It was high noon. The children were at school, the grown people had gone to their work. The village was silent and no one stopped Freyer as he hurried down the broad old "Aussergasse," as the main street of the place was called, with its painted houses, toward the graveyard and the church.
In the cemetery beside the church stands a simple monument with a bronze bust. An unlovely head with all sorts of lines, as if nature had intentionally given this soul an ugly husk, out of wrath that it was not to be hers, that she could not have as much power over it as over other dust-born mortals--for this soul belonged to Heaven, earth had no share in it. But no matter how nature strove to disfigure it, its pure beauty shone through the physical covering so radiantly that even mortal eyes perceived only the beauty and overlooked the ugliness.
This soul, which might also be called the soul of Ammergau, for it cherished the whole population of the village, lived for the people, gave them all and kept nothing for itself--this noble spirit, to whom the gratitude of the survivors, and they embraced the whole community, had created a monument, was Alois Daisenberger--the reformer of the Passion Play.
It is a peculiar phenomenon that the people of Ammergau, in contrast to all others, are grateful only for intellectual gifts while they punish physical benefits with scorn. It offends their pride to be compelled to accept such trifling donations and they cherish a suspicion that the donor may boast of his benefits. Whoever has not the self-denial to allay this suspicion by enduring all sorts of humiliations and affronts must not try to aid the Ammergau villagers. He who has done any good deed has accomplished nothing--not until he has atoned for it, as though it were something evil, does he lend it its proper value and appease the offended pride of the recipient.
This was the case with Daisenberger. He bore with saintly patience all the angularities and oddities of these strange characters--and they honored him as a saint for it. He had the eye of genius for the natural talent, a heart for the sufferings, appreciation of the intellectual grandeur of these people. And he gave security for it--for no worldly honor, no bishopric which was offered could lure him away. What was it that outweighed everything with which church and government desired to honor him? Whoever stands in the quiet graveyard, fanned by the keen mountain air which brings from the village stray notes of a requiem that is being practised, surrounded by snow-clad mountain-peaks gazing dreamily down on the little mound with its tiny cross, whoever gazes at the monument with its massive head, looking down upon the village from beneath a garland of fresh blue gentians, is overwhelmed by a mournful suspicion that here is concealed a secret in which a great intellect could find the satisfaction of its life! But it seems as if the key rested in Daisenberger's grave.
To this grave Freyer hastened. The first errand of the returned personator of Christ was to his author! The solitary grave lay forgotten by the world. It is a genuine work of faith and love when the author vanishes in his creation and leaves the honor to God. The whole world flocks to the Passion Play--but no one thinks of him who created for it the form which renders it available for the present time. It is the "Oberammergau," not the "Daisenberger" Passion Play.
He gave to the people of Ammergau not only his life and powers--but also that which a man is most loth to resign--his fame. He was one to whom earth could neither give anything, nor take anything away. Therefore there were few who visited his grave in the little Ammergau churchyard. The grace and beauty of his grand and noble artist soul weave viewless garlands for it.
Freyer knelt in mute devotion beside the grave and prayed, not for himself, not even for him who was one of the host of the blessed, but to him, that he might sanctify his people and strengthen them with the sacred earnestness of their task. The longer he gazed at the iron, yet gentle face, without seeing any change in the familiar features, which had once smiled so kindly at him when he uttered for the first time the words expelling the money-changers from the temple--the greater became his grief, as if the soul of his people had died with Daisenberger, as if Ammergau were only a graveyard and he the sole mourner.
"Oh, great, noble soul, which had room for a world, and yet confined yourself to this narrow valley in order to create in it for us a world of love--here lies your unworthy Christus moistening with his tears the stone which no angel will roll away that we may touch your transfigured body and say, give us thy spirit!"
