Wolfram watching them from his distance sighs gently: "Thus fades from all my life the light of hope!" Tannhaeuser, encountering him as he hastens away, lets a wave of his joy overflow in an impetuous embrace of the friend.

Elizabeth stands on the terrace overlooking the castle-court and the valley to watch the lover out of sight, moved and simply happy as a woman who is not a saint. Her whiteness loves that colour; her paleness warms itself at that glow; her gentleness glories in that force. She makes no question but that he is worthy of her love. Her high spirituality has intuition no doubt of the vast potentialities of good in that superabundant life, which of itself seems a virtue as well as a charm.

When the Landgrave enters she cannot bear his searching eyes upon her transparent face, and hides it against his breast. "Do I find you in this hall which for so long time you have avoided? You are lured at last by the song-festival we are preparing?" he questions her. She cannot answer, she falters: "My uncle!... Oh, my kind father!"—"Are you moved at last," he asks kindly, "to open your heart to me?" She lifts her face and bravely raises her eyes. "Look into my eyes, for speak I cannot!" He reads, and does not press her. "Let then for a brief space longer your sweet secret remain unspoken. Let the spell remain unbroken until yourself you have power to loose it. Be it as you please! Song, which has awakened and set working such wonders, shall to-day unfold the same and crown them with consummation. Let the Lovely Art now take the work in hand. The nobles of my lands already are assembling, bidden by me to a singular feast. In greater numbers they flock than ever before, having heard that you are to be Princess of the gathering."

The Hall of Minstrels gradually fills with these same nobles and their ladies. They salute the Landgrave and the Princess, and take their places to the well-known, long-loved march. The minstrels have seats apart from the rest, facing their audience. The Landgrave addresses them nobly, with gracious compliment for the skill shown theretofore by them in singing as in fighting, for their victorious championship of virtue and the true faith, high tradition and all things lovely. Let them offer the guests to-day a banquet of song, upon the occasion of the return among them of the "daring singer" whose absence they so long had deplored, whom a wonderful mystery has brought back into their neighbourhood. He sets to the song-contestants as their task to define the nature of love. He who shall most worthily besing it shall receive the prize from Elizabeth's hand. Let his demand be bold as he will, the Landgrave's care it shall be to see his wish granted.

Lots are drawn. Fortune appoints Wolfram to open the song-feast. He preludes pensively, and sets forth in an improvisation of slow and stately gait his delicate dreamer's sentiments: Glancing around this noble assemblage, his heart kindles at sight of so many heroes, valiant, German, and wise,—a proud oak-forest, verily, splendid, fresh and green. And among them fair and virtuous ladies, fragrant garland of beauteous flowers. The eye swoons, drunken with gazing, the poet's song grows mute before such splendour of loveliness. He fixes his eyes, then, upon one only of the stars in that dazzling firmament. His spirit is forced to worship and bow in prayer. And, behold, the vision he has of a miraculous fount, from which his spirit may draw sacred joys, his heart receive ineffable refreshment. And never would he wish to trouble that fountain, never with criminal presumption stir those waters,—but offer himself up to it in self-sacrificing adoration, and shed for its sake the last of his blood. From these words the company may apprehend what he conceives to be the nature of love at its purest.

There is warm applause from the noble knights and ladies, whether because they understand the star to be Elizabeth, and the fountain the pure love she inspires, or because it was the ideal of that period of song-contests and Courts of Love and chivalry to love with a reverence that precluded any near approach to the lady elected for adoration. A poet might marry and have seven children, while regarding with exalted passion and celebrating in enraptured song,—making into his star, his sacred fountain, his Muse, some dazzling remote princess, held to be too fair and good by far for human nature's daily food. The audience, when Wolfram resumes his seat, cry: "So it is! So it is!" and loudly praise his song.

Tannhaeuser has lent ear somewhat listlessly. This hall has been called his rightful kingdom; he sits among the other minstrels consciously like a young monarch. At the closing figure of Wolfram's rhapsodical rhetoric, the image of the fount, a shadowy smile of superiority has dawned upon his face. As the applause dies, he grasps his harp and rises to take exception to Wolfram's definition. Such a song-feast was in fact a song-debate. His words come warm and ready: "I too, Wolfram, may call myself so fortunate as to behold what you have beheld. Who is there unacquainted with that fountain? Hear me loudly exalt its virtue! But yet can I not approach those waters without sense of warm longing. That burning thirst I must cool. Comforted I set lips to the spring. In full draughts I drink joy, unmixed with doubt or fear, for inexhaustible is the fountain, even as inextinguishable is my desire. That my longing therefore may be prolonged eternally, eternally I drink refreshment at the well. Know Wolfram, thus do I conceive of love's truest essence!"

There is deep silence when he has ended. One person only in the large assemblage has given a sign of approval, made a little gesture of assent, and that is Elizabeth, at bottom a very simple normal woman, who does not recognise herself as a star or a sacred well unapproachable to the one she loves. But as all refrain, she timidly checks herself, and waits to hear the rest.

Walther has taken his harp, has risen; in growing excitement, touched with indignation, he sweeps the strings: "The fountain spoken of by Wolfram, by the light of the soul I too have looked into its depths! But you, who thirst to drink at it, you, Heinrich, know it verily not! Permit me to tell you, accept the lesson: That fountain is true virtue. Devoutly you shall worship it and sacrifice to its limpid purity. Should you lay lip to it, to cool your unhallowed passion, nay, should you but sip at the outermost brim, forever gone were its miraculous power! If you shall gain life from that fountain, through the heart, not the palate, must you seek refreshment!" Again there is lively applause. Tannhaeuser springs to his feet, the old contemptuousness toward these companions,—compends of density, conventionality, and hypocrisy!—curving his lip. "Oh, Walther, singing as you have done, how direly have you misrepresented love! Through such languors and timidities as you describe, the world would unmistakably go dry! To the glory of God in his exalted distance, gaze at the heavens, gaze at its stars. Pay tribute of worship to such marvels, because they pass your comprehension. But that which lends itself to human touches, which lies near to your heart and senses, that which, formed of the same clay as yourselves, in a softer shape nestles against your side, the tribute called for by that is hearty pleasure of love. Enjoyment, I say, is the essence of love!"

At this, which falls upon all ears present with the effect of rank blasphemy, Biterolf rises in wrath. "Out, out, to fight against us all. Who could be silent hearing you? If your arrogance will vouchsafe to listen, hear, slanderer, me too! When high love inspires me, it steels my weapons with courage; to save it from indignity proudly would I pour forth my last blood. For the honour of women and of lofty virtue I unsheathe my knightly sword,—but that which your youth is pleased to call pleasure is cheap enough and worth no single blow!" The audience cheer him enthusiastically: "Hail, Biterolf, our good blade!" Tannhaeuser can no longer contain himself. It is now again quite as it used to be, when never could he live at peace with these purblind tortoises, dull of wit to the point of amazement, and yet pretending to pronounce upon things, pass judgment upon others. What can there be but warfare forever between him and them? But that Biterolf, this war-worn, middle-aged, rugged minstrel should take it upon himself to instruct Heinrich Tannhaeuser, pupil of Venus, in matters of love! His retort comes quick, from the shoulder, so to speak, though the form is not dropped of fitting his words to chords of the peaceful harp: "Ha, fond braggart, Biterolf! Is it you, singing about love, grim wolf? But you can hardly have meant that which I hold worthy to be enjoyed. What, you poverty-stricken wight—what pleasure of love may have fallen to your share? Not rich in love your life has been! And such joys as may have sprouted along your path, indeed, were hardly worthy of a blow!"—"Let him not be allowed to finish! Forbid his insolence!" cry the incensed nobles, who had suffered Biterolf's personal attack, but find insufferable this of the over-splendid, over-bearing, over-confident youth. Biterolf's sword has leaped from its scabbard. The Landgrave orders it back. "Preserve peace, you singers!"

A hush falls as Wolfram takes the floor again. He had sacrificed every selfish hope to serve both Elizabeth and Tannhaeuser, had employed himself to further their union. What now is happening is plainly terrible to him. His opinion of the friend has undergone in the last moments a grievous subversion. He has been wounded to the soul by the bold and profane tone of Tannhaeuser's argument. His sensibility detects an atmosphere of sin about this novel love's advocate, and as a good and pious knight he is forced to array himself against the friend, to uphold Ideal Love in antagonism to the Carnal Love he has just heard exalted. "Oh, Heaven, hear my prayer and consecrate my song!" he sings, a pale flame informing his song, as, imaginably, his cheek and eye; "Let me see evil banished from this pure and noble circle! To you, Highest Love, let my song resound, inspired, to you that in angelic beauty have penetrated deep into my soul. As a messenger from Heaven do you appear to us; I follow from afar. You guide us toward the regions where immortally shines your star!"

