Part 50 (1/2)
The countess nodded. She understood the deep significance of Freyer's words.
”But we of the people say that 'whom G.o.d loveth, He chasteneth,'” he continued, ”and I interpret that to mean that He _compels_ those whom He wishes to save to bear their portion here below, that the joy may be reserved for them in Heaven! To such favored souls He sends an angel with the cup of wormwood and wherever it flees and hides--he finds it.
Nearer and nearer the angel circles around it on his dark pinions, till it sinks with fatigue, and fainting with thirst like the Saviour on the Cross--drinks the bitter draught as if it were the most delicious refreshment.”
The countess gazed into his face with timid admiration. He seemed to her the gloomy messenger of whom he spoke, she fancied she could hear the rustle of his wings as he drew nearer and nearer in ever narrowing circles, till escape was no longer possible. Like a hunted animal she took to flight--seeking deliverance at any cost. Thank Heaven, the carriage! Martin was driving up. A cold: ”Farewell, I hope you may gain consolation and strength for the sad journey!” was murmured to the father who was going to bring home the body of his dead child--then she entered the carriage.
Freyer wrapped the fur robe carefully around the delicate form of his wife, but not another word escaped his lips. What he said afterward to his G.o.d, when he returned to the deserted house, Countess Wildenau must answer for at some future day.
CHAPTER XXIII.
NOLI ME TANGERE.
”I have attracted you by a Play--for you were a child, and children are taught by games. But when one method of instruction is exhausted it is cast aside and exchanged for a higher one, that the child may ripen to maturity.” Thus spoke the voice of the Heavenly Teacher to the countess as, absorbed in her grief, she drove through the dusk of a wintry morning. She almost wondered, as she gazed out into the grey dawn, that the day-star was not weary of pursuing its course. Aye, the mysterious voice spoke the truth: the play was over, that method of instruction was exhausted, but she did not yet feel ready for a sterner one and trembled at the thought of it.
Instead of the divine Kindergarten instructor, came the gloomy teacher death, forcing the attention of the refractory pupil by the first pitiless blow upon her own flesh and blood! Day was dawning--in nature as well as in her own soul, but the sun shone upon a winding sheet, outside as well as in, a world dead in the clasp of winter. Where was the day when the redeeming love for which she hoped would appear to her in the spring garden? Woe to all who believed in spring. Their best gift was a cold winter sunlight on snow-covered graves.
The corpse of her spring dream was lying on the laughing sh.o.r.es of the Riviera.
The G.o.d whom she sought was very different from the one she intended to banish from her heart. The new teacher seized her hand with bony fingers and forced her to look closely at the G.o.d whom she herself had created, and whom she now upbraided with having deceived her. ”What kind of G.o.d would this creature of your imagination be?” rang in her ears with pitiless mockery. Aye, she had believed Him to be the Jupiter who loved mortal women, only in the course of the ages he had changed his name and now appeared as Christ. But she was now forced to learn that He was no offspring of the sensual fancy of the nations, but a contrast to every natural tendency and desire--a _true_ G.o.d, not a creation of mankind. Were it not so, men would have invented a more complaisant one. Must not that be a divine power which, in opposition to all human, all earthly pa.s.sions, with neither splendor, nor power, with the most insignificant means has established an empire throughout the world? Aye, she recognized with reverent awe that this was a G.o.d, though unlike the one whom she sought, Christ was not Jupiter--and Freyer was not Christ. The _latter_ cannot be clasped in the arms, does not yield to earthly yearning, no matter how fervently devout. Spirit as He is, He vanishes, even where He reveals Himself in material form, and whoever thinks to grasp Him, holds but the poor doll, whom He gave for a momentary support to the childish mind, which seeks solely what is tangible!
Mary Magdalene was permitted to serve and anoint Him when He walked on earth in human form, but when she tried to clasp the risen Lord the ”_noli me tangere_” thundered in her ears, and G.o.d withdrew from mortal touch. In Mary Magdalene, however, the love kindled by the visible Master was strong enough to burn on for the invisible One--she no longer sought Him among the living, but went into solitude and lived for the vanished Christ. But the countess had not advanced so far. What ”G.o.d of Love” was this, who imposed conditions which made the warm blood freeze, killed the warm life-pulses? What possession was this, which could only be obtained by renunciation, what joy that could be attained solely by mortification? Her pa.s.sionate nature could not comprehend this contradiction. She longed to clasp His knees and wipe His feet with her hair, at least that, nothing more, only that--she would be modest! But not even that was allowed her.
This was the great impulse of religious materialism, in which divinity and humanity met, the Magdalene element in the history of the conversion of mankind, which attracted souls like that of Madeleine von Wildenau, made them feel for an instant the bliss of the immediate presence of G.o.d, and then left them disappointed and alone until they perceived that in that one instant wings have grown--strong enough to bear them up to Heaven, if they once learned to use them.
