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

house. It is very pretty; come with me. I shall consider it an honor if you will stop there!" She led the way. Freyer involuntarily followed, and they soon reached the little house. "Then you no longer live with your brother, the burgomaster?" "Oh, no! After I grew older I longed for rest and solitude, and at my sister-in-law's there is always so much bustle on account of the shop and the children--one hears so many painful things said--" She paused in embarrassment. Then opening the door into the little garden, they went to the rear of the house where they could sit on a bench undisturbed. "What you heard was undoubtedly about me, and you could not endure it. You faithful soul--was not that the reason you left your relatives and lived alone?" said Freyer, seating himself. "Be frank--were you not obliged to hear many things against me, till you at last doubted your old schoolmate?" "Yes--many evil things were said of you and the princess--but I never believed them. I do not know what happened, but whatever it was, _you_ did nothing wrong." "Mary, where did you obtain this confidence?" "Why," she answered smiling, "surely I know my son--and what mother would distrust her _child_?" Freyer was deeply moved: "Oh, you virgin mother. Marvel of Heaven, when in the outside world a mother abandoned her own child--here a child was maturing into a mother for me, a mother who would have compassion on the deserted one. Mary, pure maid-servant of God, how have I deserved this mercy?" "I always gave you a mother's love, from the time we played together, and I have mourned for you as a mother all the nine years. But I believed in you and hoped that you would some day return and close your old mother's eyes and, though twenty years had passed, I should not have ceased to hope. I was right, and you have come! Ah! I would not let myself dream that I should ever play with you again in the Passion--ever hold my Christus in my arms and support his weary head when he is taken down from the cross. That happiness transcends every other joy! True, I am an old maid now, and I wonder that they should let me take the part again. I am thirty-nine, you know, rather old for the Mary, yet I think it will be more natural, for Mary, too, was old when Christ was crucified!" "Thirty-nine, and still unmarried--such a beautiful creature--how did that happen, Mary?" She smiled: "Oh, I did not wish to marry any one.--I could not care for any one as I did for my Christus!" "Great Heaven, is this on my conscience too? A whole life wasted in silent hope, love, and fidelity to me--smiling and unreproachful! This soul might have been mine, this flower bloomed for me in the quiet home valley, and I left it to wither while searing heart and brain in the outside world. Mary, I will not believe that you have lost your life for my sake--you are still so beautiful, you will yet love and be happy at some good man's side." "Oh, no, what fancy have you taken into your head! That was over long ago," she answered gayly. "I am a year older than you--too old for a woman. Look, when the hair is grey, one no longer thinks of marrying." And pushing back her thick brown hair from her temples, she showed beneath white locks--as white as snow! "Oh, you have grown grey, perhaps for me--!" he said, deeply moved. "Yes, maternal cares age one early." He flung himself in the grass before her, unable to speak. She passed her hand gently over his bowed head: "Ah, if my poor son had only returned a happy man--how my heart would have rejoiced. If you had brought back a dear wife from the city, I would have helped her, done the rough work to which she was not accustomed--and if you had had a child, how I would have watched and tended it! If it had been a boy, we would have trained him to be the Christus--would we not? Then for twenty years he could have played it--your image." Freyer started as though the words had pierced his inmost soul. She did not suspect it, and went on: "Then perhaps the Christus might have descended from child to grandchild in your family--that would have been beautiful." He made no reply; a low sob escaped his breast. "I have often imagined such things during the long years when I sat alone through the winter evenings! But unfortunately it has not resulted so! You return a poor lonely man--and silver threads are shining in _your_ hair too. When I look at them, I long to weep. What did those wicked strangers in the outside world do to you, my poor Joseph, that you are so pale and ill? It seems as if they had crucified you and taken you down from the cross ere life had wholly departed; and now you could neither live nor die, but moved about like one half dead. I fancy I can see your secret wounds, your poor heart pierced by the spear! Oh, my suffering child, rest your head once more on the knee of her who would give her heart's blood for you!" She gently drew his head down and placing one hand under it, like a soft cushion, lovingly stroked his forehead as if to wipe away the blood-stains of the crown of thorns, while tear after tear fell from her long lashes on her son--the son of a virgin mother. Silence reigned around them--there was a rustling sound above their heads as if the wind was blowing through palms and cedars--a weeping willow spread its boughs above them, and from the churchyard wall the milkwort nodded a mute greeting from Golgotha. CHAPTER XXXV. THE WATCHWORD. While the lost son of Ammergau was quietly and sadly permitting the miracle of his home to produce its effect upon him, and rising from one revelation to another along the steep path which again led him to the cross, the countess was languishing in the oppressive atmosphere of the capital and its relations. Three days had passed since the parting from Freyer, but she