On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau
But, my dear Countess, you must have been passing through terrible
experiences to lavish such undue gratitude upon the innocent instigator
of such a trifle as this appointment as mistress of ceremonies, for
whose acceptance we must be grateful to you. There is a touch of almost
timidity in your manner, my poor Madeleine, as if you had lost the
self-control which, with all your feminine grace, gave your bearing so
firm a poise. You do yourself injustice. You must shake off this
oppression. That is why I ventured to push the hands of the clock of
life a little and secured this position, which will leave you no time
for torturing yourself with fancies. That is what you need most.
Unfortunately I cannot lift from those beautiful shoulders the burden
you yourself have probably laid upon them; but I will aid you
gradually, to strip it off.
"The world in which you are placed needs you--you must live for it and
ought not to withdraw your powers, your intellect, your charm. You are
created for a lofty position! I do not mean a subordinate one--that of
a mistress of ceremonies. This is merely a temporary palliative--I mean
that of a reigning princess, who has to provide for the physical and
intellectual welfare of a whole nation. When in your present office you
have become reconciled to the world and its conditions--perhaps the day
will come when I shall be permitted to offer you that higher place!"
The countess stood with her hands resting on the table and her eyes
bent on the floor. Her heart was throbbing violently--her breath was
short and hurried. _One_ thought whirled through her brain. "You might
have had all this and forfeited it forever!" The consciousness of her
marred destiny overwhelmed her with all its power. What a contrast
between the prince, the perfect product of culture, who took into
account all the demands of her rank and character, and the narrow,
limited child of nature, her husband, who found cause for reproach in
everything which the trained man of the world regarded as a matter of
course. Freyer tortured her and humbled her in her own eyes, while the
prince tenderly cherished her. Freyer--like the embodiment of Christian
asceticism--required from her everything she disliked while Prince Emil
desired nothing save to see her beautiful, happy, and admired, and made
it her duty to enjoy life as suited her education and tastes! She would
fain have thrown herself exultingly into the arms of her preserver and
said: "Take me and bear me up again on the waves of life ere I fall
into the power of that gloomy God whose power is nurtured on the blood
of the murdered joys of His followers."
Suddenly it seemed as if some one else was in the room gazing intently
at her. She looked up--the eyes of the Christ in the Gothic niche were
bent fixedly on her. "Are you looking at me again?" asked a voice in
her terror-stricken soul. "Can you never die?"
It was even so; He could not die on the cross, He cannot die in her
heart. Even though it was but a moment that He appeared to mortal eyes
in the Passion Play, He will live for ever to all who experienced that
moment.
Her uplifted arms fell as if paralyzed, and she faltered in broken
sentences: "Not another word, Prince--in Heaven's name--do not lead me
into temptation. Banish every thought of me--you do not know--oh! I was
never worthy of you, have never recognized all your worth--and now when
I do--now it is too late." She could say no more, tears were trembling
on her lashes. She again glanced timidly at the painted Christ--He had
now closed His eyes. His expression was more peaceful.
The prince gazed at her earnestly, but quietly. "Ah, there is a false
standpoint which must be removed. It will cost something, I see. Calm
yourself--you have nothing more to fear from me--I was awkward--it was
not the proper moment, I ought to have known it. Do you remember our
conversation nine years ago, on the way to the Passion Play? At that
time a phantom stood between us. It has since assumed a tangible form,
has it not? I saw this coming, but unfortunately could not avert it.
But consider--it is and will always remain--a phantom! Such spectres
can be fatal only to eccentric imaginative women like you who, in
addition to imagination, also possess a strongly idealistic tendency
which impresses an ethical meaning upon everything they feel. With a
nature like yours things which, in and of themselves, are nothing
except romantic episodes, assume the character of moral conflicts in
which you always feel that you are the guilty ones because you were the
superior and have taken a more serious view of certain relations than
they deserved."
"Yes, yes! That is it. Oh, Prince--you understand me better than any
one else!" exclaimed the countess, admiringly.
"Yes, and because I understand you better than any one else, I love you
better than any one else--that is the inevitable consequence. Therefore
it would be a pity, if I were obliged to yield to that phantom--for
never were two human beings so formed for each other as we." He was
silent, Madeleine had not heard the last words. In her swift variations
of mood reacting with every changing impression, a different feeling
had been evoked by the word "phantom" and the memories it awakened.
Even the cleverest man cannot depend upon a woman. The phantom again
stood between them--conjured up by himself.
As if by magic, the Kofel with its glittering cross rose before her,
and opposite at her right hand the glimmering sunbeams stole up the
cliff till, like shining fingers, they rested on a face whose like she
had never seen--the eyes, dark yet sparkling, like the night when the
star led the kings to the child in the manger! There he stood again,
the One so long imagined, so long desired.
