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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Barbara Blomberg, by Georg Ebers, Vol. 2.
+#123 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+Title: Barbara Blomberg, Volume 2.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5562]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 6, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARA BLOMBERG, BY EBERS, V2 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+BARBARA BLOMBERG
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 2.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+The old captain blew the dust from the wine flagon and carefully removed
+the seal.  His presence prevented Wolf from renewing the interrupted
+conversation.
+
+Reflection doubtless warned him that it would be a dangerous venture to
+enter the same life-boat with this woman, yet how bewitchingly beautiful
+she had seemed to him in her proud superiority, in the agitation of soul
+aroused by the yearning for a fairer fate!  Have her he must, even though
+he was permitted to call her his own but for a year, a month, an hour.
+
+Many of her words had been harsh and apparently unfeeling, yet how noble
+must be the soul of this young creature who, for the sake of being loyal
+to truth, the pure source of everything grand and lofty, paid no heed to
+much that is usually sacred to human beings!
+
+But Barbara's conduct during the next hour appeared to belie this opinion
+of the man who loved her, for scarcely had her father sat down with the
+knight before the venerable wine flagon than she flung down the smoothing
+iron, hastily piled the finished articles one above another, and then,
+without heeding the parchment on which Wolf's verses were written, rolled
+up the ruby velvet.  Directly after, with the package under her arm, she
+wished the men a merry drinking bout, and added that poor Ursel might
+need her.  Besides, she wanted to show her the beautiful material, which
+would please the faithful soul.
+
+Then, without even pausing at the rooms in the second story, she hurried
+swiftly down the stairs into the street.
+
+She was carrying Wolf's gift to Frau Lerch, her dressmaker.
+
+The Grieb, where the latter lived as wife of the keeper of the house, was
+only a few steps distant.  If the skilful woman, who was indebted to her
+for many a customer, began the work of cutting at once, her cousins, the
+Wollers, could help her the next day with the sewing.  True, these were
+the very girls who would "turn yellow with rage" at the sight of the
+velvet, but precisely because these rich girls had so many things of
+which she was deprived she felt that, in asking their aid, she was
+compelling Fate to atone for an injustice.
+
+Haste was necessary for, at the first glance at the velvet, she had
+determined to wear it at the next dance in the New Scales, and she also
+saw distinctly in imagination the person whose attention she desired to
+attract.
+
+True, the recruiting officer sent to Ratisbon, of whom she was thinking,
+was by no means a more acceptable suitor, but a handsome fellow, a scion
+of a noble family, and, above all, an excellent dancer.
+
+She did not love him--nay, she was not even captivated by him like so
+many others.  But, if his heart throbbed faster for any one, it was
+Barbara.  Yet perhaps his glances strayed almost as frequently to one
+other maiden.  The velvet gown should now decide whether he gave the
+preference to her or to pretty Elspet Zohrer--of course, only in the
+dance--for she would never have accepted him as a serious suitor.
+
+Besides, the young noble, Pyramus Kogel, himself probably thought of no
+such folly.
+
+It was very different with Wolf Hartschwert.  She had been told the small
+amount of his inheritance long before, and on that account she would have
+been obliged to refuse him positively at once, yet the affectionate
+relations existing between them must not be clouded.  He might still
+become very useful to her and, besides, the modest companion of her
+childhood was dear to her.  She would have sincerely regretted an
+irreparable breach with him.
+
+Her father indulged her in every respect, only he strictly forbade his
+beautiful child to leave the house alone after sunset.  Therefore Barbara
+had not told him the real object of her visit.  She now had no occasion
+to fear his following her.
+
+Yet she made all possible haste, and, as she found Frau Lerch at home,
+and the skilful little woman was instantly at her service, she crowded
+into the space of an hour the many points about the cutting which were to
+be discussed.
+
+Then she set out on her way home, expecting to traverse the short
+distance swiftly and without delay; but, when she had gone only a few
+paces from the Grieb, a tall man came toward her.
+
+To avoid him she crossed nimbly to the other side of the dark little
+street, but just where it turned into Red Cock Street he suddenly barred
+her way.  She was startled, but the oft-proved courage of the Blomberg
+race, to which she had just alluded, really did animate her, and, with
+stern decision, she ordered her persecutor to stand aside.
+
+He, however, was not to be intimidated, but exclaimed as joyously as
+though some great piece of good fortune had befallen him:
+
+"Thanks for accosting me, Jungfrau Barbara, for, though the words are
+harsh, they prove that, in spite of the darkness here, my eyes did not
+deceive me.  Heaven be praised!"
+
+Then the girl recognised the recruiting officer and excellent dancer of
+whom she had just been thinking in connection with the velvet upper robe,
+and answered sharply:
+
+"Certainly it is I; but if you are really a nobleman, Sir Pyramus, take
+care that I am not exposed by your fault to evil gossip, and can not
+continue to hold my head erect as I now do."
+
+"Who will see us in this little dark street?"  he asked in low,
+persuasive tones.  "May all the saints guard me from assailing the honour
+of a modest maiden, fairest Barbara; yet, if you fear that I might
+prevent your remaining in the future what the favour of the Most High
+permits you to be, I shall rather accuse you of having inflicted upon me
+what you fear may befall you; for, since the last dance, I am really no
+longer myself, and can never become so until I have received from your
+beautiful lips the modest consolation for which this poor, tortured,
+loyal soul is yearning.  May I not linger at your side long enough to ask
+you one question, you severe yet ardently beloved maiden?"
+
+"Certainly not," replied Barbara with repellent harshness.  "I never gave
+you a right to speak to me of love; but, above all, I shall not seek the
+sharer of a game of question and answer in the street."
+
+"Then name a place," he whispered with passionate ardour, trying
+meanwhile to clasp her hand, "where I may be permitted, in broad sunlight
+and before the eyes of the whole world, to say to you what robs me of
+rest by day and sleep by night.  Drop the cruel harshness which so
+strangely and painfully contradicts the language of your glances the
+evening of the last dance.  Your eyes have kindled these flames, and this
+poor heart will consume in their glow if I am not suffered to confess to
+you that I love you with more ardour than was ever bestowed on any
+maiden.  This place--I will admit that it is ill-chosen--but what other
+was open to me?  After all, here, too, a bit of the sky with its many
+stars is looking down upon us.  But, if you still unkindly refuse me, or
+the dread of crossing the barrier of strict decorum forbids you to listen
+to me here, you can mercifully name another spot.  Allow me to go to your
+father and beg him for the clear hand which, in a happier hour, by not
+resisting the pressure of mine, awakened the fairest hopes in my heart."
+
+"This is too much," Barbara indignantly broke in.  "Make way for me at
+once, and, if you are well advised, you will spare yourself the visit to
+my father; for, even if you were in earnest with your love and came as an
+honest suitor to our modest house, it might easily happen that you would
+descend the staircase, which is very steep and narrow, in as sorrowful a
+mood as you climbed it secure of victory."
+
+Then Pyramus Kogel changed his tone, and said bitterly:
+
+"So your victorious eyes were only carrying on an idle game with my
+unsuspecting heart?  You laugh!  But I expected to find in my German
+native land only girls whose chaste reserve and simple honesty could be
+trusted.  It would be a great sorrow if I should learn through you,
+Jungfrau Barbara, that here, too, it would have been advisable to arm
+myself against wanton deception.  True, the French chansons you sing
+sound unlike our sincere German songs.  And then you, the fairest of the
+fair, can choose at will among men; but the Emperor's service carries me
+from one country to another.  I am only a poor nobleman--"
+
+"I care not," she interrupted him here with icy coldness; "you might be
+just good enough for the daughter of another nobleman, who has little
+more to call his own than you, Sir Knight, but nevertheless far too
+little for me to grant you permission to load me with unjust reproaches.
+Besides, you wholly lack the one advantage which the man to whom I am
+willing to betroth myself must possess."
+
+"And what is that?"  he asked eagerly.
+
+"Neither gold nor lands, rank nor splendour," she answered proudly, "but
+changeless fidelity of the heart.  Remember your fluttering from lovely
+Elspet Zohrer to me, and from me to Elspet, Sir Pyramus, and ask yourself
+what reason you would give me to expect the fulfilment of such a demand.
+Your fine figure and gay manner please us girls very well at a dance,
+but, though you should possess the wealth of the Fuggers and the power of
+the Sultan, it would be useless trouble to seek my consent.  Stand out of
+my path at once!  There come the Emperor's body guards, and, if you do
+not obey me, as surely as I hope for salvation I will call them!"
+
+The last words had escaped her lips in a raised voice, and vibrated with
+such honest indignation that the recruiting officer yielded; but a
+triumphant smile flitted over her beautiful face.
+
+Had she known before how complete a victory he had already won over
+pretty Elspet Zohrer, her most dangerous rival, this late errand would
+have been unnecessary.
+
+Yet she did not regret it; true, she cared no more for Pyramus Kogel than
+for any one else--the certainty that he, too, had succumbed to the spell
+of her beauty was associated with a feeling of pleasure whose charm she
+knew and valued.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Every one in Ratisbon or at the court who spoke of Sir Wolf Hartschwert
+called him an excellent fellow.  In fact, he had so few defects and
+faults that perhaps it might have been better for his advancement in life
+and his estimation in the circle of society to which he belonged if more
+of them had clung to him.
+
+Hitherto the vice of avarice was the last with which he could have been
+reproached.  But, when his old friend filled his glass with wine, the
+desire that the property left to him might prove larger than he had
+expected overpowered every other feeling.
+
+Formerly it had been welcome mainly as a testimonial of his old friend's
+affection.  He did not need it for his own wants; his position at court
+yielded him a far larger income than he required for the modest life to
+which he was accustomed.  For Barbara's sake alone he eagerly hoped that
+he had greatly underestimated his foster parents' possessions.
+
+Ought he to blame her because she desired to change the life of poverty
+with her father for one which better harmonized with her worth and
+tastes?  He himself, who had lived years in a Roman palace, surrounded by
+exquisite works of the gloriously developed Italian art, and then in the
+one at Brussels, furnished with imperial splendour, did not feel
+perfectly content in the more than simple room which Blomberg called his
+"artist workshop."
+
+A few rude wooden chairs, a square table with clumsy feet, and an open
+cupboard in which stood a few tin cups, were, the sole furniture of the
+narrow, disproportionately long room, whose walls were washed with gray.
+The ceiling, with its exposed beams, was blackened by the pine torches
+which were often used for lights.  Pieces of board were nailed over the
+defective spots in the floor, and the lines where the walls met rarely
+showed a right angle.
+
+The window disappeared in the darkness.  It was in the back of the niche
+formed by the unusually thick walls.  During the day its small, round
+panes gave the old gentleman light while he guided his graving tool.  A
+wooden tripod supported the board on which his tools lay.  The stool,
+which usually stood on a wooden trestle opposite to it, now occupied a
+place before the table bearing the flagon of wine, and was intended for
+Barbara.
+
+After the torches had ceased to burn, a single tallow candle in a
+wrought-iron candlestick afforded the two men light, and threatened to go
+out when, in the eagerness of their conversation, they forgot to use the
+snuffers.
+
+Neither curtain, carpet, nor noteworthy work of art pleased the eye in
+this bare, strangely narrow room.  The weapons and pieces of armour of
+the aged champion of the faith, which hung high above the window, made no
+pretension to beauty.  Besides, the rays of the dim candle did not extend
+to them any more than to the valueless pictures of saints and virgins on
+the wall.
+
+The door of Barbara's little bow-window room stood open.  Nothing but a
+small oil lamp was burning there.  But the articles it contained, though
+dainty in themselves, were standing and lying about in such confusion
+that it also presented an unpleasant aspect.
+
+Yet Barbara's beauty had shed such radiance upon this hideous environment
+that the scene of her industry had seemed to Wolf like an Eden.
+
+Now he could scarcely understand this; but he found it so much the easier
+to comprehend that these wretched surroundings no longer suited such a
+pearl, and that it behooved him to procure it a worthier setting.
+
+Still, it was by no means easy to ask the captain what he desired to
+know, for during the young knight's absence a great many important things
+had happened which Blomberg was longing to tell.
+
+He was in such haste to do this that he detained Wolf, who wanted to
+speak to old Ursel before he began to drink the wine, by the statement
+that she suffered from wakefulness, and he would disturb her just as she
+was falling asleep.
+
+The account of the property bequeathed to the young knight was only too
+quickly completed, for, though the precentor's will made his foster son
+the sole heir, the legacy consisted only of the house, some portable
+property, and scarcely more than a thousand florins.
+
+Yet perhaps something else was coming to Wolf; early yesterday
+Dr. Hiltner, the syndic of the city, had asked his place of residence,
+and added that he had some news for him which promised good fortune.
