On the Cross Part 39

The burgomaster stood mutely watching the scene, and neither of the three could decide which suffered most.

He gazed in speechless grief at the clasped hands of his sister and his friend. How often he had wished for this moment, and now--? What _parted_ alone united them, and what united, divided.

"Aye, Freyer has brought much misery upon us!" he said, with sullen resentment. "I only hope that he will never set foot again upon the soil of his forefathers!"

"Oh, Brother, how can you speak so--you do not mean it. I know that his heart will draw him back here; he will seek his home again, and he shall find it. You will not thrust him from you when he returns from foreign lands sorrowing and repentant. G.o.d knows how earnestly I wish him happiness, but I do not believe that he will possess it. And as he will be loyal to us in his inmost soul, we will be true to him and prepare a resting place when the world has nailed his heart upon the cross. Shall we not, Ludwig?"

"Yes, by Heaven, we will!" faltered Ludwig, and his tears fell on the beautiful head of the girl, who still sat motionless, as if she must wait here for the lost one.

"Woman, behold thy son--son, behold thy mother!" stirred the air like a breath.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MARRIAGE.

On a wooded height, hidden in the heart of the forests of the Bavarian highlands, stood an ancient hunting castle, the property of the Wildenau family. A steep mountain path led up to it, and at its feet, like a stone sea, stretched the wide, dry bed of a river, a Griess, as it was called in that locality. Only a few persons knew the way; to the careless glance the path seemed wholly impa.s.sable.

Bare, rugged cliffs towered like a wall around the hunting castle on its mossy height, harmonizing in melancholy fas.h.i.+on with the white sea of stone below, which formed a harsh foreground to the dreary scene.

Ever and anon a stag emerged from the woods, crossing the Griess with elastic tread, the brown silhouette of its antlers sharply relieved against the colorless monotony of the landscape. The hind came forward from the opposite side, slowly, reluctantly, with nostrils vibrating.

The report of a rifle echoed from beyond the river bed, the antlers drooped, the royal creature fell upon its knees, then rolled over on its back; its huge antlers, flung backward in the death agony, were thrust deep down among the loose pebbles. The hind had fled, the poacher seized his prey--a slender rill of blood trickled noiselessly through the stones, then everything was once more silent and lifeless.

This was the hiding-place where, for seven years, Countess Wildenau had hidden the treasury filched from the cross--the rock sepulchre in which she intended to keep the G.o.d whom the world believed dead. Built close against the cliff, half concealed by an overhanging precipice, the castle seemed to be set in a niche. Shut out from the suns.h.i.+ne by the projecting crag which cast its shadow over it even at noonday, it was so cold and damp that the moisture trickled down the walls of the building, and, moreover, was surrounded by that strange atmosphere of wet moss and rotting mushrooms which awakens so strange a feeling when, after a hot walk, we pause to rest in the cool courtyard of some ruined castle, where our feet sink into wet ma.s.ses of mouldering brown leaves which for decades no busy hand has swept away. It seems as if the sun desired to a.s.sociate with human beings. Where no mortal eyes behold its rays, it ceases to s.h.i.+ne. It does not deem it worth while to penetrate the heaps of withered leaves, or the tangle of wild vines and bushes, or the veil of cobwebs and lime-dust which, in the course of time, acc.u.mulates in heaps in the masonry of a deserted dwelling.

As we see by a child's appearance whether or not it has a loving mother, so the aspect of a house reveals whether or not it is dear to its owner, and as a neglected child drags out a joyless existence, so a neglected house gradually becomes cold and inhospitable.

This was the case with the deserted little hunting seat. No foot had crossed its threshold within the memory of man. What could the Countess Wildenau do with it? It was so remote, so far from all the paths of travel, so hidden in the woods that it would not even afford a fine view. It stood as an outpost on the chart containing the location of the Wildenau estates. It had never entered the owner's mind to seek it out in this--far less in reality.

Every year an architect was sent there to superintend the most necessary repairs, because it was not fitting for a Wildenau to let one of these family castles go to ruin. This was all that was done to preserve the building. The garden gradually ran to waste, and became so blended with the forest that the boughs of the trees beat against the windows of the edifice and barred out like a green hedge the last straggling sunbeams. A castle for a Sleeping Beauty, but without the sleeping princess. Then Fate willed that a blissful secret in its owner's breast demanded just such a hiding-place in which to dream the strangest fantasy ever imagined by woman since Danae rested in the embrace of Jove.

