On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau
name, cradled the weary little head upon her breast. Too late! He had
passed away like a smiling good genius, whom she had repulsed--now she
was alone and free, but free like the man who falls into a chasm
because the rope which bound him to the guide broke. She had not known
that she possessed a child, while he lived, now that he was dead she
knew it. _Maternal joy_ could not teach her, for she had never
experienced it--_maternal grief_ did--and she was forced to taste it to
the dregs. Though she writhed in her torture, burying her nails in the
carpet as if she would fain dig the child from the ground, she could
find no consolation, and letting her head sink despairingly, she
murmured: "My child--you have gone and left me with a guilt that can
never be atoned!"
"You can be my mother in Heaven," he had once said. This, too, was
forfeited; neither in Heaven nor on earth had she a mother's rights,
for she had denied her child, not only before the world but, during
this last hour, to herself also.
Freyer bore the dispensation differently. To him it was no punishment,
but a trial, the inevitable consequence of unhappy, unnatural
relations. He could not reproach himself and uttered no reproaches to
others. He was no novice in suffering and had one powerful consolation,
which she lacked: the perception of the divinity of grief--this made
him strong and calm! Freyer leaned against the window and gazed upward
to the stars, which were so peacefully pursuing their course. "You were
far away from me when you lived in a foreign land, my child--now you
are near, my poor little boy! This cold earth had no home for you! But
to your father you will still live, and your glorified spirit will
brighten my path--the dark one I must still follow!" Tears flowed
silently down his cheeks. No loud lamentations must profane his great,
sacred anguish. With clasped hands he mutely battled it down and as of
old on the cross his eyes appealed to those powers ever near the
patient sufferer in the hour of conflict. However insignificant and
inexperienced he might be in this world, he was proportionally lofty
and superior in the knowledge of the things of another.
"Come, rise!" he said gently to the bewildered woman, bending to help
her. She obeyed, but it was in the same way that two strangers, in a
moment of common disaster, lend each other assistance. The tie had been
severed that day, and the child's death placed a grave between them.
"I fear your sobbing will be heard downstairs. Will you not pray with
me?" said Freyer. "Do what we may, we are in God's hands and must
accept what He sends! I wish that you could feel how the saints aid a
soul which suffers in silence. Loud outcries and unbridled lamentations
drive them away! God does not punish us to render us impatient, but
patient." He clasped his hands: "Come, let us pray for our child!" He
repeated in a low tone the usual, familiar prayers for the dying--we
cannot always command words to express our feelings. An old formula
often stands us in good stead, when the agitation of our souls will not
suffer us to find language, and our thoughts, swept to and fro by the
tempest of feeling, gladly cling to a familiar form to which they give
new life.
The countess did not understand this. She was annoyed by the
commonplace phraseology, which was not hallowed to her by custom and
piety--she was contemptuous of a point of view which could find
consolation for _such_ a grief by babbling "trivialties." Freyer ended
his prayer, and remained a moment with his hands clasped on his breast.
Then he dipped his fingers in the holy water basin beside the place
where the child's couch had formerly stood and made the sign of the
cross over himself and the unresponsive woman. She submitted, but
winced as if he had cut her face with a knife and destroyed its beauty.
It reminded her of the hour in Ammergau when he made the sign of the
cross over her for the first time! Then she had felt enrolled by this
symbol in a mysterious army of sufferers and there her misery began.
"We must now arrange where we will have the child buried," said Freyer;
"I think we should bring him here, that we may still have our angel's
grave!"
"As you choose!" she said in an exhausted tone, wiping away her tears.
"It will be best for you to go and attend to everything yourself. Then
you can bring the--body!" The word again destroyed her composure. She
saw the child in his coffin with Josepha, the faithful servant who had
nursed him, beside it, and an unspeakable jealousy seized her
concerning the woman to whom she had so indifferently resigned all her
rights. The child, always so ready to lavish its love, was lying cold
and rigid, and she would give her life if it could rise once more,
throw its little arms around her neck, and say "my dear mother." "Pearl
of Heaven--I have cast you away for wretched tinsel and now, when the
angels have taken you again, I recognize your value." She tore the
jewels from her breast. "There, take these glittering stars of my
frivolous life and put them in his coffin--I never want to see them
again--let their rays be quenched in my child's grave."
"The sacrifice comes too late!" said Freyer, pushing the stones away.
He did not wish to be harsh, but he could not be untruthful. What was a
handful of diamonds flung away in a moment of impulse to the Countess
Wildenau? Did she seek to buy with them pardon for her guilt toward her
dead child? The father's aching heart could not accept _that_ payment
on account! Or was it meant for the symbol of a greater sacrifice--a
sacrifice of her former life? Then it came too late, too late for the
dead and for the living; it could not avail the former, and the latter
no longer believed in it!
She had understood him and the terrible accusation which he unwittingly
brought against her! Standing before him as if before a judge, she felt
that God was with him at that moment--but she was deserted, her angel
had left her, there was no pity for her in Heaven or on earth--save
from one person! The thought illumined the darkness of her misery.
