she a.s.sumes the last abjectness. "Here!" she replies, cowering upon the earth. "Here at your feet!" Simple Elsa"s heart melts at the sight, really out of all reason soft, out of all reason unsuspecting. Yet she is infinitely sweet, in her exaggeration of goodness, when she not only pardons, but begs pardon of this fiendish enemy for what the latter may have had to suffer through her. She eagerly puts out her hands to lift Ortrud from her knees.
"G.o.d help me! That I should see you thus, whom I have never seen save proud and magnificent! Oh, my heart will choke me to behold you in so humble att.i.tude. Rise to your feet! Spare me your supplications! The hate you have borne me I forgive you, and I pray you to forgive me too whatever you have had to suffer through me!"--"Receive my thanks for so much goodness!" exclaims feelingly the accomplished actress. "He who to-morrow will be called my husband,"
continues Elsa, in her young gladness to heap benefits, "I will make appeal to his gentle nature, and obtain grace for Friedrich likewise."--"You bind me to you forever with bonds of grat.i.tude!"
With light innocent hand Elsa places the crowning one on top of her magnanimous courtesies. "At early morning let me see you ready prepared. Adorned in magnificent attire, you shall walk with me to the minster. There I am to await my hero, to become his wife before G.o.d. His wife!..." The sweet pride with which she says the word, the soft ecstasy that falls upon her at the thought, stir in Ortrud such hatred that she cannot forbear, even though the time can hardly be ripe, taking the first step at once which is to result in the quick ruin of the poor child"s dreams. "How shall I reward you for so much kindness, powerless and dest.i.tute as I am? Though by your grace I should dwell beside you, I should remain no better than a beggar. One power, however, there is left me; no arbitrary decree could rob me of that. By means of it, peradventure, I shall be able to protect your life and preserve it from regret."--"What do you mean?" asks Elsa lightly. "What I mean is--that I warn you not too blindly to trust in your good fortune; let me for the future have care for you, lest disaster entangle you unaware." Elsa shrinks back a little, murmuring, "Disaster?" Ortrud speaks with impressive mystery close to her ear: "Could you but comprehend what marvellous manner of being is the man--of whom I say but this: May he never forsake you through the very same magic by which he came to you!"
Elsa starts away from Ortrud, in horror at such impiety,--disbelief in the highest. But in a moment her displeasure gives way to sadness and pity for the darkness in which this other woman lives. "Poor sister!" she speaks, most gently, "you can hardly conceive how unsuspecting is my heart! You have never known, belike, the happiness that belongs to perfect faith. Come in with me! Let me teach you the sweetness of an untroubled trust. Let me convert you to the faith that there exists a happiness without leaven of regret!" This warm young generous sweetness which makes Elsa open to any appeal, blind to grossest fraud, merely exasperates Ortrud"s ill-will. She reads in it plain pride of superiority. As she could not admit in the Knight of the swan a G.o.d-sent hero, she cannot see in Elsa an uncommonly good-hearted girl. "Oh, that arrogance!" she is muttering while Elsa is exhorting her; "It shall teach me how I may undo that trustfulness of hers! Against it shall the weapons be turned, her pride shall bring about her fall!"--Elsa by gesture inviting, the other feigning confusion at so great kindness, the two pa.s.s into the house together.
The first grey of dawn lightens the sky. Telramund, who has been spying unseen, exults to see mischief in the person of his wife entering the house of the enemy. He is not an evil man, he cares beyond all for honour, and his consciousness of a certain unfairness in the methods his wife will use is implied in his exclamation; but the violent man so rages under a sense of injustice that all weapons to him are good which shall bring about the ruin of those who have ruined him. "Thus does mischief enter that house! Accomplish, woman, what your subtlety has devised. I feel no power to check you at your work. The mischief began with my downfall; now shall you plunge after me, you who brought me to it! One thing alone stands clear before me: The robbers of my honour shall see destruction!"
Daylight brightens. The warders sound the reveille from the turret.
Telramund conceals himself behind a b.u.t.tress of the minster. The business of the day is gradually taken up in the citadel court. The porter unlocks the tower-gate that lets out on to the city-road; servants come and go about their work, drawing water, hanging festive garlands. At a summons from the King"s trumpeters, n.o.bles and burghers a.s.semble in great number before the Minster. The King"s herald coming out on the Palace-steps makes the following announcements: Firstly: Banished and outlawed is Friedrich von Telramund, for having undertaken the ordeal with a knowledge of his own guilt.
