On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau

last cigarette with you?" he added, coaxingly. He looked very handsome at that moment. "We shall see," replied the countess, and for the first time her voice thrilled with a warmer emotion. Her hand still rested in his, she had forgotten to withdraw it. Suddenly its warmth roused her, and his blue eyes flashed upon her a light as brilliant as the indiscreet glare which sometimes rouses a sleeper. She released it, and as the dinner was over, rose from the little table. "Will you go with me to call on the duchess later?" she asked. "If so, I will dress now, while you give the invitation to the gentlemen, and you can return afterward." "As you choose!" replied the prince in an altered tone, for the slight variation in the lady's mood had not escaped his notice. "In half an hour, then. Farewell!" CHAPTER VI. THE EVENING BEFORE THE PLAY. Josepha sat in the countess' room at work on her new dress. She was calm and quiet; the delight in finery which never abandons a woman to her latest hour--the poorest peasant, if still conscious, asks for a nicer cap when the priest comes to bring the last sacrament--had asserted its power in her. The countess noticed it with pleasure. "Shall you finish it soon, Josepha?" "In an hour, Your Highness!" "Very well, I shall return about that time, and then we'll try the dress on." "Oh, your ladyship, it's a sin for me to put on such a handsome gown, nobody will see me." "Not here, if you don't wish them to do so, but to-morrow evening we shall go to Munich, where you will begin a new life, with no brand upon your brow." Josepha kissed the countess' hand; a few large tears rolled down on the dress which was to clothe a new creature. Then she helped her mistress to put on a walking toilette, performing her task skillfully and quickly. The latter fixed a long, thoughtful look upon her. "You are somewhat like your cousin, the Christ, are you not?" "So people say!" "I suppose he sees a great many ladies?" "They all run after him, the high as well as the low. And it isn't the strangers only, the village girls are crazy over him, too. He might have _any_ one he wanted, it seems as if he fairly bewitched the women." "I heard that the reason for his secluded life was that he had a love affair with some noble lady." "Indeed?" said Josepha carelessly, "I don't know anything about it. I don't believe it, though he would not tell me, even if it were true. Oh, people talk about him so much, that's one reason for the envy. But his secluded life isn't on account of any noble lady! He has had nothing to say to anybody here since they refused to let me take part in the Play and gossiped so much about me. Though he doesn't speak of it, it cuts him to the heart. Alas, I am to blame, and no one else." Countess Wildenau, obeying a sudden impulse, kissed the girl on the forehead: "Farewell, keep up courage, don't weep, rejoice in your new life; I will soon return." As she passed out, she spoke to the Gross sisters commending Josepha to their special care. "The gentlemen are delighted, and send you their most grateful homage," called the prince. "Then they are all coming?" said Countess Wildenau, taking his arm. "All, there was no hesitation!" he answered, again noticing in his companion's manner the restlessness which had formerly awakened his anxiety. As they passed down the street together, her eyes were wandering everywhere. "She is seeking some one," thought the prince. "Let me tell you that I am charmed with this Ammergau Christ," cried the duchess, as they approached the blacksmith's house. She was sitting in the garden, which contained a tolerably large manure heap, a "Saletl," the name given to an open summer-house, and three fruit-trees, amid which the clothes lines were stretched. On the house was a rudely painted Madonna, life-size, with the usual bunch of flowers, gazing with a peculiar expression at the homage offered to her son, or at least, so it seemed to the countess. "Have you seen him, Duchess? I am beginning to be jealous!" said the countess with a laugh intended to be natural, but which sounded a little forced. The visitors entered the arbor; after an exchange of greeting, the duchess told her guests that she had been with the ladies to the drawing-school, where they had met Freyer. The head-master (the son of Countess von Wildenau's host) had presented him to the ladies, and he had been obliged to exchange a few words with them, then he made his escape. They were "fairly _wild_." His bearing, his dignity, the blended courtesy and reserve of his manner, so modest and yet so proud, and those eyes! The prince was on coals of fire. The blacksmith was hammering outside, shoeing a horse whose hoof was so crooked that the iron would not fit. The man's face was dripping with sooty perspiration, yet when he turned it toward the ladies, they saw a classic profile and soft, dreamy eyes. "Beautiful hair and eyes appear to be a specialty among the Ammergau peasants," said the prince somewhat abruptly, interrupting the duchess. "Look at yonder smith, wash off the soot and we shall have a superb head of Antinous." "Yes, isn't that true? He is a splendid fellow, too," replied the duchess. "Let us call him here." The smith was summoned and, wiping the grime from his face with his shirt sleeves, modestly approached. The prince watched with honest admiration the man's gait and bearing, clear-cut, intelligent features, and slender, lithe figure, which betrayed no sign of his hard labor save in the tense sinews and muscles of the arms. "I must apologize," he said in excellent German--the Ammergau people use dialect only when speaking to one another--"I am in my working clothes and scarcely fit to be seen." "You have a charming