The great number of strangers who were unable to get tickets the day before had rendered a second performance necessary. The countess did not attend it. To her the play had been no spectacle, but an experience--a repetition would have degraded it to a mere drama. She had spent the day in retirement, like a prisoner, that she might not fall into the hands of any acquaintances. Now the distant rumble of carriages announced the close of the performance. It was a delightful autumn evening. The Gross family came to the window on their return home, and wondered to find the countess still in her room. The sounds of stifled sobs echoed from the work room. The other lodgers in the house had come back from the theatre and, like every one, were paying their tribute of tears. An American had gone to-day for the second time. He sat weeping on the bench near the stove, and said that it had been even more touching than yesterday. Andreas Gross assented: "Yes, Joseph Freyer never played as he did to-day."
The countess, sitting in her room, heard the words and was strangely moved. Why had he never played as he did to-day?
Some one tapped gently on the door.
A burning blush suffused the countess' face--had he--? He might have passed through the garden from the other side to avoid the spectators. "Come in!" she called.
It was Josepha with a telegram in her hand. The messenger was waiting for an answer.
The countess opened it and read the contents. It was from the prince. "Please inform me whether I shall countermand the dinner."
"Very well. I will send the reply."
Josepha withdrew.
"If Ludwig were only here!" thought the countess. "He must be waiting to bring Freyer, as he did yesterday."
The rapid pulsing of her heart almost stifled her. One quarter of an hour passed after another. At last Ludwig came--but alone.
The countess was sitting at the open window and Ludwig paused beside it.
"Well, how was the play to-day?"
"Magnificent," he replied. "I never saw Freyer so superb. He was perfect, fairly superhuman! It is a pity that you were not there."
"Did he inquire for me?"
"Yes. I explained to him that you did not wish to see it a second time--and for what reason. He nodded and said: 'I am glad the lady feels so.'"
"Then--we understand each other!" The countess drew a long breath. "Did you ask him to come here with you?"
"No. I thought I ought not to do that--he must come now of his own free will, or you would be placed in a false position."
"You are right--I thank you!" said the countess, turning pale and biting her lips. "Do you think that--he will come?"
"Unfortunately, no--he went directly home."
"Will you do me a favor?"
"Certainly, Countess."
"Despatch a telegram for me. I have arranged to give a dinner party at home and should like to send a message that I am coming."
"You will not remain here longer?"
"No!" she said in a tone sharp and cutting as a knife which is thrust into one's own heart. "Come in, please."
Ludwig obeyed the command and she wrote with the bearing of a queen signing a death-warrant:
"Hereditary Prince of Metten-Barnheim, Munich.
"Will come at five to-morrow. Dinner can be given.
"Madeleine."
"Here, if you will be so kind," she said, handing the sheet to Ludwig.
The latter gazed earnestly at her, as though he wanted to say: "If only you don't repent it." But he asked the question in the modest wording: "Shall I send it at once?"
"Yes, if you please!" she answered, and her whole manner expressed a coldness which startled Ludwig.
"Can genuine warmth of heart freeze so quickly?" he asked himself. Madeleine von Wildenau felt the mute reproach and disappointment in Ludwig's manner. She felt, too, that he was right, and called him back as he reached the door. "Give it to me," she said, taking the telegram, "I will consider the matter." Then meeting the eyes of the noble man, which now brightened again for her sake, she added earnestly, holding out her hand, "You understand me better than I do myself."
"I thank you for those words--they make me very proud, Countess!" said Ludwig with a radiant glance, placing the telegram on the table. "I will go now that I may not disturb you while you are considering what course to pursue."
He left the room. Twilight was gathering. The countess sat by the table holding the telegram clenched in her little hand.
"The people of Ammergau unconsciously exercise a moral constraint which is irresistible. There is a power of truth in them which prevents even self-deception in their presence!" she murmured half defiantly, half admiringly. What was to be done now? To remain longer here and countermand the dinner meant a positive breach with society. But who was there here to thank her for such a sacrifice? Who cared for the Countess Wildenau? She was one of the thousands who came and went, taking with them a lofty memory, without leaving any remembrance in the mind of any one. Why should she hold them accountable if she gave to this impression a significance which was neither intended nor suspected. We must not force upon men sacrifices which they do not desire!
She rested her arm on the table and sat irresolute. Now--now in this mood, to return to the prosaic, superficial round, after imagining yesterday that she stood face to face with deity? Could she do it? Was not the mute reproach in Ludwig's glance true? She thoughtfully rested her beautiful face on her hand.
She had not noticed a knock at the door, a carriage was driving by whose rattle drowned every sound. For the same reason the person outside, supposing that he had not heard the "come in!" softy opened the door. At the noise the countess raised her head--Freyer stood before her.
