"On the cross"--was it a consolation or a menace? Who could decipher this rune? It was like all the sayings of oracles. History would explain its meaning, and when this was done, it would be too late, for it would be fulfilled! The countess still sat motionless in the old arbor. Her destiny had commenced on the cross, that was certain. Hitherto she had been a blind blank, driven like thousands by the wheel of chance. She had first entered into communication with the systematic order of divine thought in the hour when she saw Joseph Freyer on the cross. Will her fateendas itbegan, upon the cross? An icy chill ran through her veins. She loved the cross, since it bore the man whom she loved, but what farther influence was it to have upon her life! And what had pallid asceticism to do with her? What was the source of all these oppressive, melancholy forebodings, which could only be justified if a conflict with grave duties or constraining circumstances was impending. Why should they not love each other, both were free! But--she not only desired to love him, she wished to behis, to claim himhers. Every loving woman longs for the fulfilment of her destiny in the man she loves. How was she to obtain this fulfilment? What is born in morality, cannot exist in immorality. He knew this, felt it, and it was the cause of his sternness. This was the source of her grief, the visit of the mysterious comforter, and the warning of the cross. But must the brightest happiness, the beautiful bud of love wither on the cross, because it grew there? Was there no other sacred soil where it might thrive and develop to the most perfect flower? Was there no wedding altar, no sacrament of marriage? She drew back as if she suddenly stood on the verge of a yawning abyss. Her brain reeled! A throng of jeering spectres seemed grinning at her, watching with malicious delight the leap the Countess Wildenau was about to take, down to a peasant! She involuntarily glanced around as if some one might have been listening to thethought. But all was still and silent; her secret, thank Heaven, was still her own.
"Eternal Providence, what fate hast thou in store for me?" her questioning gaze asked the blue sky. What was the meaning of this extraordinary conflict? She loved Freyer as the God whom he represented, yet he could be hers only as a man; she must either resign him or the divine illusion. She felt that the instant which made him hers as a man would break the spell, and she would no longer love him! The God was too far above her to be drawn down to her level, the man was too low to be raised to it. Was ever mortal woman thus placed between two alternatives and told: "Choose!" The golden shower fell into Danae's lap, the swan flew to Leda, the bull bore Europa away, and Jupiter did not ask: "In what form do you wish me to appear?" But to the higher consciousness of the Christian woman the whole responsibility of free choice is given. And what is the reward of this torturing dilemma? If she chooses the God, she must resign the man, if she chooses the man she must sacrifice the God. Which can she renounce, which relinquish? She could not decide, and wrung her hands in agony. Why must this terrible discord be hers? Had she ventured too boldly into the sphere of divine life that, as if in mockery, she was given the choice between the immortal and the mortal in order, in the struggle between the two, to recognize the full extent of her weakness?
It seemed so! As if utterly wearied by the sore conflict, she hid her face in her hands and called to her aid the wan comforter who had just approached so tenderly. But in vain, the revelations were silent, the deity would not aid her!
"You ought to go up the mountain to-day, Countess," called a resonant voice. This time no pale phantom, no grimacing spectre stood before her, but her friend Ludwig, who gazed into her eyes with questioning sympathy. She clasped his hand.
"Whenever you approach me, my friend, I can never help receiving you with a 'Thank Heaven!' You are one of those whose verypresenceis beneficial to the sufferer, as the physician's entrance often suffices to soothe the patient without medicines."
Ludwig sat down on the bench beside the countess. "My sisters and Josepha are greatly troubled because you have not yet ordered breakfast, and no one ventured to ask. SoIundertook the dangerous commission, and your Highness can see yonder at the door how admiringly my sisters' eyes are following me."
The countess laughed. "Dear me, am I so dreaded a tyrant?"
"No doubt you are a little inclined to be one," replied Ludwig, quizzically; "now and then a sharp point juts from a hidden coronet. I felt one myself yesterday?"
"When--how?"
"May I remind you of it?"
"Certainly."
"When you poured all your wrath upon poor Freyer, and resolved to leave Ammergau at once. Then I was puzzled for a moment."
"Really?" said the countess with charming embarrassment. "Then I was not mistaken--I perceived it, and therefore delayed sending the telegram. People ought not to take such passing ebullitions so seriously."
"Yes, Countess, but that 'passing ebullition,' might have made poor Freyer miserable for a long time. Pray, have more patience and tolerance in future. Natures so powerful and superior as yours fail to exert a destructive influence upon a circle of simple folk like ourselves, only when they show a corresponding degree of generosity, which suffices to excuse all our awkwardnesses. Otherwise you will some day thrust us down from the height to which you have raised us, and that would be far worse than if we hadneverbeen withdrawn from our modest sphere."
"You are right!" said the countess, thoughtfully.
"My fear is that we are capable only ofrousingyour interest, notfixingit. We are on too unequal a footing, we feel and understand your spell, but are too simple and inexperienced not to be dazzled and confused by its ever varying phantasmagoria. Therefore, Countess, you are as great a source of peril as of happiness."
"Hm! I understand. But suppose that for the sake of you people of Ammergau I desired to return to plainness--and simplicity."
"You cannot, Countess, you are too young."
"What do you mean? That would be the very reason I should be able to do so."
"No, for you have passed the age when people easily accommodate themselves to new circumstances. Too many of the shoots of luxury have gained a generous growth; they will assert their claims and cannot be forced back into the seeds whence they came. Not until they have lived out their time in the world and died can they form the soil for a new and, if you desire it, more primitive and simple development!--Any premature attempt of this kind will last only a few moments and even these would be a delusion. But what to you would be passing moments of disappointment, to those who shared them would be--lifelong destiny. Our clumsy natures cannot make these graceful oscillations from one feeling to another, we stake all on one and lose it, if we are deceived."
The countess looked earnestly at him.
"You are a stern monitor, Ludwig Gross!" she said, thoughtfully. "Do you fear that I might play a game with one of you?"
"An unconscious one, Countess--as the waves toy with a drifting boat."
"Well, that would at least be no cruel one!" replied the lady, smiling.
"Anysport, Countess, would be cruel, which tore one of these calm souls from its quiet haven here and set it adrift rudderless on the high sea of passion." He rose. "Pardon me--I am taking too much liberty."
