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But Cordova could have made herself into a stately Brunhilde, a wild and lovely Kundry, or a fair and fateful Isolde, with the very least amount of artificial aid that theatrical illusion admits. Margaret Donne, disgusted with Cordova, said that her voice was about as well adapted for one of those parts as a sick girl's might be for giving orders at sea in a storm.
He believed the absurdity with a fervour now laughable, and was especially enthusiastic when the sacrificed person was a woman: woman, to his mind, was the redeemer of man: that was her métier. Senta redeems Vanderdecken; in his last work Kundry redeems Parsifal by thoughtfully dying so as to leave that unamiable idiot to lead the higher life of the monastery, as I have described it.
Before they leave, Parsifal's first act as the redeemer is to baptize Kundry with water from the spring. The sound of tolling bells in the distance announces the funeral of Titurel, and the scene changes to the hall where the knights are carrying the litter upon which Amfortas lies, awaiting the funeral procession approaching to the strains of a solemn march.
The incidents of their quest, the agonies wrought by their sight, their mission as inviters of sympathetic interest, and the failure of a hero to achieve a work of succor because of failure to show pity, are all elements in Keltic Quester and Quest stories, which antedate Christianity. Kundry, the loathly damsel and siren, has her prototypes in classic fable and romantic tale.
"But was it with the intention of consulting me, Miss Innes, that you introduced the subject? I hear that you are going to play the principal part next year Kundry." "Nothing is settled. As I told you just now, Monsignor, I am thinking of leaving the stage, and your opinions concerning it do not encourage me to remain an actress."
No lady of under eighteen stones is admired; but one who is heavier than that, instead of staying at home and looking after her grandchildren, is put into a white dress and called Sieglinde, or into a brown robe and called Kundry; and a German audience accepts her as a revelation of ideal loveliness through the perfection of human form.
Her thoughts merged into vague calculations regarding the value of her jewellery.... Even Owen would not care to pay twenty thousand pounds so that he might marry her this season instead of next. Next year she was going to sing Kundry! Her face tightened in expression, and a painful languor seemed to weaken and ruin all her tissues.
But it is not at this juncture the penitent who is in the ascendant, it is the evil side of Kundry, and at that last request of Parsifal's, proving the vanity of her effort, a great anger seizes her: "Never!" she cries, "never shall you find him! The fallen king, let him perish! The wretch whom I laughed and laughed and laughed at! Ha ha!
Carts had passed there, and the ruts were full of water, but the earth about them was a little crisp, as if there had been frost during the night. They had brought with them a score of "Parsifal," for it was not yet certain that Evelyn would not play the part of Kundry. Notwithstanding Ulick's criticism, she thought she would like to act in the third act.
There is no sign that he recognises her, but, as if his soul recognised some quality of her soul, as if some need in her called to him, he dips water from the sacred well and sprinkles her head: "My first ministration shall be this: I baptize thee! Have faith in the Redeemer!" And Kundry, the curse being lifted which had dried up in her the fountain of tears, bows to the earth abundantly weeping.
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