High above the rushing Wildbach, where the stream bursts through the crumbling rocks and in its fierce rush sends heavy stones grinding over one another--a man lay on the damp cliff which trembled under the shock of the falling masses of water. The rough precipices, dripping with spray, pressed close about him, shutting him into the cool, moss-grown ravine, through which no patch of blue sky was visible, no sunbeam stole.
Here the wanderer, deceived in everything, lay resting on his way home. With his head propped on his hand, he gazed steadfastly down into the swirl of the foaming, misty, ceaseless rush of the falling water! On the rock before him lay a small memorandum book, in which he was slowly writing sorrowful words, just as they welled from his soul--slowly and sluggishly, as the resin oozes from the gashed trees. Wherever a human heart receives a deep, fatal wound, the poetry latent in the blood of the people streams from the hurt. All our sorrowful old folk-songs are such drops of the heart's blood of the people. The son of a race of mountaineers who sung their griefs and joys was composing his own mournful wayfaring ballad for not one of those which he knew and cherished in his memory expressed the unutterable grief he experienced. He did not know how he wrote it--he was ignorant of rhyme and metre. When he finished, that is, when he had said all he felt, it seemed as though the song had flown to him, as the seed of some plant is blown upon a barren cliff, takes root, and grows there.
But now, after he had created the form of the verses, he first realized the full extent of his misery!
Hiding the little book in his pocket, he rose to follow the toilsome path he was seeking high among the mountains where there were only a few scattered homesteads, and he met no human being.
While Countess Wildenau in the deserted hunting-castle was weeping over the cast-off garments with which he had flung aside the form of a servant, the free man was striding over the heights, fanned by the night-breeze, lashed by the rain in his thin coat--free--but also free to be exposed to grief, to the elements--to hunger! Free--but so free that he had not even a roof beneath which to shelter his head within four protecting walls.
"Both love and faith have fled for aye,Like chaff by wild winds swept away--Naught, naught is left me here belowSave keen remorse and endless woe."No home have I on the wide earth--A ragged beggar fare I forth,In midnight gloom, by tempests met,Broken my staff, my star has set."With raiment tattered by the sleet,My brain scorched by the sun's fierce heat,My heart torn by a human hand,A shadow--I glide through the land."Homeward I turn, white is my hair,Of love and faith my life is bare--Whoe'er beholds me makes the signOf the cross--God save a fate like mine."
"Both love and faith have fled for aye,Like chaff by wild winds swept away--Naught, naught is left me here belowSave keen remorse and endless woe.
"No home have I on the wide earth--A ragged beggar fare I forth,In midnight gloom, by tempests met,Broken my staff, my star has set.
"With raiment tattered by the sleet,My brain scorched by the sun's fierce heat,My heart torn by a human hand,A shadow--I glide through the land.
"Homeward I turn, white is my hair,Of love and faith my life is bare--Whoe'er beholds me makes the signOf the cross--God save a fate like mine."
So the melancholy melody echoed through the darkness of the night, from peak to peak along the road from the Griess to Ammergau. And wherever it sounded, the birds flew startled from the trees deeper into the forest, the deer fled into the thickets and listened, the child in the cradle started and wept in its sleep. The dogs in the lonely courtyards barked loudly.
"That was no human voice, it was a shot deer or an owl"--the peasants said to their trembling wives, listening for a time to the ghostly, wailing notes dying faintly away till all was still once more--and the spectre had passed. But when morning dawned and the time came when the matin bells drove all evil spirits away the song, too, ceased, and only its prophecy came true. Whoever recognized in the emaciated man, with hollow eyes and cheeks, the Christus-Freyer of Ammergau, doubtless made the sign of the cross in terror, exclaiming: "Heaven preserve us!" But the lighter it grew, the farther he plunged into the forest. He was ashamed to be seen! His gait grew more and more feeble, his garments more shabby by his long walk in the rain and wind.
He still had a few pennies in his pocket--the exact sum he possessed when he left Ammergau. He was keeping them for a night's lodgings, which he must take once during the twenty-four hours. He could have reached Ammergau easily by noon--but he did not want to enter it in broad day as a ragged beggar. So he rested by day and walked at night.
At a venerable old inn, the "Shield," on the road from Steingaden to Ammergau, he asked one of the servants if he might lie a few hours on the straw to rest. The latter hesitated before granting permission--the man looked so doubtful. At last he said: "Well, I won't refuse you, but see that you carry nothing off when you go away from here."