And her enraptured eyes said: "Throughout the whole world I have
sought you alone." And his replied: "And I you!" And was this to be a
lie--this to vanish? It seemed as if Heaven had opened its gates and
suffered her to look in, and was all this to be delusion? The panorama
of memory moved farther on, leading her past the dwellings of the high
priest and apostles in Ammergau to the moonlit street where her ear,
listening reverently, caught the words: This is where Christus lives!
And she stood still with gasping breath, trembling with expectation of
the approach of God.
Then the following day--the great day which brought the fulfilment of
the mighty yearning when she beheld this face "from which the God so
long sought smiled upon her!" The God whom she had come to seek, to
confess! What! Could she deny, resign this God, in whose wounds she had
laid her fingers.
Again she stood in timid reverence, with a glowing heart, while before
her hovered the pierced, bleeding hand--Heaven and earth turned upon
the question whether she dared venture to press her lips upon the
stigma; she did venture, almost swooning from the flood of her
feelings--and lo, in the kiss the quivering lips felt the throbbing of
the warm awakening life in the hand of the stern "God," and a feeling
of exultation stirred within her, "You belong to me! I will steal you
from the whole human race." And now, scarcely nine years later--must
the joy vanish, the God disappear, the faith die? What a miserable,
variable creature is man!
"Dinner is served, and Baron St. Genois has called--shall I prepare
another place?"
The countess started from her reverie--had she been asleep where she
stood? Where was she?
The lackey was obliged to repeat the announcement and the question. A
visitor now? She would rather die--yet Baron St. Genois was an intimate
friend, he could come to dinner whenever he pleased--he was not to be
sent away.
She nodded assent to the servant. Her emotions were repressed and
scattered, her throbbing heart sank feebly back to its usual
pulsation--pallid despair whispered: "Give up the struggle--you cannot
be saved!"
A few minutes after the little party were celebrating in the
brilliantly lighted dining-room in sparkling sack the "event of the
day," the appointment of the new mistress of ceremonies.
CHAPTER XXII.
FALLING STARS.
"The new mistress of ceremonies isn't popular."
"Countess Wildenau is said to have fallen into disgrace already; she
did not ride in the queen's carriage at the recent great parade."
"That is perfectly natural. It was to be expected, when a lady so
unaccustomed to put any constraint upon herself as Countess Wildenau
was appointed to such a position."
"She is said to make constant blunders. If she chooses, she keeps the
queen and the whole court waiting. She is reported to have arrived at
court fifteen minutes too late a short time ago."
"And to have forgotten to present a number of ladies."
"People are indignant with her."
"Poor woman, she takes infinite trouble, but the place is not a
suitable one for her--she is absent-minded and makes mistakes, which
are unpardonable in a mistress of ceremonies."
"Yes, if the queen's cousin, the Hereditary Prince of Metten-Barnheim
did not uphold her, the queen would have dropped her long ago. She is
seen at court only when she is acting as representative. She has not
succeeded in establishing personal relations with Her Majesty."
Such, at the end of a few months, were the opinions of society, and
they were just.
It seemed as though the curse of those whom she had deserted, rested
upon her--do what she would, she had no success in this position.
As on the mountain peak towering into the upper air, every warm current
condenses into a cloud, so in the cool, transparent atmosphere of very
lofty and conspicuous positions the faintest breath of secret struggles
and passions seems to condense into masses of clouds which often gather
darkly around the most brilliant personalities, veiling their traits.
The passionate, romantic impulse, which was constantly at war with the
aristocratic birth and education of the countess, was one of those
currents which unconsciously and involuntarily must enter as an alien
element in the crystalline clearness of these peaks of society.
This was the explanation of the mystery that the countess, greatly
admired in private life and always a welcome guest at court, could not
fill an official position successfully. The slight cloud which, in her
private life, only served to surround her with a halo of romance which
rendered the free independent woman of rank doubly interesting, was
absolutely unendurable in a lady of the court representing her
sovereign! There everything must be clear, calm, official. The
impersonal element of royalty, as it exists in our day, specially in
the women of reigning houses, will not permit any individuality to make
itself prominent near the throne. All passionate emotions and
peculiarities are abhorrent, because, even in individuals, they are
emanations of the seething popular elements which sovereigns must at
once rule and fear.
Countess Wildenau's constant excitement, restless glances, absence
of mind, and feverish alternations of mood unconsciously expressed
the vengeance of the spirit of the common people insisted in her
husband--and the queen, in her subtle sensibility, therefore had a
secret timidity and aversion to the new mistress of ceremonies which
she could not conquer. Thus the first mists in the atmosphere near the
throne arose, the vapors gathered into clouds--but the clouds were seen
by the keen-eyed public--as the sun of royal favor vanished behind
them.
It is far better never to have been prominent than to be forced to
retire. The countess was a great lady, whose power seemed immovable and
unassailable, so long as she lived independently--now it was seen that