On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau
without the aid of shout or lash, though the mountain grew steeper and
steeper till the black walls of the hunting seat at last became visible
in the glimmering star-light.
Josepha was standing at the window of the little sitting-room upstairs:
"I think the countess is coming." At a table, by the lamp, bending over
a book, sat "the _steward_."
He evidently had not heard the words, for he did not look up from the
volume and it seemed as if the gloomy shadow above his eyes grew darker
still.
"Joseph, the countess is coming!" cried Josepha in a louder tone.
"You are deceiving yourself again, as usual," he replied in the
wonderful voice which gave special importance to the simplest words, as
when a large, musical bell is rung for some trivial cause.
"No, this time it really is she," Josepha insisted.
"I don't believe it."
Josepha shook her head. "You must receive her."
"She is not coming on my account, it is only to see the child."
"Then _I_ will go. Oh, Heaven, what a life!" sighed Josepha, going out
upon the green moss-covered steps of the half ruined stone stairs where
the carriage had just stopped.
"Is that you, Josepha?" asked the countess, in a disappointed tone,
"where--where is Freyer?"
"He is within, your Highness, he would not believe that your Highness
was really coming!"
The countess understood the bitter meaning of the words.
"I did not come to endure ill-temper!" she murmured. "Is the boy
asleep?"
"Yes, we have taken him into the sitting-room, he is coughing again and
his head is burning, so I wanted to have him in a warmer room."
"Isn't it warm here?"
"Since the funnel fell out, we cannot heat these rooms; Freyer tried to
fit it in, but it smokes constantly. I wrote to your Highness last
month asking what should be done. Freyer, too, reported a fortnight ago
that the stove ought to be repaired, and the child moved to other
apartments before the cold weather set in if Your Highness approved,
but--we have had no answer. Now the little boy is ill--it is beginning
to be very cold."
Madeleine von Waldenau bit her lips. Yes, it was true, the letters had
been written--and in the whirl of society and visits she had forgotten
them.
Now the child was ill--through her fault. She entered the sitting-room.
Freyer stood waiting for her in a half defiant, half submissive
attitude--half master, half servant.
The bearing was unlovely, like everything that comes from a false
position. It displeased the countess and injured Freyer, though she had
herself placed him in this situation. It made him appear awkward and
clownish.
When, with careless hand, we have damaged a work of art and perceive
that instead of improving we have marred it, we do not blame ourselves,
but the botched object, and the innocent object must suffer because we
have spoiled our own pleasure in it. It is the same with the work of
art of creation--a human being.
There are some natures which can never leave things undisturbed, but
seek to gain a creative share in everything by attempts at shaping and
when convinced that it would have been better had they left the work
untouched, they see in the imperfect essay, not their own want of
skill, but the inflexibility of the material, pronounce it not worth
the labor bestowed--and cast it aside.
The countess had one of these natures, so unconsciously cruel in their
artistic experiments, and her marred object was--Freyer.
Therefore his bearing did not, could not please her, and she allowed a
glance of annoyance to rest upon him, which did not escape his notice.
Passing him, she went to their son's bed.
There lay the "infant Christ," a boy six or seven years old with silken
curls and massive brows, beneath whose shadow the closed eyes were
concealed by dark-lashed lids. A single ray from the hanging lamp fell
upon the forehead of the little Raphael, and showed the soft brows knit
as if with unconscious pain.
The child was not happy--or not well--or both. He breathed heavily in
his sleep, and there was a slight nervous twitching about the
delicately moulded nostrils.
"He has evidently lost flesh since I was last here!" said the countess
anxiously.
Freyer remained silent.
"What do you think?" asked the mother.
"What can I think? You have not seen the boy for so _long_ that you can
judge whether he has altered far better than I."
"Joseph!" The beautiful woman drew herself up, and a look of genuine
sorrow rested upon the pale, irritated countenance of her husband.
"Whenever I come, I find nothing save bitterness and cutting
words--open and secret reproaches. This is too much. Not even to-day,
when I find my child ill, do you spare the mother's anxious heart. This
is more than I can endure, it is ignoble, unchivalrous."
"Pardon me," replied her husband in a low tone, "I could not suppose
that a mother who deserts her child for months could possibly possess
so tender a nature that she would instantly grow anxious over a slight
illness or a change in his appearance. I am a plain man, and cannot
understand such contradictions!"
"Yes, from your standpoint you are right--in your eyes I must seem a
monster of heartlessness. I almost do in my own. Yet, precisely because
the reproach appears merited it cuts me so deeply, that is why it would
be generous and noble to spare me! Oh! Freyer, what has become of the
great divine love which once forgave my every fault?"
"It is where you have banished it, buried in the depths of my heart, as
I am buried among these lonely mountains, silent and forgotten."
The countess, shaking her head, gazed earnestly at him. "Joseph, you
see that I am suffering. You must see that it would be a solace to rest
in your love, and you are ungenerous enough to humble my bowed head
still more."
