Part 38 (1/2)
”Ah, if this one and that one were still in the village! But they had gone away to seek their bread, like so many who could no longer earn a support since the Partenkirch School of Carving had competed with the one in Ammergau. And many more would follow. If things went on in the same fas.h.i.+on, and matters were not improved by the play, in ten years more there might be none to fill the parts, necessity would gradually drive every one away.”
”Yes, we are in a sore strait, my friends. The company melts away more and more--the danger to the Pa.s.sion Play constantly increases. If we can find no help now, penury will deprive us of some of our best performers ere the next time. And yet, my friends, believe me--I say it with a heavy heart: if we now continue with a poor cast of characters--we shall be lost wholly and forever, for then we shall have destroyed the reputation of the Pa.s.sion Play.”
”Thomas Rendner will personate the Christ well--there is no danger on that score.”
”And if he does--if Rendner takes the Christ, the sacristan Pilate, and some one else Nathanael--shall we not be obliged to study the whole piece again, and can that be done so rapidly? Can we commence our rehearsals afresh now? I ask you, is it possible?”
The people hung their heads in hopeless discouragement.
”Our sole resource would be to find a Christ among those who are not in the Play--and all who have talent are already employed. The others cannot be used, if we desire to present an artistic whole.”
Despair seized upon the listeners--there was not a single one among them who had not invested his little all in furniture and beds for the strangers, and even incurred debts for the purpose, to say nothing of the universal poverty.
New proposals were made, all of which the hapless burgomaster was compelled to reject.
”The general welfare is at a stake, and the burgomaster thinks only of the _artistic whole_.”
With these words the wrath of the a.s.sembly was finally all directed against him, and those who fanned it were mainly the strangers attracted by the Pa.s.sion Play for purposes of speculation, who cared nothing how much it suffered in future, if only they made their money!
”I know the elements which are stirring up strife here,” said the burgomaster, scanning the a.s.sembly with his stern eyes. ”But they shall not succeed in separating us old citizens of Ammergau, who have held together through every calamity! Friends, let the spirit which our forefathers have preserved for centuries save us from discord--let us not deny the good old Ammergau nature in misfortune.”
”And with the good old nature you can starve,” muttered the speculators.
”If the burgomaster does not consider your interests of more importance than the fame of his success as stage manager he ought to go to Munich and get the position--there he could give as many model performances as he desired!”
”Yes,” cried another, ”he is sacrificing our interests to his own vanity.”
During this accusation the burgomaster remained standing with his figure drawn up to its full height. Only the dark swollen vein on his weary brow betrayed the indignation seething in his soul.
”I disdain to make any reply to such a charge. I know the hearts of my fellow citizens too well to fear that any one of them believes it.”
”No, certainly not!” exclaimed the wiser ones. But the majority were silent in their wrathful despair.
”I know that many of you misjudge me, and I bear you no resentment for it. I admit that in such a period of storm and stress it is difficult to maintain an unprejudiced judgment.
”I know also that I myself have often bewildered your judgment, for it is impossible to create such a work without giving offense here and there. I know that many who feel wounded and slighted secretly resent it, and I do not blame them! Only I beg you to visit the rancor on me _personally_--not extend it to the cause and injure that out of opposition to me. In important moments like these, I beg you to let all private grudges drop and gather around me--in this one decisive hour think only of the whole community, and not of all the wrongs the burgomaster may have done you individually.
”If I had only the interest of Ammergau to guard, all would be well!
But I have not only _your_ welfare to protect, but the dignity of a cause for which I am responsible to _G.o.d_--so long as it remains in my hands. Human nature is weak and subject to external impressions. The religious conceptions of thousands depend upon the greater or less powerful illusion produced by the Pa.s.sion Play as a moral symbol. This is a heavy responsibility in a time when negation and materialism are constantly undermining faith and dragging everything sacred in the dust. In such a period, the utmost perfection of detail is necessary, that the _form_ at least may command respect, where the _essence_ is despised. I will try to make this dear to you by an example. The cynic who sneers at our wors.h.i.+p of Mary and, with satirical satisfaction, paints the Virgin as the corpulent mother of four or five boys, will laugh at an Altotting Virgin but grow silent and earnest before a Sistine Madonna! For here the divinity in which he does not wish to believe confronts him in the work of art and compels his reverence. It is precisely in a period of materialism like the present that religious representation has its most grateful task--for the deeper man sinks into sensualism, the more accessible he is to sensual impressions, and the more easily religion can influence him through visible forms, repelling or attracting according to the defective or artistic treatment of the material. The religious-sensuous impetus is the only one which can influence times like these, that is why the Pa.s.sion Play is more important now than ever!
”G.o.d has bestowed upon me the modest talent of organization and a little artistic culture, that I may watch over it, and see that those who come to us trustfully to seek their G.o.d, do not go away with a secret disappointment--and that those who come to _laugh_ may be quiet--and ashamed.
”This is the great task allotted to me, which I have hitherto executed without regard for personal irritability, and the injury of petty individual interests, and hope to accomplish even under stress of the most dire necessity.
”If you wish to oppose it, you should have given the office I occupy to some one who thinks the task less lofty, and who is complaisant enough to sacrifice the n.o.ble to the petty. But see where you will end with the complaisant man, who listens to every one. See how soon anarchy will enter among you, for where individual guidance is lacking, and every one can a.s.sert his will, the seed of discord shoots up, overgrowing everything. Now you are all against _me_, but then you will be against _one another_, and while you are quarreling and disputing, time will pa.s.s unused, and at last the first antiquated model will be seized because it can be most easily and quickly executed. But the modern world will turn away with a derisive laugh, saying: 'We can't look at these peasant farces any more.'
”Then answer for robbing thousands of a beautiful illusion and letting them return home poorer in faith and reverence than they came--answer for it to G.o.d, whose sublime task you have degraded by an inferior performance, and lastly to yourselves for forgetting the future in the present gain, and to profit by the Pa.s.sion Play a few more times now, ruin it for future decades. You do not believe it because, in this secluded village, you cannot know what the taste of our times demands.
But I do, for I have lived in the outside world, and I tell you that whoever sees these incomplete performances will certainly not return, and will make us a reputation stamping us as bunglers forever!”
The burgomaster pressed his hand to his head; a keen pang was piercing his brain--and his heart also.