"Then you have talked to the Emperor?" asked Barbara, blushing.

Her friend nodded assent, and said mournfully: "My heart still aches when
I recall the meeting. O Wawerl! what a man he was when, like a fool,
I persuaded him in Ratisbon to hear you sing, and how he looked
yesterday!"

"Tell me," she here interrupted earnestly, raising her hands
beseechingly.

"It can scarcely be described," Wolf answered, as if under the spell of
a painful memory. "He could hardly hold himself up, even in the arm-
chair in which he sat. The lower part of his face seems withered, and
the upper-even the beautiful lofty brow--is furrowed by deep wrinkles.
At every third word his breath fails. One of his diseases, Dr. Mathys
says, would be enough to kill any other man, and he has more than there
are fingers on the hand. Besides, even now he will not take advice, but
eats and drinks whatever suits his taste."

Barbara shook her head angrily; but Wolf, noticing it, said: "He is the
sovereign, and who would venture to withhold anything on which his will
is set? But his desires are shrivelling like his face and his body."

"Is the man of the 'More, farther,' also learning to be content?" asked
Barbara anxiously. Wolf rose, answering firmly: "No, certainly not!
His eyes still sparkle as brightly in his haggard face as if he had by
no means given up the old motto. True, Don Luis declares that rest is
the one thing for which he longs, and you will see that he knows how to
obtain it; but what he means by it only contains fresh conflicts and
struggles. His 'Plus ultra' had rendered him the greatest of living