On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau
This was the bread of the poor and simple-hearted, whose crumbs the
Countess Wildenau had that day stolen and was eating with secret shame.
The mass was over, the priest pronounced the benediction and
withdrew to the vestry-room. The people put out their bits of wax
candles--clouds of light smoke filled the church. It was like Christmas
Eve, after the children have gone to bed and the candles on the tree
are extinguished--but their hearts are still full of Christmas joy. The
countess knew not why the thought entered her mind, but she suddenly
recollected that Christmas was close at hand and she no longer had any
child on whom she could bestow gifts. True, she had never done this
herself, but always left Josepha to attend to the matter. This year,
however, she had thought she would do it, now it was too late. Suddenly
she saw a child's eyes gazing happily at a lighted tree and below it a
manger, with the same eyes sparkling back. The whole world, heaven and
earth were glittering with children's beaming eyes, but the most
beautiful of all--those of her own boy, were closed--no grateful glance
smiled upon her amid the universal joy, for her there was no Christmas,
for it was the mother's day, and she was _not_ a mother. "Child in the
manger, bend down to the sinner who mourns neglected love at Thy feet."
Sinking on the kneeling bench, she sobbed bitterly. It was dark and
silent. The congregation had gone, the candles on the altar had been
extinguished as fast as possible--the ever-burning lamp cast dull red
rays upon the altar, dawn was glimmering through the frost-covered
window panes. All was still--only in the distance the cocks were
crowing. Again she remembered that evening when her father came and she
had knelt with Freyer in the church before the Pieta, until the crowing
of the cock reminded her how easy it was to betray love and fidelity.
Rising wearily from her knees, she dragged herself to a Pieta above a
side altar, and pressed her lips upon the wounds of the divine body.
She gazed to see if the eyes would not once more open, but it remained
rigid and lifeless, this time no echo answered the mute pleading of
the warm lips. No second miracle was wrought for her, the hand which
guided her had been withdrawn, and like the poorest and most humble
mortal she was forced to grope her way wearily along the arid path of
tradition;--it was just, she had deserved nothing better, and the great
discovery which came to her that day was that this path also led to
God.
While thus absorbed in contemplation, a voice suddenly startled her so
that she almost fainted: "What does this mean, Countess? You here at
early mass, in a court-train! Are you going to write romances--or live
them? I have often asked you the question, but never with so much
justification as now!" Prince Emil was standing before her. She could
almost have shrieked aloud in her delight. "Prince--my dear Prince!"
"Unfortunately, Prince no longer, but Duke of Metten-Barnheim, in which
character I again lay myself at your feet and beg for a continuation of
your favor!" said the prince with a touch of humor. Raising her from
her knees, he led her into the little corridor of the church. "My
father," he went on, "feels so well at Cannes that he wants to spend
his old age there in peace, and summoned me by telegram to sign the
abdication documents and take the burden of government upon my young
shoulders. I was just coming from the station and, as I drove by, saw
your carriage waiting before this poor temple. I stopped and obtained
with difficulty from the half frozen coachman information concerning
the place where his mistress was seeking compensation from the ennui of
a court entertainment! A romantic episode, indeed! A beautiful woman in
court dress, weeping and doing penance at six o'clock in the morning,
among beggars and cripples in a little church in the suburbs. A
swearing coachman and two horses stiff from the cold waiting outside,
and lastly a faithful knight, who comes just at the right time to
prevent a moral suicide and save a pair of valuable horses--what more
can be desired in our time, in the way of romance?"
"Prince--pardon me, Duke, your mockery hurts me."
"Yes, I suppose so, you are far too wearied, to understand humor. Come,
I will take you to the carriage. There, lean on me, you are ill,
_machere Madeleine_, you cannot go on in this way. What--you will take
holy water, into which Heaven knows who has dipped his fingers. Well,
to the pure all things are pure. Fortunately the doubtful fluid is
frozen!"
Talking on in this way he led her out into the open air. A keen morning
wind from the mountains was sweeping through the streets and cut the
countess' tear-stained face. She involuntarily hid it on the duke's
breast. The latter put his arm gently around her and lifted her into
the carriage. His own coachman was waiting near, but the duke looked at
her beseechingly. "May I go with you? I cannot possibly leave you in
this state."
The countess nodded. He motioned to his servant to drive home and
entered the Wildenau equipage. "First of all, Madeleine," he said,
warming her cold hands in his, "tell me: _Are_ you already a saint--or
do you wish to _become_ one? Whence dates this last caprice of my
adored friend?"
"No saint, Duke--neither now, nor ever, only a deeply humbled, contrite
heart, which would fain fly from this world!"
"But is this world so unlovely that one would fain try Heaven, while
there are people who can be relied on under any circumstances!"
"Yes" replied the countess bitterly, but the sweetness of the true
warmth of feeling revealed through her friend's humor was reviving and
strengthening to her brain and heart. In his society it seemed as if
there was neither pain nor woe on earth, as if all gloomy spirits must
flee from his unruffled calmness. His apparent coldness produced the
effect of champagne frappe, which, ice-cold when drunk, warms the whole
frame.
