by Georg Ebers
CHAPTER XVI.
On the way home Barbara often pressed her left hand with her right toassure herself that she was not dreaming.
This time she found her husband in the house. At the first glancePyramus saw that something unusual had happened; but she gave him notime to question her, only glanced around to see if they were alone, andthen cried, as if frantic: "I will bear it no longer. You must know ittoo. But it is a great secret." Then she made him swear that he, too,would keep it strictly, and in great anxiety he obeyed.
He, like Barbara's father, had supposed that the Emperor's son hadentered the world only to leave it again. Barbara's "I no longer have achild; it was taken from me," he had interpreted in the same way as theold captain, and, from delicacy of feeling, had never again mentionedthe subject in her presence.
While taking the oath, he had been prepared for the worst; but when hiswife, in passionate excitement, speaking so fast that the words fairtumbled over one another, told him how she had been robbed of her boy;how his imperial father had treated him; how she had longed for him;what prayers she had uttered in his behalf; how miserable she had beenin her anxiety about this child; and, now, that Dona Magdalena's letterpermitted her to cherish the highest and greatest hopes for the boy, thetall, strong man stood before her with downcast eyes, like a detectedcriminal, his hand gripping the edge of the top of the table whichseparated her from him.
Barbara saw his broad, arched chest rise and fall, and wondered why hismanly features were quivering; but ere she had time to utter a singlesoothing word, he burst forth: "I made the vow and will be silent; butto-morrow, or in a year or two, it will be in everybody's mouth, andthen, then My good name! Honour!"
Fierce indignation overwhelmed Barbara, and, no longer able to controlherself, she exclaimed: "What did it matter whether Death or his fathersnatched the child from me? The question is, whether you knew that I amhis mother, and it was not concealed from you. Nevertheless, you cameand sought me for your wife! That is what happened! And--you knowthis--you are as much or little dishonoured by me, the mother of theliving child, as of the dead one. Out upon the honour which is harmedby gossip! What slanderous tongues say of me as a disgrace I deem thehighest honour; but if you are of a different opinion, and held it whenyou wooed me, you would be wiser to prate less loudly of the proud word'honour,' and we will separate."
Pyramus had listened to these accusations and the threat with tremblinglips. His simple but upright mind felt that she was right, so far as hewas concerned, and she was more beautiful in her anger than he had seenher since the brilliant days of her youthful pride. The fear of losingher seized his poor heart, so wholly subject to her, with sudden powerand, stammering an entreaty for forgiveness, he confessed that thesurprise had bewildered him, and that he thought he had showed in thecourse of the last ten years how highly, in spite of people's gossip, heprized her. He held out his large honest hand with a pleading look as hespoke, and she placed hers in it for a short time.
Then she went to church to collect her thoughts and relieve heroverburdened heart. Boundless contempt for the man to whom she wasunited filled it; yet she felt that she owed him a debt of gratitude,that he was weak only through love, and that, for her children's sake,she must continue to wear the yoke which she had taken upon herself.
His existence henceforth became of less and less importance to herfeelings and actions, especially as he left the management of their twoboys to her. He had reason to be satisfied with it, for she providedConrad with the best instruction, that the might choose between thearmy and the legal profession; his younger brother she intended for thepriesthood, and the boy's inclination harmonized with her choice.
The fear that the Emperor Charles might yet commit the child she lovedto the monastery never left her. But she thought that she might induceHeaven to relinquish its claim upon her John, whom, moreover, it seemedto have destined for the secular life, by consecrating her youngestchild to its service.
While she did not forget her household, her mind was constantly inSpain. Her walks were usually directed toward the palace, to inquire howthe recluse in San Yuste was faring, and whether any rumour mentionedher imperial son.
After the great victory gained by Count Egmont against the militaryforces of France, eleven months after the battle of St. Quentin, therewas enough to be seen in Brussels. The successful general was greetedwith enthusiastic devotion. Egmont's name was in every one's mouth, andwhen she, too, saw the handsome, proud young hero, the idol, as itwere, of a whole nation, gorgeous in velvet, silk, and glittering gems,curbing his fiery steed and bowing to the shouting populace with awinning smile, she thought she caught a glimpse of the future, andbeheld the predecessor of him who some day would receive similar homage.
Why should she not have yielded to such hopes? Already there wasa rumour that the daughter of the Emperor and that Johanna Van derGheynst, who had been Charles's first love, Margaret of Parma, her ownson's sister, had been chosen to rule the Netherlands as regent.
Why should less honours await Charles's son than his daughter?
But the festal joy in the gay capital was suddenly extinguished, for inthe autumn of the year that, in March, had seen Ferdinand, the Emperor'sbrother, assume the imperial crown, a rumour came that the recluse ofSan Yuste had closed his eyes, and a few days after it was verified.
