n quite understand its doing so.
The picture of it used to astonish me, too, when _I_ was a child.

"The scene of Christ's entry into Jerusalem surrounded by the welcoming
multitude, is a wonderful reproduction of life and movement, and so also
is the scene, towards the end, showing his last journey up to Calvary.
All Jerusalem seems to have turned out to see him pass and to follow him,
the many laughing, the few sad. The people fill the narrow streets to
overflowing, and press round the spears of the Roman Guard.

"They throng the steps and balconies of every house, they strain to catch
a sight of Christ above each other's heads. They leap up on each other's
backs to gain a better vantage-ground from which to hurl their jeers at
him. They jostle irreverently against their priests. Each individual
man, woman, and child on the stage acts, and acts in perfect harmony with
all the rest.

"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.

"Th