"You have come, you did come!" she exclaimed, starting up and seizing his hand that the sweet, blissful dream might not vanish once more.
"Excuse me if I disturb you," he said in a low, timid tone. "I--I should not have come--but I could not bear to stay at home, I was so excited to-day. When evening came, some impulse drove me here--I was--I had--"
"You had a desire to talk to some one who could understand you, and this urged you to me, did it not?"
"Yes, Countess! But I should not have ventured to come in, had not--"
"Well?"
"Ludwig met me and said that you were going away--"
"Ah--and did you regret it?"
"I wished at least to bid you farewell and thank you for all your kindness to my unhappy cousin Josepha!" he said evasively. "I neglected to do so yesterday, I was so embarrassed."
"You are not sincere with me, Herr Freyer!" said the countess, motioning to him to sit down. "This expression of thanks does not come from your heart, for you do not care what I do for Josepha. That is merely the pretext for coming to me--because you do not wish to confess what really brought you. Am I not right?"
"Countess!" said Freyer, completely disconcerted, as he tried to rise.
She gently laid her hand on his, detaining him. "Stay! Your standard is so rigid in everything--what is your view of truth?"
Freyer fixed his eyes on the floor.
"Is it true, when you say that you came to thank me for Josepha? Were you not drawn hither by the feeling that, of all the thousands of souls who pass you in the course of the summer, perhaps there is not one who could understand you and your task as I do?"
Freyer clasped his hands on his knees and silently bent his head.
"Perhaps you have not thought of me as I have thought of you, all day long, since our eyes met on the mountain, as though some higher power had pointed us out to each other."
Freyer remained silent, but as the full cup overflows at the slightest movement, tears again gushed from his eyes.
"Why did you look at me so from head to foot, pouring forth in that gaze your whole soul with a world of grief and joy, as a blossoming tree showers its flowers on the passer-by? Surely not on account of a woman's face, though it may be passably fair, but because you felt that I perceived the Christ in you and that it was He for whom I came. Your glance meant to tell me: 'It is I whom you are seeking!' and I believe you. And when at last the promise was fulfilled and the long sought redeemer stood before me, was it by chance that his prophetic eye discovered me among the thousands of faces when he said: 'But in many hearts day will soon dawn!' Did you not seek me, as we look for a stranger to whom we must fulfill a promise given on the journey?"
Freyer now raised his dark eyes and fixed them full upon her, but made no reply.
"And is it true that you came yesterday, only because Ludwig wished it, you who, spite of all entreaties, have kept ladies who had the world at their feet waiting on your stairs for hours? Did you not come because you suspected that I might be the woman with whom, since that meeting, you had had some incomprehensible spiritual bond?"
Freyer covered his eyes with his hand, as if he was afraid more might be read in them.
"Be truthful, Herr Freyer, it is unworthy of you and of me to play a conventional farce. I am compelled to act so many in my life that I would fain for once be frank, as mortal to mortal! Tell me simply, have I judged correctly--yes or no?"
"Yes!" whispered Freyer, without looking up.
She gently drew his hand down. "And to-day--to-day--did you come merely out of gratitude for your cousin?" she questioned with the archness of her increasing certainty of happiness.
He caught the little hand with which she had clasped his, and raised it ardently to his lips; then, as if startled that he had allowed himself to be carried so far, he flung back his raven locks as if they had deluded his senses, and pushed his chair farther away in order not to be again led into temptation. She did not interfere--she knew that he was in her power--struggle as he might, the dart was fixed. Yet the obstacles she had to conquer were great and powerful. Coquetry would be futile, only the moral force of a genuine feeling could cope with them, and of this she was conscious, with a happiness never felt before. Again she searched her own heart, and her rapid glance wandered from the thorn-scarred brow of the wonderful figure before her, to pierce the depths of her own soul. Her love for him was genuine, she was not toying with his heart; she wished, like Mary Magdalene, to sanctify herself in his love. But she was the Magdalene in the first stage. Had Christ been a man, and attainable like this man, what transformations the Penitent's heart must have undergone, ere its fires wrought true purification.
"Herr Freyer," the countess began in a low, eager tone, "you said yesterday that it troubled you when people showed you idolatrous reverence and you felt that you thereby robbed your Master. Can we give aught to any earthly being without giving it to God?"
Freyer listened intently.
"Is there any soul which does not belong to God, did not emanate from Him, is not a part of His power? And does not that which flows from one part to another stream back in a perpetual circle to the Creator? We can take nothing which does not come from God, give nothing which does not return to Him. Do you know the principle of the preservation of power?"
"No," said Freyer, confused by his ignorance of something he was asked.
