JOHN LOGAN’S THOUGHTS ABOUT REPAIRING OLD HOUSES.
My wife was Priscilla Lord, daughter of the Hon. Erastus Lord, but I always call her Cilly for short, and she rather likes that pet name, inasmuch as it is not spelled with an S. We had been married and kept house ten years, and it had never occurred to me that we were not as comfortable, and cozy, and happy as our neighbors, until one Saturday night in the month of May, when I was superintending the packing of my shirts, and socks, and neckties, preparatory to a business trip which I was to make for the firm which employed me, and which was to last four weeks positively, if not longer. Then, after sewing on the last button, and darning the last sock, and wondering why men always wore out their heels and toes so fast, Cilly suddenly informed me that we were neither cozy nor comfortable, nor respectable, in the present condition of things.
I was taking off my boots, and sat staring at her with one uplifted in the air, while she went on to say that the view from our bed-room was just horrid, looking out upon nothing but a lane, and a board fence, and Mrs. Patterson’s kitchen—that we had no china closet proper at all, which was a shame for people of our means—that we had to pass through the dining-room to go down cellar, which was a great inconvenience—that we had no conservatory, and the bay window was always crowded with plants in the winter, giving a littered appearance to the room—that the west piazza was altogether too short a walk for her mother, who had lived with us for the past year, and who needed a longer promenade, especially in bad weather. And she continued to inform me further that there was space for such a nice room in the attic, which we really needed in the summer when the house was full, and Lizzie was there with all her children and the nurse.
I liked Lizzie, and liked the children, and liked to have them with us, especially as there were no little Logans of my own playing in the yard; but I thought three spare rooms ought to be enough for them, until I reflected that my mother-in-law, Mrs. Erastus Lord, now occupied one of the spare rooms, leaving a surplus of only two, so I still kept silent until Cilly, thinking she had succeeded in convincing me that of all tucked-up, inconvenient, disreputable houses in town, ours was the worst, went on to say that she thought and her mother thought, and her grandma thought, (grandma was the old Mrs. Lord of all, Mrs. Erastus, senior,) that we ought to “go through a set of repairs;” I think that’s the way she worded it, and as brother John had left her two thousand dollars “to do just exactly what she pleased with” she had made up her mind to repair, and was going to do it while I was away, so as to save me all the trouble of the muss, and—and—Cilly got a little confused here and stammered a good deal, and finally went on rapidly: “You see, I have quite decided, and mother has seen the men, and they are coming Monday morning, and it will all be done beautifully before you get back, and you’ll never know the old hut at all.”
I felt a little hurt to hear her stigmatize, as the old hut, what we had thought so pretty and nice when we took possession of it ten years ago, but had no time to protest before she added:
“I didn’t mean to tell you, as I wished to see how surprised you would be when you returned; but I was afraid something might happen, the carpenters get sick, or you come home sooner than you intended, and so I had to tell you. See, here is the plan. I had an architect come and make it the day you were in New York. Isn’t it lovely, and such an improvement?”
I looked at the paper which she held toward me, and saw on it a drawing which reminded me of one of the boats of the White Star Line, it was so long and narrow, with chimneys and smoke-stacks and gables jutting out everywhere.
“Don’t you like it John?” Cilly asked, with a most rueful face, and I replied:
“Why, yes, I dare say it is nice, but you see I haven’t the least bit of building genius, and less imagination, so I’ve no idea what it’s to be.”
“Why, John, what a stupid; that’s the new piazza, and maybe the front door will have to be moved, and that’s the new gable, and that’s the conservatory, and here is our room right over the kitchen.”
“Over the kitchen!” and I involuntarily sniffed as I thought of onions, and codfish, and boiled cabbage, each one of which was a favorite dish of mine, though I did not like the smell in my sleeping room.
Cilly understood my meaning and hastened to say:
“Oh, we have fixed all that; there’s to be deafening, a double floor and a whole lot of mortar, and we shall never hear a sound nor smell a smell, Jane is so quiet; and it will be so pleasant with a broad balcony and a door to go out. I wish you would try to have a little interest in it, John.”
So I tried to be interested, but could not forbear asking her if she had the slightest conception of all it involved, this raising the roof and Cain generally; and then she cried, and the Lord part of her got the ascendant, and she said I was mean, and an old fogy, and a conservative, and a—well, she called me several names, and then we made it up, and I told her to fix away, and knock things endways if she wanted to, and that’s about the way matters stood Monday morning, when I said good-bye to her at half-past six and hurried to the train. She was up to see me off, the carpenters were coming at seven, and she must be ready to receive them.
“You won’t know the house when you get home,” she said, “it will be so changed and improved; and if you are at all puzzled to find it, look for the very biggest and handsomest place on the street. Good-by.”
She was so elated with her repairing that I do not think she was a bit sorry to have me go, and this did not console me much, or make me take any more kindly to the repairs. I did not hear from her for three or four days, and then she was in high spirits. Such nice men as the carpenters were, and such fun to superintend them: she began to think nature had intended her for a builder, or at least a designer of houses.
I groaned a little for fear my hitherto quiet, satisfied Cilly should develop a propensity for building, and ruin me entirely. It was in her family on both sides, for old Mrs. Erastus Lord had ruined her husband that way, while Mrs. Erastus, junior, had sunk over twenty thousand dollars on a place which originally cost five thousand, and which when completed looked as if it had been taken up and shaken by a high wind and thrown down promiscuously. But I hoped better things of my little Cilly, and resuming her letter, read that the piazza was going up so fast, and they had not yet done a single bit of damage, except to knock a hole through one of the front door lights, and kill the ivy, which was just growing so beautifully, and which had come all the way from Kenilworth.