Then, as if the metal mouth from which he implored an answer spoke with a brazen tongue, a bell echoed solemnly on the air. It was twelve o'clock. What the voice said could not be clothed in words. It had exhorted him when, in baptism, he was received into the covenant of Him whom he was chosen to personate--it had consoled him when, a weeping boy, he followed his father's bier, it had threatened him when on Sunday with his schoolmates, he pulled too violently at the bell-rope, it had warned him when he had lingered high up on the peaks of the Kofel or Laaber searching for Alpine roses or, shouting exultantly, climbing after chamois. A smile flitted over his face as he thought of those days! And then--then that very bell had pealed resonantly, like a voice from another world, on the morning of the Passion, at the hour when he stood in the robes of the Christ behind the curtain with the others to repeat the Lord's Prayer before the performance--the lofty, fervent prayer that God would aid them, that all might go well "for His honor." And again it had rung solemnly and sweetly, when he saw the beautiful woman praying at dawn in the garden--to the imaginary God, which he was not. Then it seemed as if the bell burst--there was a shrill discord, a keen pang through brain and heart. Oh, memory--the past! Angel and fiend at once--why do you conjure up your visions before one dedicated to the cross and to death, why do you rouse the longing for what is irrevocably lost? Freyer, groaning aloud, rested his damp brow against the cold stone, and the bronze bust, as if in pity, dropped a blue gentian from its garland on the penitent's head with a light touch, like a kiss from spirit lips. He took it and placed it in his pocketbook beside the child's fair curl--the only thing left him of all his vanished happiness.
Then a hand was laid on his shoulder: "I thank you--that this was your first visit." The sexton stood before him: "I see that you have remained a true son of Ammergau. May God be with you!"
Freyer's tears fell as he grasped the extended hand. "Oh, noble blood of Daisenberger, thank you a thousand times. And you, true son of Ammergau--nephew of our dead guardian angel, tell me in his name, will you receive me again in your midst and in the sacred work?"
"I do not know what you have done and experienced," said the sexton, gazing at him with his large, loyal brown eyes. "I only saw you at a distance, praying beside my uncle's grave, and I thought that whoever did that could not be lost to us. By this dear grave, I give you my hand. Will you work with me, live, and if need be die for the sacred will of this dead man, for our great task, as he cherished it in his heart?"
"Yes and amen!"
"Then may God bless you."
The two men looked earnestly and loyally into each other's eyes, and their hands clasped across the consecrated mound, as though taking an oath.
Suddenly a woman, still beautiful though somewhat beyond youth, appeared, moving with dignified cordiality toward Freyer: "Good-day, Herr Freyer; do you remember me?" she said in a quiet, musical voice, holding out her hand.
"Mary!" cried Freyer, clasping it. "Anastasia, why should I not remember you? How do you do? But why do you call me Herr Freyer? Have we become strangers?"
"I thought I ought not to use the old form of speech, you have been away so long, and"--she paused an instant, looking at him with a pitying glance, as if to say: "And are so unhappy." For delicate natures respect misfortune more than rank and wealth, and the sufferer is sacred to them.
The sexton looked at the clock: "I must go, the vesper service begins again at one o'clock. Farewell till we meet again. Are you coming to the gymnasium this evening?"
"Hardly--I am not very well. But we shall see each other soon. Are you married now? I have not asked--"
The sexton's face beamed with joy. "Yes, indeed, and well married. I have a good wife. You'll see her when you call on me."
"A good wife--you are a happy man!" said Freyer in a low tone.
"She has a great deal to do just now for the little one."
"Ah--you have a child, too!"
"And such a beautiful one!" added Anastasia. "A lovely little girl! She will be a Mary some day. But the sexton's wife is spoiling her, she hardly lets her out of her arms."
"A good mother--that must be beautiful!" said Freyer, with a strange expression, as if speaking in a dream. Then he pressed his friend's hand and turned to go.
"Will you not bid me good bye, too?" asked Anastasia. The sexton sadly made a sign behind Freyer's back, as if to say: "he has suffered sorely!" and went into his church.
Freyer turned quickly. "Yes, I forgot, my Mary. I am rude, am I not?"
"No--not rude--only unhappy!" said Anastasia, while a pitying look rested upon his emaciated face.
"Yes!" replied Freyer, lowering his lids as if he did not wish her to read in his eyes how unhappy. But she saw it nevertheless. For a time the couple stood beside Daisenberger's grave. "If he were only alive--he would know what would help you."
Freyer shook his head. "If Christ Himself should come from Heaven, He could not help me, at least except through my faith in Him."
"Joseph, will you not go home with me? Look down yonder, there is my house. It is very pretty; come with me. I shall consider it an honor if you will stop there!" She led the way. Freyer involuntarily followed, and they soon reached the little house.
