On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau
rested upon the fair face, which made the beholder almost forget the
beauty of the form in that of the soul, while gazing into the spiritual
eyes which seemed to seek some other home than this prosaic earth. Just
in the direction of her glance, Hermes, the messenger of death, bent
his divine face from a group of palms and dried grasses. It seemed as
if she beheld all these things for the first time--as if they had been
newly given back to her that day after she had believed them lost. Her
breath almost failed at the thought that she had been on the point of
resigning it all--and for what? All these treasures of immortal beauty
and art--for a weeping child and a surly man, who loved in her only the
housewife, which any maid-servant can be, but understood what she
really was, what really constituted her dignity and charm no more than
he would comprehend Lenbach's picture, which reflected to her her own
person transfigured and ennobled. She gazed at herself with proud
satisfaction. Should such a woman sacrifice herself to a man who
scarcely knew the meaning of beauty! Destroy herself for an illusion of
the imagination? She rang the bell--she felt the necessity of ordering
something, to be sure that she was still mistress of the house.
The lackey entered. "Your Highness?"
Thank Heaven! Her servants still obeyed her.
"Send over to the Barnheim Palace, and invite the Prince to dine with
me at six. Then serve lunch."
"Very well. Has Your Highness any other orders?"
"The maid."
"Yes, Your Highness."
The man left the room with the noiseless, solemn step of a well-trained
lackey.
"How can any one live without servants?" the countess asked herself,
looking after him. "What should I have done, if I had dismissed mine?"
She shuddered. Now that regal luxury again surrounded her she was a
different person from this morning. No doubt she still felt what she
had suffered that day, but only as we dimly, after waking from a
fevered dream, realize the tortures we have endured.
Some one knocked, and the maid entered.
"I will take a bath before lunch. I feel very ill. Pour a bottle of
_vinaigre de Bouilli_ into the water. I will come directly."
The maid disappeared.
Everything still went on like clock-work. Nothing had changed--no one
noticed what she had _almost_ done that day. The struggle was over. The
royal order, which it would have been madness to oppose, had determined
her course.
But her nerves were still quivering from the experiences of the day.
The child, if only she were not hampered by the child! That was the
only thing which would not allow her to breathe freely--it was her own
flesh and blood. That was the wound in her heart which could never be
healed. She would always long for the boy--as he would for her. Yet,
what did this avail, nothing could be changed, she must do what reason
and necessity required. At least for the present; nay, there was even
something beautiful in a sorrow borne with aristocratic dignity! By the
depth of the wound, we proudly measure the depth of our own hearts.
She pleased herself with the idea of doing the honors as mistress of
ceremonies to kings and emperors, while yearning in the depths of
her soul for a poor orphaned child, the son of the proud Countess
Wildenau--whose husband was a peasant. Only a nature of the elasticity
of Madeleine von Wildenau's could sink so low and yet soar so high,
without losing its equilibrium.
These were the oscillations which Ludwig Gross once said were necessary
to such natures--though their radii passed through the lowest gulfs of
human misery to the opposite heights. Coquetry is not only cruel to
others, but to itself--in the physical tortures which it endures for
the sake of an uncomfortable fashion, and the spiritual ones with which
it pays for its triumphs.
This was the case with the countess. During her first unhappy marriage
she had learned to control the most despairing moods and be "amusing"
with an aching heart. What marvel that she deemed it a matter of course
that she must subdue the gnawing grief of her maternal love. So she
coquetted even with suffering and found pleasure in bearing it
gracefully.
She sat down at her writing-desk, crowned with Canova's group of Cupid
and Psyche, and wrote:
"My dear husband! In my haste I can only inform you that I shall be
unable to come out immediately to arrange Josepha's journey. I have
been appointed mistress of ceremonies to the queen and must obey the
summons. Meanwhile, let Josepha prepare for the trip, I will send the
directions for the journey and the money to-day. Give the boy my love,
kiss him for me, and comfort him with the promise that I will visit him
in the Riviera when I can. Amid the new scenes he will soon forget me
and cease waiting and expecting. The Southern climate will benefit his
health, and we shall have all the more pleasure in him afterward. He
must remain there at least a year to regain his strength.
"I write hastily, for many business matters and ceremonies must be
settled within the next few days. It is hard for me to accept this
position, which binds me still more closely in the fetters I was on the
eve of stripping off! But to make the king and queen my enemies at the
very moment when I need powerful friends more than ever, would be
defying fate! It will scarcely be possible for me now to come out as
often as I promised you to-day. But, if you become too lonely, you
can occasionally come in as my 'steward,' ostensibly to bring me
reports--in this way we shall see each other and I will give orders
that the steward shall be admitted to me at any time, and have a
suitable office and apartments assigned to him 'as I shall now be
unable to look after the estates so much myself.'
"If I cannot receive you at once, you will wait in your room until your
wife, freed from the restraint and duties of the day, will fly to your
arms.