Any one sheltering or a.s.sociating with him shall according to the law of the realm come under the same condemnation. Secondly: The King invests the unknown G.o.d-sent man, about to espouse Elsa, with the lands and the crown of Brabant; the hero to be called, according to his preference, not Duke, but Protector of Brabant. Thirdly: The Protector will celebrate with them this day his nuptial feast, but they shall join him tomorrow in battle-trim, to follow, as their duty is, the King"s arms. He himself, renouncing the sweetness of repose, will lead them to glory.
These proclamations are followed by general a.s.sent and gladness.
A small group there is, however, of malcontents, former adherents of Telramund"s, who grumble: "Hear that! He is to remove us out of the country, against an enemy who has never so much as threatened us! Such a bold beginning is ill-beseeming. Who will stand up against him when he is in command?"--"I will!" comes from a m.u.f.fled figure that has crept among them, and Friedrich uncovers his countenance.
"How dare you venture here, in danger as you are from the hand of every churl?" they ask him, frightened. "I shall dare and venture more than this ere long, and the scales will drop from your eyes.
He who presumptuously calls you forth to war, I will accuse him of treason in the things of G.o.d." The Brabantian gentlemen, afraid of his being overheard or recognised, conceal the rash lord among them, and compel him toward the church, out of sight.
Forerunners of the wedding-procession, young pages come from the Kemenate, and clear a way through the crowd to the church-door. A long train of ladies walk before the bride. There are happy cheers when she appears, dazzling in her wedding-pomp; there are blessings and the natural expressions of devotion from loyal subjects. The pages and ladies stand ma.s.sed at either side of the Minster-door to give their mistress precedence in entering. She is slowly, with bashful lowered eyes, mounting the stairs, when Ortrud, who in magnificent apparel has been following in her train, steps quickly before her, with the startling command, given in a furious voice: "Back, Elsa! I will no longer endure to follow you like a serving-maid!
Everywhere shall you yield me precedence, and with proper deference bow before me!" This is, we believe, no part of any deep-laid plan of Ortrud"s, though it does in the event help along her scheme; it is an uncontrollable outburst of temper at sight of Elsa in her eminence of bridal and ducal glory. "What does the woman mean?"
ask the people of one another, and step between Elsa and her. "What is this?" cries Elsa, painfully startled; "What sudden change has taken place in you?"--"Because for an hour I forgot my proper worth,"
Radbot"s daughter continues violently, "do you think that I am fit only to crawl before you? I will take measures to wipe out my abas.e.m.e.nt. That which is due to me I am determined to receive!"--"Woe"s me!" complains Elsa, "Was I duped by your feigning, when you stole to me last night with your pretended grief? And do you now haughtily demand precedence of me, you, the wife of a man convicted by G.o.d?" Ortrud sees here her opportunity again to introduce the wedge of suspicion into her victim"s mind. "Though a false sentence banished my husband, his name was honoured throughout the land, he was never spoken of save as the pattern of virtue.
His sword was well-tested and was feared--But yours, tell me, who that is present knows him? You cannot even yourself call him by his name!... Nay, but can you?" she taunts the shocked, pale-grown bride, who has found no more than force to gasp,--"What does she say? She blasphemes! Stop her lips!"--"Can you tell us whether his lineage, his n.o.bility, be well attested? From whence the river brought him and whither he will go when he leaves? No, you cannot!
The matter, no doubt, would present difficulties, wherefore the astute hero forbade all questioning!" Elsa has found her voice at last, and speaks right hotly: "You slanderer! Abandoned woman!
Hear, whether I can answer you! So pure and lofty is his nature, so filled with virtue is that n.o.blest man, that never shall the person obtain forgiveness who presumes to doubt his mission! Did not my hero overcome your husband by the power of G.o.d in singular combat? You shall tell me then, all of you, which of the two must lawfully be held true?"--"Ha! That truth of your hero"s!" mocks Ortrud, fearfully ready of tongue; "How soon were it cast in doubt, should he be forced to confess the sorcery by which he practises such power! If you fear to question him concerning it, all may believe with good right that you are not free yourself from the suspicion that his truth must not be too closely looked into!"