"Not more than my friendship gave you a right to say. You brought your friend to me; you are right to warn me if you imagine I should heedlessly throw the priceless gift away! But, Ludwig Gross"--she took his hand--"do you know that I prize it so highly that I should not considermyselftoo great a recompense? Do you know that you have just found me in a sore struggle over this problem?"
Ludwig Gross drew back a step as if he could not grasp the full meaning of the words. So momentous did they seem that he turned pale. "Is it possible?" he stammered.
A tremulous gesture of the hand warned him to say no more. "I don't know--whether it is possible! But that I could eventhinkof it, will enable you to imagine what value your gift possesses for me. Not a word, I beseech you. Give me time--and trust me. So many marvels have been wrought in me during the past few days, that I give myself up to the impulse of the moment and allow myself to be led by an ever-ruling Providence--I shall be dealt with kindly."
Ludwig, deeply moved, kissed his companion's hand. "Countess, the impulse which moves you at this moment must unconsciously thrill every heart in Ammergau--as the sleeping child feels, even in its dreams, when a good fairy approaches its cradle. And it is indeed so; for, in you conscious culture approaches unconscious nature--it is a sublime moment, when the highest culture, like the fairy beside the cradle, listens to the breathing of humanity, where completion approaches the source of being, and drinks from it fresh vigor."
"Yes," cried the countess, enthusiastically: "That is it. You understand me perfectly. All civilization must gain new strength from the fountain of nature or its sources of life would become dry--for they perpetually derive their nourishment from that inexhaustible maternal bosom. Where this is not accomplished in individual lives, the primeval element, thus disowned, avenges itself in great social revolutions, catastrophes which form epochs in the history of the world. It is only a pity that in such phases of violent renewal the labor of whole epochs of civilization is lost. Therefore souls in harmony with their age must try to reconcile peacefully what, taken collectively, assumes the proportions of contrasts destructive to the universe."
"And where could we find this reconciliation, save in love?" cried Ludwig, enthusiastically.
"You express it exactly: that is the perception toward which minds are more and more impelled, and whose outlines in art and science appear more and more distinctly. That is the secret of the influence of Parsifal, which extends far beyond the domain of art and, in another province, the success of the Passion Play! To one it revealed itself under one guise, to another under another. To me it was here that the very source of love appeared. And as you, who revealed it to me, are pervaded by the great lesson--I will test it first upon you. Brother! Friend! I will aid you in every strait and calamity, and you shall see that I exercise love, not only in words, but that the power working within me will accomplish deeds also." She clasped her hands imploringly: "And if I love one of youmorethan the others, do not blame me. The nearer to the focus of light, the stronger the heat! He, that one, is surely the focus of the great light which, emanating from you, illumines the whole world. I am so near him--could I remain cold?"
"Ah, Countess--now I will cast aside all fears for my friend. In Heaven's name, take him. Even if he consumes under your thrall--pain, too, is godlike, and to suffer foryouis a grand, a lofty destiny, a thousand-fold fairer and better than the dull repose of an every day happiness."
"Good heavens, when have I ever heard such language!" exclaimed the countess, gazing admiringly at the modest little man, whose cheeks were glowing with the flush of the loftiest feeling. He stood before her in his plain working clothes, his clear-cut profile uplifted, his eyes raised with a searching gaze as if pursuing the vanishing traces of a lofty, unattainable goal.
She rose: "There is not a day, not an hour here, which does not bring me something grand. Woe befall me if I do not show myself worthy of the obligation your friendship imposes, I should be more guilty than those to whom the summons of the ideal has never come; who have never stood face to face with men like you."
Ludwig quietly held out his hand and clasped hers closely in her own. The piercing glance of his artist-eye seemed to read the inmost depths of her soul.
After a long pause Madeleine von Wildenau interrupted the silence: "There stands your sister in great concern over my bodily welfare! Well then, let us remember that we are human--unfortunately! Will you breakfast with me?"
"I thank you, I have already breakfasted," said Ludwig, modestly, motioning to Sephi to be ready.
"Then at least bear me company." Taking his arm, she went with him to the arbor covered with a wild grape-vine where the table was spread. She sat down to the simple meal, while her companion served her with so much tact and grace that she could not help thinking involuntarily; "And these are peasants? What ought we aristocrats to be?" Then, as if in mockery of this reflection, a man in his shirt-sleeves with his jacket flung over his arm and a scythe in his hand passed down the street by the fence. "Freyer!" exclaimed the countess, her face aflame: "The Messiah with a scythe?"
Freyer stopped. "You called me, Countess?"
"Where are you going with that implement, Herr Freyer?" she asked, coldly, in evident embarrassment.
"To mow my field!" he answered quietly. "I have just time, and I want to try to harvest a little hay. Almost everything goes to ruin during the Passion!"
"But why do you cut it yourself?"
"Because I have no servant, Countess!" said Freyer, smiling, raised his hat with the dignified gesture characteristic of him, and moved on as firmly and proudly as though the business he was pursuing was worthy of a king. And so it was, whenhepursued it. A second blush crimsoned Madeleine von Wildenau's fair forehead. But this time it was because she had been ashamed of him for a moment. "Poor Freyer! His little patrimony was a patch of ground, and should it be accounted a degradation that he must receive the scanty gift of nature directly from her hand, or rather win it blade by blade in the sweat of his brow?" So she reasoned.
Then he glanced back at her and she felt that the look, outshining the sun, had illuminated her whole nature. The fiery greeting of a radiant soul! She waved her white hand to him, and he again raised his hat.
"Where is Freyer's field?"
"Not far from us, just outside the village. Would you like to go there?"
"No, it would trouble me. I should not like to see him toiling for his daily bread. Men such as he ought not to find it necessary, and it must end in some way. God sent me here to equalize the injustice of fate."
"You cannot accomplish this with Freyer, Countess, he would have been a rich man long ago, if he had been willing to accept anything. What do you imagine he has had offered by ladies who, from sacred and selfish motives, under the influence of his personation of the Christ, were ready to make any sacrifice? If ever poverty was an honor to a man, it is to Freyer, for he might have been in very different circumstances and instead is content with the little property received from his father, a bit of woodland, a field, and a miserable little hut. To keep the nobility and freedom of his soul, he toils like a servant and cares for house, field, and wood with his own hands."