"Oh, thank Heaven, that you are here--I have missed you sorely," she
said from the depths of her soul. "Oh, my friend, what is to be done--I
am helpless without you!"
"So much the better for me, if I am indispensable to you--you know that
is the goal of my desires! But dearest friend--you are suffering and I
cannot aid you because I do not know the difficulty! What avail is a
physician, who cures only the symptoms, not the disease. You are simply
bungling about on your own responsibility and every one knows that is
the worst thing a sick person can do. Consumptives use the hunger-cure,
anaemics resort to blood letting. You, my dear Madeleine, I think, do
the same thing. Mortification, when your vital strength is waning,
moral blood-letting, while the heart needs food and warmth. What kind
of cure is it to be up all night long and wander about in cold
churches, with the thermometer marking below freezing, early in the
morning. I should advise you to edit a book on the physiology of the
nerves. You are like the man in the fairy-tale who wanted to learn to
shiver." An involuntary smile hovered about the countess' lips.
"Duke--your humor is beginning to conquer. No doubt you are right in
many things, but you do not know the state of my mind. My life is
destroyed, the axe is laid at the root, happiness, honor--all are
lost."
"For Heaven's sake, what has happened to thus overwhelm you?" asked the
duke, still in the most cheerful mood.
She could not tell him the truth and pleaded some incident at court as
an excuse. Then in a few words she told him of the queen's displeasure,
the malice of her enemies, her imperilled position.
"And do you take this so tragically?" The prince laughed aloud: "Pardon
me, _chere amie_--but one can't help laughing! A woman like you to
despair because a few stiff old court sycophants look askance at you,
and the queen does not understand you which, with the dispositions you
both have, was precisely what might have been expected. It is too
comical! It is entirely my own fault--I ought to have considered
it--but I expected you to show more feminine craft and diplomacy. That
you disdained to employ the petty arts which render one a _Persona
grata_ at court is only an honor to you, and if a few fops presumed to
adopt an insolent manner to you, they shall receive a lesson which
will teach them that _your_ honor is _mine_! Nay, it ought to amuse
you, to feign death awhile and see how the mice will all come out and
dance around you to scatter again when the lioness awakes. Do you
talk of destroyed happiness and roots to which the axe is laid? Oh,
women--women! You can despair over a plaything! For this position at
court could never be aught save a toy to you!"
"But to retire thus in shame and disgrace--would _you_ endure it--if it
should happen to you? Ought not a woman to be as sensitive concerning
her honor as a man?"
"I don't think your honor will suffer, because the restraint of court
life does not suit you! Or is it because you do not understand the
queen? Why, surely persons are not always sympathetic and avoid one
another without any regret; does the fact become so fateful because one
of you wears a crown? In that case I beg you to remember that a crown
is hovering over your head also--a crown that is ready to descend
whenever that head will receive it, and that you will then be in a
position to address Her Majesty as 'chere cousine!' You, a Princess von
Prankenberg, a Countess Wildenau, fly like a rebuked child at an
ungracious glance from the queen and her court into a corner of a
church?" He shook his head. "There must be something else. What is it?
I shall never learn, but you cannot deceive me!"
The countess was greatly disconcerted. She tried to find another
plausible pretext for her mood and, like all natures to whom deception
is not natural, said precisely what betrayed her: "I am anxious about
the Wildenaus--they are only watching for the moment when they can
compromise me unpunished, and if the queen withdraws her favor, they
need show me no farther consideration."
The duke frowned. "Ah! ah!"--he said slowly, under his breath: "What do
you fear from the Wildenaus, how can they compromise you?"
The countess, startled, kept silence. She saw that she had betrayed
herself.
"Madeleine"--he spoke calmly and firmly--"everything must now be
clearly understood between us. What connection was there between
Wildenau and that mysterious boy? I must know, for I see that that is
the quarter whence the danger which you fear is threatening you, and I
must know how to avert it--you have just heard that _your_ honor is
_mine_.' There was a shade of sternness in his tone, the sternness of
an resolve to take this weak, wavering woman under his protection.
"The child"--she faltered, trembling from head to foot--"ah, no--there
is nothing more to be feared from him--he is dead!"
"Dead?" asked the duke gently. "Since when?"
"Since yesterday!" And the proud countess, sobbing uncontrollably, sank
upon his breast.
A long silence followed.
The duke passed his arm around her and let her weep her fill. "My poor
Madeleine--I understand everything." An indescribable emotion filled
the hearts of both. Not another word was exchanged.
The carriage rolled up to the entrance of the Wildenau palace. Her
little cold hands clasped his beseechingly.
"Do not desert me!" she whispered hurriedly.
"Less than ever!" he replied gravely and firmly.
"Her Highness is ill!" he said to the servants who came hurrying out
and helped the tottering woman up the steps. She entered the boudoir,
where the duke himself removed her cloak. It was a singular sight--the
haughty figure in full evening dress, adorned with jewels, in the light
of the dawning day--like some beautiful spirit of the night, left