Betsy and the Great World / Betsy's Wedding

  Through coffee in the garden and supper back at the dining-room table, they talked about the Passion Play. They kept on talking until they grew sleepy, and then Tante Else urged cookies and milk. Out on their balcony before going to bed, the girls drank in the country dark and silence.

  Breakfast was served back in the garden, dazzling in morning freshness. Second breakfast, Tante Else announced, each one took where he pleased.

  “You’ll never again be able to lament that I haven’t seen German home life,” Betsy told Tilda. For they were treated like daughters. They scattered their belongings from end to end of the Haüschen, and if they went across the Ammer they were given picnic lunches and enough cautions to have brought them safe out of Daniel’s fiery furnace.

  Kindly proud guides, the Baumgartens took them to the church and the great Passion theater that stood on the edge of the village. The stage was in the open air with the natural background of mountains. They went into the dressing rooms. They saw the basin in which the repentant woman bathed the feet of Christ; the table and chairs used for the Last Supper; the cross. They inspected the costumes which were all of the finest materials.

  “They are made by the villagers themselves, copied from famous paintings,” Tante Else said.

  They called on Ottile Zwink, the Virgin Mary of the last Passion Play. Married now, she would not play the part again. She met them at her door in a spotless apron. Betsy, who had expected a pink and white beauty, was surprised.

  “You’d hardly even call her pretty,” she and Tilda agreed later. But she had a sweet tender mouth—like Tacy’s—blue eyes and wavy brown hair.

  Her little parlor was full of Passion Play mementoes. Shyly, she showed them pictures of herself as Mary and autographed one for each.

  As the days went on the girls met many of the actors. They even met the ass used in the entry to Jerusalem. In every home they were shown photograph albums.

  “Family albums, Oberammergau style!” Betsy wrote in her diary-letter. “Instead of ‘This is my aunt’s cousin who was killed falling off a step-ladder,’ we hear, ‘This is my brother-in-law. He played Herodotus in 1900.’”

  Only natives of the village were allowed to take part in the play.

  “How sad for a little girl whose family just moved in!” Betsy exclaimed. “All her playmates would probably be seraphims with three sets of wings apiece, and she couldn’t be even a little old baby angel with one pair.”

  “Ach!” said Tilda. “You’re always making up stories.”

  Every day, wherever else they went, Betsy and Tilda walked through the twisting streets, past curtsying children and their smiling elders, to Anton Lang’s house which was the friendly center of the village. Here too, in Herr Lang’s workshop or Frau Lang’s shining kitchen, the Passion Play was discussed.

  In Oberammergau time was marked not by years but by tens of years. As the villagers made their pottery, or their fine wood carvings, or tilled their fields and gardens, they talked of the Passion Play summer that was fading into the past and of the one that was looming ahead. They presented minor plays now and then.

  “Fine training,” Onkel Max explained, “and a good way to discover talent. It helps the judges decide who shall be picked for the great Passion Play.”

  For this purpose, every tenth year a committee of villagers met in the Town Hall in secret session. It was a solemn religious occasion. Betsy felt prickles along her spine as she listened to Tante Else tell how Anton Lang had been chosen.

  “Nobody expected it. He was only twenty.” His modest hope, Tante Else said, rose no higher than the part of St. John. And he only dreamed of that, talking in secret with his father of how wonderful it would be to play the Beloved Disciple.

  He was at supper in his father’s house. The committee had been in the Town Hall all day. Everyone was on edge. And suddenly shouting neighbors were tapping at every window, and others were crowding through the doorway.

  “Tony is to play the Christus!” they cried. “The committee has picked Tony.”

  Tony’s face went white, Tante Else said. Without a word he rushed into his bedroom.

  One sparkling morning, Betsy and Tilda set off for the monastery of Ettal. It was from Ettal, Herr Lang had told them, that the Passion Play had sprung. The monks had written the earliest known version in 1662.

  Their way led up piney mountain paths. Betsy and Tilda picked flowers and laid them on the roadside shrines. Once they stopped in a meadow for Betsy to teach Tilda the tango. And when the lesson was ended, Betsy ran to an apple tree and broke off blossoms for their hair.

