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

touch. In Mary Magdalene, however, the love kindled by the visible Master was strong enough to burn on for the invisible One--she no longer sought Him among the living, but went into solitude and lived for the vanished Christ. But the countess had not advanced so far. What "God of Love" was this, who imposed conditions which made the warm blood freeze, killed the warm life-pulses? What possession was this, which could only be obtained by renunciation, what joy that could be attained solely by mortification? Her passionate nature could not comprehend this contradiction. She longed to clasp His knees and wipe His feet with her hair, at least that, nothing more, only that--she would be modest! But not even that was allowed her. This was the great impulse of religious materialism, in which divinity and humanity met, the Magdalene element in the history of the conversion of mankind, which attracted souls like that of Madeleine von Wildenau, made them feel for an instant the bliss of the immediate presence of God, and then left them disappointed and alone until they perceived that in that one instant wings have grown--strong enough to bear them up to Heaven, if they once learned to use them. Thus quivering and forsaken, the heart of the modern Magdalene lay on the earth when the first _noli me tangere_ echoed in her ears. She had never known that there were things which could not be had, and now that she wanted a God and could not obtain Him, she murmured like a child which longs in vain for the stars until it attains a higher consciousness of ownership than lies in mere personal possession, the feeling which in quiet contemplation of the starry firmament fills us with the proud consciousness: "This is yours!" Everything is ours--and nothing, according to our view of it. To expand our breasts with its mighty thoughts--to merge ourselves in it and revel in the whirling dance of the atoms, _in that sense_ the universe is ours. But absorb and contain it we cannot; in that way it does not belong to us. It is the same with God. Greatness cannot enter littleness--the small must be absorbed by the great; but its power of possession lies in the very fact that it can do this and still retain its own nature. How long will it last, and what will it cost, ere the impatient child attains the peace of this realization? In the faint glimmer of the dawn the countess drove past a little church in the suburbs of Munich. It was the hour for early mass. A few sleepy, shivering old women, closely muffled, were shuffling over the snow in big felt shoes toward the open door. A dim ray of light streamed out, no organ notes, no festal display lured worshippers, for it was a "low mass." It was cold and gloomy outside, songless within. Yet the countess suddenly stopped the carriage. "I am going into the church a moment," she said, tottering forward with uncertain steps, for she was exhausted both physically and mentally. The old women eyed her malignantly, as if asking: "What do you want among poor ugly crones who drag their crooked limbs out of bed so early to go to their Saviour, because later they must do the work of their little homes and cannot get away? What brings you to share with us the bitter bread of poverty, the bread of the poor in spirit, with which our Saviour fed the five thousand and will feed thousands and tens of thousands more from eternity to eternity? Of what use to you are the crumbs scattered here for a few beggars?" She felt ashamed as she moved in her long velvet train and costly fur cloak past the cowering figures redolent of the musty straw beds and close sleeping rooms whence they had come, and read these questions on the wrinkled faces peering from under woollen hoods and caps, as if she, the rich woman, had come to take something from the poor. She had gone forward to the empty front benches near the altar, where the timid common people do not venture to sit, but--she knew not why--as she was about to kneel there, she suddenly felt that she could not cut off a view of any part of the altar from the people behind, deprive them of anything to which she had no right, and turning she went back to the last seat. There, behind a trembling old man in a shabby woollen blouse, who could scarcely bend his stiff knees and sat coughing and gasping, and a consumptive woman, who was passing the beads of her rosary between thin, crooked fingers, she knelt down. She was more at ease now--she felt that she had no rights here, that she was the least among the lowliest. The church was still dark, it had not yet been lighted, the sacristan was obliged to be saving--every one knew that. The faint ray which streamed through the door came from the candle ends brought by the congregation, who set them in front of the praying-desks to read their prayer-books. The first person was compelled to use a match, the others lighted their candles from his and were glad to be able to save the matches. It was a silent agreement, which every one knew. Here and there a tiny light glowed brightly--ever and anon in some dark corner the slight snap of a match was heard and directly after a column or the image of some saint emerged from the wavering shadows, now fainter, now more distinct, according as the light flashed up and down, till it burned clearly. Then the nave grew bright and the breath of the congregation rose through the cold church over the little flames like clouds of incense. The high-altar alone still lay veiled in darkness. The light of a wax-candle on the bench in front shone brightly into the countess' eyes. The woman in the three-cornered kerchief with the sunken temples and bony hands glanced back and gazed mournfully, almost reproachfully, into her face and at her rich fur cloak. Madeleine von Wildenau was ashamed of her beauty, ashamed that