Freyer made no reply. The wrath which had made him hurl the lackey from the countess' door, no longer surged within him--now it was his home which was punishing him, speaking to him in her rude accents--let her say what she would, he accepted it as a son receives a reproof from a mother. He hung his drenched coat to dry in the sun, which now shone warmly again, then slipped into the barn and lay down on the hay. A refreshing slumber embraced him, poverty and humility took the sorrowing soul into their maternal arms, as a poor man picks up the withered blossom the rich one has carelessly flung aside, and carrying it home makes it bloom again.
Rest, weary soul! You no longer need to stretch and distort the noble proportions of your existence to fit them to relations to which they were not born. You need be nothing more than you are, a child of the people, suckled by the sacred breast of nature and can always return there without being ashamed of it. Poverty and lowliness extend their protecting mantle over you and hide you from the looks of scorn and contempt which rend your heart.
A peaceful expression rested upon the sleeper's face, but his breathing was deep and labored as if some powerful feeling was stirring his soul under the quiet repose of slumber and from beneath his closed lids stole a tear.
During several hours the exhausted body lay between sleeping and waking, unconscious grief and comfort.
Opposite, "on the Wies" fifteen minutes walk from the "Shield," a bell rang in the church where the pilgrims went. There an ancient Christ "our Lord of the Wies," called simply "the Wiesherrle," carved from mouldering, painted wood, was hung from the cross by chains which rattled when the image was laughed at incredulously, and with real hair, which constantly grew again when an impious hand cut it. At times of special visitation it could sweat blood, and hundreds journeyed to the "Wies," trustfully seeking the wonder-working "Wiesherrle." It was a terrible image of suffering, and the first sight of the scourged body and visage contorted by pain caused an involuntary thrill of horror--increased by the black beard and long hair, such as often grows in the graves of the dead. The face stared fixedly at the beholder with its glassy eyes, as if to say: "Do you believe in me?" The emaciated body was so lifelike, that it might have been an embalmed corpse placed erect. But the horror vanished when one gazed for a while, for an expression of patience rested on the uncanny face, the lashes of the fixed eyes began to quiver, the image became instinct with life, the chains swayed slightly, and the drops of blood again grew liquid. Why should they not? The heart, which loves forever can also, to the eye of faith, bleed forever. Hundreds of wax limbs and silver hearts, consecrated bones and other anomalies bore witness to past calamities where the Wiesherrle had lent its aid. But he could also be angry, as the rattling of his chains showed, and this gave him a somewhat spectral, demoniac aspect.
Under the protection of this strange image of Christ, whose power extended over the whole mountain plateau, the living image of Christ lay unconscious. Then the vesper-bells, ringing from the church, roused him. He hastily started up and, in doing so, struck against the block where the wood was split. A chain flung upon it fell. Freyer raised and held it a moment before replacing it on the block, thinking of the scourging in the Passion Play.
"Heavens, the Wiesherrle!" shrieked a terrified voice, and the door leading into the barn, which had been softly opened, was hurriedly shut.
"Father, father, come quick--the Wiesherrle is in the barn!"--screamed some one in deadly fright.
"Silly girl," Freyer heard a man say. "Are you crazy? What are you talking about?"
"Really, Father, on my soul; just go there. The Wiesherrle is standing in the middle of the hay. I saw him. By our Lord and the Holy Cross. Amen!"
Freyer heard the girl sink heavily on the bench by the stove. The father answered angrily: "Silly thing, silly thing!" and went to the door in his hob-nailed shoes. "Is any one in here?" he asked. But as Freyer approached, the peasant himself almost started back in terror: "Good Lord, who are you? Why do you startle folks so? Can't you speak?"
"I asked the man if I might rest there, and then I fell asleep."
"I don't see why you should be so lazy, turning night into day. Tramp on, and sleep off your drunkenness somewhere else! I want no miracles--and no Wiesherrle in my house."
"I'll pay for everything," said Freyer humbly, almost beseechingly, holding out his little stock of ready money, for he was overpowered with hunger and thirst.
"What do I care for your pennies!" growled the tavern keeper angrily, closing the door.
There stood the hapless man, in whom the girl's soul had recognized with awe the martyred Christ, but whom the rude peasant turned from his door as a vagrant--hungry and thirsty, worn almost unto death, and with a walk of five hours before him. He took his hat and his staff, hung his dry coat over his shoulder, and left the barn.
As he went out he heard the last notes of the vesper-bell, and felt a yearning to go to Him for whom he had been mistaken, it seemed as if He were calling in the echoing bells: "Come to me, I have comfort for you." He struck into the forest path that led to the Wiesherrle. The white walls of the church soon appeared and he stepped within, where the showy, antiquated style of the last century mingled with the crude notions of the mountaineers for and by whom it was built.
