soul feels his own insignificance and deems trivial all thesplendour and the highest honours which life can offer; and to thisgenuine greatness, Luis, I intend to rear this young human plant whoseexistence 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 whichare of this world."

  "What claims?" cried the Emperor suspiciously. "His birth?--the lawgives him none. What earthly possessions may perhaps come to him he willowe 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 whichwill remain of my greatness and power when I have closed my pilgrimagebeneath the sun, can be made by one person only--Don Philip, my oldestson and lawful heir."

  Not until after he had rested in his study did Charles resume theinterrupted conversation, and say:

  "It may be that this boy will grow up into a more brilliant personalitythan my son Philip; but you Castilians and faithful servants of the HolyChurch ought to rejoice that Heaven has chosen my lawful son foryour king, for he is a thorough Spaniard, and, moreover, cautious,deliberate, industrious, devout, and loyal to duty. True, he knows nothow to win love easily, but he possesses other means of maintaining whatis his and still awaits him in the future. My pious son will not letthe gallows become empty in this land of heretical exaltation. Had theGermans put him in my place, he would have become a gravedigger in theirevangelical countries. He never gave me what is called filial affection,not even just now in the parting hour; yet he is an obedient son whounderstands his father. Instead of a heart, I have found in him otherqualities which will render him capable of keeping his heritage in thesetroubled times and preserving the Holy Church from further injury. If Iwere weaker than I am, and should rear yonder splendid boy, who charmedyou also, Luis, under my own eyes with paternal affection, many anunexpected joy might grow for me; but I still have an immense amount ofwork to do, and therefore lack time to toy with a child. It is my dutyto replace this boy's claims, which I can not recognise, with higherones, and I will fulfill it."