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Right out of the festival, rather in full festal array, we seem to plunge into the broad movement of the surging sea, Allegro non troppo e maestoso, straight on to the fateful event. There are no sighs and tears. Placidly the waves play softly about. And dolce e capriccioso the siren Schérézade once more reappears to conclude the tale.
On the Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingenious as Lucian's Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly colored as the Tales of Scherezade; on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of La Bruyère; on the Thursday, a scene from common life, equal to the best chapters in the Vicar of Wakefield; on the Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry on fashionable follies, on hoops, patches, or puppet shows; and on the Saturday a religious meditation, which will bear a comparison with the finest passages in Massillon.
Scherezade is beheaded! Wise, enlightened Sultan! Thou comest in the form of a schoolboy; thou bearest the Romans and Greeks together in a satchel on thy back, as Atlas sustained the world. Do not cast an evil eye upon poor Scherezade; do not judge her before thou hast learned thy lesson, and art a child again, do not behead Scherezade!
On the Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingenious as Lucian's Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly coloured as the Tales of Scherezade; on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of La Bruyere; on the Thursday, a scene from common life, equal to the best chapters in the Vicar of Wakefield; on the Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry on fashionable follies, on hoops, patches, or puppet shows; and on the Saturday a religious meditation, which will bear a comparison with the finest passages in Massillon.
Prefixed to the score is a "program," in Russian and French: "The Sultan Schahriar, convinced of the infidelity of women, had sworn to put to death each of his wives after the first night. But the Sultana Schérézade saved her life by entertaining him with the stories which she told him during a thousand and one nights.
Jockeys, squaws, yokels, etc., all appeared mysteriously from nothing. I was principally draped in my Reckitts blue upholsterings and a brilliant Scherezade kimono, bought in a moment of extravagance in Paris. The proceedings after tea, when the cooks excelled themselves making an enormous birthday cake, consisted of progressive games of sorts.
Scherezade who interprets the stories for the Sultan Scherezade is the poet, and the Sultan is the public who is to be agreeably entertained, or else he will decapitate Scherezade. Powerful Sultan! Poor Scherezade! The Sultan-public sits in more than a thousand and one forms, and listens. Let us regard a few of these forms.
Here, at last, the Schérézade phrase is heard on the violin solo, to chords of the harp; but presently it is lost in the concluding strains of the love story. In the quality of the romance it approaches the legends of a later age of chivalry. In the main it is the long quest and the final meeting of a prince and a princess, living in distant kingdoms.
Overcome by curiosity, the Sultan put off from day to day the death of his wife, and at last entirely renounced his bloody vow. "Many wonders were told to Schahriar by the Sultana Schérézade. For the stories the Sultana borrowed the verses of poets and the words of popular romances, and she fitted the tales and adventures one within the other. "I. The Sea and the Vessel of Sindbad.
They come also, and on them Scherezade fixes her eye. Encouraged by them, she boldly raises her proud head aloft towards the stars, and sings of the harmony there above, and here beneath, in man's heart. The sword of death hangs over her head whilst she relates and the Sultan-figure bids us expect that it will fall. Scherezade is the victor: the poet is, like her, also a victor.
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