"I have no wish to humble you. But we can be generous only to those who
need it. I see in the haughty Countess Wildenau a person who can
exercise generosity, but not require it."
"Because you do not look into the depths of my heart, tortured with
agonies of unrest and self-accusation?" As she spoke tears sprang to
her eyes, and she involuntarily thought of the faithful, shrewd friend
at home whose delicate power of perception had that very day spared her
the utterance of a single word, and at one glance perceived all the
helplessness of her situation.
True, the _latter_ was a man of the world whom the tinsel and glitter
which surrounded her no longer had power to dazzle, and who was
therefore aware how poor and wretched one can be in the midst of
external magnificence.
The _former_--a man of humble birth, with the childish idea of the
value of material things current among the common people, could not
imagine that a person might be surrounded by splendor and luxury, play
a brilliant part in society, and yet be unhappy and need consideration.
But, however, she might apologize for him, the very excuses lowered him
still more in her eyes! Each of these conflicts seemed to widen the
gulf between them instead of bridging it.
Such scenes, which always reminded her afresh of his lowly origin, did
him more injury in her eyes than either of them suspected at the
moment. They were not mere ebullitions of anger, which yielded to
equally sudden reactions--they were not phases of passion, but the
result of cool deliberation from the standpoint of the educated woman,
which ended in hopeless disappointment.
The continual refrain: "You do not understand me!" with which the
countess closed such discussions expressed the utter hopelessness of
their mutual relations.
"You wonder that I come so rarely!" she said bitterly. "And yet it is
you alone who are to blame--nay, you have even kept me from the bedside
of my child."
"Indeed?" Freyer with difficulty suppressed his rising wrath. "This,
too!"
"Yes, how can you expect me to come gladly, when I always encounter
scenes like these? How often, when I could at last escape from the
thousand demands of society, and hurried hither with a soul thirsting
for love, have you repulsed me with your perpetual reproaches which you
make only because you have no idea of my relations and the claims of
the fashionable world. So, at last, when I longed to come here to my
husband and my child, dread of the unpleasant scenes which shadow your
image, held me back, and I preferred to conjure before me at home the
Freyer whom I once loved and always should love, if you did not
yourself destroy the noble image. With _that_ Freyer I have sweet
intercourse by my lonely fireside--with _him_ I obtain comfort and
peace, if I avoid _this_ Freyer with his petty sensitiveness, his
constant readiness to take umbrage." A mournful smile illumined her
face as she approached him; "You see that when I think of the Freyer of
whom I have just spoken--the Freyer of my imagination--my heart
overflows and my eyes grow dim! Do you no longer know that Freyer? Can
you not tell me where I shall find him again if I seek him very, _very_
earnestly?"
Freyer opened his arms and pointed to his heart: "Here, here, you can
find him, if you desire--come, my beloved, loved beyond all things
earthly, come to the heart which is only sick and sensitive from
longing for you."
In blissful forgetfulness she threw herself upon his breast, completely
overwhelmed by another wave of the old illusion, losing herself
entirely in his ardent embrace.
"Oh, my dear wife!" he murmured in her ear, "I know that I am irritable
and unjust! But you do not suspect the torment to which you condemn me.
Banished from your presence, far from my home, torn from my native
soil, and not yet rooted in yours. What life is this? My untrained
reason is not capable of creating a philosophy which could solve this
mystery. Why must these things be? I am married, yet not married. I am
your husband, yet you are not my wife. I have committed no crime, yet
am a prisoner, am not a dishonored man--yet am a despised one who must
conceal himself in order not to bring shame upon his wife!
"So the years passed and life flits by!" You come often, but--I might
almost say only to make me taste once more the joys of the heaven from
which I am banished.
"Ah, it is more cruel than all the tortures of bell, for the condemned
souls are not occasionally transferred to Heaven only to be again
thrust forth and suffer a thousandfold. Even the avenging God is not so
pitiless."
The countess, overwhelmed by this heavy charge, let her head sink upon
her husband's breast.
"See, my wife," he continued in a gentle, subdued tone, whose magic
filled her heart with that mournful pleasure with which we listen to a
beautiful dirge even beside the corpse of the object of our dearest
love. "In your circles people probably have sufficient self-control to
suppress a great sorrow. I know that I only weary and annoy you by my
constant complaints, and that you will at last prefer to avoid me
entirely rather than expose yourself to them!
"I know this--yet I cannot do otherwise. I was not trained to
dissimulation--self-control, as you call it--I cannot laugh when my
heart is bleeding or utter sweet words when my soul is full of
bitterness. I do not understand what compulsion could prevent you, a
free, rich woman, from coming to the husband whom you love, and I
cannot believe that you could not come if you longed to do so--that is
why I so often doubt your love.
"What should you love in me? I warned you that I cannot always move
about with the crown of thorns and sceptre of reeds as Ecce Homo, and
you now perceive that you were deceived in me, that I am only a poor,
ordinary man, your inferior in education and intellect! And so long as
I am not a real Ecce Homo--though that perhaps might happen--so long I
am not what you need. But however poor and insignificant I may be--I am