Elsa is near fainting with the anguish of this encounter; her women surround and comfort her.
The doors of the Palace have opened, the King and the Knight of the Swan, with great retinue of n.o.bles, issue forth, bound for the church and wedding-ceremony. They arrive upon the scene before the confusion is allayed occasioned by the quarrel between vulture and dove. Elsa runs to the arms of the Protector. Receiving her and glancing naturally about for explanation, he beholds the dangerous Ortrud, whom his clear eye reads, restored to splendour, part of the wedding-train, and remarks upon it with amazement to the trembling bride. "What do I see? That unhappy woman at your side?"--"My deliverer," weeps Elsa, "shield me from her! Scold me, for having disobeyed you! I found her in tears here before my door; I took her in out of her wretchedness. Now see how dreadfully she rewards my kindness!... She taunts me for my over-great trust in you!" The Knight fixes his eyes sternly upon the offender, who somehow cannot look back bold insult as she would wish, but stands spell-bound under the calm severity of his glance. "Stand off from her, you fearful woman. Here shall you never prevail!--Tell me, Elsa," he bends over her tearful face, "tell me that she tried vainly to drop her venom into your heart?" Elsa hides her face against his breast without answering. But the gesture with its implied confidence satisfies him; the tears increase his protecting tenderness. "Come!"
he draws her toward the church; "Let your tears flow in there as tears of joy!"
The wedding-train forms again and moves churchward in wake of King and bride and groom. But the wedding to-day is not to come off without check and interruption--an ill omen, according to the lore of all peoples. As the bridal party is mounting the Minster-steps, there starts up in front of it, before the darkly gaping door, the figure of Telramund. The crowd sways back as if from one who should spread infection, so tainted did a man appear against whom G.o.d through his ordeal had spoken judgment. "Oh, King, oh, deluded princes, stand!" he cries, barring their way. He will not be silenced by their indignant threats; he makes himself heard in spite of shocked and angry prohibitions. "Hear me to whom grim injustice has been done! G.o.d"s judgment was perverted, falsified! By the tricks of a sorcerer you have been beguiled!" The King"s followers are for seizing and thrusting him aside; but the soldier, famous no longer ago than yesterday for every sort of superiority, stands his ground and says what he is determined to say. "The man I see yonder in his magnificence, I accuse of sorcery! As dust before G.o.d"s breath, let the power be dispersed which he owes to a black art! How ill did you attend to the matters of the ordeal which was to strip me of honour, refraining as you did from questioning him, when he came to undertake G.o.d"s fight! But you shall not prevent the question now, I myself will put it to him. Of his name, his station, his honours, I inquire aloud before the whole world. Who is he, who came to sh.o.r.e guided by a wild swan? One who keeps in his service the like enchanted animals is to my thinking no true man! Let him answer now my accusation. If he can do so, call my condemnation just, but if he refuse, it must be plain to all that his virtue will not bear scrutiny!" All eyes turn with unmistakable interest of expectation toward the man thus accused; wonder concerning what he will reply is expressed in undertones.
He refuses point-blank, with a bearing of such superiority as an attack of the sort can hardly ruffle. "Not to you, so forgetful of your honour, have I need here to reply. I set aside your evil aspersion; truth will hardly suffer from the like!"--"If I am in his eyes not worthy of reply," Friedrich bitterly re-attacks, "I call upon you, King, high in honour indeed. Will he, on the ground of insufficient n.o.bility, refuse likewise to answer you?" Aye, the Knight refuses again, with an a.s.surance partaking in no wise of haughtiness, but speaking a n.o.ble consciousness of what he is which places him above men"s opinions. "Yes! even the King I must refuse to answer, and the united council of all the princes! They will not permit doubt of me to burden them, they were witnesses of my good deed. There is but one whom I must answer. Elsa!" He turns toward her with bright face of confidence, and stops short at sight of her, so troubled, so visibly torn by inward conflict, her bosom labouring, her face trembling. There is no concealing it, she would have wished him to answer loudly and boldly, to crush those mocking enemies, Ortrud and Telramund, with the mention of a name, a rank, which should have bowed them down before him in the dust, abject. There is silence, while all, entertaining their respective reflections, watch Elsa, and she struggles with herself, staring blindly ahead. His secret no doubt,--thus run her pitiable feminine thoughts,--if revealed publicly like this would involve him in some danger. Ungrateful indeed were it in her, saved by him, to betray him by demanding the information here. If she knew his secret, however, she would surely keep it faithfully.... But--but--she is helpless against it, doubt is upheaving the foundations of her heart!
