The Wagnerian Romances Part 17

Henry the Fowler, the German King, coming to Brabant to levy men-of-arms for a.s.sistance against the Hungarian, has found the country distracted with internal dissension, troubles in high places. These, as its feudal head, he must settle before proceeding further. He summons together the n.o.bles of Brabant and holds his court in the open, beneath the historical Oak of Justice, on the banks of the Scheldt, by Antwerp.

He calls upon Friedrich von Telramund, conspicuously involved in the quarrel disturbing the land, to lay before him the causes of this. The subject complies: The Duke of Brabant had on dying placed under his guardians.h.i.+p his two children, the young girl Elsa and the boy Gottfried. As next heir to the throne, his honour was very particularly implicated in his fidelity to this trust, the boy's life was the jewel of his honour. Let the King judge then of his grief at being robbed of that jewel! Elsa had taken her young brother to the forest, ostensibly for the pleasure of woodland rambling, and had returned without him, inquiring for him with an anxiety which Telramund judged to be feigned, saying that she had accidentally lost him a moment from sight and upon looking for him failed to find trace of him. All search for the lost child had proved fruitless.

Elsa, accused and threatened by her guardian, had by blanched face and terrified demeanour, he states, confessed guilt. A fearful revulsion of feeling toward her had thereupon taken place in him; he had relinquished the right to her hand, bestowed upon him by her father, and taken to himself a wife more according to his heart, Ortrud, descended from Radbot, Prince of the Frisians. Telramund presents to the King the sombre-browed, haughty-looking Princess at his side. "And now," he declares, "I here arraign Elsa von Brabant.

I charge her with the murder of her brother, and I lay claim in my own right upon this land, to which my t.i.tle is clear as next of kin to the deceased Duke; my wife belonging, besides, to the house which formerly gave sovereigns to this land."

A murmur pa.s.ses through the a.s.sembly, in part horror, in part incredulity of so monstrous a crime. "What dreadful charge is this you bring?" asks the King, in natural doubt; "How were guilt so prodigious possible?" Telramund offers as explanation a further accusation, and in doing it gives a hint, not of his motive in accusing Elsa, for the violent ambitious personage is honest in thinking her guilty, but of the disposition of mind toward her which had made him over-ready to believe evil of her: "This vain and dreamy girl, who haughtily repelled my hand, of a secret amour I accuse her. She thought that once rid of her brother she could, as sovereign mistress of Brabant, autocratically reject the hand of the liegeman, and openly favour the secret lover." His excess of vehemence in accusation for a moment almost discredits him. The King demands to see the accused. The trial shall proceed at once.

He apprehends difficulty in the case: a charge so black against one so young and a woman, made by a man so impa.s.sioned and almost of necessity prejudiced, yet of long confirmed reputation for stern integrity of honour as for bravery. "G.o.d give me wisdom!" the King publicly prays.

The King's herald asks if the court of justice shall be held on the spot? The King in answer hangs his s.h.i.+eld on the Justice-Tree, declaring that this s.h.i.+eld shall not cover him until he shall have spoken judgment, stern yet tempered with mercy. The n.o.bles all bare their swords, declaring that these shall not be restored to their scabbards until they shall have seen justice done. The herald in loud tones summons the accused, Elsa von Brabant, to appear before this bar.

There advances slowly, followed by her women, a very young, very fair girl, whose countenance and every motion are stamped with gentle modesty. Between the dignity which upbears her and the sorrow which crushes her, she is pathetic as a bruised lily. She looks dreamy withal, as Telramund described her; her expression is mournfully abstracted, her eyes are on the ground. The murmur pa.s.ses from lip to lip at sight of her: "How innocent she looks! The one who dared to bring against her such a heavy accusation must be sure indeed of her guilt."

She answers the King's first question, of her ident.i.ty, by a motion of the head alone. One divines that she has wept so much she could only with difficulty summon up voice to speak. "Do you acknowledge me as your rightful judge?" the King proceeds. She lifts her eyes for a moment to read his, and slowly nods a.s.sent. "Do you know,"

he asks further, "whereof you are accused?" Her eyes slide for a second toward Telramund and Ortrud, and she answers by an involuntary shudder. "What have you to reply to the accusation?" With infinite dignity she sketches a meek gesture signifying, "Nothing!"--"You acknowledge then your guilt?" A faint cry, hardly more than a sigh, breaks from her lips: "My poor brother!" and she remains staring sorrowfully before her, as if upon a face invisible to the others.

Struck and moved, the good King, whom we heard promise that his sentence should be _streng und mild_, severe yet merciful, speaks kindly now to this strange girl, standing in such danger, yet engrossed in other things,--invites her confidence. "Tell me, Elsa, what have you to impart to me?" With her eyes fixed upon vacancy, she answers, almost as if she spoke in sleep: "In the darkness of my lonely days, I cried for help to G.o.d. I poured forth the deep lament of my heart in prayer. Among my moans there went forth one so plaintive, so piercing, it travelled with mighty vibrations far upon the air.