Skulls, skeletons of saints, chubby-cheeked cupids, cruel martyrdoms, and Arcadian shepherdesses, nude penitents and fiends dragging them down into the depths, lambs of heaven and dogs of hell were all in motley confusion! Above the chaotic medley arched on fantastic columns the huge dome with a gate of heaven painted in perspective, which, according to the beholder's standpoint rose or sank, was foreshortened or the opposite.
A wreath of lucernes beautifully ornamented, through which the blue sky peeped and swallows building their nests flew in and out, formed as it were the jewel in the architecture of the cornice. Even the eye of God was not lacking, a tarnished bit of mirror inserted above the pulpit in the centre of golden rays, and intended to flash when the sun shone on it.
And there in a glass shrine directly beneath all the tinsel rubbish, on the gilded carving of the high altar, the poor, plain little Wiesherrle hung in chains. The two, the wooden image of God, and the one of flesh and blood, confronted each other--the Christ of the Ammergau Play greeted the Christ of the Wies. It is true, they did resemble each other, like suffering and pain. Freyer knelt long before the Wiesherrle and what they confided to each other was heard only by the God in whose service and by whose power they wrought miracles--each in his own way.
"You are happy," said the Wiesherrle. "Happier than I! Human hands created and faith animated me; where that is lacking, I am a mere dead wooden puppet, only fit to be flung into the fire. But you were created by God, you live and breathe, can move and act--and highest of all--sufferlike Him whom we represent. I envy you!"
"Yes!" cried Freyer; "You are right;to sufferlike Christ is highest of all! My God, I thank Thee that I suffer."
This was the comfort the Wiesherrle had for his sorely tried brother. It was a simple thought, but it gave him strength to bear everything. It is always believed that a great grief requires a great consolation. This is not true, the poorer the man is, the more value the smallest gift has for him, and the more wretched he is--the smallest comfort! To the husbandman whose crops have been destroyed by hail, it would be no comfort to receive the gift of a blossom, which would bring rapture to the sultry attic chamber of a sick man.
In a great misfortune we often ask: "What gave the person strength to endure it?" It was nothing save these trivial comforts which only the unhappy know. The soul lamenting the loss of a loved one while many others are left is not comforted when the lifeless figure of a martyr preaches patience--but to the desolate one, who no longer has aught which speaks to him, the lifeless wooden image becomes a friend and its mute language a consolation.
Beside the altar stood an alms-box. The gifts for which it was intended were meant for repairs on the church and the preservation of the Wiesherrle, who sometimes needed a new cloth about his loins. Freyer flung into it the few coins which the innkeeper had disdained, because he looked like the Wiesherrle, now they should go to him. He felt as if he should need no more money all his life, as if the comfort he had here received raised him far above earthly need and care.
Twilight was gathering, the sun had sunk behind the blue peaks of the Pfrontner mountains, and now the hour struck--the sacred hour of the return home.
Already he felt with joy the throbbing of the pulses of his home, a mysterious connection between this place and distant Ammergau. And he was right: Childish as was the representation of the divine ideal, it was, nevertheless, the rippling of one of those hidden springs of faith which blend in the Passion Play, forming the great stream of belief which is to supply a thirsting world. As on a barren height, amid tangled thickets, we often greet with delight the low murmur of a hidden brook which in the valley below becomes the mighty artery of our native soil, so the returning wanderer hurried on longingly toward the mysterious spring which led him to the mother's heart. But his knees trembled, human nature asserted its rights. He must eat or he would fall fainting. But where could food be had? The last pennies were in the alms-box--he could not have taken them out again, even had he wished it. There was no way save to ask some one--for bread. He dragged himself wearily to the parsonage--he would try there, the priest would be less startled by the "Wiesherrle" than the peasant. Thrice he attempted to pull the bell, but very gently. He fancied the whole world could hear that he was ringing--to beg. Yet, if it did not sound, no one would open the door. At last, with as much effort as though he was pulling the bell-rope in the church steeple, he rang. The bell echoed shrilly. The pastor's old cook appeared.
Freyer raised his hat. "Might I ask you for a piece of bread?" he murmured softly, and the tall figure seemed to droop lower with every word.
The cook, who was never allowed to turn a beggar from the door, eyed him a moment with mingled pity and anxiety. "Directly," she answered, and went in search of something, but prudently closed the door, leaving him outside as we do with suspicious individuals. Freyer waited, hat in hand. The evening breeze swept chill across the lofty mountain plateau and blew his hair around his uncovered head. At last the cook came, bringing him some soup and a bit of bread. Freyer thanked her, and ate it! When he had finished he gave the little dish back to the woman--but his hand trembled so that he almost let it fall and his brow was damp. Then he thanked her again, but without raising his eyes, and quietly pursued his way.