+
+After these communications Blomberg hoped to be able to mention the
+important events which had occurred in Ratisbon during his young friend's
+absence; but Wolf desired with such eager curiosity to hear the syndic's
+news first that it vexed the captain, and he angrily told him that he
+would bite off his tongue before he would even say "How are you?" to that
+man, and to play eavesdropper to any one was not at all in his line.
+
+Here his companion interrupted with the query, What had caused the
+learned scholar, whom every one, as well as the precentor, had highly
+esteemed, to forfeit his friend's good opinion?
+
+Blomberg had waited for such a question.
+
+He had been like a loaded culverin, and Wolf had now touched the burning
+match to the powder.  To understand why he, Blomberg, who wished only the
+best fortune to every good Christian, would fain have this thorough
+scoundrel suffer all the torments of hell, the young knight must first
+learn what had happened in Ratisbon since the last Reichstag.
+
+Until then the good city had resisted the accursed new religious
+doctrines which had gained a victory in Nuremberg and the other cities
+of the empire.
+
+Here also, as Wolf himself had probably experienced, there had been no
+lack of inclination toward the Lutheran doctrine.  It was certainly
+natural, since it suited the stomach better to fill itself, even during
+Lent, than to renounce meat; since there were shameless priests who would
+rather embrace a woman than to remain unmarried; since the Church
+property bestowed by pious souls was a welcome morsel to princes and
+to cities, and, finally, because licentiousness was more relished than
+wholesome discipline.  The wicked desires inspired by all the evil
+spirits and their tool, the Antichrist Luther, had gained the upper hand
+here also, and Dr. Hiltner, above all others, had prepared the way for
+them in Ratisbon.  Even at the last Reichstag his Majesty the Emperor had
+earnestly, but with almost too much gracious forbearance, endeavoured to
+effect a union between the contending parties, but directly after his
+departure from the city rebellion raised its head with boundless
+insolence.  The very next year the Council formally introduced the evil
+which they called ecclesiastical reformation.  The blinded people flocked
+to the new parish church to attend the first service, which they called
+"Protestant."  Then the mischief hastened forward with gigantic strides.
+
+"Last year," cried the old gentleman, hoarse with indignation, striking
+the table with his clenched fist as if he were in camp, "I saw them with
+my own eyes throw down and drag away, I know not where, the pillar with
+the beautiful image of Mary, the masterpiece of Erhard Heydenreich, the
+architect of the cathedral, which stood in front of the new parish
+church.  Songs had been composed in her honour, and she was dear and
+precious to you from early childhood, as well as to every native of
+Ratisbon; the precentor--God rest his soul!--read to me from your letter
+from Rome what exquisite works of art you saw there every day, but that
+you still remembered with pleasure the beautiful Virgin at home.
+
+"But what do these impious wretches care about beautiful and sacred
+things?  The temple desecrators removed and destroyed one venerable, holy
+image after another.  True, they did not venture into the cathedral,
+probably from fear of his Majesty the Emperor, and whoever had undertaken
+to lay hands upon the altar painting and the Madonna in our chapel would
+have paid for it--I am not boasting--with his life.  Though 'the
+beautiful Mary,' in her superabundant mercy, quietly endured the affront
+offered, our Lord himself punished it, for he inspired the illustrious
+Duke of Bavaria to issue an edict which forbids his subjects to trade
+with Ratisbon.  Whoever even enters the city must pay a heavy fine.  This
+set many people thinking.  Ursel will tell you what sinful prices we have
+paid since for butter and meat.  Even the innocent are obliged to buckle
+their belts tighter.  Those who wished to escape fasting are now
+compelled by poverty to practise abstinence.  It is said the Roman King
+Ferdinand is urging the revocation of the order.  If I were in his place,
+I would advise making it more stringent till the rebels sweat blood and
+crept to the cross."
+
+Then Blomberg bewailed the untimely leniency of the Emperor, for there
+was not even any rumour of a serious assault upon the Turks.  And yet,
+if only he, Blomberg, was commissioned to raise an army of the cross,
+Christianity would soon have rest from its mortal foe!  But if it should
+come to fighting--no matter whether against the infidels or the heretics
+--in spite of Wawerl and his lame leg, he would take the field again.
+No death could be more glorious than in battle against the destrover of
+souls.  The scoundrels were flourishing like tares among the wheat.  At
+the last Reichstag the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, as well as the
+Landgrave Philip of Hesse, brought their own preachers, whose sermons
+turned many heads, even the pastor of St. Emmeran's, Zollern, who was a
+child of Ratisbon.  At Staufferhof Baron von Stauff, formerly a man
+worthy of all honour, had opened his chapel of St. Ann to all the
+citizens to permit them to participate in the Lutheran idolatry.  Two
+Protestant ministers, one of whom, Dr. Forster, Luther himself had
+brought to Ratisbon, were liberally paid by the Council.  Whether Wolf
+believed it or not, Father Hamberger, whom he surely remembered as Prior
+of the Minorites, and who at that time enjoyed universal esteem, had
+taken a wife, and the rest of the monks had followed the iniquitous
+example.  Many other priests had married if it suited them, and, instead
+of the cowl, wore secular garments.  The instruction given in the school
+of poets was perfectly abominable, as he heard from Councillor Steuerer,
+who was faithful to the Catholic Church, and strove to induce the Duke of
+Bavaria to adopt still sterner measures against all this disorder.
+
+Very recently men hitherto blameless, like Andreas Weinzierl and Georg
+Seidl, had sent their eighteen-year-old sons to the University of
+Wittenberg, where the Lutheran heresies were flourishing most
+luxuriantly.
+
+But the worst of all was that even faithful sons and daughters of Holy
+Church could not keep themselves wholly untouched by such mischief.
+Among these, alas! were he and his Wawerl, for he had been obliged to
+allow the girl to join the choristers who sang in the Convivium Musicum,
+which the Council had established in the summer three years before.  Two
+councillors were assigned to each Convivium, and thus these arrangements
+were in Protestant hands.
+
+"Of course," he added dejectedly, "I wished to forbid her taking part in
+them, but, though with me it is usually bend or break, what can a man do
+when a woman is pestering him day and night, sometimes begging with
+tears, sometimes with caresses?
+
+"Besides, many a good Catholic entreated me to give up my opposition.
+They, do not grudge the girl her progress, and how much she already owes
+to the music teacher who now directs the Collegium Musicuin!  Singing is
+everything to her, and what else can I give the poor child?  At any rate,
+the Netherlander whom the Council brought here three years ago--so
+connoisseurs say--scarcely has his equal anywhere in knowledge and
+ability.  The man came to me and frankly said that he needed the girl's
+voice for the Convivium, and, if I refused to let Wawerl take part, he
+would stop teaching her.  As he is a just man of quiet temperament and
+advanced in years."
+
+"Where is he from, and what is his name?"  Wolf eagerly interrupted.
+
+"Damian Feys," replied the captain, "and he is a native of Ghent in the
+Netherlands.  Although he is in the pay of the city, he has remained--he
+told me so himself--a good Catholic.  There was nothing to be feared for
+the child on the score of religion.  The anxieties which are troubling me
+on her account come from another source."
+
+Then, with a mischievous mirthfulness usually foreign to his nature, Wolf
+raised his goblet, exclaiming:
+
+"Cast them upon me, Father Blomberg!  I will gladly help you bear them as
+your loyal son-in-law."
+
+"So that's the way of it," was the captain's answer, his honest eyes
+betraying more surprise than pleasure.
+
+Yet he pledged Wolf, and, touching his glass to his, said:
+
+"I've often thought that this might happen if you should see how she has
+grown up.  If she consents, nothing could please me better; but how many
+lovers she has already encouraged, and then, before matters became
+serious, dismissed!  I have experienced it.  If you succeed in putting an
+end to such trifling, may this hour be blessed!  But do you know the huge
+maggots she keeps under her golden hair?"
+
+"Both large and small ones," cried Wolf, with glowing cheeks.  "Truthful
+as she is, she did not conceal from the playmate of her youth a single
+impulse of her ambitious soul."
+
+"And did she give you hope?"  asked the captain, thrusting his head
+eagerly forward.
+
+"Yes," replied the youth firmly; but he quickly corrected himself, and,
+in a less confident tone, added, "That is, if I could offer her a care-
+free life."
+
+"There it is," sighed the old man.  "She knows what she wants, and holds
+firmly to it.  You are the son of a knight, and on account of the music
+which you can pursue together--With her everything is possible and
+little is impossible.  In any case, you will have no easy life with her,
+and, ere you order the wedding ring----" Here he suddenly stopped, for a
+bird-song, high, clear, and yet as insinuatingly sweet as though, on this
+evening in late April, the merriest and most skilful feathered songsters
+which had recently found their way home to the fresh green leafage on the
+shore of the Danube had made an appointment on the steps of the gloomy
+house in Red Cock Street, rose nearer and nearer to the two men who were
+sitting over their wine.
+
+It was difficult to believe that this whistling and chirping, trilling
+and cuckoo calling, came from the same throat; but when the bird notes
+ceased just outside the door, and Barbara, with bright mirthfulness and
+the airiest grace, sang the refrain of the Chant des Oiseaux, 'Car la
+saison est bonne', bowing gracefully meanwhile, the old enemy of the
+Turks fairly beamed with delight.
+
+His eyes, wet with tears of grateful joy, sought the young man's, and,
+though he had just warned him plainly enough against courting his
+daughter, his sparkling gaze now asked whether he had ever met an equally
+bewitching marvel.
+
+"The deuce!"  he cried out to his daughter when she at last paused and
+extended her hand to him.  He leaned comfortably farther back in his arm-
+chair as he spoke, but she kissed him lightly on the forehead, while her
+large blue eyes shone with cheerful content.
+
+She had gained her object.
+
+When she sang this song she was safe from any troublesome questions.
+Besides, Gombert, of Bruges, the director of the imperial orchestra, who
+had arrived in Ratisbon that very day, was the composer of the charming
+bird-song, and she knew from her singing master that, though her voice
+was best adapted to solemn hymns, nothing in the whole range of secular
+music suited it better than this "Car la saison est bonne."  She longed
+for the praise of such a musician, and Wolf must accompany her to him.
+
+The young knight had not only been joyfully surprised, but most deeply
+delighted by the bewitching execution of this most charmingly arranged
+refrain.
+
+Maestro Gombert and his colleague Appenzelder, the conductor of the boy
+choir, must hear it on the morrow.  And how gladly Barbara consented to
+fulfil this wish!
+
+She had received the greatest praise, she said, in the motet of the
+Blessed Virgin, by Josquin de Pres, in the noble song 'Ecce tu pulchra
+es'.  Her teacher specially valued this master and his countryman
+Gombert, and his exquisite compositions were frequently and gladly sung
+at the Convivium.
+
+This pleased Wolf, for he had a right to call himself, not only the
+pupil, but the friend of the director of the orchestra.  As, seizing the
+lute, he began Gombert's Shepherd and Shepherdess, Barbara, unasked,
+commenced the song.
+
+When, after Barbara's bell-like, well-trained voice had sung many other
+melodies, the young knight at last took leave of his old friends, he
+whispered that he had not expected to find home so delightful.
+
+She, too, went to rest in a joyous, happy mood, and, as she lay in her
+narrow bed, asked herself whether she could not renounce her ardent
+longing for wealth and splendour and be content with a modest life at
+Wolf's side.
+
+She liked him, he would cherish her, and lovingly devote the great skill
+which he had gained in Italy and the Netherlands to the final cultivation
+of her voice.  Her house would become a home of art, her life would be
+pervaded and ennobled by song and music.  What grander existence could
+earth offer?
+
+Before she found an answer to this question, sleep closed her weary eyes.
+But when, the next morning, the cobbler's one-eyed daughter, who, since
+old Ursel's illness, had done the rough work in the chambers and kitchen,
+waked her, she speedily changed her mind.  It was hard to rise early
+after the day's ironing and the late hour at which she had retired, and,
+besides, when Barbara returned from mass, the maid reported that Frau
+Lerch had been there and left the message that Fran Itzenweck wanted the
+laces which had been promised to her early that day.
+
+So Barbara was obliged to go to work again immediately after the early
+breakfast.  But, while she was loosening the laces from the pins and
+stirring her slender white fingers busily for the wretched pittance, her
+soul was overflowing with thoughts of the most sublime works of music,
+and the desire for success, homage, and a future filled with happiness
+and splendour.
+
+Vehement repugnance to the humble labour to which necessity forced her
+was like a bitter taste in her mouth, and, ere she had folded the last
+strips of lace, she turned her back to the work-table and pressed both
+hands upon her bosom, while from the inmost depths of her tortured soul
+came the cry: "I will never bear it!  In one way or another I will put an
+end to this life of beggary."
+
+Thanks to old Ursel's care, Wolf had found his bed made and everything
+he needed at hand in his foster parents' deserted lodging.  To avoid
+disturbing the sick woman, he removed his shoes in the entry, and then
+glided into his former little room.  Weariness had soon closed his eyes
+also, but only for a few hours.  His fevered blood, fear, and hope drove
+him from his couch at the first dawn of morning.
