"Yes, go!" he cried in wild anguish--"go! Yet you know that you will take me with you, like the crown of thorns you dragged caught in the hem of your dress!" He threw himself on his knees at her feet. "What am I? Your slave. In Heaven's name, be my mistress and take me. I place my soul in your keeping--I trust it to your generosity--but woe betide us both, if you do not give me yours in return. I ask nothing save your soul--but that I want wholly."
The exultant woman clasped him in a passionate embrace: "Yes, give yourself a prisoner to me, and trust your fate to my hands. I will be a gentle mistress to you--you, beloved slave, you shall not be more mine than I am yours--that is, wholly and forever."
[CHAPTER XVII.]
FLYING FROM THE CROSS
The burgomaster went to the office every morning at six o'clock, for the work to be accomplished during the day was very great and required an early beginning. Freyer usually arrived about seven to share the task with him. On Fridays, however, he often commenced his labor before the energetic burgomaster. It was on that day that the rush upon the ticket office began, and every one's hands were filled.
But to-day Freyer seemed to be in no hurry. It was after seven--he ought to have arrived long before. He had been absent yesterday, too. The stranger must have taken complete possession of him. The burgomaster shook his head--Freyer's conduct since the countess' arrival, had not pleased him. He had never neglected his duties to the community. And at the very time when the Passion Play had attained unprecedented success. How could any one think of anything else--anything personal, especially the man who took the part of the Christ! There were heaps of orders lying piled before him, how could they be disposed of, if Freyer did not help.
This countess was a beautiful woman--and probably a fascinating one. But to the burgomaster there was but one beauty--that of the angel of his home. High above the turmoil of the crowd, in quiet, aristocratic seclusion, the lonely man sat at his desk in his bare, plain office. But the angel of Ammergau visited him here; he leaned his weary head upon His breast, His kiss rewarded his unselfish labor, His radiance illumined the unassuming citizen. No house was so poor and insignificant that at this season the angel of Ammergau did not take up His abode within and shed upon it His own sanctity and dignity. But to him who was the personification of Ammergau, the man who was obliged to care for everything--watch over everything--bear the responsibility of everything, to him the angel brought the reward which men cannot give--the proud consciousness of what he was to his home in these toilsome days. But it was quite time that Freyer should come! The burgomaster rang his bell. The bailiff entered.
"Kleinhofer, see where Herr Freyer is--or the drawing-master. One of them can surely be found."
"Yes, Herr Burgomaster." The man left the room.
The burgomaster leaned back in his chair to wait. His eyes rested a few seconds on one of Doré's pictures, Christ condemned by Pontius Pilate. He involuntarily compared the engraving with the grouping on the stage. "Ah, if we could do that! If living beings, with massive bones and clumsy joints, would be as pliable as canvas and brushes!" he thought, sorrowfully. "Wherever human beings are employed there must be defects and imperfections. Perfection, absolute beauty, exist only in the imagination! Yet ought not an inflexible stage manager, by following the lines of the work of art, to succeed in shaping even the rudest material into the artistic idea."