Madeleine von Wildenau sought and found this forgotten spot in her chart, and, with the energy bestowed by the habit of being able to accomplish whatever we desire, she discovered a secret ford through the Griess, known only to a trustworthy old driver, and no one was aware of Countess Wildenau's residence when she vanished from society for days.

There were rumors of a romantic adventure or a religious ecstacy into which the Ammergau Pa.s.sion Play had transported her years before. She had set off upon her journey to the Promised Land directly after, and as no sea is so wide, no mountain so lofty, that gossip cannot find its way over them, it even made its way from the Holy Sepulchre to the drawing rooms of the capital.

A gentleman, an acquaintance of so-and-so, had gone to the Orient, and in Jerusalem, at the Holy Sepulchre, met a veiled lady, who was no other than Countess Wildenau. There would have been nothing specially remarkable in that. But at the lady's side knelt a gentleman who bore so remarkable a resemblance to the pictures of Christ that one might have believed it was the Risen Lord Himself who, dissatisfied with heaven, had returned repentant to His deserted resting-place.

How interesting! The imagination of society, thirsting for romance, naturally seized upon this bit of news with much eagerness.

Who could the gentleman with the head of Christ be, save the Ammergau Christ? This agreed with the sudden interruption of the Pa.s.sion Play that summer, on account of the illness of the Christ--as the people of Ammergau said, who perfectly understood how to keep their secrets from the outside world.

But as they committed the imprudence of occasionally sending their daughters to the city, one and another of these secrets of the community, more or less distorted, escaped through the dressing-rooms of the mistresses of these Ammergau maids.

Thus here and there a flickering ray fell upon the Ammergau catastrophe: The Christ was not ill--he had vanished--run away--with a lady of high rank. What a scandal! Then lo! one day Countess Wildenau appeared--after a journey of three years in the east--somewhat absentminded, a little disposed to a.s.sume religious airs, but without any genuine piety. Religion is not to be obtained by an indulgence of religious-erotic rapture with its sweet delusions--it can be obtained only by the hard labor of daily self-sacrifice, of which a nature like Madeleine von Wildenau's has no knowledge.

So she returned, somewhat changed--yet only so far as that her own ego, which the world did not know, was even more potential than before.

But she came alone! Where had she left her pallid Christ? All inquiries were futile. What could be said? There was no proof of anything--and besides; proven or not--what charge would have overthrown Countess Wildenau? That would have been an achievement for which even her foes lacked perseverance?

It is very amusing when a person's moral ruin can be effected by a word carelessly uttered! But when the labor of producing proof is a.s.sociated with it, people grow good-natured from sheer indolence--let the victim go, and seek an easier prey.

This was the case with the Countess Wildenau! Her position remained as unshaken as ever, nay the charm of her person exerted an influence even more potent than before. Was it her long absence, or had she grown younger? No matter--she had gained a touch of womanly sweetness which rendered her irresistible.

In what secret mine of the human heart and feeling had she garnered the rays which glittered in her eyes like hidden treasures on which the light of day falls for the first time?

When a woman conceals in her heart a secret joy men flock around her, with instinctive jealousy, all the more closely, they would fain dispute the sweet right of possession with the invisible rival. This is a trait of human nature. But one of the number did so consciously, not from a jealous instinct but with the full, intense resolve of unswerving fidelity--the prince! With quiet caution, and the wise self-control peculiar to him, he steadily pursued his aim. Not with professions of love; he was only too well aware that love is no weapon against love! On the contrary, he chose a different way, that of cold reason.

"So long as she is aglow with love, she will be proof against any other feeling--she must first be cooled to the freezing-point, then the chilled bird can be clasped carefully to the breast and given new warmth."

It would be long ere that point was reached--but he knew how to wait!

Meanwhile he drew the Countess into a whirl of the most fascinating amus.e.m.e.nts.

No word, no look betrayed the still hopeful lover! With the manner of one who had relinquished all claims, but was too thoroughly a man of the world to avoid an interesting woman because he had failed to win her heart, he again sought her society after her return. Had he betrayed the slightest sign of emotion, he would have been repulsive in her present mood. But the perfect frankness and unconcern with which he played the "old friend" and nothing more, made his presence a comfort, nay even a necessity of life! So he became her inseparable companion--her shadow, and by the influence of his high position stifled every breath of slander, which floated from Ammergau to injure his beautiful friend.

