On the Cross Part 38

"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 fashion, 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 worship 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.

"I have nothing more to add," he concluded, faintly. "But if you know any one whom you believe could care for Ammergau better than I--I am ready at any moment to place my office in his hands."

Then, with one accord, every heart swelled with the old lofty feeling for the sacred cause of their ancestors and grateful appreciation of the man who had again roused it in them. No, he did not deserve that they should doubt him--he had again taught them to think like true natives of Ammergau, aye, they felt proudly that he was of the true stock--it was Ammergau blood that flowed in his veins and streamed from the wounds which had been inflicted on his heart that day! They saw that they had wronged him and they gathered with their old love and loyalty around the sorely-beset man, ready to atone with their lives, for these hot-blooded, easily influenced artist-natures were nevertheless true to the core.

The malcontents were forced to keep silence, no one listened to them. All flocked around the burgomaster. "We will stand by you.

Burgomaster--only tell us what we are to do--and how we can help ourselves. We rely wholly upon you."

"Alas! my friends, I must reward your restored confidence with unpalatable counsel. Let us bear the misfortune like men! It is better to fell trees in the forest, go out as day laborers--nay, _starve_--rather than be faithless to the spirit of our ancestors! Am I not right?" A storm of enthusiasm answered him.

It was resolved to announce the close of the Pa.s.sion Play for this decade. The doc.u.ment was signed by all the members of the community.

"So it is ended for this year! For many of us perhaps for this life!"

said the burgomaster. "I thank all who have taken part in the Play up to this time. I will report the receipts and expenditures within a few days. In consideration of the painful cause, we will dispense with any formal close."

A very different mood from the former one now took possession of the a.s.sembly. All anxiety concerning material things vanished in the presence of a deeper sorrow. It was the great, mysterious grief of parting, which seized all who had to do anything connected with the "Pa.s.sion." It seemed as if the roots of their hearts had become completely interwoven with it and must draw blood in being torn away, as if a part of their lives went with it. The old men felt the pang most keenly. "For the last time for this life!" are words before whose dark portal we stand hesitating, be it where it may--but if this "for the last time" concerns the highest and dearest thing we possess on earth, they contain a fathomless gulf of sadness! Old Barabbas, the man of ninety, was the first, to express it--the others joined in and the greybeards who had been young together and devoted their whole lives to the cause which to them was the highest in the world, sank into one another's arms, like a body of men condemned to death.

Then one chanted the closing line of the choragus: "Till in the world beyond we meet"--and all joined as with a _single_ voice, the unutterable anguish of resigning that close communion with Deity, in which every one of them lived during this period, created its own ceremonial of farewell and found apt expression in those last words of the Pa.s.sion Play.

Then they shook hands with one another, exchanging a life-long farewell. They knew that they should meet again the next day--in the same garments--but no longer what they now were, Roman governor and high-priests, apostles and saints. They were excluded from the companionship of the Lord, for their Christ had not risen as usual--he had fled and faithlessly deserted his flock, ere their task could be fulfilled. It was doubly hard!

Old Judas, the venerable Lechner, was so much moved that they were obliged to support him down the stairs: Judas weeping over Christ! The loyal man had suffered unutterably from the necessity of playing the traitor's part--the treachery now practised toward the sacred cause by the personator of Christ himself--fairly broke his heart! "That I must live to witness this!" he murmured, wringing his hands as he descended the steps. But Thomas Rendner shook his handsome head and mournfully repeated the momentous words of Pilate: "What is truth?" With tears in his eyes, he held out his sinewy right hand consolingly to Caiaphas.

"Don't take it so much to heart, Burgomaster; G.o.d is still with us!"

Then he cast a sorrowful glance toward the corner of the room. "Poor Mary! I always thought so!" he muttered compa.s.sionately, under his breath, and followed the others.

The burgomaster and Ludwig were left behind alone and followed the direction of Rendner's glance. There--it almost broke their hearts--there sat the burgomaster's sister--the "Mary" in the corner, with her hands clasped in her lap, the very att.i.tude in which she waited for the body of her Crucified Son.

"Poor sister," said the burgomaster, deeply moved. "For what are you waiting? They will never bring him to you again."

"He will come back, the poor martyr!" she replied, her large eyes gazing with prophetic earnestness into vacancy. "He will come, weary and wounded--perhaps betrayed by all."

"Then I will have nothing to do with him," said the burgomaster in a low, firm tone.

"You can do as you please, you are a man. But I, who have so long personated his mother--I will wait and receive and comfort him, as a mother cheers her erring child."

"Oh, Anastasia!" A cry of pain escaped Ludwig's lips, and, overwhelmed by emotion, he turned away.

The burgomaster, with tender sympathy, laid his hand upon his shoulder.

"Ah, sister, Freyer is not worthy that you should love him so!"

"How do I love him?" replied the girl. "I love him as Eternal Compa.s.sion loves the poor and suffering. He _is_ poor and suffering.

Oh! do not think evil of him--he does not deserve it. He is good and n.o.ble! Believe me, a mother must know her child better," she added, with the smile that reveals a breaking heart.

She looked the drawing-master kindly in the face: "Ludwig, we both understand him, do we not? _We_ believe in him, though all condemn."

Ludwig could not speak--he merely nodded silently and pressed Anastasia's hand, as if in recognition of the pledge. He was undergoing a superhuman conflict, but, with the strength peculiar to him, succeeded in repressing any display of emotion.