Page 193 THE MASTER-SINGERS OF NUREMBERG (continued 2)

Page 242 With heavenly glow of sunset-light, day had departed, as he lay there drinking joy from her eyes, desire the sole power in possession of his heart. Night had closed down, baffling the eyesight, when, through the branches, the rays of two bright stars had shed their light upon his face. The sound of a spring upon the quiet height had reached his ear, murmuring more musically than any spring heard theretofore; stars had appeared in multitude, dancing among the boughs overhead, until, instead of golden fruit, the laurel-tree had swarmed with a host of stars....

"Friend!" cries Sachs, striving against the full betrayal of his pleasure, lest it be an interrupting element, "your dream was an effectual guide! The second part is successful as the first. If now," he ventures, "you would compose a third, it might contain the interpretation of your dream...." But Walther jumps up from his chair, suddenly weary of the game. "Enough of words!" And Sachs, with sympathetic understanding of the incalculable ways of poets, refrains from pressing him. That overbubbling inspiration he believes can be counted upon. "Reserve then word and deed for the proper place. And I pray you hold fast in memory, this melody, a charming one it is to fit with words. And, against the moment of singing it in a more extended circle, hold fast likewise to your dream!"—"What have you in mind?" Walther inquires. Sachs does not directly enlighten him, but: "Your faithful servant has, very seasonably, arrived with packs and porte-manteaux. The garments in which you intended to make yourself brave for wedding-ceremonials at home, he has brought here to the house. A little dove no doubt directed him to the nest where his master slept. Come with me therefore to your chamber. Fitting it is we both attire ourselves splendidly, when a splendid deed is to be dared!" Walther without question Page 243 places his hand, as if it held his whole confidence, in Sachs's. They pass together out of the workshop.

