DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0079
THE MIRACLE-PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU.
63
The miracle-play was at an end; and now the peasants
began once more to breathe and to return to common life ;
and we most heartily rejoiced that this long, long martyr-
dom was over,—a martyrdom in two senses, for a more
fatiguing summer’s-day’s work than the witnessing of this
performance, which, with but one horn’s pause, had lasted
from eight in the morning till five in the evening, cannot
be conceived. How the poor peasants managed to endure
the burning rays of a July sun striking upon their heads
for eight long horns, to say nothing of the heat and fatigue
necessarily caused by the close pressure in the pit, I cannot
imagine. In the boxes, where people were screened from
the sun by awnings, many a face had for hours before
began to assume a pale and jaded look, and many an atti-
tude to betray intense fatigue.
But now all fatigue must be forgotten in the bustle of
departure. There was no time allowed for a moment’s re-
freshment ; the theatre was left in ghastly emptiness in an
incredibly short time. Horses were being harnessed to
carts, Stell-wagen, and all imaginable kind of vehicles
drawn up before the inn and crowding the village street.
There was a cracking of whips, a jingling of horses’ bells, a
rushing to and fro of travellers j people were once more in
their old seats in carts and carriages ; there was a hum of
voices, a waving of hands to departing acquaintances, mostly
of that day’s growth; many an anxious, hurried search
after some missing umbrella or bag; and now all fairly
started !
In^our moment of hurried departure, however, be-
hold the sad, pale face of Tobias Plunger bidding us
adieu ! He had again assumed his Fez and his grey coat,
but the face was yet more gentle and dreamy, as though
the shadow of the cross still lay upon it; and your eyes
sought with a kind of morbid horror for the trace of the
stigmata in those thin white hands, as they waved a parting
63
The miracle-play was at an end; and now the peasants
began once more to breathe and to return to common life ;
and we most heartily rejoiced that this long, long martyr-
dom was over,—a martyrdom in two senses, for a more
fatiguing summer’s-day’s work than the witnessing of this
performance, which, with but one horn’s pause, had lasted
from eight in the morning till five in the evening, cannot
be conceived. How the poor peasants managed to endure
the burning rays of a July sun striking upon their heads
for eight long horns, to say nothing of the heat and fatigue
necessarily caused by the close pressure in the pit, I cannot
imagine. In the boxes, where people were screened from
the sun by awnings, many a face had for hours before
began to assume a pale and jaded look, and many an atti-
tude to betray intense fatigue.
But now all fatigue must be forgotten in the bustle of
departure. There was no time allowed for a moment’s re-
freshment ; the theatre was left in ghastly emptiness in an
incredibly short time. Horses were being harnessed to
carts, Stell-wagen, and all imaginable kind of vehicles
drawn up before the inn and crowding the village street.
There was a cracking of whips, a jingling of horses’ bells, a
rushing to and fro of travellers j people were once more in
their old seats in carts and carriages ; there was a hum of
voices, a waving of hands to departing acquaintances, mostly
of that day’s growth; many an anxious, hurried search
after some missing umbrella or bag; and now all fairly
started !
In^our moment of hurried departure, however, be-
hold the sad, pale face of Tobias Plunger bidding us
adieu ! He had again assumed his Fez and his grey coat,
but the face was yet more gentle and dreamy, as though
the shadow of the cross still lay upon it; and your eyes
sought with a kind of morbid horror for the trace of the
stigmata in those thin white hands, as they waved a parting