IT was intensely cold; Father Rhine was frozen over, so he may speak for
it; and for days we had lived to the merry jangle and clang of
innumerable sleigh bells, in a white and frost-bound world. As I passed
through the streets, crowded with stolidly admiring peasants from the
villages round, I caught the dear remembered ‘Grüss Gott!’ and ‘All’
Heil!’ of the countryside, which town life quickly stamps out along with
many other gentle observances.
“Gelobt sei Jesu Christ!” cried little Sister Hilarius, coming on me
suddenly at a corner, her round face aglow with the sharp air, her arms
filled with queer-shaped bundles. She begs for her sick poor as she goes
along—meat here, some bread there, a bottle of good red wine: I fancy few
refuse her. She nursed me once, the good little sister, with unceasing
care and devotion, and all the dignity of a scant five feet. “Ach, Du
lieber Gott, such gifts!” she added, with a radiant smile, and vanished
up a dirty stairway.
In the Quergasse a jay fell dead at my feet—one of the many birds which
perished thus—he had flown townwards too late. Up at the Jagdschloss the
wild creatures, crying a common truce of hunger, trooped each day to the
clearing by the Jäger’s cottage for the food spread for them. The great
tusked boar of the Taunus with his brother of Westphalia, the timid roe
deer with her scarcely braver mate, foxes, hares, rabbits, feathered
game, and tiny songbirds of the woods, gathered fearlessly together and
fed at the hand of their common enemy—a millennial banquet truly.
The market-place was crowded, and there were Christmas trees everywhere,
crying aloud in bushy nakedness for their rightful fruit. The old
peasant women, rolled in shawls, with large handkerchiefs tied over their
caps, warmed their numb and withered hands over little braziers while
they guarded the gaily decked treasure-laden booths, from whose
pent-roofs Father Winter had hung a fringe of glittering icicles.
Many of the stalls were entirely given over to Christmas-tree splendours.
Long trails of gold and silver _Engelshaar_, piles of candles—red,
yellow, blue, green, violet, and white—a rainbow of the Christian virtues
and the Church’s Year; boxes of frost and snow, festoons of coloured
beads, fishes with gleaming scales, glass-winged birds, Santa Klaus in
frost-bedecked mantle and scarlet cap, angels with trumpets set to their
waxen lips; and everywhere and above all the image of the Holy Child.
Sometimes it was the tiny waxen Bambino, in its pathetic helplessness;
sometimes the Babe Miraculous, standing with outstretched arms awaiting
the world’s embrace—Mary’s Son, held up in loving hands to bless; or the
Heavenly Child-King with crown and lily sceptre, borne high by Joseph,
that gentle, faithful servitor. It was the festival of Bethlehem, feast
of never-ending keeping, which has its crowning splendour on Christmas
Day.
A Sister passed with a fat, rosy little girl in either hand; they were
chattering merrily of the gift they were to buy for the dear Christkind,
the gift which Sister said He would send some ragged child to receive for
Him. They came back to the poor booth close to where I was standing. It
was piled with warm garments; and after much consultation a little white
vest was chosen—the elder child rejected pink, she knew the Christkind
would like white best—then they trotted off down a narrow turning to the
church, and I followed.
The Crêche stood without the chancel, between the High Altar and that of
Our Lady of Sorrows. It was very simple. A blue paper background
spangled with stars; a roughly thatched roof supported on four rude
posts; at the back, ox and ass lying among the straw with which the
ground was strewn. The figures were life-size, of carved and painted
wood: Joseph, tall and dignified, stood as guardian, leaning on his
staff; Mary knelt with hands slightly uplifted in loving adoration; and
the Babe lay in front on a truss of straw disposed as a halo. It was the
World’s Child, and the position emphasised it. Two or three
hard-featured peasants knelt telling their beads; and a group of children
with round, blue eyes and stiff, flaxen pigtails, had gathered in front,
and were pointing and softly whispering. My little friends trotted up,
crossed themselves; it was evidently the little one’s first visit.
“Guck! guck mal an,” she cried, clapping her fat gloved hands, “sieh mal
an das Wickelkind!”
“Dass ist unser Jesu,” said the elder, and the little one echoed “Unser
Jesu, unser Jesu!”
Then the vest was brought out and shown—why not, it was the Christchild’s
own?—and the pair trotted away again followed by the bright, patient
Sister. Presently everyone clattered out, and I was left alone at the
crib of Bethlehem, the gate of the Kingdom of Heaven.
It was my family, my only family; but like the ever-widening circle on
the surface of a lake into which a stone has been flung, here, from this
great centre, spread the wonderful ever-widening relationship—the real
brotherhood of the world. It is at the Crib that everything has its
beginning, not at the Cross; and it is only as little children that we
can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
When I went out again into the streets it was nearly dark. Anxious
mothers hurried past on late, mysterious errands; papas who were not
wanted until the last moment chatted gaily to each other at street
corners, and exchanged recollections; maidservants hastened from shop to
shop with large baskets already heavily laden; and the children were
everywhere, important with secrets, comfortably secure in the knowledge
of a tree behind the parlour doors, and a kindly, generous Saint who knew
all their wants, and needed no rod _this_ year.
One little lad, with a pinched white face, and with only an empty
certainty to look forward to, was singing shrilly in the sharp, still
air, “Zu Bethlehem geboren, ist uns ein Kindelein,” as he gazed wistfully
at a shop window piled high with crisp gingerbread, marzipan, chocolate
under every guise, and tempting cakes. A great rough peasant coming out,
saw him, turned back, and a moment later thrust a gingerbread Santa
Klaus, with currant eyes and sugar trimming to his coat and cap, into the
half-fearful little hands. “Hab’ ebenso ein Kerlchen zu Haus’,” he said
to me apologetically as he passed.
I waited to see Santa Klaus disappear; but no, the child looked at the
cake, sighed deeply with the cruel effort of resistance, and refrained.
It was all his Christmas and he would keep it. He gazed and gazed, then
a smile rippled across the wan little face and he broke out in another
carol, “Es kam ein Engel hell und klar vom Himmel zu der Hirten Schaar,”
and hugging his Santa Klaus carefully, wandered away down the now
brilliant streets: he did not know he was hungry any more; the angel had
come with good tidings.
As I passed along the streets I could see through the uncurtained windows
that in some houses Christmas had begun already for the little ones.
Then the bells rang out deep-mouthed, carrying the call of the eager
Church to her children, far up the valley and across the frozen river.
And they answered; the great church was packed from end to end, and from
my place by the door I saw that two tiny Christmas trees bright with
coloured candles burnt either side of the Holy Child.
A blue-black sky ablaze with stars for His glory, a fresh white robe for
stained and tired earth; so we went to Bethlehem in the rare stillness of
the early morning. The Church, having no stars, had lighted candles; and
we poor sinful men having no white robes of our own had craved them of
the Great King at her hands.
And so in the stillness, with tapers within and stars alight without,
with a white-clad earth, and souls forgiven, the Christ Child came to
those who looked for His appearing.