"Then you no longer live with your brother, the burgomaster?"
"Oh, no! After I grew older I longed for rest and solitude, and at my sister-in-law's there is always so much bustle on account of the shop and the children--one hears so many painful things said--" She paused in embarrassment. Then opening the door into the little garden, they went to the rear of the house where they could sit on a bench undisturbed.
"What you heard was undoubtedly about me, and you could not endure it. You faithful soul--was not that the reason you left your relatives and lived alone?" said Freyer, seating himself. "Be frank--were you not obliged to hear many things against me, till you at last doubted your old schoolmate?"
"Yes--many evil things were said of you and the princess--but I never believed them. I do not know what happened, but whatever it was, you did nothing wrong."
"Mary, where did you obtain this confidence?"
"Why," she answered smiling, "surely I know my son--and what mother would distrust her child?"
Freyer was deeply moved: "Oh, you virgin mother. Marvel of Heaven, when in the outside world a mother abandoned her own child--here a child was maturing into a mother for me, a mother who would have compassion on the deserted one. Mary, pure maid-servant of God, how have I deserved this mercy?"
"I always gave you a mother's love, from the time we played together, and I have mourned for you as a mother all the nine years. But I believed in you and hoped that you would some day return and close your old mother's eyes and, though twenty years had passed, I should not have ceased to hope. I was right, and you have come! Ah! I would not let myself dream that I should ever play with you again in the Passion--ever hold my Christus in my arms and support his weary head when he is taken down from the cross. That happiness transcends every other joy! True, I am an old maid now, and I wonder that they should let me take the part again. I am thirty-nine, you know, rather old for the Mary, yet I think it will be more natural, for Mary, too, was old when Christ was crucified!"
"Thirty-nine, and still unmarried--such a beautiful creature--how did that happen, Mary?"
She smiled: "Oh, I did not wish to marry any one.--I could not care for any one as I did for my Christus!"
"Great Heaven, is this on my conscience too? A whole life wasted in silent hope, love, and fidelity to me--smiling and unreproachful! This soul might have been mine, this flower bloomed for me in the quiet home valley, and I left it to wither while searing heart and brain in the outside world. Mary, I will not believe that you have lost your life for my sake--you are still so beautiful, you will yet love and be happy at some good man's side."
"Oh, no, what fancy have you taken into your head! That was over long ago," she answered gayly. "I am a year older than you--too old for a woman. Look, when the hair is grey, one no longer thinks of marrying." And pushing back her thick brown hair from her temples, she showed beneath white locks--as white as snow!
"Oh, you have grown grey, perhaps for me--!" he said, deeply moved.
"Yes, maternal cares age one early."
He flung himself in the grass before her, unable to speak. She passed her hand gently over his bowed head: "Ah, if my poor son had only returned a happy man--how my heart would have rejoiced. If you had brought back a dear wife from the city, I would have helped her, done the rough work to which she was not accustomed--and if you had had a child, how I would have watched and tended it! If it had been a boy, we would have trained him to be the Christus--would we not? Then for twenty years he could have played it--your image."
Freyer started as though the words had pierced his inmost soul. She did not suspect it, and went on: "Then perhaps the Christus might have descended from child to grandchild in your family--that would have been beautiful."
He made no reply; a low sob escaped his breast.
"I have often imagined such things during the long years when I sat alone through the winter evenings! But unfortunately it has not resulted so! You return a poor lonely man--and silver threads are shining in your hair too. When I look at them, I long to weep. What did those wicked strangers in the outside world do to you, my poor Joseph, that you are so pale and ill? It seems as if they had crucified you and taken you down from the cross ere life had wholly departed; and now you could neither live nor die, but moved about like one half dead. I fancy I can see your secret wounds, your poor heart pierced by the spear! Oh, my suffering child, rest your head once more on the knee of her who would give her heart's blood for you!" She gently drew his head down and placing one hand under it, like a soft cushion, lovingly stroked his forehead as if to wipe away the blood-stains of the crown of thorns, while tear after tear fell from her long lashes on her son--the son of a virgin mother.
Silence reigned around them--there was a rustling sound above their heads as if the wind was blowing through palms and cedars--a weeping willow spread its boughs above them, and from the churchyard wall the milkwort nodded a mute greeting from Golgotha.