"Well, it can be explained in a very few words. Science has proved that nothing in the universe can be lost, that even a force which is apparently uselessly squandered is merely transformed into another. Thus in God nothing can be lost, even though it has no direct relation to Him--for he is the spiritual universe. True, every feeling does not produce a work of God, any more than every effort of nature brings forth some positive result. But as in the latter case the force expended is not lost, because it produces other, though secondary results, so in God no sentiment of love and enthusiasm is lost, even though it may relate to Him only in a secondary degree."
"Very true."
"Then if that is so,--how can any one rob this God, who surrounds us like the universe, from which we come, into which we pass again, and in which our forces are constantly transformed in a perpetual round of change."
Freyer rested his head on his hand, absorbed in thought.
"And if a feeling is so deeply rooted in religion, so directly associated with God as that which men offer to you. His representative, why should you have these scruples?"
"I have never heard any one talk in this way! Pardon my faint-heartedness, and ignorance--I am a poor, simple-hearted man--you will be indulgent, will you not?"
"Freyer!" cried the countess, deeply moved, and spite of the distance to which he had pushed his chair, held out her hand.
"You see, I had no opportunity to attend a higher school, I was so poor. I lost my parents when a lad of twelve and received only the most necessary instruction. All my knowledge I obtained afterwards by reading, and it is of course defective and insufficient. On our mountains, beside our rushing streams, among the hazel bushes whose nuts were often my only food, I grew up, watching the horses sent to pasture with their colts. Up by St. Gregory's chapel, where the Leine falls over the cliffs, I left the animals grazing in the wide meadows, flung myself down in a field of gentian and, lying on my back, gazed upward into the blue sky and thought it must surely open, the transparent atmosphere must at last be pierced--as the bird imagines, when it dashes its head against a pane of glass--so I learned to think of God! And when my brain and heart grew giddy, as if I were destined for something better, when a longing overwhelmed me which my simple meditations could not quell, I caught one of my young horses by the mane, swung myself on its bare back, and swept over the broad plain, feeling myself a king."
He extended his arms, and now his face was suddenly transformed--laughing, bright, joyous as the Swedes imagine their Neck, the kind, friendly water sprite who still retains some of the mythical blood of the Northern god of Spring, Freyer's namesake. "Ah, Countess--that was poetry! Who could restore those days; that childish ignorance, that happy hope, that freedom of innocence!"
Again, like the pictures in a kaleidoscope, his expression changed and a gloomy melancholy spread its veil over his brow. "Alas!--that is all over! My light-footed colts have become weary, clumsy animals, dragging loaded wains, and I--I drag no less wearily the burden of life."
"How can you speak so at the moment when, yourself a miracle, you are revealing to men the miracles of God? Is it not ungrateful!"
"Oh, no, Countess, I am grateful! But I do not so separate myself from my part that I could be happy while portraying the sufferings of my Redeemer! Do you imagine that I have merely learned the words by heart? With His form, I have also taken His cross upon me! Since that time all my youth has fled and a touch of pain pervades my whole life."
"Then you are His true follower--then you are doing what Simon of Cyrene did! And do you believe that you ought not to accept even the smallest portion of the gratitude which men owe to the Crucified One? Must you share only His sufferings, not His joys, the joys bestowed by the love and faith of moved and converted souls? Surely if you are so narrow-minded, you understand neither yourself nor the love of God, Who has chosen and favored you from among millions to renew to the world the forgotten message of salvation."
"Oh God, oh God!--help me to keep my humility--this is too much."
Freyer started up and pressed his hand upon his brow as if to ward off an invisible crown which was descending upon it.
The countess also rose and approached him. "Freyer, the suffering you endure for Christ's sake, I share with you! It is the mystery in which our souls found each other. Pain is eternal, Freyer, and that to which it gives birth is imperishable! What do we feel when we stand before a painted or sculptured image of the Crucified One? Pity, the most agonizing pity! I have never been willing to believe it--but since yesterday I have known that it is a solace to the believing soul to bestow a tender embrace upon the lifeless image and to touch the artificial wounds with ardent lips. What must it be when that image loves, feels, and suffers! When it speaks to us in tones that thrill the inmost heart? When we see it quiver and bleed under the lashes of the executioner--when the sweat of agony trickles from the brow and real tears flow from the eyes? I ask, what must this be to us? Imagine yourself for once the person who sees this--and then judge whether it is not overpowering? If faith in the stone Christ works miracles--why should not belief in the living one do far more? The pious delusion is so much the greater, and faith brings blessing."
She clasped her hands upon his breast
"Come, image of mercy, bend down to me. Let me clasp your beloved head and press upon your tortured brow the kiss of reconciliation for all penitent humanity!" Then, taking his face between her hands, she lightly pressed a fervent kiss upon the brow gently inclined toward her. "Now go and lament that you have robbed your Master of this kiss. He will ask, with a smile: 'Do you know for whom that kiss was meant--thee or me?' And you will be spared an answer, for when you raise your eyes to Him, you will find it imprinted on His brow."