It is the good King who speaks the right, the pertinent word. "My hero, stand up undaunted against yonder faithless man! You are too indubitably great to consider accusations of his!" The n.o.bles readily accept the King"s leadership, in this as in other matters.
"We stand by you," they say to the Knight. "Your hand! We believe that n.o.ble is your name, even though it be not spoken."--"Never shall you repent your faith!" the Knight a.s.sures them. While the n.o.bles crowd about him; offering their hands in sign of allegiance, and Elsa stands apart blindly dealing with her doubt, Telramund steals unperceived to her side and whispers to her: "Rely on me!
Let me tell you a method for obtaining certainty!" She recoils, frightened, yet without denouncing him aloud. "Let me take from him the smallest shred of flesh," he continues hurriedly, "the merest tip of a finger, and I swear to you that what he conceals you shall see freely for yourself...." In his eagerness, forgetful really at last of honour, he adds the inducement, "And, true to you forever, he will never leave you!"--"Nevermore!" cries Elsa, not so vigourously, however, but that he finds it possible still to add: "I will be near to you at night. Do but call me, without injury to him it shall be quickly done!" The Knight has caught sight of him and is instantly at Elsa"s side, crying astonished, "Elsa, with whom are you conversing?" The poor girl sinks overwhelmed with trouble and confusion at his feet. "Away from her, you accursed!"
speaks the Knight in a terrible authoritative voice to the evil pair; "Let my eye never again behold you in her neighbourhood!"
Gently he lifts the bride; he scans her face wistfully: "In your hand, in your loyalty, lies the pledge of all happiness! Have you fallen into the unrest of doubt? Do you wish to question me?" He asks it so frankly and fearlessly, albeit sorrowfully; he stands there so convincingly brave-looking and clear-eyed, full of the calm effect of power, that Elsa gazing at him comes back to her true self and answers with all her heart: "Oh, my champion, who came to save me! My hero, in whom I must live and die! High above all power of doubt my love shall stand!" He clasps her in his arms, solemnly saluting her....
And once more the wedding-party sets itself upon the way to church.
Organ-music pours forth from the Minster-portals. With her foot on the threshold the bride turns an eager, instinctive, searching, almost frightened look upon the groom. In answer, he folds rea.s.suring arms around her. But, even so held, woman-like she looks back, in spite of herself, over her shoulder, toward Ortrud, who receives the timid glance with a detestable gesture of triumph. Properly frightened, the bride turns quickly away, and the procession enters the church.
III
It is night. The stately bridal apartment awaits its guests. Music is heard, very faint at first, as if approaching through long corridors.
Preceded by pages with lights, there enter by different doors a train of women leading Elsa, a train of n.o.bles and the King leading the Knight.