There was but one who would pour balm upon her wounds, one who had
indulgence and love enough to raise the drooping head, pardon the
criminal--her noble, generous-hearted friend, the Prince! She would fly
to him, seek shelter from the gloomy spirit which had pursued her ever
since she conjured up in Ammergau the cruel God who asked such
impossible things and punished so terribly.
"Pray, order the carriage--I must leave here or I shall die."
Freyer glanced at the clock. "The half-hour Martin required is over, he
will be here directly."
"Is it only half an hour? Oh! God--is it possible--so much misery in
half an hour! It seems an eternity since the news came!"
"We can feel more grief in one moment than pleasure in a thousand
years!" answered Freyer. "It is probably because a just Providence
allots to each an equal measure of joy and pain--but the pain must be
experienced in this brief existence, while we have an eternity for joy.
Woe betide him, who does the reverse--keeps the pain for eternity and
squanders the joy in this world. He is like the foolish virgins who
burned their oil before the coming of the 'bridegroom.'"
The countess nodded. She understood the deep significance of Freyer's
words.
"But we of the people say that 'whom God loveth, He chasteneth,'" he
continued, "and I interpret that to mean that He _compels_ those whom
He wishes to save to bear their portion here below, that the joy may be
reserved for them in Heaven! To such favored souls He sends an angel
with the cup of wormwood and wherever it flees and hides--he finds it.
Nearer and nearer the angel circles around it on his dark pinions, till
it sinks with fatigue, and fainting with thirst like the Saviour on the
Cross--drinks the bitter draught as if it were the most delicious
refreshment."
The countess gazed into his face with timid admiration. He seemed to
her the gloomy messenger of whom he spoke, she fancied she could hear
the rustle of his wings as he drew nearer and nearer in ever narrowing
circles, till escape was no longer possible. Like a hunted animal she
took to flight--seeking deliverance at any cost. Thank Heaven, the
carriage! Martin was driving up. A cold: "Farewell, I hope you may gain
consolation and strength for the sad journey!" was murmured to the
father who was going to bring home the body of his dead child--then she
entered the carriage.
Freyer wrapped the fur robe carefully around the delicate form of his
wife, but not another word escaped his lips. What he said afterward to
his God, when he returned to the deserted house, Countess Wildenau must
answer for at some future day.
CHAPTER XXIII.
NOLI ME TANGERE.
"I have attracted you by a Play--for you were a child, and children are
taught by games. But when one method of instruction is exhausted it is
cast aside and exchanged for a higher one, that the child may ripen to
maturity." Thus spoke the voice of the Heavenly Teacher to the countess
as, absorbed in her grief, she drove through the dusk of a wintry
morning. She almost wondered, as she gazed out into the grey dawn, that
the day-star was not weary of pursuing its course. Aye, the mysterious
voice spoke the truth: the play was over, that method of instruction
was exhausted, but she did not yet feel ready for a sterner one and
trembled at the thought of it.
Instead of the divine Kindergarten instructor, came the gloomy teacher
death, forcing the attention of the refractory pupil by the first
pitiless blow upon her own flesh and blood! Day was dawning--in nature
as well as in her own soul, but the sun shone upon a winding sheet,
outside as well as in, a world dead in the clasp of winter. Where was
the day when the redeeming love for which she hoped would appear to her
in the spring garden? Woe to all who believed in spring. Their best
gift was a cold winter sunlight on snow-covered graves.
The corpse of her spring dream was lying on the laughing shores of the
Riviera.
The God whom she sought was very different from the one she intended to
banish from her heart. The new teacher seized her hand with bony
fingers and forced her to look closely at the God whom she herself had
created, and whom she now upbraided with having deceived her. "What
kind of God would this creature of your imagination be?" rang in her
ears with pitiless mockery. Aye, she had believed Him to be the Jupiter
who loved mortal women, only in the course of the ages he had changed
his name and now appeared as Christ. But she was now forced to learn
that He was no offspring of the sensual fancy of the nations, but a
contrast to every natural tendency and desire--a _true_ God, not a
creation of mankind. Were it not so, men would have invented a more
complaisant one. Must not that be a divine power which, in opposition
to all human, all earthly passions, with neither splendor, nor power,
with the most insignificant means has established an empire throughout
the world? Aye, she recognized with reverent awe that this was a God,
though unlike the one whom she sought, Christ was not Jupiter--and
Freyer was not Christ. The _latter_ cannot be clasped in the arms, does
not yield to earthly yearning, no matter how fervently devout. Spirit
as He is, He vanishes, even where He reveals Himself in material form,
and whoever thinks to grasp Him, holds but the poor doll, whom He gave
for a momentary support to the childish mind, which seeks solely what
is tangible!
Mary Magdalene was permitted to serve and anoint Him when He walked on
earth in human form, but when she tried to clasp the risen Lord the
"_noli me tangere_" thundered in her ears, and God withdrew from mortal