It was Barbara's husband who told her of the loss which had befallen herand the world. He did this with the utmost consideration, fearing theeffect of this agitating news upon his wife; but Barbara only turnedpale, and then, with tears glittering in her eyes, said softly, "He,too, was only a mortal man."
Then she withdrew to her own room, and even on the following day sawneither her husband nor her children. She had long expected Charles'sdeath, yet it pierced the inmost depths of her being.
This sorrow was something sacred, which belonged to her and to heralone. It would have seemed a profanation to reveal it to her unlovedhusband, and she found strength to shut it within herself.
How desolate her heart seemed! It had lost its most distinguished objectof love or hate.
Through long days she devoted herself in quiet seclusion to the memoryof the dead, but soon her active imagination unfolded its wings again,and with the new grief mingled faint hopes for the boy in Spain, whichincreased to lofty anticipations and torturing anxiety.
The imperial father was dead. What now awaited the omnipotent ruler'sson?
How had Charles determined his fate?
Was it possible that he still intended him for the monastic life, nowthat he had become acquainted with his talents and tastes?
Since Barbara had learned that her son had won his father's heart, andthat the Emperor, as it were, had made him his own with a kiss, shehad grown confident in the hope that Charles would bestow upon him thegrandeur, honours, and splendour which she had anticipated when sheresigned him at Landshut, and to which his birth gave him a claim.But her early experience that what she expected with specially joyfulsecurity rarely happened,--constantly forced upon her mind the fear thatthe dead man's will would consign John to the cloister.
So the next weeks passed in a constant alternation of oppressive fearsand aspiring hopes, the nights in torturing terrors.
All the women of the upper classes wore mourning, and with doublereason; for, soon after the news of the Emperor's death reachedBrussels, King Philip's second wife, Mary Tudor, of England, also died.Therefore no one noticed that Barbara wore widow's weeds, and she wasglad that she could do so without wounding Pyramus.
A part of the elaborate funeral rites which King Philip arranged inBrussels during the latter part of December in honour of his dead fatherwas the procession which afforded the authorities of the Brabant capitalan opportunity to display the inventive faculty, the love of splendour,the learning, and the wit which, as members of flourishing literarysocieties, they constantly exercised. In the pageant was a ship withblack sails, at whose keel, mast, and helm stood Hope with her anchor,Faith with her
chalice, and Love with the burning heart. Other similarscenic pieces made the sincerity of the grief for the dead questionable,and yet many real tears were shed for him. True, the wind which swelledthe sails of the sable ship bore also many an accusation and curse;among the spectators of the procession there were only too many whosemourning robes were worn not for the dead monarch, but their own nearestrelatives, whom his pitiless edicts had given to the executioner asreaders of the Bible or heterodox.
These displays, so pleasing to the people of her time and her new home,were by no means great or magnificent enough for Barbara. Even the mostsuperb show seemed to her too trivial for this dead man.
She was never absent from any mass for the repose of his soul, and shenot only took part outwardly in the sacred ceremony, but followed itwith fervent devotion. As a transfigured spirit, he would perceive howshe had once hated him; but he should also see how tenderly she stillloved him.
Now that he was dead, it would be proved in what way he had rememberedthe son whom, in his solitude, he had learned to love, what life pathJohn had been assigned by his father.
But longingly as Barbara thought of Spain and of her boy, often asshe went to the Dubois house and to the regent's home to obtain news,nothing could be heard of her child.
Many provisions of the imperial will were known, but there was nomention of her son. Yet Charles could not have forgotten him, and Adrianprotested that it would soon appear that he had not omitted him in hislast will, and this was done in a manner which indicated that he knewmore than he would or could confess.
All this increased Barbara's impatience to the highest degree, andinduced her to watch and question with twofold zeal. On no account wouldshe have left the capital during this period of decision, and, thoughher husband earnestly entreated her to go to the springs, whose watershad proved so beneficial, she remained in Brussels.
In August she saw King Philip set out for Spain, and Margaret of Parma,her son's sister, assume the government of the Netherlands as regent.
On various occasions she succeeded in obtaining a near view of thestately-lady, with her clever; kindly and, spite of the famous downon her upper lip, by no means unlovely features, and her attractiveappearance gave Barbara courage to request an audience, in order tolearn from her something about her child. But the effort was vain, forthe duchess had had no news of the existence of a second son of herfather; and this time it was Granvelle who prevented the regent fromreceiving the woman who would probably have spoken to her of the boyconcerning whose fate King Philip had yet reached no determination.
Barbara spent the month of October in depression caused by thisfresh disappointment, but it, too, passed without bringing her anysatisfaction.
