On the Cross Part 13

called the prince.

"Then they are all coming?" said Countess Wildenau, taking his arm.

"All, there was no hesitation!" he answered, again noticing in his companion's manner the restlessness which had formerly awakened his anxiety. As they pa.s.sed down the street together, her eyes were wandering everywhere.

"She is seeking some one," thought the prince.

"Let me tell you that I am charmed with this Ammergau Christ," cried the d.u.c.h.ess, as they approached the blacksmith's house. She was sitting in the garden, which contained a tolerably large manure heap, a "Saletl," the name given to an open summer-house, and three fruit-trees, amid which the clothes lines were stretched. On the house was a rudely painted Madonna, life-size, with the usual bunch of flowers, gazing with a peculiar expression at the homage offered to her son, or at least, so it seemed to the countess.

"Have you seen him, d.u.c.h.ess? I am beginning to be jealous!" said the countess with a laugh intended to be natural, but which sounded a little forced.

The visitors entered the arbor; after an exchange of greeting, the d.u.c.h.ess told her guests that she had been with the ladies to the drawing-school, where they had met Freyer. The head-master (the son of Countess von Wildenau's host) had presented him to the ladies, and he had been obliged to exchange a few words with them, then he made his escape. They were "fairly _wild_." His bearing, his dignity, the blended courtesy and reserve of his manner, so modest and yet so proud, and those eyes!

The prince was on coals of fire.

The blacksmith was hammering outside, shoeing a horse whose hoof was so crooked that the iron would not fit. The man's face was dripping with sooty perspiration, yet when he turned it toward the ladies, they saw a cla.s.sic profile and soft, dreamy eyes.

"Beautiful hair and eyes appear to be a specialty among the Ammergau peasants," said the prince somewhat abruptly, interrupting the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Look at yonder smith, wash off the soot and we shall have a superb head of Antinous."

"Yes, isn't that true? He is a splendid fellow, too," replied the d.u.c.h.ess. "Let us call him here."

The smith was summoned and, wiping the grime from his face with his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, modestly approached. The prince watched with honest admiration the man's gait and bearing, clear-cut, intelligent features, and slender, lithe figure, which betrayed no sign of his hard labor save in the tense sinews and muscles of the arms.

"I must apologize," he said in excellent German--the Ammergau people use dialect only when speaking to one another--"I am in my working clothes and scarcely fit to be seen."

"You have a charming voice. Do you sing baritone?"

"Yes, Your Highness, but I rarely sing at all. My voice unfortunately is much injured by my hard toil, and my fingers are growing too stiff to play on the piano, so I cannot accompany myself."

"Do you play on the piano?"

"Certainly, Your Highness."

"Good Heavens, where did you learn?"

"Here in the village, Your Highness. Each one of us learns to use some instrument, else where should we obtain an orchestra for the Pa.s.sion?"

"Think of it!" said the d.u.c.h.ess in French, "A blacksmith who plays on the piano; peasants who form an orchestra!" Then addressing her host in German, she added, "I suppose you have a church choir!"

"Certainly, Your Highness."

"And what ma.s.ses do you perform?"

"Oh, nearly all the beautiful ones, some dating from the ancient Cecilian Church music, others from the later masters, Handel, Bach, down to the most modern times. A short time ago I sung Gounod's Ave Maria in the church, and this winter we shall give a Gethsemane by Kempter."

"Is it possible!" said the d.u.c.h.ess, "_c'est unique!_ Then you are really all artists and ought not to follow such hard trades."

"Yes, d.u.c.h.ess, but we must _live_. Our wives and children must be supported. _All_ cannot be wood-carvers, smiths are needed, too. If the artisan is not rough, the trade is no disgrace."

"But have you time, with your business, for such artistic work?"

"Oh, yes, we do it in the evenings, after supper. We meet at half past seven and often practise our music till twelve or even one o'clock."

"Oh, how tired you must be to study far into the night after the labor of the day."

"Oh, that doesn't harm us, it is our recreation and pleasure. Art is the only thing which lifts men above their daily cares! I would not wish to live, if I did not possess it, and we all have the same feeling."

The ladies exchanged glances.

"But, when do you sleep? You must be obliged to rise early in the morning."

"Oh, we Ammergau people are excitable, we need little sleep. To bed at one and up at five gives us rest enough."

"Well, then, you must live well, or you could not bear it."

"Yes, we live very well, we have meat every Sunday," said the smith with much satisfaction.

"_C'est touchant!_" cried the d.u.c.h.ess. "Meat _once_ a week? And the rest of the time?"

"Oh, we eat something made of flour. My wife is an excellent cook, she was the cook in Count P.'s household!" he added with great pride, casting an affectionate glance at the plump little woman, holding a child in her arms, standing at the door of the house. He would gladly have presented this admirable wife to the strangers, but the ladies seemed less interested in her.

"What do you eat in the evening?"

"We have coffee at six o'clock, and drink a few gla.s.ses of beer when we meet at the tavern."

"And do all the Ammergau people live so?"

"All. No one wants anything different."

"Even your Christ?"

"Oh, he fares worse than we, he is unmarried and has no one to care for him."

"What a life, dear Countess, what a life!" the d.u.c.h.ess, murmured in French.

"But you have a piano in your house. If you are able to get such an instrument, you ought to afford better food," said Her Excellency.

The blacksmith smiled, "If we had had better food, we should not have been able to buy the piano. We saved it from our stomachs."

"That is the true Ammergau spirit," said the countess earnestly. "They will starve to secure a piano. Every endeavor is toward the ideal and the intellectual, for which they are willing to make any personal sacrifice. I have never seen such people."

"Nor have I. It seems as if the Pa.s.sion Play gave them all a special consecration," answered the d.u.c.h.ess.

Countess von Wildenau rose. Her thoughts were so far away that she was about to take leave without remembering her invitation. But Prince Emil said impressively:

"Countess, surely you are forgetting that you intended to _invite_ the ladies--."

"Yes, yes," she interrupted, "it had almost escaped my mind." The smith modestly went back to his work, for the horse was growing restless, and the odor of burnt horn and hair soon pervaded the atmosphere.