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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Burgomaster's Wife, by Georg Ebers, v2
+#140 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+
+
+Title: The Burgomaster's Wife, Volume 2.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5579]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 12, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURGOMASTER'S WIFE, 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.]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 2.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A second and third rainy day followed the first one.  White mists and
+grey fog hung over the meadows.  The cold, damp north-west wind drove
+heavy clouds together and darkened the sky.  Rivulets dashed into the
+streets from the gutters on the steep roofs of Leyden; the water in the
+canals and ditches grew turbid and rose towards the edges of the banks.
+Dripping, freezing men and women hurried past each other without any form
+of greeting, while the pair of storks pressed closer to each other in
+their nest, and thought of the warm south, lamenting their premature
+return to the cold, damp, Netherland plain.
+
+In thoughtful minds the dread of what must inevitably come was
+increasing.  The rain made anxiety grow as rapidly in the hearts of many
+citizens, as the young blades of grain in the fields.  Conversations,
+that sounded anything but hopeful, took place in many tap-rooms--in
+others men were even heard declaring resistance folly, or loudly
+demanding the desertion of the cause of the Prince of Orange and liberty.
+
+Whoever in these days desired to see a happy face in Leyden might have
+searched long in vain, and would probably have least expected to find it
+in the house of Burgomaster Van der Werff.
+
+Three days had now elapsed since Peter's departure, nay the fourth was
+drawing towards noon, yet the burgomaster had not returned, and no
+message, no word of explanation, had reached his family.
+
+Maria had put on her light-blue cloth dress with Mechlin lace in the
+square neck, for her husband particularly liked to see her in this gown
+and he must surely return to-day.
+
+The spray of yellow wall-flowers on her breast had been cut from the
+blooming plant in the window of her room, and Barbara had helped arrange
+her thick hair.
+
+It lacked only an hour of noon, when the young wife's delicate, slender
+figure, carrying a white duster in her hand, entered the burgomaster's
+study.  Here she stationed herself at the window, from which the pouring
+rain streamed in numerous crooked serpentine lines, pressed her forehead
+against the panes, and gazed down into the quiet street.
+
+The water was standing between the smooth red tiles of the pavement.  A
+porter clattered by in heavy wooden shoes, a maid-servant, with a shawl
+wrapped around her head, hurried swiftly past, a shoemaker's boy, with a
+pair of boots hanging on his back, jumped from puddle to puddle,
+carefully avoiding the dry places;--no horseman appeared.
+
+It was almost unnaturally quiet in the house and street; she heard
+nothing except the plashing of the rain.  Maria could not expect her
+husband until the beat of horses' hoofs was audible; she was not even
+gazing into the distance--only dreamily watching the street and the
+ceaseless rain.
+
+The room had been thoughtfully heated for the drenched man, whose return
+was expected, but Maria felt the cold air through the chinks in the
+windows.  She shivered, and as she turned back into the dusky room, it
+seemed as if this twilight atmosphere must always remain, as if no more
+bright days could ever come.
+
+Minutes passed before she remembered for what purpose she had entered the
+room and began to pass the dusting-cloth over the writing-table, the
+piles of papers, and the rest of the contents of the apartment.  At last
+she approached the pistols, which Peter had not taken with him on his
+journey.
+
+The portrait of her husband's first wife hung above the weapons and sadly
+needed dusting, for until now Maria had always shrunk from touching it.
+
+To-day she summoned up her courage, stood opposite to it, and gazed
+steadily at the youthful features of the woman, with whom Peter had been
+happy.  She felt spellbound by the brown eyes that gazed at her from the
+pleasant face.
+
+Yes, the woman up there looked happy, almost insolently happy.  How much
+more had Peter probably given to his first wife than to her?
+
+This thought cut her to the heart, and without moving her lips she
+addressed a series of questions to the silent portrait, which still gazed
+steadily and serenely at her from its plain frame.
+
+Once it seemed as if the full lips of the pictured face quivered, once
+that the eyes moved.  A chill ran through her veins, she began to be
+afraid, yet could not leave the portrait, and stood gazing upward with
+dilated eyes.
+
+She did not stir, but her breath came quicker and quicker, and her eyes
+seemed to grow keener.
+
+A shadow rested on the dead Eva's high forehead.  Had the artist intended
+to depict some oppressive anxiety, or was what she saw only dust, that
+had settled on the colors?
+
+She pushed a chair towards the portrait and put her foot on the seat,
+pushing her dress away in doing so.  Blushing, as if other eyes than the
+painted ones were gazing down upon her, she drew it over the white
+stocking, then with a rapid movement mounted the seat.  She could now
+look directly into the eyes of the portrait.  The cloth in Maria's
+trembling hand passed over Eva's brow, and wiped the shadow from the rosy
+flesh.  She now blew the dust from the frame and canvas, and perceived
+the signature of the artist to whom the picture owed its origin.  "Artjen
+of Leyden," he called himself, and his careful hand had finished even the
+unimportant parts of the work with minute accuracy.  She well knew the
+silver chain with the blue turquoises, that rested on the plump neck.
+Peter had given it to her as a wedding present, and she had worn it to
+the altar; but the little diamond cross suspended from the middle she had
+never seen.  The gold buckle at Eva's belt had belonged to her since her
+last birthday--it was very badly bent, and the dull points would scarcely
+pierce the thick ribbon.
+
+"She had everything when it was new," she said to herself.  "Jewels?
+What do I care for them!  But the heart, the heart--how much love has
+she left in Peter's heart?"
+
+She did not wish to do so, but constantly heard these words ringing in
+her ears, and was obliged to summon up all her self-control, to save
+herself from weeping.
+
+"If he would only come, if he would only come!"  cried a voice in her
+tortured soul.
+
+The door opened, but she did not notice it.
+
+Barbara crossed the threshold, and called her by her name in a tone of
+kindly reproach.
+
+Maria started and blushing deeply, said"
+
+"Please give me your hand; I should like to get down.  I have finished.
+The dust was a disgrace."  When she again stood on the floor, the widow
+said, "What red cheeks you have!  Listen, my dear sister-in-law, listen
+to me, child--!"
+
+Barbara was interrupted in the midst of her admonition, for the knocker
+fell heavily on the door, and Maria hurried to the window.
+
+The widow followed, and after a hasty glance into the street, exclaimed:
+
+"That's Wilhelm Cornieliussohn, the musician.  He has been to Delft.  I
+heard it from his mother.  Perhaps he brings news of Peter.  I'll send
+him up to you, but he must first tell me below what his tidings are.  If
+you want me, you'll find me with Bessie.  She is feverish and her eyes
+ache; she will have some eruption or a fever."
+
+Barbara left the room.  Maria pressed her hands upon her burning cheeks,
+and paced slowly to and fro till the musician knocked and entered.
+
+After the first greeting, the young wife asked eagerly:
+
+"Did you see my husband in Delft?"
+
+"Yes indeed," replied Wilhelm, "the evening of the day before yesterday."
+
+"Then tell me--"
+
+"At once, at once.  I bring you a whole pouch full of messages.  First
+from your mother."
+
+"Is she well?"
+
+"Well and bright.  Worthy Doctor Groot too is hale and hearty."
+
+"And my husband?"
+
+"I found him with the doctor.  Herr Groot sends the kindest remembrances
+to you.  We had musical entertainments at his home yesterday and the day
+be fore.  He always has the latest novelties from Italy, and when we try
+this motet here--"
+
+"Afterwards, Herr Wilhelm!  You must first tell me what my husband--"
+
+"The burgomaster came to the doctor on a message from the Prince.  He was
+in haste, and could not wait for the singing.  It went off admirably.  If
+you, with your magnificent voice, will only--"
+
+"Pray, Meister Wilhelm?"
+
+"No, dear lady, you ought not to refuse.  Doctor Groot says, that when a
+girl in Delft, no one could support the tenor like you, and if you, Frau
+von Nordwyk, and Herr Van Aken's oldest daughter--"
+
+"But, my dear Meister!"  exclaimed the burgomaster's wife with increasing
+impatience, "I'm not asking about your motets and tabulatures, but my
+husband."
+
+Wilhelm gazed at the young wife's face with a half-startled, half-
+astonished look.  Then, smiling at his own awkwardness, he shook his
+head, saying in a tone of good-natured repentance:
+
+"Pray forgive me, little things seem unduly important to us when they
+completely fill our own souls.  One word about your absent husband must
+surely sound sweeter to your ears, than all my music.  I ought to have
+thought of that sooner.  So--the burgomaster is well and has transacted a
+great deal of business with the Prince.  Before he went to Dortrecht
+yesterday morning, he gave me this letter and charged me to place it in
+your hands with the most loving greetings."
+
+With these words the musician gave Maria a letter.  She hastily took it
+from his hand, saying:
+
+"No offence, Herr Wilhelm, but we'll discuss your motet to-morrow, or
+whenever you choose; to-day--"
+
+"To-day your time belongs to this letter," interrupted Wilhelm.  "That is
+only natural.  The messenger has performed his commission, and the music-
+master will try his fortune with you another time."
+
+As soon as the young man had gone, Maria went to her room, sat down at
+the window, hurriedly opened her husband's letter and read:
+
+     "MY DEAR AND FAITHFUL WIFE!
+
+     "Meister Wilhelm Corneliussohn, of Leyden, will bring you this
+     letter.  I am well, but it was hard for me to leave you on the
+     anniversary of our wedding-clay.  The weather is very bad.  I found
+     the Prince in sore affliction, but we don't give up hope, and if God
+     helps us and every man does his duty, all may yet be well.  I am
+     obliged to ride to Dortrecht to-day.  I have an important object to
+     accomplish there.  Have patience, for several days must pass before
+     my return.
+
+     "If the messenger from the council inquires, give him the papers
+     lying on the right-hand side of the writing-table under the smaller
+     leaden weight.  Remember me to Barbara and the children.  If money
+     is needed, ask Van Hout in my name for the rest of the sum due me;
+     he knows about it.  If you feel lonely, visit his wife or Frail von
+     Nordwyk; they would be glad to see you.  Buy as much meal, butter,
+     cheese, and smoked meat, as is possible.  We don't know what may
+     happen.  Take Barbara's advice!  Relying upon your obedience,
+
+                              "Your faithful husband,
+
+                                   "PETER ADRIANSSOHN VAN DER WERFF."
+
+Maria read this letter at first hastily, then slowly, sentence by
+sentence, to the end.  Disappointed, troubled, wounded, she folded it,
+drew the wall-flowers from the bosom of her dress--she knew not why--and
+flung them into the peat-box by the chimney-piece.  Then she opened her
+chest, took out a prettily-carved box, placed it on the table, and laid
+her husband's letter inside.
+
+Long after it had found a place with other papers, Maria still stood
+before the casket, gazing thoughtfully at its contents.
+
+At last she laid her hand on the lid to close it; but hesitated and took
+up a packet of letters that had lain amid several gold and silver coins,
+given by godmothers and godfathers, modest trinkets, and a withered rose.
+
+Drawing a chair up to the table, the young wife seated herself and began
+to read.  She knew these letters well enough.  A noble, promising youth
+had addressed them to her sister, his betrothed bride.  They were dated
+from Jena, whither he had gone to complete his studies in jurisprudence.
+Every word expressed the lover's ardent longing, every line was pervaded
+by the passion that had filled the writer's heart.  Often the prose of
+the young scholar, who as a pupil of Doctor Groot had won his bride in
+Delft, rose to a lofty flight.
+
+While reading, Maria saw in imagination Jacoba's pretty face, and the
+handsome, enthusiastic countenance of her bridegroom.  She remembered
+their gay wedding, her brother-in-law's impetuous friend, so lavishly
+endowed with every gift of nature, who had accompanied him to Holland to
+be his groomsman, and at parting had given her the rose which lay before
+her in the little casket.  No voice had ever suited hers so well; she had
+never heard language so poetical from any other lips, never had eyes that
+sparkled like the young Thuringian noble's looked into hers.
+
+After the wedding Georg von Dornberg returned home and the young couple
+went to Haarlem.  She had heard nothing from the young foreigner, and her
+sister and her husband were soon silenced forever.  Like most of the
+inhabitants of Haarlem, they were put to death by the Spanish destroyers
+at the capture of the noble, hapless city.  Nothing was left of her
+beloved sister except a faithful memory of her, and her betrothed
+bridegroom's letters, which she now held in her hand.
+
+They expressed love, the true, lofty love, that can speak with the
+tongues of angels and move mountains.  There lay her husband's letter.
