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

pressed his little head, crowned with dark, curling locks, against her cheek. Such moments were sweet, but outweighed by too much bitterness. "Bring him some milk--fresh milk!" Madeleine von Wildenau repeated in the slightly imperious tone which seems to consider opposition impossible. "That will be entirely different from his usual custom," remarked Josepha, as if the countess' order had seriously interfered with the regular mode of life necessary to the child. The mother perceived this, and a faint flush of shame and indignation suffused her face, but instantly vanished, as if grief had consumed the wave of blood which wrath had stirred. "Is your mother--Josepha--kind to you?" she asked, when Josepha had left the room. The boy nodded carelessly. "She does not strike you, she is gentle?" "No, she doesn't strike me," the little fellow answered. "She loves me." "Do you love her, too?" the countess went on. "Wh--y--Yes!" said the child, shrugging his shoulders. Then he looked tenderly into her face. "I love you better." "That is not right, Josepha is your mother--you must love her best." The boy shook his head thoughtfully. "But I would rather have you for my mamma." "That cannot be--unfortunately--I must not." The child gazed at her with an expression of sorrowful disappointment. =At last he found an expedient. "But in Heaven--when I go to Heaven--_you_ will be my mother there, won't you?" The countess shuddered--an indescribable pain pierced her heart, yet she was happy, a blissful anguish! Tears streamed from her eyes and, clasping the child tenderly, she gently kissed him. "Yes, my child! In Heaven--perhaps I may be your mother!" Josepha now brought in the milk and wanted to give it to him, but the boy would not take it from her, he insisted that the countess must hold the bowl. She did so, but her hand trembled and Josepha was obliged to help her, or the whole contents would have been spilled. She averted her face. "She cannot even give her child anything to drink," thought Josepha, as she moved about the room, putting it in order. "Josepha, please leave me alone a little while," said the countess, almost beseechingly. "Indeed?" Josepha's cheeks flushed scarlet, it seemed as if the bones grew still more prominent. "If I am in your Highness' way--I can go at once." "Josepha!" said the countess, now suddenly turning toward her a face wet with tears. "Surely I might be allowed to spend fifteen minutes alone with my child without offending any one! I will forgive your words--on account of your natural jealousy--and I think you already regret them, do you not?" "Yes," replied Josepha, somewhat reluctantly, but so conquered by the unhappy mother's words that she pressed a hard half reluctant kiss upon the countess' hand with her rough, parched lips. Then, with a passionate glance at the child, she gave place to the mother whose claim she would fain have disputed before God Himself, if she could. But when the door had closed behind her, the countess could bear no more. Placing the child in his little bed, she flung herself sobbing beside it. "My child--my child, forgive me," she cried, forgetting all prudence "--pray for me to God." Just at that moment the door opened and Freyer entered. All that was stirring the mother's heart instantly became clear to him, as he saw her thus broken down beside the boy's bed. "Calm yourself--what will the child think!" he said, bending down and raising her. "Don't cry, Mamma!" said the boy, stroking the soft hair on the grief-bowed head. He did not know why he now suddenly called her "mamma"--perhaps it was a prospect of the heaven where she would be his mother, and he said it in advance. "Oh, Freyer, kill me--I am worthy of nothing better--cut short the battle of a wasted life! An animal which cannot recover is killed out of pity, why not a human being, who feels suffering doubly?" "Magdalena--Countess--I do not know you in this mood." "Nor do I know myself! What am I? What is a mother who is no mother--a wife who cannot declare herself a wife? A fish that cannot swim, a bird that cannot fly! We kill such poor crippled creatures out of sheer compassion. What kind of existence is mine? An egotist who nevertheless feels the pain of those whom she renders unhappy; an aristocrat who cannot exist outside of her own sphere and yet pines for the eternal verity of human nature; a coquette who trifles with hearts and yet would _die_ for a genuine feeling--these are my traits of character! Can there be anything more contradictory, more full of wretchedness?" "Let us go out of doors, Countess, such conversation is not fit for the child to hear." "Oh, he does not understand it." "He understands more than you believe, you do not know what questions he often asks--ah, you deprive yourself of the noblest joys by being unable to watch the remarkable development of this child." She nodded silently, absorbed in gazing at the boy. "Come, Countess, the sun has risen--the cool morning air will do you good, I will ring for Josepha to take the boy," he said quietly, touching the bell. The little fellow sat up in bed, his breathing was hurried and anxious, his large eyes were fixed imploringly on the countess: "Oh, mamma--dear mamma in Heaven--stay--don't go away." "Ah, if only I could--my child--how gladly I would stay here always. But I will come back again presently, I will only walk in the sunshine for half-an-hour." "Oh, I would like to go in the sunshine, too. Can't I go with you, and run about a little while?" "Not to-day, not until your cough is cured, my poor little boy! But I'll promise to talk and think of nothing but you until I return! Meanwhile Josepha shall wash and dress you, I don't understand that--Josepha can do it better." "Oh! yes, I'm good enough for