"It must be changed, the people must return the money!" cried the drawing-master vehemently.
The burgomaster looked at him with his keen eyes, half veiled by their drooping lids. "Ask them," he said calmly and coldly. "Go and get it--if it can be had."
Ludwig bit his lips. "Then something must be done by the parish."
"That requires an agreement of the whole parish."
"Call a meeting then."
"Hm, hm!" The burgomaster smiled: "That is no easy matter. What do you think the people will answer, if I say: 'Herr Freyer ran away from us, interrupted the performances, made us lose about 100,000 marks, discredited the Passion Play in our own eyes and those of the world, and asks in return the payment of 800 marks from the parish treasury?"
Ludwig let his arms fall in hopeless despair. "Then I don't know what to do--I must support my helpless old sisters. I cannot maintain him, too, or I would ask no one's aid. I think it should be a point of honor with us Ammergau people not to leave a member of the parish in the lurch, when he returns home poor and needy, especially a man like Freyer, whom we have more cause to thank than to reproach, say what you will. We are not a penal institution."
"No, nor an asylum."
"Well, we need be neither, but merely a community of free men, who should be solely ruled by the thought of love, but unfortunately have long ceased to be so."
The burgomaster leaned quietly back in his chair, the drawing-master became more and more heated, as the other remained cold.