On the Cross Part 27

"To mow my field!" he answered quietly. "I have just time, and I want to try to harvest a little hay. Almost everything goes to ruin during the Pa.s.sion!"

"But why do you cut it yourself?"

"Because I have no servant, Countess!" said Freyer, smiling, raised his hat with the dignified gesture characteristic of him, and moved on as firmly and proudly as though the business he was pursuing was worthy of a king. And so it was, when _he_ pursued it. A second blush crimsoned Madeleine von Wildenau's fair forehead. But this time it was because she had been ashamed of him for a moment. "Poor Freyer! His little patrimony was a patch of ground, and should it be accounted a degradation that he must receive the scanty gift of nature directly from her hand, or rather win it blade by blade in the sweat of his brow?" So she reasoned.

Then he glanced back at her and she felt that the look, outshining the sun, had illuminated her whole nature. The fiery greeting of a radiant soul! She waved her white hand to him, and he again raised his hat.

"Where is Freyer's field?"

"Not far from us, just outside the village. Would you like to go there?"

"No, it would trouble me. I should not like to see him toiling for his daily bread. Men such as he ought not to find it necessary, and it must end in some way. G.o.d sent me here to equalize the injustice of fate."

"You cannot accomplish this with Freyer, Countess, he would have been a rich man long ago, if he had been willing to accept anything. What do you imagine he has had offered by ladies who, from sacred and selfish motives, under the influence of his personation of the Christ, were ready to make any sacrifice? If ever poverty was an honor to a man, it is to Freyer, for he might have been in very different circ.u.mstances and instead is content with the little property received from his father, a bit of woodland, a field, and a miserable little hut. To keep the n.o.bility and freedom of his soul, he toils like a servant and cares for house, field, and wood with his own hands."

"Just see him now, Countess," he added, "You have never beheld any man look more aristocratic while at work than he, though he only wields a scythe."

"You are a loyal friend, Ludwig Gross," she answered. "And an eloquent advocate! Come, take me to him."

She hurried into the house, returning with a broad-brimmed hat on her head, which made her face look as blooming and youthful as a girl's.

Long undressed kid gloves covered her arms under the half flowing sleeves of her gown, and she carried over her shoulder a scarlet sunshade which surrounded her whole figure with a roseate glow. There was a warmth, a tempting charm in her appearance like the velvety bloom of a ripe peach. Ludwig Gross gazed at her in wonder.

"You are--_fatally_ beautiful!" he involuntarily exclaimed, shaking his head mournfully, as we do when we see some inevitable disaster approaching a friend. "No one ought to be so beautiful," he added, disapprovingly.

Madeleine von Wildenau laughed merrily. "Oh! you comical friend, who offers with so sour a visage the most flattering compliments possible.

Our young society men might take lessons from you! Pardon me for laughing," she said apologetically, as Ludwig's face darkened. "But it came so unexpectedly, I was not prepared for such a compliment here,"

and in spite of herself, she laughed again, the compliment was too irresistible.

Her companion was deeply offended. He saw in this outbreak of mirth a levity which outraged his holiest feelings. These were "the graceful oscillations from one mood to another," as he had termed it that day, which he had so dreaded for his friend, and which now perplexed his own judgment!

A moment was sufficient to reveal this to the countess, in the next she had regained her self-control and with it the power of adapting herself to the earnestness of her friend's mood.

He was walking silently at her side with a heavy heart. There had been something in that laugh which he could not fathom, readily as he grasped any touch of humor. To the earnest woman he had seen that morning, he would have confided his friend in the belief that he was fulfilling a lofty destiny; to the laughing, coquettish woman of the world, he grudged him; Joseph Freyer was far too good for such a fate.

They had walked on, each absorbed in thought, leaving the village behind, into the open country. Few people were at work, for during the Pa.s.sion there is rarely time to till the fields.

"There he is!" Ludwig pointed to a man swinging his scythe with a powerful arm. The countess had dreaded the sight, yet now stood watching full of admiration, for these movements were as graceful as his gestures. The natural symmetry which was one of his characteristic qualities rendered him a picturesque figure even here, while toiling in the fields. His arms described rhythmically returning circles so smoothly, the poise of the elastic body, bending slightly forward, was so n.o.ble, and he performed the labor so easily that it seemed like a graceful gymnastic exercise for the training of the marvellous limbs.

The countess gazed at him a long time, unseen.

A woman's figure, bearing a jug, approached from the opposite side of the meadow and offered Freyer a drink. "I have brought some milk. You must be thirsty, it is growing warm," the countess heard her say. She was a gracious looking woman, clad in simple country garb, evidently somewhat older than Freyer, but with a n.o.ble, virginal bearing and features of cla.s.sic regularity. Every movement was dignified, and her expression was calm and full of kindly earnestness.

