On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau
Her soul had retreated to the inmost depths of her being, and she was
but a puppet moving and speaking by rule.
Freyer raised his hat in a farewell salute.
"Are you going?" she said with an expressionless glance. "I suppose I
cannot ask you to rest a little while? Farewell, Herr Freyer, and many
thanks."
How strange! Did it not seem as if a cock crowed?
Freyer bowed silently and walked on, "Adieu!" said the prince without
lifting his hat. For an instant he considered whether he could possibly
offer his aim to a lady in _such_ attire, but at last resolved to do
so--she was his daughter, and this was not exactly the right moment to
quarrel with her. So, struggling with his indignation and disgust, he
escorted her, holding his arm very far out as though he might be soiled
by the contact, through the house into her room. The Gross sisters,
with trembling hands, brought in lights and hastily vanished. Madeleine
von Wildenau stood in the centre of the room, like an automaton whose
machinery had run down. The prince took a candle from the table and
threw its light full upon her face. "Pardon me, I must ascertain
whether this lady, who looks as if she had just jumped out of a
gipsy-cart, is really my daughter? Yes, it is actually she!" he
exclaimed in a tone intended to be humorous, but which was merely
brutal. "So I find the Countess Wildenau in _this_ guise--ragged, worn,
with neither hat nor gloves, wandering about with peasants! It is
incredible!"
The countess sank into a chair without a word. Her father's large,
stern features were flushed with a wrath which he could scarcely
control.
"Have you gone out of fashion so completely that you must seek your
society in such circles as these, _ma fille_? Could no cavalier be
found to escort the Countess Wildenau that she must strike up an
intimacy with one of the comedians in the Passion Play?"
"An intimacy? Papa, this is an insult!" exclaimed the countess angrily,
for though it was true, she felt that on his lips and in _his_ meaning
it was such! Again a cock crowed at this unwonted hour.
"Well _ma chere_, when a lady is caught half embraced by such a man,
the inference is inevitable."
"Dear me, I was so exhausted that I could scarcely stand," replied the
countess, softly, as if the cocks might hear: "We were caught by the
storm and the man was obliged to support me. I should think, however,
that the Countess Wildenau's position was too high for such
suspicions."
"Well, well, I heard in Munich certain rumors about your long stay here
which accorded admirably with the romantic personage who has just left
you. My imaginative daughter always had strange fancies, and as you
seem able to endure the peasant odor--I am somewhat more sensitive to
it ..."
"Papa!" cried the countess, frantic with shame. "I beg you not to speak
in that way of people whom I esteem."
"Aha!" said the prince with a short laugh, "Your anger speaks plainly
enough. I will make no further allusion to these delicate relations."
The countess remained silent a moment, struggling with her emotions.
Should she confess all--should she betray the mystery of the "God in
man?" Reveal it to this frivolous, prosaic man from whose mockery,
even in her childhood, she had carefully concealed every nobler
feeling--disclose to him her most sacred possession, the miracle of her
life? No, it would be desecration. "I _have_ no delicate relations! I
scarcely know these people--I am interested in this Freyer as the
representative of the Christ--he is nothing more to me."
The cede crowed for the third time.
"What was that? I am continually hearing cocks crow to-night. Did you
hear nothing?" asked the countess.
"Not the slightest sound! Have you hallucinations?" asked the prince:
"The cocks are all asleep at this hour."
She knew it--the sound was but the echo of her own conscience. She
thought of the words Freyer had uttered that day upon the mountain, and
his large eyes gazed mournfully, yet forgivingly at her. Now she knew
why Peter was pardoned! He would not suffer the God in whom he could
not force men to believe to be profaned--so he concealed Him in his
heart. He knew that the bond which united him to Christ and the work
which he was appointed to do for Him was greater than the cheap
martyrdom of an acknowledgment of Him to the dull ears of a handful of
men and maid-servants! It was no lie when he said: "I know not the
man"--for he really did _not_ know the Christ whom _they_ meant. He was
denying--not _Christ_, but the _criminal_, whom they believed Him to
be. It was the same with the countess. She was not ashamed of the man
she loved, only of the person her father saw in him and, as she could
not explain to the prince what Joseph Freyer was to her, she denied him
entirely. But even as Peter mourned as a heavy sin the brief moment in
which he faithlessly separated from his beloved Master, she, too, now
felt a keen pang, as though a wound was bleeding in her heart, and
tears streamed from her eyes.
"You are nervous, _ma fille_! It isn't worth while. Tears for the sake
of that worthy villager?" said the prince, with a contemptuous shrug of
the shoulders. "Listen, _ma chere_, I believe it would be better for
you to marry."
"Papa!" exclaimed the countess indignantly.
The prince laughed: "No offence, when women like you begin to be
sentimental--it is time for them to marry! You were widowed too
young--it was a misfortune for you."
"A misfortune? May God forgive you the sneer and me the words--it was a
misfortune that Wildenau lived so long--nay more: that I ever became
his wife, and you, Papa, ought never to remind me of it."
"Why not?"