+
+Ere returning to the two men the evening before, Barbara had hastily
+spoken to Ursula, and brought her whatever she preferred to receive from
+her hands rather than those of the one-eyed maid who spent the night with
+her--her Sunday cap and a little sealed package which she kept in her
+chest.  When Wolf tapped at her door early the next morning, she was
+already up, and had had her cap put on.  This was intended to give her a
+holiday appearance, but the expression of her faithful eyes and the smile
+upon her sunken mouth showed her darling that his return was a festival
+to her.
+
+The stroke of apoplexy which had attacked the woman of seventy had been
+slight, and merely affected her speech a little.  But she found plenty of
+words to show Wolf how happy it made her to see him again, and to tell
+him about his foster parents' last illness and death.
+
+The precentor and organist, aided by Bishop Pangraz Sinzenhofer and
+Blasius, the captain of the city guard, had endeavoured to collect the
+papers which proved Wolf's noble birth.  The package that Barbara handed
+to her the evening before contained the patent of nobility newly
+authorized by King Frederick at Vienna and the certificate of baptism
+which proved him to be the only son of the Frank Knight Ullmann
+Hartschwert and the Baroness Wendula Sandhof.
+
+His mother's family died with her; on his father's side, as the precentor
+had learned, he still had an uncle, his father's older brother, but his
+castle had been destroyed during the Peasant War.  He himself had
+commanded for several years a large troop of mercenaries in the service
+of the Queen of England, and his three children, a son and two daughters,
+had entered monastic and conventual life.
+
+The contents of the package confirmed all these statements.
+Moreover, the very Dr. Hiltner, of whom Barbara's father had spoken so
+disagreeably, had paid a visit the day before to Ursel, who had won the
+esteem of the preceptor's old friend, and told her that he wished to talk
+with Wolf about an important matter.
+
+It afforded the young man genuine pleasure to wait upon the faithful old
+woman and give her her medicine and barley-gruel.  His mother had brought
+him to Ratisbon when he was a little boy four years old, and Ursel at
+that time had been his nurse.  She had clung more closely to him than the
+woman to whom he owed his life, for his mother had deserted him to take
+the veil in the convent of the Sisters of St. Clare, but her maid-servant
+Ursel would not part from him.  So she was received by his foster parents
+when they adopted him, and had served them faithfully until their deaths.
+
+The wrinkled countenance of the old woman, who, even on her sick-bed,
+retained her neat appearance, expressed shrewdness and energy.
+
+Wolf's services were a pleasure and an honour.  A grateful, affectionate
+glance acknowledged each, and meanwhile he became clearly aware of the
+treasure which he, the orphaned youth, possessed in this faithful old
+friend.
+
+If he saw aright, she might yet live a long time, and this gave him
+heartfelt joy.  With her he would lose the last witness of his childhood,
+the chronicle, as it were, of his earliest youth.  He could not
+understand why he had never before induced her to tell him her
+recollections.
+
+During his boyhood, which was crowded with work, he had been content when
+she told him in general outlines that, during the Peasant War, fierce
+bands had attacked his father's castle, that one of his own bondmen had
+slain him with an axe, and that his mother had fled with Wolf to
+Ratisbon, where her brother lived as provost of the cathedral.  He had
+invited her, at the outbreak of the peasant insurrection, to place
+herself under his protection.
+
+The old woman had also described to him how, amid great hardships, they
+had reached the city in midwinter, and finally that his mother found
+Baron Sandhof, her brother, at the point of death, and, after her hope of
+having a home with the provost of the cathedral was baffled, she had
+taken the veil in the convent of the Dominicans, called here the Black
+Penitents.  Wolf's foster father, the organist Stenzel, who was closely
+connected with his uncle, had rendered this step easier for the deserted
+widow by receiving the little boy in his childless home.
+
+Ursel must give him more minute particulars concerning all these things.
+
+His mother, who knew that he was well cared for, had troubled herself
+very little about him, and devoted her life to the care of her own
+salvation and that of her murdered husband, who had died without the
+benefit of the holy sacrament.
+
+When he was fifteen, she closed her eyes on the world, and the hour
+when, on her death bed, she had asked of him a vow to be faithful to the
+Catholic Church and shut his heart against heresy, was as vividly before
+his memory as if she had just passed away.
+
+He did not allude to these things now, for his heart urged him to confide
+to the faithful old woman what he thought of Barbara, and the beautiful
+hopes with which he had left her.
+
+Ursel closed her eyes for a while and twirled the thumb of the hand she
+could use around the other for some time; but at last she gently nodded
+the little head framed in her big cap, and said carelessly:
+
+"So you would like to seek a wife, child?  Well, well!  It comes once to
+every one.  And you are thinking of Wawerl?  It would certainly be
+fortunate for the girl.  Marriages are made in heaven, and God's mills
+grind slowly.  If the result is not what you expect, you must not murmur,
+and, above all things, don't act rashly.  But now I can use my heavy
+tongue no longer.  Remember Dr. Hiltner.  When duty will permit, you'll
+find time for another little chat with old Ursel."
+
+Casting a loving farewell glance at Wolf as she spoke, she turned over on
+the other side.
+
+As his footsteps receded from her bedside, she pressed her lips more
+firmly together, thinking: "Why should I spoil his beautiful dream of
+happiness?  What Wawerl offers to the eyes and ears of men is certainly
+most beautiful.  But her heart!  It is lacking!  Unselfish love would be
+precisely what the early orphaned youth needs, and that Wawerl will never
+give him.  Yet I wish no heavier anxieties oppressed me!  One thing is
+certain--the husband of the girl upstairs must wear a different look from
+my darling, with his modest worth.  The Danube will flow uphill before
+she goes to the altar with him!  So, thank Heaven, I can console myself
+with that!"
+
+But, soon after, she remembered many things which she had formerly
+believed impossible, yet which, through unexpected influence, had
+happened.
+
+Then torturing uneasiness seized her.  She anxiously clasped her
+emaciated hands, and from her troubled bosom rose the prayer that the
+Lord would preserve her darling from the fulfilment of the most ardent
+desire of his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Wolf's first walk took him to the Golden Cross, the lodgings of the
+Emperor Charles and his court.  The sky had clouded again, and a keen
+northwest wind was blowing across the Haidplatz and waving the banner on
+the lofty square battlemented tower at the right of the stately old
+edifice.
+
+It had originally belonged to the Weltenburg family as a strong offensive
+and defensive building, then frequently changed hands.
+
+The double escutcheon on the bow-window was that of the Thun and Fugger
+von Reh families, who had owned it in Wolf's childhood.
+
+Now he glanced up to see whether young Herr Crafft, to whom the building
+now belonged, had not also added an ornament to it.  But when Wolf's gaze
+wandered so intently from the tower to the bow-window, and from the bow-
+window to the great entrance door, it was by no means from pleasure or
+interest in the exterior of the Golden Cross, but because Barbara had
+confessed that the nineteen-year-old owner of the edifice, who was still
+a minor, was also wooing her.
+
+What was the probable value of this stately structure, this aristocratic
+imperial abode?  How rich its owner was!  yet she, the brilliant young
+beauty who had grown up in poverty, disdained young Crafft because her
+heart did not attract her to him.
+
+So, in this case, faithful Ursel must deceive herself and misjudge the
+girl, for the old woman's strangely evasive words had revealed plainly
+enough that she did not consider Barbara the right wife for him.
+
+The good people of Ratisbon could not understand this rare creature!  Her
+artist nature gave her peculiar, unusual traits of character, which were
+distasteful to the ways of German burghers.  Whatever did not fit the
+usual forms, whatever surpassed ordinary models, was regarded with
+distrust.  He himself had scarcely been able to understand how a girl so
+free and independent in her feelings, and probably also in her actions,
+such a mistress of the art of singing, whose performances fulfilled the
+highest demands, could have bloomed and matured in this environment.
+
+Old Ursel's evasion had wounded and troubled him; the thoughts associated
+with the double escutcheon on the bow-window, however, revived the
+clouded feeling of happiness, and, with head erect, he passed the guards
+at the entrance and went into the corridor, which was again crowded with
+lords and ladies of the court, priests of all ranks, knights, pages, and
+servants.
+
+His position gave him access to the Queen of Hungary's apartments without
+delay--nay, he might hope to be received by her Majesty sooner than many
+of the knights, lords and ladies, ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries
+who were waiting there; the stewards, chamberlains and heralds, the
+ladies of the court, pages, and lackeys knew that the royal lady not only
+summoned Sir Wolf Hartschwert frequently, but welcomed his presence.
+
+Nearly all were Spaniards or natives of the Netherlands, and it was
+fortunate for Wolf, on the one hand, that he had learned their language
+quickly and well in Italy and Brussels, and, on the other, that his birth
+entitled him to a place with nobles who had the rank of knights.
+
+How formal and stiffly precise everything was here!  How many backs bowed
+low, how softly bombastic, high-sounding words were murmured!  It seemed
+as if every free, warm impulse would lapse into stiffness and coldness;
+moreover, those assembled here were not the poor petitioners of other
+antechambers, but lords and ladies who belonged to the most illustrious
+and aristocratic families, while among the waiting ecclesiastics there
+was many a prelate with the dignified bearing of a bishop.
+
+Some of the Netherlanders alone frequently threw off the constraint which
+fettered all, and one even turned with the gayest ease from one person to
+another.  This was Baron Malfalconnet, one of the Emperor's major-domos.
+He was permitted to do what no one else ventured, for his cheerfulness
+and wit, his gift of story-telling, and sharp tongue often succeeded in
+dispelling the clouds of melancholy from the brow of his imperial master.
+
+At Wolf's entrance the baron greeted him with merry banter, and then
+whispered to him that the regent was expecting him in her private room,
+where the leaders of the newly arrived musicians had already gone.  As
+Wolf belonged to the "elect," he would conduct him to her Majesty before
+"the called" who were here in the waiting room.
+
+As he spoke he delivered him to the Emperor's confidential secretary,
+Gastelu, whom Wolf had often aided in the translation of German letters,
+and the latter ushered him into the Queen's reception room.
+
+It was the royal lady's sleeping apartment, a moderately wide, unusually
+deep chamber, looking out upon the Haidplatz.  The walls were hung with
+Flanders Gobelin tapestry, whose coloured pictures represented woodland
+landscapes and hunters.  The Queen's bed stood halfway down the long wall
+at the right.
+
+Little could be seen of her person, for heavy gold-embroidered damask
+curtains hung around the wide, lofty bedstead, falling from the canopy
+projecting, rootlike, above the top, where gilded child genii bore a
+royal crown.  On the side toward the room the curtains were drawn back
+far enough to allow those who were permitted to approach the regent to
+see her head and the upper portion of her body, which was wrapped in an
+ermine cape.
+
+She leaned in a sitting posture against a pile of white satin pillows,
+and her thick locks, interwoven with strings of pearls, bore witness to
+the skill of the maid who had combed and curled them so artistically and
+adorned them with a heron's plume.  Two beautiful English pointers and a
+slender hound were moving about and sometimes disturbed the repose of the
+two Wachtersbach badger dogs, who were trained to keep side by side
+everywhere--in the room as well as in hunting.  When the door opened they
+only raised their sagacious little heads with a low growl.
+
+The other living beings who had obtained admittance to the Queen's
+chamber at so early an hour were constrained by etiquette to formal,
+silent quiescence.  Only the ladies in waiting and the chamberlains moved
+to and fro unasked, but they also stepped lightly and graduated the depth
+of the bow with which they greeted each individual to suit his or her
+rank, while the pages used their nimble feet, whose tread silken shoes
+rendered noiseless, lightly and carelessly.
+
+The features of most of the persons present expressed reverence and
+expectation.  But although, on account of the clouded sky and the small
+window panes, the rear of the deep apartment especially was only dimly
+lighted, the impression produced was neither gloomy nor depressing.  This
+was prevented by the swift movements of the pages, the shrill screams of
+the gay parrots at the window, the paraphernalia of the chase hung on the
+wall, and especially by the regent herself, whose clear voice broke the
+silence with gay unconcern, and exerted a redeeming influence upon the
+constraint of the listeners.
+
+She had just received the Bishop of Hildesheim, the Prince of Savoy, and
+the Countess Tassis, but gave each only a brief audience, for the
+entrance of the conductor of the orchestra had not escaped her attention.
+
+Several other personages of the highest rank were still among the waiting
+group, and her chamberlain, Count Hochstraaten, asked in a low tone
+whether she would deign to receive the Count Palatine von Simmern; but
+she was determined to close the audience, for Wolf Hartschwert had
+entered the room, and the subjects which she desired to discuss with him
+and the musicians would permit no witnesses.