"Just see him now, Countess," he added, "You have never beheld any man look more aristocratic while at work than he, though he only wields a scythe."
"You are a loyal friend, Ludwig Gross," she answered. "And an eloquent advocate! Come, take me to him."
She hurried into the house, returning with a broad-brimmed hat on her head, which made her face look as blooming and youthful as a girl's. Long undressed kid gloves covered her arms under the half flowing sleeves of her gown, and she carried over her shoulder a scarlet sunshade which surrounded her whole figure with a roseate glow. There was a warmth, a tempting charm in her appearance like the velvety bloom of a ripe peach. Ludwig Gross gazed at her in wonder.
"You are--fatallybeautiful!" he involuntarily exclaimed, shaking his head mournfully, as we do when we see some inevitable disaster approaching a friend. "No one ought to be so beautiful," he added, disapprovingly.
Madeleine von Wildenau laughed merrily. "Oh! you comical friend, who offers with so sour a visage the most flattering compliments possible. Our young society men might take lessons from you! Pardon me for laughing," she said apologetically, as Ludwig's face darkened. "But it came so unexpectedly, I was not prepared for such a compliment here," and in spite of herself, she laughed again, the compliment was too irresistible.
Her companion was deeply offended. He saw in this outbreak of mirth a levity which outraged his holiest feelings. These were "the graceful oscillations from one mood to another," as he had termed it that day, which he had so dreaded for his friend, and which now perplexed his own judgment!
A moment was sufficient to reveal this to the countess, in the next she had regained her self-control and with it the power of adapting herself to the earnestness of her friend's mood.
He was walking silently at her side with a heavy heart. There had been something in that laugh which he could not fathom, readily as he grasped any touch of humor. To the earnest woman he had seen that morning, he would have confided his friend in the belief that he was fulfilling a lofty destiny; to the laughing, coquettish woman of the world, he grudged him; Joseph Freyer was far too good for such a fate.
They had walked on, each absorbed in thought, leaving the village behind, into the open country. Few people were at work, for during the Passion there is rarely time to till the fields.
"There he is!" Ludwig pointed to a man swinging his scythe with a powerful arm. The countess had dreaded the sight, yet now stood watching full of admiration, for these movements were as graceful as his gestures. The natural symmetry which was one of his characteristic qualities rendered him a picturesque figure even here, while toiling in the fields. His arms described rhythmically returning circles so smoothly, the poise of the elastic body, bending slightly forward, was so noble, and he performed the labor so easily that it seemed like a graceful gymnastic exercise for the training of the marvellous limbs. The countess gazed at him a long time, unseen.
A woman's figure, bearing a jug, approached from the opposite side of the meadow and offered Freyer a drink. "I have brought some milk. You must be thirsty, it is growing warm," the countess heard her say. She was a gracious looking woman, clad in simple country garb, evidently somewhat older than Freyer, but with a noble, virginal bearing and features of classic regularity. Every movement was dignified, and her expression was calm and full of kindly earnestness.
"I ought to know her," said the countess in a strangely sharp tone.
"Certainly. She is the Mother of God in the Passion Play, Anastasia Gross, the burgomaster's sister."
"Yes, the Mary!" said the countess, and again she remembered how the two, mother and son, had remained clasped in each other's arms far longer than seemed to her necessary. What unknown pang was this which now pierced her heart? "I suppose they are betrothed?" she asked, with quickened breath.
"Who can tell? We think she loves him, but no one knows Freyer's feelings!" said Ludwig.
"I don't understand, since you are such intimate friends, why you should not know!"
"I believe, Countess, if we people of Ammergau have any good quality, it is discretion. We do not ask even the most intimate friend anything which he does not confide to us."
Madeleine von Wildenau lowered her eyes in confusion. After a short struggle she said with deadly sternness and bitterness: "You were right this morning--the man must be leftin his sphere. Come, let us go back!" A glance from Ludwig's eyes pierced her to the heart. She turned back toward the village. But Freyer had already seen her and overtook her with the speed of thought.
"Why, Countess, you here? And"--his eyes, fierce with pain, rested enquiringly on hers as he perceived their cold expression, "and you were going to leave me without a word of greeting? Were you ashamed to speak to the poor peasant who was mowing his grass? Or did my dress shock you?" He was so perfectly artless that he did not even interpret her indignation correctly, but attributed it to an entirely different cause. This did not escape the keen intuition of a woman so thoroughly versed in affairs of the heart. But when a drop of the venom of jealousy has entered the blood, it requires some time ere it is absorbed, even though the cause of the mischief has long been removed. This is an old experience, as well as the fact that, this process once over, repentance is all the sweeter, love the more passionate. But the poor simple-hearted peasant, in his artlessness, could not perceive all this. He was merely ashamed of standing before the countess in his shirt sleeves and hurriedly endeavored, with trembling fingers, to fasten his collar which he had opened while at work, baring his throat and chest. It seemed as if the hot blood could be heard pulsing against the walls of his arched chest, like the low murmur of the sea. The labor, the increasing heat of the sun, and the excitement of the countess' presence had quickened the usually calm flow of his blood till it fairly seethed in his veins, glowing in roseate life through the ascetic pallor of the skin, while the swelling veins stood forth in a thousand beautiful waving lines like springs welling from white stone. Both stood steeped in the fervid warmth, one absorbing, the other reflecting it.
But with the cruelty of love, which seeks to measure the strength of responsive passion by the very pain it has the power to inflict, the beautiful woman curbed the fire kindled in her own pulses and said carelessly: "We have interrupted your tête-à-tête, we will make amends by retiring."
"Countess!" he exclaimed with a look which seemed to say: "Is it possible that you can be so unjust! MyMother, Mary, was with me, she brought her son something to refresh him at his work, why should you interrupt us?"
The simple words, which to her had so subtle a double meaning, explained everything and Madeleine von Wildenau felt, with deep embarrassment, that he understood her and that she must appear very petty in his eyes.