that!" thought the girl, who heard the last words just as she entered. "My beautiful mamma has been crying, because she is a bird and can't fly--" said the child to Josepha with sorrowful sympathy. "But you can't fly either--nor I till we are angels--then we can!" He spread out his little arms like wings as if he longed to soar upward and away, but an attack of coughing made him sink back upon his pillows. The husband and wife looked at each other with the same sorrowful anxiety. The countess bent over the little bed as if she would fain stifle with kisses the cough that racked the little chest. "Mamma, it doesn't hurt--you must not cry," said the boy, consolingly. "There is a spider inside of my breast which tickles me--so I have to cough. But it will spin a big, big net of silver threads like those on the Christmas tree which will reach to Heaven, then I'll climb up on it!" The countess could scarcely control her emotion. Freyer drew her hand through his arm and led her out into the dewy morning. "You are so anxious about our secret and yet, if _I_ were not conscientious enough to help you guard it, you would betray yourself every moment, you are imprudent with the child, it is not for my own interest, but yours that I warn you. Do not allow your newly awakened maternal love to destroy your self-control in the boy's presence. Do not let him call you 'Mamma.' Poor mother--indeed I understand how this wounds you--but--it must be one thing or the other. If you cannot--or _will_ not be a mother to the child--you _must_ renounce this name." She bowed her head. "You are as cruel as ever, though you are right! How can I maintain my self-control, when I hear such words from the child? What a child he is! Whenever I come, I marvel at his intellectual progress! If only it is natural, if only it is not the omen of an early death!" Freyer pitied her anxiety, "It is merely because the child is reared in solitude, associating solely with two sorrowing people, Josepha and myself; it is natural that his young soul should develop into a graver and more thoughtful character than other children," he said, consolingly. They had gone out upon a dilapidated balcony, overgrown with vines and bushes. It was a beautiful morning, but the surrounding woods and the mouldering autumn leaves were white with hoar frost. Freyer wrapped the shivering woman in a cloak which he had taken with him. Under the cold breath of the bright fall morning, and her husband's cheering words, she gradually grew calm and regained her composure. "But something must be done with the child," she said earnestly. "Matters cannot go on so, he looks too ethereal.--I will send him to Italy with Josepha." "Good Heavens, then I shall be entirely alone!" said Freyer, with difficulty suppressing his dismay. "Yet it must be," replied the countess firmly. "How shall I endure it? The child was my all, my good angel--my light in darkness! Often his little hands have cooled my brow when the flames of madness were circling around it. Often his eyes, his features have again revealed your image clearly when, during a long separation, it had become blurred and distorted. While gazing at the child, the dear, beautiful child, I felt that nothing could sever this sacred bond. The mother of this boy could not desert her husband--for the sake of this child she must love me! I said to myself, and learned to trust, to hope, once more. And now I am to part from him. Oh, God!--Thy judgment is severe. Thou didst send an angel to comfort Thy divine son on the Mount of Olives--Thou dost take him from me! Yet not my will, but Thine, be done!" He bent his head sadly: "If it must be, take him." "The child is ill, I have kept him shut up in these damp rooms too long, he needs sunshine and milder air. If he were obliged to spend another winter in this cold climate, it would be his death. But if it is so hard for you to be separated from the boy--go with him. I will hire a villa for you and Josepha somewhere on the Riviera. It will do you good, too, to leave this nook hidden among the woods--and I cannot shelter you here in Bavaria where every one knows you, without betraying our relation." Freyer gazed at her with a mournful smile: "And you think--that I would go?" He shook his head. "No, I cannot make it so easy for you. We are still husband and wife, I am still yours, as you are mine. And though you so rarely come to me--if during the whole winter there was but a single hour when you needed a heart, you must find your husband's, I must be here!" He drew her gently to his breast. "No, my wife, it would have been a comfort, if I could have kept the child--but if you must take him from me, I will bear this, too, like everything which comes from your hand, be it life or death--nothing shall part me from you, not even love for my boy." There was something indescribable in the expression with which he gazed at her as he uttered the simple words, and she clung to him overwhelmed by such unexampled fidelity, which thus sacrificed the only, the last blessing he possessed for a _single_ hour with her. "My husband--my kind, noble husband! The most generous heart in all the world!" she cried, caressing him again and again as she gazed rapturously at the beautiful face, so full of dignity: "You shall not make the sacrifice for a single hour, your wife will come and reward your loyalty with a thousand-fold greater love. Often--often. Perhaps oftener than ever! For I feel that the present condition of affairs cannot last. I must be permitted to be wife and mother--I realized to-day at the bedside of my child that my _guilt_, too, was growing year by year. It is time for me to atone. When I return home I will seriously consider what can be done to make an arrangement with my relatives! I need not confess that I am already married--I could say