Barbara Blomberg | Page 4

forbid
idle flattery!"
As she spoke she pointed with the riding whip, which, on account of
her four-footed favourites, she carried in her hand, to her own hair.
True, so far as it was visible under the stiff jewelled velvet cap which
covered her head, the fair tresses had a lustrous sheen, and the braids,
interwoven with pearls, were unusually thick, but a few silver threads

appeared amid the locks which clustered around the intellectual brow.
Quijada saw them, and, with a respectful bow, answered.
"The heavy burden of anxiety for the Netherlands, which is not always
rewarded with fitting gratitude."
"Oh, no," replied the Queen, shrugging her shoulders contemptuously.
"Yes, many things in Brussels rouse my indignation, but they do not
turn my hair gray. It began to whiten up here, under the widow's cap, if
you care to know it, and, if the Emperor's health does not improve, the
locks there will soon look like my white Diana's."
Here she hesitated, and, accustomed both in the discharge of the duties
of her office and during the chase not to deviate too far from the goal
she had in view, she first gave her favourite dog, which had leaped on
Don Luis in friendly greeting, a blow with her whip, and then said in a
totally different tone:
"But I am not the person in question. You have already heard that you
must help me, Luis. Did you see the Emperor yesterday after vespers?"
"I had the honour, your Majesty."
"And did not the conviction that he is in evil case force itself upon
you?"
"I felt it so keenly that I spoke to Dr. Mathys of his feeble appearance,
his bowed figure, and the other things which I would so gladly have
seen otherwise."
"And these things? Speak frankly!"
"These things," replied the major-domo, after a brief hesitation, "are the
melancholy moods to which his Majesty often resigns himself for
hours."
"And which remind you of Queen Juana, our unhappy mother?" asked
the Queen with downcast eyes.

"Remind is a word which your Majesty will permit me to disclaim,"
replied Quijada resolutely. "The great thinker, who never loses sight of
the most distant goal, who weighs and considers again and again ere he
determines upon the only right course in each instance--the great
general who understands how to make far-reaching plans for military
campaigns as ably as to direct a cavalry attack--the statesman whose
penetration pierces deeper than the keen intelligence of his famous
councillors--the wise law-giver, the ruler with the iron strength of will
and unfailing memory, is perhaps the soundest person mentally among
all of us at court-nay, among the millions who obey him. But, so far as
my small share of knowledge extends, melancholy has nothing to do
with the mind. It is dependent upon the state of the spirits, and springs
from bile----"
"You learned that from Dr. Mathys," interrupted the royal lady, "and
the quacks repeat it from their masters Hippocrates and Galen. Such
parrot gabble does not please me. To my woman's reason, it seems
rather that when the mind is ill we should try a remedy whose effect
upon it has already been proved, and I think I have found it."
"I am still ignorant of it," replied Quijada eagerly; "but I would swear
by my saint that you have hit upon the right expedient."
"Listen, then, and this time I believe you will have no cause to repent
your hasty oath. Since death robbed our sovereign lord of his wife, and
the gout has prevented his enjoyment of the chief pleasures of
life--hunting, the tournament, and the other pastimes which people of
our rank usually pursue--in what can he find diversion? The
masterpieces of painters and other artists, the inventions of
mechanicians and clock-makers, and the works of scholars have no
place here, but probably----"
"Then it is the noble art of music which your Majesty has in view,"
Quijada eagerly interrupted. "Admirable! For, since the days of King
Saul and the harper David----"
"There is certainly no better remedy for melancholy," said the Queen,
completing the exclamation of the loyal man. "But it could affect no

one more favourably than the Emperor. You yourself know how keen a
connoisseur he is, and how often this has been confirmed by our
greatest masters. Need I remind you of the high mass in Cologne, at
which the magnificent singing seemed fairly to reanimate him after the
defection of the heretical archbishop--which threatens to have a
disastrous influence upon my Netherlanders also--had robbed him of
the last remnant of his enjoyment of life, already clouded? The
indignation aroused by the German princes, and the difficult decision to
which their conduct is forcing him, act upon his soul like poison. But
hesitation is not in my