Ludwig Gross drew out his watch. "Excuse me, it is nine o'clock; I must go to my drawing-school." He bowed and left them, without shaking hands with the countess as usual. She felt it as a rebuke, and a voice in her heart said: "You must become a far better woman ere you are worthy of this man."
"Would not you like to know Mary? May I introduce her to you?" asked Freyer, when they were alone.
"Oh, it is not necessary."
"Why, how can you love the son and not care for the mother?"
"She isnotyour mother," replied the countess.
"AndIam not the Christ. Why does the illusion affect me, and not Mary?"
"Because it was perfect in you, but not in her."
"Then there is still more reason to know her, that her personality may complete what her personation lacked."
The countess cast a gloomy look at the tall maiden, who meanwhile had taken the scythe and was doing Freyer's work.
"She seems to be very devoted to you," she said suspiciously.
"Yes, thank Heaven, we are loyal friends."
"I suppose you call each other thou."
"Yes, all the Ammergau people do that, when they have been schoolmates."
"That is a strange custom. Is it practised by those in both high and low stations?"
"There are neither high nor low stations among us. We all stand on the same footing, Countess. The fact that one is richer, another poorer, that one can do more for education and external appearances than his neighbor makes no difference with us and, if it did, it would be an honor for me to be permitted to address Anastasia with the familiar thou, for she and the whole Gross family are far above me. Even in your sense of the word, Countess, the burgomaster is an aristocrat, no child of nature like myself, but a man familiar with social usages and thoroughly well educated."
"Well, then," cried the countess, "why don't you marry the lady, if she possesses such superior advantages?"
"Marry?" Freyer started back as if instead of Madeleine's beautiful face he had suddenly beheld some hideous vision, "I have never thought of it!"
"Why not?"
"The Christ wed Mary? The son the mother? No, though we are not what we represent,thatwould be impossible. I have become so accustomed to regard her as my mother that it would seem to me a profanation."
"But next winter, when the Play is over, it will be different."
"Andyousay this to me, Countess;you, after this morning?" cried Freyer, with a trembling voice. "Are you in earnest?"
"Certainly. I cannot expect you, for my sake, to neglect older claims upon your heart!"
"Countess, if I had older claims, would I have spoken to you as I did to-day, would the events have occurred which happened to-day? Can you believe such things of me? You are silent? Well, Countess, that may be the custom in your circle, but not in mine."
"Forgive me, Freyer!" stammered the lady, turning pale.
"Freyer shaded his eyes with his hand as if the sun dazzled him, in order to conceal his rising tears.
"For what are you looking?" asked the countess, who thought he was trying to see more distinctly.
He turned his face, eloquent with pain, full toward her. "I was looking to see where my dove had flown, I can no longer find her. Or was it all a dream?"
"Freyer!" cried the countess, utterly overwhelmed, slipping her hand through his arm and resting her head without regard for possible spectators on his heaving breast. "Joseph, your dove has not flown away, she is here, take her to your heart again and keep her forever, forever, if you wish."
"Take care, Countess," said Freyer, warningly, "there are people moving in all directions."
She raised her head. "Will it cause you any harm?" she asked, abashed.
"Not me, but you. I have no one to question me and could only be proud of your tokens of favor, but consider what would be said in your own circle, if it were rumored that you had rested your head on a peasant's breast."
"You are no peasant, you are an artist."
"In your eyes, but not in those of the world. Even though we do passably well in wood-carving and in the Passion Play, so long as we are so poor that we are compelled to till our fields ourselves, and bring the wood for our carvings from the forest with our own hands, we shall be ranked as peasants, and no one will believe that we are anything else. You will be blamed for having associated with such uncultured people."
"Oh, I will answer for that before the whole world."
"That would avail little, my beloved one, Heaven forbid that I should ever so far forget myself as to boast of your love before others, or permit you to do anything which they would misjudge. God alone understands what we are to each other, and therefore it must remain hidden in His bosom where no profane eye can desecrate it."
The countess clung closer to him in silent admiration. She remembered so many annoyances caused by the indiscretions due to the vanity of men whom she had favored, that this modest delicacy seemed so chivalrous and lofty that she would fain have fallen at his feet.
"Dove, have I found you again?" he said, gazing into her eyes. "My sweet, naughty dove! You will never more wound and wrong me so. I feel that you might break my heart" And pressing her arm lightly to his side, he raised her hand to his burning lips.
A glow of happiness filled Madeleine von Wildenau's whole being as she heard the stifled, passionate murmur of love. And as, with every sunbeam, the centifolia blooms more fully, revealing a new beauty with each opening petal, so too did the soul of the woman thus illumined by the divine ray of true love.
"Come," she said suddenly, "take me to the kind creature who so tenderly ministers to you, perhaps suffers for you. I now feel drawn toward her and will love her for your sake as your mother, Mary."
"Ah, my child, that is worthy of you! I knew that you were generous and noble! Come, my Magdalene, I will lead you to Mary."
They walked rapidly to the field where Anastasia was busily working. The latter, seeing the stranger approach, let down the skirt she had lifted and adjusted her dress a little, but she received the countess without the least embarrassment and cordially extended her hand.Herbearing also had a touch of condescension, which the great lady especially noticed. Anastasia gazed so calmly and earnestly at her that she lowered her eyes as if unable to bear the look of this serene soul. The smoothly brushed brown hair, the soft indistinctly marked brows, the purity of the features, and the virginal dignity throned on the noble forehead harmonized with the ideal of the Queen of Heaven which the countess had failed to grasp in the Passion Play. She was beautiful, faultless from head to foot, yet there was nothing in her appearance which could arouse the least feeling of jealousy. There was such spirituality in her whole person--something--the countess could not describe it in any other way--so expressive of the sober sense of age, that the beautiful woman was ashamed of her suspicion. She now understood what Freyer meant when he spoke of the maternal relation existing between Anastasia and himself. She was the true Madonna, to whom all eyes would be lifted devoutly, reverently, yet whom no man would desire to press to his heart. She was probably not much older than the countess, two or three years at most, but compared with her the great lady, so thoroughly versed in the ways of the world, was but an immature, impetuous child. The countess felt this with the secret satisfaction which it affords every woman to perceive that she is younger than another, and it helped her to endure the superiority which Anastasia's lofty calmness maintained over her. Nay, she even accepted the inferior place with a coquettish artlessness which made her appear all the more youthful. Yet at the very moment she adopted the childish manner, she secretly felt its reality. She was standing in the presence of the Mother of God. Womanly nature had never possessed any charm for her, she had never comprehended it in any form. She had never admired any of Raphael's Madonnas, not even the Sistine. A woman interested her only as the object of a man's love for which she might envy her, the contrary character, the ascetic beauty of an Immaculate was wholly outside of her sphere. Now, for the first time in her life, she was interested in a personality of this type, because she suddenly realized that the Virgin was also the Mother of the Saviour. And as her love for the Christ was first awakened by her love for Joseph Freyer, her reverence for Mary was first felt when she thought of her as his mother! Madeleine von Wildenau, so poor in the treasures of the heart, the woman who had never been a mother, suddenly felt--even while in the act of playing with practised coquetry the part of childlike ignorance--under the influence of the man she loved, therealityin the farce and her heart opened to the sacred, mysterious bond between the mother and the child. Thus, hour by hour, she grew out of the captivity of the world and the senses, gently supported and elevated by the might of that love which reconciles earth and heaven.