+Miserable scrawl!  She shrank from opening it again, as she laid the
+beloved mementoes back into the box, yet her breast heaved as she thought
+of Peter.  She knew too that she loved him, and that his faithful heart
+belonged to her.  But she was not satisfied, she was not happy, for he
+showed her only tender affection or paternal kindness, and she wished to
+be loved differently.  The pupil, nay the friend of the learned Groot,
+the young wife who had grown up in the society of highly educated men,
+the enthusiastic patriot, felt that she was capable of being more, far
+more to her husband, than he asked.  She had never expected gushing
+emotions or high-strung phrases from the grave man engaged in vigorous
+action, but believed he would understand all the lofty, noble sentiments
+stirring in her soul, permit her to share his struggles and become the
+partner of his thoughts and feelings.  The meagre letter received to-day
+again taught her that her anticipations were not realized.
+
+He had been a faithful friend of her father, now numbered with the dead.
+Her brother-in-law too had attached himself, with all the enthusiasm of
+youth, to the older, fully-matured champion of liberty, Van der Werff.
+When he had spoken of Peter to Maria, it was always with expressions of
+the warmest admiration and love.  Peter had come to Delft soon after her
+father's death and the violent end of the young wedded pair, and when he
+expressed his sympathy and strove to comfort her, did so in strong,
+tender words, to which she could cling, as if to an anchor, in the misery
+of her heart.  The valient citizen of Leyden came to Delft more and more
+frequently, and was always a guest at Doctor Groot's house.  When the men
+were engaged in consultation, Maria was permitted to fill their glasses
+and be present at their conferences.  Words flew to and fro and often
+seemed to her neither clear nor wise; but what Van der Werff said was
+always sensible, and a child could understand his plain, vigorous speech.
+He appeared to the young girl like an oak-tree among swaying willows.
+She knew of many of his journeys, undertaken at the peril of his life,
+in the service of the Prince and his native land, and awaited their
+result with a throbbing heart.
+
+More than once in those days, the thought had entered her mind that it
+would be delightful to be borne through life in the strong arms of this
+steadfast man.  Then he extended these arms, and she yielded to his wish
+as proudly and happily as a squire summoned by the king to be made a
+knight.  She now remembered this by-gone time, and every hope with which
+she had accompanied him to Leyden rose vividly before her soul.
+
+Her newly-wedded husband had promised her no spring, but a pleasant
+summer and autumn by his side.  She could not help thinking of this
+comparison, and what entirely different things from those she had
+anticipated, the union with him had offered to this day.  Tumult,
+anxiety, conflict, a perpetual alternation of hard work and excessive
+fatigue, this was his life, the life he had summoned her to share at his
+side, without even showing any desire to afford her a part in his cares
+and labors.  Matters ought not, should not go on so.  Everything that had
+seemed to her beautiful and pleasant in her parents' home--was being
+destroyed here.  Music and poetry, that had elevated her soul, clever
+conversation, that had developed her mind, were not to be found here.
+Barbara's kind feelings could never supply the place of these lost
+possessions; for her husband's love she would have resigned them all--
+but what had become of this love?
+
+With bitter emotions, she replaced the casket in the chest and obeyed the
+summons to dinner, but found no one at the great table except Adrian and
+the servants.  Barbara was watching Bessie.
+
+Never had she seemed to herself so desolate, so lonely, so useless as
+to-day.  What could she do here?  Barbara ruled in kitchen and cellar,
+and she--she only stood in the way of her husband's fulfilling his duties
+to the city and state.
+
+Such were her thoughts, when the knocker again struck the door.  She
+approached the window.  It was the doctor.  Bessie had grown worse and
+she, her mother, had not even inquired for the little one.
+
+"The children, the children!"  she murmured; her sorrowful features
+brightened, and her heart grew lighter as she said to herself:
+
+"I promised Peter to treat them as if they were my own, and I will fulfil
+the duties I have undertaken."  Full of joyous excitement, she entered
+the sick-room, hastily closing the door behind her.  Doctor Bontius
+looked at her with a reproving glance, and Barbara said:
+
+"Gently, gently!  Bessie is just sleeping a little."  Maria approached
+the bed, but the physician waved her back, saying:
+
+"Have you had the purple-fever?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then you ought not to enter this room again.  No other help is needed
+where Frau Barbara nurses."
+
+The burgomaster's wife made no reply, and returned to the entry.  Her
+heart was so heavy, so unutterably heavy.  She felt like a stranger in
+her husband's house.  Some impulse urged her to go out of doors, and as
+she wrapped her mantle around her and went downstairs, the smell of
+leather rising from the bales piled in layers on the lower story, which
+she had scarcely noticed before, seemed unendurable.  She longed for her
+mother, her friends in Delft, and her quiet, cheerful home.  For the
+first time she ventured to call herself unhappy and, while walking
+through the streets with downcast eyes against the wind, struggled vainly
+to resist some mysterious, gloomy power, that compelled her to minutely
+recall everything that had resulted differently from her expectations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+After the musician had left the burgomaster's house, he went to young
+Herr Matanesse Van Wibisma's aunt to get his cloak, which had not been
+returned to him.  He did not usually give much heed to his dress, yet he
+was glad that the rain kept people in the house, for the outgrown wrap on
+his shoulders was by no means pleasing in appearance.  Wilhelm must
+certainly have looked anything but well-clad, for as he stood in old
+Fraulein Van Hoogstraten's spacious, stately hall, the steward Belotti
+received him as patronizingly as if he were a beggar.
+
+But the Neopolitan, in whose mouth the vigorous Dutch sounded like the
+rattling in the throat of a chilled singer, speedily took a different
+tone when Wilhelm, in excellent Italian, quietly explained the object of
+his visit.  Nay, at the sweet accents of his native tongue, the servant's
+repellent demeanor melted into friendly, eager welcome.  He was beginning
+to speak of his home to Wilhelm, but the musician made him curt replies
+and asked him to get his cloak.
+
+Belotti now led him courteously into a small room at the side of the
+great hall, took off his cloak, and then went upstairs.  As minute after
+minute passed, until at last a whole quarter of an hour elapsed, and
+neither servant nor cloak appeared, the young man lost his patience,
+though it was not easily disturbed, and when the door at last opened
+serious peril threatened the leaden panes on which he was drumming loudly
+with his fingers.  Wilhelm doubtless heard it, yet he drummed with
+redoubled vehemence, to show the Italian that the time was growing long
+to him.  But he hastily withdrew his fingers from the glass, for a girl's
+musical voice said behind him in excellent Dutch:
+
+"Have you finished your war-song, sir?  Belotti is bringing your cloak."
+
+Wilhelm had turned and was gazing in silent bewilderment into the face of
+the young noblewoman, who stood directly in front of him.  These features
+were not unfamiliar, and yet--years do not make even a goddess younger,
+and mortals increase in height and don't grow smaller; but the, lady whom
+he thought he saw before him, whom he had known well in the eternal city
+and never forgotten, had been older and taller than the young girl, who
+so strikingly resembled her and seemed to take little pleasure in the
+young man's surprised yet inquiring glance.  With a haughty gesture she
+beckoned to the steward, saying in Italian:
+
+"Give the gentleman his cloak, Belotti, and tell him I came to beg him to
+pardon your forgetfulness."
+
+With these words Henrica Van Hoogstraten turned towards the door, but
+Wilhelm took two hasty strides after her, exclaiming:
+
+"Not yet, not yet, Fraulein!  I am the one to apologize.  But if you
+have ever been amazed by a resemblance--"
+
+"Anything but looking like other people!"  cried the girl with a
+repellent gesture.
+
+"Ah, Fraulein, yet--"
+
+"Let that pass, let that pass," interrupted Henrica in so irritated a
+tone that the musician looked at her in surprise.  "One sheep looks just
+like another, and among a hundred peasants twenty have the same face.
+All wares sold by the dozen are cheap."
+
+As soon as Wilhelm heard reasons given, the quiet manner peculiar to him
+returned, and he answered modestly:
+
+"But nature also forms the most beautiful things in pairs.  Think of the
+eyes in the Madonna's face."
+
+"Are you a Catholic?"
+
+"A Calvinist, Fraulein."
+
+"And devoted to the Prince's cause?"
+
+"Say rather, the cause of liberty."
+
+"That accounts for the drumming of the war-song."
+
+"It was first a gentle gavotte, but impatience quickened the time.  I am
+a musician, Fraulein."
+
+"But probably no drummer.  The poor panes!"
+
+"They are an instrument like any other, and in playing we seek to express
+what we feel."
+
+"Then accept my thanks for not breaking them to pieces."
+
+"That wouldn't have been beautiful, Fraulein, and art ceases when
+ugliness begins."
+
+"Do you think the song in your cloak--it dropped on the ground and Nico
+picked it up--beautiful or ugly?"
+
+"This one or the other?"
+
+"I mean the Beggar-song."
+
+"It is fierce, but no more ugly than the roaring of the storm."
+
+"It is repulsive, barbarous, revolting."
+
+"I call it strong, overmastering in its power."
+
+"And this other melody?"
+
+"Spare me an answer; I composed it myself.  Can you read notes,
+Fraulein?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"And did my attempt displease you?"
+
+"Not at all, but I find dolorous passages in this choral, as in all the
+Calvinist hymns."
+
+"It depends upon how they are sung."
+
+"They are certainly intended for the voices of the shopkeepers' wives and
+washerwomen in your churches."
+
+"Every hymn, if it is only sincerely felt, will lend wings to the souls
+of the simple folk who sing it; and whatever ascends to Heaven from the
+inmost depths of the heart, can hardly displease the dear God, to whom it
+is addressed.  And then--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If these notes are worth being preserved, it may happen that a matchless
+choir--"
+
+"Will sing them to you, you think?"
+
+"No, Fraulein; they have fulfilled their destination if they are once
+nobly rendered.  I would fain not be absent, but that wish is far less
+earnest than the other."
+
+"How modest!"
+
+"I think the best enjoyment in creating is had in anticipation."
+
+Henrica gazed at the artist with a look of sympathy, and said with a
+softer tone in her musical voice:
+
+"I am sorry for you, Meister.  Your music pleases me; why should I deny
+it?  In many passages it appeals to the heart, but how it will be spoiled
+in your churches!  Your heresy destroys every art.  The works of the
+great artists are a horror to you, and the noble music that has unfolded
+here in the Netherlands will soon fare no better."
+
+"I think I may venture to believe the contrary."
+
+"Wrongly,  Meister, wrongly, for if your cause triumphs, which may the
+Virgin forbid, there will soon be nothing in Holland except piles of
+goods, workshops, and bare churches, from which even singing and organ-
+playing will soon be banished."
+
+"By no means, Fraulein.  Little Athens first became the home of the arts,
+after she had secured her liberty in the war against the Persians."
+
+"Athens and Leyden!" she answered scornfully.  "True, there are owls on
+the tower of Pancratius.  But where shall we find the Minerva?"
+
+While Henrica rather laughed than spoke these words, her name was called
+for the third time by a shrill female voice.  She now interrupted herself
+in the middle of a sentence, saying:
+
+"I must go.  I will keep these notes."
+
+"You will honor me by accepting them; perhaps you will allow me to bring
+you others."
+
+"Henrica!"  the voice again called from the stairs, and the young lady
+answered hastily:
+
+"Give Belotti whatever you choose, but soon, for I shan't stay here much
+longer."
+
+Wilhelm gazed after her.  She walked no less quickly and firmly through
+the wide hall and up the stairs, than she had spoken, and again he was
+vividly reminded of his friend in Rome.
+
+The old Italian had also followed Henrica with his eyes.  As she vanished
+at the last bend of the broad steps, he shrugged his shoulders, turned to
+the musician and said, with an expression of honest sympathy:
+
+"The young lady isn't well.  Always in a tumult; always like a loaded
+pistol, and these terrible headaches too!  She was different when she
+came here."
+
+"Is she ill?"
+
+"My mistress won't see it," replied the servant.  "But what the cameriera
+and I see, we see.  Now red--now pale, no rest at night, at table she
+scarcely eats a chicken-wing and a leaf of salad."
+
+"Does the doctor share your anxiety?"
+
+"The doctor?  Doctor Fleuriel isn't here.  He moved to Ghent when the
+Spaniards came, and since then my mistress will have nobody but the
+barber who bleeds her.  The doctors here are devoted to the Prince of
+Orange and are all heretics.  There, she is calling again.  I'll send the
+cloak to your house, and if you ever feel inclined to speak my language,
+just knock here.  That calling--that everlasting calling!  The young lady
+suffers from it too."