The next letter was not quite so hilarious and assured, though Cilly was still hopeful and plucky, notwithstanding that four windows had been broken, and the arm of my Apollo Belvidere, which I had bought in Florence, and a whole lot of plaster, had fallen from the ceiling of the room where she was sitting, and a man’s leg came right through, lathing and all. I think the leg disturbed her more than all the other mishaps, though her mother told her it was nothing at all to what she must expect, but she didn’t think it was nice, and it was such a muss to have four carpenters, three masons, two tinners, three painters, besides a boy to lath, and a man to clean up, and the two thousand dollars would not begin to pay for it all, and I must make some arrangements, whereby she could get some more money, and if I could she’d like me to stay away as long as possible, not that she did not miss me awfully, and the days seemed a month each, but she did want the house done before I returned, and it went on so slowly, though mother said they were the best workmen she ever saw.
This was the substance of Cilly’s letter, and I did not hear from her again except a few hurried lines saying she was well, and the house progressing, and both drains stopped up, and a chimney blown down, and the hard finish in one of the rooms spoiled by the rain which beat in just as they got the eaves-trough off. This was about as I had expected it would be, but I was sorry for Cilly, and sorry that my business kept me away from her six weeks instead of four, as I had at first proposed. But the day came at last for me to go home, and I almost counted the minutes, until there came a whiz and a crash, and we were off the track, with baggage car smashed but nobody hurt. This made it very late, midnight in fact, when we reached Morrisville, and, valise in hand, I stepped out upon the platform. It was the darkest night I think, I ever knew, and the rain was falling in torrents. Fortunately, however, there was a solitary cab in waiting, and I took it and bade the negro drive me to No.— Guelph street. But he was a stranger in the place, and stared at me stupidly until I explained where Guelph street was, and then remembering what Cilly had said about looking for the handsomest and largest house, bade him drive to the best and most stylish house in the street, if he knew which that was.
“Yes, sar, I done knows now,” and with a grin he banged the door, mounted his box and drove me somewhere, and I alighted, paid my fare, and heard him depart, for I could not see him, or the house either, except with the eye of faith, but of course it was mine, and I groped my way through the gate and up to the front door, to which I tried to fit my night-key, in vain, and after fumbling awhile at the key hole, and trying a shutter to see if it was unfastened, I was hunting for the bell knob, when suddenly a window from above was opened; there was a clicking sound, and then the sharp ring of a pistol broke the midnight stillness. I was not hit, but a good deal scared, and yelled out:
“For Heaven’s sake, Cilly, what do you mean by firing away at a chap like this?”
“John Logan, is that you? We thought it was a burglar. What are you here for?” some one called from the window, while at the same moment the gas flashed up in the hall and showed me where I was.
Not at my house at all, but at the large boarding house at the upper end of the street, kept by a dashing grass widow. Hastily explaining my mistake, I said good night to Bob Sawyer, one of the boarders, whose loud laugh discomfited me somewhat as I felt my way into the street and started toward home.
This time I was sure I was right by the trees near the gate, but the front door was gone—moved, and not wishing to venture into unknown regions, I concluded to try the bath-room door, for our rooms were adjoining it, and I could easily speak to Cilly without alarming her. So I tried it, and after floundering over piles of rubbish, and tearing my trousers on broads full of nails, and plunging up to my knees in what seemed to be a muddy ditch, and which smelled awfully, I suddenly found myself plump in the cistern, with the water up to my chin; at the same time I heard a succession of feminine shrieks, conspicuous among which was Cilly’s voice, crying out:
“Oh, we shall all be murdered. It is a burglar. Throw something at him.”
And they did throw—first a soap dish, then the poker, then the broom, and lastly a pair of my old boots.
“Cilly, Cilly!” I screamed; “are you mad? It’s I, John, drowning in the cistern.”
Then such a Babel as ensued; such a scrambling down stairs, and opening of doors, and thrusting out of tallow candles into the darkness. But I was out of the cistern by this time, and, wet as a drowned rat, confronted Cilly in her night-gown and crimping-pins, and asked her “What the deuse was up?”
“Oh, John!” she sobbed; “everything is up; the drain,” (that explained the smell), “the floor, and the pump, and the walk, and I’ve had such a dreadful time, and mother’s down with the rheumatism, and Jane has sprained her ankle, and Mary has gone, and I have got such a cold, and the town is full of burglars, and I thought you were one, and I wish we hadn’t repaired, it’s all so nasty and awful.”
The next day, which was Sunday, I had ample time to survey the premises. There was a double piazza on three sides, which was an improvement; but the hall door was changed, which wasn’t. Then the little conservatory, hitched on to the double bay window, which looked like its father, was doubtful. But all this was nothing to the confusion which reigned at the back of the house; I only marveled that I had not broken my neck. The walk was up, the drain was up, the pump was up, the pipes were up, the cistern floor was up, and the kitchen roof was up, as well, looming into the sky, but the room was far from being finished.
Nothing had worked as she hoped it would, Cilly said, and everything went wrong, especially the eaves-troughs, and conductors, and pipes, and it always rained just at the wrong time, and the cellar filled with water, and everything floated like a boat, and the plastering came down on the stove when Jane was getting dinner, and the soot came down from the chimney on Mary’s clean clothes, and just as she got them all washed again and hung out, they came with a lot of lumber and she had to take them down, and things got so bad that she left in disgust, and Jane had fallen into the drain and sprained her ankle, and mother was sick in bed, and the carpets all up, and, worse than all, the Dunnings were coming next week from New York, and it was more than Cilly could bear.