Tannhaeuser, exasperated, reckless, frenzied with that temperamental need of his to dominate, that impatience of being lessoned, losing sight of all but one thing, that it shall be proved to them they can teach nothing about love to him, the lover of the very Goddess of Love, seizes his harp, his sword in this duel, and breaks forth in his impassioned Praise of Venus,—the song we heard in the heart of her Hill, when he celebrated her at her own bidding, in conclusion begging so lamely for his dismissal. "To you, Goddess of Love, shall my song resound! Loud shall your praises now be sung by me! Your sweet beauty is the source of all that is beautiful, and every lovely miracle has its origin in you! He who aglow has enfolded you in his arms, he knows, and he alone, what love is! Oh, you poor-spirited, who have never tasted love, go,—to the Hill of Venus repair!"

The last words have the effect of a thunder-clap, in the consternation they produce. Tannhaeuser in the drunkenness of his pride had forgotten what this revelation would mean in the ears he trumpeted it to; in his long sojourn in the pagan underworld, where his moral judgment had become dulled and perverted, had forgotten, apparently, how the Christian world regarded such commerce with it as his words betrayed. That mysterious Hoerselberg looming in the distance was in popular thinking the very ante-chamber of Hell; its pleasures, paid in the world to come with eternal damnation, were rewarded in this world with excommunication and death. One who had frequented it was sin-polluted, sin-drenched, he poisoned the air with sin. All shrink back at his announcement as from a leper. The women flee precipitately from the contamination of his neighbourhood. It is like a flight of gorgeous birds. The men's instant and only thought is to immolate him, cleanse the earth of the inexpressible blot upon it that he is. "He has luxuriated in the pleasures of Hell! He has dwelled in the Hill of Venus! Abominable! Accursed! Bathe your swords in his blood! Hurl him back into the fiery lake!"

Tannhaeuser stands with drawn sword facing their multitude. They are advancing toward him, his doom seems sealed,—when Elizabeth's body is found interposed shield-wise between him and their swords. Their hands are necessarily stayed. "What do we see?" their wondering question runs, "What? Elizabeth? The chaste virgin protecting the sinner?"—"Back!" the meek maiden commands with vigour enough at this pass, "or I shall not regard death! What are wounds from your swords beside the death-stroke I have received from him?" Tannhaeuser starts like one awakening. He had not thought of this aspect of his action; the pride relaxes suddenly that had stiffened him. "Elizabeth!" her uncle argues with her, and the others add their voices to his, "What must I hear? How has your heart allowed itself to be stultified, that you should attempt to save from punishment the man who, added to all else, has so dreadfully betrayed you?"—"What does it matter about me?" she cries; "But he—his soul's salvation! Would you rob him of his soul's eternal salvation?" He has cast away all chance of that, they affirm; never can he gain salvation. The curse of Heaven is upon him, let him die in his sins! At their threatening approach, she spreads her arms resolutely before him. She towers tall and white, she speaks with strange authority. "Back from him! Not you are his judges! Cruel ones, cast from you the barbarous sword, and give heed to the word of the stainless virgin! Learn through me what is the will of God. The unhappy man whom a potent dreadful enchantment holds bound, what, shall he never come to Heaven through repentance and expiation in this world? You who are so strong in the pure faith, do you apprehend so ill the mind of the Most High? Would you take away the hope of the sinner? State then what wrong he has done to you. Behold me, the maiden, whose blossom he shattered with a swift blow, me, who loved him to the depths of being, and whose heart he pierced with a jubilant laugh... I plead for him, I plead for his life! Let his feet be turned into the path of penitence. Let the courage be restored to him of the faith that for him too the Saviour died!" In a spasm of realisation and self-horror the unhappy Tannhaeuser hides his face and sinks to the earth. The angry lords have calmed under the Princess's exhortation. They see in her an angel descended from Heaven to announce the holy will of God. Who could persist in violence after hearing the supplications of an angel?

Tannhaeuser has come at last completely to himself, to a clear vision, by light of that heavenly goodness, of what he has been, what he has done. Sapped of its pride, his spirit grovels helplessly in the lowest depths of abasement. "To lead the sinner to salvation, the God-sent came to me, but I, alas, to touch her impiously, I lifted upon her eyes of vice. Oh, Thou, far above the vale of earth, who didst send to me this angel of salvation, have mercy upon me who, ah! so deeply steeped in sin, did such ignoble wrong to the mediatrix of Heaven!"

The Landgrave decides upon the course to be taken. An abominable crime has been committed; in hypocritical disguise the accursed son of sin has slipped into their midst. Among them he may not remain, the displeasure of Heaven already lowers upon this roof which too long has covered him. One road is open to the sinner, which, while rejecting him, the Landgrave points out—let him take advantage of it to his welfare! Numerous bands of penitents are starting from this region on pilgrimage to Rome for the great Pardon. The older have left already; the younger are still gathering in the valley. Let Tannhaeuser join them, go with them to the Holy City, fall upon his knees and do penance for his sin. Let him cast himself before him who speaks the decrees of God upon earth, entreat his blessing, and never return if he fail to obtain it. For if their vengeance stay its hand at the prayer of an angel, their swords will not fail to reach him if he continue in his sin. The chant comes wafted from the distance of those younger pilgrims gathering for departure: "At the great feast of peace and pardon, humbly confess your sins. Blessed is the firm in faith, he may be absolved through contrition and penance."

A ray of hope illumines Tannhaeuser's face. He starts up from his knees, and with a wild cry, "To Rome!" rushes forth from the Hall.

III

The story is taken up again when the valley all green and blossoming at our first sight of it has assumed melancholy autumn colours. Wolfram walking at sunset comes upon Elizabeth prostrate in prayer at the foot of the road-side shrine. He watches her with eyes of profoundest compassion. "Full well did I know that I should find her here, as so often I find her, when in lonely wandering I descend from the wooded heights to the valley. With death in her heart from the blow dealt to her by him, outstretched in burning anguish, night and day she prays—Oh, eternal strength of a holy love!—for his redemption. She awaits the return of the pilgrims from Rome. Already the leaves are falling, their home-coming is at hand. Is he among the pardoned? That is her question, that her continual prayer. Oh, if her wound is such as cannot be healed, yet let alleviation be vouchsafed to it!"

The chant dawns upon the distance of the returning pilgrims. Elizabeth rises to her feet, wan and worn and frail. "It is their song,—they are coming home!" To steady her poor, agitated, failing heart, she calls upon the saints and prays them to instruct her in her part, that she may fulfil it worthily.

The band of pilgrims comes in sight; they pass, as earlier, in front of the image of Mary, lifting their voices in an anthem of solemn joy. Elizabeth looks into the face of every one of them as they pass. They have defiled before her to the last. He is not among them.

They wind their way out of sight, their last Halleluyah dies. Elizabeth falls at the Virgin's feet, and, with the fervour of one who is praying for very life, prays for death. "All-powerful Virgin, hear my prayer! To thee, favoured among women, I appeal! I bow in the dust before thee, oh, take me from this earth! Make me pure and like to an angel, fit to enter thy blessed kingdom. If ever, possessed by a fond insanity, my heart was turned from thee; if ever a sinful desire, a worldly longing, took root in me,—with a thousand pains I have striven to kill it in my heart. But if I cannot wholly atone for that fault, do thou mercifully condescend to me, that I may with humble salutation approach thee, made worthy to become thy servant,—only to implore thine intercession rich in grace for his sin, only to implore thine intercession for his sin!" She is very woman to her last breath, the saint. She has failed on earth to gain the coveted sign of pardon for him,—his not returning with the others can only mean that he is not among the pardoned; it means perhaps even that he did not accomplish the pilgrimage at all.... She renounces him before Heaven, as if by that sacrifice to propitiate the powers above, and desires to be given entrance through death to that higher court where she still may intercede for him,—perhaps, when she is an angel, with better effect. She rises from prayer with the appearance of one upon whom already the hand of death is laid. Wolfram, who notes her feeble step and bloodless cheek, whose faithful heart understands all, solicitous for her, asks if be may not escort her home. Without speaking, by gentle gesture and shake of the head she declines, and he watches her solitary figure slowly ascending the path toward the castle, until it has disappeared from sight.