  “These make me think of Joe Willard.”

  “Vy?” Tilda wanted to know, for she was always interested in Joe. “Betsy,” she said in English. “You loff him. For vy you fight?”

  But instead of answering, Betsy swung Tilda into the tango again.

  At Ettal their mood changed. The ancient monastery with its enormous church was startling in this lofty solitude. And the cool hushed cloisters were strange after the blazing spring sunshine.

  The monks who had lived here long ago had done more than write the Passion Play. They had taught the villagers to act by putting on those miracle and morality plays so popular in the Middle Ages. They had taught them music. They had taught them to carve in wood and ivory. The library with its thousands of volumes had been a source of culture.

  “Ettal explains a lot about Oberammergau,” Tilda said thoughtfully, walking homeward, and Betsy agreed. It explained why the people of that village were so different from the run of mountaineers. It explained their gentle manners, their dignity, their cultivated voices. They were even unusually handsome.

  “It doesn’t explain everything though,” Betsy added, and Tilda understood. How about that simple goodness that filled the village like soft air?

  Betsy remembered something Onkel Max had told them. “Generations of boys have grown up here with just one ambition, to play the Christ.”

  They walked on silently for they seemed to be touching the hem of a mystery.

  Tilda said at last, “I wonder how long Oberammergau can keep itself unspotted from the world.”

  “Always,” Betsy answered confidently.

  “Could it survive a war?”

  Betsy faced her, laughing, hands on hips. “You Europeans! There’s never going to be another war.”

  On the last day, of course, they went to say good-by to the Langs. They were in the workshop talking, when a clatter sounded in the street. Excited voices lifted, and Betsy looked out to see a cloud of dust and a low-slung expensive-looking automobile.

  For a moment she was delighted. The young man in the car was obviously American. She was reminded happily of dating and dancing. “Of my gay young days,” she thought and wondered where he came from. But when children ran in shouting that the foreigner wished to speak with the Christus, Betsy’s pleasure fled.

  The young American sprawled behind the wheel, smoking a cigarette, waiting with condescension for Oberammergau’s world-famous Anton Lang to come out into the street and greet him.

  “I’m going out!” Betsy said furiously. “I’ll tell him to go home and learn some manners!”

  But Herr Lang smiled and said, “No, please!” He put down his work, dusted off his hands, and went out to stand bareheaded in the sun and chat with the young tourist who did not remove his hat, did not un-sprawl, and acted, Betsy thought, as though he were inspecting animals in a zoo.

  “I’m ashamed!” she raged to Tilda who, although she was indignant, too, was a little amused at Betsy.

  “It is the first time you have ever admitted that anything American was less than perfect,” Tilda said.

  Betsy kept looking through the window, at Anton Lang in his rough clothes standing in the dust beside that automobile. He didn’t even seem annoyed, although there was a quizzical look in his eyes.

  Anton Lang gave Tilda and Betsy each an autographed picture, and a little pottery angel signed with his name. The Ba
umgartens loaded their charges with flowers, and presents, and packets of lunch, and half of Oberammergau took them to the station behind Hedwig’s rattling cart.

  The girls weren’t leaving together. Tilda, who had to get back to her school, was going by train. Betsy was going by bus, for she wanted to see the Mad King’s castle of Linderhof nearby, before she went over the Brenner Pass to Italy.

  “Liebe, liebe Betsy!” Tilda kept saying as they waited for the train.

  “Dear, dear Tilda!” said Betsy. “But I’ll be coming back in 1917.” That was the date of their planned reunion.

  To keep from feeling weepy, Betsy started a chant such as they used at football games at home.

  “Neunzehn siebzehn! Neunzehn siebzehn!” Nineteen seventeen! Tilda fell in with it, of course.

  Her train arrived; they hugged and kissed, and in a flurry of good-bys she climbed to the platform. Short, erect like a singer, very graceful, her plain little face made lovely by a smile, she called her last farewell. And as the train pulled out, she and Betsy took up the chant again, waving, laughing, crying a little.