The epithalamium is sung to its end. After grave and charming ceremony, with blessings and good wishes, all withdraw, leaving the bride and groom alone. Elsa"s face is altogether clear again of its clouds; all is forgotten save the immeasurable happiness which, as soon as the doors discreetly close, impels her to his arms; clasped together, seated upon the edge of a day-bed, they listen in silence to their wedding-music dying slowly away. When all is still at last, in the dear joy of being "alone, for the first time alone together since first we saw each other," life seems to begin for each upon new and so incredibly sweeter terms. The stranger knight, whom mystery enwraps, shows himself, despite certain sweet loftiness which never leaves him, most convincingly human. In the simplest warm way, a way old-fashioned as love, we hear him rejoice: "Now we are escaped and hidden from the whole world. None can overhear the exchange of greetings between our hearts. Elsa, my wife! You sweet white bride! You shall tell me now whether you are happy!"--"How cold must I be to call myself merely happy," she satisfies him liberally, "when I possess the whole joy of Heaven! In the sweet glowing toward you of my heart, I know such rapture as G.o.d can alone bestow!" He meets her grat.i.tude with an equal and just a little over. "If, of your graciousness, you call yourself happy, do you not give to me too the very happiness of Heaven? In the sweet glowing toward you of my heart, I know indeed such rapture as G.o.d can alone bestow!" He falls naturally, happy-lover-like, into talking of their first meeting and beginning love: "How wondrous do I see to be the nature of our love! We had never seen, but yet had divined, each other! Choice had been made of me for your champion, but it was love showed me my way to you. I read your innocence in your eyes, by a glance you impressed me into the service of your grace!"--"I too," she eagerly follows, "had seen you already, you had come to me in a beatific dream. Then when wide-awake I saw you standing before me, I knew that you were there by G.o.d"s behest. I would have wished to dissolve beneath your eyes and flow about your feet like a brook. I would have wished like a flower shedding perfume out in the meadow to bow in gladness at your footfall. Is this love?... Ah, how do my lips frame it, that word so inexpressibly sweet as none other, save alas! your name... which I am never to speak, by which I am never to call the highest that I know!" There is no return indicated in this of any doubt of him. Elsa is in this moment certainly all trust. It is but an expression of love chafing a little at the reticence which seems a barrier one must naturally wish away, if hearts are to flow freely together. Hardly warningly, just lovingly, he interrupts her: "Elsa!"--"How sweetly"
she remarks enviously, "my name drops from your lips! Do you grudge me the dear sound of yours? Nay, you shall grant me this boon, that just in the quiet hours of love"s seclusion my lips should speak it...." He checks her, as before, unalarmed, without reproach, by an exclamation of love. "My sweet wife!"--"Just when we are alone,"
she coaxes, "when no one can overhear! Never shall it be spoken in hearing of the outside world." Instead of answering directly, he draws her to him and turns to the open cas.e.m.e.nt overlooking the garden; he gazes thoughtfully out into the summer night and answers by a sort of tender object-lesson. "Come, breathe with me the mild fragrance of the flowers.... Oh, the sweet intoxication it affords!
Mysteriously it steals to us through the air, unquestioningly I yield myself to its spell. A like spell it was which bound me to you when I saw you, Sweet, for the first time. I did not need to ask how you might be descended, my eye beheld you, my heart at once understood. Even as this fragrance softly captures the senses, coming to us wafted from the enigmatic night, even so did your purity enthrall me, despite the dark suspicion weighing upon you!"
That she owes him much she is ready and over-ready to own. It is almost embara.s.sing to owe so much, to owe everything, and no means of repaying, because the whole of oneself is after all so little.
"Oh, that I might prove myself worthy of you!" she sighs, "that I need not sink into insignificance before you! That some merit might lift me to your level, that I might suffer some torture for your sake! If, even as you found me suffering under a heavy charge, I might know you to be in distress! If bravely I might bear a burden for you, might know of some sorrow threatening you! Can it be that your secret is of such a nature that your lip must keep it from the whole world? Disaster perhaps would overtake you, were it openly published. If this were so, and if you would tell it to me, would place your secret in my power, oh, never by any violence should it be torn from me, for you I would go to death!" The bridegroom cannot but be touched by such devoted gallant words from the fairest lips. Off guard, he murmurs fondly, "Beloved!"--"Oh, make me proud by your confidence, that I may not so deeply feel my unworthiness!"
she pleads, eagerly following up the advantage of his not having yet remonstrated; "Let me know your secret, that I may see plainly who you are!" Wilfully deaf to his imploring, "Hush, Elsa!" more and more urgently she presses: "To my faithfulness reveal your whole n.o.ble worth! Without fear of regret, tell me whence you came.
I will prove to you how strong in silence I can be!"
Her words, all at once, their significance penetrating fully, have brought a change in him. Gravely he moves apart from her, and his voice is for a moment stern as well as sorrowful: "Highest confidence already have I shown you, placing trust as I unhesitatingly did in your oath. If you will never depart from the command you swore to observe, high above all women shall I deem you worthy of honour."
But he cannot continue in that tone, the altogether human bridegroom.
