On the Cross: A Romance of the Passion Play at Oberammergau

by Wilhelmine von Hillern

To this grave Freyer hastened. The first errand of the returned personator of Christ was to his author! The solitary grave lay forgotten by the world. It is a genuine work of faith and love when the author vanishes in his creation and leaves the honor to God. The whole world flocks to the Passion Play--but no one thinks of him who created for it the form which renders it available for the present time. It is the "Oberammergau," not the "Daisenberger" Passion Play.

He gave to the people of Ammergau not only his life and powers--but also that which a man is most loth to resign--his fame. He was one to whom earth could neither give anything, nor take anything away. Therefore there were few who visited his grave in the little Ammergau churchyard. The grace and beauty of his grand and noble artist soul weave viewless garlands for it.

Freyer knelt in mute devotion beside the grave and prayed, not for himself, not even for him who was one of the host of the blessed, but to him, that he might sanctify his people and strengthen them with the sacred earnestness of their task. The longer he gazed at the iron, yet gentle face, without seeing any change in the familiar features, which had once smiled so kindly at him when he uttered for the first time the words expelling the money-changers from the temple--the greater became his grief, as if the soul of his people had died with Daisenberger, as if Ammergau were only a graveyard and he the sole mourner.

"Oh, great, noble soul, which had room for a world, and yet confined yourself to this narrow valley in order to create in it for us a world of love--here lies your unworthy Christus moistening with his tears the stone which no angel will roll away that we may touch your transfigured body and say, give us thy spirit!"

Then, as if the metal mouth from which he implored an answer spoke with a brazen tongue, a bell echoed solemnly on the air. It was twelve o'clock. What the voice said could not be clothed in words. It had exhorted him when, in baptism, he was received into the covenant of Him whom he was chosen to personate--it had consoled him when, a weeping boy, he followed his father's bier, it had threatened him when on Sunday with his schoolmates, he pulled too violently at the bell-rope, it had warned him when he had lingered high up on the peaks of the Kofel or Laaber searching for Alpine roses or, shouting exultantly, climbing after chamois. A smile flitted over his face as he thought of those days! And then--then that very bell had pealed resonantly, like a voice from another world, on the morning of the Passion, at the hour when he stood in the robes of the Christ behind the curtain with the others to repeat the Lord's Prayer before the performance--the lofty, fervent prayer that God would aid them, that all might go well "for His honor." And again it had rung solemnly and sweetly, when he saw the beautiful woman praying at dawn in the garden--to the imaginary God, which he was not. Then it seemed as if the bell burst--there was a shrill discord, a keen pang through brain and heart. Oh, memory--the past! Angel and fiend at once--why do you conjure up your visions before one dedicated to the cross and to death, why do you rouse the longing for what is irrevocably lost? Freyer, groaning aloud, rested his damp brow against the cold stone, and the bronze bust, as if in pity, dropped a blue gentian from its garland on the penitent's head with a light touch, like a kiss from spirit lips. He took it and placed it in his pocketbook beside the child's fair curl--the only thing left him of all his vanished happiness.

Then a hand was laid on his shoulder: "I thank you--that this was your first visit." The sexton stood before him: "I see that you have remained a true son of Ammergau. May God be with you!"

Freyer's tears fell as he grasped the extended hand. "Oh, noble blood of Daisenberger, thank you a thousand times. And you, true son of Ammergau--nephew of our dead guardian angel, tell me in his name, will you receive me again in your midst and in the sacred work?"

"I do not know what you have done and experienced," said the sexton, gazing at him with his large, loyal brown eyes. "I only saw you at a distance, praying beside my uncle's grave, and I thought that whoever did that could not be lost to us. By this dear grave, I give you my hand. Will you work with me, live, and if need be die for the sacred will of this dead man, for our great task, as he cherished it in his heart?"

"Yes and amen!"

"Then may God bless you."