+
+When Wilhelm entered the street, it was only raining very slightly.  The
+clouds were beginning to scatter, and from a patch of blue sky the sun
+was shining brightly down on Nobelstrasse.  A rainbow shimmered in
+variegated hues above the roofs, but to-day the musician had no eyes for
+the beautiful spectacle.  The bright light in the wet street did not
+charm him.  The hot rays of the day-star were not lasting, for "they drew
+rain."  All that surrounded him seemed confused and restless.  Beside a
+beautiful image which he treasured in the sanctuary of his memories, only
+allowing his mind to dwell upon it in his happiest hours, sought to
+intrude.  His real diamond was in danger of being exchanged for a stone,
+whose value he did not know.  With the old, pure harmony blended another
+similar one, but in a different key.  How could he still think of
+Isabella, without remembering Henrica!  At least he had not heard the
+young lady sing, so his recollection of Isabella's songs remained
+unclouded.  He blamed himself because, obeying an emotion of vanity, he
+had promised to send new songs to the proud young girl, the friend of
+Spain.  He had treated Herr Matanesse Van Wibisma rudely on account of
+his opinions, but sought to approach her, who laughed at what he prized
+most highly, because she was a woman, and it was sweet to hear his work
+praised by beautiful lips.  "Hercules throws the club aside and sits down
+at the distaff, when Omphale beckons, and the beautiful Esther and the
+daughter of Herodias--" murmured Wilhelm indignantly.  He felt sorely
+troubled, and longed for his quiet attic chamber beside the dove-cote.
+
+"Something unpleasant has happened to him in Delft," thought his father.
+
+"Why doesn't he relish his fried flounders to-day?"  asked his mother,
+when he had left them after dinner.  Each felt that something oppressed
+the pride and favorite of the household, but did not attempt to discover
+the cause; they knew the moods to which he was sometimes subject for half
+a day.
+
+After Wilhelm had fed his doves, he went to his room, where he paced
+restlessly to and fro.  Then he seized his violin and wove all the
+melodies be had heard from Isabella's lips into one.  His music had
+rarely sounded so soft, and then so fierce and passionate, and his
+mother, who heard it in the kitchen, turned the twirling-stick faster and
+faster, then thrust it into the firmly-tied dough, and rubbing her hands
+on her apron, murmured:
+
+"How it wails and exults!  If it relieves his heart, in God's name let
+him do it, but cat-gut is dear and it will cost at least two strings."
+
+Towards evening Wilhelm was obliged to go to the drill of the military
+corps to which he belonged.  His company was ordered to mount guard at
+the Hoogewoort Gate.  As he marched through Nobelstrasse with it, he
+heard the low, clear melody of a woman's voice issuing from an open
+window of the Hoogstraten mansion.  He listened, and noticing with a
+shudder how much Henrica's voice--for the singer must be the young lady
+--resembled Isabella's, ordered the drummer to beat the drum.
+
+The next morning a servant came from the Hoogstraten house and gave
+Wilhelm a note, in which he was briefly requested to come to Nobelstrasse
+at two o'clock in the afternoon, neither earlier nor later.
+
+He did not wish to say "yes"--he could not say "no," and went to the
+house at the appointed hour.  Henrica was awaiting him in the little room
+adjoining the hall.  She looked graver than the day before, while heavier
+shadows under her eyes and the deep flush on her cheeks reminded Wilhelm
+of Belotti's fears for her health.  After returning his greeting, she
+said without circumlocution, and very rapidly:
+
+"I must speak to you.  Sit down.  To be brief, the way you greeted me
+yesterday awakened strange thoughts.  I must strongly resemble some other
+woman, and you met her in Italy.  Perhaps you are reminded of
+some one very near to me, of whom I have lost all trace.  Answer me
+honestly, for I do not ask from idle curiosity.  Where did you meet her?"
+
+"In Lugano.  We drove to Milan with the same vetturino, and afterwards I
+found her again in Rome and saw her daily for months."
+
+Then you know her intimately.  Do you still think the resemblance
+surprising, after having seen me for the second time?"
+
+"Very surprising."
+
+"Then I must have a double.  Is she a native of this country?"
+
+"She called herself an Italian, but she understood Dutch, for she has
+often turned the pages of my books and followed the conversation I had
+with young artists from our home.  I think she is a German lady of noble
+family."
+
+"An adventuress then.  And her name?"
+
+"Isabella--but I think no one would be justified in calling her an
+adventuress."
+
+"Was she married?"
+
+"There was something matronly in her majestic appearance, yet she never
+spoke of a husband.  The old Italian woman, her duenna, always called
+her Donna Isabella, but she possessed little more knowledge of her past
+than I."
+
+"Is that good or evil?"
+
+"Nothing at all, Fraulein."
+
+"And what led her to Rome?"
+
+"She practised the art of singing, of which she was mistress; but did not
+cease studying, and made great progress in Rome.  I was permitted to
+instruct her in counterpoint."
+
+"And did she appear in public as a singer?"
+
+"Yes and no.  A distinguished foreign prelate was her patron, and his
+recommendation opened every door, even the Palestrina's.  So the church
+music at aristocratic weddings was entrusted to her, and she did not
+refuse to sing at noble houses, but never appeared for pay.  I know that,
+for she would not allow any one else to play her accompaniments.  She
+liked my music, and so through her I went into many aristocratic houses."
+
+"Was she rich?"
+
+"No, Fraulein.  She had beautiful dresses and brilliant jewels, but was
+compelled to economize.  Remittances of money came to her at times from
+Florence, but the gold pieces slipped quickly through her fingers, for
+though she lived plainly and eat scarcely enough for a bird, while her
+delicate strength required stronger food, she was lavish to imprudence if
+she saw poor artists in want, and she knew most of them, for she did not
+shrink from sitting with them over their wine in my company."
+
+"With artists and musicians?"
+
+"Mere artists of noble sentiments.  At times she surpassed them all in
+her overflowing mirth."
+
+"At times?"
+
+"Yes, only at times, for she bad also sorrowful, pitiably sorrowful hours
+and days, but as sunshine and shower alternate in an April day, despair
+and extravagant gayety ruled her nature by turns."
+
+"A strange character.  Do you know her end?"
+
+"No, Fraulein.  One evening she received a letter from Milan, which must
+have contained bad news, and the next day vanished without any farewell."
+
+"And you did not try to follow her?"
+
+Wilhelm blushed, and answered in an embarrassed tone:
+
+"I had no right to do so, and just after her departure I fell sick--
+dangerously sick."
+
+"You loved her?"
+
+"Fraulein, I must beg you--"
+
+"You loved her!  And did she return your affection?"
+
+"We have known each other only since yesterday, Fraulein von
+Hoogstraten."
+
+"Pardon me!  But if you value my desire, we shall not have seen each
+other for the last time, though my double is undoubtedly a different
+person from the one I supposed.  Farewell till we meet again.  You hear,
+that calling never ends.  You have aroused an interest in your strange
+friend, and some other time must tell me more about her.  Only this one
+question: Can a modest maiden talk of her with you without disgrace?"
+
+"Certainly, if you do not shrink from speaking of a noble lady who had no
+other protector than herself."
+
+"And you, don't forget yourself!"  cried Henrica, leaving the room.
+
+The musician walked thoughtfully towards home.  Was Isabella a relative
+of this young girl?  He had told Henrica almost all he knew of her
+external circumstances, and this perhaps gave the former the same right
+to call her an adventuress, that many in Rome had assumed.  The word
+wounded him, and Henrica's inquiry whether he loved the stranger
+disturbed him, and appeared intrusive and unseemly.  Yes, he had felt an
+ardent love for her; ay, he had suffered deeply because he was no more
+to her than a pleasant companion and reliable friend.  It had cost him
+struggles enough to conceal his feelings, and he knew, that but for the
+dread of repulse and scorn, he would have yielded and revealed them to
+her.  Old wounds in his heart opened afresh, as he recalled the time she
+suddenly left Rome without a word of farewell.  After barely recovering
+from a severe illness, he had returned home pale and dispirited, and
+months elapsed ere he could again find genuine pleasure in his art.
+At first, the remembrance of her contained nothing save bitterness, but
+now, by quiet, persistent effort, he had succeeded, not in attaining
+forgetfulness, but in being able to separate painful emotions from the
+pure and exquisite joy of remembering her.  To-day the old struggle
+sought to begin afresh, but he was not disposed to yield, and did not
+cease to summon Isabella's image, in all its beauty, before his soul.
+
+Henrica returned to her aunt in a deeply-agitated mood.  Was the
+adventuress of whom Wilhelm had spoken, the only creature whom she loved
+with all the ardor of her passionate soul?  Was Isabella her lost sister?
+Many incidents were opposed to it, yet it was possible.  She tortured
+herself with questions, and the less peace her aunt gave her, the more
+unendurable her headache became, the more plainly she felt that the
+fever, against whose relaxing power she had struggled for days, would
+conquer her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+On the evening of the third day after Wilhelm's interview with Henrica,
+his way led him through Nobelstrasse past the Hoogstraten mansion.
+
+Ere reaching it, he saw two gentlemen, preceded by a servant carrying a
+lantern, cross the causeway towards it.
+
+Wilhelm's attention was attracted.  The servant now seized the knocker,
+and the light of his lantern fell on the men's faces.  Neither was
+unfamiliar to him.
+
+The small, delicate old man, with the peaked hat and short black velvet
+cloak, was Abbe Picard, a gay Parisian, who had come to Leyden ten years
+before and gave French lessons in the wealthy families of the city.  He
+had been Wilhelm's teacher too, but the musician's father, the Receiver-
+General, would have nothing to do with the witty abbe; for he was said
+to have left his beloved France on account of some questionable
+transactions, and Herr Cornelius scented in him a Spanish spy.  The
+other gentleman, a grey-haired, unusually stout man, of middle height,
+who required a great deal of cloth for his fur-bordered cloak, was Signor
+Lamperi, the representative of the great Italian mercantile house of
+Bonvisi in Antwerp, who was in the habit of annually coming to Leyden on
+business for a few weeks with the storks and swallows, and was a welcome
+guest in every tap-room as the inexhaustible narrator of funny stories.
+Before these two men entered the house, they were joined by a third,
+preceded by two servants carrying lanterns.  A wide cloak enveloped his
+tall figure; he too stood on the threshold of old age and was no stranger
+to Wilhelm, for the Catholic Monseigneur Gloria, who often came to Leyden
+from Haarlem, was a patron of the noble art of music, and when the young
+man set out on his journey to Italy had provided him, spite of his
+heretical faith, with valuable letters of introduction.
+
+Wilhelm, as the door closed behind the three gentlemen, continued his
+way.  Belotti had told him the day before that the young lady seemed very
+ill, but since her aunt was receiving guests, Henrica was doubtless
+better.
+
+The first story in the Hoogstraten mansion was brightly lighted, but in
+the second a faint, steady glow streamed into Nobelstrasse from a single
+window, while she for whom the lamp burned sat beside a table, her eyes
+sparkling with a feverish glitter, as she pressed her forehead against
+the marble top.  Henrica was entirely alone in the wide, lofty room her
+aunt had assigned her.  Behind curtains of thick faded brocade was her
+bedstead, a heavy structure of enormous width.  The other articles of
+furniture were large and shabby, but had once been splendid.  Every
+chair, every table looked as if it had been taken from some deserted
+banqueting-hall.  Nothing really necessary was lacking in the apartment,
+but it was anything but home-like and cosey, and no one would ever have
+supposed a young girl occupied it, had it not been for a large gilt harp
+that leaned against the long, hard couch beside the fireplace.
+
+Henrica's head was burning but, though she had wrapped a shawl around her
+lower limbs, her feet were freezing on the uncarpeted stone floor.
+
+A short time after the three gentlemen had entered her aunt's house, a
+woman's figure ascended the stairs leading from the first to the second
+story.  Henrica's over-excited senses perceived the light tread of the
+satin shoes and the rustle of the silk train, long before the approaching
+form had reached the room, and with quickened breathing, she sat erect.
+
+A thin hand, without any preliminary knock, now opened the door and old
+Fraulein Van Hoogstraten walked up to her niece.
+
+The elderly dame had once been beautiful, now and at this hour she
+presented a strange, unpleasing appearance.
+
+The thin, bent figure was attired in a long trailing robe of heavy pink
+silk.  The little head almost disappeared in the ruff, a large structure
+of immense height and width.  Long chains of pearls and glittering gems
+hung on the sallow skin displayed by the open neck of her dress, and on
+the false, reddish-yellow curls rested a roll of light-blue velvet decked
+with ostrich plumes.  A strong odor of various fragrant essences preceded
+her.  She herself probably found them somewhat overpowering, for her
+large glittering fan was in constant motion and fluttered violently, when
+in answer to her curt: "Quick, quick," Henrica returned a resolute "no,
+'ma tante.'"
