Part 14 (1/2)
Meanwhile the countess delivered her invitation, which was accepted with great enthusiasm.
A stately, athletic man in a blouse, carrying a chest on his shoulder, pa.s.sed the ladies. The burden was terribly heavy, for even his powerful, well-knit frame staggered under it, and his handsome kingly head was bowed almost to the earth.
”Look, Countess, that is Thomas Rendner the Roman procurator. We shall soon make the acquaintance of the whole company. We sit here in the summer-house like a spider in its web, not a fly can pa.s.s unseen.”
”Good Heavens, that Pilate!” exclaimed the countess, watching him with sympathizing eyes, ”Poor man, to-day panting under an oppressive burden, to-morrow robed in purple and crowned with a diadem, only to exchange them again on the third day, for the porter's dusty blouse, and take the yoke upon himself once more. What a contrast, and yet he loses neither his balance nor his temper! Indeed I think that we can learn as much here outside of the Pa.s.sion Play, as from the spectacle itself.”
”Yes, if we watch with your deep, thoughtful eyes, my dear Countess!”
said the d.u.c.h.ess, kissing the speaker's brow. ”We will discuss this subject farther when we drive with you the day after to-morrow.”
The ladies parted. Madeleine von Wildenau, leaning on the prince's arm, walked silently through the crowd which now, on the eve of the play, thronged the narrow streets. The din and tumult were enough to deprive one of sight and hearing. Dazed by the confusion, she clung closely to her companion's arm.
”Good Heavens, is it possible that Christianity still possesses such a power of attraction!” she murmured, involuntarily, while struggling through the throng.
The ground in the Ettal road trembled under the roll of carriage wheels. The last evening train had arrived, and a flood of people and vehicles poured into the village already almost crushed beneath the tide of human beings. Horses half driven to death, dragging at a gallop heavy landaus crowded with six or eight persons. Lumbering wagons containing twenty or thirty travellers just as they had climbed in, sometimes half clinging to the steps or the boxes of the wheels, swayed to and fro; intoxicated, excited by the mad rush and the fear of being left behind--raging and shrieking like a horde of unchained fiends come to disturb the sacred drama rather than pious pilgrims who wished to witness it, the frantic mob poured in. ”_Sauve qui peut_” was the motto, the prince lifted the countess on a small post by the roadside.
Just at that moment the fire-brigade marched by to watch the theatre.
It was said that several of the neighboring parishes, envious of Ammergau, had threatened to ruin the Play by setting the theatre on fire. Fire engines and strangers' carriages pa.s.sed pell-mell. The people of Ammergau themselves, alarmed and enraged by the cruel threat, were completely disconcerted; pa.s.sionate discussions, vehement commands, and urgent entreaties were heard on all sides. Prompt and energetic action was requisite, the fate of all Ammergau was at stake.
The bells now began to ring and at the same moment the first of the twenty-five cannon shots which were to consecrate the morrow's festival was discharged, and the musicians pa.s.sed through the streets.
The air fairly quivered with the deafening uproar of all these mingling waves of sound. Darkness was gathering, the countess grew giddy, she felt as if she were stifling in the tumult. A pair of horses fell just below them, causing a break in the line of carriages, which the prince used to get his companion across, and she at last reached home, almost fainting. Her soul was stirred to its inmost depths. What was the power which produced such effects?
Was this the calm, petty doctrine, which had been inculcated so theoretically and coldly at the school-room desk and from the pulpit, and with which, when a child, she has been disgusted by an incomprehensible school-catechism? Was this the doctrine which, from earliest childhood, had been nothing more than a wearisome dead letter, to which, as it had become the religion of the state, an official visit to church was due from time to time, just as, on certain days, cards were left on amba.s.sadors and government officials?
The wind still bore from the village the noise of the throngs of people, the ringing of the bells, and the thunder of the cannon, blended with occasional bursts of music. The countess had had similar experiences when tidings of great victories had been received during the last war, but those were _facts_. For the first time in her life she asked herself if Christianity was a fact? And if not, if it was only an idea, what inherent power, after the lapse of nearly two thousand years, produced such an effect?
