Читать книгу On the Cross - Wilhelmine von Hillern - Страница 48

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At last, alter a long circuit and many enquiries, the goal was gained. The dripping, sorely shaken equipage stopped with two wheels in a ditch filled with rain water, whose overflow flooded the path to the house. The courier and maid seemed to have missed their way, too, for the second carriage was not there. People hurried out of the low doorway shading small flickering candles with their hands. The countess shrank back. What strange faces these peasants had! An old man with a terribly hang-dog countenance, long grey hair, a pointed Jewish beard, sharp hooked nose, and sparkling eyes! And two elderly women, one short and fat, with prominent eyes and black curling hair, the other a tall, thin, odd-looking person with tangled coal-black hair, hooked nose, and glittering black eyes.

In the mysterious shadows cast by the wavering lights upon the sharply cut faces, the whole group looked startlingly like a band of gypsies.

"Oh! are these Ammergau people?" whispered the countess in a disappointed tone.

"Does Gross, the wood-carver, live here?" the prince enquired.

"Yes," was the reply. "Gross, the stone-cutter. Have you engaged rooms here?"

"We wrote from Tegernsee for lodgings. The Countess von Wildenau," answered the prince.

"Oh yes, yes! Everything is ready! The lady will lodge with us; the carriage and servants can go to the old post-house. I have the honor to bid you good evening," said the old man. "I am sorry you have had such bad weather. But we have a great deal of rain here."

The prince alighted--the water splashed high under his feet.

"Oh Sephi, bring a board, quick; the countess cannot get out here!" cried the old man with eager deprecation of the discomfort threatening the lady. Sephi, the tall, thin woman, dragged a plank from the garden, while a one-eyed dog began to bark furiously.

The plank was laid down, but instantly sunk under the water, and the countess was obliged to wade through the flood. As she alighted, she felt as if she should strike her head against the edge of the overhanging roof--the house was so low. Fresco paintings, dark with age, appeared to stretch and writhe in distorted shapes in the flickering light. The place seemed more and more dismal to the countess.

"Shall I carry you across?" asked the prince.

"Oh no!" she answered reprovingly, while her little foot sought the bottom of the pool. The ice-cold water covered her delicate boot to the ankle. She had been so full of eager anticipation, in such a poetic mood, and prosaic reality dealt her a blow in the face. She shivered as she walked silently through the water.

"Come in, your rooms are ready," said the old man cheeringly.

They passed through a kitchen black with myriads of flies, into an apartment formerly used as the workshop, now converted into a parlor. Two children were asleep on an old torn sofa. In one corner lay sacks of straw, prepared for couches, the owners of the house considered it a matter of course that they should have no beds during the Passion. A smoking kerosene lamp hung from, the dark worm-eaten wooden ceiling, diffusing more smoke than light. The room was so low that the countess could scarcely stand erect, and besides the ceiling had sunk--in the dim, smoke-laden atmosphere the beams threatened to fall at any moment.

A sense of suffocation oppressed the new-comer. She was utterly exhausted, chilled, nervous to the verge of weeping. Her white teeth chattered. She shivered with cold and discomfort. Her host opened a low door into a small room containing two beds, a table, an old-fashioned dark cupboard, and two chairs.

"There," he cried in a tone of great satisfaction, "that is your chamber. Now you can rest, and if you want anything, you need only call and one of my daughters will come in and wait upon you."

"Yes, my good fellow, but where am I to lodge?" asked the prince.

"Oh--then you don't belong together? In that case the countess must sleep with another lady, and the gentleman up here."

He pointed to a little stair-case in the corner which, according to the custom in old peasant houses, led from one room through a trap-door into another directly above it.

"But I can't sleep there, it would inconvenience the lady," said the prince. "Have you no other rooms?"

"Why yes; but they are engaged for to-morrow," replied Andreas Gross, while the two sisters stood staring helplessly.

"Then give me the rooms and send the other people away."

"Oh! I can't do that, sir.--They are promised."

"Good Heavens! Ill pay you twice, ten times as much."

"Why, sir, if you paid me twenty times the price, I could not do it; I must not break my promise!" said the old man with gentle firmness.

"Ah," thought the prince, "he wants to screw me--but I'll manage that, Countess, excuse me a few minutes while I look for another lodging."