Of course, I told her I’d help her bear it, and I put my shoulder to the wheel and wrote to the Dunnings to defer their visit, and began to investigate matters, which I found had become a little loose, to say the least of it. The men were good enough and faithful enough, and the troubles Cilly had encountered were only the troubles incident upon repairing any old house, a job which is quite as trying to one’s patience, and as exasperating as putting up a stove pipe when no one joint fits another, particularly the elbows, and the result is that new pipe is almost always bought to take the place of the old. So with our house; nothing was right, nothing would do again. No matter how good or how long the piece of conductor, or lead pipe, or bit of siding or floor, it would not fit, and it went to swell the pile of rubbish which, in our back yard was almost mountain high, and reminded me of the excavations in Rome, when I first looked out upon the debris that dreary Sunday morning. But Monday showed a better state of things. I saw that the open drain and cistern hurt Cilly the most, and so I had them closed up first and then plunged into the midst of the repairing, myself, and was astonished to find how rapidly I began to develop a talent for the business. I believe, after all, there is something exhilarating in the smell of fresh plaster, and something exciting in walking over piles of old lath, and bits of broken siding, and base boards, and moldings, and matched stuff, and so on through the whole list of terms in a carpenter’s vocabulary. I came to know them all, from mitering to nosing, though I never rightly made out the orthography of that last word or its derivation either, but I knew just what it was, and was great on a squint to see if things were square or plumb, as Billy called it, and I think I made them change one window three times, and a certain door twice. What a propensity they did have for getting things wrong, that is, according to my ideas, and poor Cilly had been driven nearly crazy with windows just where she did not want them, and doors opening against her furniture. Then, too, she informed me, she began to suspect that the men thought she was strong-minded, and wanted to vote, because she superintended them, and was always in the thickest of it, and exactly in their way. Whether they liked masculine rule better, I never heard. I only know that they all worked well and faithfully, and they certainly did get on faster when they were not obliged to pull down one day what they had done the day before. This had been Cilly’s method of procedure, aided and abetted by her mother, whom the men stigmatized as “the old one,” and who spied upon them from every keyhole, and came unexpectedly upon them from every corner. She was disabled now, and could only issue daily bulletins to which I paid no heed, and so the repairs went on, and just three months after the first nail was driven the last man departed, and we went to work setting to rights, which would have been delightful business, if only we could have found our things, but everything was lost or mislaid. Curtain fixtures were gone; door keys were gone; stair rods were missing; screw drivers and tack-hammers could not be found; wood-saw broken; both trowels lost; water pails full of plaster, and all the brooms in the house spoiled, to say nothing of the dusters and dust pans broken, and dippers lost.
But then, we had a double piazza, and a place for flowers, and a china closet so big that I had to spend a hundred dollars to fill it, and our bed-room has two arches over the south windows, and a raised platform behind them, and we have each of us a bureau in a dressing-room which looks like a long hall, and I have four drawers all to myself for my shirts and neckties, and a quarter of a closet, and there are east windows and south windows, which make it so bright in the morning that the flies bite me awfully, and we had to buy a mosquito net to keep them off, and instead of being disturbed by Mrs. Patterson’s pump, and looking into nothing but her back yard and kitchen, we now look into Mrs. Alling’s barn-yard, with a most unsightly corn-crib in the center of it, and Mrs. Alling’s roosters have a bad habit of crowing every hour, while at about three or four o’clock in the morning, the noise is so terrible, that I believe her hens crow too.
But Cilly likes that—it sounds rural and like the country; and our room is lovely, with the two broad balconies where we sometimes have tea, when the west wind is not too strong, the sun too hot, or the mosquitoes too thick. Then it is such a nice place to smoke, but Cilly never lets me do that any more; she only smiles so sweetly on her gentlemen friends, and tells them it’s a nice place, that I am tempted to try it sometimes surreptitiously, when she and her mother are down town at some of the temperance meetings, but her mother would smell me a mile off, and so I forbear.
Honestly, though, I do enjoy the balconies, and I rather like the arches over the windows, which I call the twins, and which are very pretty. They ought to be, for they cost enough. I’ve never told Cilly just how much I paid, besides her brother’s windfall, but when the greedy assessors tucked an extra four thousand on our house because of the improvements, I wondered how they guessed so accurately.
We have five spare rooms now, but the new one in the attic, which was built for Lizzie’s children and the nurse, has never been occupied. The nurse is afraid to sleep there, you have to pass through such a menagerie of trunks, and broken chairs, and rag bags, and old hoop skirts, and cast off pants, and last year’s bonnets, to get to it, that it gives her the horrors, and as the children will not sleep without her, that room was made for nothing except to show.
Mrs. Erastus Lord, senior, is dead, and Cilly was very sorry, when she died, and I suppose I was sorry, too; and I know I was glad when Mrs. Erastus, junior, recovered the use of her limbs, and sailed away to Europe, where she finds the manners and customs more congenial to her taste than here.
Cilly and I live very quietly together now, and I do not believe she has any thought of repairing again, though she has told me in confidence that the next time she does so, she means to stow the furniture in the barn, and knock the plaster off from all the old walls, which were so badly cracked when the house was fixed the last time; but when she actually gets to that point, as true as my name is John Logan, I’ll lock her up in a lunatic asylum and then commit suicide.
THE PASSION PLAY
AT OBERAMMERGAU, 1880.
We have seen the great Passion Play, and the day is nearly over which we have anticipated so long, and to which every plan has been made subservient, since we crossed the ocean. And now, while the streets are full of people and the twilight shadows are falling over Mt. Kofel, where the tall cross shows so conspicuously, I sit down to write my impressions of the wonderful drama, which, during the summer, has attracted nearly 100,000 visitors to this little, quiet, old-fashioned town, among the hills of Bavaria. The high and the low, the rich and the poor, the titled lord and the lowly peasant meet here together, jostling side by side, sharing the same fatigue and discomfort, and deeming neither too great a price to pay for the object they have in view.
Before speaking of the play in detail, it may not be out of place to say something of the way to reach Oberammergau, and of the town itself; and so, first, the journey there.
Nearly all the Americans and English who visit Oberammergau, make Munich their starting-point; consequently the city is at this season crowded to its utmost capacity, and reminds one of Philadelphia during the Centennial. Naturally a great deal of anxiety is felt by the tourist with regard to his pilgrimage to the valley of the Ammer, especially as he hears such exaggerated accounts of the difficulties to be encountered on the way, and he is at times half tempted to give it up as something unattainable. When we reached Munich, on Friday, August 20th, and made inquiries at our hotel as to the probability of our getting tickets for August 29th, we were looked upon as lunatics for entertaining such a thought.