+
+So, without answering Hochstraaten's question, she turned her face toward
+the chamber, and said, loudly enough to be heard by all present:
+
+"This reception must suffice for to-day!  Whoever does not know that I
+used last night in his Majesty's service for a better purpose than sleep
+will deem me a lazy sluggard.  Would to Heaven I had no worse fault!  The
+rising sun sees me more frequently at my station in the hunting grounds
+than it does many of you, my honoured friends, at the breakfast table.
+So, Hochstraaten, be kind enough to tell the ladies and gentlemen who
+have given me the pleasure of their visits, that their patience shall be
+less severely tried this evening before vespers."
+
+While speaking, she beckoned to the Marquise de Leria, her oldest lady in
+waiting, and, as the latter bent her aged back to adjust the pillows, the
+Queen whispered to her to detain the conductor of the orchestra and Sir
+Wolf Hartschwert.
+
+The order was instantly obeyed, but some time elapsed ere the last of
+those who had sought an audience left the room, for, although the regent
+vouchsafed no one a glance, but turned the pages of a note-book which had
+been lying on the little table at the head of her bed, each person,
+before crossing the threshold, bowed toward the couch in the slow, formal
+manner which etiquette dictated.
+
+As soon as Queen Mary found herself alone with the musicians and the
+marquise, she beckoned graciously to the former, but with familiar
+kindness to Wolf, and asked for a brief account of his journey.  Then she
+confessed that the Emperor's sufferings and melancholy mood had induced
+her to subject them to the discomforts of the trip to Ratisbon.  His
+Majesty was ignorant of their presence, but she anticipated the most
+favourable result upon her royal brother, who so warmly loved and keenly
+appreciated music, if he could hear unexpectedly the finest melodies,
+sometimes inspiring, sometimes cheering in tone.
+
+Her inquiry whether his Majesty's orchestra and her own boys would be
+able to give a performance that evening was eagerly answered in the
+affirmative by Maestro Gombert, the conductor of the orchestra, and
+Benedictus Appenzelder, conductor of the boy choir, who was in her
+personal service.  She expressed her pleasure in the knowledge, and then
+proposed to surprise the Emperor at the principal meal, about midnight,
+with Jacob Hobrecht's Missa Graecorum, whose magnificent profundity his
+Majesty especially admired.
+
+Gombert forced himself to keep silence, but the significant smile on his
+delicate, beardless lips betrayed what he thought of this selection.  The
+conductor of the boy choir was franker.  He slightly shook his ponderous
+head, whose long, gray hair was parted in the middle, and then honestly
+admitted, in his deep tones, that the Missa Graecorum seemed to him too
+majestic and gloomy for this purpose.  Wolf, too, disapproved of the
+Queen's suggestion for the same reason, and, though she pointed out that
+she had chosen this composition precisely on account of its deep
+religious earnestness, the former persisted in his opposition, and
+modestly mentioned the melody which would probably be best suited for a
+surprise at his imperial Majesty's repast.
+
+Maestro Gombert had recently composed a Benedictio Mensae for four
+voices, and, as it was one of his most effective creations, had never
+been executed, and therefore would be entirely new to the Emperor, it was
+specially adapted to introduce the concert with which the monarch was to
+be surprised at table.
+
+The Queen would have preferred that a religious piece should commence the
+musical performance, but assented to Wolf's proposal.  Gombert himself
+dispelled her fear that his composition would be purely secular in
+character, and Wolf upheld him by singing to the musical princess,
+to the accompaniment of the lute, snatches of the principal theme of
+the Benedictio, which had impressed itself upon his faithful memory.
+
+Gombert assisted him, but Appenzelder stroked his long beard, signifying
+his approval by nods and brief exclamations of satisfaction.  The Queen
+was now sincerely glad that this piece of music had been brought to her
+notice; certainly nothing more suitable for the purpose could have been
+found.  Besides, her kindly nature and feminine tact made her grateful to
+Wolf for his hint of distinguishing, by the first performance of one of
+his works, the able conductor and fine composer upon whom she had imposed
+so fatiguing a journey.
+
+She would gladly have given Appenzelder also some token of her favour,
+but she could not have used any of his compositions--the most famous of
+which was a dirge--upon this occasion, and the blunt long-beard frankly
+admitted this, and declared unasked that he desired nothing better than
+to offer his Majesty, with the Benedictio, the first greeting of
+Netherland music.
+
+Gombert's bearing was that of an aristocrat, his lofty brow that of a
+thinker, and his mobile mouth rendered it easy to perceive what a wealth
+of joyous mirth dwelt within the soul of this artist, who was equally
+distinguished in grave and gay moods.
+
+Queen Mary was by no means blind to these merits, and lamented the
+impossibility of being on more familiar terms of intercourse with him and
+his colleague of the boy choir.  But both were of humble birth, and from
+childhood custom had prohibited her, as well as the other female members
+of her family, from associating with persons who did not belong to the
+nobility.  So there was no place for either in her household.
+
+Rough Appenzelder regarded this as fortunate; Gombert thought it a matter
+of course because custom so ordained.
+
+The stimulus which the Queen could expect from Wolf Hartschwert was
+certainly far less deep and varied; yet to him who, as a knight, belonged
+to her train, she granted many favours which she denied the famous
+Gombert.  Besides, Wolf's musical knowledge was as remarkable as his
+usefulness as a secretary.  Lastly, his equable disposition, his unerring
+sense of propriety, and his well-proved fidelity had gained the full
+confidence of the royal lady.
+
+By the side of the two composers and leaders of the musicians he looked
+almost boyish, yet, as the regent was overburdened with affairs of state,
+she confided to him alone the care of the further success of the
+surprise.
+
+He was familiar with the rooms of the Golden Cross, and before midnight
+would have posted the singers and musicians so that his Majesty would
+first learn through his ears the pleasure which they intended to bestow
+upon him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The Queen's commission imposed upon Wolf a long series of inspections,
+inquiries, orders, and preparations, the most important of which detained
+him a long time at the Golden Cross.
+
+After he had done what was necessary there, he hastily took a lunch, and
+then went to the house of the Golden Stag.  The steward of the Schiltl
+family, to whom the house belonged, but who were now in the country, had
+given the boy choir shelter there, and Wolf was obliged to inform the
+leader of his arrangements.  Appenzelder had intended to practise
+exercises with his young pupils in the chapel belonging to this old
+house, familiar to all the inhabitants of Ratisbon, but Wolf found it
+empty.  On the other hand, young, clear voices echoed from a room in the
+lower story.
+
+The door stood half open, and, before he crossed the threshold, he had
+heard with surprise the members of the boy choir, lads ranging from
+twelve to fifteen, discussing how they should spend the leisure time
+awaiting them.
+
+The ringleader, Giacomo Bianchi, from Bologna, was asserting that "the
+old bear"--he meant Appenzelder--"would never permit the incomplete choir
+to sing before the Emperor and his royal sister."
+
+"So we shall have the afternoon," he exclaimed.  "The grooms will give me
+a horse, and after dinner I, and whoever cares to go with me, will ride
+back to the village where we last stopped.  What do I want there?  I'll
+get the kiss which the tavernkeeper's charming little daughter owes me.
+Her sweet mouth and fair braids with the bows of blue ribbon--I saw
+nothing prettier anywhere!"
+
+"Yes, these blondes!" cried Angelo Negri, a Neapolitan boy of thirteen,
+rolling his black eyes upward enthusiastically, and kissing, for lack of
+warm lips, the empty air.
+
+"Sweet, sweet, sweet," sighed Giacoma Bianchi.
+
+"Sweet enough," remarked little thick-set Cornelius Groen from Breda, in
+broken Italian.  "Yet you surely are not thinking of that silly girl,
+with her flaxen braids, but of the nice honey and the light white pastry
+she brought us.  If we can get that again, I'll ride there with you."
+
+"I won't," protested Wilhelm Haldema, from Leuwarden in Friesland.
+"I shall go down to the river with my pole.  It's swarming with fish."
+
+Wolf had remained concealed until this moment.  Now he entered the huge
+apartment.
+
+The boys rushed toward him with joyous ease, and, as they crowded around
+him, asking all sorts of questions, it was evident that he possessed
+their affection and confidence.
+
+He kindly motioned to them to keep silence, and asked what induced them
+to expect leisure time on that day, when, by the exertion of all their
+powers, they were to display their skill in the presence of their
+mistress and the Emperor.
+
+The answer was not delayed--nay, it sprang from many young lips at the
+same time.  Unfortunately, its character was such that Wolf scarcely
+ventured to hope for the full success of the surprise.
+
+Johann of Cologne and Benevenuto Bosco of Catania, in Sicily, the two
+leaders and ornaments of the choir, were so very ill that their recovery
+could scarcely be expected even within the next few days.  The native of
+Cologne had been attacked on the way by a hoarseness which made the
+fifteenyear-old lad uneasy, because signs of the approaching change of
+voice had already appeared.
+
+The break meant to the extremely musical youth, who had been
+distinguished by the bell-like purity of his tones, the loss of his
+well-paid position in the boy choir, which, for his poor mother's sake,
+he must retain as long as possible.  So, with mingled grief and hope, he
+dipped deeply into his slender purse when, at Neumarkt, where the
+travelling musicians spent the night just at the time the annual fair was
+held, he met a quack who promised to help him.
+
+This extremely talkative old man, who styled himself "Body physician to
+many distinguished princes and courts," boasted of possessing a secret
+remedy of the famous Bartliolomaus Anglicus, which, besides other merits,
+also had the power of bestowing upon a harsh voice the melody of David's
+harp.
+
+Still, the young native of Cologne delayed some time before using the
+nostrum.  Not until the hoarseness increased alarmingly did he in his
+need take the leech's prescription, and Benevenuto Bosco, whom he had
+admitted to his confidence, and who also felt a certain rawness in his
+throat, since beyond Nuremberg one shower of rain after another had
+drenched the travellers, asked him to let him use the medicine also.
+
+At first both thought that they felt a beneficial result; but soon their
+condition changed for the worse, and their illness constantly increased.
+
+On reaching Ratisbon they were obliged to go to bed, and a terrible night
+was followed by an equally bad morning.
+
+When Appenzelder returned from the audience at the Golden Cross, he found
+his two best singers in so pitiable a condition that he was obliged to
+summon the Emperor's leech, Dr. Mathys, to the sufferers.
+
+The famous physician was really under obligations to remain near the
+sovereign at this time of day.  Yet he had gone at once to the Stag, and
+pronounced the patients there to be the victims of severe poisoning.
+
+A Ratisbon colleague, whom he found with the sufferers, was to
+superintend the treatment which he prescribed.
+
+He had left the house a short time before.  Master Appenzelder, Wolf
+heard from the choir boys, was now with the invalids, and the knight set
+off to inquire about them at once.
+
+He had forbidden the idle young singers who wanted to go with him to
+follow, but one had secretly slipped after, and, in one of the dark
+corridors of the big house, full of nooks and corners, he suddenly heard
+a voice call his name.  Ere he was aware of it, little Hannibal Melas, a
+young Maltese in the boy choir, whose silent, reserved nature had
+obtained for him from the others the nickname Tartaruga, the tortoise,
+seized his right hand in both his own.
+
+It was done with evident excitement, and his voice sounded eagerly urgent
+as he exclaimed:
+
+"I fix my last hope on you, Sir Knight, for you see there is scarcely one
+of the others who would not have an intercessor.  But I!  Who would
+trouble himself about me?  Yet, if you would only put in a good word, my
+time would surely come now."
+
+"Your time?" asked Wolf in astonishment; but the little fellow eagerly
+continued:
+
+"Yes, indeed!  What Johann of Cologne or at least what Benevenuto can do,
+I can trust myself to do too.  The master need only try it with me, and,
+now that both are ill, put me in place of one or the other."
+
+Wolf, who knew what each individual chorister could do, shook his head,
+and began to tell the boy from Malta for what good reason the master
+preferred the two sick youths; but little Hannibal interrupted by
+exclaiming, in tones of passionate lamentation:
+
+"So you are the same?  The master having begun it, all misjudge and crush
+me!  Instead of giving me an opportunity to show what I can do in a solo
+part, I am forced back into the crowd.  My best work disappears in the
+chorus.  And yet, Sir Wolf, in spite of all, I heard the master's own
+lips say in Brussels--I wasn't listening--that he had never heard what
+lends a woman's voice its greatest charm come so softly and tenderly from
+the throat of a boy.  Those are his own words.  He will not deny them,
+for at least he is honest.  What is to become of the singing without
+Johann and Benevenuto?  But if they would try me, and at least trust a
+part of Bosco's music to me--"
+
+Here he stopped, for Master Appenzelder was just coming from the door of
+the sick-room into the corridor; but Wolf, with a playful gesture, thrust
+his fingers through the lad's bushy coal-black hair, turned him in the
+direction from which he came, and called after him, "Your cause is in
+good hands, you little fellow with the big name."