At sight of the pained look his severity has produced, he goes quickly again to her, he makes instant reparation for his momentary harshness. "Come to my breast, you sweet, you white one!" he profusely caresses and consoles; "Be close to the warmth of my heart! Bend upon me the soft light of your eye in which I saw foreshining my whole happiness!..." And just to satisfy her so far as he can, to prove still further his great love, he proceeds: "Oh, greatly must your love compensate me for that which I relinquished for your sake! No destiny in G.o.d"s wide world could be esteemed n.o.bler than mine. If the King should offer me his crown, with good right I might reject it. The only thing which can repay me for my sacrifice, I must look for it in your love. Then cast doubt aside forever. Let your love be my proud security! For I came to you from no obscure and miserable lot. From splendour and joy am I come to you!" Oh, the ill-inspired speech! What he dreamed must unite closer, in the momentary mood of the incalculable feminine being he is dealing with, divides further. The thought is instantly back in her mind which she had smothered and then forgotten, the idea suggested by Ortrud, implied by Friedrich, that mysteriously as he came the unknown Knight may presently be going away from her. The hour that should have been so sweet and quiet in the "fragrant chamber adorned for love" of the wedding-song, is turned to strain and dreadfulness.
"G.o.d help me!" wails her pa.s.sionate alarm, "What must I hear? What testimony from your own lips! In your wish to beguile me, you have announced my lamentable doom! The condition you forsook, your highest happiness lay bound in that. You came to me from splendour and joy, and are longing to go back. How could I, poor wretch, believe that my faithful devotion would suffice you? The day will come which will rob me of you, your love being turned to rue!"--"Forbear, forbear thus to torture yourself!"--"Nay, it is you, why do you torture me? Must I count the days during which I still may keep you? In haunting fear of your departure, my cheek will fade; then you will hasten away from me, I shall be left forlorn."--"Never"
he endeavours to quiet her, "never will your winning charm lessen, if you but keep suspicion from your heart."--"How should I tie you to me?" she pursues undeterred her fatal train of thought; "How might I hope for such power? A creature of weird arts are you, you came here by a miracle of magic. How then should it fare but ill with me? What security for you can I hold?" She shrinks together in sudden terror and listens. "Did you hear nothing? Did you not distinguish footsteps?"--"Elsa!"--"No, it is not that!...
But there..." she stares vacantly ahead, pointing,--her face how changed from the sweet, glowing face of so short a time ago!--and describes what her over-excited fancy paints on the empty air before her: "Look there! The swan! The swan! There he comes, over the watery flood.... You call him, he draws the boat to sh.o.r.e...."--"Stop, Elsa! Master these mad imaginings!" the poor lover strives with her, in despair.--"Nay, nothing can give me rest," she declares, wholly unmanageable, wholly unreasonable, "nothing can turn me from these imaginings, but, though I should pay for it with my life, the knowledge who you are!"--"Elsa, what are you daring to do?"--"Uncannily beautiful man, hear what I must demand of you: Tell me your name!"--"Forbear!"--"Whence are you come?"--"Alas!"--"What manner of man are you?"--"Woe, what have you done?" Elsa utters a shriek, catching sight of Telramund with a handful of armed men stealing in by the door behind her husband"s back,--the explanation of the sound she had heard. With a cry of warning, she runs for her husband"s sword and hands it to him. Quickly turning he rewards Friedrich"s ineffectual lunge with a blow that stretches him dead.
The appalled accomplices drop their swords and fall to their knees.
Elsa, who had cast herself against her husband"s breast, slides swooning to the floor. There is a long silence. The Knight stands, deeply shaken, coming to gradual realisation of the whole sorrowful situation. All the light, the bridegroom joy, have faded from his face. With a quiet suggestive of infinite patience and some strange superiority of strength, some unearthly resource, he considers this ruin, his audible comment on it a single sigh, more poignant than if it were less restrained: "Woe! Now is all our happiness over!"
Very gently he lifts Elsa, sufficiently revived to realise that she has somehow worked irreparable destruction, and decisively places her away from him. By a sign he orders Telramund"s followers to their feet and bids them carry the dead man to the King"s judgment-place.
He rings a bell; the women who appear in answer, he instructs: "To accompany her before the King, attire Elsa, my sweet wife!
There shall she receive my answer, and learn her husband"s name and state."
At daybreak the Brabantian lords and their men-at-arms are a.s.sembling around the Justice-Oak in readiness to follow the King. The King, with n.o.ble expressions of grat.i.tude for their loyalty, takes command of them. "But where loiters," he is inquiring, "the one whom G.o.d sent to the glory, the greatness of Brabant?" when a covered bier is borne before him and set down in the midst of the wondering company, by men whom they recognise as former retainers of Telramund"s. This is done, explain these last, by order of the Protector of Brabant.