It was impossible under any circumstances to procure a place for the 29th, we were told by the clerk. There would be at least 6,000 people there, with accommodations for 2,000, and our only way was to wait quietly at the hotel until Sunday, the 29th; then take Gaze’s tickets, which were to be had in the office for forty-five marks each, and go to see the play on Monday, as it was sure to be repeated.
Gaze, let me say, is an enterprising English tourist agent, who has opened a hotel at Oberammergau, and advertizes to board and lodge you for two days and carry you to and from the railway station at Murnau, where you leave the cars, for forty-five marks, which are equal to $11.25 of American money,—a pretty good price, it seemed to us, to pay for two days’ board and a drive of sixteen miles; but we accepted it as inevitable, and settled down quietly to wait, until Providence threw in our way an English clergyman, who changed our plans entirely.
“Don’t believe one word they tell you at the hotels,” he said. “They wish to keep you here as long as possible. Don’t listen to them. Don’t touch a Gaze ticket. Don’t touch a Cook ticket. Don’t touch anybody’s ticket, but just run your own canoe.”
On second considerations I am inclined to think he did not use that last expression, which I believe is purely American, but that was what he meant, and he went on to say: “Write to the burgomaster yourself and ask for the highest priced tickets. You’ll not get them, but you will get something. Neither will he answer your letter, but your name will be recorded and remembered when you prefer your claim. Go on Friday by the early train to Murnau, where you will find hundreds of carriages waiting to take you to Oberammergau, and once there, get a place for yourself at half the sum charged by Gaze or his agents.”
We followed the Englishman’s advice and wrote to the burgomaster, and on Friday took the train for Murnau, distant from Munich sixty miles, and from Oberammergau sixteen. Here we expected our troubles to commence, for we doubted a little our English friend’s story of the carriages waiting for us there; but he was right. There were hundreds of them,—vehicles of every kind,—some good enough for a princess, and some which looked as if Eve herself might have driven in them, had driving been one of her pastimes. I even noticed a cow and a horse harnessed together, but I hardly think they were there for the purpose of getting passengers. At all events we did not take that establishment, but chartering one, which had a pair of strong looking horses, we were soon started on what proved to be the pleasantest drive we ever experienced, and one we shall never forget.
There are two routes from Murnau to Oberammergau,—one through the little village of Oberau and up the famous Mt. Ettal, which is so steep and long that passengers are obliged to walk up it, or as a writer has expressed it, “Rich and poor have to struggle with the steepness of Mt. Ettal for over half an hour, while a pair of the best horses are struggling hard to draw up an empty carriage.” Marvelous stories are told of people who have had the apoplexy, and of horses which have died toiling up this hill, and as none of our party had a fancy to try it, we chose the other, and to my mind the pleasanter route of the two. It is a little longer than the one through Ettal, but the road winds alternately up and over hills neither too long or tiresome, and down through grassy valleys fresh from a recent shower and sweet with the perfume of new mown hay, and into which little brooks came tumbling from the mountains which shelter Oberammergau and which are always in view. Long before we reached the town I singled out one tall peak which from its peculiar shape attracted my curiosity and which I found to be the far-famed Kofel, on which the cross is erected and which bends over the little hamlet as if in benediction. For this peak the people have a kind of superstitious reverence, and when asked to repeat their play in America, they replied, “We would do so gladly, but we must bring our Kofel with us.”
As we came down into the valley and passed through Unterammergau our way lay through a long avenue, bordered on either side with trees of mountain ash, whose clusters of scarlet berries gave a bit of coloring to the picture, and thus enhanced its beauty. I wish I could convey to your minds a correct idea of the loveliness of that valley, and make you see it, as we saw it that summer afternoon, when the sunlight fell so softly upon the steep hillsides where the grass was green and smooth as velvet, and little feathery wreaths of mist were floating on the mountain tops, reminding one of the patches of snow seen in midsummer in the Alps of Switzerland. Through the valley the Ammer runs swiftly, making sundry turns and windings, as it goes singing on its way toward the deep ravines, which lie beyond Unterammergau. At the end of the ash-bordered avenue we crossed a little bridge and were at last in Oberammergau.
It is not a pretty town, or a clean one either, notwithstanding that a writer from whom I have before quoted, says, that “it is the cleanest town in the Bavarian Alps.” Not having seen all the towns in the Bavarian Alps, I am not prepared to dispute the assertion, but if Oberammergau is the cleanest, what must the others be? The streets are very narrow and crooked, and wind here and there in a crazy kind of manner very bewildering to the stranger, who constantly loses his way. But there is never any difficulty in finding it again, as the church, with its peculiar dome, not unlike a Turkish mosque, is a good landmark, as is also Gaze’s hotel, which stands very nearly in the center of the town. This last building looks as if it might have been an old barn before it was converted to its present use. It is very noisy around it, and dirty, too, in the extreme. The streets do not look as if they were ever picked up, and the open sewers are simply a nuisance to the eye and an offense to the nostrils, as are also the stables, of which there are quite as many as houses. Every dwelling has its barn, where the cows and horses are kept, and every barn has its manure heap, piled and boarded with great care, and standing close to the street, and oftentimes under the very windows of the houses. The fleas are everywhere, and attack you at all points, and travel over you until you feel like tearing your hair in utter desperation. And yet we have been told by some that they have not seen a flea. Truly their lot was cast in a more fortunate locality than ours.
