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

so, I will not venture to decide! If he is really what you describe him to be, he must feel this and--I believe, that he, too, is not to be envied. What kind of respite is this which you are granting the hapless man under the sword of the executioner. Pardon me, but I should term it torture. You feign, from motives of compassion, feelings you no longer have, and he feels the deception. So he is continually vibrating between the two extremes of fear and hope--a prey to the most torturing doubts. So you permit the victim whom you wish to kill to live, in order to destroy him slowly. You pity him--and for pity are cruel." The countess cast a startled glance at him. "You are terribly truthful." "I must say that I am sorry for that man," the duke went on in his usual manner. "I think it is your duty to end this state of things. If he has a good, mentally sound character, he will conquer the blow and shape his life anew. But such a condition of uncertainty would unnerve the strongest nature. This cat and mouse sport is unworthy of you! You tried it with me ten years ago in a less painful way--I, knowing women, was equal to the game, so no harm was done, and I could well allow you the graceful little pastime. It is different with Freyer. A man of his stamp, who stakes his whole life upon a single feeling, takes the matter more tragically, and the catastrophe was inevitable. But must romance be carried to tragedy? See, my dear friend, that it is confined within its proper limits. Besides, you have already paid for it dearly enough--it has left an indelible impress upon your soul--borne a fruit which matured in suffering and you have buried with anguish because destiny itself, though with a stern hand, tried to efface the consequences of your error. Heed this portent, for your sake and his own! I speak in his behalf also. My aim is not only to win you, but to see the woman whom I have won worthy of herself and the high opinion I cherish of her." The countess' features betrayed the most intense emotion. What should she do? Should she tell this noble man all--confess that she was _married_. The hour that he discovered it, he would desert her. Must she lose him, her last support and consolation? No, she dared not. The drowning woman clung to him; she knew not what was to come of it--she only knew that she would be lost without him--and kept silence. "Where is he? In the old hunting-box of which your cousin Wildenau spoke?" asked the duke after a long pause. "Yes." "As what?" "As steward." "Steward? H'm!" The duke shook his head. "What a relation; you made the man you loved your servant, and believed that you could love him still? How little you knew yourself! Had you seen him on the mountains battling with wind and storm as a wood-cutter, a shepherd, but free, you might have continued to love him. But as 'the steward' at whom the servants look with one eye as their equal, with the other as their mistress' favorite--never! You placed him in a situation where he could not help despising himself--how could you respect him? But a woman like you no longer loves where she can no longer esteem!" He was silent a moment, then with sudden determination exclaimed: "Do you understand what I say now? Not free yourself from him--but free _him_ from _himself_! You have done the same thing as the giantess who carried the farmer and his plough home in her apron. Do you understand what a deep meaning underlies Chamisso's comical tale? The words with which the old giant ordered her to take her prize back to the spot where she found it, say everything: 'The peasant is no plaything.' Only in the sphere where a man naturally belongs is he of value, but this renders him too good for a toy. You have transplanted Freyer to a sphere in which he ceased to have any value to you and are now making him play a part there which I would not impose on my worst enemy." "Yes, you are right." "Finally we owe it to those who were once dear to us, not to make them ridiculous! Or do you believe that Freyer, if he had the choice, would not have pride enough to prefer the most cruel truth to a compassionate lie?" "Certainly." "And still more. We owe it to the law of truthfulness, under which we stand as moral beings, not to continue deliberately a deception which was perhaps unconsciously begun. When self-respect is lost--all is lost." The duke rose: "It is time for me to go. Consider my advice, I can say nothing more in your interest and his." "But what shall I do--how am I to find a gentle way--oh! Heaven, I don't know how to help myself." "Do nothing at present, everything is still too fresh to venture upon any positive act--the wounds would bleed, and what ought to be severed would only grow together the more firmly. Go away for a time. You are out of favor with the queen. What is more natural than to go on a journey and sulk. To the so-called steward also, this must at present serve for a pretext to avoid a tragical parting scene." "Go now! Now!