A mortal sadness is upon him, but a sadness mild as his nature. This poet can at the darkest pass still turn his sorrows into song. With song he now tries to administer to his oppressed heart consolation. He feels softly along the strings of his harp. His thoughts are full of Elizabeth, his soul apprehends what journey her soul is preparing for. The terror of it, as well as the hope illumining the dark way, he sees symbolised in the surrounding darkening scene, over which now breaks the light of the evening star. "Like the premonition of death twilight envelops the land, enfolds the valley in a dusky garment. The soul, yearning for yonder heights, shrinks from the journey through night and terrors. Then do you appear, O loveliest among the stars! You shed your light afar. Your beloved beams cleave the nocturnal twilight, and benignly you show us the way out of the valley.... Oh, you, my sweetly-beaming evening star, whom I have ever greeted so gladly,—do you greet, when she rises past you, on her way from the vale of earth to become a blessed angel beyond the stars, do you greet her from the heart that has never failed in its truth to her!" A long time he continues sitting in the twilight valley, gazing at the setting star, making his harp express the emotions he has not the heart any more to formulate with his lips. It grows night, the evening star goes out.

A shape in ragged pilgrim's-garb, supporting itself upon a pilgrim's-staff, as if walking were scarcely possible without, from terrible weariness, approaches the minstrel. "I heard harp-chords," the tottering wayfarer speaks to himself; "How mournful they sounded! Hardly might such music come from her!"—"Who are you, pilgrim, wandering thus alone?" Wolfram addresses the shadowy figure. "Who I am?" comes the reply, "And yet I know you well enough. You are Wolfram, that highly-accomplished minstrel!"—"Heinrich!" cries Wolfram, not to be mistaken in that mocking voice,—with the scorn of which is mingled so much wild bitterness that the hearer is made certain this pilgrim is returned under different conditions from all the rest. "Heinrich, you?... What brings you in this neighbourhood? Speak! Are you so bold as, unabsolved, to have let your feet take the road to this region?"—"Be without fear, my good minstrel, I am not come looking for you nor any of your tribe. But I am looking for one who shall show me the road... the road which of old I found so easily!"—"What road do you mean?"—"The road to the Hill of Venus!" Wolfram recoils. "Do you know that road?" persists Heinrich. "Madman! Horror seizes me to hear you!" the pious knight shudders; "Where have you been? Tell me, did you not go to Rome?"—"Speak not to me of Rome!"—"Were you not present at the holy festival?"—"Speak not of it to me!"—"Then you have not been?... Tell me, I conjure you!" The answer comes, after a dark pause, with an effect of boundless bitterness: "Aye, I too was in Rome!"—"Then speak! Tell me of it, unhappy man! I feel a vast compassion for you surging within my breast!" Tannhaeuser in the nigh darkness regards him for a moment with astonishment; he speaks more gently, moved in spite of himself by such gentleness. "What is that you say, Wolfram? Are you not my enemy?"—"Never was I such—while I believed you pure of purpose! But speak, you went on the pilgrimage to Rome?"—"Well, then,—listen! You, Wolfram, shall hear all." Exhausted he drops on a projection of rock, but when Wolfram would seat himself beside him he waives him violently off. "Do not come near me! The place where I rest is accursed!... Hear, then, Wolfram, hear!" He had started, he relates, on his pilgrimage to Rome with such passion of repentance in his heart as never penitent felt before. An angel had shattered in him the pride of sin. For that angel's sake he would do penance with the last humility, seek the salvation he had forfeited,—that the tears might be sweetened which angelic eyes had shed for him, sinner. The devotions, austerities, self-castigations of the other pilgrims had seemed to him all too light. When they trod the greensward, he chose flints and thorns; when they refreshed themselves at roadside springs, he absorbed instead the thirst-breeding heat of the sun; when they but prayed, he shed his blood to the praise of the Most High; when they turned into the shelter of Alpine sanctuaries, he made ice and snow his bed; with closed eyes—climax of self-denial!—with closed eyes, that he might not behold the wonder of them, he passed unseeing through the lovely plains of Italy! All this because he wished to atone to the point of self-annihilation, that the tears might be sweetened of his angel. He had reached Rome, he had bowed praying upon the threshold of the holy place. Day had dawned, bells were pealing, heavenly anthems resounding. Then he through whom God manifests Himself to man had passed through the kneeling crowd. He had given absolution, had promised grace, to thousands; thousands he had sent away rejoicing. Tannhaeuser had approached him, had knelt in the dust, had confessed the evil joys he had known, the terrible craving which no self-mortification had availed yet to quiet; he had cried to him, in agony, for deliverance from these burning fetters. And the one thus appealed to had pronounced: "If you have shared in such evil pleasure, inflamed yourself at the fire of Hell, if you have sojourned in the Hill of Venus, to all eternity you are damned! Even as the staff in my hand can never more clothe itself with fresh green, even so can never out of the conflagration of Hell redemption blossom for you!" The pilgrim thus addressed had sunk to the earth, annihilated. Consciousness had forsaken him. When he awoke, it was night in the deserted square. Sounds came from the distance of happy hymns of thanksgiving. A passion of disgust had seized him for the pious songs; an icy horror of their lying promises of redemption. With wild steps he had fled,—drawn back to the place where such great joys, such ineffable delight, he had found of old upon her warm breast. "To you, Venus, Lady,"—he cries out in a frenzy of loathing for what lies behind, and of longing to escape, "to you I am come back!—come back to your lovely night of enchantment! Descend will I to your court, where your beauty shall shine upon me forevermore!" Wolfram tries vainly to stop him. He will not be stopped,—all the more ardently he calls: "Oh, let me not seek in vain! How easily once did I find my way to you! You have heard that men curse me; now, sweetest goddess, guide me to yourself!... Ha!" he cries, in a moment, to Wolfram wrestling all unheeded to turn him from his deadly purpose, "Ha, do you not feel soft gusts of air?... Do you not smell exquisite odours?... Do you not hear jubilant music?" Rosy vapours are rolling near; dancing forms define themselves in the soft increasing glow. Tannhaeuser madly calls them to him, while struggling to release himself from Wolfram's obstinate hold. "It is the dancing rout of the nymphs! Come hither! Come hither, to pleasure and delight! Oh, enchantment pervades all my senses, at beholding once more that rosy light of dawn! It is the magic realm of love, we are entering into the Hill of Venus!"—"Woe!" shudders Wolfram; "It is evil sorcery unfolding its insidious snares! It is Hell approaching at mad career!"

The radiant form of Venus appears in the midst of the rosy atmosphere, Venus holding out to the recreant knight her perfect arms. "Welcome, faithless man! Has the world condemned and rejected you? And do you, finding no mercy anywhere, come seeking love now in my arms?" Wolfram speaks exorcisms rapid and vigorous as he can, while Tannhaeuser stretches his hands toward the soft vision: "Oh, Venus, Lady, rich in forbearance! To you, to you I come!" With tenderest smiles she holds forth forgiveness. "Since you are returned to my threshold, your revolt shall be condoned. The well of joy shall gush for you forever, never shall you go from me again!" With the desperate cry: "All hope of Heaven is lost to me, I choose therefore the pleasures of Hell!" Tannhaeuser tears himself free from Wolfram. Wolfram seizes him again, calling upon the help of the Almighty, not to be thrown off. The battle over Tannhaeuser is hot between Wolfram and Venus, this one calling him to her, that one physically holding him back, while the insensate man orders him off, tries to loose himself and rush to her. "Heinrich, one word—" Wolfram makes the last appeal; "One word and you are free! Oh, sinner though you be, you shall yet be saved. An angel prayed for you on earth; ere long, shedding benedictions, she will hover above you... Elizabeth!"

Tannhaeuser had violently wrested himself from Wolfram, but the name roots him to the spot. "Elizabeth!" It is as if to reach Venus now he must first thrust her aside. The spell of that name changes in an instant the current of his being; fills his eyes with a memory that blots out the riot of rose-faces and golden hair toward which all his desire had pitched him.

Moving torches spot the darkness of the road winding down from the Wartburg; voices are heard approaching, chanting a dirge. "Peace to the soul" the words come floating, "just escaped from the clay of the saintly sufferer!" Wolfram understands but to well. "Your angel pleads for you now before the throne of God. Her prayer is heard. Heinrich, you are saved!" With a cry of "Woe! Lost to me!" the apparition vanishes of Venus and her train; the hill-side mysteriously engulfs them.

