Part 23 (2/2)
”And if a feeling is so deeply rooted in religion, so directly a.s.sociated with G.o.d 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 gla.s.s--so I learned to think of G.o.d! 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d? 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 grat.i.tude 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 G.o.d, Who has chosen and favored you from among millions to renew to the world the forgotten message of salvation.”
”Oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d!--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--G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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_?”
<script>