+
+The old lady, however, was not at all disconcerted by the refusal, but
+merely repeated her "Quick, quick," more positively, adding as an
+important reason:
+
+"Monseigneur has come and wants to hear you."
+
+"He does me great honor," replied the young girl, "great honor, but how
+often must I repeat: I will not come."
+
+"Is it allowable to ask why not, my fair one?"  said the old lady.
+
+"Because I am not fit for your society," cried Henrica vehemently,
+"because my head aches and my eyes burn, because I can't sing to-day,
+and because--because--because--I entreat you, leave me in peace."
+
+Old Fraulein Van Hoogstraten let her fan sink by her side, and said
+coolly:
+
+"Were you singing two hours ago--yes or no?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then your headache can't be so very bad, and Denise will dress you."
+
+"If she comes, I'll send her away.  When I just took the harp, I did so
+to sing the pain away.  It was relieved for a few minutes, but now my
+temples are throbbing with twofold violence."
+
+"Excuses."
+
+"Believe what you choose.  Besides--even if I felt better at this moment
+than a squirrel in the woods.  I wouldn't go down to see the gentlemen.
+I shall stay here.  I have given my word, and I am a Hoogstraten as well
+as you."
+
+Henrica had risen, and her eyes flashed with a gloomy fire at her
+oppressor.  The old lady waved her fan faster, and her projecting chin
+trembled.  Then she said curtly:
+
+"Your word of honor!  So you won't!  You won't!"
+
+"Certainly not," cried the young girl with undutiful positiveness.
+
+"Everybody must have his way," replied the old lady, turning towards the
+door.  "What is too wilful is too wilful.  Your father won't thank you
+for this."  With these words Fraulein Van Hoogstraten raised her long
+train and approached the door.  There she paused, and again glanced
+enquiringly at Henrica.  The latter doubtless noticed her aunt's
+hesitation, but without heeding the implied threat intentionally turned
+her back.
+
+As soon as the door closed, the young girl sank back into her chair,
+pressed her forehead against the marble slab and let it remain there a
+long time.  Then she rose as suddenly and hastily as if obeying some
+urgent summons, raised the lid of her trunk, tossed the stockings,
+bodices and shoes, that came into her way, out on the floor, and did not
+rise until she had found a few sheets of writing-paper which she had
+laid, before leaving her father's castle, among the rest of her property.
+
+As she rose from her kneeling posture, she was seized with giddiness,
+but still kept her feet, carried to the table first the white sheets and
+a portfolio, then the large inkstand that had already stood several days
+in her room, and seated herself beside it.
+
+Leaning far back in her chair, she began to write.  The book that served
+as a desk lay on her knee, the paper on the book.  Creaking and pausing,
+the goosequill made large, stiff letters on the white surface.  Henrica
+was not skilled in writing, but to-day it must have been unspeakably
+difficult for her; her high forehead became covered with perspiration,
+her mouth was distorted by pain, and whenever she had finished a few
+lines, she closed her eyes or drank greedily from the water-pitcher that
+stood beside her.
+
+The large room was perfectly still, but the peace that surrounded her was
+often disturbed by strange noises and tones, that rose from the dining-
+hall directly under her chamber.  The clinking of glasses, shrill
+tittering, loud, deep laughter, single bars of a dissolute love-song,
+cheers, and then the sharp rattle of a shattered wine glass reached her
+in mingled sounds.  She did not wish to hear it, but could not escape and
+clenched her white teeth indignantly.  Yet meantime the pen did not
+wholly stop.
+
+She wrote in broken, or long, disconnected sentences, almost incoherently
+involved.  Sometimes there were gaps, sometimes the same word was twice
+or thrice repeated.  The whole resembled a letter written by a lunatic,
+yet every line, every stroke of the pen, expressed the same desire
+uttered with passionate longing: "Take me away from here!  Take me away
+from this woman and this house!"
+
+The epistle was addressed to her father.  She implored him to rescue her
+from this place, come or send for her.  "Her uncle, Matanesse Van
+Wibisma," she said, "seemed to be a sluggish messenger; he had probably
+enjoyed the evenings at her aunt's, which filled her, Henrica, with
+loathing.  She would go out into the world after her sister, if her
+father compelled her to stay here."  Then she began a description of her
+aunt and her life.  The picture of the days and nights she had now spent
+for weeks with the old lady, presented in vivid characters a mixture of
+great and petty troubles, external and mental humiliations.
+
+Only too often the same drinking and carousing had gone on below as
+to-day-Henrica had always been compelled to join her aunt's guests,
+elderly dissolute men of French or Italian origin and easy morals.  While
+describing these conventicles, the blood crimsoned her flushed cheeks
+still more deeply, and the long strokes of the pen grew heavier and
+heavier.  What the abbe related and her aunt laughed at, what the Italian
+screamed and Monseigneur smilingly condemned with a slight shake of the
+head, was so shamelessly bold that she would have been defiled by
+repeating the words.  Was she a respectable girl or not?  She would
+rather hunger and thirst, than be present at such a banquet again.  If
+the dining-room was empty, other unprecedented demands were made upon
+Henrica, for then her aunt, who could not endure to be alone a moment,
+was sick and miserable, and she was obliged to nurse her.  That she
+gladly and readily served the suffering, she wrote, she had sufficiently
+proved by her attendance on the village children when they had the
+smallpox, but if her aunt could not sleep she was compelled to watch
+beside her, hold her hand, and listen until morning as she moaned, whined
+and prayed, sometimes cursing herself and sometimes the treacherous
+world.  She, Henrica, had come to the house strong and well, but so much
+disgust and anger, such constant struggling to control herself had robbed
+her of her health.
+
+The young girl had written until midnight.  The letters became more and
+more irregular and indistinct, the lines more crooked, and with the last
+words: "My head, my poor head!  You will see that I am losing my senses.
+I beseech you, I beseech you, my dear, stern father, take me home.
+I have again heard something about Anna--" her eyes grew dim, her pen
+dropped from her hand, and she fell back in the chair unconscious.
+
+There she lay, until the last laugh and sound of rattling glass had died
+away below, and her aunt's guests had left the house.
+
+Denise, the cameriera, noticed the light in the room, entered, and after
+vainly endeavoring to rouse Henrica, called her mistress.
+
+The latter followed the maid, muttering as she ascended the stairs:
+
+"Fallen asleep, found the time hang heavy--that's all!  She might have
+been lively and laughed with us!  Stupid race!  'Men of butter,' King
+Philip says.  That wild Lamperi was really impertinent to-night, and the
+abbe said things--things--"
+
+The old lady's large eyes were sparkling vinously, and her fan waved
+rapidly to and fro to cool the flush on her cheeks.
+
+She now stood opposite to Henrica, called her, shook her and sprinkled
+her with perfumed water from the large shell, set in gold, which hung as
+an essence bottle from her belt.  When her niece only muttered incoherent
+words, she ordered the maid to bring her medicine-chest.
+
+Denise had gone and Fraulein Van Hoogstraten now perceived Henrica's
+letter, raised it close to her eyes, read page after page with increasing
+indignation, and at last tossed it on the floor and tried to shake her
+niece awake; but in vain.
+
+Meantime Belotti had been informed of Henrica's serious illness and, as
+he liked the young girl, sent for a physician on his own responsibility,
+and instead of the family priest summoned Father Damianus.  Then he went
+to the sick girl's chamber.
+
+Even before he crossed the threshold, the old lady in the utmost
+excitement, exclaimed:
+
+"Belotti, what do you say now, Belotti?  Sickness in the house, perhaps
+contagious sickness, perhaps the plague."
+
+"It seems to be only a fever," replied the Italian soothingly.  "Come,
+Denise, we will carry the young lady to the bed.
+
+"The doctor will soon be here."
+
+"The doctor?"  cried the old lady, striking her fan on the marble top of
+the table.  "Who permitted you, Belotti--"
+
+"We are Christians," interrupted the servant, not without dignity.
+
+"Very well, very well," she cried.  "Do what you please, call whom you
+choose, but Henrica can't stay here.  Contagion in the house, the plague,
+a black tablet."
+
+"Excellenza is disturbing herself unnecessarily.  Let us first hear what
+the doctor says."
+
+"I won't hear him; I can't bear the plague and the small-pox.  Go down at
+once, Belotti, and have the sedan-chair prepared.  The old chevalier's
+room in the rear building is empty."
+
+"But, Excellenza, it's gloomy, and so damp that the north wall is covered
+with mould."
+
+"Then let it be aired and cleaned.  What does this delay mean?  You have
+only to obey.  Do you understand?"
+
+"The chevalier's room isn't fit for my mistress's sick niece," replied
+Belotti civilly, but resolutely.
+
+"Isn't it?  And you know exactly?"  asked his mistress scornfully.
+"Go down, Denise, and order the sedan-chair to be brought up.  Have you
+anything more to say, Belotti?"
+
+"Yes, Padrona," replied the Italian, in a trembling voice.  "I beg your
+excellenza to dismiss me."
+
+"Dismiss you from my service?"
+
+"With your excellenza's permission, yes--from your service."
+
+The old woman started, clasped her hands tightly upon her fan, and said:
+
+"You are irritable, Belotti."
+
+"No, Padrona, but I am old and dread the misfortune of being ill in this
+house."
+
+Fraulein Van Hoogstraten shrugged her shoulders and turning to her maid,
+cried:
+
+"The sedan-chair, Denise.  You are dismissed, Belotti."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+The night, on which sorrow and sickness had entered the Hoogstraten
+mansion, was followed by a beautiful morning.  Holland again became
+pleasant to the storks, that with a loud, joyous clatter flew clown into
+the meadows on which the sun was shining.  It was one of those days the
+end of April often bestows on men, as if to show them that they render
+her too little, her successor too much honor.  April can boast that in
+her house is born the spring, whose vigor is only strengthened and beauty
+developed by her blooming heir.
+
+It was Sunday, and whoever on such a day, while the bells are ringing,
+wanders in Holland over sunny paths, through flowery meadows where
+countless cattle, woolly cheep, and idle horses are grazing, meeting
+peasants in neat garments, peasant women with shining gold ornaments
+under snow-white lace caps, citizens in gay attire and children released
+from school, can easily fancy that even nature wears a holiday garb and
+glitters in brighter green, more brilliant blue, and more varied
+ornaments of flowers than on work-days.
+
+A joyous Sunday mood doubtless filled the minds of the burghers, who
+to-day were out of doors on foot, in large over-crowded wooden wagons,
+or gaily-painted boats on the Rhine, to enjoy the leisure hours of the
+day of rest, eat country bread, yellow butter, and fresh cheese, or drink
+milk and cool beer, with their wives and children.
+
+The organist, Wilhelm, had long since finished playing in the church, but
+did not wander out into the fields with companions of his own age, for he
+liked to use such days for longer excursions, in which walking was out of
+the question.
+
+They bore him on the wings of the wind over his native plains, through
+the mountains and valleys of Germany, across the Alps to Italy.  A spot
+propitious for such forgetfulness of the present and his daily
+surroundings, in favor of the past and a distant land, was ready.  His
+brothers, Ulrich and Johannes, also musicians, but who recognized
+Wilhelm's superior talent without envy and helped him develop it, had
+arranged for him, during his stay in Italy, a prettily-furnished room in
+the narrow side of the pointed roof of the house, from which a broad door
+led to a little balcony.  Here stood a wooden bench on which Wilhelm
+liked to sit, watching the flight of his doves, gazing dreamily into the
+distance or, when inclined to artistic creation, listening to the
+melodies that echoed in his soul.
+
+This highest part of the house afforded a beautiful prospect; the view
+was almost as extensive as the one from the top of the citadel, the old
+Roman tower situated in the midst of Leyden.  Like a spider in its web,
+Wilhelm's native city lay in the midst of countless streams and canals
+that intersected the meadows.  The red brick masonry of the city wall,
+with its towers and bastions, washed by a dark strip of water, encircled
+the pretty place as a diadem surrounds a young girl's head; and like a
+chaplet of loosely-bound thorns, forts and redoubts extended in wider,
+frequently broken circles around the walls.  The citizens' herds of
+cattle grazed between the defensive fortifications and the city wall,
+while beside and beyond them appeared villages and hamlets.