+
+Then, laying his hand on the arm of the deeply troubled musician, and
+pointing to the boy who was trotting, full of hope, down the corridor, he
+said: "'Hannibal ante portas!'  A cry of distress that is full of terror;
+but the Maltese Hannibal who is vanishing yonder gave me an idea which
+will put an end to your trouble, my dear Maestro.  The sooner the two
+poisoned lads recover the better, of course; yet the Benedictio Mensae
+need not remain unsung on account of their heedlessness, for little
+Hannibal showed me the best substitute."
+
+This promise flowed from Wolf's lips with such joyous confidence that the
+grave musician's sombre face brightened; but it swiftly darkened again,
+and he exclaimed, "We don't give such hasty work!"  When the knight tried
+to tell him what he had in mind, the other brusquely interrupted with the
+request that he would first aid him in a more important matter.  Wolf was
+acquainted with the city, and perhaps would spare him a walk by informing
+him where the sick lads would find the best shelter.  The Stag was
+overcrowded, and he was reluctant to leave the poor fellows in the little
+sleeping room which they shared with their companions.  The Ratisbon
+physician had ordered them to be sent to the hospital; but the boy from
+Cologne opposed it so impetuously that he, Appenzelder, thought it his
+duty to seek another shelter for the sufferers.
+
+When Wolf with the older man entered the low, close chamber, he found the
+lad, a handsome, vigorous boy, with his fair, curling hair tossed in
+disorder around his fevered face, standing erect in his bed.  While the
+doctor was trying to compel him to obey and enter the litter which stood
+waiting for him, he beat him back with his strong young fists.  He would
+rather jump into the open grave or into the rushing river, he shrieked to
+the corpulent leech, than be dragged into the hospital, which was the
+plague, death, hell.
+
+He emphasized his resistance with heavy blows, while his Italian
+companion in suffering, livid, ashen-gray, with bowed head and closed
+lids, permitted himself to be placed in the litter without moving.
+
+At Wolf's entrance the German youth, like a drowning man who sees a
+friend on the shore, shrieked an entreaty to save him from the murderers
+who wanted to drag him to death.  The young knight gazed compassionately
+at the lad's flushed face, and, after a brief pause of reflection,
+proposed committing the sufferers to the care of the Knights
+Hospitallers.
+
+This removed the burden from the young Rhinelander's tortured soul, yet
+he insisted, with passionate impetuosity, upon having his master and the
+nobleman accompany him, that the physician whom, in his fevered fancy, he
+regarded as his mortal foe, should not drag him to the pest-house after
+all.
+
+Both musicians yielded to his wish.  On the way Appenzelder held the
+lad's burning hand in his own, and never wearied of talking
+affectionately to him.  Not until after he had seen his charges, with the
+physician's assistance, comfortably lodged, and had left the house of the
+Hospitallers, did he permit himself to test the almost incredible news
+which Sir Wolf Hartschwert had brought him.
+
+With what fiery zeal Wolf persuaded him, how convincing was his assurance
+that a substitute for Johann of Cologne, and a most admirable one, was
+actually to be found here in Ratisbon!
+
+He had no need to seek for fitting words in the description of Barbara
+Blomberg, the melody of her voice, and her admirable training.  The fact
+that she was a woman, he protested, need not be considered, nay, it might
+be kept secret.  The Church, it is true, prohibited the assistance of
+women, but the matter here was simply the execution of songs in a private
+house.
+
+At first Appenzelder listened grumbling, and shaking his head in dissent,
+but soon the proposal seemed worth heeding; nay, when he heard that the
+singer, whose talent and skill the quiet, intelligent German praised so
+highly, owed her training to his countryman, Damian Feys, whom he knew,
+he began to ask questions with, increasing interest.  But, ere Wolf had
+answered the first queries, some one else made his appearance on the
+Haid, and the very person who was best fitted to give information about
+Barbara--her teacher, Feys, who had sought Gombert, his famous Brussels
+companion in art, and was just taking him to a rehearsal of the Convivium
+musicum.  At this meeting the leader of the boy choir, in spite of his
+pleasure at seeing his valued countryman and companion in art, showed far
+less patience than before, for, after the first greeting, he at once
+asked Feys what he thought of his pupil Barbara.  The answer was so
+favourable that Appenzelder eagerly accepted the invitation to attend the
+rehearsal also.  So the four fellow-artists crossed the Haidplatz
+together, and Maestro Gombert was obliged to remind his colleague of the
+boy choir that people who occupied the conductor's desk forgot to run on
+a wager.
+
+Wolf's legs were by no means so long as those of the tall, broad
+musician, yet, in his joyous excitement, it was an easy matter to keep
+pace with him.  In the happy consciousness of meriting the gratitude of
+the woman whom he loved, he gazed toward the New Scales, the large
+building beneath whose roof she whose image filled his heart and mind
+must already have found shelter.
+
+Did she see him coming?  Did she suspect who his companions were, and
+what awaited her through them?
+
+Yet, sharply as he watched for her, he could discover no sign of her fair
+head behind any of the windows.
+
+Yet Barbara, from the little room where the singers laid aside their
+cloaks and wraps, had seen Wolf, with her singing master Feys and two
+other gentlemen, coming toward the New Scales, and correctly guessed the
+names of the slender, shorter stranger in the sable-trimmed mantle and
+the big, broad-shouldered, bearded one who accompanied her friend.  Wolf
+had described them both, and a presentiment told her that something great
+awaited her through them.
+
+Gombert was the composer of the bird-song, and, as she remembered how the
+refrain of this composition had affected Wolf the day before, she heard
+the door close behind the group.
+
+Then the desire to please, which had never left her since she earned the
+first applause, seized upon her more fiercely than ever.
+
+Of what consequence were the listeners before whom she had hitherto sung
+compared with those whose footsteps were now echoing on the lowest
+stairs?  And, half animated by an overpowering secret impulse, she sang
+the refrain "Car la saison est bonne" aloud while passing the stairs on
+her way into the dancing hall, where the rehearsal was to take place.
+
+What an artless delight in the fairest, most pleasing thing in Nature to
+a sensitive young human soul this simple sentence voiced to the
+Netherland musicians!  It seemed to them as if the song filled the dim,
+cold corridor with warmth and sunlight.  Thus Gombert had heard within
+his mind the praise of spring when he set it to music, but had never
+before had it thus understood by any singer, reproduced by any human
+voice.
+
+The excitable man stood as if spellbound; only a curt "My God! my God!"
+gave expression to his emotion.  The blunter Appenzelder, on the
+contrary, when the singer suddenly paused and a door closed behind her,
+exclaimed: "The deuce, that's fine!--If that were your helper in need,
+Sir Wolf, all would be well!"
+
+"It is," replied Wolf proudly, with sparkling eyes; but the honest old
+fellow rushed after Barbara, held out both hands to her in his frank,
+cordial way, and cried:
+
+"Thanks, heartfelt thanks, my dear, beautiful young lady!  But if you
+imagine that this drop of nectar will suffice, you are mistaken.  You
+have awakened thirst!  Now see--and Gombert will thank you too--that it
+is quenched with a fuller gift of this drink of the gods."
+
+The Netherlanders found the table spread, and this rehearsal of the
+Convivium musicum brought Barbara Blomberg the happiest hours which life
+had ever bestowed.
+
+She saw with a throbbing heart that her singing not only pleased, but
+deeply stirred the heart of the greatest composer of his time, whose name
+had filled her with timid reverence, and that, while listening to her
+voice, the eyes of the sturdy Appenzelder, who looked as if his broad
+breast was steeled against every soft emotion, glittered with tears.
+
+This had happened during the execution of Josquin de Pres's "Ecce tu
+pulchra es'."
+
+Barbara's voice had lent a special charm to this magnificent motet, and,
+when she concluded the "Quia amore langueo"--"Because I yearn for love"
+--to which she had long given the preference when she felt impelled to
+relieve her heart from unsatisfied yearning, she had seen Gombert look at
+the choir leader, and understood the "inimitable" which was not intended
+for her, but for his fellow-artist.
+
+Hitherto she had done little without pursuing a fixed purpose, but this
+time Art, and the lofty desire to serve her well, filled her whole being.
+In the presence of the most famous judges she imposed the severest
+demands upon herself.  Doubtless she was also glad to show Wolf what she
+could do, yet his absence would not have diminished an iota of what she
+gave the Netherlanders.  She felt proud and grateful that she belonged to
+the chosen few who are permitted to express, by means of a noble art, the
+loftiest and deepest feelings in the human breast.  Had not Appenzelder
+been compelled to interrupt the rehearsal, she would gladly have sung on
+and on to exhaustion.
+
+She did not yet suspect what awaited her when, in well-chosen yet cordial
+words, Gombert expressed his appreciation.
+
+She neither saw nor heard the fellow-singers who surrounded her; nay,
+when Dr. Hiltner, the syndic's, daughter, seventeen years old, who had
+long looked up to her with girlish enthusiasm, pressed forward to her
+side, and her charming mother, sincerely pleased, followed more quietly,
+when others imitated their example and expressed genuine gratification or
+made pretty speeches, Barbara scarcely distinguished the one from the
+other, honest good will from bitter envy.
+
+She did not fully recover her composure until Appenzelder came up to her
+and held out his large hand.
+
+Clasping it with a smile, she permitted the old musician to hold her
+little right hand, while in a low tone, pointing to Wolf, who had
+followed him, he said firmly:
+
+"May I believe the knight?  Would you be induced to bestow your
+magnificent art upon an ardent old admirer like myself, though to-day
+only as leader of the voices in the boy choir--"
+
+Here Wolf, who had noticed an expression of refusal upon Barbara's lips,
+interrupted him by completing the sentence with the words, addressed to
+her, "In order to let his Majesty the Emperor enjoy what delights us
+here?"
+
+The blood receded from Barbara's cheeks, and, as she clung to the window-
+sill for support, it seemed as though some magic spell had conveyed her
+to the summit of the highest steeple.  Below her yawned the dizzy gulf of
+space, and the air was filled with a rain of sceptres, crowns, and golden
+chains of honour falling upon ermine and purple robes on the ground
+below.
+
+But after a few seconds this illusion vanished, and, ere Wolf could
+spring to the assistance of the pallid girl, she was already passing her
+kerchief across her brow.
+
+Then, drawing a long breath, she gave the companion of her childhood a
+grateful glance, and said to Appenzelder:
+
+"Dispose of my powers as you deem best," adding, after a brief pause,
+"Of course, with my father's consent."
+
+Appenzelder, as if rescued, shook her hand again, this time with so
+strong a pressure that it hurt her.  Yet her blue eyes sparkled as
+brightly as if her soul no longer had room for pain or sorrow.  After
+Barbara had made various arrangements with the choir leader, it seemed to
+her as though the sunny, blissful spring, which her song had just
+celebrated so exquisitely, had also made its joyous entry into the narrow
+domain of her life.
+
+On the way home she thanked the friend who accompanied her with the
+affectionate warmth of the days of her childhood, nay, even more eagerly
+and tenderly; and when, on reaching the second story of the cantor house,
+he took leave of her, she kissed his cheek, unasked, calling down the
+stairs as she ran up:
+
+"There is your reward!  But, in return, you will accompany me first to
+the rehearsal with the singing boys, and then--if you had not arranged it
+yourself you would never believe it--go to the Golden Cross, to the
+Emperor Charles."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+The Emperor's table was laid in one of the lower rooms of the Golden
+Cross.  The orchestra and the boy choir had been stationed in Saint
+Leonhard's chapel.  A wide door led from the consecrated chamber, spanned
+by a vaulted roof, into the dining-room.  When it was opened, the music
+and singing would pour in a full flood to those seated around the board.
+
+Shortly before midnight everything in kitchen and cellar was ready for
+the royal couple.  The wax candles and lamps were already lighted when
+Queen Mary prepared to bring her imperial brother to the surprise which
+she had planned, and whose influence she eagerly anticipated.
+
+The Emperor had received the last report half an hour before, and then
+commissioned his physician, who had again warned him against the excess
+of work, to protect him from interruption--he desired to have an hour
+alone.
+
+Dr. Mathys had fulfilled this order with the utmost strictness.  Even the
+English ambassador was dismissed.  The members of the royal household and
+the nobles who during their stay in Ratisbon crowded around the royal
+brother and sister, and even at this late hour filled the rooms and
+corridors of the spacious building with busy life, had been commanded to
+step lightly and keep silent.
+
+The lord chamberlain, Count Heinrich of Nassau, saw that nothing was
+stirring near the apartment of his imperial master, and the stewards,
+Quijada and Malfalconnet, aided him.  But they could not prevent the
+barking of Queen Mary's hunting dogs, and when their royal mistress
+followed them to accompany her illustrious brother to the dining-hall,
+Malfalconnet ventured to remark that the lion, when he retires to
+solitude, sometimes values rest more than the presence of even the most
+beloved and adorable member of his noble race; but the regent quickly
+retorted that she had not yet reached lion hunting, but she knew that
+even the king of beasts possessed a stomach, and would be glad to have
+rest seasoned with dainty food.