The "Wies" towered like an island from amid a grey sea of clouds. All the mountains of Trauchgau and Pfront, Allgau and Tyrol, which surround it like distant shores and cliffs, had vanished in the mist. The windows in the comfortable tavern were lighted and a fire was blazing on the hearth. One little lamp after another shone from the quiet farm-houses.
The lonely church now lay silent! Silent, too, was the Wiesherrle in his glass shrine, while the wayfarer pressed steadily down through the mist toward home and the cross! Freyer moved on more and more swiftly across the hill-sides and through the woods till he reached the path leading down the mountain to the "Halb-Ammer," which flowed at its base. Gradually he emerged from the strata of mist, and now a faint ray of moonlight fell upon his path.
Hour after hour he pursued his way. One after another the lights in the houses were extinguished. The world sank into slumber, and the villages were wrapped in silence.
In the churches only the ever-burning lamps still blazed, and he made them his resting-places.
The clock in the church steeple of Altenau struck twelve as he passed through. A belated tippler approached him with the reeling step of a drunkard, but started back when he saw his face, staring after him with dull bewildered eyes as if he beheld some spectre of the night.
"An image of horror I glide through the land!" Freyer murmured softly. To-night he did not sing his song. This evening his pain was soothed, his soul was preparing for another pæan--on the cross!
Now the little church of Kappel appeared before him on its green hill, like a pious sign-post pointing the way to Ammergau. But patches of snow still lingered amid the pale green of the Spring foliage, for it is late ere the Winter is conquered by the milder season and the keen wind swept down the broad highway, making the wayfarer's teeth chatter with cold. He felt that his vital warmth was nearly exhausted, he had walked two days with no hot food. For the soup at the parsonage that day was merely lukewarm--he stood still a moment, surely he had dreamed that! He could not have begged for bread? Yes, it was even so. A tremor shook his limbs: Have you fallen so low? He tried to button his thin coat--his fingers were stiff with cold. Ten years ago when he left Ammergau, it was midsummer--now winter still reigned on the heights. "Only let me not perish on the highway," he prayed, "only let me reach home."
It was now bright cold moonlight, all the outlines of the mountains stood forth distinctly, the familiar contours of the Ammergau peaks became more and more visible.
Now he stood on the Ammer bridge where what might be termed the suburb of Ammergau, the hamlet of Lower Ammergau, begins. The moon-lit river led the eye in a straight line to the centre of the Ammer valley--there lay the sacred mountains of his home--the vast side scenes of the most gigantic stage in the world, the Kofel with its cross, and the other peaks. Opposite on the left the quiet chapel of St. Gregory amid boundless meadows, beside the fall of the Leine, the Ammer's wilder sister. There he had watched his horses when a boy, down near the chapel where the blue gentians had garlanded his head when he flung himself on the grass, intoxicated by his own exuberant youth and abundance of life.
He extended his arms as if he would fain embrace the whole infinite scene: "Home, home, your lost son is returning--receive him. Do not fall, ye mountains, and bury the beloved valley ere I reach it!"
One last effort, one short hour's walk. Hold out, wearied one, this one hour more!
The highway from Lower Ammergau stretched endlessly toward the goal. On the right was the forest, on the left the fields where grew thousands of meadow blossoms, the Eden of his childhood where a blue lake once lured him, so blue that he imagined it was reflecting a patch of the sky, but when he reached it, instead of water, he beheld a field of forget-me-nots!
Oh, memories of childhood--reconciling angel of the tortured soul! There stands the cross on the boundary with the thorny bush whence Christ's crown was cut.
"How will you fare, will the community receive you, admit you to the blissful union of home powers, if you sacrifice your heart's blood for it?" Freyer asked himself, and it seemed as if some cloud, some dark foreboding came between him and his home. "Well for him who no longer expects his reward from this world. What are men? They are all variable, variable and weak! Thou alone art the same. Thou who dost create the miracle from our midst--and thou, sacred soil of our ancestors, ye mountains from whose peaks blows the strengthening breath which animates our sublime work--it is nothuman beings, but ye who are home!"
Now the goal was gained--he was there! Before him in the moonlight lay the Passion Theatre--the consecrated space where once for hours he was permitted to feel himself a God.
The poor, cast off man, deceived in all things, flung himself down, kissed the earth, and laid a handful of it on his head, as though it were the hand of a mother--while from his soul gushed like a song sung by his own weeping guardian angel,
"Thy soil I kiss, beloved home,Which erst my fathers' feet have trod,Where the good seed devoutly sownSprang forth at the command of God!Thy lap fain would I rest upon,Though faithlessly from thee I fledStill thy chains draw thy wand'ring sonOh! mother, back where'er his feet may tread.And though no ray of light, no star,Illumes the future--and its gloom,Thou wilt not grudge, after life's war,A clod of earth upon my tomb."