+
+On this clear April day, looking towards the north, Haarlem lake was
+visible, and on the west, beyond the leafy coronals of the Hague woods,
+must be the downs which nature had reared for the protection of the
+country against the assaults of the waves.  Their long chain of hillocks
+offered a firmer and more unconquerable resistance to the pressure of the
+sea, than the earthworks and redoubts of Alfen, Leyderdorp and
+Valkenburg, the three forts situated close to the banks of the Rhine,
+presented to hostile armies.  The Rhine!  Wilhelm gazed down at the
+shallow, sluggish river, and compared it to a king deposed from his
+throne, who has lost power and splendor and now kindly endeavors to
+dispense benefits in little circles with the property that remains.  The
+musician was familiar with the noble, undivided German Rhine; and often
+followed it in imagination towards the south but more often still his
+dreams conveyed him with a mighty leap to Lake Lugano, the pearl of the
+Western Alps, and when he thought of it and the Mediterranean, beheld
+rising before his mental vision emerald green, azure blue, and golden
+light; and in such hours all his thoughts were transformed within his
+breast into harmonies and exquisite music.
+
+And his journey from Lugano to Milan!  The conveyance that bore him to
+Leonardo's city was plain and overcrowded, but in it he had found
+Isabella.  And Rome, Rome, eternal, never-to-be-forgotten Rome, where so
+long as we dwell there, we grow out of ourselves, increase in strength
+and intellectual power, and which makes us wretched with longing when it
+lies behind us.
+
+By the Tiber Wilhelm had first thoroughly learned what art, his glorious
+art was; here, near Isabella, a new world had opened to him, but a sharp
+frost had passed over the blossoms of his heart that had unfolded in
+Rome, and he knew they were blighted and could bear no fruit--yet to-day
+he succeeded in recalling her in her youthful beauty, and instead of the
+lost love, thinking of the kind friend Isabella and dreaming of a sky
+blue as turquoise, of slender columns and bubbling fountains, olive
+groves and marble statues, cool churches and gleaming villas, sparkling
+eyes and fiery wine, magnificent choirs and Isabella's singing.
+
+The doves that cooed and clucked, flew away and returned to the cote
+beside him, could now do as they chose, their guardian neither saw nor
+heard them.
+
+Allertssohn, the fencing-master, ascended the ladder to his watch-tower,
+but he did not notice him until he stood on the balcony by his side,
+greeting him with his deep voice.
+
+"Where have we been, Herr Wilhelm?"  asked the old man.  "In this cloth-
+weaving Leyden?  No!  Probably with the goddess of music on Olympus, if
+she has her abode there."
+
+"Rightly guessed," replied Wilhelm, pushing the hair back from his
+forehead with both hands." I have been visiting her, and she sends you a
+friendly greeting."
+
+"Then offer one from me in return," replied the other, "but she usually
+belongs to the least familiar of my acquaintances.  My throat is better
+suited to drinking than singing.  Will you allow me?"
+
+The fencing-master raised the jug of beer which Wilhelm's mother filled
+freshly every day and placed in her darling's room, and took a long pull.
+Then wiping his moustache, he said:
+
+That did me good, and I needed it.  The men wanted to go out pleasuring
+and omit their drill, but we forced them to go through it, Junker von
+Warmond, Duivenvoorde and I.  Who knows how soon it may be necessary to
+show what we can do.  Roland, my fore man, such imprudence is like a
+cudgel, against which one can do nothing with Florentine rapiers, clever
+tierce and quarto.  My wheat is destroyed by the hail."
+
+"Then let it he, and see if the barley and clover don't do better,"
+replied Wilhelm gaily, tossing vetches and grains of wheat to a large
+dove that had alighted on the parapet of his tower.
+
+"It eats, and what use is it?"  cried Allertssohn, looking at the dove.
+"Herr von Warmond, a young man after God's own heart, has just brought me
+two falcons; do you want to see bow I tame them?"
+
+"No, Captain, I have enough to do with my music and my doves."
+
+"That is your affair.  The long-necked one yonder is a queer-looking
+fellow."
+
+"And of what country is he probably a native?  There he goes to join the
+others.  Watch him a little while and then answer me."
+
+"Ask King Soloman that; he was on intimate terms with birds."
+
+"Only watch him, you'll find out presently."
+
+"The fellow has a stiff neck, and holds his head unusually high."
+
+"And his beak?"
+
+"Curved, almost like a hawk's!  Zounds, why does the creature strut about
+with its toes so far apart?  Stop, bandit!  He'll peck that little dove
+to death.  As true as I live, the saucy rascal must be a Spaniard!"
+
+"Right, it is a Spanish dove.  It flew to me, but I can't endure it and
+drive it away; for I keep only a few pairs of the same breed and try to
+get the best birds possible.  Whoever raises many different kinds in the
+same cote, will accomplish nothing."
+
+"That gives food for thought.  But I believe you haven't chosen the
+handsomest species."
+
+"No, sir.  What you see are a cross between the carrier and tumblers, the
+Antwerp breed of carrier pigeons.  Bluish, reddish, spotted birds.
+I don't care for the colors, but they must have small bodies and large
+wings, with broad quills on their flag-feathers, and above all ample
+muscular strength.  The one yonder stop, I'll catch him--is one of my
+best flyers.  Try to lift his pinions."
+
+"Heaven knows the little thing has marrow in its bones!  How the tiny
+wing pinches; the falcons are not much stronger."
+
+"It's a carrier-dove too, that finds its way alone."
+
+"Why do you keep no white tumblers?  I should think they could be watched
+farthest in their flight."
+
+"Because doves fare like men.  Whoever shines very brightly and is seen
+from a distance, is set upon by opponents and envious people, and birds
+of prey pounce upon the white doves first.  I tell you, Captain, whoever
+has eyes in his head, can learn in a dove-cote how things come to pass
+among Adam and Eve's posterity on earth."
+
+"There is quarrelling and kissing up here just as there is in Leyden."
+
+"Yes, exactly the same, Captain.  If I mate an old dove with one much
+younger, it rarely turns out well.  When the male dove is in love, he
+understands how to pay his fair one as many attentions, as the most
+elegant gallant shows the mistress of his heart.  And do you know what
+the kissing means?  The suitor feeds his darling, that is, seeks to win
+her affection by beautiful gifts.  Then the wedding comes, and they build
+a nest.  If there are young birds, they feed them together in perfect
+harmony.  The aristocratic doves brood badly, and we put their eggs under
+birds of more ordinary breed."
+
+"Those are the noble ladies, who have nurses for their infants."
+
+"Unmated doves often make mischief among the mated ones."
+
+"Take warning, young man, and beware of being a bachelor.  I'll say
+nothing against the girls who remain unmarried, for I have found among
+them many sweet, helpful souls."
+
+"So have I, but unfortunately some bad ones too, as well as here in the
+dove-tote.  On the whole my wards lead happy married lives, but if it
+comes to a separation--"
+
+"Which of the two is to blame?"
+
+"Nine times out of ten the little wife."
+
+"Roland, my fore man, exactly as it is among human beings," cried the
+fencing-master, clapping his hands.
+
+"What do you mean by your Roland, Herr Allerts?  You promised me a short
+time ago--but who is coming up the ladder?"
+
+"I hear your mother."
+
+"She is bringing me a visitor.  I know that voice and yet.  Wait.  It's
+old Fraulein Van Hoogstraten's steward."
+
+"From Nobelstrasse?  Let me go, Wilhelm, for this Glipper crew--"
+
+"Wait a little while, there is only room for one on the ladder," said the
+musician, holding out his hand to Belotti to guide him from the last rung
+into his room.
+
+"Spaniards and the allies of Spain," muttered the fencing-master, opened
+the door, and called while descending the ladder: "I'll wait down below
+till the air is pure again."
+
+The steward's handsome face, usually smoothly shaven with the most
+extreme care, was to-day covered with a stubbly beard, and the old man
+looked sad and worn, as he began to tell Wilhelm what had occurred in his
+mistress's house since the evening of the day before.
+
+"Years may make a hot-tempered person weaker, but not calmer," said the
+Italian, continuing his story.  "I can't look on and see the poor angel,
+for she isn't far from the Virgin's throne, treated like a sick dog that
+is flung out into the court-yard, so I got my discharge."
+
+"That does you honor, but was rather out of place just now.  And has the
+young lady really been carried to the damp room?"
+
+"No, sir.  Father Damianus came and made the old excellenza understand
+what the holy Virgin expected of a Christian, and when the padrona still
+tried to carry out her will, the holy man spoke to her in words so harsh
+and stern that she yielded.  The signorina is now lying in bed with
+burning cheeks, raving in delirium."
+
+"And who is attending the patient?"
+
+"I came to you about the physician, my dear sir, for Doctor de Bout, who
+instantly obeyed my summons, was treated so badly by the old excellenza,
+that he turned his back upon her and told me, at the door of the house,
+he wouldn't come again."
+
+Wilhelm shook his head, and the Italian continued, "There are other
+doctors in Leyden, but Father Damianus says de Bont or Bontius, as they
+call him, is the most skilful and learned of them all, and as the old
+excellenza herself had an attack of illness about noon, and certainly
+won't leave her bed very speedily, the way is open, and Father Damianus
+says he'll go to Doctor Bontius himself if necessary.  But as you are a
+native of the city and acquainted with the signorina, I wanted to spare
+him the rebuff he would probably meet from the foe of our holy Church.
+The poor man has enough to suffer from good-for-nothing boys and
+scoffers, when he goes through the city with the sacrament."
+
+"You know people are strictly forbidden to disturb him in the exercise of
+his calling."
+
+"Yet he can't show himself in the street without being jeered.  We two
+cannot change the world, sir.  So long as the Church had the upper hand,
+she burned and quartered you, now you have the power here, our priests
+are persecuted and scorned."
+
+"Against the law and the orders of the magistrates."
+
+"You can't control the people, and Father Damianus is a lamb, who bears
+everything patiently, as good a Christian as many saints before whom we
+burn candles.  Do you know the doctor?"
+
+"A little, by sight."
+
+"Oh, then go to him, sir, for the young lady's sake," cried the old man
+earnestly.  "It is in your power to save a human life, a beautiful young
+life."
+
+The steward's eyes glittered with tears.  As Wilhelm laid his hand on his
+arm, saying kindly: "I will try," the fencing-master called: "Your
+council is lasting too long for me.  I'll come another time."
+
+"No, Meister, come up a minute,  This gentleman is here on account of a
+poor sick girl.  The poor, helpless creature is now lying without any
+care, for her aunt, old Fraulein Van Hoogstraten, has driven Doctor de
+Bont from her bed because he is a Calvinist."
+
+"From the sick girl's bed?"
+
+"It's abominable enough, but the old lady is now ill herself."
+
+"Bravo, bravo!" cried the fencing-master, clapping his hands.  "If the
+devil himself isn't afraid of her and wants to fetch her, I'll pay for
+his post-horses.  But the girl, the sick girl?"
+
+"Herr Belotti begs me to persuade de Bont to visit her again.  Are you on
+friendly terms with the doctor?"
+
+"I was, Wilhelm, I was; but--last Friday we had some sharp words about
+the new morions, and now the learned demi-god demands an apology from me,
+but to sound a retreat isn't written here--"
+
+"Oh, my dear sir," cried Belotti, with touching earnestness.  "The poor
+child is lying helpless in a raging fever.  If Heaven has blessed you
+with children--"
+
+"Be calm, old man, be calm," replied the fencing master, stroking
+Belotti's grey hair kindly.  "My children are nothing to you, but we'll do
+what we can for the young girl.  Farewell till we meet again, gentlemen.
+Roland, my fore man, what shall we live to see!  Hemp is still cheap in
+Holland, and yet such a monster has lived amongst us to be as old as a
+raven."
+
+With these words he went down the ladder.  On reaching the street, he
+pondered over the words in which he should apologize to Doctor Bontius,
+with a face as sour as if he had wormwood in his mouth; but his eyes and
+bearded lips smiled.
+
+His learned friend made the apology easy for him, and when Belotti came
+home, he found the doctor by the sick girl's bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Frau Elizabeth von Nordwyk and Frau Van Bout had each asked the
+burgomaster's wife to go into the country with them to enjoy the
+beautiful spring day, but in spite of Barbara's persuasions, Maria
+could not be induced to accept their invitation.
+
+A week had elapsed since her husband's departure, a week whose days had
+run their course from morning to evening as slowly as the brackish water
+in one of the canals, intersecting the meadows of Holland, flowed towards
+the river.
+
+Sleep loves the couches of youth, and had again found hers, but with the
+rising of the sun the dissatisfaction, anxiety and secret grief, that
+slumber had kindly interrupted, once more returned.  She felt that it was
+not right, and her father would have blamed her if he had seen her thus.