The houses of Oberammergau are for the most part small, old-fashioned and peculiarly shaped, and very few have flowers or trees in front. They stand mostly in the street, as it were, and are neither homelike nor inviting in their outward appearance. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, and we noticed several places where it would be a delight to stay. But these had probably been engaged for weeks, and when we drove to one of them which had a pretty yard in front, we were received with a shake of the head. At last, however, we found rooms in a sort of dependence to a restaurant near Gaze’s hotel, and though the stables were here, and more smells than poor, abused Cologne ever boasted, and though directly under our window there was a beer garden, where I knew the peasantry would probably spend most of the night, we concluded we were fortunate to get even such quarters, and tried to feel contented and cheerful, until in walking about the town we came upon a tiny little cottage standing in a patch of turnips, with the muck heap behind the house instead of in front of it. There were some boxes of flowers in the window, and the face of the old lady who sat on a bench by the door was so pleasant and attractive that we accosted her, and were told that “we could have the upper floor if we liked,—would we step in and look?”
There were but four rooms in the whole house, two below, the kitchen and the living room,—and two above, but these were scrupulously clean, and so odd-looking and delightful every way, that we decided at once to take them. Now, men are supposed to be more courageous than women, but the head of our party proved the contrary in this instance, and did not hesitate to say that alone and unprotected he dared not face the woman with the tumbled hair and dirty hands, who had smiled so blandly when we took the rooms we were about to give up. He must have help, he said, for though the Oberammergauers have the reputation of being very heavenly in their dispositions, he suspected our late hostess might be an exception to the general rule, and with her voluble French and German and English, all utterly incomprehensible, prove more than a match for him. So we went in a body, and I, as the one most interested in the change, undertook to explain to her very meekly that though her rooms were excellent in their way, and she herself everything to be desired in a landlady, I was afraid the beer garden under my window might disturb me, and we had found rooms in a quieter part of the town, where I should be more likely to sleep. I might have spared myself the sweetness and apologies, for they were lost upon her. With fierce gestures and flashing eyes she poured out a torrent of words, which, as nearly as I could judge, meant, that of all the mean people it had been her fortune to meet, we were the meanest and the worst; that her beer garden was as still as the grave, and if I could not sleep over it, the sooner I got out of her house, the better; then, taking Mr. Holmes’s traveling bag, she hurled it into the hall in a fashion which made Walter turn pale, and showed that she meant business. It was in vain that I tried to appease her; I only made matters worse, as she grew more furious and looked as if fully capable of taking me up bodily and throwing me from the window into her beer garden, the cause of the trouble. So we hurried away with our bags and bundles and were soon in possession of our new apartments, to which we ascended by means of a step-ladder, shutting the trap door behind us.
What funny little rooms they were, with scarcely space to turn round or stand upright! We had but one sheet, and our covering was a feather bed, while one towel served for the day. There were little bits of windows which opened like doors, and our looking-glass was about a foot square. There were madonnas and saints and crosses on the wall, and presses which smelled of mint and musk, and boxes and drawers, and curiosities of various kinds, but the linen was white as snow, and the bare floor was clean as soap and water could make it, as was every part of the house, and with a deep feeling of thankfulness for our good luck, we disposed of our baggage as well as we could, and went out to see the town.
The next day, Saturday, was the day for the arrivals, and from early morning until night they poured steadily in, until the town was full as it could hold. Where all the people staid is a mystery. In our little cottage the family slept in the woodshed, while on the night preceding the play, some of their friends slept on the floor of the living room. A full description of the variety of accommodations would fill a volume. Some of our friends reported no sheet at all upon their beds; others slept on pillows of hay, while others again boasted two sheets and a lounge, with preserves and cake for supper. It was very amusing to watch the new arrivals and see the fastidious lady hold high her silken skirts and glance ruefully at her dainty boots, as she was set down before a door which did not look very inviting; to see, too, the Tyrolese peasant woman, who had walked into town with her basket of provisions on her arm, and with no idea where she was to sleep. She had no anxiety with regard to her wooden shoes, nor did she hold up her cotton gown, for it was already above her ankles and expanded by a hoop, such as was worn years ago. Her home was far up among the Tyrol mountains, and she had come miles to see the play; but she was brisk as a bee, and after greeting her acquaintances, whose costumes, like her own, were of most wonderful fashion, she started with them across the meadow and up the steep declivity, in the direction of Mt. Kofel to say her prayers before the monument.
This is a marble group, representing a scene from the crucifixion—Christ upon the cross, with his mother and John standing on either side. It is the gift of the present king, Ludwig of Bavaria, to the Oberammergauers, in commemoration of the play of 1870, which he witnessed. It is said to be the work of Halbig, of Munich, and as a work of art is very beautiful. As it is very large and stands high, it attracts the attention at once, and hundreds of the tourists climb the hill to examine it, while most of the peasantry go there to pray before it, kneeling, some upon the ground and some upon the wooden benches placed there for that purpose. The view from the monument is very fine, and of itself repays one for the fatigue of the ascent. Leading from it to the village is a higher and dryer, though longer road than the one across the meadow, and this we took on our return, following it until we reached the Church of Oberammergau.
It stands very near the swiftly running Ammer, in which some peasants were washing their clothes when we crossed the bridge and entered the church yard, where the curious crosses and headstones which marked the graves of the dead made us linger a while to examine them and read the names and dates upon them. It would seem that almost a third of the persons buried there were Langs. Indeed, the Lang family is a very large one in Oberammergau. The burgomaster is a Lang; St. John is a Lang; Mary Magdalen is a Lang; Caiaphas is a Lang, and several of the singers are also Langs.