I heard it resound at a vast distance ere it died upon my ear.

My eyelids thereupon dropped, I sank into sweet slumber...."

All look at her in amazement. She stands before a tribunal on a matter of life and death, and with that rapt look offers a plea of such irrelevancy! "Is she dreaming?" ask some, under-breath, and others, "Is she mad?"

The King tries to bring her to a sense of reality, a sense of her peril. "Elsa!" he cries urgently, "speak your defence before this court of justice!" But she goes on, with an air of dreamy ecstasy: "All in the radiance of bright armour, a Knight drew near to me, of virtue so luminous as never had I seen before! A golden horn hung at his side, he leaned upon his sword. He came to me out of the air, the effulgent hero. With gentlest words and action he comforted me. I will await his coming, my champion he shall be!"

Her audience is impressed by the look of inspiration with which she tells her tale of vision. "The grace of Heaven be with us,"

they say, "and a.s.sist us to see clearly who here is at fault!"

The King in doubt turns to Telramund: "Friedrich, worthy as you are of all men's honour, consider well who it is you are accusing!"

"You have heard her," the haughty lord answers excitedly; "she is raving about a paramour! I am not deceived by her dreamy posturing.

That which I charge her with, I have certain ground for. Her crime was authoritatively proved to me. But to satisfy your doubt by producing testimony, that, verily, would ill become my pride. Here I stand! Here is my sword! Who among you will fight with me, casting slur upon my honour?"--"None of us!" comes promptly from the Brabantians, "We only fight for you!" The high-tempered gentleman turns somewhat violently upon the King: "And you, King, do you forget my services, my victories in battle over the wild Dane?"

The King answers pacifyingly that it would ill beseem him to need reminding of these, that he renders to Telramund the homage due to highest worth, and could not wish the country in any keeping but his. G.o.d alone, in conclusion, shall decide this matter, too difficult obviously for human faculty. "I ask you, therefore, Friedrich, Count von Telramund, will you, in life and death combat, entrust your cause to the judgment of G.o.d?" Telramund gives a.s.sent. "And you I ask, Elsa von Brabant, will you entrust your cause to a champion who shall fight for you under the judgment of G.o.d?" She a.s.sents likewise. "Whom do you choose for your champion?" the King asks of her. "Now--" eagerly interjects Telramund, "now you shall hear the name of her lover!"--"Listen!" say the rest, with sharpened curiosity. The girl has fixed her eyes again upon the vacancy which to her apparently is full of things to see. "I will await the Knight.

My champion he shall be! Hear what to the messenger of G.o.d I offer in guerdon. In my father's dominions let him wear the crown. Happy shall I hold myself if he take all that is mine, and if he please to call me consort I give him all I am!"

Four trumpeters turn to the four points of the compa.s.s and blow a summons. The herald calls loud: "He who will do battle here, under judgment of G.o.d, as champion for Elsa van Brabant, let him appear,--let him appear!" The vibrations die of horns and herald's voice. There is silence and tension. No one appears, nothing happens.

Elsa, at first calm in her security of faith, gives evidence of anxiety. Telramund calls attention to her: "Now witness, witness if I have accused her falsely. Right, by that token, is on my side!"

Elsa with childish simplicity appeals to the King: "Oh, my kind sovereign, let me beseech you, one more call for my champion! He is far away, no doubt, and has not heard!" At the King's command, the trumpets sound again, the herald repeats his summons. There is no answer. The surrounding stillness is unbroken by movement or sound. "By gloomy silence," the men murmur, "G.o.d signifies his sentence!" Elsa falls upon her knees: "Thou didst bear to him my lament, he came to me by Thy command. Oh, Lord, now tell my Knight that he must help me in my need! Vouchsafe to let me see him as I saw him before, even as I saw him before let him come to me now!"

The women kneel beside her, adding their prayers to hers.

Elsa's last word has but died when a cry breaks from certain of the company standing upon an eminence next the river. "Look! Look!

What a singular sight!"--"What is it?" ask the others. All eyes turn toward the river. "A swan! A swan, drawing a skiff!... A knight standing erect in it.... How his armour gleams! The eye cannot endure such brightness.... See, he is coming toward us. The swan draws the skiff by a golden chain! A miracle! A miracle!"

Elsa stands transfixed, not daring to look around; but her women look, and hail the approaching figure as that of the prayed-for champion. Amazement at sight of him strikes Telramund dumb. Ortrud upon a glance at the swan wears for one startled moment an expression of unconcealable fear. He stands, the stranger, leaning on his sword, in the swan-drawn boat; adorned with that excess of lovely attribute not looked for save in figures of dream or of legend, knightly in one and archangelic, with his flas.h.i.+ng silver mail and flowing locks and unearthly beauty. As the boat draws to land all involuntarily bare their heads. Elsa at last finds hardihood to turn; a cry of rapturous recognition breaks from her lips.