+
+There are women who are ashamed of rosy cheeks, unrestrained joy in life,
+to whom the emotion of sorrow affords a mournful pleasure.  To this class
+Maria certainly did not belong.  She would fain have been happy, and left
+untried no means of regaining the lost joy of her heart.  Honestly
+striving to do her duty, she returned to little Bessie; but the child was
+rapidly recovering and called for Barbara, Adrian or Trautchen, as soon
+as she was left alone with her.
+
+She tried to read, but the few books she had brought from Delft were all
+familiar, and her thoughts, ere becoming fixed on the old volumes,
+pursued their own course.
+
+Wilhelm brought her the new motet, and she endeavored to sing it; but
+music demands whole hearts from those who desire to enjoy her gifts, and
+therefore melody and song refused comfort as well as pleasure to her,
+whose mind was engrossed by wholly different things.  If she helped
+Adrian in his work, her patience failed much sooner than usual.  On the
+first market-day, she went out with Trautchen to obey her husband's
+directions and make purchases and, while shopping at the various places
+where different wares were offered--here fish, yonder meat or vegetables,
+amid the motley crowd, hailed on every side by cries of: "Here, Frau
+Burgermeisterin!  I  have  what  you want, Frau Burgermeisterin!" forgot
+the sorrow that oppressed her.
+
+With newly-animated self-reliance, she examined flour, pulse and dried
+fish, making it a point of honor to bargain carefully; Barbara should see
+that she knew how to buy.  The crowd was very great everywhere, for the
+city magistrates had issued a proclamation bidding every household, in
+view of the threatened danger, to supply itself abundantly with
+provisions on all the market-days; but the purchasers made way for
+the burgomaster's pretty young wife, and this too pleased her.
+
+She returned home with a bright face, happy in having done her best, and
+instantly went into the kitchen to see Barbara.
+
+Peter's good-natured sister had plainly perceived how sorely her young
+sister-in-law's heart was troubled, and therefore gladly saw her go out
+to make her purchases.  Choosing and bargaining would surely dispel her
+sorrows and bring other thoughts.  True, the cautious house-keeper, who
+expected everything good from Maria except the capacity of showing
+herself an able, clever mistress of the house, had charged Trautchen to
+warn her mistress against being cheated.  But when in market the demand
+is two or three times greater than the supply, prices rise, and so it
+happened that when Maria told the widow how much she had paid for this or
+that article, Barbara's "My child, that's perfectly unheard--of!"  or,
+"It's enough to drive us to beggary," followed each other in quick
+succession.
+
+These exclamations, which under the circumstances were usually entirely
+unjustifiable, vexed Maria; but she wished to be at peace with her
+sister-in-law, and though it was hard to bear injustice, it was contrary
+to her nature and would have caused her pain to express her indignation
+in violent words.  So she merely said with a little excitement:
+
+"Please ask what other ladies are paying, and then Scold, if you think it
+right."
+
+With these words she left the kitchen.
+
+"My child, I'm not scolding at all," Barbara called after her, but Maria
+would not hear, hastily ascended the stairs and locked herself into her
+room.  Her joyousness had again vanished.
+
+On Sunday she went to church.  After dinner she filled a canvas-bag with
+provisions for Adrian, who was going on a boating excursion with several
+friends, and then sat at the window in her chamber.
+
+Stately men, among them many members of the council, passed by with their
+gaily-dressed wives and children; young girls with flowers in their
+bosoms moved arm in arm, by twos and threes, along the footpath beside
+the canal, to dance in the village outside the Zyl-Gate.  They walked
+quietly forward with eyes discreetly downcast, but many a cheek flushed
+and many an ill-suppressed smile hovered around rosy lips, when the
+youths, who followed the girls moving so decorously along, as gaily and
+swiftly as sea-gulls flutter around a ship, uttered teasing jests, or
+whispered into their ears words that no third party need hear.
+
+All who were going towards the Zyl-Gate seemed gay and careless, every
+face showed what joyous hours in the open air and sunny meadows were
+anticipated.  The object that attracted them appeared beautiful and
+desirable to Maria also, but what should she do among the happy, how
+could she be alone amid strangers with her troubled heart?  The shadows
+of the houses seemed especially dark to-day, the air of the city heavier
+than usual, as if the spring had come to every human being, great and
+small, old and young, except herself.
+
+The buildings and the trees that bordered the Achtergracht were already
+casting longer shadows, and the golden mists hovering over the roofs
+began to be mingled with a faint rosy light, when Maria heard a horseman
+trotting up the street.  She drew herself up.  rigidly and her heart
+throbbed violently.  She would not receive Peter any differently from
+usual, she must be frank to him and show him how she felt, and that
+matters could not go on so, nay she was already trying to find fitting
+words for what she had to say to him.  Just at that moment, the horse
+stopped before the door.  She went to the window; saw her husband swing
+himself from the saddle and look joyously up to the window of her room
+and, though she made no sign of greeting, her heart drew her towards him.
+Every thought, every fancy was forgotten, and with winged steps she flew
+down the corridor to the stairs.  Meantime he had entered, and she called
+his name.  "Maria, child, are you there!"  he shouted, rushed up the
+steps as nimbly as a youth, met her on one of the upper stairs and drew
+her with overflowing tenderness to his heart.
+
+"At last, at last, I have you again!" he cried joyously, pressing his
+lips to her eyes and her fragrant hair.  She had clasped her hands
+closely around his neck, but he released himself, held them in his, and
+asked: "Are Barbara and Adrian at home?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+The burgomaster laughed, stooped, lifted her up like a child, and carried
+her into his room.  As a beautiful tree beside a burning house is seized
+by the neighboring flames, although immediately protected with cold
+water, Maria, in spite of her long-cherished resolve to receive him
+coolly, was overwhelmed by the warmth of her husband's feelings.  She
+cordially rejoiced in having him once more, and willingly believed him,
+as he told her in loving words how painfully he had felt their
+separation, how sorely he had missed her, and how distinctly he, who
+usually lacked the ability to remember an absent person, had had her
+image before his eyes.
+
+How warmly, with what convincing tones he understood how to give
+expression to his love to-day!  She was still a happy wife, and showed
+him that she was without reserve.
+
+Barbara and Adrian returned home, and there was now much to tell at the
+evening meal.  Peter had had many a strange experience on the journey,
+and gained fresh hope, the boy had distinguished himself at school, and
+Bessie's sickness might already be called a danger happily overcome.
+Barbara was radiant with joy, for all seemed well between Maria and her
+brother.
+
+The beautiful April night passed pleasantly away.  When Maria was
+braiding black velvet into her hair the next morning, she was full of
+grateful emotion, for she had found courage to tell Peter that she
+desired to have a larger share in his anxieties than before, and received
+a kind assent.  A worthier, richer life, she hoped, would now begin.  He
+was to tell her this very day what he had discussed and accomplished with
+the Prince and at Dortrecht, for hitherto no word of all this had escaped
+his lips.
+
+Barbara, who was moving about in the kitchen and just on the point of
+catching three chickens to kill them, let them live a little longer, and
+even tossed half a handful of barley into their coop, as she heard her
+sister-in-law come singing down-stairs.  The broken bars of Wilhelm's
+last madrigal sounded as sweet and full of promise as the first notes of
+the nightingale, which the gardener hears at the end of a long winter.
+It was spring again in the house, and her pleasant round face, in its
+large cap, looked as bright and unclouded as a sunflower amid its green
+leaves, as she called to Maria:
+
+"This is a good day for you, child; we'll melt down the butter and salt
+the hams."
+
+The words sounded as joyous as if she had offered her an invitation to
+Paradise, and Maria willingly helped in the work, which began at once.
+When the widow moved her hands, tongues could not remain silent, and the
+conversation that had probably taken place between Peter and his wife
+excited her curiosity not a little.
+
+She turned the conversation upon him cleverly enough, and, as if
+accidentally, asked the question:
+
+"Did he apologize for his departure on the anniversary of your wedding-
+day?"
+
+"I know the reason; he could not stay."
+
+"Of course not, of course not; but whoever is green the goats eat.  We
+mustn't allow the men to go too far.  Give, but take also.  An injustice
+endured is a florin, for which in marriage a calf can be bought."
+
+"I will not bargain with Peter, and if anything weighed heavily on my
+mind, I have willingly forgotten it after so long a separation."
+
+"Wet hay may destroy a barn, and any one to whom the hare runs can catch
+him!  People ought not to keep their troubles to themselves, but tell
+them; that's why they have tongues, and yesterday was the right time to
+make a clean breast of everything that grieves you."
+
+"He was in such a joyous mood when he came home, and then: Why do you
+think I feel unhappy?"
+
+"Unhappy.  Who said so?"
+
+Maria blushed, but the widow seized the knife and opened the hen-coop.
+
+Trautchen was helping the two ladies in the kitchen, but she was
+frequently interrupted in her work, for this morning the knocker on the
+door had no rest, and those who entered must have brought the burgomaster
+no pleasant news, for his deep, angry voice was often audible.
+
+His longest discussion was with Herr Van Hout, who had come to him, not
+only to ask questions and tell what occurred, but also to make
+complaints.
+
+It was no ordinary spectacle, when these two men, who, towering far above
+their fellow-citizens, not only in stature, but moral earnestness and
+enthusiastic devotion to the cause of liberty, declared their opinions
+and expressed their wrath.  The inflammable, restless Van Hout took the
+first part, the slow, steadfast Van der Werff, with mighty
+impressiveness, the second.
+
+A bad disposition ruled among the fathers of the city, the rich men of
+old families, the great weavers and brewers, for to them property, life
+and consideration were more than religion and liberty, while the poor
+men, who laboriously supported their families by the sweat of their
+brows, were joyously determined to sacrifice money and blood for the good
+cause.
+
+There was obstacle after obstacle to conquer.  The scaffolds and barns,
+frames and all other wood-work that could serve to conceal a man, were to
+be levelled to the earth, as all the country-houses and other buildings
+near the city had formerly been.  Much newly-erected woodwork was already
+removed, but the rich longest resisted having the axe put to theirs.  New
+earthworks had been commenced at the important fort of Valkenburg; but
+part of the land, where the workmen were obliged to dig, belonged to a
+brewer, who demanded a large sum in compensation for his damaged meadow.
+When the siege was raised in March, paper-money was restored, round
+pieces of pasteboard, one side of which bore the Netherland lion, with
+the inscription, "Haec libertatis ergo," while the other had the coat-of-
+arms of the city and the motto "God guard Leyden."  These were intended
+to be exchanged for coin or provisions, but rich speculators had obtained
+possession of many pieces, and were trying to raise their value.  Demands
+of every kind pressed upon him, and amid all these claims the burgomaster
+was also compelled to think of his own affairs, for all intercourse with
+the outside world would soon be cut off, and it was necessary to settle
+many things with the representative of his business in Hamburg.  Great
+losses were threatening, but he left no means untried to secure for his
+family what might yet be saved.
+
+He rarely saw wife or children; yet thought he was fulfilling the promise
+Maria had obtained from him the evening after his return, when he briefly
+answered her questions or voluntarily gave her such sentences as "There
+was warm work at the town-hall to-day!"  or, "It is more difficult to
+circulate the paper-money than we expected!"  He did not feel the kindly
+necessity of having a confidante and expressing his feelings, and his
+first wife had been perfectly contented and happy, if he sat silently
+beside her during quiet hours, called her his treasure, petted the
+children, or even praised her cracknels and Sunday roast.  Business and
+public affairs had been his concern, the kitchen and nursery hers.  What
+they had shared, was the consciousness of the love one felt for the
+other, their children, the distinction, honors and possessions of the
+household.
+
+Maria asked more and he was ready to grant it, but when in the evening
+she pressed the wearied man with questions he was accustomed to hear only
+from the lips of men, he put her off for the answers till less busy
+times, or fell asleep in the midst of her inquiries.
+
+She saw how many burdens oppressed him, how unweariedly he toiled--but
+why did he not move a portion of the load to other shoulders?
+
+Once, during the beautiful spring weather, he went out with her into the
+country.  She seized upon the opportunity to represent that it was his
+duty to himself and her to gain more rest.
+
+He listened patiently, and when she had finished her entreaty and
+warnings, took her hand in his, saying:
+
+"You have met Herr Marnix von St. Aldegonde and know what the cause of
+liberty owes him.  Do you know his motto?"
+
+She nodded and answered softly: "Repos ailleurs."
+
+"Where else can we rest," he repeated firmly.