Elsa attended by her ladies appears at the place of gathering.
Her pale and sorrow-struck looks are attributed naturally to the impending departure of her husband for the field.
Armed in his flashing silver mail, as he was first seen of them, he now appears on the spot. Cheers greet him from those whom he is to lead to battle and victory. When their shouts die, he makes, standing before the King, the startling announcement that he cannot lead them to battle, the brave heroes he has convoked. "I am not here as your brother-of-arms," he informs their consternation; "You behold me in the character of complainant. And, firstly..."
he solemnly draws the pall from the dead face of Telramund, "I make my charge aloud before you all, and ask for judgment according to law and custom: This man having surprised and a.s.sailed me by night, tell me, was I justified in slaying him?"--"As your hand smote him upon earth," the horrified spectators cry in a voice, "may G.o.d"s punishment smite him yonder!"--"Another accusation must you hear," the Knight continues; "I speak my complaint before you all. The woman whom G.o.d had given to my keeping has been so far misguided as to forget her loyalty to me!" There is an outcry of sorrowful incredulity. "You all heard," he proceeds, steeled to severity, "how she promised me never to ask who I am? She has broken that sacred oath. To pernicious counsel she yielded her heart. No longer may I spare to answer the mad questioning of her doubt.
I could deny the urgency of enemies, but must make known, since she has willed it, my name,--must reveal who I am! Now judge if I have reason to shun the light! Before the whole world, before the King and kingdom, I will in all truth declare my secret. Hear, then, if I be not equal in n.o.bility to any here!" There runs a murmur through all the impressed mult.i.tude, not of curiosity, but regret that he should be forced to speak; the uneasy wish is felt that he might not.
His face has cleared wonderfully. As his inward eye fixes itself upon images of the home, the _Glanz und Wonne_, he is about to describe, memory lights his countenance as if with the reflection of some place of unearthly splendour. "In a far land," his words fall measured and sweet, "unapproachable to footsteps of yours, a fastness there stands called Monsalvat. In the centre of it, a bright temple, more precious than anything known upon earth.
Within this is preserved as the most sacred of relics a vessel of blessed and miraculous power. It was brought to earth by a legion of angels, and given into the guardianship of men, to be the object of their purest care. Yearly there descends from Heaven a Dove, to strengthen anew its miraculous power. It is called the Grail, and there is shed from it into the hearts of the knights that guard it serene and perfect faith. One chosen to serve the Grail is armed by it with over-earthly power; against it no evil art can prevail, before the vision of it the shades of death disperse. One sent by it to distant countries to champion the cause of virtue retains the holy power derived from it as long as he remains unknown. Of nature so mysteriously sublime is the blessing of the Grail that if disclosed to the layman"s eye it must withdraw. The ident.i.ty of a Knight of the Grail must therefore not be suspected. If he is recognised--he must depart! Now hear my reply to the forbidden question. By the Holy Grail was I sent to you here. My father Parsifal in Monsalvat wears the crown. A Knight of the Grail am I and my name is Lohengrin!"
The people gaze at him in awe and worshipping wonder. The unhapppy Elsa, feeling the world reel and grow dark, gasps for air and is falling, when Lohengrin catches her in his arms, all his sternness melting away, his grief and love pouring forth in tender reproach.
"Oh, Elsa, what have you done to me? From the first moment of beholding you, I felt love for you enkindling my heart, I became aware of an unknown happiness. The high faculty, the miraculous power, the strength involved in my secret, I wished to place them all at the service of your purest heart. Why did you wrest from me my secret?
For now, alas, I must be parted from you!" She expends herself in wild prayers to be forgiven, to be punished by whatsoever affliction, only not to lose him. He feels sorrow enough, immeasurable sorrow, heart-break, but not for an instant hesitation. "The Grail already is offended at my lagging! I must--must go! There is but one punishment for your fault, and its hard anguish falls equally upon me. We must be parted,--far removed from each other!" He turns to the King and n.o.bles imploring him to remain and lead them as he had promised against the enemy. "Oh, King, I may not stay! A Knight of the Grail, when you have recognised him, should he disobediently remain to fight with you, would have forfeited the strength of his arm. But hear me prophesy: A great victory awaits you, just and single-hearted King! To the remotest days shall the hordes of the East never march in triumph upon Germany!"