He steps ash.o.r.e. All in spell-bound attention watch for his first action, his first words. These are for the swan, and contain not much enlightenment for the breathless listeners. "Receive my thanks, beloved swan. Return across the wide flood yonder from whence you brought me. When you come back, let it be to our joy! Faithfully fulfil your service. Farewell, farewell, my beloved swan!" The mysterious bird slowly draws away from sh.o.r.e and b.r.e.a.s.t.s the river in the direction from whence it came. The Knight looks after the diminis.h.i.+ng form with such effect of regret as would accompany the departure of a cherished friend.

Voices of wonder pa.s.s from person to person; wonder at his impressive beauty, and at themselves for the not unpleasant terror it inspires, the spell it casts over them. He turns at last and advancing toward the King salutes him; "Hail, King Henry! G.o.d's blessing stand by your sword! Your great and glorious name shall never pa.s.s from earth!" The King, who from his throne beneath the oak has been able to watch the stranger from the moment of his entering the story, is not of two minds concerning so luminous an apparition.

"If I rightly recognise the power," he speaks, "which has brought you to this land, you come to us sent by G.o.d?"--"I am sent," replies the Knight, "to do battle for a maid against whom a dark accusation has been brought. Let me see now if I shall tell her from among the rest." With but a pa.s.sing glance at the group of women, unhesitatingly he singles out Elsa, undistinguishable from the others by any sign of rank. "Speak, then, Elsa von Brabant! If I am chosen as your champion, will you without doubt or fear entrust yourself to my protection?" Elsa, who from the moment of seeing him has stood in a heavenly trance, answers this with no discreet and grudging acquiescence; she falls upon her knees at the feet of this her deliverer and hero, and with innocent impetuousness offers him, not a.s.surance of confidence in his arm, or grat.i.tude for his succour, but the whole of herself, made up solely of such confidence and grat.i.tude. "Will you," asks the Knight, while a divine warmth of tenderness invests voice and face, "if I am victorious in combat for you, will you that I become your husband?"--"As I lie here at your feet," the girl replies with pa.s.sionate humility, "I give over unto you body and soul!" Full of responsive love as is his face, bent upon so much beauty and innocence and adoration, he does not at once gather her up from her knees to his arms. Strangely, he stops to make conditions. "Elsa, if I am to be called your husband, if I am to defend your land and people, if nothing is ever to tear me from your side, one thing you must promise me: Never will you ask me, nor be concerned to know, from whence I came to you, nor what my name and race."--"Never, my lord, shall the question rise to my lips!" She has spoken too readily, too easily, as if she scarcely considered. "Elsa, have you perfectly understood?" he asks earnestly, and repeats his injunction more impressively still: "Never shall you ask me, nor be concerned to know, from whence I came to you, nor what my name and race!" But she, how should she in this moment not promise whatever he asked or do whatever be required? There is no question of pondering any demand of this exquisite dream made flesh, this angelic being come in the darkest hour to make all the difference to her between life and death.

As he has asked more earnestly, she replies more emphatically.

"My defender, my angel, my deliverer, who firmly believes in my innocence! Could any doubt be more culpable than that which should disturb my faith in you? Even as you will protect me in my need, even so will I faithfully obey your command!" He lifts her then to his breast with looks of radiant love, uttering the words which confirm his action and make him her affianced. The people around them gaze in moved wonder, confessing an emotion at sight of the _wonnigliche Mann_ beyond natural, suggesting magic.

The Silver Knight steps into the midst of the circle about the Justice-Oak, and declares: "Hear me! To you n.o.bles and people I proclaim it: Free from all guilt is Elsa von Brabant. That you have falsely accused her, Count von Telramund, shall now through G.o.d's judgment be confirmed to you!" Telramund, obviously in grave doubt, gazes searchingly in the face of this extraordinary intruder.

He is sure of his own integrity, relies perfectly on his private information against Elsa; what then is an agent of Heaven's doing on the opposite side? How can this be an agent of Heaven's at all?

While he hesitates, the Brabantian n.o.bles warn him in undertones: "Keep from the fight! If you undertake it, never shall you come forth victorious! If he be protected by supernal power, of what use to you is your gallant sword?" But Friedrich, true to his stiff necked, proud self, bursts forth: "Rather dead than afraid!" and violently addresses the stranger: "Whatever sorcery have brought you here, stranger, who wear such a bold front, your haughty threats in no wise move me, since never have I intended deceit. I accept your challenge, and look to triumph by the course of justice!"

