Christmas stories

by Mary Jane Holmes

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.