The torches flicker nearer, the singing becomes louder. "Do you hear it?" Wolfram asks of Tannhaeuser, who stands transfixed, corpse-like still and pale and staring. "I hear it!" he murmurs in a dying voice.

The funeral train, pilgrims, nobles, minstrels, Landgrave, descend into the valley chanting their requiem. At a motion of Wolfram's they set down the uncovered bier at the foot of the Virgin's shrine. In the torch-light they recognise the unhappy Tannhaeuser. Seized with pity at sight of his ravaged countenance, "Holy," they sing, "the pure one who now united to the host of Heaven stands before the Eternal. Blessed the sinner over whom she wept, for whom she now implores the salvation of Heaven!"

She lies outstretched, still and serene, all white beneath her white pall. She has saved him, after all,—by dying. Her dead body has barred his way back to Venus. The infinitely-tired and worn pilgrim, destroyed by the violence of his passions good and bad, with faltering steps,—helped, in the faintness of death upon him, by Wolfram,—approaches the white bier. He sinks down beside it, giving up his proud soul in the so humble prayer: "Sainted Elizabeth, pray for me!"

And behold, a second band of pilgrims arriving from the Holy City announce a miracle: The dry staff in the Pope's hand, which he had declared should sooner return to bloom than so black a sinner be forgiven, had in the night burst into leaf and blossom; and order had gone forth to proclaim the sign through all lands, that the forgiven sinner should learn of it. The company lift their voices in awe and exaltation: "Salvation and grace have been granted to the sinner! He has entered into the peace of the blessed!"

The warfare between soul and sense is presented by Wagner with singular fairness. The pilgrims' song is very beautiful, and beautiful is all the music of good in the opera of Tannhaeuser. The Venus-music is certainly equally beautiful; perhaps, to the superficial ear, is a little more beautiful still: the goddess's own Call, penetrating, wonderful; the well-nigh irresistible song of the Sirens. The Bacchic dance, which stands we suppose for the animal element in love, the Satyr part in man, is hardly beautiful; yet the love-music as a whole, we can concede without difficulty, carries it over the sacred music in beauty of a sort, even as the goddess would have carried off the palm of beauty over the saint. The power of the music of good, as Wagner lets us see, lies just in the fact that it is good; the final victory of the saint in the fact that she is a saint, and that from a mysterious eternal bias of human nature man finally must prefer good. He has a soul, he cannot help himself; that, as we have seen, is the secret reason why Venus cannot forever completely content him, why the pale hand of the saint, beckoning him at the end of a penitential pilgrimage diversified with every sort of suffering, draws him still on and upward.

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN

I

A Dutch sea-captain, so long before the date of the play that his story at the time of it is an old legend, finding himself baffled during a storm in his effort to double certain cape, swore a great oath that he would persist to the end of time. The Devil heard him and took him at his word. He was doomed eternally to sail the seas. But an angel of the Lord interposed, and obtained for him a condition of release: Every seven years he might land and woo a woman; if he could find one to love him faithfully until death, the curse upon him would be defeated, he would be saved.

The Ouverture paints a great storm at sea, and contrasts the two ships that are drawing toward the same bay of refuge in the coast, the phantom ship with its crew of ghosts and their sinister sea-cry, the common substantial other craft with its comfortable flesh-and-blood sailors.

As the curtain rises upon the turbulent sea and black weather, the Norwegian vessel has got safely within the haven. While the sailors furl sails, cast cables, the captain, Daland, comes ashore and climbs upon a rock to study the landscape. He recognises the spot, seven miles from the harbour of home where his daughter Senta awaits his return, whom he had thought by this hour to be clasping in his arms. "But he who counts upon the wind," he philosophises, "is counting upon the mercy of Satan!" There is nothing to do but wait until the storm subsides. He returns on board, sends the tired crew below to rest after their long struggle with the storm, leaves the watch to the mate, and himself retires to the cabin. The mate, alone on deck, after going the round, seats himself at the helm. The violence of the storm has somewhat diminished, the sky has lightened. To keep awake, he sings,—a love-song, ingenuous as sailors are; which does not however fulfil its purpose, for the singer, more and more oppressed with drowsiness, drops off before the last bar.

The storm once more gathers force, the sky darkens. A ship appears in the distance, with blood-red sails and black masts. It rapidly nears shore and noiselessly turns into the bay beside Daland's. The anchor drops with a crash. The Norwegian mate starts, but, half-blind with sleep, discerning nothing to take alarm at, drops off again. Without a sound the crew of the strange ship furl their sails and coil their ropes. The captain, singularly pale, black-bearded, in a black Spanish costume of long-past fashion, lands alone. It is he whom ballads call the Flying Dutchman. Seven years have passed since he last touched land. His opportunity has returned, to reach out for salvation. He comes ashore wearily, perfunctorily, without hope, or doubt but that the ocean will soon be receiving him back for continued desperate wanderings. "Your cruelty, proud ocean," he apostrophises it, "is variable, but my torment eternal! The salvation which I seek on land, never shall I find it. To you, floods of the boundless main, I shall be found faithful until your last wave break and your last moisture dry!

"How often—" he cries, as in fixed despair he gazes back over the past, "How often, filled with longing to die have I cast myself into the deepest abysses of the sea, but death, alas! I could not find! Against the reefs where ships find dreadful burial I have driven my ship, but it found no grave! Inciting him to rage, I have defied the pirate—I hoped to meet with death in fierce battle. 'Here,' I have cried, 'show your prowess! Full of treasure are ship and boat! But the wild son of the sea trembling hoisted the sign of the cross and fled. Nowhere a grave! Never to die! Such is the dreadful sentence of damnation. Oh, tell me, gentle angel of God's, who won for me the possibility of salvation, was I, wretch, the toy of your mockery when you showed me the means of redemption? Vain hope! Fearful, idle illusion! There is no such thing more upon earth as eternal fidelity, One hope alone is left me, one hope alone which nothing can destroy. However long the seed of earth endure, it must come to final dissolution. Day of Judgment, end of the world! When shall you dawn upon my night? When shall it sound, the trump of doom, at which the earth will crumble away? When all the dead arise, then shall I pass into nothingness. O ye worlds, a term to your course! Eternal void, receive me!" From the hold of the phantom-ship the unseen crew echo his prayer: "Eternal void, receive us!"

