Part 31 (2/2)
A terrible dread overpowered the countess and she fondly clasped the man she loved, as a princess might press to her heart her dethroned husband, grieving amid the ruins of his power. ”You will still remain king in my heart!” she said, consolingly, amid her tears.
”You must now be everything to me, my loved one. In you is my Heaven, my justification in the presence of G.o.d. Hold me closely, firmly, for you must lift me in your arms out of this constant torture by the redeeming power of love.” He rested his head wearily on hers, and she gladly supported the precious burden. She felt at that moment that she had the power to lift him from Hades, that the love in her heart was strong enough to win Heaven for him and herself.
”Womanly nature is drawing us together!” She clung to him, so absorbed in blissful melancholy that his soul thrilled with an emotion never experienced before. Their lips now met in a kiss as pure as if all earthly things were at an end and their rising souls were greeting each other in a loftier sphere.
”That was an angel's kiss!” said Freyer with a sigh, while the air around the stake seemed to quiver with the rustling of angels' wings, the chains which bound him to it for the scourging to clank as though some invisible hand had flung one end around the feet of the fugitives, to bind them forever to the place of the cross.
”Come, I have one more thing to do.” He took the lamp from the table and went into the dressing-room.
There hung the raiment in which a G.o.d revealed Himself to mortal eyes--the ample garments stirred mysteriously in the draught from the open door. A glimmering white figure seemed to be soaring upward in one corner--it was the Resurrection robe. Inflated by the wind, it floated with a ghost-like movement, while the man divested of his divinity stood with clasped hands and drooping head--to say farewell.
When a mortal strips off his earthly husk he knows that he will exchange it for a brighter one! _Here_ a mortal was stripping off his robe of light and returning to the oppressive form of human imperfection. This, too, was a death agony.
The countess clung to him tenderly. ”Have you forgotten me?”
He threw his arm around her. ”Why, sweet one?”
”I mean,” she said, with childlike grace, ”that if you thought of _me_, you could not be so sad.”
”My child, I forget you at the moment I am resigning Heaven for your sake. You do not ask that seriously. As for the pain, let me endure it--for if I could do this with a _light_ heart, would the sacrifice be worthy of you? By the anguish it costs me you must measure the greatness of my love, if you can.”
”I can, for even while I rest upon your heart, while my lips eagerly inhale your breath, I pine with longing for your lost divinity.”
”And no longer love me as you did when I was the Christ. Be frank--it will come!”
He pressed his hands upon his breast, while his eyes rested mournfully on the s.h.i.+ning robe which seemed to beckon to him from the gloom.
”Oh, what are you saying! You sacrifice for me the greatest possession which man ever resigned for woman; the illusion of deity--and I am to punish you for the renunciation by loving you less? Joseph, what _you_ give me, no king can bestow. Crowns have been sacrificed for a woman's sake, crowns of gold--but never one like this!”
”My wife!” he murmured in sweet, mournful tones, while his dark eyes searched hers till her very soul swooned under the power of the look.
She clasped her hands upon his breast. ”Will you grant me one favor?”
”If I can.”
”Ah, then, appear to me once more as the Christ. I will go out upon the stage. Throw the sacred robe over you--let me see Him once more, clasp His knees--let me take farewell, an eternal farewell of the departing One.”
”My child, that would be a sin! Are you again forgetting what you yourself perceived this morning with prescient grief--that I am a man?
Dare I continue the sacred character outside of the play? That would be working wrong under the mask of my Saviour.”
”No, it would be no wrong to satisfy the longing for His face. I will not touch you, only once more, for the last time show my wondering eyes the sublime figure and let the soul pour forth all the anguish of parting to the vanis.h.i.+ng G.o.d.”
”My wife, where is your error carrying you! Did the G.o.d-Man I personated vanish because I stripped off His mask? Poor wife, the anguish which now masters you is remorse for having in your sweet womanly weakness destroyed the pious illusion and never rested until you made the imaginary G.o.d a man. Oh, Magdalena, how far you still are from the goal gained by your predecessor. Come, I will satisfy your longing; I will lead you where you will perceive that He is everywhere, if we really seek Him, that the form alone is perishable. He is imperishable.” Then gently raising her, he tenderly repeated: ”Come.
Trust me and follow me.” Casting one more sorrowful glance around him, he took from the table the crown of thorns, extinguished the lamp, and with a steady arm guided the weeping woman through the darkness.
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