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

roses, and a beautiful May-sun laughed on, the world was devoutly preparing for the great pilgrimage to Oberammergau. She only was exiled, and returned to her stone palace, alone, hopeless--with infinite desolation in her heart. A note from the duke awaited her. He took his leave for a few weeks, in order to give her time to understand her own heart clearly. Now she was utterly alone. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE MEASURE IS FULL. From that day the countess showed an unwonted degree of interest in the newspapers. The first question when she waked in the morning was for the papers. But the maid noticed that she opened only the pages containing the reports from Oberammergau. "Your Highness seems to be very much interested in the Passion Play," the woman ventured to remark. The countess blushed, and her "yes" was so curt and repellent that the maid was alarmed at her own presumption. One thing, however, was certain--her mistress, after reading these reports, always looked pale and worn. And in truth the unhappy woman, while reading the descriptions of this year's performances, felt as if she were drinking a cup of wormwood drop by drop. Freyer's name was echoing throughout the world. Not only did the daily press occupy itself with him--but grave men, aesthetes of high rank, found his acting so interesting that they wrote pamphlets about it and made it the subject of scientific treatises. The countess read them all. Freyer was described as the type in which art, nature, and religion joined hands in the utmost harmony! "As he himself stands above the laws of theatrical routine, he raises us far above what we term stage effect, as it were into a loftier sphere. He does not act--he is the Christ! The power of his glance, the spirituality of the whole figure, and an indefinable spell of the noblest sorrow which pervades his whole person, are things which cannot be counterfeited, which are no play, but truth. We believe what he says, because we feel that this man's soul does not belong to this world, that its own individual life has entered into his part. Because he thinks, feels, and lives not as Joseph Freyer, but as the Christus--is the source of the impression which borders upon the supernatural." Madeleine von Wildenau had just read these words, which cut her to the heart. Ah, when strangers--critics--men said such things--surely she had no cause to be ashamed. Who would reproach her, a weak, enthusiastic woman, for yielding to this spell? Surely no one--rather she would be blamed for not having arrested the charm, for having, with a profane hand, destroyed the marvel that approached her, favoring her above the thousands who gazed at it in devout reverence! She leaned her head on her hand and gazed mournfully out of the window at which she sat. They had now been playing six weeks in Oberammergau. It was June. The gardens of the opposite palace were in their fullest leafage; and the birds singing in the trees lured her out. Her eyes followed a little swallow flying toward the mountains. "Oh, mountain air and blue gentians--earthly Paradise!" she sighed! What was she doing here in the hot city when all were flying to the mountains, she saw no society, and the duke had gone away. She, too, ought to have left long before. But where should she go? She could not visit Oberammergau, and she cared for no other spot--it seemed as though the whole world contained no other place of abode than this one village with its gay little houses and low windows--as if in all the world there were no mountains, and no mountain air save in Ammergau. A few burning tears ran down her cheeks. Doubtless there was mountain air, there were mountain peaks higher, more beautiful than in Ammergau, but nowhere else could be found the same capacity for enjoying the magnificence of nature! Everywhere there is a church, a religion, but nowhere so religious an atmosphere as there. "Oh, my lost Paradise, my soul greets you with all the anguish of the exiled mother of my sex and my sin!" she sighed. And yet, what was Eve's sin to hers? Eve at least atoned in love and faith with the man whom she tempted to sin. Therefore God could forgive her and send to the race which sprung from her fall a messenger of reconciliation. Eve was a wife and a mother. But she, what was she? Not even that! She had abandoned her husband and lived in splendor and luxury while he grieved alone. She had given him only one child, and even to that had acted no mother's part, and finally had thrust him out into poverty and sorrow, and led a life of wealth and leisure, while he earned his bread by the sweat of his brow. No, the mother of sin was a martyr compared to her, a martyr to the nature which _she_ denied, and therefore she was shut out from the bond of peace and pity which Eve's atonement secured. Some one knocked. The countess started from her reverie. The servant announced that His Highness' nurses had sent for her; they thought death was near. "I will come at once!" she answered. The prince lived near the Wildenau Palace, and she reached him in a few minutes. The sick man's mind was clearer than it had been for several months. The watery effusions in the brain which had clouded his consciousness had been temporarily absorbed, and he could control his thoughts. For the first time he held out his hand to his daughter: "Are you there, my child?" It touched her strangely, and she knelt by his side. "Yes, father!" He stroked her hair with a kindly, though dull expression: "Are you well?" "In body, yes papa! I thank you." "Are you happy?" The countess, who had never in her life perceived any token of paternal affection in his manner, was deeply moved by this first sign of affection in the hour of parting. She strove to