--leave--you?" she whispered, blushing as she spoke. "Madeleine," he said gently, drawing her hand to his breast. "How am I to interpret this blush? Is it the sign of a sweeter feeling, or embarrassment because circumstances have led you to say something which I might interpret differently from your intention?" She bent her head, blushing still more deeply. "Perhaps you do not know yourself--I will not torture you with questions, which your agitated heart cannot answer now. But if anything really does bind you to me, then--I would suggest your joining my father at Cannes. If even the faintest feeling of affection for me is stirring within you, you will understand that we could never be nearer to each other than while you were learning to be my old father's daughter! Will you?" "Yes!" she whispered with rising tears, for ever more beautiful, ever purer rose before her a happiness which she had forfeited, of which she would no longer be worthy, even could she grasp it. The duke, usually so sharp-sighted, could not guess the source of these tears; for the first time he was deceived and interpreted favorably an emotion aroused by the despairing perception that all was vain. He gazed down at her with a ray of love shining in his clear blue eyes, and pressed a kiss on her drooping brow. Then raising his hand, he pointed upward. "Only have courage, and hold your head high. All will yet be well. Adieu!" He moved away as proudly, calmly and firmly as if success was assured; he did not suspect that he was leaving a lost cause. CHAPTER XXV. DAY IS DAWNING. In the quiet chamber in the ancient hunting-castle, on the spot formerly occupied by the little bed, a casket now stood on two chairs near a wooden crucifix. Freyer had returned, bringing the body of his child. He had telegraphed to the countess, but received in reply only a few lines: "She was compelled to set off on a journey at once, her mind was so much affected that her physician had advised immediate change of scene to avert worse consequences." A check was enclosed to defray the funeral expenses and bestow a sum on Josepha "as a recognition of her faithful service," sufficient to enable her to live comfortably in case she wished to rest. Josepha understood that this was a gracious form of dismissal. But the royal gift which expressed the countess' gratitude did not avail to subdue the terrible rancor in her soul, or the harshness of this dismissal. Morning was dawning. Josepha was changed by illness almost beyond recognition, yet she had watched through the night with Freyer beside the coffin. Now she again glanced over the letter which had come the evening before. "She doesn't venture to send me away openly, and wants to satisfy me with money, that I may go willingly. Money, always money! I was forced to give up the child, and now I must lose you, too, the last thing I have in the world?" she said to Freyer, who was sitting silently beside the coffin of his son. Tearing the cheque, she threw it on the floor. "There are the fragments. When the child is buried, I know where I shall go." "You will not leave here, Josepha, as long as I remain. Especially now that you are ill. I have been her servant long enough. But this is the limit where I cease to yield to her caprices. She cannot ask me to give you up also, my relative, the only soul in my boundless solitude. If she did, I would not do it, for--no matter how lowly my birth, I am still her husband; have I no rights whatever? You will stay with me, I desire it, and can do so the more positively as my salary is sufficient to support you. So you need accept no wages from her." "Yes, tell her so, say that I want nothing--nothing except to stay with you, near my angel's grave." Sobs stifled her words. After a time, she continued faintly: "I shall not trouble her long, you can see that." "Oh, Josepha, don't fancy such things. You are young and will recover!" said Freyer consolingly, but his eyes rested anxiously upon her. She shook her head. "The child was younger still, yet he died of longing for his mother, and I shall die of the yearning for him." "Then let me send for a doctor--you cannot go on in this way." "Oh, pray don't make any useless ado--it would only be one person more to question me about the child, and I shall be on thorns while I am deceiving him. You know I never could lie in my life. Leave me in peace, no doctor can help me." Some one rang. Josepha opened the door. The cabinetmaker was bringing in a little coffin, which was to take the place of the box containing the leaden casket. Her black dress and haggard face gave her the semblance of a mother mourning her own child. Nothing was said during the performance of the work. Josepha and Freyer lifted the metal casket from the chest and placed it in the plain oak coffin. The man was paid and left the room. Freyer hastened out and shook the snow from some pine branches to adorn the bier. A few icicles which still clung to them thawed in the warm room, and the drops fell on the coffin--the tears of the forest! The last scion of the princely House of Prankenberg lay under frost-covered pine boughs; and a peasant mourned him as his son, a maid servant prepared him for his eternal rest. This is the bloodless revolution sometimes accomplished amid the ossified traditions of rank, which affords the insulted idea of universal human rights moments of loving satisfaction. The two mourners were calm and quiet. They seemed to have a premonition that this moment possessed a significance which raised it far above personal grief. An hour later the pastor came--a few men and maid-servants formed the funeral procession. Not far from the castle, in the wood, stood a ruinous old chapel. The countess had permitted the child to be buried there because the churchyard was several leagues away. "It is a great deal of honor for Josepha's child to be placed in the chapel of a noble family!" thought the people. "If haughty old Count Wildenau knew it, he would turn in his grave!" The coffin was raised and borne out of the castle. Josepha, leaning on Freyer, followed silently with fixed, tearless eyes and burning cheeks. Yet she succeeded in wading through the snow and standing on the cold stone floor in the chilly chapel beside the grave. But when she returned home, the measure of her strength was exhausted. Her laboring lungs panted for breath; her icy feet could not be warmed; her heart, throbbing painfully, sent all the blood to her brain, which burned with fever, while her thoughts grew confused. The terrible chill completed the work of destruction commenced by grief. Freyer saw it with unutterable sorrow.