It seemed almost foolish to lull herself further with ambitiousexpectations, but the hope a mother's heart cherishes for her child doesnot die until its last throb; and if the Emperor Charles's will did notgive her John his rights, then the gracious Virgin would secure them, ifnecessary, by a miracle.
Her faithful clinging to hope was rewarded, for when one day, withdrooping head, she returned home from another futile errand, she foundHannibal Melas there, as bearer of important news.
The Emperor's last will had a codicil, which concerned a son of hisMajesty; but, a few days before his end, Charles had also rememberedBarbara, and commissioned Ogier Bodart, Adrian's successor, to buy alife annuity for her in Brussels. Hannibal had learned all this fromsecret despatches received by Granvelle the day before. Informing her oftheir contents might cost him his place; but how often she had entreatedhim to think of her if any news came from Valladolid of a boy namedGeronimo or John, and how much kindness she had showed him when he wasonly a poor choir boy!
At last, at last the most ardent desire of the mother's heart was to befulfilled. She saw in the codicil the bridge which would lead her sonto splendour and magnificence, and up to the last hour of his life theEmperor Charles had also remembered her.
She felt not only relieved of a burden, but as if borne on wings. Whichof these two pieces of news rendered her the happier, she could not havedetermined. Yet she did not once think of the addition to her income.What was that in comparison to the certainty that to the last Charlesdid not forget her!
It made her husband happy to see her sunny cheerfulness. Never had sheplayed and romped with the children in such almost extravagant mirth.Nay, more! For the first time the officer's modest house echoed with thesinging of its mistress.
Though her voice was no longer so free from sharpness and harshness asin the old days, it by no means jarred upon the ear; nay, every tonerevealed its admirable training. She had broken the long silencewith Josquin's motet, "Quia amore langueo," and in her quiet chamberdedicated it, as it were, to the man to whom this cry of longing hadbeen so dear. Then, in memory of and gratitude to him, other religioussongs which he had liked to hear echoed from her lips.
The little German ballads which she afterward sang, to the delight ofher boys, deeply moved her husband's heart, and she herself found thatit was no insult to art when, with the voice that she now possessed, sheagain devoted herself to the pleasure of singing.
If the codicil brought her son what she desired, she could once more, ifher voice lost the sharpness which still clung to it, serve her belovedart as a not wholly unworthy priestess, and then, perchance, she wouldagain possess the right, so long relinquished, of calling herself happy.
She would go the next day to Appenzelder, who always greeted her kindlywhen they met in the street, and ask his advice.
If only Wolf had been there!
He understood how to manage women's voices also, and could have givenher the best directions how to deal with the new singing exercises.
It seemed as though in these days not one of her wishes remainedunfulfilled, for the very next afternoon, just as she was dressing tocall upon the leader of the boy choir, the servant announced a stranger.
A glad presentiment hurried her into the vestibule, and there stoodSir Wolf Hartschwert in person, an aristocratic cavalier in his blackSpanish court costume. He had become a man indeed, and his appearancedid not even lack the "sosiego," the calm dignity of the Castiliannoble, which gave Don Louis Quijada so distinguished an appearance.
True, his greeting was more eager and cordial than the genuine"sosiego"--which means "repose"--would have permitted. Even the mannerin which Wolf expressed his pleasure in the new melody of Barbara'svoice, and whispered an entreaty to send the children and FrauLamperi--who came to greet him--away for a short time, was anything butpatient.
What had he in view?
Yet it must be something good.
When the light shone through her flower-decked window upon his face, shethought she perceived this by the smile hovering around his lips. Shewas not mistaken, nor did she wait long for the joyous tidings sheexpected; his desire to tell her what, with the exception of theregent--to whom his travelling companion, the Grand Prior Don Luis deAvila, was perhaps just telling it as King Philip's envoy--no humanbeing in the Netherlands could yet know, was perhaps not much less thanhers to hear it.
Scarcely an hour before he had dismounted in Brussels with the nobleman,and his first visit was to her, whom his news must render happy, evenhappier than it did him and the woman in the house near the palace,whose heart cherished the Emperor's son scarcely less warmly than hisown mother's.
On the long journey hither he had constantly anticipated the pleasureof telling every incident in succession, just as it had happened; butBarbara interrupted his first sentence with an inquiry how her John wasfaring.
"He is so well that scarcely ever has any boy in the happiest time ofhis life fared better," was the reply; and its purport, as well asthe tone in which it was uttered, entered Barbara's heart like angels'greetings from the wide-open heavens. But Wolf went on with his report,and when, in spite of hundreds of questions, he at last completed themain points, his listener staggered, as if overcome by wine, to theimage of the Virgin on the pilaster, and with upli
fted hands threwherself on her knees before it.
Wolf, unobserved, silently stole away.
