"Of the chief members of the cast--Maier, the gentle and yet kingly Christ; Burgomaster Lang, the stern, revengeful High Priest; his daughter Rosa, the sweet-faced, sweet-voiced Virgin; Rendl, the dignified, statesman-like Pilate; Peter Rendl, the beloved John, with the purest and most beautiful face I have ever seen upon a man; old Peter Hett, the rugged, loving, weak friend, Peter; Rutz, the leader of the chorus (no sinecure, his post); and Amalie Deschler, the Magdalen--it would be difficult to speak in terms of too high praise. Themselves mere peasants--There are those two women again, spying round our door; I am sure of it!" I exclaim, breaking off, and listening to the sounds that come from the next room. "I wish they would go downstairs; I am beginning to get quite nervous."
"Oh, I don't think we need worry," answers B. "They are quite old ladies, both of them. I met them on the stairs yesterday. I am sure they look harmless enough."
"Well, I don't know," I reply. "We are all by ourselves, you know.
Nearly everyone in the village is at the theatre, I wish we had got a dog."
B. reassures me, however, and I continue:
"Themselves mere peasants," I repeat, "they represent some of the greatest figures in the world's history with as simple a dignity and as grand a bearing as could ever have been expected from the originals themselves. There must be a natural inborn nobility in the character of these highlanders. They could never assume or act that manner au grand seigneur with which they imbue their parts.
"The only character poorly played was that of Judas. The part of Judas is really THE part of the piece, so far as acting is concerned; but the exemplary householder who essayed it seemed to have no knowledge or experience of the ways and methods of bad men.
There seemed to be no side of his character sufficiently in sympathy with wickedness to enable him to understand and portray it. His amateur attempts at scoundrelism quite irritated me. It sounds conceited to say so, but I am convinced I could have given a much more truthful picture of the blackguard myself.
"'Dear, dear me,' I kept on saying under my breath, 'he is doing it all wrong. A downright unmitigated villain would never go on like that; he would do so and so, he would look like this, and speak like that, and act like the other. I know he would. My instinct tells me so.'
"This actor was evidently not acquainted with even the rudiments of knavery. I wanted to get up and instruct him in them. I felt that there were little subtleties of rascaldom, little touches of criminality, that I could have put that man up to, which would have transformed his Judas from woodenness into breathing life. As it was, with no one in the village apparently who was worth his salt as a felon to teach him, his performance was unconvincing, and Judas became a figure to laugh rather than to shudder at.
"With that exception, the whole company, from Maier down to the donkey, seemed to be fitted to their places like notes into a master's melody. It would appear as though, on the banks of the Ammer, the histrionic artist grew wild."
"They are real actors, all of them," murmurs B. enthusiastically, "the whole village full; and they all live happily together in one small valley, and never try to kill each other. It is marvellous!"
At this point, we hear a sharp knock at the door that separates the before-mentioned ladies' room from our own. We both start and turn pale, and then look at each other. B. is the first to recover his presence of mind. Eliminating, by a strong effort, all traces of nervousness from his voice, he calls out in a tone of wonderful coolness:
"Yes, what is it?"
"Are you in bed?" comes a voice from the other side of the door.
"Yes," answers B. "Why?"
"Oh! Sorry to disturb you, but we shall be so glad when you get up.
We can't go downstairs without coming through your room. This is the only door. We have been waiting here for two hours, and our train goes at three."
Great Scott! So that is why the poor old souls have been hanging round the door, terrifying us out of our lives.
"All right, we'll be out in five minutes. So sorry. Why didn't you call out before?"