She held out one hand to Anastasia, the other to Freyer. "I, too, would fain know the dear mother of our Christ!" she said, with that sweet, submissive grace which the moment had taught her. Freyer's eyes rested approvingly upon her. She felt as if wings were growing on her shoulders, she felt that she was beautiful, good, and beloved; earth could give no more.
Anastasia watched the agitated woman with the kindly, searching gaze of a Sister of Charity. Indeed, her whole appearance recalled that of one of these ministering spirits, resigned without sentimentality; gentle, yet energetic; modest, yet impressive.
"I felt a great--" the countess was about to say "admiration," but this was not true, she admired her now for the first time! She stopped abruptly in the midst of her sentence, she could utter no stereotyped compliments at this moment. With quiet dignity, like a princess giving audience, Anastasia came to her assistance, by skilfully filling up the pause: "So this is your first visit to Ammergau?"
"Yes."
"Then you have doubtless been very much impressed?"
"Oh, who could remain cold, while witnessing such a spectacle?"
"Yes, is not our Christ perfect?" said Anastasia, smiling proudly. "He costs people many tears. But evenIcannot help weeping, and I have played it with him thirty times." She passed her hand across his brow with a tender, maternal caress, as if she wished to console him for all his sufferings. "Does it not seem as if we saw the Redeemer Himself?"
The countess watched her with increasing sympathy. "You have a beautiful soul! Your friend was right, people should know you to receive the full impression of Mary."
"Yes, I play it too badly," replied Anastasia, whose native modesty prevented her recognition of the flattery conveyed in the countess' words.
"No--badly is not the word. But the delicate shadings of the feminine nature are lost in the vast space," the other explained.
"It may be so," replied Anastasia, simply. "But that is of no importance; no matter how we others might play--hewould sustain the whole."
"And your brother, Anastasia, and all the rest--do you forget them?" said Freyer, rebukingly.
"Yes, dear Anastasia." The countess took Freyer's hand. "I have given my soul into the keeping of this Christ--but your brother's performance is also a masterpiece! It seems to me that you are unjust to him. And also to Pilate, whom I admired, the apostles and high-priests."
"Perhaps so. I don't know how the others act--" said Mary with an honesty that was fairly sublime. "I see only him, and when he is not on the stage I care nothing for the rest of the performance. It is because I am hismother: to a mother the son is beyond everything else," she added, calmly.
The countess looked at her in astonishment. Was it possible that a woman could love in this way? Yet there was no doubt of it. Had even a shadow of longing to be united to the man she loved rested on the soul of this girl, she could not have had thus crystalline transparency and absolute freedom from embarrassment.
These Madonnas are happy beings! she thought, yet she did not envy this calm peace.
Drawing off her long glove with much difficulty, she took a ring from her finger. "Please accept this from me as a token of the secret bond which unites us in love for--your son! We will be good friends."
"With all my heart!" said Anastasia in delight, holding out her sunburnt finger to receive the gift. "What will my brother say when I come home with such a present?" She gratefully kissed the donor's hand. "You are too kind, Countess--I don't know how I deserve it." She stooped and lifted her jug. "I must go home now to help my sister-in-law. You will visit us, won't you? My brother will be so pleased."
"Very gladly--if you will allow me," replied the lady, smiling.
"I beg you to do so!" said Anastasia with ready tact. Then with noble dignity, she moved away across the fields, waving her hand from the distance to the couple she had left behind, as if to say: "Be happy!"
"Magdalene--Wife--Angel--what shall I call you?" cried Freyer, extending his arms. "Oh, if only we were not in the open fields, that I might press you to my heart and thank you for being so kind--sogenerousand so kind."
"Does your heart at last yearn for me? Then let us come into the forest, where no one is watching us save holy nature. Take me up one of the mountains. Will you? Can you? Will not your hay spoil?"
"Letit spoil, what does that matter? But first you must allow me to go home to put on garments more suitable for your society."
"No, that will be too late! Remain as you are--you are handsome in any clothes," she whispered, blushing faintly, like a girl, while she lowered her eyes from the kingly figure to the ground. A happy smile flitted over her face. Stooping, she picked up the jacket which he had removed while doing his work.
"And you--are you equipped for mountain climbing?"
"Oh, we will not go far. Not farther than we can go and return in time for dinner."
"Come, then. If matters come to the worst, I will take my dove on my shoulder and carry her when she can walk no farther."
"Oh, happy freedom!" cried the countess, joyously! "To wander through the woods, like two children in a fairy tale, enchanted by some wicked fairy and unable to appear again until after a thousand years! Oh, poetry of childhood--for the first time you smile upon me in all your radiance. Come, let us hasten--it is so beautiful that I can hardly believe it. I shall not, until we are there."
She flew rather than walked by his side. "My dove--suppose that we were enchanted and forced to remain in the forest together a thousand years?"
