German fiction -- Translations into English; Holy Roman Empire -- History -- Charles V, 1519-1556 -- Fiction
Those were the features which had worn so tender an expression when, for
the first time, he had uttered the never-to-be-forgotten "Because I long
for love," and her yearning heart throbbed no less quickly now than on
that night. The wrong and suffering which he had inflicted upon her were
forgotten. She remembered nothing save that she loved him, that he was
the greatest and, to her, the dearest of all men.
It was perfectly impossible for him to see her, but she did not think of
that; and when he looked toward her with such joyous emotion, and the
cheers of the populace, like a blazing fire which a gust of wind fans
still higher, outstripped, as it were, themselves, she could not have
helped joining in the huzzas and shouts and acclamations around her
though she had been punished with imprisonment and death.
And clinging more firmly to the stalactite, Barbara rose on tiptoe and
mingled her voice with the joyous cheers of the multitude.
In the act her breath failed, and she felt a sharp pain in her chest, but
she heeded the suffering as little as she did the weakness of her limbs.
The physical part of her being seemed asleep or dead. Nothing was awake
or living except her soul. Nothing stirred within her breast save the
rapture of seeing him again, the indescribable pleasure of showing that
she loved him.
Already she could no longer see his face, already the dust had concealed
him and his charger from her eyes, yet still, filled with peerless
happiness, she shouted "Charles!" and again and again "Charles!"
It seemed to her as though the air or some good spirit insist bear the
cry to him and assure him of her ardent, inextinguishable love.
The charming royal brides, radiant in their jewels, their betrothed
husbands, and the lords and ladies of their magnificent train passed
Barbara like shadows. The procession of German, Spanish, Hungarian,
Bohemian, and Italian dignitaries swam in a confused medley before her
eyes. The glittering armour of the princes, counts, and barons, the gems
on the heads, the robes, and the horses' trappings of the ladies and the
Magyar magnates flashed brightly before her, the red hats and robes of
the cardinals gleamed out, but usually everything that her eyes beheld
mingled in a single motley, shining, moving, many-limbed body.
The end of the procession was now approaching, and physical weakness
suddenly asserted itself most painfully.
Barbara felt only too plainly that it was time to leave her post of
observation; her feet would scarcely carry her and, besides, she was
freezing.
She had entered the damp cave chamber in a thin summer gown, and it now
seemed to be continually growing colder and colder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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