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He had not had much time to dwell upon this fact while the yacht was in dock; indeed, he had been so exceedingly busy, and so dog-tired at the end of each day's work, that it had scarcely obtruded itself upon his attention: but now he began to worry himself as to why it was that someone by which he really meant Dona Isolda had not been able to find time to drop him so much as two or three lines to say that they had arrived safely, and were hoping to see him soon.
Here we have got many leagues away from Lohengrin, with its scene between a man and a jealous, ungenerous, querulous woman, and TANNHÄUSER, with its contest between an impossible platonic affection and piggish lust. There is not a touch of staginess about Isolda; she was not born in the green-room.
A dense cloud of black smoke was by this time pouring from the craft's funnel and driving over the town with the rapidly increasing sea breeze, and presently a small flicker of steam appeared at the top of her waste pipe, and a minute or two later it was seen that the craft was getting her anchor. "Ah," remarked Jack to Senorita Isolda, "the fun is just about to begin!" And so it was.
He becomes more and more delirious, and at last, after an outburst, he faints; then awakens and sings the sublime passage in which he sees Isolda coming over-seas, the ship covered with sweet-smelling flowers. The accompaniment to this piece of magic is a figure taken from the fourth theme I have quoted in this chapter.
They know whither fate is driving them: Isolda has said as much to Brangaena: "she may end it ... whatsoe'er she make me, wheresoe'er take me, hers am I wholly, so let me obey her solely."
When he ends Tristan knows he has no explanation to offer none that Mark could possibly understand: human affection and elemental human passion are unintelligible to one another. He replies that he cannot answer Mark's "Why?" and turning to Isolda asks whether she will follow him whither he is now going the land of eternal night. He, not Mark, plans his death.
Isolda listened joyfully, and answered all he asked; but no fell presentiment shook her heart: the poor woman loved Andre with all the strength of her soul; for him she would have given up her life in this world and in the world to come; yet she was not his mother.
The whole of Tristan's subsequent ravings are made up of reminiscences, more or less distorted, of various passages out of the first and second acts, as he goes over, as in a dream, his recent life the sight of Isolda, the scene on the ship and that in the garden. Another new theme to be noted is blazed out by the orchestra when Kurvenal tells him Isolda has been sent for.
Isolda, half-crazed, tells the whole story as it occurred previous to the rising of the curtain how she nursed the wounded Tristan, found him to be the slayer of her betrothed, took his sword and was about to kill him, when he opened his eyes, and the sword dropped from her listless fingers.
At that news he works himself into a condition of unbounded excitement, fancies he sees the ship bringing Isolda, but at the sound of that sad, droning pipe melody, and when Kurvenal tells him it is a signal that no ship is yet in sight, he lapses into unconsciousness again.
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