She paused, overpowered by the sacredness of the moment. There are times when our own words influence us like some unknown force, because they express something which has been so deeply concealed in our hearts that we ourselves were ignorant of its existence. This was the case now with the countess. Freyer stood silently with clasped hands, as if in church.
It seemed as though some third person was addressing them--an invisible person whom they must hold their very breath to understand.
It had grown late. The waning moon floated high above the low window and brightened the little room with its cheering rays. The countess nodded. "It is fulfilled!" Then she laid her hands in Freyer's: "For the first time since my childhood I place my soul in the keeping of a human being! For the first time since my childhood, I strip off all the arrogance of reason, for a higher perception is hovering above me, drawing nearer and nearer with blissful certainty! Is it love, is it faith? Whichever it may be--God dwells in both. And--if philosophy says: 'I think, therefore I am,' I say: 'I love, therefore I believe!'"
She humbly bowed her head. "And therefore I beseech you. Bless me, you who are so divinely endowed, with the blessing which is shed upon and emanates from you!"
Freyer raised his eyes to Heaven as if to call down the benediction she implored, and there was such power in the fervid gaze that Madeleine von Wildenau experienced a thrill almost of fear, as if in the presence of some supernatural being. Then he made the sign of the cross over her: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
A tremor of foreboding ran through her limbs as if the finger of God had marked her for some mysterious destination and, with this rune, she had been enrolled in the pallid host of those consecrated by sorrow as followers of the deity.
With sweet submission she clasped the hand which had just imprinted the mournful sign on brow and breast: "In the name of God, if only you are near me!" Her head drooped on her bosom. Some one knocked at the door, the countess' brain reeled so much that she was forced to cling to Freyer for support.
Josepha timidly asked if she wanted a light.
"Light! Was it dark?"
"Very well," she answered absently.
Josepha brought the lamp and enquired when the countess desired to have supper? Freyer took his hat to go.
"I shall eat nothing more to-night!" said the countess in a curt, impatient tone, and Josepha timidly withdrew.
Madeleine von Wildenau covered her face with both hands like a person who had been roused from a beautiful dream to bare reality.
"Alas--that there must be other people in the world, besides ourselves!" She sighed heavily, as if to take breath after the terrible fall. Freyer, hat in hand, approached her, calm and self-controlled. Joseph Freyer, addressing Countess Wildenau, had no remembrance of what the penitent soul had just confided to the image of the Redeemer.
"Allow me to take my leave, your Highness," he said in a gentle, but distant tone.
The countess understood the delicate modesty of this conduct. "Did your blue gentians teach this tact? It would seem that lonely pastures, whispering hazel copses, and dashing mountain streams are better educators of the heart, for those who understand their mysterious language, than many of our schools."
Freyer was silent a moment, then with eyes bent on the floor, he said: "May I ask when your Highness intends to leave to-morrow?"
"Must I go, Freyer?"
"Your Highness--"
"Here is a telegram which announces my arrival at home to-morrow. Tell me, Freyer, shall I send it?"
"How can I decide--" stammered Freyer in confusion.
"I wish to know whether you--you, Freyer, would like to keep me here?"
"But Good Heavens, your Highness--is it seemly for me to express such a wish? Of course it will be a great pleasure to have you remain--but how could I seek to influence you in any way?"
"Mere phrases!" said the countess, disappointed and offended. "Then, if it is a matter of indifference to you whether I go or stay, I will send the telegram." She went to the table to add something.
Suddenly he stood close beside her, with a beseeching, tearful glance--and laid his hand upon the paper.
"No--do not send it."
"Not send it?" asked Madeleine in blissful expectation. "Not send it--then what am I to do?"
His lips moved several times, as if he could not utter the word--but at last it escaped from his closed heart, and with an indescribable smile he murmured: "Stay!"
Ah! A low cry of exultation escaped the countess, and the telegram lay torn upon the table. Then with a trembling hand she wrote the second, which she requested him to send at once. It contained only the words: "Am ill--cannot come!"
He was still standing at her side, and she gave it to him to read.
"Is it true?" he asked, after glancing at it, looking at her with timid, sportive reproach. "Are you ill?"
"Yes!" she said caressingly, laying her hand, as if she felt a pang, upon her heart. "I am!"
He clasped both in his own and asked softly in a tone which sent a thrill of happiness through every vein: "How shall we cure this illness?"
She felt his warm breath on her waving hair--and dared not stir.
Then, with sudden resolution he shook off the thrall: "Good-night, Countess!"
The next moment he was hurrying past the window.
Ludwig, wondering at his Mend's hasty departure, entered.
"What has happened, Countess?"
"Signs and wonders have happened," she said, extending her arms as if transfigured.
