Upon this morning he went at once out upon the little balcony where they were to breakfast, and murmured his delight, calling Styr to join him with an imperious motion of his head. They had arrived after dark and seen little of the long straggling village on the bank of its narrow stream. Their lodging was at the very end of the street, where the road branches to Ettal, and from the balcony they could see the romantic winding village in the narrow valley, above which towered a peak surmounted by a cross. There were mills with great wheels on the river, dilapidated bridges, peasants in costume, the usual church with its domed steeple high on its terrace, and surrounded by tombs. Even the roofs of the houses were picturesque, the women working in the narrow fields. On all sides, covering the mountains, was the forest, and over all a peace indescribable.
As they had brought their own coffee, and fruit was abundant, they enjoyed their breakfast even if the bread was sour and the butter ill-made; luxuries they had dismissed from their minds. When it was over, leaving Lutz to consult with their hostess, Margarethe and Ordham strolled through the village. Oberammergau resembled many other Bavarian and Tyrolean villages up to a certain point, and then its individuality began. On the plastered façades of the pointed houses were beautiful religious frescoes as soft and mellow as those of Ghirlandajo, and in the church, larger and more graceful than many, were two hideous bedizened skeletons of saints. Protected by glass, and gorgeously arrayed, their awful skulls and hands, chemically preserved, seemed to cry out for the last act of death, which would grant them the dust and oblivion of the grave. The church was half full of men and women, dropped in for a casual prayer, and all dressed in the picturesque garb of Ober-Bayern, so rare these few years later.
Even the people of this village of the Passion Play are different from those of other villages. Bavarian peasants are kindly, but these of Oberammergau have an exquisite and unfailing courtesy, and every child greets the stranger with “_Grüss Gott_,” and runs to kiss his hand. Although it would be several years before the next performance of the Passion Play, many of the men wore their hair long, for a religious drama of some sort is given every year. The very expression of these people indicated a superiority of intelligence and character. All hoped to be chosen, or rechosen, for the next great performance; and few in that village, where the light was as searching as ever was turned upon a throne, but cultivated the best that was in him. It is probably the only spot on Earth where Christianity is a working success.