During the first months after her return she had the whim--as she called it--of retiring from society and spending more time upon her estates. But the wise caution of the prince prevented it.

"For Heaven's sake, don't do that. Will you give free play to the rumors about your Ammergau episode and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem connected with it, by withdrawing into solitude and thus leaving the field to your slanderers, that they may disport at will in the deserted scenes of your former splendor?"

"This," he argued, "is the very time when you must take your old position in society, or you will be--pardon my frankness--a fallen star."

The Countess evidently shrank from the thought.

"Or--have you some castle in the air whose delights outweigh the world in your eyes?" he asked with relentless insistence:

This time the Countess flushed to the fair curls which cl.u.s.tered around her forehead.

Since that time the drawing-rooms of the Wildenau palace had again been filled with the fragrance of roses--lighted, and adorned with glowing Oriental magnificence, and the motley tide of society, amid vivacious chatter, flooded the s.p.a.cious apartments. Glittering with diamonds, intoxicated by the charm of her own beauty whose power she had not tested for years, the Countess was the centre of all this splendor--while in the lonely hunting-seat beyond the pathless Griess, the solitary man whom she had banished thither vainly awaited--his wife.

The leaves in the forest were turning brown for the sixth time since their return from Jerusalem, the autumn gale was sweeping fresh heaps of withered leaves to add to the piles towering like walls around the deserted building, the height was constantly growing colder and more dreary, the drawing-rooms below were continually growing warmer, the Palace Wildenau, with its Persian hangings and rugs and cosy nooks behind gay screens daily became more thronged with guests. People drew their chairs nearer and nearer the blazing fire on the hearth, which cast a rosy light upon pallid faces and made weary eyes sparkle with a simulated glow of pa.s.sion. The intimate friends of the Countess Wildenau, reclining in comfortable armchairs, were gathered in a group, the gentlemen resting after the fatigues of hunting--or the autumn man[oe]uvres, the ladies after the first receptions and b.a.l.l.s of the season, which are the more exhausting before habit again a.s.serts its sway, to say nothing of the question of toilettes, always so trying to the nerves at these early b.a.l.l.s.

What is to be done at such times? It is certainly depressing to commence the season with last year's clothes, and one cannot get new ones because n.o.body knows what styles the winter will bring? Parisian novelties have not come. So one must wear an una.s.suming toilette of no special style in which one feels uncomfortable and casts aside afterwards, because one receives from Paris something entirely different from what was expected!

So the ladies chatted and Countess Wildenau entered eagerly into the discussion. She understood and sympathized with these woes, though now, as the ladies said, she really could not "chime in" since she had a store of valuable Oriental stuffs and embroideries, which would supply a store of "exclusive" toilettes for years. Only people of inferior position were compelled to follow the fas.h.i.+ons--great ladies set them and the costliness of the material prevented the garments from appearing too fantastic. A Countess Wildenau could allow herself such bizarre costumes. She had a right to set the fas.h.i.+ons and people would gladly follow her if they could, but two requirements were lacking, on one side the taste--on the other the purse. The Countess charmingly waived her friends' envious compliments; but her thoughts were not on the theme they were discussing; her eyes wandered to a crayon picture hanging beside the mantel-piece, the picture of a boy who had the marvellous beauty of one of Raphael's cherubs.

"What child is that?" asked one of the ladies who had followed her glance.

"Don't you recognize it?" replied the Countess with a dreamy smile. "It is the Christ in the picture of the Sistine Madonna."

"Why, how very strange--if you had a son one might have thought it was his portrait, it resembles you so much."

"Do you notice it?" the Countess answered. "Yes, that was the opinion of the artist who copied the picture; he gave it to me as a surprise."

She rose and took another little picture from the wall. "Look, this is a portrait of me when I was three years old--there really is some resemblance."

The ladies all a.s.sented, and the gentlemen, delighted to have an opportunity to interrupt the discussion of the fas.h.i.+ons, came forward and noticed with astonishment the striking likeness between the girl and the boy.

"It is really the Christ child in the Sistine Madonna--very exquisitely painted!" said the prince.