"Yes, I cannot help it, you must wake him. I've important business!"
The anxious wife still demurred, but the burgomaster appeared at the top of the staircase. "What is it? I am always to be seen if there is anything urgent. Good morning; go into the sitting-room. I'll come directly."
Ludwig Gross entered the low-ceiled but cheerful apartment, where flowers bloomed in every window. Against the wall was the ancient glass cupboard, the show piece of furniture in every well-to-do Ammergau household, where were treasured the wife's bridal wreath and the husband's goblet, the wedding gifts--cups with gilt inscriptions: "In perpetual remembrance," which belonged to the wife and prizes won in shooting matches, or gifts from visitors to the Passion Play, the property of the husband. In the ivy-grown niche in the corner of the room was an ancient crucifix--below it a wooden bench with a table, on which lay writing materials. On the pier-table between the widows were a couple of images of saints, and a pile of play-bills of the rehearsals which the burgomaster was arranging. Against the opposite wall stood a four-legged piece of furniture covered with black leather, called "the sofa," and close by the huge tiled stove, behind which the burgomaster's wife had set the milk "to thicken." Near by was a wall-cupboard with a small writing-desk, and lastly a beautifully polished winding staircase which led through a hole in the ceiling directly into the sleeping-room, and was the seat of the family cat. This was the home of a great intellect, which reached far beyond these narrow bounds and to which the great epochs of the Passion Play were the only sphere in which it could really live, where it had a wide field for its talents and ambition--where it could find compensation for the ten years prose of petty, narrow circumstances. But the intervals of ten years were too long, and the elderly man was gradually losing the elasticity and enthusiasm which could bear him beyond the deprivations of a decade. He tried all sorts of ventures in order at least to escape the petty troubles of poverty, but they were unsuccessful and thereby he only became burdened the more. Thus in the strife with realism, constantly holding aloft the standard of the ideal, involved in inward and outward contradictions, the hapless man was wearing himself out--like most of the natives of Ammergau.
"Well, what is it?" he now asked, entering the room. "Sit down."
"Don't be vexed, but you know my husband must have his coffee, or he will be ill." The burgomaster's wife brought in the breakfast and set it on the table before him. "Don't let it get cold," she said warningly, then prudently retreated, even taking the cat with her, that the gentlemen might be entirely alone and undisturbed.
"Drink it, pray drink it," urged Ludwig, and waited until the burgomaster had finished his scanty breakfast; which was quickly done. "Well? What is it!" asked the latter, pushing his cup aside.
"I have news for you: Freyer is here!"
"Ah!" The burgomaster started, and an ominous flush crimsoned his face. His hand trembled nervously as he smoothed his hair, once so beautiful, now grey. "Freyer--! How did he get here?"
"I don't know--the question died on my lips when I saw him."
"Why?"