+
+"The banquet is ready," added Count Buren, and Malfalconnet, with a low
+bow, said:
+
+"And a portion of it is the covered chiming dish with which your
+Majesty's love and wisdom intends to surprise the illustrious epicure."
+
+While speaking, he cautiously opened the door of the royal apartment, but
+the dogs were held back by the pages who had carried the train of the
+festal robe.  Two others zealously aided her to throw the trailing
+brocade across her arm, and in this manner she entered her distinguished
+brother's chamber.
+
+This was so deep that a short walk was necessary to reach the window near
+which the Emperor sat.  The office of lighting the vast room was assigned
+to a dozen wax candles in a silver candelabrum, but they were so
+inadequate to the task that neither the mythological scenes on the
+Brabant Gobelin curtains with which the walls were hung, nor the very
+scanty furniture of the remainder of the long chamber could be seen from
+the door.
+
+Thus the prevailing dusk concealed the surroundings of the great monarch
+who was resting there, and the only object visible to the entering Queen
+was his figure illumined by the light.  In her soul everything else
+receded far behind the person, welfare, and pleasure of this mighty
+sovereign.  Yet she had already crossed half the room, and her entrance
+still remained unnoticed.
+
+The Emperor Charles, with his forehead resting on his hand, sat absorbed
+in thought before the papers which had occupied his attention.  How
+mournful he looked, what sorrowful thoughts were doubtless again
+burdening that anxious brain!  Never before had he seemed to his sister
+so old.
+
+Perhaps it was the ceaseless planning and pondering of the statesman and
+general which, during the last few years, had thinned the light-brown
+hair at the corners of the brow.
+
+The resting ruler now seemed to have brought his mind to repose also,
+for every emotion had vanished from his pallid face.  Even the sharply
+cut nostrils of the long nose, which usually moved swiftly, were
+perfectly still.  The heavy chin, framed by a thin, closely clipped
+beard, had sunk upon the high ruff as if for support, and the thick,
+loosely hanging lower lip appeared to have lost its elasticity.
+
+In this hour of rest and relaxation this tireless and successful
+sovereign, utterly exhausted, had even relinquished seeming what he was;
+his brown hair framed his brow and temples in a tangled, disordered mass;
+the lacings of his velvet doublet were loosened; a shabby woollen
+coverlet of anything but imperial appearance was wound around his lower
+limbs, and the foot in which the gout throbbed and ached rested on his
+sleeping hound, and was wrapped in the cloths which his valet Adrian
+found at hand after the Venetian ambassador, the confessor, and the leech
+had left his master.
+
+It pierced his sister to the heart to see her mighty brother, upon whose
+dominions, it was said, the sun never set, in this guise.
+
+Her glance rested sorrowfully upon him a long time, but even when she
+moved several paces nearer he retained the same motionless rigidity which
+had seized upon him and even communicated itself to the dog.  The animal
+knew the regent, and did not let her disturb its repose.
+
+Then a terrible fear assailed her, and the image of the Cid Campeador
+who, mounted on horseback, went swaying on his steed to meet the foe,
+rose before her.
+
+"Your Majesty," then again "Your Majesty," she called in a low tone,
+that she might not startle him; but the answer for which she waited in
+breathless suspense did not come, and now the anxious dread that filled
+her sisterly heart forced from her lips the cry, "Carlos!" and once more
+"Carlos!"
+
+The dog stirred, and at the same time the Emperor raised his bowed head
+and turned toward his sister.
+
+Drawing a long breath, as if relieved from a heavy burden, she hastened
+to his side, and, clasping his delicately formed hand, kissed it with
+passionate tenderness; but the Emperor withdrew it, saying with a
+mournful smile, which gave his rigid countenance a new and more winning
+expression, in the Castilian language in which he always addressed her:
+
+"Why are you so agitated, Querida?  Did the sight of the silent brother
+alarm the sister?  Ay, darling, there are some things more terrible than
+the wild boar at which the brave huntress hurls her spear.  Our mother's
+bequest----"
+
+Queen Mary, with hands outstretched beseechingly, bowed the knee before
+him; but he raised her with more strength than would have been expected
+from him just before, and, sighing faintly, continued:
+
+"There are hours, Mary, when the demon that overpowered the mother
+stretches his talons toward the son also.  But, in spite of his satanic
+origin, he is a cowardly wight, and a loving face, a tender word, drives
+him away."
+
+"Then may my coming be blessed!" she answered warmly.  "Yet it can
+scarcely be a demon or any being of mortal mould that is spoiling the
+life happiness of my beloved brother and sovereign lord.  After all, they
+are tolerably alike in the main point, and what semblance would the son
+of hell wear that dares to assail the most powerful and vigorous mind of
+all the ages, and yet is seized with panic terror at the glance of a
+feeble woman?  Whoever knows the anxieties which have recently burdened
+your Majesty, and the wide range of the decision to which the course of
+events is urging you, can not wonder if, as just now, your cheerful
+spirits desert you.  No demons or evil creatures of that sort, Heaven
+knows, are needed to accomplish it."
+
+"Certainly not," replied the Emperor.  "Yet it does not matter what name
+is borne by the unconquerable power which poisons with horrible images
+the few hours of repose allotted to the solitary man who is bereft of
+love and joy.  But let us drop the subject!  When you appear and raise
+your voice, it seems as though all gloomy thoughts heard the view hallo
+which drives your stags and roes back into their coverts, Mary.  I
+suppose you have come to summon me to the table?"
+
+The Queen assented, and now he could not prevent her kissing his hand.
+Then she seized the dainty little bell on the table to ring for the valet
+Adrian; but the Emperor Charles stopped her with the exclamation:
+
+"Never mind him.  I will go with you as I am, if you do not object to
+sharing your meal with such a scarecrow of a man.  Only permit me to lock
+up these papers."
+
+"From Rome?"  asked the regent eagerly.
+
+"That is easily discerned," replied the Emperor.  "New and amazingly
+favourable promises.  Nothing is required of me except the trifling
+obligation to allow the Protestants nothing in religious affairs which
+the Pope or the Council do not approve.  If I agree to accept the
+promises, every one will think that I have the advantage, and yet, if the
+contract is made, it is tearing from the sky the political polestar of
+many a lustrum, and burying one of my clearest, ripest, most sacred
+hopes."
+
+Here the startled Queen interrupted him: "That would surely, inevitably
+be the evil fruit which would grow from such a treaty.  It would deliver
+to the Pope, with fettered hands, this very Council which your Majesty so
+confidently expected would remove or diminish, in orderly methods, the
+abuses which are urging so many Christians to abandon the Catholic
+Church.  How often I have heard even her most faithful sons acknowledge
+that such abuses exist!  But if you make the alliance, the self-interest
+of the hierarchy will know how to prevent the introduction of even a
+single vigorous amendment, and, instead of the conqueror of the hydra of
+abuse, your Majesty will render yourself its guardian."
+
+"And," added the Emperor affectionately--he still retained his seat at
+the writing table--"this alliance, moreover, would force me to the
+painful necessity of opposing the earnest wish of the dearest, fairest,
+and wisest of my sisters."
+
+"Because it would render war with the evangelical princes inevitable,"
+cried the Queen excitedly.  "Oh, your Majesty, you know that the
+heretical movement, which is making life a burden to me in my provinces,
+is going much too far for me, as well as for you here in Germany; nay,
+that it is hateful to me, because I value nothing more than our holy
+Church, her greatness and unity.  But would it really redound to her
+welfare if the schism now existing, and which you yourself expected to
+heal through the Council, should by this very Council be embittered and
+even perhaps perpetuated?  For a long time nothing has seemed to me more
+execrable than this war.  Your Majesty knows that, and therefore my lord
+and brother can not be vexed with me if I remind him of the hour when, a
+few months ago, he promised to avoid it and do all in his power to bring
+what relates to religious matters in these German countries to a peaceful
+conclusion."
+
+The Emperor looked his sister full in the face, and, while struggling to
+his feet, said with majestic dignity:
+
+"And I have never given your Highness occasion to doubt my word."  Then,
+changing his tone, he continued kindly: "No means--I repeat it--shall
+remain untried to preserve peace.  I am in earnest, child, though there
+are now many reasons for breaking the promise.  I put them together on
+the long list yonder, and the Spaniards at the court add new ones every
+hour.  If you care to know them----"
+
+Here he hesitated, because the gout in his foot gave him a sharper
+twinge; but the Queen availed herself of the pause to exclaim: "I think
+I am aware of them.  It is especially hard just now for the statesman and
+soldier to keep the sword in the sheath, because Rome offers more than
+ever, because at the present time no serious opposition is to be feared
+from the most important states, and because the princes of the empire
+have neglected nothing which could rouse the resentment of my imperial
+brother.  I know all this, and yet it is as firmly established as Alpine
+mountains----"
+
+Here a low laugh escaped the Emperor's lips.
+
+"The political course which could be thus firmly established is to be
+found, you experienced regent, only in one place--the strong imagination
+of a high hearted woman, who desires to accomplish what she deems right.
+I, too, you may believe me, am opposed to this war, and, as matters stand
+now, the German renegades, rather than we, may expect a glorious result.
+But, nevertheless, it may happen that I shall be compelled to ask you to
+give me back my promise."
+
+"I should like to see the person who could compel my august brother to
+undertake anything against his imperial will," the Queen passionately
+interrupted.
+
+"We will hope that this superior being may not appear only too soon,"
+replied the Emperor, smiling bitterly.  "The invincible oppressor bears
+the name of unexpected circumstances; I encountered one of his harbingers
+to-day.  There lie the documents.  Do you know to what those miserable
+papers force me, the Emperor?--ay, force, I repeat it.  To nothing less,
+Mary, than consciously to deal a blow in the face of justice, whose
+defender I ought and desire to be.  I am not exaggerating, for I am
+withdrawing a fratricide from the courts, nay, am paving the way for him
+to evade punishment."
+
+"You mean Alfonso Diaz, who had his brother murdered by a hired assassin
+because he abandoned the holy Church and accepted the Lutheran religion,"
+said the Queen sorrowfully.  "Malvenda was just telling me----"
+
+"He was the instigator of the crime," interrupted the Emperor.  "Now he
+rejoices in it as a deed well pleasing to God, and many thousands, I
+know, agree with him.  And I?  Had Juan Diaz been a German Johannes or
+Hans, the Emperor Charles would have made Alfonso expiate his crime upon
+the block this very day.  But the brothers were Spaniards, and that
+alters the case."
+
+With this sentence, which fell from his lips in firm, resolute tones, his
+bearing regained its old decision, and his eyes met his sister's with a
+flashing glance as he continued:
+
+"The seed which here in the North, in carefully prepared soil and under
+the fostering care of men only too skilful and ready for conflict, took
+deep root in the domain of religion, which we were obliged to tolerate
+because it grew too rapidly and strongly for us to extirpate or crush it
+without depopulating a great empire and jeopardizing other very important
+matters, would mean ruin to our Spain.  Whoever dared to transplant the
+heresy to her soil would be the most infamous of the corrupters of a
+nation, for the holy Church and the kingdom of Spain are one.  The mere
+thought of a Juan Diaz, who had absorbed the heretical Lutheran doctrine
+here, returning home to infect the hearts of the Castilians with its
+venom, makes my blood boil also.  Therefore, for the sake of Spain, a
+higher justice compels me to offend the secular one.  The people beyond
+the Pyrenees shall learn that, even for the brother, it is no sin, but a
+duty, to shorten the life of the brother who abandoned the holy Church.
+Let Alfonso Diaz strive to obtain absolution.  It will not be difficult.
+He can sleep calmly, so far as the judges are concerned who dispense
+justice in the name of Charles V."
+
+As he spoke he waved his hand to repel the hound which, when he raised
+his voice, had pressed closer to him, and glanced at the artistically
+wrought Nuremberg clocks on the writing table, two of which struck the
+hour at the same time.  Then he himself seized the little bell, rang it,
+and permitted the valet Adrian to brush his hair and make the necessary
+changes in his dress.
+
+Then he invited his sister to accompany him to the table.
+
+Walking without a shoe was difficult, and, when he saw the Queen look
+down sorrowfully at the cloths which swathed the foot, he said while
+toiling on:
+
+"Imagine that we have been hunting and the boot remained stuck in the
+mud.  I am sure of indulgence from you.  As to the others, even with only
+one shoe I am still the Emperor."
+
+He opened the door as he spoke, and, while the valet held the hound back,
+the Emperor, with chivalrous courtesy, insisted that his sister should
+precede him, though she resisted until Baron Malfalconnet, with a low bow
+to the royal dame, said:
+
+"The meal is served, your Majesty, and if you lead the way you will
+protect our Emperor and sovereign lord from the unworthy suspicion of
+wishing to be first at the trencher."