"I ought to know her," said the countess in a strangely sharp tone.

"Certainly. She is the Mother of G.o.d in the Pa.s.sion Play, Anastasia Gross, the burgomaster's sister."

"Yes, the Mary!" said the countess, and again she remembered how the two, mother and son, had remained clasped in each other's arms far longer than seemed to her necessary. What unknown pang was this which now pierced her heart? "I suppose they are betrothed?" she asked, with quickened breath.

"Who can tell? We think she loves him, but no one knows Freyer's feelings!" said Ludwig.

"I don't understand, since you are such intimate friends, why you should not know!"

"I believe, Countess, if we people of Ammergau have any good quality, it is discretion. We do not ask even the most intimate friend anything which he does not confide to us."

Madeleine von Wildenau lowered her eyes in confusion. After a short struggle she said with deadly sternness and bitterness: "You were right this morning--the man must be left _in his sphere_. Come, let us go back!" A glance from Ludwig's eyes pierced her to the heart. She turned back toward the village. But Freyer had already seen her and overtook her with the speed of thought.

"Why, Countess, you here? And"--his eyes, fierce with pain, rested enquiringly on hers as he perceived their cold expression, "and you were going to leave me without a word of greeting? Were you ashamed to speak to the poor peasant who was mowing his gra.s.s? Or did my dress shock you?" He was so perfectly artless that he did not even interpret her indignation correctly, but attributed it to an entirely different cause. This did not escape the keen intuition of a woman so thoroughly versed in affairs of the heart. But when a drop of the venom of jealousy has entered the blood, it requires some time ere it is absorbed, even though the cause of the mischief has long been removed.

This is an old experience, as well as the fact that, this process once over, repentance is all the sweeter, love the more pa.s.sionate. But the poor simple-hearted peasant, in his artlessness, could not perceive all this. He was merely ashamed of standing before the countess in his shirt sleeves and hurriedly endeavored, with trembling fingers, to fasten his collar which he had opened while at work, baring his throat and chest. It seemed as if the hot blood could be heard pulsing against the walls of his arched chest, like the low murmur of the sea. The labor, the increasing heat of the sun, and the excitement of the countess' presence had quickened the usually calm flow of his blood till it fairly seethed in his veins, glowing in roseate life through the ascetic pallor of the skin, while the swelling veins stood forth in a thousand beautiful waving lines like springs welling from white stone. Both stood steeped in the fervid warmth, one absorbing, the other reflecting it.

But with the cruelty of love, which seeks to measure the strength of responsive pa.s.sion by the very pain it has the power to inflict, the beautiful woman curbed the fire kindled in her own pulses and said carelessly: "We have interrupted your tete-a-tete, we will make amends by retiring."

"Countess!" he exclaimed with a look which seemed to say: "Is it possible that you can be so unjust! My _Mother_, Mary, was with me, she brought her son something to refresh him at his work, why should you interrupt us?"

The simple words, which to her had so subtle a double meaning, explained everything and Madeleine von Wildenau felt, with deep embarra.s.sment, that he understood her and that she must appear very petty in his eyes.

Ludwig Gross drew out his watch. "Excuse me, it is nine o'clock; I must go to my drawing-school." He bowed and left them, without shaking hands with the countess as usual. She felt it as a rebuke, and a voice in her heart said: "You must become a far better woman ere you are worthy of this man."

"Would not you like to know Mary? May I introduce her to you?" asked Freyer, when they were alone.

"Oh, it is not necessary."

"Why, how can you love the son and not care for the mother?"

"She is _not_ your mother," replied the countess.

"And _I_ am not the Christ. Why does the illusion affect me, and not Mary?"

"Because it was perfect in you, but not in her."

"Then there is still more reason to know her, that her personality may complete what her personation lacked."

The countess cast a gloomy look at the tall maiden, who meanwhile had taken the scythe and was doing Freyer's work.

"She seems to be very devoted to you," she said suspiciously.

"Yes, thank Heaven, we are loyal friends."

"I suppose you call each other thou."

"Yes, all the Ammergau people do that, when they have been schoolmates."

"That is a strange custom. Is it practised by those in both high and low stations?"

"There are neither high nor low stations among us. We all stand on the same footing, Countess. The fact that one is richer, another poorer, that one can do more for education and external appearances than his neighbor makes no difference with us and, if it did, it would be an honor for me to be permitted to address Anastasia with the familiar thou, for she and the whole Gross family are far above me. Even in your sense of the word, Countess, the burgomaster is an aristocrat, no child of nature like myself, but a man familiar with social usages and thoroughly well educated."

"Well, then," cried the countess, "why don't you marry the lady, if she possesses such superior advantages?"

"Marry?" Freyer started back as if instead of Madeleine's beautiful face he had suddenly beheld some hideous vision, "I have never thought of it!"

"Why not?"