He is leaning against a rock, absorbed in sombre meditation, when Daland, emerging from the cabin to take a look at the weather, becomes aware of the looming neighbour. He rouses the sleep-drunken mate. The latter, shocked wide-awake by the conviction of negligence, catches up a speaking-trumpet and calls to the strange ship lying at anchor close by, "Who is there?" There comes no sound in reply, save from the echo. "Answer!" shouts the mate; "Your name and colours!" Silence, as before. "It appears they are quite as lazy as we!" Daland remarks, finding nothing particularly noteworthy in the unresponse, since his own crew are asleep too after their long toil. Catching sight of the dark figure on shore which he rightly takes to be the captain, he prevents the mate's further investigation, and turns his questions to this one: "Halloo, seaman! Give your name! Your country?" The answer comes after a long pause, almost as if the speaker had lost the habit of human intercourse and uttered himself with difficulty. "I have come from afar. Do you, in such stress of weather, deny me anchorage?"—"God forbid! The seaman knows the friendly courtesies of hospitality!" cries Daland. Joining the stranger ashore, "Who are you?" he asks. "Hollander."—"God be with you! So you too were driven by the hurricane on to the bare rocky coast? I had no better fate. My home is but a few miles from here; I had nearly reached it when I was forced to turn and sail away. Tell me, whence are you come? Has your ship sustained damage?"—"My ship is strong, nor likely to meet with damage," the Hollande, answers, as drearily as mysteriously; "Driven by storms and adverse winds I have been wandering over the face of the waters—how long? I hardly could tell. I have long ceased to count the years. I hardly could name all the lands I have approached. One land alone, the one which of all I long for, I can never find,—the land of home! Grant me for a short period the hospitality of your house, and you shall not rue the act of friendliness. My ship is richly laden with treasures from every region and latitude. If you will traffic with me, you may be sure of your advantage."—"How wonderful!" says Daland, impressed; "Am I to take you at your word? An evil star, it would seem, has so far pursued you. I am ready to do what I can to serve you. But—may I ask what is the cargo of your ship?" The Hollander makes a sign to the watch. His sailors bring ashore a chest. "The rarest treasures you shall see, precious pearls and noblest gems," the stranger speaks to the wide-eyed Daland. "See for yourself, and be convinced of the value of the price I offer for the hospitality of your roof." The lid of the chest is lifted. Daland stares amazed at the contents. "What? Is it possible? These treasures?—But who is so rich as to have an equivalent to tender?"—"Equivalent? I have told you—I offer this for a single night's lodging. What you see, however, is an insignificant portion of that which the hold of my ship contains. Of what avail to me is the treasure? I have neither wife nor child, and my home I can never find. All my riches I will give you, if you will afford me a home with you and yours." Daland cannot believe that he hears aright. "Have you a daughter?" inquires the Hollander. "I have, indeed, a most dear child."—"Let her be my wife!" Again Daland cannot believe his ears, cannot be sure whether he is asleep or awake. It is suggested later that he cares unduly for wealth; but, without supposing him avaricious, we can realise how what is offered at this moment should seem such to his simple sailor mind that a man must be outright mad not to grasp at it for the inconceivable happiness and splendour of himself and house. No flesh-and-blood girl, no daughter of the common fellow he is, can to his mind be a reasonable equivalent, really, for the mass of riches proposed in exchange for her. Daland nor she had probably in all their lives owned a precious stone. And this chest is full to the brim of jewels, and that ship contains more still a hundred-fold, and the man asking for his daughter's hand is clearly a hypochondriac, infinitely sea-weary, who sees in the prospect of home and settled life the whole desire of his heart, cloyed with riches and sick of wandering. If he, Daland, should hesitate, the suitor might change his mind. As for the daughter, she will either see the thing as he sees it,—how could human woman see it differently?—or, dutiful, will be ruled by his superior wisdom. "Indeed, stranger, I have a lovely daughter; devoted to me with the most faithful filial love. She is my pride, my highest wealth, my comfort in evil days, my joy in good."—"May her love," the Hollander exclaims with feeling, "never fail her father! True to him, she will be true likewise to her husband."—"You give jewels, priceless pearls," remarks Daland, with an attempt at dignity that does his self-respect good, no doubt, without greatly impressing us, "but the greatest treasure of all is a faithful wife!"—"And you will give me such a one?"—"You have my word. Your fate moves my sympathy. Freehanded as you are, you give assurance of magnanimity and high-mindedness. The like of you I have ever wished for son-in-law, and even were your fortune not so great, I would choose no other."—"My thanks. And shall I see the daughter this very day?"—"The next favourable wind will take us home. You shall see her, and if she pleases you..."—"She shall be my wife.—Will she prove to be my angel?" he sighs aside; "Do I still permit myself the folly of an illusion that an angel's heart will pity me? Hopeless as I am, I yet follow the lure of hope!"

"The wind is propitious, the sea is calm. We will heave anchor at once, and speedily reach home," says Daland. "If I may beg,—do you sail ahead," the Hollander suggests. "The wind is fresh, but my crew is spent. I will let them rest awhile and then will follow."—"But our wind?"—"Will continue for some time blowing from the south. My ship is swift and will surely overtake yours."—"You believe so? Very well! Let it be as you wish. Farewell, and may you meet my child before the end of day!" The sailors have lifted the anchor and set the sails. Daland goes on board. With the crew singing cheerily together, the Norwegian ship starts upon the homeward course. The Hollander returns to his silent deck.

II

The scene is next laid in the interior of Daland's house, the large living-room, where a flock of girls sit around the fire with their spinning-wheels. Beside the maps and pictures of nautical interest forming the natural decoration of a sea-captain's house, there hangs on the wall the picture of a pale black-bearded man, dressed in the Spanish fashion of years long gone.

The girls are spinning busily, singing while they work. They are the sweethearts of the lads on Daland's ship, and their song is of sailors at sea who are thinking of maidens at home, and if diligent turning of the spinning-wheel might influence the wind—oh, but they would speedily be back in harbour!

One only of the young girls in the room is not working; Senta, letting her wheel stand idle, leans back abstractedly in a great armchair, with her eyes fixed upon the picture of the pale man. Her old nurse, Mary, who spins diligently herself and keeps the rest at their task, chides her, not very severely, for her idleness. The girls in their song have been felicitating themselves that if they are zealous at their spinning their lovers will give them the golden earnings they bring home from the south. "You naughty child," Mary says to Senta, at the end of the song, "if you do not spin, you will receive no present from your Schatz!" Senta's companions laugh at this. "There is no need for her to hurry. Her sweetheart is not out at Sea. He brings home no gold, he brings home game. Everyone knows in what the fortune of a huntsman consists!" Senta does not stir; it is doubtful if she have heard. Without removing her eyes from the picture of the pallid man, she hums softly to herself certain fragment of old ballad. "Look at her!" the nurse takes fuller account of her attitude and abstraction; "Look at her! Always in front of that picture! Do you intend to dream away your whole young life before that portrait?" Senta answers gently, still without taking her eyes from the pale face: "Why did you tell me who he is, and relate his story?... The unhappy soul!" At the heavily burdened sigh upon which she utters the last words, "God have you in His care!" exclaims Mary, vaguely troubled. But the girls, who are in merry mood, laugh again. "Why, why, what is that we hear? She sighs for the pale man! There you see what a picture can do. She is in love. Please Heaven no mischief result! Erik is somewhat hot of temper. Please God he do no damage! Say not a word, else, aflame with wrath, he may shoot the rival from the wall!" Their chatter finally reaching her consciousness, Senta turns to them, annoyed. "Oh, keep still! Stop your silly laughing! Do you wish to make me really cross?" Further to tease her, they drown her voice with the refrain of their spinning-song: "Mutter and hum, good little wheel, cheerily, cheerily turn! Spin, spin a thousand threads, good little wheel, mutter and hum!"—"Do stop that foolish song," begs Senta, "my ears are dazed with your muttering and humming. If you wish me to attend, find something better to do!"—"Very well," say the girls, "then sing yourself!" As a bird to the nest, Senta returns to the subject engrossing her mind. "Hear what I suggest: let Mary sing us the ballad." All understand what ballad is meant. "God forbid!" cries the nurse; "It is likely I will do it! Children, let the Flying Dutchman rest!"—"Yet how often have I heard the ballad from you!" sighs Senta; and, as the nurse continues obdurate, "I will sing it myself," she decides, "and do you girls listen. Could I but bring home to your hearts the wretchedness of the poor soul's fate, it could not fail to move you to compassion!" The girls accept the offer with delight, push aside their spinning-wheels and gather around the singer. Only the old nurse, whose instinct has somehow caught alarm, and who has conceived a curious dislike and fear of this pallid hero of legend, refuses her countenance and testily goes on spinning by herself in the chimney-corner.

"Have you met the ship on the seas," sings Senta, "blood-red of sail and black of mast? Upon the high deck, the pale man, the ship's master, keeps incessant watch.—Hui! How the wind blows! Yohohey!—Hui! How it sings in the stays! Yohohey!—Hui! Like an arrow flies the ship, without stop, without rest! Yet might deliverance one day come to the pale man, could he find a woman upon earth who should love him faithfully until death. Oh, when, pale sea-farer, when shall you find her? Pray to Heaven that a woman soon may keep her troth to him!

"With contrary wind, in the rage of the storm, he determined to double a cape. He cursed and swore in mad mood: 'Not to all eternity will I desist!'—Hui! And Satan heard it. Yohohey!—Hui! Took him at his word. Yohohey!—Hui! And now, a lost soul, he sails the seas, without stop, without rest. How the unhappy man, however, might find deliverance upon earth, an angel of the Lord showed him,—how he might earn eventual salvation. Oh, that you might, pale sea-farer, find it! Pray to Heaven that a woman soon may keep her troth to him!

"He casts anchor every seven years, and to woo a woman comes ashore. But never yet has he found a faithful one.—Hui! Spread the sails! Yohohey!—Hui! Lift the anchor! Yohohey!—Hui! False love, false troth! Back to sea, without stop, without rest!..." Senta who has been singing with a spirit and expressiveness full unusual as applied to a threadbare old ballad, has at this point reached such a pitch of emotion that her voice fails and she sinks in her chair exhausted. The girls, whom her earnestness has impressed into a realisation of the facts sung by her, who have for a moment had through her eyes the vision of that lost soul's wretchedness, take up the ballad where she drops it, and sing on in tones which confess the contagion of her sympathy: "Ah, where tarries she, to whom God's angel might guide you? Where shall you find her who will be your own true and loyal love until death?" With an air of illumination, Senta starts to her feet and finishes the song with words which rise inspired to her lips: "Let me be that woman! My truth shall work your deliverance! God's angel guide you to me! Through me you shall reach salvation!" She speaks so passionately, appears so strangely, that her companions feel a sort of puzzled alarm. The old nurse, frightened, rushes to her side with the cry: "Heaven help us!" and all together they try to bring her to her normal self, calling in tones of protest, "Senta! Senta!"