The stage remains for a moment empty. The air retains as if echoes, or fragrances, of the personalities which have but just withdrawn; it is sweetened with effluvia of Walther's youth, of Sachs's greatness of heart. Suddenly, like a bar of bilious green across a shimmering mother-o'-pearl fabric, harmonies of a very different sort catch the attention, and Beckmesser's face is seen peering in at the window. Finding the workshop empty, he limps in. He is in holiday array, but there is little of holiday about him, save in his gaudily beribboned clothes. A long comedy-scene follows, in which Beckmesser says never a word, but his thoughts are heard and his actions are eloquent. His body is one mass of aches and pains, his soul the battleground of anger, shame, thirst for vengeance. The din of the evening before fills his ears; he is chased, as if by furies, by memories of the indignities put upon him. He is so sore he cannot sit; when he goes his joints hurt rackingly. His restless moving about the room while he waits for Sachs brings him to the master's writing-table: his eye falls on the sheet of music on which Sachs has taken down Walther's song; his attention is arrested; he reads it off mentally with ever-increasing agitation. No mistake possible, in his mind: Sachs, who had declared that he would not enter the song-contest for Pogner's daughter, has outrageously lied, and here is the proof of it, this song which he means to sing at the tournament. "Now," bursts forth Beckmesser, "everything becomes clear to me!" He jumps, hearing Sachs at the door, and stuffs the paper into his pocket. Sachs, in his handsome best-coat, meets him pleasantly. "You surely are not having any more trouble with the shoes?" Beckmesser's wrath holds in but a moment before voiding itself upon Sachs in accusation and threat. "Be sure, Page 244 friend Sachs, I know you now!... That I may not stand in your way, you go so far even as to incite the mob to riot.... You have always been my enemy.... Now hear, whether I see through you. The maiden whom I have chosen, who was verily born for me, to the frustration of all widowers there be,—of her you are in pursuit! In order that Master Sachs might gain the goldsmith's rich inheritance it was that at the council of masters he stood upon minor clauses. For that reason, fool that I was! with bawling and hammering he tried to drown my song,—that the child might not be made aware of another's ability! Yes, yes! Have I hit the mark? And finally from his cobbler's shop he egged after me boys with cudgels, that he might be rid of me.... Ouch! Ouch! Green and blue was I beaten, made an object of derision to the beloved woman, so drubbed and maltreated that no tailor's flat-iron can smoothe me out! Upon my very life an attempt was made! But I came out of it with sufficient spirit left to reward you for the deed. Stand forth to-day and sing, do, and see how you prosper. Beaten and bruised as I am, I shall certainly manage to throw you out of time!" Sachs has unperturbedly let him spend himself. "My good friend, you are labouring under a delusion. You are free to attribute to me what actions you please... but I have not the least thought of competing." "Lies and deceit!" roars Beckmesser, "I know better!" Sachs quietly repeats his statement. "What else I have in mind is no affair of yours. But concerning the contest you are in error."—"Not in the contest? No competition-song?"—"Certainly not." Beckmesser produces the piece of music. "Is that your hand?"—"Yes," Sachs owns, amused; "Was that it?"—"I suppose you call it a biblical lay?"—"Nay," laughs Sachs, "any one guessing it to be such would hit wide enough of the mark."—"Well, then?"—"What is it?"—"Do you ask me?"—"What Page 245 do you mean?"—"That you are, in all can dour, a rogue of the first magnitude!" Sachs shrugs good-humouredly; "Maybe! I have never, however, pocketed what I found upon another's table. That one may not think evil of you, dear sir, keep the paper, I make you a gift of it." Beckmesser leaps in the air with incredulous joy: "Lord God! A poem of Sachs's!... But soft, that I may not be led into fresh troubles. You have, no doubt," he insinuates, "committed the thing perfectly to memory?"—"Have no uneasiness with regard to that."—"You bestow the sheet on me then outright?"—"To prevent you being a thief."—"And suppose I made use of it?"—"You may do as you please."—"I may sing it, then?"—"If it is not too difficult."—"And if I should please my audience?"—"I should be greatly astonished!"—Beckmesser misses the sly shoester's intention. "You are too modest altogether," he says; and goes on to explain in what dire need he stands of a new composition, since the song sung the night before as a serenade can have no chance, if sung again to-day, of charming the Pognerin, for whom it must be associated, thanks to the cobbler's merry jests, with every undignified circumstance. And how can he, poor belaboured wretch, find the necessary peace of mind to compose a new one? Yet, if he have not a new song, he must give up the hope of marriage. But a song of Sachs's would enable him to overcome every obstacle; if he may have it, let all the disagreements which have kept them apart be forgotten and buried. But,—he suddenly holds in, and puckers his forehead,—if this were a trap? "Even so late as yesterday," he says to Sachs, "you were my enemy. How is it that after all the troubles between us you are to-day kindly disposed toward me?"—"I worked on your shoes until late at night," Sachs disingenuously replies; "is that the sort of consideration one shows an enemy?"—"True, true. But Page 246 now give me your word. Whenever and under whatever circumstances you hear that song, you will never by any chance say that it is of your composing."—"I give you my word and oath," Sachs assents, with a spice of wicked glee, "that I will never boast of that song being mine."—Beckmesser's spirits rise to heights of mad exhilaration. "What more do I want? I am saved! Beckmesser need trouble no further!"—"Friend," Sachs warns him, "in all kindness I advise you, study that song carefully. It is of no easy execution."—"Friend Sachs," Beckmesser waives the warning, "you are a good poet, but in all that relates to tones and tunes there is no one goes ahead of me. But now, quickly home, to learn the thing by heart. Hans Sachs, my dear fellow, I have misunderstood you. My judgment was thrown off the track by that adventurer. Just such a one was needed! But we masters made short work of him! Good-bye! I must be off! Elsewhere will I show my gratitude for your sweet friendliness. I will vote for you hereafter, I will buy your works. I will make you Marker!" Effusively he embraces him: "Marker, Marker, Marker Hans Sachs!"

Hans Sachs looks after the departing figure with a meditative smile. "So entirely ill-natured have I never yet found any one. He cannot fail to come to grief of some sort. Many there be who squander their wits, but they reserve enough to keep house with. The hour of weakness comes for each one of us, when he turns fool and is open to parley." So entirely ill-natured Beckmesser has been found that Sachs feels no compunction at letting him run into the pitfall gaping ahead. He is willing to win an advantage by a deception, let him follow his head, why should honest Sachs be tender of him? The joke is not severe beyond his deserts. He has candidly rejoiced that short work was made of that adventurer, Von Page 247 Stolzing; why should he not be permitted to encounter the same sort of treatment? Why indeed should not his dishonesty be turned to use? "That Master Beckmesser here turned thief," reflects Sachs, "falls in excellently with my plan."