"For Heaven's sake, try to find one for me, too. I would rather spend the night in the carriage than stay here!" replied the countess in French.

"Yes, it is horrible! but it will not be difficult to find something better. Good-bye!" he answered in the same language.

"Don't leave me alone with these people too long. Come back soon; I am afraid," she added, still using the French tongue.

"Really?" the prince answered, laughing; but a ray of pleasure sparkled in his eyes.

Meanwhile, the little girl who was asleep on the sofa had waked and now came into the room.

The countess requested every one to retire that she might rest, and the peasants modestly withdrew. But when she tried to fasten the door, it had neither lock nor bolt, only a little wire hook which slipped into a loose ring.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, startled. "I cannot lock it."

"You need have no anxiety," replied the old man soothingly, "we sleep in the next room." But the vicinity of those strange people, when she could not lock the door, was exactly what the countess feared.

She slipped the miserable wire hook into its fastening and sat down on one of the beds, which had no mattresses--nothing but sacking.

Covering her face with her hands, she gave free course to indignant tears. She still wore her hat and cloak, which she had not ventured to take off, from a vague feeling of being encompassed by perils whence she might need to fly at any moment. In such a situation, surely it was safer not to lay aside one's wraps. If the worst came, she would remain so all night. To go to bed in a house where the roof might fall and such strange figures were stealing about, was too great a risk. Beside the bed on which the countess sat was a door, which, amid all the terrors, she had not noticed. Now it seemed as though she heard a scraping noise like the filing of iron. Then came hollow blows and a peculiar rattling. Horrible, incomprehensible sounds! Now a blow fell upon the door, whose fastening was little better than the other. And now another.

"The very powers of hell are let loose here," cried the countess, starting up. Her cold, wet feet seemed paralyzed, her senses were on the verge of failing. And she was alone in this terrible strait. Where were the servants? Perhaps they had been led astray, robbed and murdered--and meanwhile the storm outside was raging in all its fury.

There came another attempt to burst the door which, under two crashing blows, began to yield. The countess, as if in a dream, rushed to the workshop and, almost fainting, called to her aid the uncanny people there--one terror against another. With blanched lips she told them that some one had entered the house, that some madman or fugitive from justice was trying to get in.

"Oh! that is nothing," said Andreas, with what seemed to the terrified woman a fiendish smile, and walking straight to the door, while the countess shrieked aloud, opened it, and--a head was thrust in. A mild, big, stupid face stared at the light with wondering eyes and snorted from wide pink nostrils at the strange surroundings. A bay horse--a good-natured cart horse occupied the next room to the Countess Wildenau!

"You see the criminal. He is a cribber, that is the cause of the horrible noises you heard."

The trembling woman stared at the mild, stupid equine face as though it was a heavenly vision--yet spite of her relief and much as she loved horses, she could not have gone to bed comfortably, since as the door was already half broken down by the elephantine hoofs of the worthy brute, there was a chance that during the night, lured by the aromatic odor of the sea-weed, which formed the stuffing of the bed, the bay might mistake the countess' couch for a manger and rouse her somewhat rudely with his snuffing muzzle.

"Oh, we'll make that all right at once," said Andreas. "We'll fasten him so that he can't get free again, and the carter comes at four in the morning, then you will not be disturbed any more."

"After not having closed my eyes all night," murmured the countess, following the old man to see that he fastened the horse securely. Yes, the room which opened from here by a door with neither lock nor threshold was a stable. Several frightened hens flew from the straw--this, too. "When the horse has left the stable the cocks will begin to crow. What a night after the fatigues of the day!" The old man smiled with irritating superiority, and said:

"Yes, that is the way in the country."

"No, I won't stay here--I would rather spend the night in the carriage. How can people exist in this place, even for a day," thought the countess.

"Won't you have something to eat? Shall my daughter make a schmarren?"^[2]

"A schmarren! In that kitchen, with those flies." The countess felt a sense of loathing.

"No, thank you." Even if she was starving, she could not eat a mouthful in this place.

The bay was at last tied and, for want of other occupation, continued to gnaw his crib and to suck the air, a proceeding terribly trying to the nerves of his fair neighbor in the next room. At last--oh joy, deliverance--the second carriage rattled up to the house, bringing the maid and the courier.

