The Burgomaster's Wife Complete
Ebers, Georg, 1837-1898
English
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Below is a summary of The Burgomaster's Wife Complete
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE, Complete
By Georg Ebers
Volume 1.
Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford
BARONESS SOPHIE VON BRANDENSTEIN, nee EBERS.
My reason for dedicating a book, and particularly this book, to you, the
only sister of my dead father, needs no word of explanation between us.
From early childhood you have been a dear and faithful friend to me, and
certainly have not forgotten how industriously I labored, while your
guest seventeen years ago, in arranging the material which constitutes
the foundation of the "Burgomaster's Wife." You then took a friendly
interest in many a note of facts, that had seemed to me extraordinary,
admirable, or amusing, and when the claims of an arduous profession
prevented me from pursuing my favorite occupation of studying the history
of Holland, my mother's home, in the old way, never wearied of reminding
me of the fallow material, that had previously awakened your sympathy.
At last I have been permitted to give the matter so long laid aside its
just dues. A beautiful portion of Holland's glorious history affords the
espalier, around which the tendrils of my narrative entwine. You have
watched them grow, and therefore will view them kindly and indulgently.
In love and friendship,
Ever the same,
GEORG EBERS
Leipsic, Oct. 30th, 1881.
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE.
CHAPTER I.
In the year 1574 A. D. spring made its joyous entry into the Netherlands
at an unusually early date.
The sky was blue, gnats sported in the sunshine, white butterflies
alighted on the newly-opened yellow flowers, and beside one of the
numerous ditches intersecting the wide plain stood a stork, snapping at a
fine frog; the poor fellow soon writhed in its enemy's red beak. One
gulp--the merry jumper vanished, and its murderer, flapping its wings,
soared high into the air. On flew the bird over gardens filled with
blossoming fruit-trees, trimly laid-out flower-beds, and gaily-painted
arbors, across the frowning circlet of walls and towers that girdled the
city, over narrow houses with high, pointed gables, and neat streets
bordered with elm, poplar, linden and willow-trees, decked with the first
green leaves of spring. At last it alighted on a lofty gable-roof, on
whose ridge was its firmly-fastened nest. After generously giving up its
prey to the little wife brooding over the eggs, it stood on one leg and
gazed thoughtfully down upon the city, whose shining red tiles gleamed
spick and span from the green velvet carpet of the meadows. The bird had
known beautiful Leyden, the gem of Holland, for many a year, and was
familiar with all the branches of the Rhine that divided the stately city
into numerous islands, and over which arched as many stone bridges as
there are days in five months of the year; but surely many changes had
occurred here since the stork's last departure for the south.
Where were the citizens' gay summer-houses and orchards, where the wooden
frames on which the weavers used to stretch their dark and colored
cloths?
Whatever plant or work of human hands had risen, outside the city walls
and towers to the height of a man's breast, thus interrupting the
uniformity of the plain, had vanished from the earth, and beyond, on the
bird's best hunting-grounds, brownish spots sown with black circles
appeared among the green of the meadows.
Late in October of the preceding year, just after the storks left the
country, a Spanish army had encamped here, and a few hours before the
return of the winged wanderers in the first opening days of spring, the
besiegers retired without having accomplished their purpose.
Barren spots amid the luxuriant growth of vegetation marked the places
where they had pitched their tents, the black cinders of the burnt coals
their camp-fires.
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