"Thy soil I kiss, beloved home,
Which erst my fathers' feet have trod,
Where the good seed devoutly sown
Sprang forth at the command of God!
Thy lap fain would I rest upon,
Though faithlessly from thee I fled
Still thy chains draw thy wand'ring son
Oh! mother, back where'er his feet may tread.
And though no ray of light, no star,
Illumes the future--and its gloom,
Thou wilt not grudge, after life's war,
A clod of earth upon my tomb."
He rested his head thus a long time on the cold earth, but he no longer felt it. It seemed as though the soul had consumed the last power of the exhausted body--and bursting its fetters blazed forth like an aureole. "Hosanna, hosanna!" rang through the air, and the earth trembled under the tramp of thousands. On they came in a long procession bearing palm-branches, the shades of the fathers--the old actors in the Passion Play from its commencement, and all who had lived and died for the cross since the time of Christ!
"Hosanna, hosanna to him who died on the cross. Many are called, but few chosen. But you belong to us!" sang the chorus of martyrs till the notes rang through earth and Heaven. "Hosanna, hosanna to him who suffers and bleeds for the sins of the world."
Freyer raised his head. The moon had gone behind a cloud, and white mists were gathering over the fields.
He rose, shivering with cold. His thin coat was damp with the night frost which had melted on his uncovered breast, and his feet were sore, for his shoes were worn out by the long walk.
He still fancied he could hear, far away in the infinite distance, the chorus of the Hosanna to the Crucified! And raising his arms to heaven, he cried: "Oh, my Redeemer and Master, so long as Thou dost need me to show the world Thy face--let me live--then take pity on me and let me die on the cross! Die for the sins of one, as Thou didst die for the sins of the world." He opened the door leading to the stage. There in the dim moonlight lay the old cross. Sobbing aloud, he embraced it, pressing to his breast the hard wood which had supported him and now, as of yore, was surrounded by the mysterious powers, which so strongly attracted him.
"Oh, had I been but faithful to thee," he lamented, "all the blessings of this world--even were it the greatest happiness, would not outweigh thee. Now I am thine--praise thyself with me and bear me upward, high above all earthly woe."
The clock in the church steeple struck three. He must still live and suffer, for he knew that no one could play the Christus as he did, because no one bore the Redeemer's image in his heart like him. But--could he go farther? His strength had failed, he felt it with burdened breast. He took up his hat and staff, and tottered out. Where should he go? To Ludwig Gross, the only person to whom he was not ashamed to show himself in his wretchedness.
Now for the first time he realized that he could scarcely move farther. Yet it must be done, he could not lie there.
Step by step he dragged himself in his torn shoes along the rough village street. When half way down he heard music and singing alternating with cries and laughter, echoing from the tavern. It was a wedding, and they were preparing to escort the bride and groom home--he learned this from the talk of some of the lads who came out. Was he really in Ammergau? His soul was yet thrilling with emotion at the sight of the home for which he had so long yearned and now--this contrast! Yet it was natural, they could not all devote themselves to their task with the same fervor. Yet it doubly wounded the man who bore in his heart such a solemn earnestness of conviction. He glided noiselessly along in the shadow of the houses, that no one should see him.
Did not the carousers notice that their Christ was passing in beggar's garb? Did they not feel the gaze bent on them from the shadow through the lighted window, silently asking: "Are these the descendants of those ancestors whose glorified spirits had just greeted the returning son of Ammergau?"
The unhappy wanderer's step passed by unheard, and now Freyer turned into the side street, where his friend's house stood--the luckless house where his doom began.
It was not quite half-past three. The confused noise did not reach the quiet street. The house, shaded by its broad, projecting roof, lay as if wrapped in slumber. Except during the passion Ludwig always slept in the room on the ground floor, formerly occupied by the countess. Freyer tapped lightly on the shutter, but his heart was beating so violently that he could scarcely hear whether any one was moving within.
If his friend should not be there, had gone away on a journey, or moved--what should he do then? He had had no communication with him, and only heard once through Josepha that old Andreas Gross was dead. He knocked again. Ludwig was the only person whom he could trust--if he had lost him, all would be over.
But no--there was a movement within--the well-known voice asked sleepily: "Who is there?"
"Ludwig, open the window--it is I--Freyer!" he called under his breath.