voice. Do you sing baritone?" "Yes, Your Highness, but I rarely sing at all. My voice unfortunately is much injured by my hard toil, and my fingers are growing too stiff to play on the piano, so I cannot accompany myself." "Do you play on the piano?" "Certainly, Your Highness." "Good Heavens, where did you learn?" "Here in the village, Your Highness. Each one of us learns to use some instrument, else where should we obtain an orchestra for the Passion?" "Think of it!" said the duchess in French, "A blacksmith who plays on the piano; peasants who form an orchestra!" Then addressing her host in German, she added, "I suppose you have a church choir!" "Certainly, Your Highness." "And what masses do you perform?" "Oh, nearly all the beautiful ones, some dating from the ancient Cecilian Church music, others from the later masters, Handel, Bach, down to the most modern times. A short time ago I sung Gounod's Ave Maria in the church, and this winter we shall give a Gethsemane by Kempter." "Is it possible!" said the duchess, "_c'est unique!_ Then you are really all artists and ought not to follow such hard trades." "Yes, Duchess, but we must _live_. Our wives and children must be supported. _All_ cannot be wood-carvers, smiths are needed, too. If the artisan is not rough, the trade is no disgrace." "But have you time, with your business, for such artistic work?" "Oh, yes, we do it in the evenings, after supper. We meet at half past seven and often practise our music till twelve or even one o'clock." "Oh, how tired you must be to study far into the night after the labor of the day." "Oh, that doesn't harm us, it is our recreation and pleasure. Art is the only thing which lifts men above their daily cares! I would not wish to live, if I did not possess it, and we all have the same feeling." The ladies exchanged glances. "But, when do you sleep? You must be obliged to rise early in the morning." "Oh, we Ammergau people are excitable, we need little sleep. To bed at one and up at five gives us rest enough." "Well, then, you must live well, or you could not bear it." "Yes, we live very well, we have meat every Sunday," said the smith with much satisfaction. "_C'est touchant!_" cried the duchess. "Meat _once_ a week? And the rest of the time?" "Oh, we eat something made of flour. My wife is an excellent cook, she was the cook in Count P.'s household!" he added with great pride, casting an affectionate glance at the plump little woman, holding a child in her arms, standing at the door of the house. He would gladly have presented this admirable wife to the strangers, but the ladies seemed less interested in her. "What do you eat in the evening?" "We have coffee at six o'clock, and drink a few glasses of beer when we meet at the tavern." "And do all the Ammergau people live so?" "All. No one wants anything different." "Even your Christ?" "Oh, he fares worse than we, he is unmarried and has no one to care for him." "What a life, dear Countess, what a life!" the duchess, murmured in French. "But you have a piano in your house. If you are able to get such an instrument, you ought to afford better food," said Her Excellency. The blacksmith smiled, "If we had had better food, we should not have been able to buy the piano. We saved it from our stomachs." "That is the true Ammergau spirit," said the countess earnestly. "They will starve to secure a piano. Every endeavor is toward the ideal and the intellectual, for which they are willing to make any personal sacrifice. I have never seen such people." "Nor have I. It seems as if the Passion Play gave them all a special consecration," answered the duchess. Countess von Wildenau rose. Her thoughts were so far away that she was about to take leave without remembering her invitation. But Prince Emil said impressively: "Countess, surely you are forgetting that you intended to _invite_ the ladies--." "Yes, yes," she interrupted, "it had almost escaped my mind." The smith modestly went back to his work, for the horse was growing restless, and the odor of burnt horn and hair soon pervaded the atmosphere. Meanwhile the countess delivered her invitation, which was accepted with great enthusiasm. A stately, athletic man in a blouse, carrying a chest on his shoulder, passed the ladies. The burden was terribly heavy, for even his powerful, well-knit frame staggered under it, and his handsome kingly head was bowed almost to the earth. "Look, Countess, that is Thomas Rendner the Roman procurator. We shall soon make the acquaintance of the whole company. We sit here in the summer-house like a spider in its web, not a fly can pass unseen." "Good Heavens, that Pilate!" exclaimed the countess, watching him with sympathizing eyes, "Poor man, to-day panting under an oppressive burden, to-morrow robed in purple and crowned with a diadem, only to exchange them again on the third day, for the porter's dusty blouse, and take the yoke upon himself once more. What a contrast, and yet he loses neither his balance nor his temper! Indeed I think that we can learn as much here outside of the Passion Play, as from the spectacle itself." "Yes, if we watch with your deep, thoughtful eyes, my dear Countess!" said the duchess, kissing the speaker's brow. "We will discuss this subject farther when we drive with you the day after to-morrow." The ladies parted. Madeleine von Wildenau, leaning on the prince's arm, walked silently through the crowd which now, on the eve of the play, thronged the narrow streets. The din and tumult were enough to deprive one of sight and hearing. Dazed by the confusion, she clung closely to her companion's arm. "Good Heavens, is it possible that Christianity still possesses such a power of attraction!" she murmured, involuntarily, while struggling through the throng.