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

Day was dawning. The first rays of the morning sun, ever broader and brighter, were darting through the air, whose blue waves surged and quivered under the flaming couisers of t...

"She is said to make constant blunders. If she chooses, she keeps the queen and the whole court waiting. She is reported to have arrived at court fifteen minutes too late a shor...

"On the cross"--was it a consolation or a menace? Who could decipher this rune? It was like all the sayings of oracles. History would explain its meaning, and when this was done...

The Play was over. "Christ is risen!" He had burst the sepulchre and hurled the guards in the dust by the sight of His radiant apparition. He had appeared to the Penitent as a s...

The burgomaster went to the office every morning at six o'clock, for the work to be accomplished during the day was very great and required an early beginning. Freyer usually ar...

"What do you think. The Countess von Wildenau is founding an Orphan's Home!" said the prince, as, leaving the Gross house, he joined a group of gentlemen who were waiting just o...

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 over...

A loud step roused the rapt enthusiast from her visions. The sacristan was passing through the church, extinguishing the candles which, meanwhile, had burned down in their socke...

It was morning! The lamp had almost burned out! Josepha and the countess were busied with the boy, whose sleep was disturbed by a short, dry cough. The mother had remained at th...

"I have attracted you by a Play--for you were a child, and children are taught by games. But when one method of instruction is exhausted it is cast aside and exchanged for a hig...

Several minutes have passed--to the duke a world of happiness--to the countess of misery. The duke bent over the beautiful trembling form to clasp her in his arms for the first...

On a wooded height, hidden in the heart of the forests of the Bavarian highlands, stood an ancient hunting castle, the property of the Wildenau family. A steep mountain path led...

The stars were already twinkling above the Griess, here and there one looked as if impaled on a giant flagstaff, as they sparkled just above the tops of the lofty firs or the sh...

"Magdalene--Wife--Angel--what shall I call you?" cried Freyer, extending his arms. "Oh, if only we were not in the open fields, that I might press you to my heart and thank you...

The storm had spent its fury, the winds sung themselves softly to sleep, a friendly face looked down between the dispersing clouds and cast its mild light upon the water, now gr...

The great number of strangers who were unable to get tickets the day before had rendered a second performance necessary. The countess did not attend it. To her the play had been...

Josepha sat in the countess' room at work on her new dress. She was calm and quiet; the delight in finery which never abandons a woman to her latest hour--the poorest peasant, i...

All through the morning the street where Ludwig's house stood was crowded with people. Toward noon a whisper ran through the throng: "He is coming!" and Freyer appeared. Many pr...

The Ammergau episode--with all its tragic consequences--belonged to the past. To-day, under the emotional impressions and external circumstances at that luckless castle, where e...

Freyer had returned, bringing the body of his child. He had telegraphed to the countess, but received in reply only a few lines: "She was compelled to set off on a journey at on...

From that hour Magdalena Freyer never left her husband's bedside. Though friends came in turn to share the night-watches, she remained with them. After a few days the doctor sai...

The countess woke from a short slumber as if some one had uttered the words aloud. She glanced around the dusky room, it was still early, scarcely a glimmer of light pierced thr...

It was in the Garden of Gethsemane that the risen Son of God showed Himself, as a simple gardener, to the penitent sinner. The miracle has become a pious tradition. It happened...

The prince had left the room, and she heard him walk through the work-shop. Silence fell upon the house and the street. The tortured woman, utterly exhausted, sank upon her bed-...

"I am his wife!" Heaven and earth have heard it. She had conquered. The tremendous deed, fear of which had led her to the verge of crime--love had now done in a _single_ moment...

The night had passed, day was shining through the closed curtains--but Countess Wildenau still sat in the same spot where Freyer had left her. Yes, he had gone "silently, noisel...

From that day the countess showed an unwonted degree of interest in the newspapers. The first question when she waked in the morning was for the papers. But the maid noticed tha...

Slowly, as if his feet could scarcely support him, a tall figure, strangely like one who no longer belongs to the number of the living, tottered through the crowd to the door of...

Three weary days had passed. The countess was ill. At least she permitted her household to believe that she was unable to leave her room. No one was allowed to know that she had...

There was alarm in the Wildenau Palace. The countess had suddenly returned, without notifying the servants--in plain words, without asking the servants' permission. She had inte...

The countess remained absent a long time, while the duke sat at the window of the boudoir gazing out into the frosty winter morning, but without seeing what was passing outside....

High above the rushing Wildbach, where the stream bursts through the crumbling rocks and in its fierce rush sends heavy stones grinding over one another--a man lay on the damp c...

It was high noon. The children were at school, the grown people had gone to their work. The village was silent and no one stopped Freyer as he hurried down the broad old "Ausser...

While the lost son of Ammergau was quietly and sadly permitting the miracle of his home to produce its effect upon him, and rising from one revelation to another along the steep...

The little repast exerted a very cheering influence upon the depressed spirits of the countess. But she took the first cup to the invalid who, revived by the unaccustomed stimul...

Amid conflicts such as those just described, the countess lived, passing from one stage of development to another and unconsciously growing older--mentally maturing. Several wee...

The burgomaster's house, with its elaborate fresco, "Christ before Pilate," still stood without any signs of life in the grey dawn. The burgomaster was asleep. He had been ill v...

The countess said no more. She knew that the success of the rest of the performances depended solely upon him--and it burdened her soul like a heavy reproach. Yet she did not te...

Solemn and lofty against the evening sky towers the Kofel, the land-mark and protecting rock-bulwark of Oberammergau, bearing aloft its solitary cross, like a threatening hand u...

The "Wies" towered like an island from amid a grey sea of clouds. All the mountains of Trauchgau and Pfront, Allgau and Tyrol, which surround it like distant shores and cliffs,...

Silence reigned on the height. The winds had died away, the clouds were scattering swiftly, like an army of ghosts. The embers of the wood below crackled softly. The trunks had...