The shutters were flung back. "Freyer--is it possible? Wait, Joseph, wait, I'll admit you." He heard his friend hurriedly dressing--two minutes after the door opened. Not a word was exchanged between the two men. Ludwig grasped Freyer's hand and drew him into the house. "Freyer--you--am I dreaming? You here--what brings you? I'll have a light directly." His hand trembled with excitement as he lighted a candle. Freyer stood timidly at the door. The room grew bright, the rays streamed full on Freyer. Ludwig started back in horror. "Merciful Heaven, how you look!"
The friends long stood face to face, unable to utter a word, Freyer still holding his hat in his hand. Ludwig's keen eye glided over the emaciated form, the shabby coat, the torn shoes. "Freyer, Freyer, what has befallen you? My poor friend, do you return to methus?" With unutterable grief he clasped the unfortunate man in his arms.
Freyer could scarcely speak, his tongue refused to obey his will. "If I could rest a little while," he faltered.
"Yes, come, come and lie down on my bed--I have slept as much as I wish. I shall not lie down again," replied Ludwig, trembling with mingled pity and alarm, as he drew off his friend's miserable rags as quickly as possible. Then leading him to his own bed, he gently pressed him down upon it. He would not weary the exhausted man with questions, he saw that Freyer was no longer master of himself. His condition told his friend enough.
"You--are--kind!" stammered Freyer. "Oh, I have learned something in the outside world."
"What--what have you learned?" asked Ludwig.
A strange smile flitted over Freyer's face: "To beg."
His friend shuddered. "Don't talk any more now--you need rest!" he said in a low, soothing tone, wrapping the chilled body in warm coverlets. But a flash of noble indignation sparkled in his eyes, and his pale lips could not restrain the words: "I will ask no questions--but whoever sent you home to us must answer for it to God."
The other did not hear, or if he did his thoughts were too confused to understand.
"Freyer! Only tell me what I can do to strengthen you. I'll make a fire, and give you anything to eat that you would like."
"Whatever--you--have!" Freyer gasped with much difficulty.
"May God help us--he is starving." Ludwig could scarcely control his tears. "Keep quiet--I'll come presently and bring you something!" he said, hurrying out to get all the modest larder contained. He would not wake his sisters--this was no theme for feminine gossip. He soon prepared with his own hands a simple bread porridge into which he broke a couple of eggs, he had nothing else--but at least it was warm food. When he took it to his friend Freyer had grown so weak that he could scarcely hold the spoon, but the nourishment evidently did him good.
"Now sleep!" said Ludwig. "Day is dawning. I'll go down to the village and see if I can get you some boots and another coat."
A mute look of gratitude from Freyer rewarded the faithful care, then his eyes closed, and his friend gazed at him with deep melancholy.
The burgomaster's house, with its elaborate fresco, "Christ before Pilate," still stood without any signs of life in the grey dawn. The burgomaster was asleep. He had been ill very frequently. It seemed as if the attack brought on by Freyer's flight had given him his death-blow, he had never rallied from it. And as his body could not recuperate, his mind could never regain its tone.
When Ludwig Gross' violent ring disturbed the morning silence of the house the burgomaster's wife opened the door with a face by no means expressive of pleasure. "My husband is still asleep!" she said to the drawing-master.
"Yes, I cannot help it, you must wake him. I've important business!"
The anxious wife still demurred, but the burgomaster appeared at the top of the staircase. "What is it? I am always to be seen if there is anything urgent. Good morning; go into the sitting-room. I'll come directly."
Ludwig Gross entered the low-ceiled but cheerful apartment, where flowers bloomed in every window. Against the wall was the ancient glass cupboard, the show piece of furniture in every well-to-do Ammergau household, where were treasured the wife's bridal wreath and the husband's goblet, the wedding gifts--cups with gilt inscriptions: "In perpetual remembrance," which belonged to the wife and prizes won in shooting matches, or gifts from visitors to the Passion Play, the property of the husband. In the ivy-grown niche in the corner of the room was an ancient crucifix--below it a wooden bench with a table, on which lay writing materials. On the pier-table between the widows were a couple of images of saints, and a pile of play-bills of the rehearsals which the burgomaster was arranging. Against the opposite wall stood a four-legged piece of furniture covered with black leather, called "the sofa," and close by the huge tiled stove, behind which the burgomaster's wife had set the milk "to thicken." Near by was a wall-cupboard with a small writing-desk, and lastly a beautifully polished winding staircase which led through a hole in the ceiling directly into the sleeping-room, and was the seat of the family cat. This was the home of a great intellect, which reached far beyond these narrow bounds and to which the great epochs of the Passion Play were the only sphere in which it could really live, where it had a wide field for its talents and ambition--where it could find compensation for the ten years prose of petty, narrow circumstances. But the intervals of ten years were too long, and the elderly man was gradually losing the elasticity and enthusiasm which could bear him beyond the deprivations of a decade. He tried all sorts of ventures in order at least to escape the petty troubles of poverty, but they were unsuccessful and thereby he only became burdened the more. Thus in the strife with realism, constantly holding aloft the standard of the ideal, involved in inward and outward contradictions, the hapless man was wearing himself out--like most of the natives of Ammergau.
