thanked her for her appearance as if she had done him a great favour.

Now the orchestra behind her was silent. Now she saw the lackeys and
attendants bow profoundly. Now Appenzelder raised his arm.

She saw it, but he had not yet touched the desk with the little ebony
staff, and she availed herself of the pause to glance toward the
anxiously expected sovereign, whose presence she felt.

There he stood.

Barbara scarcely noticed the old lady at his left; he, he alone
captivated her eyes, her heart, her senses, her whole being.

What a happy surprise!

How Wolf, Maestro Gombert, and others had described the Emperor, and how
he stood before her!

This chivalrous, superb, almost youthful gentleman and hero, whose
haughty, self-assured bearing so admirably suited the magnificence of his
rich-hued garments, was said to be a gouty old man, bowed by the weight
of care! Had it not been so abominable, it would have tempted her to
laugh.

How petty men were, how cruel was the fate of the great, to whom envy
clings like their own shadow, and whose image was basely distorted even
by those who knew the grandeur of their intellect and their deeds, and
who owed to them their best success in life!