Old Andreas woke and gazed with an almost terrified expression at the beautiful figure of the countess, standing thoughtfully among the sleepers. Starting up, he asked what she desired.
"Will you go to walk with me, Herr Gross?"
The old man rubbed his eyes to convince himself that he had slept so long that the sun was shining into his room. But no. "It is the moon which is so bright," he said to the countess.
"Why, of course, that is why I want to go out!" she repeated. The old man quickly seized his hat from the chamois horn and stood ready to attend her. "Are you not tired?" she said hesitatingly. "You have not been in bed."
"Oh, that is of no consequence!" was his ready answer. "During the Passion it is always so."
The countess shook her head; she knew that the people here said simply "the Passion," but she could not understand why, during "the Passion," they should neither expect a bed nor the most trivial comfort or why, for the sake of "the Passion," they should endure without a murmur, and without succumbing, every exertion and deprivation. She saw in the broad light which filled the room the old man's bright, keen eyes. "No, these Ammergau people know no fatigue, their task supports them!"
The countess left the room with him. "Ah!" an involuntary exclamation of delight escaped her lips as she emerged into the splendor of the brilliant moonlight, and eagerly inhaled the air which blew cold and strong, yet closed softly around her, strengthening and supporting her like the waves of the sea. And, amid these shimmering, floating mists, this "phosphorescence" of the earth, these waves of melting outlines, softly dissolving shapes--the Kofel towered solitary in sharp relief, like a vast reef of rocks, and on its summit glittered the metal-bound cross, the symbol of Ammergau, sending its beams far and wide in the light of the full moon like the lantern of a lighthouse.
Madeleine von Wildenau stretched out her arms, throwing back her cloak, that her whole form might bathe in the pure element.
"Oh, wash away all earthly dust and earthly ballast, ye surging billows: steal, purify me in thy chaste majesty, queen of the world, heaven-born air of the heights!" Was it possible that hitherto she had been able to live without this bliss, had she lived? No, no, she had not! "Ammergau, thou art the soil I have sought! Thy miracles are beginning!" cried an exultant voice in the soul of the woman so suddenly released from the toils of weary desolation.
Without exchanging many words--for the old man was full of delicacy, and perceived what was passing in the countess' soul--they involuntarily walked in the direction of the Kofel; only when they were passing the house of a prominent actor in the Passion Play, he often thought it his duty to call his companion's attention to it.