  “Neunzehn siebzehn! Neunzehn siebzehn!”

  Yes, Betsy resolved, she was coming back in 1917 and nothing could stop her.

  16

  Betsy Curls Her Hair

  IT WAS NOT QUITE EVENING when Betsy’s train shot out between sky and water to the City of the Sea.

  She was tired, having left Innsbruck early that morning. She was exhausted, too, by her enthusiasm over the Alpine scenery. And there had been an emotional wrench when she left Austria (which seemed just like Bavaria) and descended to Italy’s vineyards and olive orchards, and the air grew warm, sweet, and lazy.

  She had changed trains at Verona. Grateful to find that she shared her compartment with nuns, she had relaxed completely, fully believing that she would not begin to savor Venice until after a good night’s sleep. But sweeping across this bridge into a crystalline world jolted her awake.

  In a moment they were in a bustling railway station and Betsy, clutching her handbag, camera, umbrella, and Complete Pocket Guide, looked about for one, two, or three Signorinas Regali.

  “They shouldn’t be hard to find,” she thought. “Little old ladies in black.” But while she still stood looking around, a young Italian approached, his straw hat in his hand.

  He was very good-looking, with thick black hair, just slightly wavy, and expressive dark eyes that seemed darker and brighter because of heavy brows and lashes. He was olive skinned, clean shaven; white teeth shone when he smiled. To her surprise he spoke in English.

  “Are you Miss Ray?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I am Mark Regali. My aunt asked me to meet you, and some other guests for the Casa delle Rose d’Oro.”

  They shook hands and he beckoned the boy with her bags.

  Emerging from the station, Betsy gasped. Of course she had known that Venice had streets of water. Yet it was a shock to see gondolas and motor boats crowding about the quay like hacks and auto taxis and to hear boatmen crying out for fares. She flashed a delighted look at Mr. Regali.

  They joined two plump ladies—Miss Cook and Mrs. Warren from Philadelphia—and Mr. Regali helped them all into a gondola. This looked excitingly familiar, curving out of the water at both ends, with a small covered cabin in which they seated themselves. The gondolier stood at the stern, his oar in his hands.

  They glided off into the Grand Canal. Dusk had fallen, but there was a moon. It turned the street of water into an even more incredible street of trembling silver. When the clamor of the station died away, there was no sound but the soft plash of an oar and some distant music. Betsy spoke of the silence and Mr. Regali said, smiling at her, “The Grand Canal is in the shape of an S. Italians say this stands for Silenzio.”

  At that moment a shrill whistle blew and a loaded steamboat hurried past, churning up a noisy wash of water. He and Betsy both laughed.

  “That’s a vaporetto. They are our streetcars. They’re very convenient even though they do spoil my story.” He was nice, Betsy thought. She wondered how he happened to speak English.

  Moonlight shimmered over the snowy palaces that rose on either side. They rose straight from the water. Betsy had expected a scrap of lawn or sidewalk in front, but there was none. Just steps, lapped by the waves, and some tall striped posts. These were hitching posts for gondolas, Mr. Regali said.

  As they glided along he pointed out houses in which Wagner had lived, and Browning and Byron. The ladies from Philadelphia peered out and asked, “Where? Which one?” But Betsy was speechless with rapture. She sat with her hands squeezed together, looking at the glimmering city. Byron was right. It did seem to have come from the stroke of an enchanter’s wand.

  “Oh, I love it! I love it!” she thought. “How lucky I am to be here.”

  Mr. Regali looked at her now and then.

  They traversed a network of shadowy small canals and arrived at the House of the Yellow Roses. It was one of a row of white houses and had iron window grilles through which lights were streaming. There were no yellow roses in sight, but there was a sidewalk!

  In the tiny office, crowded with new arrivals, all was confusion. The three Signorinas Regali—small, dark, and dressed in black, as described—welcomed Betsy kindly. One spoke English, and asked her if she would have dinner. She had dined in Verona, Betsy answered. All her fatigue had come back. She was longing for her room—and her mail.

