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He decides upon reflection to try the prize-song he has prepared, as a serenade, and make sure beforehand that the maiden will be pleased with it. Walther has approached and exchanged greetings with Pogner. He comes directly to the point, and, with airy aplomb, "If truth must be told," he says, "the thing which drove me from home and brought me to Nuremberg was the love of Art, nothing else!
Erich had acquired a considerable fortune in his business; he was at this moment in possession of a collection of first-rate pictures of the Italian schools, and Walther proposed that, if his daughter could be brought to consent to the match, Erich should then retire from business, and incorporate these first-rate pictures into his gallery, that his son-in-law might possess and preserve it, distinguished as it would thus become, after his death: for he dreaded the thought of this excellent collection being some time or other again dispersed, perhaps even sold at an under-price, and thrown away on men in whose hands, from want of judgment, the pictures might go to ruin.
The manuscript books known serve to prove one thing which needed not to have called up a doubt. In them are poems from all of the mastersingers who make up the meeting which condemns Walther in St. Catherine's church. Wagner has adhered to the record.
The thing is justified theatrically, so to speak, rather than truly dramatically; for though the masters manifest dissatisfaction by their ejaculations, and the 'prentices, seeing the way the wind blows, get out of hand, and chant their scoffing song in the most uproarious fashion, Walther, inspired by a sense that he is right and a determination not to be put down, continues his song to the end.
It is but truth to say that he was happy in those days, filled with a stolen delight, all the sweeter because it was stolen under the very eyes of the medieval baron, lord almost of life and death, who was master there. He steadily advanced in the good graces of Walther.
Walther's unprecedented leaping to his feet in the heat of inspiration has given offence to this one; the other terms his singing "empty battering at the ear-drums." They are about to subscribe unanimously to Beckmesser's verdict that he has lost his case, when Sachs's voice breaks in upon the confusion. He has listened to Walther in complete self-forgetful absorption.
Walther steps up and sings; as he goes on the people again make themselves heard, but to praise, not to deride; towards the finish their voices form a choral accompaniment, and we have the counterpart to the finale of the first act. Walther wins the day and Eva; and, slightly against his will, he is made a Master.
"I will force him to leave it!" says Walther, fiercely. "He must not see you. He knows you." "The shoe-maker?..." "Yes, it is Sachs." "Hans Sachs, my friend?" "Do not believe it! He had nothing but evil to say of you!" "What, Sachs? He, too?... I will put out his lamp!" She catches again at his arm, and even at that moment both are startled into immobility by the sound of a lute.
Walther with a quick stride is beside them; impulsively he grasps the hand of the good Sachs, to whom he dimly feels he owes so much, to whom he owes really more than he dreams. For a moment not one of them can speak.
How his eyes beam with laughter!... Look sharp, Sixtus, keep an eye on that fellow!" "And may I hope," asks Walther of Pogner, "to have this very day an opportunity to undergo trial and be elected master?" "Oho!" soliloquises Beckmesser, with a shock of surprise at audacity such as this, "on that head stands no skittle!" There is no moss growing on him!
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