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

not describe it in any other way--so expressive of the sober sense of age, that the beautiful woman was ashamed of her suspicion. She now understood what Freyer meant when he spoke of the maternal relation existing between Anastasia and himself. She was the true Madonna, to whom all eyes would be lifted devoutly, reverently, yet whom no man would desire to press to his heart. She was probably not much older than the countess, two or three years at most, but compared with her the great lady, so thoroughly versed in the ways of the world, was but an immature, impetuous child. The countess felt this with the secret satisfaction which it affords every woman to perceive that she is younger than another, and it helped her to endure the superiority which Anastasia's lofty calmness maintained over her. Nay, she even accepted the inferior place with a coquettish artlessness which made her appear all the more youthful. Yet at the very moment she adopted the childish manner, she secretly felt its reality. She was standing in the presence of the Mother of God. Womanly nature had never possessed any charm for her, she had never comprehended it in any form. She had never admired any of Raphael's Madonnas, not even the Sistine. A woman interested her only as the object of a man's love for which she might envy her, the contrary character, the ascetic beauty of an Immaculate was wholly outside of her sphere. Now, for the first time in her life, she was interested in a personality of this type, because she suddenly realized that the Virgin was also the Mother of the Saviour. And as her love for the Christ was first awakened by her love for Joseph Freyer, her reverence for Mary was first felt when she thought of her as his mother! Madeleine von Wildenau, so poor in the treasures of the heart, the woman who had never been a mother, suddenly felt--even while in the act of playing with practised coquetry the part of childlike ignorance--under the influence of the man she loved, the _reality_ in the farce and her heart opened to the sacred, mysterious bond between the mother and the child. Thus, hour by hour, she grew out of the captivity of the world and the senses, gently supported and elevated by the might of that love which reconciles earth and heaven. She held out one hand to Anastasia, the other to Freyer. "I, too, would fain know the dear mother of our Christ!" she said, with that sweet, submissive grace which the moment had taught her. Freyer's eyes rested approvingly upon her. She felt as if wings were growing on her shoulders, she felt that she was beautiful, good, and beloved; earth could give no more. Anastasia watched the agitated woman with the kindly, searching gaze of a Sister of Charity. Indeed, her whole appearance recalled that of one of these ministering spirits, resigned without sentimentality; gentle, yet energetic; modest, yet impressive. "I felt a great--" the countess was about to say "admiration," but this was not true, she admired her now for the first time! She stopped abruptly in the midst of her sentence, she could utter no stereotyped compliments at this moment. With quiet dignity, like a princess giving audience, Anastasia came to her assistance, by skilfully filling up the pause: "So this is your first visit to Ammergau?" "Yes." "Then you have doubtless been very much impressed?" "Oh, who could remain cold, while witnessing such a spectacle?" "Yes, is not our Christ perfect?" said Anastasia, smiling proudly. "He costs people many tears. But even _I_ cannot help weeping, and I have played it with him thirty times." She passed her hand across his brow with a tender, maternal caress, as if she wished to console him for all his sufferings. "Does it not seem as if we saw the Redeemer Himself?" The countess watched her with increasing sympathy. "You have a beautiful soul! Your friend was right, people should know you to receive the full impression of Mary." "Yes, I play it too badly," replied Anastasia, whose native modesty prevented her recognition of the flattery conveyed in the countess' words. "No--badly is not the word. But the delicate shadings of the feminine nature are lost in the vast space," the other explained. "It may be so," replied Anastasia, simply. "But that is of no importance; no matter how we others might play--_he_ would sustain the whole." "And your brother, Anastasia, and all the rest--do you forget them?" said Freyer, rebukingly. "Yes, dear Anastasia." The countess took Freyer's hand. "I have given my soul into the keeping of this Christ--but your brother's performance is also a masterpiece! It seems to me that you are unjust to him. And also to Pilate, whom I admired, the apostles and high-priests." "Perhaps so. I don't know how the others act--" said Mary with an honesty that was fairly sublime. "I see only him, and when he is not on the stage I care nothing for the rest of the performance. It is because I am his _mother_: to a mother the son is beyond everything else," she added, calmly. The countess looked at her in astonishment. Was it possible that a woman could love in this way? Yet there was no doubt of it. Had even a shadow of longing to be united to the man she loved rested on the soul of this girl, she could not have had thus crystalline transparency and absolute freedom from embarrassment. These Madonnas are happy beings! she thought, yet she did not envy this calm peace. Drawing off her long glove with much difficulty, she took a ring from her finger. "Please accept this from me as a token of the secret bond which unites us in love for--your son! We will be good friends." "With all my heart!" said Anastasia in delight, holding out her sunburnt finger to receive the gift. "What will my brother say when I come home with such