  “Miss Ray has a great deal of mail,” Mr. Regali reminded his aunt and brought it out from the desk at which Betsy was registering. There was a glorious thick pack, bound with a cord. Betsy smiled luminous thanks, and clutching her treasure, she followed the maid up to her room.

  She didn’t even take off her hat before diving into the letters…the first she had received since Sonneberg. Having finished them, she undressed and dropped into bed without even unpacking. It seemed no time at all until sunlight was flooding into her windows along with the hum of bees and a sweet, sweet scent.

  Betsy jumped up. Her room overlooked the garden! And the white walls that enclosed it were covered with climbing roses. There were the yellow roses, and pink and red ones, too! Below her, little paths intersected flower beds, and in a patch of lawn, tables were ready for breakfast.

  Her room had a desk. “Hooray! I’ll lay a story in Venice. A love story, of course.”

  She could hardly wait for her trunk, to get out her books and writing materials. She would go to the Custom House this morning, she planned. Meanwhile she unpacked her suit cases and ran downstairs to breakfast.

  The House of the Yellow Roses was different from the Geiger. Here were no impecunious European students but prosperous American tourists, with flags in their buttonholes and guidebooks open on the table—Miss Cook and Mrs. Warren, four college girls, a doctor with his family, a young man from Harvard and another from Princeton. There was one lone Englishman.

  “Sort of broken down,” Betsy decided. He was well into middle age with a red dissipated face which had once been handsome but wasn’t any more.

  They were all talking of what they would see today—cutting up Venice as though it were a sausage and their days were sandwiches, Betsy thought. No one planned to stay more than a week. Half that time was more common. She was offered numerous sightseeing schedules, and people acted astonished and almost resentful when she said she planned to stay six weeks.

  Mr. Regali, who ate with his aunts, strolled past and said good morning.

  “Don’t get a crush!” one of the college girls warned Betsy. “It won’t do you any good.”

  “What made you think I was going to?”

  “Everyone does. But he’s not susceptible.”

  “And he’s busy making drawings.”

  Harvard turned to Princeton. “Do you suppose they talk us over like that?”

  Mr. Regali strolled past the table again.

  When they rose, the Englishman said to Betsy, “May I offer my services, Miss R
ay, in introducing you to Venice? I have a gondola ordered for ten.”

  “Oh, no thank you!” said Betsy hastily. She groped for an excuse. “I have to go to the Custom House to see about my trunk.”

  “I’ll take you there. It will be a pleasure.” He bowed quickly as though the matter were settled.

  Flushing, Betsy glanced around. Mr. Regali was listening, his black brows drawn together. She would consult his aunts, Betsy thought, and went to the office, but it was empty. Mr. Regali followed her inside.

  “See here!” he said. “Excuse me! But you can’t go out with that fellow.”

  “Oh, dear! I know it. But what am I to do?”

  “You are in my aunts’ care. They would never permit it.”

  “Of course not. But what can I say?” Betsy wailed.

  His answer was stern. “Go back and tell him that you’ve changed your mind. Tell him you don’t think”—he stressed the word—“you’ll be going out today. Then as soon as he’s out of the way, I’ll take you to the Custom House myself.”

  “All right,” said Betsy meekly. It was wonderful to have broad shoulders to drop her problem on.

  When the Englishman had departed, she and Mr. Regali took a vaporetto to the railway station. It was a sunshiny morning with a breeze, and Betsy’s spirits rose like a balloon in the bright Venetian blue. Mr. Regali’s kept pace. Leaning over the rail, they laughed together at the neatness with which they had extricated her from her predicament.

  The Grand Canal was crowded with watercraft, and all around them was a babble of Italian.

  “How do you happen to speak English?” Betsy asked.

  “I lived in the States until I was fifteen.”

  “You did? Where?”

  “Princeton, New Jersey. My father taught in the University. When my parents died, I came here to my aunts. So Venice has been my home for eight years.”

  Then he was twenty-three. Just a year older than she was!

  “Of course, I’ve been off at college,” he added. “Rome.”