"Let us try it!" she whispered, fixing her eyes on his till he murmured, panting for breath: "I believe--the spell is beginning to work." And his eyes glowed with a gloomy fire as he murmured, watching her: "Who knows whether I am not harboring the Lorelei herself, who is luring me into her kingdom to destroy me!"
"What do you know of the Lorelei?"
Freyer stopped. "Do you suppose I read nothing? What else should I do during the long evenings, when wearied by my work, I am resting at home?"
"Really?" she asked absently, drawing him forward.
"Do you suppose I could understand a woman like you if I had not educated myself a little? Alas, we cannot accomplish much when the proper foundation is lacking. The untrained memory retains nothing firmly except what passes instantly into flesh and blood, the perception of life as it is reflected to us from the mirror of art. But even this reflection is sometimes distorted and confuses our natural thoughts and feelings. Alas, dear one, a person who has learned nothing correctly, and yet knows the yearning for something higher, without being able to satisfy it--is like a lost soul that never attains the goal for which it longs."
"My poor friend, I do know that feeling--to a certain extent it is the same with us women. We, too, have the yearning for education, and finally attain only a defective amount of knowledge! But, by way of compensation, individuality, directness, intuitiveness are developed all the more fully. You did not need to know anything--your influence is exerted through your personality; as such you are great. All knowledge comes from man, and is attainable by him--the divine gift of individuality can neither be gained, nor bestowed, any more than intuition! What is all the logic of reflecting reason compared with the gift of intuition, which enabled you to assume the part of a God? Is not that a greater marvel than the hard-won result of systematic study at the desk?"
"You are a kind comforter!" said Freyer.
"Thinking makes people old!" she continued. "It has aged the human race, too.--Nature, simplicity, love must restore its youth! In them isdirectcontact with the deity; in civilization only an indirect one. Fortunately for me, I have put my lips to their spring. Oh, eternal fountain of human nature, I drink from you with eager draughts."
They had entered the forest--the tree-tops rustled high above their heads and at their feet rippled a mountain stream. Madeleine von Wildenau was silent--her heart rested on her friend's broad breast, heaving with the rapid throbbing of his heart, her supple figure had sunk wearily down by his side. "Say no more--not a word is needed here." The deep gloom of the woods surrounded them--a sacred stillness and solitude. "On every height there dwells repose!" echoed in soft melody above her head, the marvellous Rubinstein-Goethe song. There was no human voice, it seemed like a mere breath from the distance of a dream--like the wind sweeping over the chords of the cymbal hung by Lenau's gypsy on a tree, scarcely audible, already dying away again. Her ear had caught the notes of that Æolian harp once before: she knew them again; on the cross--with the words: "Intothyhands I commend my spirit." And sweet as the voice which spoke at that time was now the tenor that softly, softly hushed the restless spirit of the worldling to slumber. "Wait; soon, soon--" and then the notes gradually rose till the whole buzzing, singing woodland choir seemed to join in the words: "Thou, too, shalt soon rest."
The mysterious sound came from the depths of the great heart on which she rested, as if the soul had quitted the body a few moments and now, returning, was revealing with sweet lamentation what it had beheld in the invisible world.
"Are you weeping?" he asked tenderly, kissing the curls which clustered round her forehead: "My child."
"Oh, when you utter that word, I have a feeling which I never experienced before. Yes, I am, I wish to be a child in your hands. Only those who have ever tasted the delight of casting the burden of their own egoism upon any altar, whether it be religion or love--yielding themselves up, becoming absorbed in another, higher power--only thosecan know my emotions when I lean on your breast and you call me your child! Thus released from ourselves, thus free and untrammelled must we feel when we have stripped off in death the fetters of the body and merged all which is personal to us in God."
"Heaven has destined you for itself, and you already feel how it is loosening your fibres and gradually drawing you up out of the soil in which you are rooted. That is why you wept when I sang that song to you here in the quiet woodland solitude. Such tears are like the drops the tree weeps, when a name is cut upon it. At such moments you feel the hand of God tearing open the bark which the world has formed around your heart, and the sap wells from the wounded spot. Is it not so?" He gently passed his hand over her eyes, glittering with unshed tears.
"Ah, noble soul! How you penetrate the depths of my being! What is all the wit and wisdom of the educated mind, compared with the direct inspiration of your poetic nature. Freyer, Spring of the earth--Christ, Spring of humanity! My heart is putting forth its first blossom for you, take it." She threw herself with closed eyes upon his breast, as if blindly. He clasped her in a close embrace, holding her a long time silently in his arms. Then he said softly: "I will accept the beautiful blossom of your heart, my child, but not for myself." He raised his eyes fervently upward: "Oh, God, Thou hast opened Thy hand to the beggar, and made him rich that he may sacrifice to Thee what no king could offer. I thank Thee."
Something laughed above their heads--it was a pair of wild-doves, cooing in the green tent over them.
"Do you know why they are laughing?" asked the countess, in an altered tone. "They are laughing at us!"
"Magdalena!"
"Yes! They are laughing at the self-tormenting doubt of God's goodness. Look around you, see the torrent foaming, and the blue gentians drinking its spray, see the fruit-laden hazel, the sacred tree which sheltered your childhood; see the bilberries at your feet, all the intoxicating growth and movement of nature, and then ask yourself whether the God who created all this warm, sunny life is a God who onlytakes--notgives. Do you believe He would have prepared for us this Spring of love, that we may let its blossoms wither on the cold altar of duty or of prejudice? No--take what He bestows--and do not question."
"Do not lead me into temptation, Magdalena!" he gently entreated. "I told you this morning that you do not know what you are unloosening."
He stood before her as if transfigured, his eyes glowed with the sombre fire which had flashed in them a moment early that morning, a rustling like eagle's pinions ran through the forest--Jupiter was approaching in human form.
The beautiful woman sat down on a log with her hands clasped in her lap.
"A man like me loves but once, but with his whole being. Idemandnothing--but what is given to me is givenwholly, or not at all; for if I once have it, I will never give it up save with my life!
"Not long since a stranger came here, who sang the song of the Assras, who die when they love. I believe I am of their race. Woman, do not toy, do not trifle with me! For know--I love you with the fatal love of those 'Assras.'"
Madeleine von Wildenau trembled with delight.