"Come in, come in!" called the countess from the window. "Don't have any of the luggage taken off. I shall not stay here."

The two servants entered with flushed faces.

"Where in the world have you been so long?" asked their mistress, imperiously, glad to be able, at last, to vent her ill-humor on some one.

"The driver missed the way," stammered the courier, casting a side glance at the blushing maid. The countess perceived the situation at a glance and was herself again. Fear and timidity, all her nervous weakness vanished before the pride of the offended mistress, who had been kept waiting an hour, at whose close the tardy servants entered with faces whose confusion plainly betrayed that so long a delay was needless.

She drew herself up to her full height, feminine fears forgotten in the pride of the lady of rank.

"Courier, you are dismissed--not another word!"

"Then I beg Your Highness to discharge me, too," said the excited maid, thus betraying herself. A contemptuous glance from the countess rested upon the culprit, but without hesitation, she said, quietly:

"Very well. You can both go to the steward for your wages. Good evening."

Both left the room pale and silent. They had not expected this dismissal, but they knew their mistress' temper and were aware that not another word would be allowed, that no excuse or entreaty would avail. The countess, too, was in no pleasant mood. She was left here--without a maid. For the first time in her life she would be obliged to wait upon herself, unpack all those huge trunks and bags. How could she do it? She was so cold and so weary, too, and she did not even know which of the numerous bags contained dry shoes and stockings. Was she to pull out everything, when she must do the repacking herself? For now she must certainly go to another house, among civilized people, where she could have servants and not be so utterly alone. Oh, if only she had not come to this Ammergau--it was a horrible place! One would hardly purchase the salvation of the world at the cost of such an evening. It was terrible to be in this situation--and without a maid!

And, as trivial things find even the loftiest women fainthearted because they are matters of nerve, and not of character, the lady who had just confronted her servants so haughtily sank down on the bed again and wept like a child.

Some one tapped lightly on the door of the workshop. The countess opened it, and the short, stout sister timidly entered.

"Pardon me, Your Highness, we have just heard that you have discharged your maid and courier, so I wanted to ask whether my sister or I could be of any service? Perhaps we might unpack a little?"

"Thank you--I don't wish to spend the night here and hope that my companion will bring news that he has found other accommodations. I will pay whatever you ask, but I can't possibly stay. Ask your father what he charges, I'll give whatever you wish--only let me go."

The old man was summoned.

"Why certainly, Countess, you can be entirely at ease on that score; if you don't like staying with us, that need not trouble you. You will have nothing to pay--only you must be quick or you will find no lodgings, they are very hard to get now."

"Yes, but you must have some compensation. Just tell me what I am to give."

"Nothing, Countess. We do not receive payment for what is not eaten!" replied Andreas Gross with such impressive firmness that the lady looked at him in astonishment. "The Ammergau people do not make a business of renting lodgings, Countess; that is done only by the foreign speculators who wish to make a great deal of money at this time, and alas! bring upon Ammergau the reputation of extortion! We natives of the village do it for the sake of having as many guests witness the play as possible, and are glad if we meet our expenses. We expect nothing more."

The countess suddenly saw the "hang-dog" face in a very different light! It must have been the dusk which had deceived her. She now thought it an intellectual and noble one, nay the wrinkled countenance, the long grey locks, and clear, penetrating eyes had an aspect of patriarchal dignity. She suddenly realized that these people must have had the masks which their characters require bestowed by nature, not painted with rouge, and thus the traits of the past unconsciously became impressed upon the features. In the same way, among professional actors, the performer who takes character rôles can easily be distinguished from the lover.

"Do you act too?" she asked with interest.

"I act Dathan, the Jewish trader," he said proudly. "I have been in the Play sixty years, for when I was a child three years old I sat in Eve's lap in the tableaux." The countess could not repress a smile and old Andreas' face also brightened.

The little girl, a daughter of the short, plump woman, peeped through the half open door, gazing with sparkling eyes at the lovely lady.

"Whose child is the little one?" asked the countess, noticing her soft curb and beaming eyes.

"She is my grand-daughter, the child of my daughter, Anna. Her father was a foreigner. He ran away, leaving his wife and two children in poverty. So I took them all three into my house again."