From the river-bank comes a startling voice: "The swan! The swan!"
All turn to look. A cry of horror breaks from Elsa. The swan is seen approaching, drawing the empty boat. Less master of himself than theretofore, Lohengrin, realising the last parting so near, gives unmistakable outward sign of his inward anguish. "The Grail already is sending for the dilatory servant!..." Going to the water"s edge he addresses to the snowy bird words which no one can quite comprehend. "My beloved swan, how gladly would I have spared you this last sorrowful voyage. In a year, your period of service having expired, delivered by the power of the Grail, in a different shape I had thought to see you.--Oh, Elsa," he returns to her side, "oh, that I might have waited but one year and been witness of your joy when, under protection of the Grail, your brother had returned to you, whom you thought dead!... When in the ripeness of time he comes home, and I am far away from him in life, you shall give him this horn, this sword, this ring...." He places in her hands the great double-edged sword, the golden horn from his side, the ring from his finger. "This horn when he is in danger, shall procure him help. This sword, in the fray, shall a.s.sure him victory. But when he looks at the ringlet him think of me who upon a time delivered you from danger and distress. Farewell, farewell! My sweet wife, farewell! The Grail will chide if I delay longer.... Farewell!"
He has kissed over and over again the face of the poor woman who, annihilated by grief, has not the power to make motion or sound.
He places her, with terrible effort of resolution, in the arms at last of others, and hastens, amid general lamentation, to the sh.o.r.e.
Ortrud, lost in the crowd, has watched all. She has in reality gained nothing by the disaster to Elsa, but she exults in it. Further revenge for what she has suffered from Elsa"s mere existence, for the bitterness of her husband"s death at the hand of Elsa"s husband, she seeks recklessly in a revelation which cannot but hold danger for herself. In the insanity of her mingled despair and gloating hate, her hurry to hurt, she does not wait until the powerful antagonist be well out of the way of retorting--Lohengrin has but one foot as yet in the boat,--before she cries, "Go your way home, go your way, O haughty hero, that gleefully I may impart to this fair fool who it is drawing you in your boat. By the golden chain which I wound about him, I recognised that swan. That swan was the heir of Brabant!--I thank you," she mockingly addresses Elsa, "I thank you for having driven away the Knight. The swan must now betake himself home with him. If he had remained here longer, that hero, he would have delivered your brother too!" The whole dark scheme of Ortrud"s ambition now lies bare: She had compa.s.sed the disappearance of the heir to the crown of Brabant, changing him by magic art into a swan; had cast the guilt of his disappearance upon Elsa, and married the man who upon Elsa"s condemnation would have become Duke. Through no neglect of her own was Ortrud"s brow still bare of the crown. At the cry of execration that greets her revelation, she faces them all, drawn up to her proud height, and announces: "Thus do they revenge themselves, the G.o.ds from whom you turned your worship!"
But Lohengrin had not been too far, nor too engrossed in going, to hear her words. The Knight of the Grail has sunk on his knees and joined his hands in prayer. All eyes are upon him, his eyes earnestly heavenward. For a long moment all is in motionless suspense.
A white dove flies into sight, and hovers over the boat. With the gladness of one whose prayer is heard, Lohengrin rises and unfastens the chain from the swan; this vanishes from sight, leaving in its place a beautiful boy in shining garments, whom Lohengrin lifts to the bank. "Behold the Duke of Brabant! Your leader he shall be!"
At sight of him, Ortrud utters a cry of terror, Elsa, drawn for a moment out of her stupor, a cry of joy. She catches the brother in her arms--But looking up, after the first transport of gladness, and seeing the place empty where her husband had stood, his boat gone from sight, forgetting all else, she sends after him a despairing cry, "My husband! My husband!"
In the distance, at a bend of the river, the boat reappears for a moment, drawn now by the dove of the Grail. The Silver Knight is seen standing in it, leaning on his shield, his head mournfully bowed. Sounds of sorrow break from all lips. The sight pierces like a sword through the heart of the forsaken bride. She sinks to the ground _entseelt_--exanimate.