"Well, what is it?" he now asked, entering the room. "Sit down."
"Don't be vexed, but you know my husband must have his coffee, or he will be ill." The burgomaster's wife brought in the breakfast and set it on the table before him. "Don't let it get cold," she said warningly, then prudently retreated, even taking the cat with her, that the gentlemen might be entirely alone and undisturbed.
"Drink it, pray drink it," urged Ludwig, and waited until the burgomaster had finished his scanty breakfast; which was quickly done. "Well? What is it!" asked the latter, pushing his cup aside.
"I have news for you: Freyer is here!"
"Ah!" The burgomaster started, and an ominous flush crimsoned his face. His hand trembled nervously as he smoothed his hair, once so beautiful, now grey. "Freyer--! How did he get here?"
"I don't know--the question died on my lips when I saw him."
"Why?"
"Oh, he is such a spectacle, ill, half starved--in rags, anEcce homo! I thought my heart would break when I saw him."
"Aha--so Nemesis is here already."
"Oh! do not speak so. Such a Nemesis is too cruel! I do not know what has befallen him--I could ask no questions, but I do know that Freyer has done nothing which deserves such a punishment. You can have no idea of the man's condition. He is lying at home--unable to move a limb."
The burgomaster shrugged his shoulders. "What have I to do with it? You know that I never sympathize with self-created sorrows."
"You need not, only you must help me obtain some means of livelihood for the unfortunate man. He still has his share of the receipts of the last Passion Play. He was not present at the distribution, but he played the Christus from May until August--to the best of my recollection his portion was between seven and eight hundred marks."
"Quite right. But as he had run away and moreover very generously bequeathed all his property to the poor--I could not suppose that I must save the sum for a rainy day, and that he would so soon be in the position of becoming a burden upon the community!"
"What did you do with the money?"
"Don't you know? I divided it with the rest."
Ludwig stamped his foot. "Oh, Heaven? that was my only hope! But he must have assistance, he has neither clothing nor shoes! I haven't a penny in the house except what we need for food. He cannot be seen in these garments, he would rather die. We cannot expose him to mockery--we must respect ourselves in him, he was the best Christus we ever had, and though the play was interrupted by him, we owe him a greater success and a larger revenue than we formerly obtained during a whole season. And, in return, should we allow him to go with empty hands--like the poet in Schiller's division of the earth, because he came too late?"
"Yes." The burgomaster twisted his moustache with his thin fingers: "I am sorry for him--but the thing is done and cannot be changed."
"It must be changed, the people must return the money!" cried the drawing-master vehemently.
The burgomaster looked at him with his keen eyes, half veiled by their drooping lids. "Ask them," he said calmly and coldly. "Go and get it--if it can be had."
Ludwig bit his lips. "Then something must be done by the parish."
"That requires an agreement of the whole parish."
"Call a meeting then."
"Hm, hm!" The burgomaster smiled: "That is no easy matter. What do you think the people will answer, if I say: 'Herr Freyer ran away from us, interrupted the performances, made us lose about 100,000 marks, discredited the Passion Play in our own eyes and those of the world, and asks in return the payment of 800 marks from the parish treasury?"
Ludwig let his arms fall in hopeless despair. "Then I don't know what to do--I must support my helpless old sisters. I cannot maintain him, too, or I would ask no one's aid. I think it should be a point of honor with us Ammergau people not to leave a member of the parish in the lurch, when he returns home poor and needy, especially a man like Freyer, whom we have more cause to thank than to reproach, say what you will. We are not a penal institution."
"No, nor an asylum."
"Well, we need be neither, but merely a community of free men, who should be solely ruled by the thought of love, but unfortunately have long ceased to be so."
The burgomaster leaned quietly back in his chair, the drawing-master became more and more heated, as the other remained cold.
"You always take refuge behind the parish, when you don'twishto do anything--but when youdesireit, the parish never stands in your way!"