Eva appears in the doorway, Eva dazzling in her white wedding-dress. "I was wondering," says Sachs to himself at sight of her, "where she could be!" For, as Walther was known to be in the house, it was thought she must before long find some pretext to stand beneath the same roof. She wears a little languid air; last evening was a sore trial to young nerves. A tinge of accusing plaintiveness is in her voice. She is markedly abstracted; her thoughts are wandering, of course, all about the house in search of him. She has her pretext ready, and meets Sachs's warm compliment upon her appearance with a reproachful: "Ah, master! So long as the tailor has done his work successfully, who ever will divine where I suffer inconvenience, where secretly my shoe pinches me?"—"The wicked shoe!" Sachs is for a moment really deceived; "It was your humour yesterday not to try it on."—"You see? I had too much confidence. I was mistaken in the master."—"I am sorry, indeed I am!" He is on his knee at once: "Let me look at it, my child, that I may help you, right off, quick!"—"As soon as I stand on it, it obliges me to go; and as soon as I go, it obliges me to stand."—"Place your foot here on the stool, I will remedy the evil at once. Now, what is wrong with it?"—"You can see, it is too wide!"—"Child, that is pure vanity. The shoe is snug."—"That is what I said, and that is why it pinches my toes."—"Here, at the left?"—"No, the right."—"At the instep?"—"No, the heel."—"What?" he asks incredulously, "Something wrong too with the heel?"—"Ach, master," she exclaims, "do you know better than I where my shoe pinches me?"—"I can only wonder," he replies, good-humouredly, Page 248 "that your shoe should be loose and yet pinch you everywhere!" The door of the inner room opens at this moment, and Walther stands upon the threshold in the rich gala costume of a young noble. Eva at sight of him in his splendour utters a cry, and remains spell-bound, gazing. He stops short in the doorway, spell-bound equally at sight of her in her shimmering bride's-robe of white,—and from their eyes, fixed unwaveringly upon each other, their hearts travel forth on luminous beams to meet and mingle. Sachs's back is toward Walther; he has not see him, but the tell-tale light on Eva's face, reflection of a sun-burst, has reported to him of the apparition. He pretends not to see. "Aha! Here is the trouble!" he speaks, as if nothing were; "Now I see what the matter is! Child, you were right, the seams are stiff. Just wait and I will set the matter aright. Stay where you are, I will take the shoe and put it on the last for a minute. After that it will give you no further trouble." He draws the shoe tenderly from her childish foot, and leaves her standing, statue-still, lost in her trance of contemplation, with her foot on the stool, while he takes the shoe to his bench and pretends to work at it. He cannot forbear,—while he plays his little comedy, and those two angelically beautiful beings, saved and aided by him, between whom he shares his big heart, stand hushed, drinking, in oblivion of all, the heavenly nectar of each other's glances,—he cannot forbear teasing the little lady a bit, giving her a little lesson, taking a very mild vengeance on her for the faintly perfidious wiles of yesterday. So he runs on, while making himself busy with her shoe: "Forever to be cobbling! That is my fate. Night nor day, no deliverance for me! Child, listen! I have thought over what shall bring my shoe-making to an end. The best thing I can do will be after all to enter the contest for your hand. I might thus at least win something for myself as a poet!... Page 249 You are not listening? Yet it was yourself put the idea in my head.... Oh, very well! I see! Attend to your shoes! If at least," he slyly suggests, without turning, "some one would sing to me while I work! I heard to-day a regularly beautiful song. If just a third verse, equally successful, might be added to it!" Like the hypnotised receiving a suggestion, Walther, ready as a bird, breaks forth singing, his gaze never swerving from Eva: "Did the stars come to a pause in their charming dance? Light and clear, above the clustering locks of the most beautiful of all women, glittered with soft brilliancy a crown of stars..."

"Listen, child," Sachs bids Eva, in the short pause between the verses, "that is a master-song!"

"Miracle upon miracle! A double radiance of day now illumines me, for, even as two suns of purest delight, two divinely beautiful eyes bend their light upon me...."