Why did all these people come--why did she _herself_? The human race is homesick, it no longer knows for what; it is only a vague impulse, but one which instinctively draws it in the direction where it perceives a sign, a vestige of what it has lost and forever seeks. Such, she knows it now, such is the feeling of all the throngs that have flocked hither to-day, she realized that at this moment she was a microcosm of weary, wandering mankind seeking for salvation.
And as when, deceived and disappointed in everything, we seek the picture of some dead friend, long since forgotten, and press it weeping to our lips, she clung to the image of the Redeemer. Now that everything had deluded her, no system which had boastfully promised a victory over calamity and death had stood the test, after one makes.h.i.+ft had supplanted another without supplying what was lacking, after all the vaunted remedies of philosophy and materialism proved mere palliatives which make the evil endurable for the moment but do not heal it, suffering, cheated humanity was suddenly seeking the image of the lost friend so long forgotten. But a dead friend cannot come forth from a picture, a painted heart can no longer beat. Could _Christ_ rise again in His image? Could _His_ word live once more on the lips of a stranger? And would the drops of artificial blood, trickling from the brow of the personified Messiah, possess redeeming power?
That was the miracle which attracted the throngs from far and near, _that_ must be the marvel, and tomorrow it would be revealed.
”Of what are you dreaming, Countess Madeleine?” asked the prince after a pause which she had spent in the wild-grape arbor near the house gazing into vacancy, with her head resting on her hand. She looked up, glancing at him as if she had entirely forgotten his presence. ”I don't know what is the cause of my emotion, the tumult in the village has stirred me deeply! I feel that only potent things could send such a storm before them, and it seems as if it was the portent of some wonderful event!”
”Good Heavens! What extravagant fancies, my dear Countess! I believe you add to all your rich gifts the dangerous one of poesy! I admire and honor you for it--but I can perceive in this storm nothing save a proof that curiosity is the greatest and most universal trait in human character, and that these throngs desire nothing more than the satisfaction of their curiosity. The affair is fas.h.i.+onable just now, and that explains the whole.”
”Prince, I pity you for what you have just said,” replied the countess, rising. Her face wore the same cold, lifeless expression as on the day of her arrival.
”But, my dearest friend, for Heavens's sake tell me, did _you_ and _I_ come from any other motive than curiosity?”
”You, no! I, yes!”
”Don't say that, _chere amie_. You, the scholar, superior to us all in learning; you, the disciple of Schopenhauer, the proud philosopher, the believer in Nirvana.”
”Yes, I, Prince!” cried the countess, ”The philosopher who was not happy for an hour, not content for a moment. What is this Nirvana? A stone idol, which the fruitless speculation of our times has conjured from the rubbish of archaeological excavations, and which stares at us with its vacant eyes until we fall into an intellectual hypnotism which we mistake for peace.” An expression of bitter sarcasm rested on her lips. ”I came here to bring pessimism and Christianity face to face. I thought it would be very novel to see the stone idol Nirvana, with his hands on his lap and the silence of eternal death on his lips, watch the martyr, dripping with sweat and blood, bear His own cross to the place of execution and cheerfully take up the work where Buddha faltered; on the boundary of non-existence. I wanted to see how the two would treat each other, if for nothing more than a comparative study of religion.”
”You are irresistible in your charming mockery, dearest Countess, yet logically I cannot confess myself conquered!” replied the prince. The countess smiled: ”Of course, when did a man ever acknowledge that to a woman, where intellectual matters were concerned? A sunny curl, the seductive arch of an upper lip, a pair of blue eyes sparkling with tears will make you lords of creation the dupes of the most ordinary coquette or even the yielding toy of the dullest ignorance. We women all know it! But, if we a.s.sail your dry logic, you are as unconquerable as Antaeus so long as he stood upon the earth! You, too, could only be vanquished by whoever had the power to lift you from the ground where _you_ stand.”