The burgomaster pressed his hand to his brow, as if thinking wearied him. He belonged to the class of men whose hearts are in their heads. If anything made his heart ache, it disturbed his brain too. He remained silent a long time while Ludwig paced up and down the room, trembling with excitement. At last, not without a touch of bitter humor, he said:
"I am well aware of that, you always say so whenever I do anything that does not suit you. I should like to see what would become of you, with your contradictory, impulsive artist nature, to-day 'Hosanna' and to-morrow 'Crucify Him,' if I did not maintain calmness and steadiness for you. If I, who bear the responsibility of acting, changed my opinions as quickly as you do and converted each of your momentary impulses into an act--I ought at least to possess the power to kill to-day, and to-morrow, when you repented, restore the person to life. Ten years ago, when Freyer left us in the lurch for the sake of a love affair, and dealt a blow to all we held sacred--you threw yourself into my arms and wept on my breast over the enormity of his deed--now--because I am not instantly touched by a few rags and tatters, and the woe-begone air of a penitent recovering from a moral debauch, you will weep on your friend's bosom over the harshness and want of feeling of the burgomaster! I'm used to it. I know you hotspurs."
He drew a pair of boots from under the stove. "There--I am the owner of just two pairs of boots. You can take one to your protégé, that he may at least appear before me in a respectable fashion to discuss the matter! I don't do it at the cost of the parish, however. And I can give you an old coat too--I was going to send it to my Anton, but, no matter! Only I beg you not to tell him from whom the articles come, or he will hate me because I was in a situation to helphim--instead of heme."
"Oh, how little you know him!" cried Ludwig.
The burgomaster smiled. "I know the Ammergau people--and he is one of them!"
"I thank you in his name," said Ludwig, instantly appeased.
"Yes, you see you thank me for that, yet it is the least important thing. This is merely a private act of charity which I might show any rascal I pitied. But when I, as burgomaster, rigidly guard the honor of Ammergau and consider whom I recommend to public sympathy, you reproach me for it! Before I call a parish meeting and answer for him officially, I must know whether he is worthy of it, and what his condition is." He again pressed his hand to his head. "Send him to me at the office--then we will see."
Ludwig held out his hand. "No offence, surely we know how we feel toward each other."
When the drawing-master had gone, the burgomaster drew a long breath and remained for some time absorbed in thought. Then he glanced at the clock, not to learn the hour but to ascertain whether the conversation had lasted long enough to account for his headache and exhaustion. The result did not seem to soothe him. "Where will this end?"
His wife looked in "Well, Father, what is it?"
The burgomaster took his hat. "Freyer is here!"
"Good Heavens!" She clasped her hands in amazement.
"Yes, it was a great excitement to me. Tell Anastasia, that she may not learn the news from strangers. She has long been resigned, but of course this will move her deeply! And above all, don't let anything be said about it in the shop, I don't want the tidings to get abroad in the village, at least through us. Farewell!"
The burgomaster's family enjoyed a small prerogative: the salt monopoly, and a little provision store where the tireless industry of the self-sacrificing wife collected a few groschen, "If I don't make something--who will?" she used to say, with a keen thrust at her husband's absence of economy. So the burgomaster did not mention his extravagance in connection with the boots and coat. He could not bear even just reproaches now. "A man was often compelled to exceed his means in a position like his"--but women did not understand that. Therefore, as usual, he fled from domestic lectures to the inaccessible regions of his office.
The burgomaster's sister no longer lived in the same house. As she grew older, she had moved into one near the church which she inherited from her mother, where she lived quietly alone.
"Yes, who's to run over to Stasi," lamented the burgomaster's wife, "when we all have our hands full. As if she wouldn't hear it soon enough. He'll never marry her! Rosel, Rosel!"
The burgomaster's youngest daughter, the predestined Mary of the future, came in from the shop.
"Run up to your aunt and tell her that Herr Freyer has come back, your father says so!"
"Will he play the Christus again?" asked the child.
"How do I know--your father didn't say! Perhaps so--they have no one. Oh dear, this Passion Play will be your father's death!"
The shop-bell, pleasantest of sounds to the anxious woman, rang--customers must not be kept waiting, even for a little package of coffee. She hurried into the shop, and Rosel to her aunt Stasi.
This was a good day to the burgomaster's worthy wife. The whole village bought something, in order to learn something about the interesting event which the Gross sisters, of course, had told early in the morning. And, as the burgomaster's wife maintained absolute silence, what the people did not know they invented--and of course the worst and most improbable things. Ere noon the wildest rumors were in circulation, and parties had formed who disputed vehemently over them.
The burgomaster's wife was in the utmost distress. Everybody wanted information from her, and how easily she might let slip some incautious remark! In her task of keeping silence, she actually forgot that she really had nothing at all to conceal--because she knew nothing herself. Yet the fear of having said a word too much oppressed the conscientious woman so sorely that afterward, much to her husband's benefit, she was remarkably patient and spared him the usual reproach of not having thought of his wife and children, when she discovered that he had given away his boots and coat!--
Thus in the strange little village the loftiest and the lowliest things always go hand in hand. But the noble often succumbs to the petty, when it lacks the power to rise above it.