"That," says Sachs, "is the sort of thing you hear sung in my house nowadays!"

"Oh, gracious vision which my heart found boldness to approach! The wreath, which in the rays of the twin suns shows pale at once and green, tenderly and mildly she weaves about the consort's head. Into the breast of the poet—born erst to joy, now elect to glory,—Paradisal joy she pours, in Love's dream!"

Sachs has been enabled to keep in hand his emotion at the sound of the ecstatic song by diligently busying himself with the shoe, uttering at intervals small insignificant remarks: "Let us see, now, whether I have got my shoe aright. I believe I have finally succeeded, eh? Try it, now!" He has slipped it on to her foot, "Walk on it! Tell me, does it still hurt?" But Eva, who has stood breathlessly gazing and listening to the thrilling accents, new to her, of her lover, when the heart-searching Page 250 voice is silent and the tension relaxes, bursts into passionate weeping, sinks on Sachs's breast and clings to him, sobbing. 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. Then it becomes too much for Sachs, this soft beloved form trembling against his breast; he gently frees himself and allows the burden he relinquishes to slide upon the shoulder of Walther. Like a noble dog shaking his fur, he takes himself away and finds occupation at the further end of the room, trying by his commonplace playful talk to dispel the oppression of a too great emotion. Again he must, all for her good, tease Evchen a bit. "Has not a shoe-maker his fill of troubles?" he grumbles; "Were I not at the same time a poet, not another shoe would I make. So much hard work, such a perpetual calling upon you! This one's shoe is too loose, that one's too tight, here it claps, it hangs at the heel, there it presses, it pinches. The shoe-maker must know everything, mend everything that is torn, and if he be in addition a poet, then verily he is not allowed a moment's peace. But if, on top of all, he be a widower, then he is in all truth regarded as a very fool! The youngest of maidens, if a husband is wanted, request him to apply for them; let him understand them or let him not, it is all the same; let him say yes, let him say no, in the end he is told that he smells of pitch, and is called stupid, cantankerous, and impertinent! I wouldn't care so much," he concludes humourously, "but for my apprentice. He is losing all respect for me!..."

The conscience-smitten girl flings her arms around him again: "Oh, Sachs, my friend, oh, noble heart, how can I ever repay you? Without your love, what were I? What were I, Page 251 without you? I should have remained a child forever, had you not awakened me. Through you I won the things one prizes, through you I learned what a soul is. Through you I awoke, through you alone I learned to think nobly, freely, courageously. You guided my growth, and brought me to flowering. Oh, dear master, scold me, well you may!... But yet I was on the right track. For, had I any choice, you, no other, should be my husband. I would hold out the prize to you alone. As it is, I myself have been chosen—to never-before-dreamed-of torment! And if this day I am wedded, it will be without choice of my own. Coercion I have suffered, have suffered violence. You know, master, that the force of it frightened even you!"—"My child," he replies, mildly, collectedly—if feelingly and a little sadly, to her impulsive confession, while a known, poignant strain, like a profound sigh, holds the ear for a moment, an echo from a different opera, "of Tristan and Isolde I know the sorrowful story. Hans Sachs was shrewd and would have none of King Mark's happiness!" With a return to the lightness which is his policy of the moment, he adds, lest emotion too far unnerve them all: "Full time it was that the right one should appear, or I should after all have run into the snare!... Aha! There comes Lene looking for you. Hey, David, aren't you coming?" Nurse and apprentice enter, one from outside and one from within, in their holiday garments.

"The witnesses are here, the sponsors present, now quickly to the christening! Take your places!" Sachs directs. All look at him in wonder. He lays before them his idea of giving, with proper ceremony, a name to the master-song born in his house. It is a poet's fancy, an act of tender superstition on Sachs's part, a form by which he tries to lay a helpful charm or blessing upon the new-born creation on which so much depends; Page 252 send it forth equipped as well as possible with spiritual arms, that it may, as he says, "grow great without harm or mishap." The young melody's father, of course, is Walther; the Pognerin and he, Sachs, will stand its sponsors; Lene and David shall be witnesses. But as an apprentice is not a proper witness, David is promoted with the rite of a smart box on the ear from apprentice to journeyman. Sachs suggests as the name of the new-born: Song of Interpretation of the Blissful Morning-Dream, and the young godmother is requested to speak appropriate words over it. The point of what follows is hardly in Eva's words, pretty as they are; the point is that one of the most extraordinary quintets that ever charmed human ear serves as baptismal send-off to the infant melody.