"If I once touch your lips, the barrier between us will have fallen! Will you forgive me if the flood-tide of feeling sweeps me away till I forget who you are and what a gulf divides the Countess Wildenau from the low-born peasant?"
"Oh, that you can remind me of it--in this hour--!" cried the countess, with sorrowful reproach.
He looked almost threateningly into her eyes. The dark locks around his head seemed to stir like the bristling mane of a lion: "Woman, you do not know me! If you deceive me, you will betray the most sacred emotion ever felt by mortal man--and it will be terribly avenged. Then the flame you are kindling will consume either you or me, or both. You see that I am now a different man. Formerly you have beheld me only when curbed by the victorious power of my holy task. You have conjured up the spirits, now they can no longer be held in thrall--will you not be terrified by the might of a passion which is unknown to you people of the world, with your calm self-control?"
"I, terrified by you?" cried the proud woman in a tone of exultant rapture. "Oh, this is power, this is the very breath of the gods. Should I fear amid the element for which I longed--which was revealed to me in my own breast? Does the flame fear the fire? The Titaness dread the Titan? Ah, Zeus, hurl thy thunderbolt, and let the forest blaze as the victorious torch of nature at last released from her long bondage."
He sat down by her side, his fiery breath fanning her cheek. "Then you will try it, will give me the kiss I dared not take to-day?"
"Yes."
"But it will be a betrothal kiss."
"Yes."
He opened his arms, and as a black moth settles upon a fragrant tea-rose, hovering on its velvet wings above the dewy calyx, he bent his head to hers, shadowing her with his dark locks and pressed his first kiss upon Madeleine von Wildenau's quivering lips.
But such moments tempt the gods themselves, and Jupiter hovered over the pair, full of wrath, for he envied the Christian mortal the beautiful woman. He had heard her laughingly challenge him in the midst of the joy she had stolen from the gods, and the heavens darkened, the hurricane saddled the steeds of the storm, awaiting his beck, and down flashed the fire from the sky--a shrill cry rent the air, the highest tree in the forest was cleft asunder and the bridal torch lighted by Jupiter blazed aloft.
"The gods are averse to it," said Freyer, gloomily. "Defy them!" cried the countess, starting up; "they are powerless--we are in the hands of a Higher Ruler."
"Woman, you do not belong to this world, or you have no nerves which can tremble."
"Tremble?" She laughed happily. "Tremble, byyourside?" Then, nestling closer still, she murmured: "I am as cowardly as ever woman was, but where I love I have the courage to defy death. Even were I to fall now beneath a thunderbolt, could I have a fairer death than atthismoment? You would willingly die for your Christ--and I for mine."
"Well then, come, you noble woman, that I may shield you as well as I can! Now we shall see whether God is with us! I defy the elements!" He proudly clasped the object of his love in his arms and bore her firmly on through the chaos into which the whole forest had fallen. The tempest, howling fiercely, burst its way through the woods. The boughs snapped, the birds were hurled about helplessly. The destroying element seemed to come from both heights and depths at the same time, for it shook the earth and tore the roots of trees from the ground till the lofty trunks fell shattered and, rolling down the mountain, swept everything with them in the sudden ruin. With fiendish thirst for battle the fiery sword flamed from the sky amid the uproar, dealing thrust after thrust and blow after blow--while here and there scarlet tongues of flame shot hissing upward through the dry branches.
A torrent of rain now dashed from the clouds but without quenching the flames, whose smoke was pressed down into the tree-tops, closely interlaced by the tempest. Like a gigantic black serpent, it rolled its coils from every direction, stifling, suffocating with the glowing breath of the forest conflagration, and the undulating cloud body bore with it in glittering, flashing sparks, millions of burning pine needles.
"Well, soul of fire, is the heat fierce enough for you now?" asked Freyer, pressing the beautiful woman closer to his side to shield her with his own body: "Are you content now?"
"Yes," she said, gasping for breath, and the eyes of both met, as if they felt only the fire in their own hearts and had blended this with the external element into a single sea of flame.
Nearer, closer drew the fire in ever narrowing circles around the defiant pair, more and more sultry became the path, brighter grew the hissing blaze through which they were compelled to force their way. Now on the left, now on the right, the red-eyed conflagration confronted them amid the clouds of smoke and flame, half stifled by the descending floods of rain, yet pouring from its open jaws hot, scorching steam--fatal to laboring human chests--and obliged the fugitives to turn back in search of some new opening for escape.
"If the rain ceases, we are lost!" said the countess with the utmost calmness. "Then the fire will be sole ruler."
Freyer made no reply. Steadily, unflinchingly, he struggled on, grasping with the strength of a Titan the falling boughs which threatened the countess' life, shielding with both arms her uncovered head from the flying sparks, and ever and anon, sprinkling her hair and garments from some bubbling spring. The water in the brooks was already warm. Throngs of animals fleeing from the flames surrounded them, and birds with scorched wings fell at their feet. It was no longer possible to go down, the fire was raging below them. They were compelled to climb up the mountain and seek the summit.
"Only have courage--forward!" were Freyer's sole words. And upward they toiled--through the pathless woods, through underbrush and thickets, over roots of trees, rolling stones, and rocks, never pausing, never taking breath, for the flames were close at their heels, threatening them with their fiendish embrace. Where the path was too toilsome, Freyer lifted the woman he loved in his arms and bore her over the rough places.
At last the woods grew thinner, the boundary of the flames was passed, they had reached the top--were saved. The neighing steeds of the wind received them on the barren height and strove to hurl them back into the fiery grave, but Freyer's towering form resisted their assault and, with powerless fury, they tore away the rocks on the right and left and rolled them thundering down into the depths below. The water pouring from the clouds drenched the lovers like a billow from the sea, beating into their eyes, mouths, and ears till, blinded and deafened, they were obliged to grope their way along the cliff. The garments of the beautiful Madeleine von Wildenau hung around her in tatters, heavy as lead, her hair was loosened, dripping and dishevelled, she was trembling from head to foot with cold in the icy wind and rain here on the heights, after the heat and terror below in the smouldering thicket.
"I know where there is a herder's hut, I'll take you to it. Cling closely to me, we must climb still higher."
They silently continued the ascent.