The church itself is not very large or pretentious outwardly, and we were surprised to find so much ornamentation inside. There was too much gilding, it seemed to us, and the effect was rather tawdry than otherwise. There were a few good pictures, and under a glass case in an angle near the altar is the skeleton of a woman, elaborately and richly dressed, but looking ghastly and horrible to those unaccustomed to such sights. The church is chiefly interesting as being in one sense the training school for the Passion Play. With its ceremonies, its processions, its music and its singing, it prepares the actors for the parts they take, and keeps the scenes of the betrayal and crucifixion constantly in their minds. Its pastor, the good and aged Daisenberger, should be mentioned here as being closely identified with the play as it now appears upon the stage. He was the son of a peasant and is now eighty-two years of age. His youth was spent in the monastery of Ettal, with Othmar Weiss, who revised the old Passion Play and adapted it to more modern ideas. In 1845 Daisenberger became the head of the church in Oberammergau and made many changes in the play, striking out whatever he thought objectionable or absurd, and materially elevating its tone. He has also written several plays of a more secular character, which are repeated during the long winter months and constitute the only amusement of the little town. At these dramatic representations he directs and arranges in person, and when he is gone, his place cannot well be filled. The selection of the actors for the Passion Play devolves upon a committee of forty-five householders, with Daisenberger at their head, and the election takes place the last week of the December previous to the play. All the members attend divine worship first, as they never do anything without a prayer for guidance, and this it is which makes the great drama seem so sacred and holy. To them it is not to be lightly entered into, and the characters are chosen from the best citizens, whose lives are known to be perfectly upright and without reproach.
Precisely at seven o’clock on the evening preceding a play, the actors assemble at the extreme end of the village, opposite the house of Tobias Flunger, the Christus of 1850, and there form a procession, which, headed by the band playing a lively tune, marches through the principal streets to the meadow near the theatre, where they disband and return to their several homes. It has been said that there is no rest in Oberammergau on the night before a play, but we did not find it so. It was very quiet around our cottage, and after ten o’clock scarcely a sound was heard till morning, when at five o’clock the booming of the cannon planted at the foot of Mt. Kofel awoke the slumbering people and told them that the business of the day had commenced. The first gun was followed by several others in quick succession until everybody was awake. The actors—and, including the musical characters, there are nearly five hundred in all—hurried to the church, where mass was performed, as a preparation for what was to follow, while the visitors hastened to get their breakfasts, so as to be at the theatre when the doors opened.
There are but few reserved seats, and as these are taken weeks in advance, our tickets merely entitled us to seats in a certain platz, or division, without designating any particular spot.
The theatre is plain and unpretending outwardly, being built wholly of boards, with no attempt at ornament of any kind. Inside it is also very simple and has evidently never had much money expended upon it. Its auditorium is 118 feet wide by 168 feet deep, and it occupies an area of nearly 20,000 square feet, and is capable of seating an audience of from 5,000 to 6,000 people. There are visible to the spectator five distinct places of action. First is the proscenium for choruses and processions, and as this part of the stage is not under cover, the singers are always exposed to the weather, and stand, a part of the time, with the sun shining directly in their faces. When it rains they have no alternative but to bear it, and we were told that they sometimes sang with umbrellas over their heads.
The second place is the central stage for the tableaux vivants and the usual dramatic scenes; the third and fourth, which are reached by stairs, are the palace of Annas and the palace of Pilate, while the fifth represents the streets of Jerusalem.
Thus there is plenty of room, and never any undue crowding, even when hundreds are on the stage, as in some of the tableaux. In front of, and facing the theatre proper, is the long area occupied by the spectators and divided into compartments varying in price from eight marks ($2) to one mark (25 cents). The eight-mark seats are reserved, and have backs, but all the others are simply benches, with nothing to lean upon, and those nearest the stage, in the one-mark places, have no cover of any kind; consequently, when it rains or the sun is very hot, those unfortunate enough to be in that locality are neither comfortable nor happy, especially as umbrellas are not allowed to be raised on account of those behind, whose view would be obstructed. And yet, in default of getting any thing better, these places are eagerly sought after, and some stand through the entire play rather than not see it.
The broad space overhead is left open for the sake of the beautiful landscape, which adds greatly to the effect. Casting your eye over and beyond the stage, you see directly in front the quiet valley, with the Ammer flowing through it; to the right are steep hillsides clothed with grass, and dotted here and there with trees of fir, while to the left and farther back Mt. Kofel lifts his cross-crowned head, and looks down upon the play. A more lovely background could not be devised, and when the eye was tired with the scenes upon the stage it was such a rest to let it wander away to the green fields beyond, even if it did detect a wicked Oberammergauer fishing complacently in the river, unmindful of the commandment respecting the Sabbath day. Perhaps he thought he was quite as well occupied as we, and others may think so, too, but these have never seen the Passion Play, and do not know how forcible is the lesson it teaches, or how real it makes what before has seemed so misty and vague to those who cannot easily grasp the man Christ and make him seem human and life-like.
By half-past seven the theatre was full of eager, curious people, gathered from all parts of the world, and from every station in life, from the nobility of aristocratic England down to the lowly peasant of the Tyrol. Even royalty is sometimes represented, but the “blue box” set apart for it was vacant to-day, for the Duke of Edinburgh, though expected, it was rumored, did not come, and only Lord Houghton and Lady Stanley and Lady George Gordon drew the eyes of the curious in that direction. At last, the booming of the cannon was heard again, and then over the waiting thousands there fell a hush of expectancy, while the orchestra played a sweet and simple overture. Could we then have looked behind the curtain which shut the stage from us, a novel and touching sight, such as is not often seen upon the boards of a theatre, would have met our view. Five hundred people kneeling in silent prayer and asking God’s blessing upon what they were about to do. Again the booming of the cannon was heard, followed quickly by the third and last. It was eight o’clock; the curtain was drawn, the chorus of singers appeared upon the stage, and the “Passion Play” we had come so far to see, had commenced.