Each of the five singing together expresses, according to custom in concerted pieces, the aspect which the common subject, or the hour, has for him. And so dear Sachs, while Eva and Walther rejoice on their side, and David and Lene—to whom the apprentice's promotion opens vistas of mastership and marriage,—rejoice on theirs, Sachs, adding a less glad but more serene voice to the glorious sheaf of song, reveals his heart,—with no one to listen, for all are singing. "Full fain"—he sighs, "Full fain had I been to sing before the winsome child, but need was that I should place restraint upon the sweet disorderly motions of the heart. A lovely evening dream it was, hardly dare I to think upon it...." But the wreath of immortal youth shall be the poet's reward. Impertinent to pity the sturdy Sachs, who has his poetry and his strong heart. And he has at all moments been wiser than his lovely evening dream. There has been really no renunciation on his part, for he had never allowed himself any serious parleying with the tender temptation. Not for an instant does he present himself as a Page 253 sentimental figure; but the generosity with which he employs himself to secure for others the happiness which, though in his good sense he had denied it to himself, his heart had yet caressed in its alluring evening dream, makes him a magnanimous one.

It is time when they have finished to start for the seat of the Saint John's Day celebration. Sachs sends Eva home to her father, orders David to close the shop, and starts along with Walther.

While the curtain is lowered for the change of scene, one of those musical transformations takes place of which there are several instances in these operas. With elements we know, new elements begin to mingle; the old are withdrawn, and presently, musically, as ocularly, the scene is changed. We behold a green meadow on the banks of the Pegnitz; in the distance, the city of Nuremberg. The place is decorated for holiday. There is a great stand for the master-singers and judges in the song-contest. Crowds of holiday-makers are on the spot already, more still arrive by the river in bright boats. The various guilds march in procession with their respective insignia, shoe-makers, tailors, bakers. Apprentices and young girls dance together to a measure daintily gay as their fluttering ribbon-knots. Conspicuous among them is David, so forgetful for the moment of Lene and himself as to imprint a glowing kiss on his partner's cheek. Frivolities stop short with the arrival of the masters. These assemble to the sound of what we will call their unofficial march; then, to their great march, they walk to their places on the stand, Kothner waving the banner of the guild, and the people acclaiming. Pogner escorts Eva to the seat of honour. When all are in their places, a corps of young apprentices, filling the function to-day of heralds, and carrying staffs of office liberally be flowered, call out in Latin the Page 254 order for silence. Quiet being established, Sachs, spokesman for the occasion, rises. At once the silence is shattered by cheers for the popular poet, cries of joy at sight of him; there is waving of kerchiefs and hats. To show how every one knows and loves his songs, the people entone one of them all together and sing it jubilantly through; and "Long live Sachs!" they shout, "Hans Sachs! Long live Nuremberg's beloved Hans Sachs!" It is too much for poet to experience unmoved, and Sachs's voice, when the people quiet down at last, to listen, only gradually regains its manly firmness. "You ease your own hearts and burden mine, in offering me, unworthy, too great honour. If I am not to sink crushed beneath it, let it be in the thought that it is the gift of your love. Great honour already has fallen to my portion to-day, in that I have been elected to the dignity of spokesman. And the announcement which I have to make to you, believe me, is full of high honour!" He imparts to them Pogner's project, but with these important modifications or omissions,—and it is they which constitute the stroke Sachs has been preparing. No mention whatever is made of the limitations determined upon by the masters at the last meeting: that the singers contending must be members of the guild, and that the masters exclusively shall be judges. So the offer stands: A lovely girl and a rich inheritance shall be the portion of the singer who before the assembled people shall carry off the prize,—awarded, one naturally understands, since nothing different is stated, by popular acclamation. Free candidature, therefore popular election! And Sachs so presents the thing that the masters cannot very well object, if even they had the courage to chance the awkwardness of a public scene; they can hardly claim it is not fair that they, presumably superior in song to non-masters, should accept the contest on the same terms. Sachs's peculiar audacity Page 255 has lain in his taking the risk of a perfectly justified revolt on the part of the masters against his high-handed proceeding; he has counted on the restraining effect of the public occasion; has counted on luck, which proverbially follows the bold. High-handed, his course, undeniably, but too much was at stake for any narrow consideration to hold back Sachs: the happiness of Eva,—of, as he says, at the conclusion of his announcement, "the amiable stainless one, who must never be made to regret that Nuremberg holds in such honour art and its professors!" Hearty applause follows his words. Pogner grasps his hand, moved, infinitely relieved. "Oh, Sachs, my friend, what thanks do I owe you! How did you know what was weighing on my heart?"—"Much was staked upon that cast," replies Sachs; "now pluck up heart!"

