As we got off the train the little town looked like an exposition, except that there were no exhibits.  English, German, and French spoken constantly, and not infrequently Russian, Spanish, and Italian assailed our ears the whole time we were there.  Only one thing was characteristic.  The native peasants looked different.  The picturesque costume of the Tyrolese men, consisting of velveteen knee breeches, gay coloured stockings, embroidered white blouse, and short bolero jacket with gold braid or fringe, and the Alpine hat, with a pheasant or eagle feather in it, sat jauntily upon most of the young men, whose bold glances and sinewy movements suggested their alert, out-of-door life in their mountain homes.  But the Oberammergau peasants walked with a slower step.  Their eyes were meek instead of roving, their smiles tender instead of saucy, and they say it is all the influence of the Passion Play, which for over three hundred years has dominated their lives.  No one who commits a crime, or who lives an impure life, can act in the great drama, nor can any except natives take part.  And as the ambition of every man, woman, and child in Oberammergau is to form part of this glorious company, the reason for the purity of their aspect is at once to be seen.  No murder, robbery, or crime of any description has been committed in Oberammergau for three hundred years.

The peasants of this little mountain village live their whole lives under the shadow of the cross.

Nor was it long before our little party came under this strange influence.  My own sense of the eternal fitness of things is so highly developed that I was under the tense strain of nervous excitement which always wrecks me after reading a strong novel or witnessing a tragic play.  I was afraid to see the Passion Play for two reasons.  One that I could not bear to see the Saviour of mankind personified, and the other that I was afraid that the audience would misbehave.  If I am going to have my emotions wrenched, I never want any one near me.  To my mind the mad King Ludwig of Bavaria obtained the highest enjoyment possible from having performances of magnificent merit with himself as the sole auditor.  This world is so mixed anyway, and audiences at any entertainment so hopelessly beyond my control.  Nothing, for example, makes me feel so murderous as for an audience to go mad and stamp and kick and howl over a cornet solo with variations, no matter how ribald, and beg for more of it.  And they always do!

The Passion Play, up to a comparatively few years ago, had comic characters and scenes, as for instance, there was once a scene in hell where the Devil, as chief comedian, ripped open the bowels of Judas and took therefrom a string of sausages.  This vulgar and hideous buffoonery was in the habit of being received with delight by the peasants from neighbouring hamlets, which, up to fifty years ago, formed the principal part of the Passion Play audiences.