As most of our readers know, the Passion Play is performed in fulfillment of a vow made by the people in 1633, when a fearful pestilence was ravaging the villages in the valley. For a long time Oberammergau was free from the plague, owing to the strictness of the sanitary precautions; but it was brought to them at last by a laborer, who had been working in an infected district, and who succeeded in entering the town to see his wife and children. In a day or two he was dead, and so rapidly did the disease spread, that in thirty-three days eighty-four persons belonging to the village died. Then it was that the terrified inhabitants met together and made a solemn vow that if God would remove the dreadful scourge they would perform the Passion Play every ten years. From that time there were no more deaths in Oberammergau, and the play was acted the following year, 1634. The decaded period, however, was not chosen until 1680, and since that time the play has been performed every ten years, with more or less interruptions. It must, however, have been known to the peasantry of Bavaria before 1633, as history speaks of it at a much earlier period. Since 1634 it has undergone many changes and modifications and been stripped of much that was absurd and offensive. Once the devil was a constant actor upon the stage, and used to dance around Judas during the temptation, and when at last the betrayer hanged himself, a host of demons rushed upon him, as if to bear him away to endless torment. Later, too, the spectators were wont to groan and hiss when he appeared, and even pelt him with dirt and stones, so that it was difficult to find a man with sufficient nerve to take the part of Judas. Now, however, this is changed, and the good taste of the Geistlicher-Rath Daisenberger, is perceptible in every part of the play. In 1870 the play was broken up by the Franco-German war. Forty of the Ammergauers were called into the Bavarian army, and among them Joseph Maier, the Christus of that year. When the news of peace reached the valley, fires were lighted on every mountain top from the Adenwald to the Tyrol, and the villagers resolved to give a repetition of the play by way of thanksgiving. It was a great success, and thousands of tourists went to witness it, all of whom were loud in their praises of Joseph Maier, whose acting cannot be excelled, and who, after the burgomaster, is looked up to by the peasantry as a man second only in importance to the good Daisenberger himself. But of him I shall speak more particularly by and bye. I wish now to describe the opening scene, which heralded the beginning of the play.
The chorus of Schutzgeister, or Guardian Angels, as they are called, is a peculiar feature of the Ammergau stage and adds greatly to the interest. The chorus consists of twenty-six singers, and the leader is styled the Prologue, or choragus. Immediately after the third and last cannon they appear, thirteen on a side, and march slowly and solemnly into line. Their dresses are of various colors, and over them a white tunic or colored mantle is worn, giving them a picturesque and oriental appearance. Among them are several young women, some of whose faces are very pretty and sweet, and they seem to feel that it is a religious duty rather than a pleasure to stand thus before the five thousand pairs of eyes gazing so fixedly at them. Each act of the play is preceded by one or two tableaux vivants, as symbols or prophecies of scenes in the life of Christ, and it is the part of the choragus, or chief singer, to describe these tableaux and the lesson they are intended to teach. This he does in song, his companions taking up the chorus at intervals, and making the whole very impressive and interesting, especially as some of the solos are finely rendered, in voices clear and sweet, if not highly cultivated. The song or recitation ended, the choragus steps backwards and with half the singers marches to the left of the stage, while the other half retire to the right, where they stand motionless as statues, while the curtain is withdrawn from the inner stage, and the tableau is exposed to view for two or three minutes, while, watch as closely as you may, you cannot detect the slightest movement in the mass of humanity so artistically grouped together.
The first tableau represented Adam and Eve being driven from the Paradise, which lay in the background, while, conspicuous in the center of the garden, was the tree of life, laden with fruit, and among its branches, the tempter, in the form of a serpent, was coiled. The second tableau, which follows immediately after the close of the chorus, revealed a large cross planted on a rock, with crowds of children dressed in white kneeling around it in a worshiping attitude. The prayers the children are supposed to be saying, are sung by the chorus, who retire from the stage, and the first act of the great drama commences.
Shouts of rejoicing and notes of glad singing were faintly heard, seeming at first so far away that one could easily believe they came from the green hilltops, seen over and beyond the theatre; nearer and nearer they came, until the long procession appeared in view, and the shouts and singing grew louder, as the thronging crowds, carrying palms in their hands, welcomed to Jerusalem their master. Then it is that you see Joseph Maier—the central figure of the play—the one on whom every eye is fixed whenever he appears, and the sight of whom makes your heart throb faster as you remember that the scenes you look upon were once a reality, when Jerusalem opened wide her gates, and her streets resounded with the loud hosannas of the multitude doing honor to the man riding in their midst. A better Christus than Joseph Maier could not have been selected. Tall, finely formed, with a sad, pale face, and long, flowing hair, he impresses you at once, and your first thought is what a splendid looking man, and how well fitted for his part—a conviction which deepens as the play progresses, and you watch him in all the varied situations he has to fill. Not a trace of self-consciousness is ever perceptible in his manner, which is always dignified and self-possessed, like one who feels himself the master. His voice is clear, and full, and rich, and you find yourself constantly listening for it, especially toward the last, when the musical tones are full of anguish or tender expostulation and disappointment, as he says to his sleeping disciples: “Could ye not watch with me one hour?”
As a general thing, he was well sustained. Judas was inimitable, and considering the character he had to take, may almost be said to be better than Joseph Maier himself. With the latter every heart was in sympathy, while for Judas there naturally could be but one feeling, and that of indignation, but so powerfully was he tempted by the artful Pharisees, and so hard and long did he struggle against the temptation, and so bitter was his repentance when the deed was done, that you have only a deep sympathy for him as he stands alone by himself and gives vent to his remorse. I can see him now so plainly as he walked the stage, wringing his hands in his despair, and catching at his long gray hair as he lamented his folly, and with bitter cries mourned for the dear friend he had betrayed. You do not see him hang himself, but you see him make a rush at the mountain ash, placed there for that purpose, and which hardly looks as if it would sustain him. But the curtain falls in time to shut out any inconsistencies, and poor Judas “goes to his own place,” and is seen no more.
Next to Judas in point of acting comes rash, impetuous and cowardly Peter, who, even if you did not know the story, would impress you as a loving, true hearted man, sure to weep bitterly over the denial called forth by fear, and to be among the first to seek the tomb of the risen Saviour.