He catches sight of Beckmesser, who ever since arriving with the rest of the masters has been feverishly studying his bit of music-sheet, at intervals wiping the desperate sweat from his brow. "Mr. Marker, how are you getting on?"—"Oh, this song!" groans the Marker, "I cannot make head or tail of it, and I have worked over it, in all truth, hard enough!" Sachs shows him, if he but knew it, a way of escape. "My friend, you are not obliged to use it."—"What is the good? My own song, through your fault, is done for. Now be a kind dear fellow, it would be abominable of you to leave me in the lurch."—"It is my opinion that you had better give it up."—"Give it up?... Well, hardly! I can easily beat all the others, if only you will not sing. I am certain that no one will understand the song, but I am building upon your popularity."

Sachs abandons him to his fate, and declares the song-contest open. Kothner summons the contestants, "And let the oldest," he calls, "come first. Master Beckmesser, pray begin. We are late!"

Page 256 The little heralds have piled up grassy sods into a sort of pedestal for the singers to stand on. They lead Beckmesser to this. He stumbles in going, and can hardly from nervousness keep his balance on the none too secure elevation. The common people begin to titter. Murmurs fly from one to the other: "What? That one? That is one of the suitors? Why, he can't even walk!... Keep quiet! He is an eminent master! He is the town-clerk.... Lord, what a muff! He is toppling over!... Be still, and stop your jokes; he has a seat and a voice in the committee!..."—"Silentium! Silentium!" calls the chorus of little heralds. And Kothner: "Begin!" Beckmesser, after bowing to the queen of the day and to the assembly, gives forth, haltingly, Walther's song as he remembers it, as it has become with passing through the medium of his mind. What he utters, with many an anxious peep at the crumpled manuscript, is nonsense of the most ludicrous. For every word he substitutes another of distantly the same sound, but different meaning, betraying how he has not understood a syllable. The melody, if so were he had mastered it, has completely dropped from his mind, and what he sings to the eccentric words is his own serenade, but perverted by the interference of the alien influence.

The masters at the end of the first verse look at one another, mystified. "What is that? Has he lost his senses? An extraordinary case! Do our ears deceive us?" The people giggle and make remarks, not too loud as yet.

At the end of the second verse, the masters inquire of one another, "What does it mean? Has he gone mad? His song is one piece of nonsense!" while the people giggle louder and make remarks less and less respectful.

At the end of the third verse, populace and masters burst into peals of laughter. Beckmesser descends from his pedestal Page 257 and hurls himself raging at Sachs. "Accursed cobbler! To you I owe this!—The song is none of mine," he excitedly informs the rest. "Sachs here, whom you honour so, your Sachs gave me the song. The scandalous wretch compelled me to sing it, he foisted off his miserable song on me!" He dashes the sorry-looking manuscript at Sachs's feet, and rushes off like one pursued by a nest of hornets.