a present?" She gratefully kissed the donor's hand. "You are too kind, Countess--I don't know how I deserve it." She stooped and lifted her jug. "I must go home now to help my sister-in-law. You will visit us, won't you? My brother will be so pleased." "Very gladly--if you will allow me," replied the lady, smiling. "I beg you to do so!" said Anastasia with ready tact. Then with noble dignity, she moved away across the fields, waving her hand from the distance to the couple she had left behind, as if to say: "Be happy!" CHAPTER XII. BRIDAL TORCHES. "Magdalene--Wife--Angel--what shall I call you?" cried Freyer, extending his arms. "Oh, if only we were not in the open fields, that I might press you to my heart and thank you for being so kind--so _generous_ and so kind." "Does your heart at last yearn for me? Then let us come into the forest, where no one is watching us save holy nature. Take me up one of the mountains. Will you? Can you? Will not your hay spoil?" "_Let_ it spoil, what does that matter? But first you must allow me to go home to put on garments more suitable for your society." "No, that will be too late! Remain as you are--you are handsome in any clothes," she whispered, blushing faintly, like a girl, while she lowered her eyes from the kingly figure to the ground. A happy smile flitted over her face. Stooping, she picked up the jacket which he had removed while doing his work. "And you--are you equipped for mountain climbing?" "Oh, we will not go far. Not farther than we can go and return in time for dinner." "Come, then. If matters come to the worst, I will take my dove on my shoulder and carry her when she can walk no farther." "Oh, happy freedom!" cried the countess, joyously! "To wander through the woods, like two children in a fairy tale, enchanted by some wicked fairy and unable to appear again until after a thousand years! Oh, poetry of childhood--for the first time you smile upon me in all your radiance. Come, let us hasten--it is so beautiful that I can hardly believe it. I shall not, until we are there." She flew rather than walked by his side. "My dove--suppose that we were enchanted and forced to remain in the forest together a thousand years?" "Let us try it!" she whispered, fixing her eyes on his till he murmured, panting for breath: "I believe--the spell is beginning to work." And his eyes glowed with a gloomy fire as he murmured, watching her: "Who knows whether I am not harboring the Lorelei herself, who is luring me into her kingdom to destroy me!" "What do you know of the Lorelei?" Freyer stopped. "Do you suppose I read nothing? What else should I do during the long evenings, when wearied by my work, I am resting at home?" "Really?" she asked absently, drawing him forward. "Do you suppose I could understand a woman like you if I had not educated myself a little? Alas, we cannot accomplish much when the proper foundation is lacking. The untrained memory retains nothing firmly except what passes instantly into flesh and blood, the perception of life as it is reflected to us from the mirror of art. But even this reflection is sometimes distorted and confuses our natural thoughts and feelings. Alas, dear one, a person who has learned nothing correctly, and yet knows the yearning for something higher, without being able to satisfy it--is like a lost soul that never attains the goal for which it longs." "My poor friend, I do know that feeling--to a certain extent it is the same with us women. We, too, have the yearning for education, and finally attain only a defective amount of knowledge! But, by way of compensation, individuality, directness, intuitiveness are developed all the more fully. You did not need to know anything--your influence is exerted through your personality; as such you are great. All knowledge comes from man, and is attainable by him--the divine gift of individuality can neither be gained, nor bestowed, any more than intuition! What is all the logic of reflecting reason compared with the gift of intuition, which enabled you to assume the part of a God? Is not that a greater marvel than the hard-won result of systematic study at the desk?" "You are a kind comforter!" said Freyer. "Thinking makes people old!" she continued. "It has aged the human race, too.--Nature, simplicity, love must restore its youth! In them is _direct_ contact with the deity; in civilization only an indirect one. Fortunately for me, I have put my lips to their spring. Oh, eternal fountain of human nature, I drink from you with eager draughts." They had entered the forest--the tree-tops rustled high above their heads and at their feet rippled a mountain stream. Madeleine von Wildenau was silent--her heart rested on her friend's broad breast, heaving with the rapid throbbing of his heart, her supple figure had sunk wearily down by his side. "Say no more--not a word is needed here." The deep gloom of the woods surrounded them--a sacred stillness and solitude. "On every height there dwells repose!" echoed in soft melody above her head, the marvellous Rubinstein-Goethe song. There was no human voice, it seemed like a mere breath from the distance of a dream--like the wind sweeping over the chords of the cymbal hung by Lenau's gypsy on a tree, scarcely audible, already dying away again. Her ear had caught the notes of that AEolian harp once before: she knew them again; on the cross--with the words: "Into _thy_ hands I commend my spirit." And sweet as the voice which spoke at that time was now the tenor that softly, softly hushed the restless spirit of the worldling to slumber. "Wait; soon, soon--" and then the notes gradually rose till the whole buzzing, singing woodland choir seemed to join in the words: "Thou, too, shalt soon rest." The mysterious sound came from the depths of the great heart on which