+
+A slight shiver ran through her limbs, and as she withdrew her hands, she
+could not help thinking: "Where else;-so not here.  Rest and happiness
+have no home here."  She did not utter the words, but could not drive
+them from her mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+During these May days the Hoogstraten mansion was the quietest of all the
+houses in quiet Nobelstrasse.  By the orders of Doctor Bontius and the
+sick lady's attorney, a mixture of straw and sand lay on the cause-way
+before it.  The windows were closely curtained, and a piece of felt hung
+between the door and the knocker.  The door was ajar, but a servant sat
+close behind it to answer those who sought admission.
+
+On a morning early in May the musician, Wilhelm Corneliussohn, and Janus
+Dousa turned the corner of Nobelstrasse.  Both men were engaged in eager
+conversation, but as they approached the straw and sand, their voices
+became lower and then ceased entirely.
+
+"The carpet we spread under the feet of the conqueror Death," said the
+nobleman.  "I hope he will lower the torch only once here and do honor to
+age, little worthy of respect as it may be.  Don't stay too long in the
+infected house, Herr Wilhelm."
+
+The musician gently opened the door.  The servant silently greeted him
+and turned towards the stairs to call Belotti; for the "player-man" had
+already enquired more than once for the steward.
+
+Wilhelm entered the little room where he usually waited, and for the
+first time found another visitor there, but in a somewhat peculiar
+attitude.  Father Damianus sat bolt upright in an arm-chair, with his
+head drooping on one side, sound asleep.  The face of the priest, a man
+approaching his fortieth year, was as pink and white as a child's, and
+framed by a thin light-brown beard.  A narrow circle of thin light hair
+surrounded his large tonsure, and a heavy dark rosary of olive-wood beads
+hung from the sleeper's hands.  A gentle, kindly smile hovered around his
+half-parted lips.
+
+"This mild saint in long woman's robes doesn't look as if he could grasp
+anything strongly" thought Wilhelm, "yet his hands are callous and have
+toiled hard."
+
+When Belotti entered the room and saw the sleeping priest, he carefully
+pushed a pillow under his head and beckoned to Wilhelm to follow him into
+the entry.
+
+"We won't grudge him a little rest," said the Italian.  "He has sat
+beside the padrona's bed from yesterday noon until two hours ago.
+Usually she doesn't know what is going on around her, but as soon as
+consciousness returns she wants religious consolation.  She still refuses
+to take the sacrament for the dying, for she won't admit that she is
+approaching her end.  Yet often, when the disease attacks her more
+sharply, she asks in mortal terror if everything is ready, for she is
+afraid to die without extreme unction."
+
+"And how is Fraulein Henrica?"
+
+"A very little better."
+
+The priest had now come out of the little room.  Belotti reverently
+kissed his hand and Wilhelm bowed respectfully.
+
+"I had fallen asleep," said Damianus simply and naturally, but in a voice
+less deep and powerful than would have been expected from his broad
+breast and tall figure.  "I will read the mass, visit my sick, and then
+return.  Have you thought better of it, Belotti?"
+
+"It won't do sir, the Virgin knows it won't do.  My dismissal was given
+for the first of May, this is the eighth, and yet I'm still here--I
+haven't left the house because I'm a Christian!  Now the ladies have a
+good physician, Sister Gonzaga is doing her duty, you yourself will earn
+by your nursing a place among the martyrs in Paradise, so, without making
+myself guilty of a sin, I can tie up my bundle."
+
+"You will not go, Belotti," said the priest firmly.  "If you still insist
+on having your own way, at least do not call yourself a Christian."
+
+"You will stay," cried Wilhelm, "if only for the sake of the young lady,
+to whom you still feel kindly."  Belotti shook his head, and answered
+quietly:
+
+"You can add nothing, young sir, to what the holy Father represented to
+me yesterday.  But my mind is made up, I shall go; yet as I value the
+holy Father's good opinion and yours, I beg you to do me the favor to
+listen to me.  I have passed my sixty-second birthday, and an old horse
+or an old servant stands a long time in the market-place before any one
+will buy them.  There might probably be a place in Brussels for a
+Catholic steward, who understands his business, but this old heart longs
+to return to Naples--ardently, ardently, unutterably.  You have seen our
+blue sea and our sky, young sir, and I yearn for them, but even more for
+other, smaller things.  It now seems a joy that I can speak in my native
+language to you, Herr Wilhelm, and you, holy Father.  But there is a
+country where every one uses the same tongue that I do.  There is a
+little village at the foot of Vesuvius--merciful Heavens!  Many a person
+would be afraid to stay there, even half an hour, when the mountain
+quakes, the ashes fall in showers, and the glowing lava pours out in a
+stream.  The houses there are by no means so well built, and the window-
+panes are not so clean as in this country.  I almost fear that there are
+few glass windows in Resina, but the children don't freeze, any more than
+they do here.  What would a Leyden house-keeper say to our village
+streets?  Poles with vines, boughs of fig-trees, and all sorts of under-
+clothing on the roofs, at the windows, and the crooked, sloping
+balconies; orange and lemon-trees with golden fruit grow in the little
+gardens, which have neither straight paths nor symmetrical beds.
+Everything there grows together topsy-turvy.  The boys, who in rags that
+no tailor has darned or mended, clamber over the white vineyard walls,
+the little girls, whose mothers comb their hair before the doors of the
+houses, are not so pink and white, nor so nicely washed as the Holland
+children, but I should like to see again the brown-skinned, black-haired
+little ones with the dark eyes, and end my days amid all the clatter in
+the warm air, among my nephews, nieces and blood-relations."
+
+As he uttered these words, the old man's features had flushed and his
+black eyes sparkled with a fire, that but a short time before the
+northern air and his long years of servitude seemed to have extinguished.
+Since neither the priest nor the musician answered immediately, he
+continued more quietly:
+
+"Monseigneur Gloria is going to Italy now, and I can accompany him to
+Rome as courier.  From thence I can easily reach Naples, and live there
+on the interest of my savings free from care.  My future master will
+leave on the 15th, and on the 12th I must be in Antwerp, where I am to
+meet him."
+
+The eyes of the priest and the musician met.  Wilhelm lacked courage to
+seek to withhold the steward from carrying out his plan, but Damianus
+summoned up his resolution, laid his hand on the old man's shoulder, and
+said:
+
+"If you wait here a few weeks more, Belotti, you will find the true rest,
+the peace of a good conscience.  The crown of life is promised to those,
+who are faithful, unto death.  When these sad days are over, it will be
+easy to smooth the way to your home.  We shall meet again towards noon,
+Belotti.  If my assistance is necessary, send for me; old Ambrosius knows
+where to find me.  May God's blessing rest upon you, and if you will
+accept it from me, on you also, Meister Wilhelm."
+
+After the priest had left the house, Belotti said, sighing:
+
+"He'll yet force me to yield to his will.  He abuses his power over
+souls.  I'm no saint, and what he asks of me--"
+
+"Is right," said Wilhelm firmly.
+
+"But you don't know what it is to throw away, like a pair of worn-out
+shoes, the dearest hope of a long, sad life.  And for whom, I ask you,
+for whom?  Do you know my padrona?  Oh! sir, I have experienced in this
+house things, which your youth does not dream could be possible.  The
+young lady has wounded you.  Am I right or wrong?"
+
+"You are mistaken, Belotti."
+
+"Really?  I am glad for your sake, you are a modest artist, but the
+signorina bears the Hoogstraten name, and that is saying everything.  Do
+you know her father?"
+
+"No, Belotti."
+
+"That's a race-a race!  Have you never heard anything of the story of our
+signorina's older sister?"
+
+"Has Henrica an older sister?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and when I think of her.--Imagine the signorina, exactly like
+our signorina, only taller, more stately, more beautiful."
+
+"Isabella!"  exclaimed the musician.  A conjecture, which had been
+aroused since his conversation with Henrica, appeared to be confirmed;
+he seized the steward's arm so suddenly and unexpectedly, that the latter
+drew back, and continued eagerly: "What do you know of her?  I beseech
+you, Belotti, tell me all."
+
+The servant looked up the stairs, then shaking his head, answered:
+
+"You are probably mistaken.  There has never been an Isabella in this
+house to my knowledge, but I will gladly place myself at your service.
+Come again after sunset, but you must expect to hear no pleasant tale."
+
+Twilight had scarcely yielded to darkness, when the musician again
+entered the Hoogstraten mansion.  The little room was empty, but Belotti
+did not keep him waiting long.
+
+The old man placed a dainty little waiter, bearing a jug of wine and a
+goblet, on the table beside the lamp and, after informing Wilhelm of the
+invalids' condition, courteously offered him a chair.  When the musician
+asked him why he had not brought a cup for himself too, he replied:
+
+"I drink nothing but water, but allow me to take the liberty to sit down.
+The servant who attends to the chambers has left the house, and I've done
+nothing but go up and down stairs all day.  It tries my old legs, and we
+can expect no quiet night."
+
+A single candle lighted the little room.  Belotti, who had leaned far
+back in his chair, opened his clenched hands and slowly began:
+
+"I spoke this morning of the Hoogstraten race.  Children of the same
+parents, it is true, are often very unlike, but in your little country,
+which speaks its own language and has many things peculiar to itself--you
+won't deny that--every old family has its special traits.  I know, for I
+have been in many a noble household in Holland.  Every race has its own
+peculiar blood and ways.  Even where--by your leave--there is a crack in
+the brain, it rarely happens to only one member of a family.  My mistress
+has more of her French mother's nature.  But I intended to speak only of
+the signorina, and am wandering too far from my subject."
+
+"No, Belotti, certainly not, we have plenty of time, and I shall be glad
+to listen to you, but first you must answer one question."
+
+"Why, sir, how your cheeks glow!  Did you meet the signorina in Italy?"
+
+"Perhaps so, Belotti."
+
+"Why, of course, of course!  Whoever has once seen her, doesn't easily
+forget.  What is it you wish to know?"
+
+"First, the lady's name."
+
+"Anna."
+
+"And not Isabella also?"
+
+"No, sir, she was never called anything but Anna."
+
+"And when did she leave Holland?"
+
+"Wait; it was--four years ago last Easter."
+
+"Has she dark, brown or fair hair?"
+
+"I've said already that she looked just like Fraulein Henrica.  But what
+lady might not have fair, brown or dark hair?  I think we shall reach the
+goal sooner, if you will let me ask a question now.  Had the lady you
+mean a large semi-circular scar just under the hair, exactly in the
+middle of her forehead?"
+
+"Enough," cried Wilhelm, rising hastily.  "She fell on one of her
+father's weapons when a child."
+
+"On the contrary, sir, the handle of Junker Van Hoogstraten's weapon fell
+on the forehead of his own daughter.  How horrified you look!  Oh!
+I have witnessed worse things in this house.  Now it is your turn
+again: In what city of my home did you meet the signorina?"
+
+"In Rome, alone and under an assumed name.  Isabella--a Holland girl!
+Pray go on with your story, Belotti; I won't interrupt you again.  What
+had the child done, that her own father--"
+
+"He is the wildest of all the wild Hoogstratens.  Perhaps you may have
+seen men like him in Italy--in this country you might seek long for such
+a hurricane.  You must not think him an evil-disposed man, but a word
+that goes against the grain, a look askance will rob him of his senses,
+and things are done which he repents as soon as they are over.  The
+signorina received her scar in the same way.  She was a mere child, and
+of course ought not to have touched fire-arms, nevertheless she did
+whenever she could, and once a pistol went off and the bullet struck one
+of the best hunting-dogs.  Her father heard the report and, when he saw
+the animal lying on the ground and the pistol at the little girl's feet,
+he seized it and with the sharp-edged handle struck--"
+
+"A child, his own daughter!"  exclaimed Wilhelm indignantly.
+
+"People are differently constituted," Belotti continued.  "Some, the
+class to which you probably belong, cautiously consider before they speak
+or act; the second reflect a long time and, when they are ready, pour
+forth a great many words, but rarely act at all; while the third, and at
+their head the Hoogstraten family, heap deeds on deeds, and if they ever
+think, it is only after the act is accomplished.  If they then find that
+they have committed an injustice, pride comes in and forbids them to
+confess, atone for, or recall it.  So one misfortune follows another;
+but the gentlemen pay no heed and find forgetfulness in drinking and
+gambling, carousing and hunting.  There are plenty of debts, but all
+anxiety concerning them is left to the creditors, and boys who receive no
+inheritance are supplied with a place at court or in the army; for the
+girls, thank God, there is no lack of convents, if they confess our holy
+religion, and both have expectations from rich aunts and other blood
+relations, who die without children."