"Is not this admirably arranged? Are you at last satisfied, you
discontented man?
"You see that I am doing all that is possible! Only do not be angry
with me because I also do what reason demands. I must secure to my
child the solid foundations of a safe and well-ordered existence, since
we must not, for the sake of sentiment, aimlessly shatter our own
destiny. How would it benefit the sick child if I denounced myself and
was compelled to give up the whole of my private fortune to compensate
my first husband's relatives for what I have spent illegally since
my second marriage? I could not even do anything more for my son's
health, and should be forced to see him pine away in some mountain
hamlet--perhaps Ammergau itself, whither I should wander with my
household goods and you, like some vagrant's family. The boys there
would stone him and call him in mockery, the 'little Count.' The
snow-storms would lash him and completely destroy his delicate lungs.
"No, if I did not fear poverty for _myself_, I must do so for _you_.
How would you endure to have the Ammergau people--and where else could
you find employment--point their fingers at you and say: 'Look, that is
Freyer, who ran away with a countess! He did a fine thing'--and then
laugh jeeringly.
"My Joseph! Keep your love for me, and let me have judgment for you,
then all will be well. In love,
Your M."
She did not suspect, when she ended her letter, very well satisfied
with her dialectics, that Freyer after reading it would throw the torn
fragments on the floor.
This cold, frivolous letter--this change from the mood of
yesterday--this act after all her promises! He had again been deceived
and disappointed, again hoped and believed in vain. All, all on which
he had relied was destroyed, the moral elevation of his beloved wife,
which would at last restore to her husband and child their sacred
rights--was a lie, and instead, by way of compensation, came the
offer--of the position of a lover.
He was to seek his wife under the cover of the darkness, as a man seeks
his inamorata--he, her husband, the father of her child! "No, Countess,
the steward will not steal into your castle, in order when you have
enjoyed all the pleasures of the day, to afford you the excitement of a
stolen intrigue.
"Though the scorn and derision of the people of my native village would
wound me sorely, as you believe--I would rather work with them as a
day-laborer, than to play before your lackeys the part which you assign
me." This was his only answer. He was well aware that it would elicit
only a shrug of the shoulders, and a pitying smile, but he could not
help it.
It was evening when the countess' letter reached him, and while, by the
dim light of the hanging lamp, in mortal anguish he composed at the
bedside of the feverish child this clumsy and unfortunately mis-spelled
reply, the folding-doors of the brilliantly lighted dining-room in the
Wildenau palace, were thrown open and the prince offered his arm to the
countess.
She was her brilliant self again. She had taken a perfumed bath,
answered the royal letter, made several sketches for new court costumes
and sent them to Paris.
She painted with unusual skill, and the little water-color figures
which she sent to her modistes, were real works of art, far superior to
those in the fashion journals.
"Your Highness might earn your bread in this way"--said the maid
flatteringly, and a strange thrill stirred the countess at these words.
She had made herself a costume book, in which she had painted all the
toilettes she had worn since her entrance into society, and often found
amusement in turning the leaves; what memories the sight of the old
clothes evoked! From the heavy silver wrought brocade train of old
Count Wildenau's young bride, down to the airy little summer gown which
she had worn nine years ago in Ammergau. From the stiff, regulation
court costume down to the simple woolen morning gown in which she had
that morning spent hours of torture on account of that Ammergau
"delusion." But at the maid's words she shut the book as if startled
and rose: "I will give you the dress I wore this morning, but on
condition that I never see it."
"Your Highness is too kind, I thank you most humbly," said the
delighted woman, kissing the sleeve of the countess' combing-mantle--she
would not have ventured to kiss her hand.
The dinner toilette was quickly completed, and when the countess looked
in the glass she seemed to herself more beautiful than ever. The
melancholy expression around her eyes, and a slight trace of tears
which she had shed, lent the pale tea-rose a tinge of color which was
marvellously becoming.
The day was over, and when the prince came to dinner at six o'clock she
received him with all her former charm.
"To whom do I owe this--Prince?" she said smiling, holding out the
official letter.
"Why do you ask me?"
"Because _you_ only can tell!"
"I?"
"Yes, you. Who else would have proposed me to their Majesties? Don't
try to deceive me by that air of innocence. I don't trust it. You, and
no one else would do me this friendly service, for everything good
comes through you. You are not only a great and powerful man--you are
also a good and noble one--my support, my Providence! I thank you."
She took both his hands in hers and offered him her forehead to kiss,
with a glance of such sincere admiration and gratitude, that in his
surprise and joy he almost missed the permitted goal and touched her
lips instead. But fortunately, he recollected himself and almost
timidly pressed the soft curls which quivered lightly like the delicate
tendrils of flowers.
"I cannot resist this gratitude! Yes, my august cousin, the queen, did
have the grace to consider my proposal as 'specially agreeable' to her.