"The Christ wed Mary? The son the mother? No, though we are not what we represent, _that_ would be impossible. I have become so accustomed to regard her as my mother that it would seem to me a profanation."

"But next winter, when the Play is over, it will be different."

"And _you_ say this to me, Countess; _you_, after this morning?" cried Freyer, with a trembling voice. "Are you in earnest?"

"Certainly. I cannot expect you, for my sake, to neglect older claims upon your heart!"

"Countess, if I had older claims, would I have spoken to you as I did to-day, would the events have occurred which happened to-day? Can you believe such things of me? You are silent? Well, Countess, that may be the custom in your circle, but not in mine."

"Forgive me, Freyer!" stammered the lady, turning pale.

"Freyer shaded his eyes with his hand as if the sun dazzled him, in order to conceal his rising tears.

"For what are you looking?" asked the countess, who thought he was trying to see more distinctly.

He turned his face, eloquent with pain, full toward her. "I was looking to see where my dove had flown, I can no longer find her. Or was it all a dream?"

"Freyer!" cried the countess, utterly overwhelmed, slipping her hand through his arm and resting her head without regard for possible spectators on his heaving breast. "Joseph, your dove has not flown away, she is here, take her to your heart again and keep her forever, forever, if you wish."

"Take care, Countess," said Freyer, warningly, "there are people moving in all directions."

She raised her head. "Will it cause you any harm?" she asked, abashed.

"Not me, but you. I have no one to question me and could only be proud of your tokens of favor, but consider what would be said in your own circle, if it were rumored that you had rested your head on a peasant's breast."

"You are no peasant, you are an artist."

"In your eyes, but not in those of the world. Even though we do pa.s.sably well in wood-carving and in the Pa.s.sion Play, so long as we are so poor that we are compelled to till our fields ourselves, and bring the wood for our carvings from the forest with our own hands, we shall be ranked as peasants, and no one will believe that we are anything else. You will be blamed for having a.s.sociated with such uncultured people."

"Oh, I will answer for that before the whole world."

"That would avail little, my beloved one, Heaven forbid that I should ever so far forget myself as to boast of your love before others, or permit you to do anything which they would misjudge. G.o.d alone understands what we are to each other, and therefore it must remain hidden in His bosom where no profane eye can desecrate it."

The countess clung closer to him in silent admiration. She remembered so many annoyances caused by the indiscretions due to the vanity of men whom she had favored, that this modest delicacy seemed so chivalrous and lofty that she would fain have fallen at his feet.

"Dove, have I found you again?" he said, gazing into her eyes. "My sweet, naughty dove! You will never more wound and wrong me so. I feel that you might break my heart" And pressing her arm lightly to his side, he raised her hand to his burning lips.

A glow of happiness filled Madeleine von Wildenau's whole being as she heard the stifled, pa.s.sionate murmur of love. And as, with every sunbeam, the centifolia blooms more fully, revealing a new beauty with each opening petal, so too did the soul of the woman thus illumined by the divine ray of true love.

"Come," she said suddenly, "take me to the kind creature who so tenderly ministers to you, perhaps suffers for you. I now feel drawn toward her and will love her for your sake as your mother, Mary."

"Ah, my child, that is worthy of you! I knew that you were generous and n.o.ble! Come, my Magdalene, I will lead you to Mary."

They walked rapidly to the field where Anastasia was busily working.

The latter, seeing the stranger approach, let down the skirt she had lifted and adjusted her dress a little, but she received the countess without the least embarra.s.sment and cordially extended her hand. _Her_ bearing also had a touch of condescension, which the great lady especially noticed. Anastasia gazed so calmly and earnestly at her that she lowered her eyes as if unable to bear the look of this serene soul.

