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The old friends parted, Walther dissatisfied with himself and all the world. At a late hour in the night, Edward was sitting in his lonely chamber, occupied with a multiplicity of thoughts. Around him lay unpaid bills; and he was heaping by their side the sums which were to discharge them the next morning.
"Gladly," replied Walther, and they all sat down again around the hearth. It was now exactly midnight, and the moon shone intermittently through the passing clouds. "You must forgive me," began Bertha, "but my husband says your thoughts are so noble that it is not right to conceal anything from you. Only you must not regard my story as a fairy-tale, no matter how strange it may sound.
Walther: "The Church is invisible because we cannot see faith, the work of the Holy Spirit, which the members of this Church have in their hearts; for we can never with certainty distinguish the true Christians, who, properly, alone constitute the Church, from the hypocrites." Hence Reason, even when putting on ever so many spectacles, cannot know her.
"I should call you a little mad if you didn't work so hard and with such a good heart." "Ah, well, if we enjoy our madness, pray let us remain so." Walther shook his head again, and walked away some distance where he stopped, and looked long at his new helper who toiled with uncommon diligence but who whistled and sang in a low but happy manner as he toiled.
Walther answers unhesitatingly: "All that winter-night and forest-splendour, that book and grove have taught me; all that the magic of poetry has secretly revealed to me; all that I have gathered, a thoughtful listener, from ride to battle or from dance in gay assembly, all this, in the present hour, when the highest prize of life may be purchased by a song, is what must necessarily flow into my song, original in word and note, is what must be outpoured before you, masters, if I succeed, as a master-song!"
The sun has risen every morning for a million years and more." "But not this sun, Herr Walther. It never rose before and it's the brightest and most glorious of them all." Walther looked up at the sun. It was in truth bright, casting a golden glow over all the mountains, but he saw nothing new about it. "It's a fine sun, as you say," he said, "but it's the same as ever.
"The test was, perhaps, severe," he said, "but the young man seems to have endured it well. I might say that in his own little world he has achieved a triumph. Send him to the stables, and tell Walther, the head groom, to give him work." After the one examining glance he no longer looked at John who had now disappeared from his own world. John had no fear of detection.
I swing myself heavenward in daring flight, away from that death-vault, the city, away to the hills of home; thence to the green forest, meeting-place of birds, where long ago Walther, the Poet, won my allegiance. There sing I clear and loud the praise of my dearest lady, there mounts upward, little as Master Crows may relish it, the proud canticle of love!"
With deft foot Sachs propels David before him into the house; then, forcibly drawing Walther with him across the threshold, fastens the door, his object happily accomplished. The street-battle is still raging. But at this point women pour water from the windows on the heads of the combatants, as they would on fighting dogs. Simultaneously, the horn of the night-watchman is heard.
While these two were thus trying to deceive each other, the conversation of the stranger and his host had fallen, accidentally on the one side, and by judicious management on the other, on the topic of matrimony; for old Walther seldom let slip an opportunity of delivering his sentiments on that subject.
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