Unnoticed of the rest, Erik, the huntsman, has during the last moments been standing in the doorway. He has heard Senta's exclamation, witnessed her strange condition, and affected by it differently from all the others cries, heart-struck, "Senta, Senta, are you determined to destroy me?"—"Oh, help us, Erik," the others appeal to him; "She is out of her senses!" The nurse, who has felt her blood unaccountably running chill, turns angrily to the picture on the wall: "Abominable picture, out of the house you shall go just as soon as the father comes home!"—"The father has arrived," Erik informs them; "From the cliff I saw his ship come in." All minds veer promptly from the subject which had been engrossing them, to this delightful one of the arrival. The girls are for running to the harbour upon the instant. Mary prevents them. "Stop! Stop! You shall remain quietly at home. The sailor-folk will be arriving with hollow stomachs. To the kitchen and cellar! No time to waste! Let curiosity torment you as it may, first of all go and do your duty!" She drives them before her from the room, and follows.

Senta is going, too, but Erik bars the way, pleading, "Stay, Senta, stay for a moment! Release me from this torture—or, if you will, destroy me quite!" She affects, as the simplest girl must, not to understand. "Erik, what is it?"—"Oh, Senta, speak, say what is to become of me! Your father is coming home. Before starting upon a new voyage, he is sure to wish to carry out what he so often has spoken of..."—"And what is that?"—"To give you a husband. My heart with its unchanging love, my humble fortune, my hunter's luck, these things being all I have to offer, will not your father repulse me? And if my heart breaks with its misery, tell me, Senta, who is there will speak a word for me?" He pleads warmly, young Erik; he is at that age and point in life when not to obtain the woman he has set his heart upon seems a calamity such as will extinguish the sun, make the rest of life worthless; when refusal signifies destruction, and he is not ashamed of this as a weakness, but proud of it as a strength, and uses it as the most pertinent argument, and feels no abjectness in confessing himself at the mercy of a girl, a toy in her frail hands. He is the only lover of this type in the Wagnerian assortment, and, it happens, the only one who fails. Senta, we are permitted to divine, had not always felt as removed from him as at this moment. It is but lately, no doubt, with the turning perhaps of her seventeenth year, at some fuller opening into womanhood, that her romantic dream has taken such possession of her, and his warm-blooded urgent love become something to withdraw from, without clearly formulated reason, by an instinct. She tries now to silence him, to put him off with the excuse that she must hurry to her father. But he is not to be put off. To detain her, he reproaches. "You wish to avoid me!"—"I must go to the harbour!"—"You shrink from me?"—"Oh, let me go!"—"You shrink from the wound which yourself you made, the madness of love you inspired? Oh, you shall hear me in this hour, shall hear the last question I will ask. When my heart is breaking with anguish, will not Senta herself speak a word for me?" She applies herself then to quiet and comfort such evident suffering; he is after all flesh-and-blood and close at hand, the other a dream. Her sentiments besides are not very clear even to herself. "Do you doubt my heart?" she asks reassuringly; "Do you doubt that it is full of kindness toward you? What is it, tell me, makes you so unhappy? What suspicion darkens your mind?"—"Oh, your father's heart is set upon riches. And you, Senta, how should I count upon you? Do you ever grant one of my requests? Do you not daily hurt and afflict my heart?"—"Afflict your heart?..." she asks in wonder. "What am I to think?" he goes on to show the jealous core of his unhappiness; "That picture..."—"What picture?..."—"Will you renounce your extravagant imaginings?"—"Can I keep from my face the compassion I feel?"—"And that ballad... you sang it again to-day."—"I am a child," she excuses herself, "and sing I know not what! Are you afraid of a song, a picture?"—"You are so pale!" he replies, studying her face dubiously; "Tell me, have I no reason to be afraid?"—"Should I not be moved by the terrible doom of that unhappiest man?"—"But my sufferings, Senta, do they no longer move you?"—"Oh, vaunt not your sufferings!" she cries, almost impatiently; "What can your sufferings be? Do you know what the fate is of that poor soul?" She draws him before the picture, and while indicating it to him gazes raptly at it herself; "Can you not feel the woe, the inexpressible deep misery in the eyes which he turns upon me? Oh, the calamity which robbed him eternally of rest, the sense of it pierces my heart!" Veritable alarm seizes Erik at the earnestness she exhibits, an alarm to something more vital even than his alert jealousy, a terrible fear for her as apart from himself. "Woe's me!" he exclaims, "I am reminded of my ill-boding dream! God have you in his care, Satan has cast his toils about you!"—"What frightens you so?" she asks wearily. It is as if excess of emotion had brought on an immense fatigue; she sinks exhausted in the grand-sire's chair. "Let me tell you of it, Senta. It is a dream, hear and be warned by it." She leans back with closed eyes, and as he narrates it is as if having fallen asleep she saw in dream what he describes. "Upon the high cliff I lay dreaming. Beneath me I saw the expanse of the sea; I could hear the surf where it breaks foaming against the beach. I espied a foreign ship close to shore, a strange ship, extraordinary. Two men drew toward land. One of them, I saw it, was your father."—"And the other?" she asks, like a somnambulist, without opening her eyes. "I recognised him well enough, with his black doublet and pale face...."—"And his mournful glance...." she adds, still with closed eyes. Erik points at the picture: "The sea-man there."—"And I?..." she asks. "You came out of the house. You ran to meet your father. But hardly had you reached the pair, when you cast yourself at the feet of the stranger. I saw you clasp his knees...." "He lifted me...."—"To his breast. Passionately you clung to him, and kissed him ardently...."—"And then?" He gazes at her with a sort of terror, as at something unnatural, in her appearance of sleep. "I saw you fly together over the sea." She seems to wake with a start. "He is looking for me!" she cries in tones of extraordinary conviction, "I shall see him! My destiny it is to perish with him!" Erik recoils: "Horrible! Ha, I see it full plainly at last, she is gone from me! My dream boded true!" In uncontrollable despair he flees from the house. Senta, her excitement gradually dying, remains gazing at the picture. She is murmuring softly to herself the burden of the ballad: "Ah, may you, pale sea-farer, find her! Pray to Heaven that a woman soon may keep her troth to him!"—when the door opens and Daland and the Hollander appear at the threshold. Serita's eyes turn from the picture to the stranger entering. A cry escapes her lips and her eyes fasten on his face. His eyes, too, as he slowly steps into the room, bend steadfastly upon hers. They gaze as if the same spell had fallen upon both.

The father, after a moment watching from the doorway, waiting for his daughter to run as usual to greet him, speaks, not altogether displeased: "My child, you see me standing at the door, and, what is this? No embrace? No kiss? You stand in your place as if bewitched? Do I deserve, Senta, such a welcome?"—"God be with you!" she murmurs faintly, and, as he comes nearer, asks underbreath, without removing her eyes from the figure—the counterpart of the picture on the wall, "Father, speak, who is the stranger?" The father smiles: "You are eager to know? My child, give kind welcome to the stranger. A sea-man he is, like myself, and solicits our hospitality. Homeless for long years, incessantly bound on long voyages, in far-off lands he has gathered vast treasures. An exile from home, he offers rich compensation for a place at the fireside. Speak, Senta, should you be sorry that the stranger should dwell with us?" To the Hollander, while the daughter without a word's reply continues in her fixed contemplation of his face, he speaks aside: "Tell me, did I praise her too highly? Now you see her in person, does she rightly please you? Must I add more still to my overflowing praise? Confess that she is an ornament to her sex!" The Hollander answers by an expressive gesture, his eyes fast all the while upon the maiden's face. The father turns anew to the daughter, and, without further preamble: "My child, let it please you to show favour to this man. He requests a goodly gift from your heart. Reach him your hand, for he shall be your bridegroom. If you are of a like mind with your father, to-morrow he shall be your husband." She shrinks, painfully, at this bluntness and precipitancy. The father, not noticing, unpockets jewels to show her. "Look at this circlet, behold these clasps. The sum of his possessions makes these the merest trifle. How, my precious child, should you not care for them? And it will all be yours for the exchanging of rings with him. But... neither of you speaks...." He looks at them in turn. They have neither heeded nor heard, they are lost in contemplation of each other. "Am I in the way?" They do not hear that either. "I clearly am," he says to himself. "The best will be to leave them alone together." With a parting private word to the daughter: "May you win this noble man! Believe me, such good fortune is not common!" and to the Dutchman: "I leave you to yourselves, and betake myself away. Believe me, fair as she is, she is no less true than fair!" he discreetly withdraws.