she wore furs while the woman in front of her scarcely had her shoulders covered. She felt burdened, she almost wanted to excuse herself. If she were poor also--she would have no cause to be ashamed. She gently drew out her purse and slipped the contents into the woman's hand. The latter drew back startled, she could not believe, could not understand that she was really to take it, that the lady was in earnest. "May God reward you! I'll pray for you a thousand times!" she whispered, and a great, unutterable emotion filled the countess' soul as she met the poor woman's grateful glance. Then the kneeling crone nudged her neighbor, the coughing, stammering old man, and pressed a gold coin into his hand. "There's something for you! You're poor and needy too." The latter looked at the woman, who was a stranger, as though she were an apparition from another world. "Why, what is this?" he murmured with difficulty. "The lady behind gave it to me," said the woman, pointing backward with her thumb. The old man nodded to the lady, as well as his stiff neck would permit, and the woman did not notice that he ought to have thanked her, as the money was given to her and she had voluntarily shared it with him. Countess Wildenau experienced a strange emotion of satisfaction as if now, for the first time, she had a right here, and with the gift she had purchased her share of the "bread of poverty." At last there was a movement near the high altar. A sleepy alcolyte shuffled in, made his reverence before it and lighted a candle, which would not burn because he did not wait till the wax, which was stiffened by the cold, had melted. While he was lighting the second, the first went out and he was obliged to begin his task anew. The wand wavered to and fro a long time in the boy's numb hands, but at last the altar was lighted, the boy bowed again, and went down the stone steps into the vestry-room. This was ordinary prose, but the devout worshippers did not perceive it. They all knew the wondrous spell of fire, with which the Catholic church consecrates candles and gives their light the power to scatter the princes of darkness, and rejoiced in the victorious rays from which the evil spirits fled, they saw their gliding shadows dart in wild haste through the church and the sleepy boy who had wrought the miracle by means of his lighter disappear. _The light shines, no matter who kindles it_. The poor dark souls, illumined by no ray of earthly hope, eagerly absorbed its cheering rays and so long as the consecrated candles burned, the ghosts of care, discord, envy, and all the other demons of poverty were spell-bound! Now the priest entered, clad in his white robes, accompanied by two attendants. A deathlike stillness reigned throughout the church. In a low, almost inaudible whisper he read the Latin text, which no one understood, but whose meaning every one knew, even the countess. Everything which gives an impulse to the independent activity of the soul produces more effect than what is received in a complete form. During the incomprehensible muttering, the countess had time to recall the whole mighty drama to which it referred better and more vividly than any distinct prosaic theological essay could have described it. Again she experienced all the horrors of the Passion, as she had done in the Passion Play--only this time invisibly, instead of visibly--spiritually instead of materially--"Noli me tangere!" The priest stooped and kissed the altar, it meant the Judas kiss. "Can you kiss those lips and not fall down to worship?" cried a voice in the countess' heart, as it had done nine years before, and a nameless longing seized upon her for the divine contact which had fallen to the traitor's lot--but "Noli me tangere" rang in the ears of the penitent Magdalene. Before her stood an altar and a priest, not Christ nor Judas, and the kiss she envied was imprinted upon white linen, not the Saviour's lips. She pressed her hands upon her heart and a few bitter tears oozed from beneath her drooping lashes. She was like the blind princess in Henrik Hertz' wonderful poem, who, when she suddenly obtained her sight, no longer knew herself among the objects which she had formerly recognized only by touch, and fancied that she had lost everything which was dear and familiar--because she had gained a new sense which she knew not how to use--a _higher_ one than that of her groping finger tips. Then in her fear she turned to the _invisible_ world and recognized _it_ only, it alone had not changed with outward phenomena because alike to the blind and those who had sight it revealed itself only to the _mind_. It was the same with the countess. The world which she could touch with her fingers had vanished and before her newly awakened sense lay a boundless space filled with strange forms, which all seemed so unattainably distant; one only remained the same: the God whom she had _never_ seen. And now when everything once familiar and near was transformed and removed to a vast distance, when everything appeared under a wholly different guise, it was He to whom her heart, accustomed to blindness, sought and found the way. The priest was completely absorbed in his prayer-book. What he beheld the others felt with mysterious awe. It was like looking through a telescope into a strange world, while those who were not permitted to do so stood by and imagined what the former beheld. The Sursum corda fell slowly from the lips of the priest. The bell sounded. "Christ is present!" The congregation, as if dazzled, bowed their faces and crossed themselves in the presence of the marvel that Heaven itself vouchsafed to descend to their unworthy selves. Again the bell sounded for the transformation, and perfect silence followed--while the miracle was being wrought by which God entered the mouths of mortals to be the bread of life to mankind.