"Because I might forget that you _are_ my father--as _you_ forget it
when you sold me to that greybeard?"
"Sold? What an expression, _chere enfant_! Is this the result of your
study of peasant life here? I congratulate you on the enlargement of
your vocabulary. This is the gratitude of a daughter for whom the most
brilliant match in the whole circle of aristocratic families was
selected."
"And her soul sold in exchange," the countess interrupted; "for that my
moral nature was not utterly destroyed is no credit of yours."
The prince smiled with an air of calm superiority: "Capital! Moral
nature destroyed! When a girl is wedded to one of the oldest members of
the German nobility and made the possession of a yearly income of half
a million! That is what she calls moral destruction and an outrageous
deed, of which the inhuman father must not remind his daughter without
forfeiting his _paternal rights_. It is positively delicious!" He
laughed and drew out his cigar case: "You see, _ma fille_--I understand
a jest. Will you be annoyed if I smoke a Havana in this rural
bed-room?"
"As you please!" replied the countess, who had now regained her former
cold composure, holding the candle to him. The prince scanned her
features with the searching gaze of a connoisseur as she thus stood
before him illumined by the ruddy glow. "You have lost a little of your
freshness, my child, but you are still beautiful--still charming. I
admit that Wildenau was rather too old for a poetic nature like
yours--but there is still time to compensate for it. When were you
born? A father ought not to ask his daughter's age--but the Almanach de
Gotha tells the story. You must be now--stop! You were not quite
seventeen when you married Wildenau--you were married nine years--you
have been a widow two--that makes you twenty-eight. There is still
time, but--not much to lose! I am saying this to you in a mother's
place, my child"--he added, with a repulsive affectation of tenderness.
His daughter made no reply.
"It is true, you will lose your income if you give up the name of
Wildenau--as the will reads 'exchange it for another.' This somewhat
restricts your choice, for you can resign this colossal dower only in
favor of a match which can partially supply your loss."
The countess turned deadly pale. "That is the curse Wildenau hurled
upon me from his grave. It was not enough that I was miserable during
his life, no--I must not be happy even after his death."
"Why--who has told you so? You have your choice among any of the
handsome and wealthy men who can offer you an equivalent for all that
you resign. Prince von Metten-Barnheim, for instance! He is a
visionary, it is true--"
"Prosaic Prince Emil a visionary!" said the countess, laughing
bitterly.
"Well, I think that a man who surrounds himself so much with plebeian
society, scholars and authors, might properly be termed a visionary!
When his father dies, the luckless country will be ruled by loud-voiced
professors. What does that matter! He'll suit you all the better, as
you are half a scholar yourself. True, it might be said that the
Barnheim family is of inferior rank to ours--the Prankenbergs are an
older race and from the days of Charlemagne have not made a single
_mesalliance_, while the Barnheim genealogical tree shows several
gaps--which explains their liberal tendencies. Such things always
betray themselves. Yet on the other hand, they are reigning dukes, and
we a decaying race--so it is tolerably equal. You are interested in
him--so decide at last and marry him, then you will be a happy woman
and the curse of the will can have no power."
"Indeed?" cried the countess, trembling with excitement. "But suppose
that I loved another, a poor man, whom I could not wed unless I
possessed some property of my own, however small, and the will made me
a _beggar_ the moment I gave him my hand--what then? Should I not have
a right to hate the jealous despot and the man who sacrificed me to his
selfish interests--even though he was my own father?" A glance of the
keenest reproach fell upon the prince.
He was startled by this outburst of passion, hitherto unknown in his
experience of this apathetic woman. He could make no use of her present
mood. Biting off a leaf from his cigar, he blew it into the air with a
graceful movement of the lips. Some change had taken place in
Madeleine, that was evident! If, after all, she should commit some
folly--make a love-match? But with whom? Again the scene he had
witnessed that evening rose before his mind! She had let her head rest
on the shoulder of a common peasant--that could not be denied, he had
_seen_ it with his own eyes. Did such a delusion really exist? A woman
of her temperament was incomprehensible--she would be quite capable, in
a moment of enthusiasm, of throwing her whole splendid fortune away and
giving society an unparalleled spectacle. Who could tell what ideas
such a "lunatic" might take into her head. And yet--who could prevent
it? No one had any power over her--least of all he himself, who could
not even threaten her with disinheritance, since it was long since he
had possessed anything he could call his own. An old gambler,
perpetually struggling with debt, who had come that day, that very day,
to--nay, he was reluctant to confess it to himself. And he had already
irritated his daughter, his last refuge, the only support which still
kept his head above water, more than was wise or prudent--he dared not
venture farther.
He had the suppressed brutality of all violent natures which cannot
have their own way, are not masters of their passions and their
circumstances, and hence are constantly placed in the false position of
being compelled to ask the aid of others!
After having busied himself a sufficiently long time with his cigar,
he said in a soothing and--for so imperious a man--repulsively
submissive tone: "Well, _ma fille_, there is an expedient for that case
also. If you loved a man who was too poor to maintain an establishment
suitable for you--you might do the one thing without forfeiting the