+
+He motioned toward the threshold as he uttered the words, but Charles,
+who often had a ready answer for the baron's jests, followed his sister
+in silence with a clouded brow.
+
+Leaning on her arm and the crutch which Quijada had mutely presented to
+him, Charles cautiously descended the stairs.  He had indignantly
+rejected the leech's proposal to use a litter in the house also, if the
+gout tortured him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Majesty, whose nature demands that people should look up to it, shuns the
+downward glance of compassion.  Yet during this walk the Emperor Charles,
+even at the risk of presenting a pitiable spectacle, would gladly have
+availed himself of the litter.
+
+He, who had cherished the proud feeling of uniting in himself, his own
+imperial power, the temporal and ecclesiastical sovereignty over all
+Christendom, would now willingly have changed places with the bronzed,
+sinewy halberdiers who were presenting arms to him along the sides of the
+staircase.  Yet he waved back Luis Quijada with an angry glance and the
+sharp query, "Who summoned you?" when, in an attitude of humble entreaty,
+he ventured to offer him the support of his strong arm.  Still, pain.
+compelled him to pause at every third step, and ever and anon to lean
+upon the strong hip of his royal sister.
+
+Queen Mary gladly rendered him the service, and, as she gazed into his
+face, wan with anxiety and suffering, and thought of the beautiful
+surprise which she had in store, she waved back, unnoticed by her royal
+brother, the pages and courtiers who were following close behind.  Then
+looking up at him, she murmured:
+
+"How you must suffer, Carlos!  But happiness will surely follow the
+martyrdom.  Only a few steps, a few minutes more, and you will again look
+life in the face with joyous courage.  You will not believe it?  Yet it
+is true.  I would even be inclined to wager my own salvation upon it."
+
+The Emperor shook his head dejectedly, and answered bitterly:
+
+"Such things should not be trifled with; besides, you would lose your
+wager.  Joyous courage, Querida, was buried long ago, and too many cares
+insure its having no resurrection.  The good gifts which Heaven formerly
+permitted me to enjoy have lost their zest; instead of bread, it now
+gives me stones.  The best enjoyment it still grants me--I am honest and
+not ungrateful in saying so--is a well-prepared meal.  Laugh, if you
+choose!  If moralists and philosophers heard me, they would frown.  But
+the consumption of good things affords them pleasure too.  It's a pity
+that satiety so speedily ends it."
+
+While speaking, he again descended a few steps, but the Queen, supporting
+him with the utmost solicitude, answered cheerily:
+
+"The baser senses, with taste at their head, and the higher ones of sight
+and hearing, I know, are all placed by your Majesty in the same regiment,
+with equal rank; your obedient servant, on the contrary, bestows the
+commissions of officers only on the higher ones.  That seems to me the
+correct way, and I don't relinquish the hope of winning for it the
+approval of the greatest general and most tasteful connoisseur of life."
+
+"If the new cook keeps his promise, certainly not," replied Charles,
+entering into his sister's tone.  "De Rye asserts that he is peerless.
+We shall see.  As to the senses, they all have an equal share in enabling
+us to receive our impressions and form an opinion from them.  Why should
+the tongue and the palate--But stay!  Who the devil can philosophize with
+such twinges in the foot?"
+
+"Besides, that can be done much better," replied the Queen, patting the
+sufferer's arm affectionately, "while the five unequal brothers are
+performing the duties of their offices.  The saints be praised!  Here we
+are at the bottom.  No, Carlos, no!  Not through the chapel!  The stone
+flags there are so hard and cold."
+
+As she spoke she guided him around it into the dining-room, where a large
+table stood ready for the monarch's personal suite and a smaller one for
+his sister and himself.
+
+The tortured sovereign, still under the influence of the suffering which
+he had endured, crossed himself and sat down.  Quijada and young Count
+Tassis, the Emperor's favourite page, placed the gouty foot in the most
+comfortable position, and Count Buren, the chamberlain, presented the
+menu.  Charles instantly scanned the list of dishes, and his face clouded
+still more as he missed the highly seasoned game pasty which the culinary
+artist had proposed and he had approved.  Queen Mary had ordered that it
+should be omitted, because Dr. Mathys had pronounced it poison for the
+gouty patient, and she confessed the offence.
+
+This was done with the frank affection with which she treated her
+brother, but Charles, after the first few words, interrupted her, harshly
+forbidding any interference, even hers, in matters which concerned
+himself alone, and in the same breath commanded Count Buren to see that
+the dish should still be made.  Then, as if to show his sister how little
+he cared for her opposition, he seized the crystal jug with his own hand,
+without waiting for the cup-bearer behind him, filled the goblet with
+fiery Xeres wine, and hurriedly drained it, though the leech had
+forbidden him, while suffering from the gout, to do more than moisten his
+lips with the heating liquor.
+
+The eyes of the royal huntress, though she was by no means unduly soft-
+hearted, grew dim with tears.  This was her brother's gratitude for the
+faithful care which she bestowed upon him!  Who could tell whether her
+surprise, instead of pleasing him, might not rouse his anger?  He was
+still frowning as though the greatest injury had been inflicted upon him,
+and his sister's tearful eyes led him to exclaim wrathfully, as if he
+wished to palliate his unchivalrous indignation to a lady:
+
+"I am deprived of one pleasure after another, and the little enjoyment
+remaining is lessened wherever it can be.  Who has heavier loads of
+anxiety to endure?--yet you spoil my recreation during the brief hours
+when I succeed in casting off the burden."
+
+Here he paused and obstinately grasped the golden handle of the pitcher
+again.  The Queen remained silent.  Contradiction would have made the
+obdurate sovereign empty another goblet also.  Even a look of entreaty
+would have been out of place on this occasion.  So she fixed her eves
+mutely and sadly upon her silver plate; but even her silence irritated
+the Emperor, and he was about to give fresh expression to his ill-humour,
+when the doors of the chapel opposite to him opened, and the surprise
+began.
+
+The signal for the commencement of the singing had been the delivery of
+the first dish from the steward to one of the great nobles, who presented
+it to their Majesties.
+
+The Queen's face brightened, and tears of heartfelt joy, instead of grief
+and disappointment, now moistened her eyes, for if ever a surprise had
+accomplished the purpose desired it was this one.
+
+Charles was gazing, as if the gates of Paradise had opened before him,
+toward the chapel doors, whence Maestro Gombert's Benedictio Mensae, a
+melody entirely new to him, was pouring like a holy benediction, devout
+yet cheering, sometimes solemn, anon full of joy.
+
+The lines of anxiety vanished from his brow as if at the spell of a
+magician.  The dull eyes gained a brilliant, reverent light, the bent
+figure straightened itself.  He seemed to his sister ten years younger.
+She saw in his every feature how deeply the music had affected him.
+
+She knew her imperial brother.  Had not his heart and soul been fully
+absorbed by the flood of pure and noble tones which so unexpectedly
+streamed toward him, his eves would have been at least briefly attracted
+by the dish which Count Krockow more than once presented, for it
+contained an oyster ragout which a mounted messenger had brought that
+noon from the Baltic Sea to the city on the Danube.
+
+Yet many long minutes elapsed ere he noticed the dish, though it was one
+of his favourite viands.  Barbara's song stirred the imperial lover of
+music at the nocturnal banquet just as it had thrilled the great
+musicians a few hours before.  He thought that he had never heard
+anything more exquisite, and when the Benedictio Mensa: died away he
+clasped his sister's hand, raised it two or three times to his lips, and
+thanked her with such affectionate warmth that she blessed the
+accomplishment of her happy idea, and willingly forgot the unpleasant
+moments she had just undergone.
+
+Now, as if completely transformed, he wished to be told who had had the
+lucky thought of summoning his orchestra and her boy choir, and how
+the plan had been executed; and when he had heard the story, he fervently
+praised the delicacy of feeling and true sportsmanlike energy of her
+strong and loving woman's heart.
+
+The court orchestra gave its best work, and so did the new head cook.
+The pheasant stuffed with snails and the truffle sauce with it seemed
+delicious to the sovereign, who called the dish a triumph of the culinary
+art of the Netherlands.  The burden of anxieties and the pangs inflicted
+by the gout seemed to be forgotten, and when the orchestra ceased he
+asked to hear the boy choir again.
+
+This time it gave the most beautiful portion of Joscluin de Pres's hymn
+to the Virgin, "Ecce tu pulchra es"; and when Barbara's "Quia amore
+langueo" reached his ear and heart with its love-yearning melody, he
+nodded to his sister with wondering delight, and then listened, as if
+rapt from the world, until the last notes of the motet died away.
+
+Where had Appenzelder discovered the marvellous boy who sang this
+"Quia amore langueo"?  He sent Don Luis Quijada to assure the leader and
+the young singer of his warmest approbation, and then permitted the Queen
+also to seek the choir and its leader to ask whom the latter had
+succeeded in obtaining in the place of the lad from Cologne, whom he had
+often heard sing the "tu pulchra es," but with incomparably less depth of
+feeling.
+
+When she returned she informed the Emperor of the misfortune which had
+befallen the two boys, and how successful Appenzelder had been in the
+choice of a substitute.  Yet she still concealed the fact that a girl was
+now the leader of his choir, for, kindly as her brother nodded to her
+when she took her place at the table again, no one could tell how he
+would regard this anomaly.
+
+Besides, the next day would be the 1st of May, the anniversary of the
+death of his wife Isabella, who had passed away from earth seven years
+before, and the more she herself had been surprised by the rare and
+singular beauty of the fair-haired songstress, the less could she venture
+on that day or the morrow to blend with the memories of the departed
+Queen the image of another woman who possessed such unusual charms.  The
+Emperor had already asked her a few questions about the young singers,
+and learned that the bell-like weaker voice, which harmonized so
+exquisitely with that of the invalid Johannes's substitute, belonged to
+the little Maltese lad Hannibal, whose darling wish, through Wolf's
+intercession, had been fulfilled.  His inquiries, however, were
+interrupted by a fresh performance of the boy choir.
+
+This again extorted enthusiastic applause from the sovereign, and when,
+while he was still shouting "Brava!" the highly seasoned game pasty which
+meanwhile, despite the regent's former prohibition, had been prepared,
+and now, beautifully browned, rose from a garland of the most tempting
+accessories, was offered, he waved it away.  As he did so his eyes sought
+his sister's, and his expressive features told her that he was imposing
+this sacrifice upon himself for her sake.
+
+It was long since he had bestowed a fairer gift.  True, in this mood, it
+seemed impossible for him to refrain from the wine.  It enlivened him and
+doubled the unexpected pleasure.  Unfortunately, he was to atone only too
+speedily for this offence against medical advice, for his heated blood
+increased the twinges of the gout to such a degree that he was compelled
+to relinquish his desire to listen to the exquisite singing longer.
+
+Groaning, he suffered himself--this time in a litter--to be carried back
+to his chamber, where, in spite of the pangs that tortured him, he asked
+for the letter in which Granvelle informed his royal master every evening
+what he thought of the political affairs to be settled the nextday.
+Master Adrian, the valet, had just brought it, but this time Charles
+glanced over the important expressions of opinion given by the young
+minister swiftly and without deeper examination.  The saying that the
+Emperor could not dispense with him, but he might do without the Emperor,
+had originally applied to his father, whose position he filled to the
+monarch's satisfaction in every respect.
+
+The confessor had reminded the sovereign of the anniversary which had
+already dawned, and which he was accustomed to celebrate in his own way.
+
+Very early in the morning, after a few hours spent in suffering, he heard
+mass, and then remained for hours in the sable-draped room where he
+communed with himself alone.
+
+The regent knew that on this memorable day he would not be seen even by
+her.  The success of the surprise afforded a guarantee that music would
+supply her place to him on the morrow also, and ere she left him she
+requested a short leave of absence to enjoy the hunting for which she
+longed, and permission to take his major-domo Quijada with her.
+
+An almost unintelligible murmur from the sufferer told her that he had
+granted the petition.  It was done reluctantly, but the Queen departed at
+dawn with Don Luis and a small train of attendants, while the Emperor
+retired into the black-draped chamber.
+
+The gout would really have prohibited him from kneeling before the altar,
+whence the agonized face of the crucified Redeemer, carved in ivory by a
+great Florentine master, gazed at him, but he took this torture upon
+himself.
+
+Even in the period of health and happiness when, at the age of twenty-
+three, besides the great boon of health, besides fame, power, and woman's
+love, he had enjoyed in rich abundance all the gifts which Heaven bestows
+on mortals, his devout nature had led him to retreat into a gloomy,
+solitary apartment.
+
+The feeling that constantly drew him thither again was akin to the dread
+which the ancients had of the envy of the gods, and, moreover, the
+admonition of his pious teacher who afterward became Pope Adrian, that
+the less man spares hiniself the more confidently he can rely upon the
+forbearance of God.