+
+"You paint in vivid colors."
+
+But they are true, and they all suit the Junker; though to be sure he
+need not keep his property for sons, since his wife gave him none.  He
+met her at court in Brussels, and she came from Parma."
+
+"Did you know her?"
+
+"She died before I came to the padrona's house.  The two young ladies
+grew up without a mother.  You have heard that their father would even
+attack them, yet he doubtless loved them and would never resolve to place
+them in a convent.  True, he often felt--at least he freely admitted it
+in conversations with her excellenza--that there were more suitable
+places for young girls than his castle, where matters went badly enough,
+and so he at last sent his oldest daughter to us.  My mistress usually
+could not endure the society of young girls, but Fraulein Anna was one of
+her nearest relatives, and I know she invited her of her own accord.  I
+can still see in memory the signorina at sixteen; a sweeter creature,
+Herr Wilhelm, my eyes have never beheld before or since, and yet she
+never remained the same.  I have seen her as soft as Flemish velvet, but
+at other times she could rage like a November storm in your country.  She
+was always beautiful as a rose and, as her mother's old cameriera--she
+was a native of Lugano--had brought her up, and the priest who taught her
+came from Pisa and was acknowledged to be an excellent musician, she
+spoke my language like a child of Tuscany and was perfectly familiar with
+music.  You have doubtless heard her singing, her harp and lute-playing,
+but you should know that all the ladies of the Hoogstraten family, with
+the exception of my mistress, possess a special talent for your art.  In
+summer we lived in the beautiful country-house, that was torn down before
+the seige by your friends--with little justice I think.  Many a stately
+guest rode out to visit us.  We kept open house, and where there is a
+good table and a beautiful young lady like our signorina, the gallants
+are not far off.  Among them was a very aristocratic gentleman of middle
+age, the Marquis d'Avennes, whom her excellenza had expressly invited.
+We had never received any prince with so much attention; but this was a
+matter of course, for his mother was a relative of her excellenza.  You
+must know that my mistress; on her mother's side, is descended from a
+family in Normandy.  The Marquis d'Avennes was certainly an elegant
+cavalier, but rather dainty than manly.  He was soon madly in love with
+Fraulein Anna, and asked in due form for her hand.  Her excellenza
+favored the match, and the father said simply: 'You will take him!'
+He would listen to no opposition.  Other gentlemen don't consult their
+daughters when a suitable lover appears.  So the signorina became the
+marquis's betrothed wife, but the padrona said firmly that her niece was
+too young to be married.  She induced Junker Van Hoogstraten, whom she
+held as firmly as a farrier holds a filly, to defer the wedding until
+Easter.  The outfit was to be provided during the winter.  The condition
+that he must wait six months was imposed on the marquis, and he went back
+to France with the ring on his finger.  His betrothed bride did not shed
+a single tear for him, and as soon as he had gone, flung the engagement
+ring into the jewel-cup on her dressing-table, before the eyes of the
+camariera, from whom I heard the story.  She did not venture to oppose
+her father, but did not hesitate to express her opinion of the marquis to
+her excellenza, and her aunt, though she had favored the Frenchman's
+suit, allowed it.  Yet there had often been fierce quarrels between the
+old and young lady, and if the padrona had had reason to clip the wild
+falcon's wings and teach her what is fitting for noble ladies, the
+signorina would have been justified in complaining of many an exaction,
+by which the padrona had spoiled her pleasure in life.  I am sorry to
+destroy the confidence of your youth, but whoever grows grey, with his
+eyes open, will meet persons who rejoice, nay to whom it is a necessity
+to injure others.  Yet it is a consolation, that no one is wicked simply
+for the sake of wickedness, and I have often found--how shall I express
+it?--that the worst impulses arise from the perversion, or even the
+excess of the noblest virtues, whose reverse or caricature they become.
+I have seen base envy proceed from beautiful ambition, contemptible
+avarice from honest emulation, fierce hate from tender love.  My
+mistress, when she was young, knew how to love truly and faithfully, but
+she was shamefully deceived, and now rancor, not against an individual,
+but against life, has taken possession of her, and her noble loyalty has
+become tenacious adherence to bad wishes.  How this has happened you will
+learn, if you will continue to listen.
+
+"When winter came, I was ordered to go to Brussel, and establish the new
+household in splendid style.  The ladies were to follow me.  It was four
+years ago.  The Duke of Alva then lived as viceroy in Brussels, and this
+nobleman held my mistress in high esteem, nay had even twice paid us the
+honor of a visit.  His aristocratic officers also frequented our house,
+among them Don Luis d'Avila, a nobleman of ancient family, who was one of
+the duke's favorites.  Like the Marquis d'Avennes, he was no longer in
+his early youth, but was  a  man of totally different  stamp; tall,
+strong as if hammered from steel, a soldier of invincible strength and
+skill, a most dreaded seeker of quarrels, but a man whose glowing eyes
+and wonderful gift of song must have exerted a mysterious, bewitching
+power over women.  Dozens of adventures, in which he was said to have
+taken part, were told in the servant's hall and half of them had some
+foundation of truth, as I afterwards learned by experience.  If you
+suppose this heart-breaker bore any resemblance to the gay, curly-haired
+minions of fortune, on whom young ladies lavish their love, you are
+mistaken; Don Luis was a grave man with close-cut hair, who never wore
+anything but dark clothes, and even carried a sword, whose hilt, instead
+of gold and silver, consisted of blackened metal.  He resembled death
+much more than blooming love.  Perhaps this very thing made him
+irresistible, since we are all born for death and no suitor is so sure of
+victory as he.
+
+"The padrona had not been favorably disposed to him at first, but this
+mood soon changed, and at New Year's he too was admitted to small evening
+receptions of intimate friends.  He came whenever we invited him, but had
+no word, no look, scarcely a greeting for our young lady.  Only when it
+pleased the signorina to sing, he went near her and sharply criticised
+anything in her execution that chanced to displease him.  He often sang
+himself too, and then usually chose the same songs as Fraulein Anna, as
+if to surpass her by his superior skill.
+
+"So things went on till the time of the carnival.  On Shrove-Tuesday the
+padrona gave a large entertainment, and when I led the servants and stood
+behind the signorina and Don Luis, to whom her excellenza had long been
+in the habit of assigning the seat beside her niece, I noticed that their
+hands met under the table and rested in each other's clasp a long time.
+My heart was so full of anxiety, that it was very hard for me to keep the
+attention so necessary on that evening--and when the next morning, the
+padrona summoned me to settle the accounts, I thought it my duty to
+modestly remark that Don Luis d'Avila's wooing did not seem disagreeable
+to the young lady in spite of her betrothal.  She let me speak, but when
+I ventured to repeat what people said of the Spaniard, angrily started up
+and showed me to the door.  A faithful servant often hears and sees more
+than his employers suspect, and I had the confidence of the padrona's
+foster-sister, who is now dead; but at that time Susanna knew everything
+that concerned her mistress.
+
+"There was a bad prospect for the expectant bridegroom in France, for
+whenever the padrona spoke of him, it was with a laugh we knew, and which
+boded no good; but she still wrote frequently to the marquis and his
+mother, and many a letter from Rochebrun reached our house.  To be sure,
+her excellenza also gave Don Luis more than one secret audience.
+
+"During Lent a messenger from Fraulein Van Hoogstraten's father arrived
+with the news, that at Easter he, himself, would come to Brussels from
+Haarlem, and the marquis from Castle Rochebrun, and on Maundy Thursday
+I received orders to dress the private chapel with flowers, engage
+posthorses, and do several other things.  On Good Friday, the day of our
+Lord's crucifixion--I wish I were telling lies--early in the morning of
+Good Friday the signorina was dressed in all her bridal finery.  Don Luis
+appeared clad in black, proud and gloomy as usual, and by candle-light,
+before sunrise on a cold, damp morning--it seems to me as if it were only
+yesterday--the Castilian was married to our young mistress.  The padrona,
+a Spanish officer and I were the witnesses.  At seven o'clock the
+carriage drove up, and after it was packed Don Luis handed me a little
+box to put in the vehicle.  It was heavy and I knew it well; the padrona
+was in the habit of keeping her gold coin in it.  At Easter the whole
+city learned that Don Luis d'Avila had eloped with the beautiful Anna Van
+Hoogstraten, after killing her betrothed bridegroom in a duel on Maundy-
+Thursday at Hals on his way to Brussels--scarcely twenty-four hours
+before the wedding.
+
+"I shall never forget how Junker Van Hoogstraten raged.  The padrona
+refused to see him and pretended to be ill, but she was as well as only
+she could be during these last few years."
+
+"And do you know how to interpret your mistress's mysterious conduct?"
+asked Wilhelm.
+
+"Yes sir; her reasons are perfectly evident.  But I must hasten, it is
+growing late; besides I cannot tell you minute particulars, for I was
+myself a child when the event happened, though Susanna has told me many
+things that would probably be worth relating.  Her excellenza's mother
+was a Chevreaux, and my mistress spent the best years of her life with
+her mother's sister, who during the winter lived in Paris.  It was in the
+reign of the late King Francis, and you doubtless know that this great
+Prince was a very gallant gentleman, who was said to have broken as many
+hearts as lances.  My padrona, who in those days was very beautiful,
+belonged to the ladies of his court, and King Francis especially
+distinguished her.  But the young lady knew how to guard her honor, for
+she had early found in the gallant Marquis d'Avennes a knight to whom she
+was loyally devoted, and for whom she had wept bitterly many a night.
+Like master, like servant, and though the marquis had worn the young
+lady's color for years and rendered her every service of an obedient
+knight, his eyes and heart often wandered to the right and left.  Yet he
+always returned to his liege-lady, and when the sixth year came, the
+Chevreaux's urged the marquis to put an end to his trifling and think of
+marriage.  My mistress began to make her preparations, and Susanna was a
+witness of her consultation with the marquis about whether she would keep
+or sell the Holland estates and castles.  But the wedding did not take
+place, for the marquis was obliged to go to Italy with the army and her
+excellenza lived in perpetual anxiety about him; at that time the French
+fared ill in my country, and he often left her whole months without news.
+At last he returned and found in the Chevreaux's house his betrothed
+wife's little cousin, who had grown up into a charming young lady.
+
+"You can imagine the rest.  The rose-bud Hortense now pleased the marquis
+far better than the Holland flower of five and twenty.  The Chevreaux's
+were aristocratic but deeply in debt, and the suitor, while fighting in
+Italy, had inherited the whole of his uncle's great estate, so they did
+not suffer him to sue in vain.  My mistress returned to Holland.  Her
+father challenged the marquis, but no blood was spilled in the duel, and
+Monsieur d'Avennes led a happy wedded life with Hortense de Chevreaux.
+Her son was the signorina's hapless lover.  Do you understand, Herr
+Wilhelm?  She had nursed and fostered the old grudge for half a life
+time; for its sake she had sacrificed her own kinswoman to Don Luis, but
+in return she repaid by the death of the only son of a hated mother, the
+sorrow she had suffered for years on her account."
+
+The musician had clenched the handkerchief, with which he had wiped the
+perspiration from his brow, closely in his hand, and asked:
+
+"What more have you heard of Anna?"
+
+"Very little," replied Belotti.  "Her father has torn her from his heart,
+and calls Henrica his only daughter.  Happiness abandons those who are
+burdened by a father's curse, and she certainly did not find it.  Don
+Luis is said to have been degraded to the rank of ensign on account of
+some wild escapades, and who knows what has become of the poor, beautiful
+signorina.  The padrona sometimes sent money to her in Italy, by way of
+Florence, through Signor Lamperi--but I have heard nothing of her during
+the last few months."
+
+"One more question, Belotti," said Wilhelm, "how could Henrica's father
+trust her to your mistress, after what had befallen his older daughter in
+her house?"
+
+"Money--miserable money!  To keep his castle and not lose his
+inheritance, he resigned his child.  Yes, sir, the signorina was
+bargained for, like a horse, and her father didn't sell her cheap.
+Drink some wine, sir, you look ill."
+
+"It is nothing serious," said Wilhelm, "but the fresh air will probably
+do me good.  Thanks for your story, Belotti."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Art ceases when ugliness begins
+Debts, but all anxiety concerning them is left to the creditors
+Despair and extravagant gayety ruled her nature by turns
+Repos ailleurs
+The best enjoyment in creating is had in anticipation
+To whom the emotion of sorrow affords a mournful pleasure
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURGOMASTER'S WIFE, BY EBERS, V2 ***
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