The strange predestined lovers stand for long moments steadily gazing at each other, almost unconsciously, without motion to draw nearer—or further apart. Each of them voices his thoughts, not speaking to the other, but, dreamily, to himself. He murmurs: "As if out of the distance of long-past days speaks to me the semblance of this maiden. Even such as through dread eternities I dreamed her, I behold her now here before my eyes. From the black depths of my night I too have ventured to raise my longing eyes upon a woman. Satan's malice left me a living heart, alas, that I might never lose consciousness of my torment. The sullen glow which I feel burning in my breast, should I, unhappy man, call it love? Ah, no, the longing it is for redemption! Oh, might redemption be my portion through such an angel as she is!" And she speaks, to herself, half-aloud: "Have I sunk into a wonderful dream? Is this which I see an illusion? Or have I until this moment lived in a world of dream, and is this the day of awakening? He stands before me, his features stamped with sorrow. His unparalleled sufferings silently call to me. Can the voice of deepest pity deceive? As I have so often beheld him he stands before me now. This sorrow which burns within my bosom, this going out of desire toward him, what must I call it? Oh, that the salvation which he goes seeking without rest might reach the unhappy man through me!"

He moves a little nearer to her at last, and asks with the simplicity and sincerity which befit the hour so fraught with fate, "Will you not reject your father's choice? That which he promised—what? shall it hold good? Could you forever give yourself to me? You could hold out your hand to the stranger? I might, after a life of torment, find in your truth the long craved-for peace?" She answers upon the instant, singularly sure of her heart: "Whoever you may be, and whatever ruin your cruel fate reserve for you, and whatever the destiny I thereby call upon myself, my obedient duty shall ever be to my father's wish."—"What, so unconditionally? My sorrows, is it possible, have moved you to such deep compassion?"—"Sorrows how measureless!" she exclaims to herself. "Oh, might I bring you consolation for those!" And he, overhearing: "Oh, gentlest sound through the warring darkness! An angel are you! The love of an angel can still the pain even of lost souls! If I may hope for salvation, Almighty, let it be through this angel!" But in the uplift of hope reviving, a remembrance gives him pause,—remembrance of the whole condition of his deliverance; and, a strain of solemnity mingling with his grateful tenderness, he warns her: "Could you apprehend the fate which, in belonging to me, with me you must share, you would pause to consider the sacrifice you bring in vowing to be true. Your youth would flee shuddering at prospect of the fate to which you would have doomed it, if the fairest virtues of womankind, if sacred fidelity and truth, be not yours." She replies with no less assurance than before, and her air of exalted inspiration: "Well do I know the high duties of woman. Be comforted, unhappy man! Let fate do justice of those who defy her decree. In my soul is written the supreme law of truth, and unto him to whom I pledge my faith this one truth it is which I give: Truth until death!"

Like balm the words fall upon his wounded spirit. The powers of darkness, it seems, are to be defeated; the evil star, it seems, has set and the star of hope arisen. "Ye angels," he calls to them, "who had quite forsaken me, confirm her heart in its constancy!" And she, her heavenly pity prays: "Let him have reached home at last! Let his ship rest here eternally in port!"

Daland re-enters. "By your leave, my people outside can hardly wait. Upon each home-coming, you must know, we hold a merry-making. I would fain add to the cheer of the feast, and am come, with that in mind, to ask if it might not be I made into a betrothal feast?—As far as I see," he turns to the Hollander, "you have wooed to your heart's purpose?—And you, my child," to Senta, "are you ready, too?" Senta with solemn resolution reaches her hand to the Dutchman. "Here is my hand, and here, never to repent it, I plight my troth until death!" The Hollander, taking her hand, cries defiance to the mockery of Hell through this fast truth of hers. At Daland's summons thereupon, "To the feast, and let every one to-day make merry!" the three turn to go and take share—even, incredibly, the Dutchman,—in legitimate human rejoicings.

III

Close by Daland's house lies the rock-bound bay into which his ship and the Dutchman's have come to anchor. The two crafts are seen in the clear night, lying at a short distance from each other, hard by the shore. The Norwegian is brightly illuminated, the sailors are on deck making holiday. The Hollander presents a striking contrast: not a light does it show, not a sound issues from it; it looms shadowy and forbidding.

"Steersman, leave the watch!" sing the roistering Norway lads; "Furl the sails! Anchor fast! Come along, steersman! No wind is there to fear nor adverse coast, and we mean to be right jolly. Each of us has a sweetheart on shore, excellent tobacco and superior brandy-wine. Rocks and storms are far outside, we laugh at rocks and storms! Steersman, come and drink!" They dance on deck, marking time with their heavy boots.

From Daland's house comes the bevy of girls we know, laden with generous baskets of food and drink. Finding their sweethearts so merrily employed, "Just look at them!" they say; "As we live, they are dancing! The ladies do certainly seem superfluous!" With a playful feint of pique they pass without further notice the lighted, noisy ship, and go toward the Hollander, whose blood-tinted sails and black masts form but a grim silhouette against the star-sown sky. "Hi, girls,—stop! Where are you going?" the simple-minded sailors cry after them. But the girls do not abandon their small vengeance of serving the strangers first. "You have a mind to fresh wine, have you not? And is not your neighbour to have something too? Are the liquor and the feast to be solely for you?" The young mate rises to the occasion and has a fling at these suddenly-instituted rivals: "Indeed, indeed, take something, do, to the poor lads. They appear to be quite faint with thirst!" All turn their attention squarely now to the foreign ship and take account of the strangeness of its conditions. "Not a sound on board! And see, not a light! No sign of the crew!"—"Halloo, sea-folk!" the maidens shout, "Halloo! Do you need lights? Where are you? We cannot see...."—"Don't wake them," chaff the Norwegians, "they are still asleep!" The girls go close to the ship and shout again. "Halloo, sea-folk! Halloo, answer!" There is along silence. The sailor-lads have the laugh now on the girls. "Ha, ha! In very truth, they are dead. They are in no need of food and drink." But the girls will not accept their defeat. "What?" they continue calling to the invisible Dutch crew; "Are you so lazy as to have gone already to bed? Is it not holiday-time for you, too?"—"They lie fast in their lairs," jest the Norwegians; "like dragons they guard their treasure!"—"Halloo, sea-folk!" persist the girls; "Do you not wish for golden wine? Surely you are thirsty?"—"They do not care to drink, they do not care to sing," the sailor-lads tease; "there is no light burning in all their ship!"—"Say," the girls continue addressing the unresponding crew, "have you no sweethearts on land? Do you not wish to come and dance on the friendly shore?"—"They are already old, they are pale instead of ruddy," put in the sailors, "and their sweethearts, they are dead!"—"Halloo!" the girls call louder, "Seafolk, wake up! We are bringing you food and drink to heart's content!" The sailors good-humouredly unite in chorus: "They are bringing you food and drink to heart's content!" Another long pause, unbroken by the faintest sound from the Dutch ship. The girls are becoming uneasy. "It is a fact," they speak lower, struck; "They seem to be all dead. They do not need food and drink." But the boys feel jollier than ever. "You have heard of the Flying Dutchman," they cry, by way of wild joke; "His ship, big as life and true to life, you behold there!"—"Then don't wake the crew!" say the girls; "They are ghosts, we could swear!" The sailor-lads take their turn now shouting questions, humourously intended, at the sombre hull: "How many hundreds of years have you already been at sea? Storm and rocks have no terrors for you! Have you no letters, no commissions for shore? We will see that they come to our great-great-grandfathers' hands!" In the extravagance of fun, finally, raising their voices to the very loudest, "Halloo, sea-folk!" they cry; "Spread your sails! Give us a specimen of the Flying Dutchman's speed!" At the prolonged silence following, the girls shrink away, at last really frightened. "They do not hear. It makes our flesh creep. They do not want anything. Why do we continue to call?"—"That is it, you girls," the sailors heartily agree, "let the dead rest in peace! And let us who are alive be happy!" The girls hand up to them the savoury baskets. "There, take, since your neighbours disdain it."—"But what? Are you not coming on board yourselves?" inquire the sailors, when the girls do not as expected follow. It is early still; they will return a little later, they promise, Till then let the boys drink and dance, but be careful not to disturb the repose of their weary neighbours!