Amazement reigns among master-singers and people: "A song of Sachs's? The matter grows more and more astonishing! The song is yours? Be so good, Sachs, as to explain!" Sachs has picked up and smoothed out the crumpled page. "The song, as a matter of truth, is not of my composing. Herr Beckmesser is mistaken, in this respect as in others. How he obtained it let him tell you himself. But never should I be audacious to the point of boasting that so fine a song had been written by me, Hans Sachs."—"What?... Fine?... That crazy rubbish? Sachs is joking! He says that in fun!"—"I declare to you, gentlemen, that the song is beautiful. But it is obvious at a single glance that Master Beckmesser misrepresents it. I swear to you, however, that you would hear it with delight were one to sing it in this circle correctly as to word and melody. And one who should be able to do this would by that fact sufficiently prove that he is the author of the song, and that in all justice, if he found just judges, he would be called a master. I have been accused and must defend myself. Let me therefore summon a witness. If any one is present who knows that right is on my side, let him come forward as a witness before this assembly."

Quietly and quickly, with his proudly-borne head and his light proud step, Walther advances. A murmur of pleasure runs through the assembly at sight of him, in his resplendent clothes and plumed hat. The good populace on whom Sachs Page 258 had counted do not disappoint him: the gallant young figure finds instantaneous favour. "A proper witness, handsome and spirited," they comment, "from whom something proper may be expected!" The master-singers are not slow to recognise the intruder of yesterday, and to grasp the situation. They accept it good-humouredly enough, with artistic appreciation, no doubt, of Sachs's well managed coup de théâtre. "Ah, Sachs, confess that you are a sly one! But, for this once, have your way!"

"Masters and people are agreed to try the worth of my witness," Sachs announces; "Herr Walther von Stolzing, sing the song. And you, masters, see if he render it aright." He hands them the manuscript.

Walther takes his stand on the flowery mound and starts singing the song we know already. Presently however, the song lifts him away, and he alters, as with that power of inspiration behind him how could he help?—he amplifies, makes more beautiful still. But by that time the masters have become so interested that they withdraw their attention from the manuscript, and follow enthralled the voice of the singer alone.

The song is in its final effect considerably different from the original one, being the fruit of the moment, like Walther's other improvisations. It preserves, however, both in text and tune, a sufficient likeness to the first to prove it of an identical source. It is the same dream he tells, but expressed in different images.

In a blessed love-dream, he had been led to a garden where, beneath a miraculous tree, he had beheld—vision promising fulfilment to love's wildest desire!—a woman of all-surpassing beauty: Eve, in the garden of Paradise....

In a poet's waking dream, he had been lured by the crystal murmur of a spring up a steep path. There, beneath a laurel-tree, he had beheld—and from her hand had received upon his Page 259 brow water from the sacred fount,—a woman of a beauty grave and sublime: the Muse of Parnassus....

There is no doubt of the impression the song produces upon the audience. As he pauses between the verses, Walther cannot but seize their irrepressible exclamations. "That is a very different matter! Who would have thought it?" The people surrender heart-wholly. "How it soars,—so sweet, so far from earth, and yet it is all as if one had lived through it himself!"—"It is bold and unusual, but well-rhymed and singable!" the masters admit. The circumstances of this hearing are different enough from yesterday's. The infection of Beckmesser's jealous spite is wanting; softening influences are in the lovely scene, the poetic occasion. The pure ecstasy of the song has a chance to work its spell, to transport them outside of their limitations. They are honourable men, as Sachs assured Walther; they have no parti pris of bolts and shutters against the New; on occasion they can be generous. "Yes, yes, I see, it is quite another thing," they say, "when it is sung aright!"

Sure of victory, already triumphant, Walther leaps to the goal: "Oh, day most rich in blessing, on which I awake from my dream! The Paradise I saw in sleep lies before me in intensified splendour. The murmuring spring lures me along the way which leads to it,—and the One whose home is there, the elect of my heart, the loveliest of earth, my muse and inspiration, as holy and high as she is fair, I have boldly wooed her,—I have won, by the bright light of day, through the victory of song, both Parnassus and Paradise!"

Before the last note has died, all are clamouring together, awarding to Walther the master-prize. "Reach him the wreath! There is no lover or singer like him!" And then Walther's exquisite morning-dream comes true. He kneels before the Page 260 woman more graciously beautiful than any he had ever seen, while, bending upon him eyes luminous with joy as twin suns, she places upon his head the wreath of laurel and myrtle, the poet's and lover's crown.

Pogner wrings Sachs's hand. "Oh, Sachs, to you I owe happiness and honour!" He draws a sigh of immense well-being. "Lifted is the weight from my heart!"