find some soothing reply which would not be false and yet satisfy his feeble reasoning powers; but he had again forgotten the question. "Are you married?" he asked again, as if he had been absent a long time, and saw his daughter to-day for the first time. The nurses withdrew into the next room. The father and daughter were alone. Meantime his memory seemed to be following some clue. "Where is your husband?" "Which one?" asked the countess, greatly agitated. "Wildenau?" "No, no--the--the other one; let him come!" He put out his hand gropingly, as if he expected some one to clasp it: "Say farewell--" "Father," sobbed the countess, laying the seeking hand gently back on the coverlet. "He cannot bid you farewell, he is not here!" "Why not? I should have been glad to see him--son-in-law--grandson--no one here?" "Father--poor father!" The countess could say no mare. Laying her head on the side of her father's bed, she wept bitterly. "Hm, hm!" murmured the invalid, and a glance of intelligence suddenly flashed from his dull eyes at his daughter. "My child, are you weeping?" He reflected a short time, then his mind seemed to grow clear again. "Oh, yes. No one must know! Foolish weaknesses! Tell him I sincerely ask his pardon; he must forgive me. Prejudiced, old--! I am very sorry. Can't you send for him?" "Oh, papa, I would gladly bring him, but it is too late--he has gone away!" "Ah! then I shall not see him again. I am near my end." The countess could not speak, but pressed her lips to her father's cold hand. "Don't grieve; you will lose nothing in me; be happy. I spent a great deal of money for you--women, gaming, dinners, what value are they all?" He made a gesture of loathing: "What are they now?" A chill ran through his veins, and his breath grew short and labored. "I'm curious to see how it looks up there!" He pondered for a time. "If you knew of any sensible pastor, you might send for him; such men often _do_ know something." "Certainly, father!" The countess hurried into the next room and ordered a priest to be sent for to give extreme unction. "You wish to confess and take the communion too, do you not, papa?" "Why yes; one doesn't wish to take the old rubbish when starting on the great journey. We don't carry our soiled linen with us when we travel. I have much on my conscience, Magdalena--my child--most of all, sins committed against you! Don't bear your foolish old father ill-will for it." "No, father, I swear it by the memory of this hour!" "And your husband"--he shook his head--"he is not here; it's a pity!" Then he said no more but lay quietly, absorbed in his own thoughts, till the priest came. Madeleine withdrew during the confession. What was passing in her mind during that hour she herself could not understand. She only knew that her father's inquiry in his dying hour for his despised, disowned son-in-law was the keenest reproach which had been addressed to her. The sacred ceremony was over, and the priest had left the house. The sick man lay with a calm, pleasant expression on his face, which had never rested there before. Madeleine sat down by the bed and took his hand; he gratefully returned her gentle pressure. "How do you feel, dear father?" she asked gently. "Very comfortable, dear child." "Have you made your peace with God?" "I hope so, my child! So far as He will be gracious to an old sinner like me." He raised his eyes with an earnest, trustful look, then a long--agonizing death struggle came on. But he held his daughter's hand firmly in his own, and she spent the whole night at his bedside without stirring, resolute and faithful--the first fulfillment of duty in her whole life. The struggle continued until the next noon ere the daughter could close her father's eyes. A number of pressing business matters were now to be arranged, which detained her in the house of mourning until the evening, and made her sorely miss her thoughtful friend, the duke. At last, at nine o'clock, she returned to her palace, wearied almost unto death. The footman handed her a card: "The gentleman has been here twice to-day and wished to see Your Highness on very urgent business. He was going to leave by the last train, but decided to stay in order to see you. He will try again after nine o'clock--" The countess carried the card to the gas jet and read: "Ludwig Gross, drawing-teacher." Her hand trembled so violently that she almost dropped it. "When the gentleman comes, admit him!" She was obliged to cling to the balustrade as she went upstairs, she was so giddy. Scarcely had she reached her boudoir when she heard the lower bell ring--then footsteps, a familiar voice--some one knocked as he had done ten years ago in the Gross House; but the man whom he then brought, nothing would ever bring again. She did not speak, her voice failed, but she opened the door herself--Ludwig Gross stood before her. Both gazed at each other a long time in silence. Both were struggling for composure and for words, and from the cheeks of both every drop of blood had vanished. The countess held out her hand, but he did not seem to see it. She pointed to a chair, and said in a hollow tone: "Sit down," at the same time sinking upon a divan opposite. "I will not disturb you long, Your Highness!" Ludwig answered, seating himself a long distance off. "If you disturbed me, I should not have received you." Ludwig felt the reproof conveyed in the words for the hostility of his manner, but he could not help it. "Perhaps Your Highness remembers a certain Freyer?" "Herr Gross, that question is an insult, but I admit that, from your standpoint, you have a right to ask it. At any rate, Freyer did not commission you to do so." "No, Countess, for he does not know that I am here; if he did, he would have prevented it. I beg your pardon, if I perform my mission somewhat