When the girls have returned to the house, the sailors open the hampers and lustily fall to, casting playful thanks to those dumb neighbours for this double share of victuals and wine. In the lightness of their hearts they sing, and to the verses of their rollicking "Steersman, leave the watch!" clash their goblets noisily together.

Absorbed in their carousal, they have not remarked a beginning of movement on the ship close by and in the water immediately around it. This rises and falls in a mysterious violent swell, which rocks the awakening ship, while the rest of the sea is calm. Storm-wind whistles and howls among the rigging, though the night elsewhere is still and bright. Livid fire flares up in the place of the watch-light, bringing into distinctness the black cordage and spectral crew. The latter seem to come to life in the weird illumination, and with hollow voices suddenly entone a sea-song of strange intervals and cadences, disquieting to ears of warm flesh and blood. "Yohohey! Yohohohey!—Huissa! The storm drives us to land!—Huissa! Sail in! Anchor loose!—Huissa! Run into the bay!—Black captain, go ashore! Seven years are over, sue for the hand of a golden-haired maiden. Golden-haired maiden, be true to him, be true! Cheerily, cheerily, bridegroom, today! The storm-wind howls wedding-music, the ocean dances to the tune.—Hui! Hark! His whistle sounds. Captain, are you back again?—Hui! Hoist the sail! Your bride, say, where is she?—Hui! Off, to sea! Captain, captain, you have no luck in love! Ha, ha, ha! Blow, storm-wind, howl away! No damage can you do to our sails! Satan has charmed them, they will not rend in all eternity!"

The Norwegian sailors, suspending their own clamour, have looked and listened in an increasing wonder, which gradually turns to horror. To overcome the superstitious fear they frankly own to, they start singing together with all their might, to drown their terror as well as the voices of the rival singers. The two sharply contrasting sea-songs strive one against the other for a few moments, then the Norwegians, giving up the contention, retire from deck to the last man, tremulously making the sign of the cross. As they disappear below, the Dutchmen break into a fearful yell of derision,—and instantly darkness and complete silence reinvade the ship, while perfect calm falls upon the sea. For a long interval the scene so crowded and noisy a moment before, remains empty and still.

Senta comes hurriedly from the house, followed by Erik, both in great agitation. He has learned of her betrothal to the stranger. "What have I heard?" he cries in incredulous anguish; "O God, what have I seen? Is it a delusion? Can it be truth? Can it be fact?"—"Ask not, Erik," she falters, in anguish, too; "I must not answer."—"Just God! There can be no doubt of it. It is truth! What unholy power swept you along? What force so quickly prevailed with you to make you break this devoted heart? Was it your father? Ha, he brought the bridegroom home with him. I recognised him. I forboded what is coming to pass. But you? Is it possible? You give your hand to the man who has hardly more than crossed your doorstep?"—"Oh, say no more!" pleads the girl, torn by the sight of his sorrow, and her necessity to refuse the only possible comfort, "Be silent! I must! I must!..."—"Oh, that docility, blind as your act!" he raves; "You were glad, at a beck from your father, to follow. With a blow you crush the life out of my heart!"—"No more! No more!" she tries to stop him; "I must not see you again, must not think of you. High duty commands it!"—"What high duty? Is it not a higher duty still to observe that which you once swore to me,—eternal constancy?"—"What?..." she cries, in utmost dismay; "You say that I swore eternal constancy to you?"—"Oh, Senta," he goes on, subdued by her shocked amazement, sorrowfully to explain the simple rhetoric of his misstatement, "will you deny it? Do you refuse to remember that day when you called me to you in the valley? When in order to gather the upland flowers for you I endured dangers and labours innumerable? Do you remember how from the steep rocks on the shore we watched your father departing? He sailed upon the white-winged ship, and confided you to my care. When your arm encircled my neck, did you not own once more your love for me? That which thrilled me at the pressure of your hand, tell me, was it not the assurance of your constancy?"

Unseen of the two, for the moment so absorbed in each other, the Hollander has come from the house. He has been standing near enough to overhear Erik's last sentences; the significance of these seems scarcely ambiguous, his inference is natural. It is a lovers' meeting which he has chanced upon. Whatever her reasons for accepting him, the Hollander,—it is clear that this young huntsman has a claim on the girl who declared so glibly that the law of truth was written in her soul.

The two are interrupted by a wail. "Lost! Oh, lost! To all eternity lost!" They turn and start in horror at sight of the Hollander. "Farewell, Senta," he cries, and with the precipitation of despair is making straight for the boundless deep. Senta throws herself across his path. "Stay, O unfortunate!" But the Hollander pushes past. "To sea! To sea! To sea until the end of time!—It is at an end with your truth! At an end with your truth and my salvation! Farewell, I would not bring about your ruin!" Erik, catching sight of his face, the face of a lost soul, shudders at the measureless woe in his eyes. "Stay," Senta implores, "stay, you shall never depart!" Disregarding her, the Hollander blows a shrill note on his whistle and shouts to his crew: "Hoist sail! Lift anchor! For ever and ever bid farewell to the land!"

There is struggle for a long moment among the three: hers to prevent the Hollander; Erik's to keep back her, caught, as he believes, in the claws of Satan; the Hollander's to leave. Since her faith is turned to mockery, he, forced to doubt her, has fallen to doubting God himself. There is no faith more on earth. Away, then, forever away! "Learn the fate from which I save you!" he finally turns to her, as if softened by her pleading to the point of wishing her to know that he leaves not in hate and anger, but very pity for her feminine frailty; and he states plainly the threatening fate of which we heard him give but a warning before. "Condemned am I to the most dreadful of dooms. Tenfold death would be to me yearned-for bliss. A woman alone can deliver me, a woman who shall keep her faith to me even until death. You, it is true, had sworn truth to me, but not as yet before the Almighty, and that it is which saves you. For know, unhappy woman, the fate which overtakes her who breaks her vow of eternal constancy to me: Everlasting damnation is her portion. Innumerable have been the victims already, through me, of that dread sentence. But you—you shall be saved. Farewell, then, and farewell, to all time, salvation!" Again he turns shoreward. "Indeed, indeed, I know you," Senta follows still; "Full well I know your fate. From the first moment of seeing you I knew you. The end is at hand of your torture! I am she through whose fidelity you shall find salvation!"

Erik, in terror for Senta, has called wildly toward the house, toward the ship, for help to save her. Daland, Mary, and the young girls have come hurrying from the house, the Norwegian sailors from the ship. "No, no, you know me not!" the Hollander is saying; "No suspicion have you who I am! Inquire of the seas of every zone, inquire of the seaman overscoring the main—Behold"—he points at the ship whose blood-red sails are set and whose ghastly crew show uncannily active in preparations for departure; "Behold and recognise this ship, terror of every pious soul.... The Flying Dutchman I am called!"

With lightning rapidity he has gone aboard. Instantly the weird ship is under way and amid the cavernous Yohohoes of its seamen making for the open sea.

Senta struggles to follow. Her father, Erik, her nurse, all forcibly hold her back. But she is suddenly stronger than them all. She tears herself free and rushing from them climbs a rock projecting into the deep water. With all her strength she calls after the departing Hollander, "Praise be to your angel and his decree! Here am I, faithful to you until death!" and springs into the sea.

Upon the instant, the red-sailed ship, with all its crew, sinks. A great wave heaves high and falls again eddying, burying the whole. Above the drifting wreckage, in the rosy light, fore-shine of sunrise, are seen the transfigured and glorified forms of Senta and the Hollander rising from the sea, clasped in each others' arms, and floating heavenward.

We are always touched in this old world of daily wickedness and pettiness to come upon stories which seem statements of a popular ineradicable assurance that love has power to save. It is perhaps oftenest the love of a woman, clinging pertinaciously to her affection; but there are legends, too, of men,—who do not save, however, that we remember, by long fidelity, but by ardour rather in overcoming obstacles. They kiss the fair enchanted one in the form of a hideous dragon and she is restored to beauty. One sees the simple philosophy of such folk-tales. The evil doom is usually the punishment for sin. The one who loves the person so doomed is innocent. If then she makes the fate of the sufferer her own, she suffers unjust punishment, and God, who inclines to mercy, must sooner pardon the sinner for her sake than condemn the innocent.

THE END