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Mademoiselle had glided from the Chopin into the quivering love notes of Isolde's song, and back again to the Impromptu with its soulful and poignant longing. The shadows deepened in the little room. The music grew strange and fantastic turbulent, insistent, plaintive and soft with entreaty. The shadows grew deeper. The music filled the room.
Plato is speaking of the roots of knowledge; Wagner conceives of Love as Plato does of knowledge, and in the minds of both love and knowledge are the same, as are also music and philosophy. The idea comes at once to the front in Isolde's enigmatical Im Dunkel du, im Lichte ich.
They all seem to be in a condition of tension of intense, tightly-strung waiting, very like that breathless expectancy in the last act of "Tristan" when Isolde's ship is sighted and all the violins hang high up on to a shrill, intolerably eager note. There's a sort of fever. And the big words! I thought Germans were stolid, quiet people. But how they talk! And always in capital letters.
With the peculiar daring which earned him the fame of "hero without equal, wonder of all nations," he took the wound of which he was dying to the country of the enemy, to the very castle of the Irish King whose daughter Isolde's affianced he had slain. For Isolde was renowned for her skill in the art of medicine. The Queen, her mother, possessed even rarer secrets of magic.
SCENE II. The curtain thrown back discloses the deck of the ship with the crew grouped around Tristan, who is steering, his man Kurwenal reclining near him. The refrain of the sailors' song is again heard. Isolde's eyes are fixed upon Tristan as she begins to the strain of the love-motive accompanied by muted strings: Chosen for me! lost to me! . . . . . Death-devoted head! Death-devoted heart!
Valerie, sinking down into her chair, burst into an uncontrollable flood of tears. The secret of her heart, which she had denied to herself, sprang up at Isolde's words and confronted her, filling her world's horizon. 'Well, said Isolde after a long pause, "We love but while we may." I wish you joy of his constancy. He loved me yesterday. Valerie raised her head with the old haughty gesture.
As he reads in Kurwenal's looks that she is not yet in sight, he once more threatens to become violent, when suddenly the joyful tune, the signal of Isolde's approach, is heard. SCENE II. The catastrophe which now follows is one of the most terrible ever conceived by a dramatist. Directly Kurwenal is away, Tristan begins to toss in his bed; he seems almost to rise from the dead.
Isolde, the daughter of the King of Ireland, is sought in marriage by Marke, the King of Cornwall, and Tristan, his nephew, has been sent to bring the princess to England. Before the beginning of the drama Tristan had slain Morold, Isolde's lover, and sent his head to Ireland in place of the tribute due from Cornwall.
Brangaene and other women place on Isolde's unconscious shoulders the royal mantle, and deck her, unaware of it, with jewels. Kurwenal comes running to his master: "Hail, Tristan, fortunate hero! King Mark, with rich rout of courtiers, approaches in a barge. Ha! He looks well pleased, coming to meet the bride!" Tristan asks, dazed: "Who approaches?" "The King!" "What king?"
"I want you," she said, "to go through Isolde's music with me." "Do you think I can tell you anything about the music you don't know already?" "Yes, I think you can. You tell me things about myself that I did not know. I hardly knew that I acted as you describe in Margaret. I hope I did, for I seemed very good in your article. I read it over again this morning in bed.
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