There are congratulations and rejoicings. In the general glow of good-humour, voices of master-singers call out to Pogner: "Up Master Pogner, and announce to his lordship his admission to the master-guild!" Pogner takes the decoration of the order, the gold chain with the three medallions, and with the words, "I receive you into the master-guild," is casting it over the victorious singer's head, when Walther starts back, as from something of horridly unpleasant association, and makes a gesture of uncompromising refusal. "Not a master, no!... I mean to be happy without that title!"

An uncomfortable silence follows upon the hard snub. All look toward Sachs, whose face has clouded over with pain. He walks to Walther, and seizing him by the hand, as one might a child, to bring it to reason, vigorously speaks the defence of the order to which he belongs. "Despise not the masters, but, rather, honour their art. The great good you have this day received speaks loud in their praise. Not to your ancestors, however great, not to your coat of arms, your spear or sword, but to the fact that you are a singer, that you have proved yourself a master, you owe to-day your highest happiness. If then you apply to the question a grateful mind: how can that art be of no account which holds such prizes? That our masters cared for it in their own way, that according to their lights they were faithful to it, that is what has preserved it. Though it no longer is aristocratic, as in the times when it was fostered Page 261 by princes and courts, yet despite the stress of evil years it has remained German, it has remained sincere. And if it had prospered nowhere but among us, with our burdens and restrictions, you can see in what honour it is held here. What more do you require of the masters?... Have a care! Evil contingencies threaten! Should the day come when the German people and kingdom fall asunder, its princes, seduced by false outlandish splendours, would soon no longer understand the language of their own people, and outlandish error, outlandish vanities, would be sown by them in German soil. In that day, should it come, no one would know any longer what is German and genuine, did it not survive by grace of the German masters! Then honour the German masters! By that spell shall you command good genii! And if you second them by your favour, holy Rome may pass away in smoke: we shall still have our holy German art!"

Nobly and contritely Walther bows his head, and Sachs hangs about his neck the collar of the guild. Eva, fired, takes from her lover's fair curls the laurel-wreath, and presses it upon the grisled head of the master. He stands radiant between the two whose happiness is his work. The populace wave their hats and kerchiefs, cheering, "Hail, Sachs! Hans Sachs! Hail Nuremberg's beloved Hans Sachs!"

One cannot help imagining, in "Meistersinger," a fragment of autobiography, a recollection of days when Wagner must have heard on all sides concerning his work what we still occasionally hear, such words as he puts into the mouth of Beckmesser: "Kein Absatz wo, kein' Coloratur! Von Melodei auch nicht eine Spur!" No pause anywhere for breath! No appropriate colouring! Of melody not the remotest trace!

Page 262 No pause anywhere for breath! The headlong rush it has of genius. No appropriate colouring! The colouring happens merely to be new. Of melody not the remotest trace,—when in this opera particularly the composer casts melodies up in the air like golden balls and juggles with them; when, like a conjurer, he goes on taking fresh roses in absurd abundance out of a horn that should naturally have been ten times empty!

If we may translate the personages of this delicious play into types, Walther must stand for the poet and singer by God's grace, fresh young Genius, winged bringer of a new message. Beckmesser for Old School, where it has become fossil, where forms moulded on life have become void and dry, and rules are held sufficient without breath of inspiration. Nay, inspiration, which jostles and disturbs rule, is regarded with suspicion. Inspiration to Beckmesser is as much an intruder as would be Saint Francis coming to visit some Prior of his own order long after the spirit animating the saint had been hardened into forms. Hans Sachs, then, is a sort of Ideal Critic, with affection and allegiance toward the past, but with a fair and open mind toward the new. Walther himself could have no more admirable attitude, more perfect temper, toward Art, than Sachs. It is only to be hoped that in his maturity he was as tolerant and broad-minded.

The wise, the gentle Sachs! It is a pity that in listening to an opera one hears so little of the words, for there fall from his genial lips precepts which it would be really worth while to impress upon the memory, among which could there be a more golden than his word to critics: "When you find that you are trying to measure by your own rules that which does not lie within the compass of your rules, the thing to do is to forget your rules and try to discover the rules of that which you wish to measure!".

Page 263 TRISTAN AND ISOLDE