The smoothly brushed brown hair, the soft indistinctly marked brows, the purity of the features, and the virginal dignity throned on the n.o.ble forehead harmonized with the ideal of the Queen of Heaven which the countess had failed to grasp in the Pa.s.sion Play. She was beautiful, faultless from head to foot, yet there was nothing in her appearance which could arouse the least feeling of jealousy. There was such spirituality in her whole person--something--the countess could not describe it in any other way--so expressive of the sober sense of age, that the beautiful woman was ashamed of her suspicion. She now understood what Freyer meant when he spoke of the maternal relation existing between Anastasia and himself. She was the true Madonna, to whom all eyes would be lifted devoutly, reverently, yet whom no man would desire to press to his heart. She was probably not much older than the countess, two or three years at most, but compared with her the great lady, so thoroughly versed in the ways of the world, was but an immature, impetuous child. The countess felt this with the secret satisfaction which it affords every woman to perceive that she is younger than another, and it helped her to endure the superiority which Anastasia's lofty calmness maintained over her. Nay, she even accepted the inferior place with a coquettish artlessness which made her appear all the more youthful. Yet at the very moment she adopted the childish manner, she secretly felt its reality. She was standing in the presence of the Mother of G.o.d. Womanly nature had never possessed any charm for her, she had never comprehended it in any form. She had never admired any of Raphael's Madonnas, not even the Sistine. A woman interested her only as the object of a man's love for which she might envy her, the contrary character, the ascetic beauty of an Immaculate was wholly outside of her sphere. Now, for the first time in her life, she was interested in a personality of this type, because she suddenly realized that the Virgin was also the Mother of the Saviour. And as her love for the Christ was first awakened by her love for Joseph Freyer, her reverence for Mary was first felt when she thought of her as his mother! Madeleine von Wildenau, so poor in the treasures of the heart, the woman who had never been a mother, suddenly felt--even while in the act of playing with practised coquetry the part of childlike ignorance--under the influence of the man she loved, the _reality_ in the farce and her heart opened to the sacred, mysterious bond between the mother and the child. Thus, hour by hour, she grew out of the captivity of the world and the senses, gently supported and elevated by the might of that love which reconciles earth and heaven.

She held out one hand to Anastasia, the other to Freyer. "I, too, would fain know the dear mother of our Christ!" she said, with that sweet, submissive grace which the moment had taught her. Freyer's eyes rested approvingly upon her. She felt as if wings were growing on her shoulders, she felt that she was beautiful, good, and beloved; earth could give no more.

Anastasia watched the agitated woman with the kindly, searching gaze of a Sister of Charity. Indeed, her whole appearance recalled that of one of these ministering spirits, resigned without sentimentality; gentle, yet energetic; modest, yet impressive.

"I felt a great--" the countess was about to say "admiration," but this was not true, she admired her now for the first time! She stopped abruptly in the midst of her sentence, she could utter no stereotyped compliments at this moment. With quiet dignity, like a princess giving audience, Anastasia came to her a.s.sistance, by skilfully filling up the pause: "So this is your first visit to Ammergau?"

"Yes."

"Then you have doubtless been very much impressed?"

"Oh, who could remain cold, while witnessing such a spectacle?"

"Yes, is not our Christ perfect?" said Anastasia, smiling proudly. "He costs people many tears. But even _I_ cannot help weeping, and I have played it with him thirty times." She pa.s.sed her hand across his brow with a tender, maternal caress, as if she wished to console him for all his sufferings. "Does it not seem as if we saw the Redeemer Himself?"

The countess watched her with increasing sympathy. "You have a beautiful soul! Your friend was right, people should know you to receive the full impression of Mary."

"Yes, I play it too badly," replied Anastasia, whose native modesty prevented her recognition of the flattery conveyed in the countess'

words.

"No--badly is not the word. But the delicate shadings of the feminine nature are lost in the vast s.p.a.ce," the other explained.

"It may be so," replied Anastasia, simply. "But that is of no importance; no matter how we others might play--_he_ would sustain the whole."

"And your brother, Anastasia, and all the rest--do you forget them?"

said Freyer, rebukingly.

"Yes, dear Anastasia." The countess took Freyer's hand. "I have given my soul into the keeping of this Christ--but your brother's performance is also a masterpiece! It seems to me that you are unjust to him. And also to Pilate, whom I admired, the apostles and high-priests."

"Perhaps so. I don't know how the others act--" said Mary with an honesty that was fairly sublime. "I see only him, and when he is not on the stage I care nothing for the rest of the performance. It is because I am his _mother_: to a mother the son is beyond everything else," she added, calmly.

The countess looked at her in astonishment. Was it possible that a woman could love in this way? Yet there was no doubt of it. Had even a shadow of longing to be united to the man she loved rested on the soul of this girl, she could not have had thus crystalline transparency and absolute freedom from embarra.s.sment.

These Madonnas are happy beings! she thought, yet she did not envy this calm peace.

Drawing off her long glove with much difficulty, she took a ring from her finger. "Please accept this from me as a token of the secret bond which unites us in love for--your son! We will be good friends."

"With all my heart!" said Anastasia in delight, holding out her sunburnt finger to receive the gift. "What will my brother say when I come home with such a present?" She gratefully kissed the donor's hand. "You are too kind, Countess--I don't know how I deserve it."

She stooped and lifted her jug. "I must go home now to help my sister-in-law. You will visit us, won't you? My brother will be so pleased."

"Very gladly--if you will allow me," replied the lady, smiling.

"I beg you to do so!" said Anastasia with ready tact. Then with n.o.ble dignity, she moved away across the fields, waving her hand from the distance to the couple she had left behind, as if to say: "Be happy!"

CHAPTER XII.

BRIDAL TORCHES.