+
+And, in truth, this mighty sovereign, racked by almost unendurable pain,
+dealt cruelly enough with himself when he compelled his aching knee to
+bend until consciousness threatened to fail under the excess of agony.
+
+Nowhere did he find more complete calmness than here, in no spot could he
+pray more fervently, and the boon which he most ardently besought from
+Heaven was that it would spare him the fate of his insane mother, hold
+aloof the fiend which in many a gloomy hour he saw stretching a hand
+toward him.
+
+Here, too, he sought to penetrate the nature of death.  In this room,
+clothed with the sable hue of mourning, he felt that alreadv, while on
+earth, he had fallen into its all-levelling power.  Here his mind, like
+that of a dying man's, grasped for brief intervals what life had offered
+and what awaited him bevond the confines of this short earthly existence,
+in eternity.
+
+While thus occupied, the sovereign, accustomed to speculation,
+encountered many a dangerous doubt, but he only needed to gaze at the
+crucified Saviour to find the way again to the promises of his Church.
+
+The last years had deprived him of so large a portion of the most
+valuable possessions and the best ornaments of his life, and inflicted,
+both in wardly and outwardly, such keen suffering, that it was easy for
+him to perceive what a gain death would bring.
+
+What it could take from him was easilv lost; the relief it promised to
+afford no power, science, or art here on earth could procure for him--
+release from cruel suffering and oppressive cares.
+
+While he was learning the German language the name "Friend Hein," which
+he heard applied to death, perplexed him; now he thought that he
+understood it, for the man with the scythe wore to him also the face of a
+friend, who when the time had come would not keep him waiting long.  As
+he thought of his wife, of whose death this day was the anniversary, he
+felt inclined to envy her.  What he had lost by her decease seemed very
+little to others who were aware of the long periods of time during which,
+separated from each other, they had gone their own ways; but he knew
+that it was more than they supposed, for with Isabella he had lost the
+certainty that the sincere, nay, perhaps affectionate interest of a being
+united to him by the sacrament of marriage accompanied his every step.
+
+His pleasure in life had withered with the growth of the harsh conviction
+that he was no longer loved by any one for his own sake.
+
+In this chamber, draped with sable hangings, his own heart seemed dead,
+like dry wood from which only a miracle could lure green leafage again.
+With the only real pity which was at his command, compassion on himself,
+he rose from the kneeling posture which had become unbearable.
+
+With difficulty he sank into the arm-chair which stood ready for him,
+and, panting for breath, asked himself whether every joy had indeed
+vanished.  No!
+
+Music still stirred his benumbed heart to swifter throbbing.  He thought
+of the pleasure which the previous evening had afforded, and suddenly it
+seemed as if he again heard the "Quia amore langueo"--"Because I long for
+love"--that had touched his soul the day before.
+
+Yes, he, too, still longed for love, for a different, a warmer feeling
+than the lukewarm blood of his royal mother had bestowed upon her
+children, or the devotion of the sister to whom the chase was dearer than
+aught else, certainly than his society.
+
+But such thoughts did not befit this room, which was consecrated to
+serious reflections.  The anniversary summoned him to far different
+feelings.  Yet, powerfully as he resisted them, his awakened senses
+continued to demand their rights, and, while he closed his eyes and
+pressed his brow against the base of the altar covered with black cloth,
+changeful images of happier days rose before him.  He, too, had rejoiced
+in a vigorous, strong, and pliant body.  In the jousts he had been sure
+of victory over even dreaded opponents; as a bull-fighter he had excelled
+the matador; as a skilful participant in riding at the ring, as well as a
+tireless hunter, he had scarcely found his equal.  In the prime of his
+youth the hearts of many fair women had throbbed warmly for him, but he
+had been fastidious.  Yet where he had aimed at victory, he had rarely
+failed.
+
+The sensuous, fair-haired Duchess of Aerschot, the dark-eyed Cornelia
+Annoni of Milan, the devout Dolores Gonzaga, with her large, calm,
+enthusiastic eyes, and again and again, crowding all the others into the
+background, the timid Johanna van der Gheynst, who under her delicate
+frame concealed a volcano of ardent passion.  She had given him a
+daughter whose head was now adorned by a crown.  In spite of the brief
+duration of their love bond, she had been clearer to him than all the
+rest--clearer even than the woman to whom the sacrament of marriage
+afterward united him.  And she of whom seven years ago death had bereft
+him?
+
+At this question a bitter smile hovered around his full lips.  How much
+better love than hers he had known!  And how easy Isabella had rendered
+it not to weary of her, for during his long journeys and frequent
+dangerous campaigns, instead of accompanying him, she had led in some
+carefully guarded castle a life that suited her quiet tastes.
+
+A sorrowful smile curled his lips as he recalled the agreement which they
+had made just before a separation.  At that time both were young, yet how
+willingly she had accepted his proposal that, when age approached, they
+should separate forever, that she in one cloister and he in another might
+prepare for the end of life!
+
+What reply would a woman with true love in her heart have made to such a
+demand?
+
+No, no, Isabella had felt as little genuine love for him as he for her!
+Her death had been a sorrow to him, but he had shed no tears over it.
+
+He could not weep.  He no longer knew whether he was able to do so when a
+child.  Since his beard had grown, at any rate, his eyes had remained
+dry.  The words of the Roman satirist, that tears were the best portion
+of all human life, returned to his memory.  Would he himself ever
+experience the relief which they were said to afford the human heart?
+
+But who among the living would he have deemed worthy of them?  When his
+insane mother died, he could not help considering the poor Queen
+fortunate because Heaven had at last released her from such a condition.
+Of the children whom his wife Isabella and Johanna van der Gheynst had
+given him, he did not even think.  An icy atmosphere emanated from his
+son Philip which froze every warm feeling that encountered it.  He
+remembered his daughter with pleasure, but how rarely he was permitted to
+enjoy her society!  Besides, he had done enough for his posterity, more
+than enough.  To increase the grandeur of his family and render it the
+most powerful reigning house in the world, he had become prematurely old;
+had undertaken superhuman tasks of toil and care; even now he would
+permit himself no repose.  The consciousness of having fulfilled his duty
+to his family and the Church might have comforted him in this hour, but
+the plus ultra--more, farther--which had so often led him into the
+conflict for the dream of a world sovereignty, the grandeur of his own
+race, and against the foes of his holy faith, now met the barrier of a
+more powerful fate.  Instead of advancing, he had seemed, since the
+defeat at Algiers, to go backward.
+
+Besides, how often the leech threatened him with a speedy death if he
+indulged himself at table with the viands which suited his taste!  Yet
+the other things that remained for him to enjoy scarcely seemed worth
+mentioning.  To restore unity to the Church, to make the crowns which he
+wore the hereditary possessions of his house, were two aims worthy of the
+hardest struggles, but, unless he deceived himself, he could not hope to
+attain them.  Thus life, until its end--perhaps wholly unexpectedly--
+arrived within a brief season, offered him nothing save suffering and
+sacrifice, disappointment, toil, and anxieties.
+
+With little cheer or elevation of soul, he looked up and rang the
+bell.  Two chamberlains and Master Adrian appeared, and while Baron
+Malfalconnet, who did not venture to jest in this spot, offered him his
+arm and the valet the crutch, his confessor, Pedro de Soto, also entered
+the black-draped room.
+
+A single glance showed him that this time the quiet sojourn in the gloomy
+apartment, instead of exerting an elevating and brightening influence,
+had had a depressing and saddening effect upon the already clouded spirit
+of his imperial penitent.  In spite of the most zealous effort, he had
+not succeeded in finding his way into the soul-life of this sovereign,
+equally great in intellect and energy, but neither frank nor truthful,
+yet, on the other hand, his penetration often succeeded in fathoming the
+causes of the Emperor's moods.
+
+With the quiet firmness which harmonized so perfectly with a personal
+appearance that inspired confidence, the priest now frankly but
+respectfully expressed what he thought he had observed.
+
+True, he attributed the Emperor's deep despondency to totally different
+causes, but he openly deplored the sorrowful agitation which the memories
+of the beloved dead had awakened in his Majesty.
+
+In natural, simple words, the learned man, skilled in the art of
+language, represented to the imperial widower how little reason he had to
+mourn his devout wife.  He was rather justified in regarding her death
+hour as the first of a happy birthday.  For the sleeper whose dream here
+on earth he, Charles, had beautified in so many ways, a happy waking had
+long since followed in the land for which she had never ceased to yearn.
+For him, the Emperor, Heaven still had great tasks in this world, and
+many a victory awaited him.  If his prayer was heard, and his Majesty
+should decide to battle for the holiest cause, sorrowful anxieties would
+vanish from his pathway as the mists of dawn scatter before the rising
+sun.  He well knew the gravity of the demands which every day imposed
+upon his Majesty, but he could give him the assurance that nothing could
+be more pleasing to Heaven than that he, who was chosen as its champion,
+should, by mastering them, enjoy the gifts with which Eternal Love set
+its board as abundantly for the poorest carter as for the mightiest
+ruler.
+
+Then he spoke of the surprise of the night before, and how gratefully he
+had heard that music had once more exerted its former magic power.  Its
+effect would be permanent, even though physical suffering and sorrowful
+memories might interrupt it for a few brief hours.
+
+"That," he concluded, "Nature herself just at this season teaches us to
+hope.  This day of fasting and sadness will be followed by a series of
+the brightest weeks--the time of leafage, blossom, and bird songs, which
+is so dear to the merciful mother of God.  May the month of May, called
+by the Germans the joy month, and which dawns to-day with bright sunshine
+and a clear, blue sky, be indeed a season of joy to your Majesty!"
+
+"God grant it!" replied the Emperor dully, and then, with a shrug of
+the shoulders, added: "Besides, I can not imagine whence such joy should
+come to me.  A boy's bell-like voice sang to me yesterday, 'Quia amore
+langueo.'  This heart, too, longs for love, but it will never find it on
+earth."
+
+"Why not, if your Majesty sends forth to seek it?" replied the confessor
+eagerly.  "The Gospel itself gives a guarantee of success.  'Seek, and ye
+shall find,' it promises.  To the heart which longs for love the all-
+bountiful Father sends that for which it longs to meet it halfway."
+
+"When it is young," added the Emperor, shrugging his shoulders
+impatiently."  But when the soul's power of flight has failed, who
+will bestow the ability to traverse the half of the way allotted to it?"
+
+"The omnipotence which works greater miracles," replied the priest in a
+tone of the most ardent conviction, pointing upward.
+
+Charles nodded a mournful assent, and, after a sign which indicated to
+the confessor that he desired the interview to end, he continued his
+painful walk.
+
+He had waved aside the litter which the lord chamberlain, Count Heinrich
+of Nassau, had placed ready for him, and limped, amid severe suffering,
+to his room.
+
+There the Bishop of Arras awaited him with arduous work, and the Emperor
+did not allow himself a moment's rest while his sister was using the
+beautiful first of May to ride and hunt.  Charles missed her, and still
+more the faithful man who had served him as a page, and whom he had been
+accustomed since to have in close attendance upon him.
+
+To gratify his sister's passion for the chase he had given Quijada leave
+of absence, and now he regretted it.  True, he told no one that he missed
+Don Luis, but those who surrounded him were made to feel his ill-humour
+plainly enough.  Only he admitted to the Bishop of Arras that the radiant
+light which was shining into his window was disagreeable.  It made too
+strong a contrast to his gloomy soul, and it even seemed as though the
+course of the sun, in its beaming, unattainably lofty path, mocked the
+hapless, painful obstruction to his own motion.
+
+At noon he enjoyed very little of the meal, prepared for a fast day,
+which the new cook had made tempting enough.
+
+In reply to the Count of Nassau's inquiry whether he wished to hear any
+music, he had answered rudely that the musicians and the boy choir could
+play and sing in the chapel for aught he cared.  Whether he would listen
+to the performance was doubtful.
+
+Single tones had reached his ears, but he did not feel in the mood to
+descend the stairs.
+
+He went to rest earlier than usual.  The next morning, after mass, he
+himself asked for Josquin's "Ecce tu pulchra es."  It was to be sung
+during the noonday meal.  But when, instead of the Queen and Quijada,
+a little note came from his sister, requesting, in a jesting tone, an
+extension of the leave of absence because she trusted to the healing
+power of the sun and the medicine "music" upon her distinguished brother,
+and the chase bound her by a really magic spell to the green May woods,
+he flung the sheet indignantly away, and, just before the beginning of
+the meal, ordered the singing to be omitted.
+
+Either in consequence of the fasting or the warm sunshine, the pangs of
+the gout began to lessen; but, nevertheless, his mood grew still more
+melancholy, for he had believed in the sincere affection of two human
+beings, and Queen Mary left him alone in his misery, while his faithful
+Luis, to please the female Nimrod, did the same.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Dread which the ancients had of the envy of the gods
+Shuns the downward glance of compassion
+That tears were the best portion of all human life
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARA BLOMBERG, BY EBERS, V2 ***
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