Barbara Blomberg Volume 10
Ebers, Georg, 1837-1898
English
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Below is a summary of Barbara Blomberg Volume 10
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BARBARA BLOMBERG
By Georg Ebers
Volume 10.
CHAPTER XVI.
On the way home Barbara often pressed her left hand with her right to
assure herself that she was not dreaming.
This time she found her husband in the house. At the first glance
Pyramus saw that something unusual had happened; but she gave him no time
to question her, only glanced around to see if they were alone, and then
cried, as if frantic: "I will bear it no longer. You must know it too.
But it is a great secret." Then she made him swear that he, too, would
keep it strictly, and in great anxiety he obeyed.
He, like Barbara's father, had supposed that the Emperor's son had
entered the world only to leave it again. Barbara's "I no longer have a
child; it was taken from me," he had interpreted in the same way as the
old captain, and, from delicacy of feeling, had never again mentioned the
subject in her presence.
While taking the oath, he had been prepared for the worst; but when his
wife, in passionate excitement, speaking so fast that the words fair
tumbled over one another, told him how she had been robbed of her boy;
how his imperial father had treated him; how she had longed for him;
what prayers she had uttered in his behalf; how miserable she had been
in her anxiety about this child; and, now, that Dona Magdalena's letter
permitted her to cherish the highest and greatest hopes for the boy,
the tall, strong man stood before her with downcast eyes, like a detected
criminal, his hand gripping the edge of the top of the table which
separated her from him.
Barbara saw his broad, arched chest rise and fall, and wondered why his
manly features were quivering; but ere she had time to utter a single
soothing word, he burst forth: "I made the vow and will be silent; but
to-morrow, or in a year or two, it will be in everybody's mouth, and
then, then My good name! Honour!"
Fierce indignation overwhelmed Barbara, and, no longer able to control
herself, she exclaimed: "What did it matter whether Death or his father
snatched the child from me? The question is, whether you knew that I am
his mother, and it was not concealed from you. Nevertheless, you came
and sought me for your wife! That is what happened! And--you know this
--you are as much or little dishonoured by me, the mother of the living
child, as of the dead one. Out upon the honour which is harmed by
gossip! What slanderous tongues say of me as a disgrace I deem the
highest honour; but if you are of a different opinion, and held it when
you wooed me, you would be wiser to prate less loudly of the proud word
'honour,' and we will separate."
Pyramus had listened to these accusations and the threat with trembling
lips. His simple but upright mind felt that she was right, so far as he
was concerned, and she was more beautiful in her anger than he had seen
her since the brilliant days of her youthful pride. The fear of losing
her seized his poor heart, so wholly subject to her, with sudden power
and, stammering an entreaty for forgiveness, he confessed that the
surprise had bewildered him, and that he thought he had showed in the
course of the last ten years how highly, in spite of people's gossip,
he prized her. He held out his large honest hand with a pleading look
as he spoke, and she placed hers in it for a short time.
Then she went to church to collect her thoughts and relieve her
overburdened heart. Boundless contempt for the man to whom she was
united filled it; yet she felt that she owed him a debt of gratitude,
that he was weak only through love, and that, for her children's sake,
she must continue to wear the yoke which she had taken upon herself.
His existence henceforth became of less and less importance to her
feelings and actions, especially as he left the management of their two
boys to her. He had reason to be satisfied with it, for she provided
Conrad with the best instruction, that the might choose between the army
and the legal profession; his younger brother she intended for the
priesthood, and the boy's inclination harmonized with her choice.
The fear that the Emperor Charles might yet commit the child she loved
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