Thus quivering and forsaken, the heart of the modern Magdalene lay on the earth when the first _noli me tangere_ echoed in her ears. She had never known that there were things which could not be had, and now that she wanted a G.o.d and could not obtain Him, she murmured like a child which longs in vain for the stars until it attains a higher consciousness of owners.h.i.+p than lies in mere personal possession, the feeling which in quiet contemplation of the starry firmament fills us with the proud consciousness: ”This is yours!”
Everything is ours--and nothing, according to our view of it. To expand our b.r.e.a.s.t.s with its mighty thoughts--to merge ourselves in it and revel in the whirling dance of the atoms, _in that sense_ the universe is ours. But absorb and contain it we cannot; in that way it does not belong to us. It is the same with G.o.d. Greatness cannot enter littleness--the small must be absorbed by the great; but its power of possession lies in the very fact that it can do this and still retain its own nature. How long will it last, and what will it cost, ere the impatient child attains the peace of this realization?
In the faint glimmer of the dawn the countess drove past a little church in the suburbs of Munich. It was the hour for early ma.s.s. A few sleepy, s.h.i.+vering old women, closely m.u.f.fled, were shuffling over the snow in big felt shoes toward the open door. A dim ray of light streamed out, no organ notes, no festal display lured wors.h.i.+ppers, for it was a ”low ma.s.s.” It was cold and gloomy outside, songless within.
Yet the countess suddenly stopped the carriage.
”I am going into the church a moment,” she said, tottering forward with uncertain steps, for she was exhausted both physically and mentally.
The old women eyed her malignantly, as if asking: ”What do you want among poor ugly crones who drag their crooked limbs out of bed so early to go to their Saviour, because later they must do the work of their little homes and cannot get away? What brings you to share with us the bitter bread of poverty, the bread of the poor in spirit, with which our Saviour fed the five thousand and will feed thousands and tens of thousands more from eternity to eternity? Of what use to you are the crumbs scattered here for a few beggars?”
She felt ashamed as she moved in her long velvet train and costly fur cloak past the cowering figures redolent of the musty straw beds and close sleeping rooms whence they had come, and read these questions on the wrinkled faces peering from under woollen hoods and caps, as if she, the rich woman, had come to take something from the poor. She had gone forward to the empty front benches near the altar, where the timid common people do not venture to sit, but--she knew not why--as she was about to kneel there, she suddenly felt that she could not cut off a view of any part of the altar from the people behind, deprive them of anything to which she had no right, and turning she went back to the last seat. There, behind a trembling old man in a shabby woollen blouse, who could scarcely bend his stiff knees and sat coughing and gasping, and a consumptive woman, who was pa.s.sing the beads of her rosary between thin, crooked fingers, she knelt down. She was more at ease now--she felt that she had no rights here, that she was the least among the lowliest.
The church was still dark, it had not yet been lighted, the sacristan was obliged to be saving--every one knew that. The faint ray which streamed through the door came from the candle ends brought by the congregation, who set them in front of the praying-desks to read their prayer-books. The first person was compelled to use a match, the others lighted their candles from his and were glad to be able to save the matches. It was a silent agreement, which every one knew. Here and there a tiny light glowed brightly--ever and anon in some dark corner the slight snap of a match was heard and directly after a column or the image of some saint emerged from the wavering shadows, now fainter, now more distinct, according as the light flashed up and down, till it burned clearly. Then the nave grew bright and the breath of the congregation rose through the cold church over the little flames like clouds of incense. The high-altar alone still lay veiled in darkness.
The light of a wax-candle on the bench in front shone brightly into the countess' eyes. The woman in the three-cornered kerchief with the sunken temples and bony hands glanced back and gazed mournfully, almost reproachfully, into her face and at her rich fur cloak. Madeleine von Wildenau was ashamed of her beauty, ashamed that she wore furs while the woman in front of her scarcely had her shoulders covered. She felt burdened, she almost wanted to excuse herself. If she were poor also--she would have no cause to be ashamed. She gently drew out her purse and slipped the contents into the woman's hand. The latter drew back startled, she could not believe, could not understand that she was really to take it, that the lady was in earnest.
”May G.o.d reward you! I'll pray for you a thousand times!” she whispered, and a great, unutterable emotion filled the countess' soul as she met the poor woman's grateful glance. Then the kneeling crone nudged her neighbor, the coughing, stammering old man, and pressed a gold coin into his hand.
”There's something for you! You're poor and needy too.”
The latter looked at the woman, who was a stranger, as though she were an apparition from another world. ”Why, what is this?” he murmured with difficulty.
”The lady behind gave it to me,” said the woman, pointing backward with her thumb.
The old man nodded to the lady, as well as his stiff neck would permit, and the woman did not notice that he ought to have thanked her, as the money was given to her and she had voluntarily shared it with him.