The countess staggered with fatigue. Freyer lifted her again in his arms, and, by almost superhuman exertion, bore her up the last steep ascent to the hut. It was empty. He placed the exhausted woman on the herder's straw pallet, where she sank fainting. When she regained her consciousness she was supported in Freyer's arms, and her face was wet with his tears. She gazed at him as if waking to the reality of some beautiful dream. "Is it really you?" she asked, with such sweet childlike happiness, as she threw her arms around him, that the strong man's brain and heart reeled as if his senses were failing.
"You are alive, you are safe?" He could say no more. He kissed her dripping garments her feet, and tenderly examined her beautiful limbs to assure himself that she had received no injury. "Thank Heaven!" he cried joyously, amid his tears, "you are safe!" Then, half staggering, he rose: "Now, in the presence of the deadly peril we have just escaped, tell me whether you really love me, tell me whether you are mine,whollymine! Or hurl me down into the blazing forest--it would be more merciful, by Heaven! than to deceive me."
"Joseph!" cried the countess, clinging passionately to him. "Can you ask that--now?"
"Alas! I cannot understand how a poor ignorant man like me can win the love of such a woman. What can you love, save the illusion of the Christ, and when that has vanished--what remains?"
"The divine, the reallove!" replied the countess with a lofty expression.
"Oh, I believe that you are sincere. But if you have deceived yourself, if you should ever perceive that you have overestimated me--ah, it would be far better for me to be lying down below amid the flames than to experiencethat. There is still time--consider well, and say--what shall it be?"
"Consider?" replied the countess, drawing his head down to hers. "Tell the torrent to consider ere it plunges over the cliff, to dissolve into spray in the leap. Tell the flower to consider ere it opens to the sunbeam which will consume it! Will you be more petty than they? What is there to consider, when a mighty impulse powerfully constrains us? Is not this moment worth risking the whole life without asking: 'What is to come of it?' Ah, then--then, I have been mistaken in you and it will be better for us to part while there is yet time."
"Oh--enchantress! You are right, I no longer know myself! Part, now? No, it is too late, I am yours, body and soul. Be it so, then, I will barter my life for this moment, and no longer doubt, for Icando nothing else."
Sinking on his knees before her, he buried his face in her lap. Madeleine von Wildenau embraced him with unspeakable tenderness, yet she felt the burden of a heavy responsibility resting upon her, for she now realized--that she was his destiny. She had what she desired, his soul, his heart, his life--nay, had he possessed immortality, he would have sacrificed that, too, for her sake. But now the "God" had becomehuman--the choice was made. And, with a secret tear she gazed upon the husk of the beautiful illusion which had vanished.
"What is the matter?" he asked suddenly, raising his head and gazing into her eyes with anxious foreboding. "You have grown cold."
"No, only sad."
"And why?"
"Alas! I do not know! Nothing in this world can be quite perfect." She drew him tenderly toward her. "This is one of those moments in which the highest happiness becomes pain. The fury of the elements could not harm us, but it is a silent, stealing sorrow, which will appease the envy of the gods for unprecedented earthly bliss: Mourning for my Christus."
Freyer uttered a cry of anguish and starting up, covered his face with both hands. "Oh, that you are forced to remind me of it!" He rushed out of the hut.
What did this mean. The beautiful mistress of his heart felt as if she had deceived herself when she believed him to be exclusively her own, as if there was something in the man over which she had no power! Filled with vague terror, she followed him. He stood leaning against the hut as if in a dream and did not lift his eyes. The sound of alarm-bells and the rattle of fire-arms echoed from the valley. The rain had ceased, and columns of flame were now rising high into the air, forming a crimson canopy above the trees in the forest. It was a wild scene, this glowing sea of fire into which tree after tree gradually vanished, the air quivering with the crash of the falling boughs, from which rose a shower of sparks, and a crowd of shrieking birds eddying amid the flames. Joseph Freyer did not heed it. The countess approached almost timidly. "Joseph--have I offended you?"
"No, my child, on the contrary! When I reminded you to-day of the obligations of your rank, you were angry with me, but I thank you for having remembered what I forgot for your sake."
"Well. But, spite of the warning, I was not ashamed of you and did not disown you before the Countess Wildenau! But you, Joseph, are ashamed of me in the presence of Christ!"
He gazed keenly, sorrowfully at her. "I ashamed of you, I deny you in the presence of my Redeemer, who is also yours? I deny you, because I am forced to confess to Him that I love you beyond everything else--nay, perhaps more than I doHim? Oh, my dearest, how little you know me! May the day never come which will prove which of us will first deny the other, and may you never be forced to weep the tears which Peter shed when the cock crowed for the third time."
She sank upon his breast. "No, my beloved, that will never be! In the hour whenthatwas possible, you might despise me."
He kissed her forehead tenderly. "I should not do that--any more than Christ despised Peter. You are a child of the world, could treachery to me be charged against you if the strong man, the disciple of Christ, was pardoned for treason to theholiest."
"Oh, my angel! It would be treason to the 'holiest,'" said the countess with deep emotion, "if I could denyyou!"
"Why, for Heaven's sake, Herr Freyer," shouted a voice, and the herdsman came bounding down the mountain side: "Can you stand there so quietly--amid this destruction?" The words died away in the distance.
"The man is right," said the countess in a startled tone, "we are forgetting everything around us. Whoever has hands must help. Go--leave me alone here and follow the herdsman."
"There is no hope of extinguishing the fire, the wood is lost!" replied Freyer, indifferently. "It is fortunate that it is an isolated piece of land, so the flames cannot spread."
"But, Good Heavens, at least try to save what can yet be secured--that is only neighborly duty."
"I shall not leave you, happen what may."
"But I am safe, and perhaps some poor man's all, is burning below."
"What does it matter, in this hour?"
"What does it matter?" the countess indignantly exclaimed. "Joseph, I do not understand you! Have you so little feeling for the distress of your fellow men--and yet play the Christ?"
Freyer gazed at the destruction with a strange expression--his noble figure towered proudly aloft against the gloomy, cloud-veiled sky. Smiling calmly, he held out his hand to the woman he loved and drew her tenderly to his breast: "Do not upbraid me, my dove--the wood wasmine."