scarcely knew it! She lived behind her closed curtains and in the evenings sat in the light of lamps subdued by opalescent shades, as if in a never-changing white night, in which there could be neither dusk nor dawn. And it was the same in her soul. Reason--cold, joyless reason, with its calm, monotonous light, now ruled her, she had exhausted all the forces of grief in those farewell hours. For grief, too, is a force which can be exhausted, and then the soul will rest in indifference. Everything was now the same to her. The sacrifice and the cost of the sacrifice. What did the world contain that was worth trouble and anxiety? Nothing! Everything she had hoped for on earth had proved false--false and treacherous. Life had kept its promise to her in nothing; there was no happiness, only he who had no desires was happy--a happiness no better than death! And she had not even reached that stage! She still wanted so many things: honor, power, beauty, and luxury, which only wealth procures--and therefore this also. Now she flung herself into the arms of beauty--"seeking in it the divine" and the man who offered her his hand in aid would understand how to obtain for her, with taste and care, the last thing she expected from life--pleasure! Civilization had claimed her again, she was the woman of the century, a product of civilization! She desired nothing more. A marriage of convenience with a clever, aristocratic man, with whom she would become a patron of art and learning; a life of amusement and pleasurable occupation she now regarded as the normal one, and the only one to be desired. While Freyer, among his own people, was returning to primitiveness and simplicity, she was constantly departing farther from it, repelled and terrified by the phenomena with which Nature, battling for her eternal rights, confronted her. For Nature is a tender mother only to him who deals honestly with her--woe betide him who would trifle with her--she shows him her terrible earnestness. "Only despise reason and learning, the highest powers of mankind!" How often the Mephistopheles within her soul had jeeringly cried. Yes, he was right--she was punished for having despised and misunderstood the value of the work of civilization at which mankind had toiled for years. She would atone for it. She had turned in a circle, the wheel had almost crushed her, but at least she was glad to have reached the same spot whence she started ten years ago. At least so she believed! In this mood the duke found her on his return from Prankenberg. "Good news, the danger is over! The old pastor was prudent enough to die with the secret!" he cried, radiant with joy, as he entered. "Nothing was to be found! There is nothing in the church record! The Wildenaus have no proof and can do nothing unless Herr Freyer plays us a trick with the marriage certificate--" "That anxiety is needless!" replied the countess, taking from her writing-table the little package containing Freyer's farewell note, the marriage certificate, and the account-book. "There, read it." Her face wore a strange expression as she handed it to him, a look as if she were accusing him of having tempted her to murder an innocent person. She was pale and there was something hostile, reproachful, in her attitude. The duke glanced through the papers. "This is strange," he said very gravely: "Is the man so great--or so small?" "So great!" she murmured under her breath. "Hm! I should not have expected it of him. Is this no farce? Has he really gone?" "Yes! And here is something else." She gave him the burgomaster's letter: "This is the answer I received to-day to my offer to provide for Freyer's future." "If this is really greatness--then--" the prince drew a long breath as if he could not find the right word: "Then--I don't know whether we have done right." The countess felt as if a thunderbolt had struck her. "_You_ say that--_you_?" The duke rose and paced up and down the room. "I always tell the truth. If this man was capable of such an act--then--I reproach myself, for he deserved better treatment than to be flung overboard in this way, and we have incurred a great responsibility." "Good Heavens, and you say this now, when it is too late!" groaned the unhappy woman. "Be calm. The fault is _mine_--not yours. I will assume the whole responsibility--but it oppresses me the more heavily because, ever since I went to Prankenberg, I have been haunted by the question whether this was really necessary? My object was first of all to save you. In this respect I have nothing for which to reproach myself. But I overestimated your danger and undervalued Freyer. I did not know him--now that I do my motive dissolves into nothing." He cast another glance at Freyer's farewell note and shook his head: "It is hard to understand! What must it have cost thus at one blow to resign everything that was dear, give up without conditions the papers which at least would have made him a rich man--and all without one complaint, without any boastfulness, simply, naturally! Madeleine, it is overwhelming--it is _shameful_ to us." The countess covered her face. Both remained silent a long time. The duke still gazed at the letter. Then, resting his head on his hand and looking fixedly into vacancy, he said: "There is a constraining power about this man, which draws us all into its spell and compels us not to fall behind him in generosity. But--how is this to be done? He cannot be reached by ordinary means. I am beginning now to understand _what_ bound you to him, and unfortunately I must admit that, with the knowledge, my guilt increases. My justification lay only in the misunderstanding of what now forces itself upon me as an undeniable fact--that Freyer was not so unworthy of you, Madeleine, as I believed!" He read the inscription on the little bank book: "To keep