John, the beloved, was a little too tame and quiet for the part he took, while Magdalen was an utter failure. One great feature of the play was the perfect self-forgetfulness of the actors, but this did not apply to Magdalen, whose self-consciousness was so apparent and whose voice was so unnatural and peculiar that we were sorry when she appeared and glad when she left the stage. Her personal appearance was quite contrary to one’s idea of the Magdalen, to whom the old masters always gave long, flowing hair of a reddish or golden hue, for hers was dark and so short and thin that to wipe one’s feet with it was an utter absurdity. She might, of course, have called in art to her assistance, and worn hair of wondrous length and thickness, but such deceptions are unknown to the Magdalen of Oberammergau, whose locks were all her own, as were the few attractions she possessed. The Madonna, on the contrary, was excellent, with a fair, sweet face, which would lead us to question the propriety of selecting so young a person for the mother of Christ, if we did not know that the Bavarian peasantry believe in the perpetual youth and beauty of the Virgin Mary. The parting scene between the mother and her son before he goes up to Jerusalem is very touching and sad, for Mary’s heart is wrung with dismal forebodings of some evil which will befall her child, and her voice is full of pathos and entreaty, while with infinite love and tenderness he bends over her trying to reassure and comfort her. This is the third act, and after the supper in Simon’s house, where Mary anointed the Saviour’s head, and Judas was filled with horror at the useless expenditure of the three hundred pence.
The second act, of which I omitted to speak, represented the high priests in session, and consulting together how to secure the person of Christ. Conspicuous among these was Caiaphas, who was admirably represented by one of the Langs, and who never for an instant forgot the part he was acting, or ceased to be other than the proud and despotic man thirsting for the blood of the lowly Nazarene.
In the fourth act we had the temptation of Judas, and in the fifth the institution of the Lord’s Supper, when Christ washed his disciples’ feet, and foretold that one of them should betray him. Next we saw the Garden of Gethsemane, over which the shadows of night hung darkly, and where the Saviour, in his great agony, prayed for the cup to pass from him, if possible; while, a little apart, his disciples were sleeping heavily. In the distance and gradually approaching nearer, the sound of loud, excited voices and hurried footsteps was heard, as the Roman soldiers, with the Pharisees and chief priests, approached, led by Judas, who even then seemed to hesitate before giving the kiss of betrayal. The text of the history is here followed very closely, and ends with the captivity of the Saviour, who is borne away by the soldiers.
By this time it was nearly twelve, and an intermission of an hour was given, in which the spectators hurried to their lunch and were again in their places by the time the cannon in the meadows announced that the drama was about to be resumed.
As in the morning we followed the Saviour from his entry into Jerusalem up to his betrayal, so in the afternoon we followed him to his crucifixion and death, and saw him first before Annas, then before Caiaphas, and then before Pilate, who strove so hard to save him, and who, hoping to awaken the sympathy of the people for the man whose life they sought, ordered Barabbas to be brought forth and placed side by side with the noble captive. Where they picked up Barabbas is a marvel. With long grey hair, which looked as if it never had been combed, and a face from which you instinctively recoiled, he was led upon the stage by a halter or chain,—a marked contrast to the calm, quiet dignity of Joseph Maier, who, bound and bleeding from his recent scourging and the crown of thorns, stood beside him before the rabble thirsting for his blood and crying out, “Give us the Nazarene and let Barabbas go.”
Matters now are hurried on with great rapidity, and as the end comes nearer and nearer, the hush which all along has pervaded that vast concourse grows more and more profound, and the tension to which the peoples’ nerves are strung reaches its climax, when in the fifteenth act you see the long procession winding its way up to Calvary, with the white-faced, worn-out Saviour tottering under the weight of his heavy cross, while the brutal soldiery urge him to greater speed, and the infuriated mob rend the air with their shouts of hatred and derision. Then the tears which have so long been kept back overflow, and the heart throbs with a keen sense of love and pity and sympathy, not for Joseph Maier, but for the man Christ, to whom this, which now is only acting, was once a terrible reality, and who really trod the weary road to Calvary, and bore not only the ponderous cross but the sins of the whole world. Every one was more or less affected, and the silence of the audience was almost painful in its intensity, though broken occasionally by a suppressed whisper or low cry, as the crowd increased and the boisterous shouts grew louder and the mob hurried the Saviour on, until from sheer exhaustion he fell upon the ground, and the cross was finally laid upon the shoulders of Simon of Cyrene, who conveniently appeared with a carpenter’s basket on his arm. This ascent to Calvary is, I think, more effective and affecting than the crucifixion, which is, however, a most marvelous piece of acting, and seems terribly real as you gaze at the central figure upon the cross, and fancy you see the death struggle from the beginning, until the white, worn face drops downward, and you are glad with a great gladness that all is over.
Thenceforward there is more stir among the people, and the tired ones, who have sat so long, unmindful of fatigue, change their positions and breathe more freely as they wait for the scene of the resurrection. This, some critics say, might be omitted—that the play is long enough without it; but I hardly agree with them, for what would the crucifixion avail without the rising from the dead? And when at last the rock is rolled away and Jesus is alive again and speaks to the loving Mary, you experience something of the same thrill you feel on Easter morning, and your thoughts go back to the dear home church across the sea, where you have so often heard the Easter bells and joined in the Easter songs. Loudly and joyfully the singers take up the chorus, “He is risen, He is risen,” and if your tongue were tuned to their language you would almost join them in their exultant strains. But a tableau representing the ascension is to follow, and you sit quietly till that is over; then, singing the final hallelujah chorus, the Schutzgeister slowly retire from the stage and the play is over, and we leave the theatre with a feeling that we have witnessed something which for all time to come, will, like some earnest, heart-stirring sermon, repeat itself over and over again in our minds, until we are made better by it.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- P. [48], changed “Adelaide said, ingly” to “Adelaide said, jingly”.
- Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.