“I should think it must be a terrible strain,” said Ordham. “Surely human nature must break out occasionally.”
“No doubt it does. But these people are saturated with the spirit of the Passion Play, and so have their ancestors been before them—for three hundred years. They are not only moral but happy. The first time I came here, one young woman, whose histrionic talent was remarkable, told me that she had refused two offers from Berlin managers because life would be a blank to her if she could not look out of her window every morning and see the cross on Kochel. This is the only community in the world which is consistent generation in and out to a high ideal.”
“I wonder if it is a haven of rest to outsiders,” said Ordham, who was staring at her after his habit, his cigarette cold. “Could you come here if your voice failed you; if, for any reason, you could not act—come here and find peace?”
Margarethe shook her head. “For a week—a fortnight. Then I should fly to the very centres of distraction. This peace is not for the outsider. It is not sold in the shops with the crucifixes. It takes generations to make. Even if one brought here a peaceful, even a religious, mind, one would never feel quite the real thing. And yet I do not believe there is a self-righteous person in Oberammergau. Alas! Our tête-à-tête is over. Here comes your grenadier.”
Ordham hastily lit a cigarette as his Lutz strode up, exclaiming: “Did you think to escape your lesson? We shall have it here. It shall be conversation and dictation.”
“The morning is so beautiful—you are going away?” Margarethe was opening her parasol.
“But yes,” said Lutz severely. “Is her place here, to distract your sufficiently frivolous mind? Ask me a question.”
“Do you prefer chocolate or coffee?” he asked ingratiatingly.
“Chocolate, with thanks. But we are no longer in the Ollendorff stage or you would not be returning next month to England to face your destiny. I have thought of ten terrible questions, than which they can construct nothing more difficult, more ridiculous. I have brought pencil and paper. Write, while I drink the excellent chocolate.”
And Ordham groaned and resigned himself.