In reply to a question from her companion, Barbara confessed that while
playing she sometimes imagined that she beheld a lovely girl, sometimes a
young hero clad in glittering armour, with the Golden Fleece on his neck,
rushing to battle against the infidels.

When the women were sitting together in the evening, Barbara urged her
companion, who was familiar with the court and with Charles's former
life, to tell her about the Netherlands and Spain, Brussels and
Valladolid, the wars, the monarch's wisdom, the journeys of Charles, his
intercourse with men and women, his former love affairs, his married
life, his relatives and children, and again and again of Johanna Van der
Gheynst, the mother of the Duchess Margaret of Parma. In doing so the
clever native of Cologne never failed to draw brilliant pictures of the
splendour of the imperial court. As a matter of course, Brussels, the
favourite residence of the Dubois couple, was most honoured in the
narrative, and Barbara could never hear enough of this superb city.
Maestro Gombert had already aroused her longing for it, and Frau Traut
made her, as it were, at home there.

So December and Christmas flew by. New Year's and Epiphany also passed,
and when January was over and the month of February began, a guest
arrived in Ratisbon from the household of the Emperor, who was now
holding his court at Ulm. It was Dr. Mathys, the leech, who readily
admitted that he had come partly by his Majesty's desire, partly from
personal interest in Barbara's welfare.

The physician found her in the same mood as after the relapse. Obedient,
calm, yielding, only often overpowered by melancholy and bitter thoughts
and feelings, yet, on the other hand, exalted by the fact that the
Emperor Charles, for her sake, was now depriving himself also of this