The lists are set, the ground of the duel is marked off with spears driven into the earth. When all is ready, the herald in solemn proclamation warns all present to refrain from every sort of interference, the penalty for any infringement of this rule to be, in the case of a n.o.ble, the loss of his hand, in the case of a churl, the loss of his head. He then addresses himself to the combatants, warning them to loyally observe the rules of battle, not by any evil art or trick of sorcery to disturb the virtue of the judgment. G.o.d is to judge them according to custom in such ordeals; in Him let them place their trust and not in their own strength. The two champions with equal readiness declare themselves prepared to obey this behest. The King descends from his throne, removes his regal crown, and, while all beside uncover and unite in his prayer, solemnly he makes over, as it were, his function of judge to G.o.d. "My Lord and my G.o.d, I call upon Thee, that Thou be present at this combat. Through victory of the sword speak Thy sentence, and let truth and falsehood clearly appear. To the arm of the righteous lend heroic strength, unstring the sinews of the false! Help us Thou, O G.o.d, in this hour, for our best wisdom is folly before Thee!"

Each of the persons present feels certain of victory for his own side, even dark Ortrud, with the black secrets of her conscience, who believes in no messengers from G.o.d, and pins her faith to the well-tested strength of her husband's arm.

At the thrice-repeated blow of the King's sword upon his s.h.i.+eld, the combatants enter the lists. The duel lasts but a moment. Friedrich falls, not from any wound, but from the lightening flash of the adversary's sword, brought down upon him with a great sweep. The mysterious weight of it crushes him to the earth, overthrows him, deprives him of force to rise again. The gleaming enemy stands over him with sword-point at his throat: "By victory through G.o.d your life now belongs to me. I give it you. Make use of it to repent!"

In the rejoicings that follow, the acclamations of the victorious champion of innocence, no one takes any thought further of the vanquished. Unnoticed he writhes, appalled at the recognition that very G.o.d has beaten him, that honour--honour is lost! The wife struggles with a different emotion. Her eyes, unimpressed by his splendour, unconvinced by his victory, boldly scrutinise the countenance of the Swan-brought, to discover the thing he had forbidden Elsa to inquire, what manner of man he be. Who is this, she asks herself, that has overcome her husband, that has placed a term to her power?

Is it one whom verily she need fear? Must she give up her hopes because of him?

II.

The Second Act shows the great court in the citadel of Antwerp, bounded at the back by the Palace, where the knights are lodged; at the left, by the Kemenate, the women's apartments; at the right, by the Minster. It is night. The windows of the Palace are brightly lighted; smothered bursts of music from time to time issue forth from them. Telramund and Ortrud, in the poor garb of plebeians, sit on the church-steps. Excommunication and banishment, following the condemnation of G.o.d signified by such defeat as Telramund has suffered, have made of them beggars and fugitives. Telramund is sunk in dark reflection. Ortrud, half-crouched like a dangerous animal lying in wait, stares intently at the lighted windows. With sudden effort of resolve Telramund rouses himself and gets to his feet. "Come, companion of my disgrace!" he speaks to the woman beside him; "Daybreak must not find us here." She does not stir.

"I cannot move from here," she answers; "I am spell-bound upon this spot. From the contemplation of this brilliant banqueting of our enemies let me absorb a fearful mortal venom, whereby I shall bring to an end both our ignominy and their rejoicing!" Friedrich shudders, in spite of himself, at such incarnate malignity as seems represented by that crouching form, those hate-darting eyes. The sense seizes him, too, in the dreadful soreness of his lacerated pride, how much this woman is responsible for what he has suffered.

"You fearful woman!" he cries, "What is it keeps me still bound to you? Why do I not leave you alone, and flee by myself away, away, where my conscience may find rest? Through you I must lose my honour, the glory I had won. The praise that attaches to fair fame follows me no more. My knighthood is turned to a mock! Outlawed, proscribed am I, shattered is my sword, broken my escutcheon, anathemised my house! Whatever way I turn, all flee from me, accursed! The robber himself shuns the infection of my glance. Oh, that I had chosen death sooner than life so abject and miserable!..." With the agonised cry, "My honour, oh, my honour! I have lost my honour!"

he casts himself face downward upon the ground.

Ortrud has not stirred, or taken her eyes from the bright orange-gold windows. As Telramund's harsh voice ceases, music is heard again from the banquet-hall. Ortrud listens till it has died away; then asks, with cold quiet: "What makes you waste yourself in these wild complaints?"--"That the very weapon should have been taken from me with which I might have struck you dead!" he cries, stung to insanity. Scornfully calm and cold as before, "Friedrich, you Count of Telramund, for what reason," she asks, "do you distrust me?" Hotly he pours forth his reasons. "Do you ask? Was it not your testimony, your report, which induced me to accuse that innocent girl? You, living in the dusky woods, did you not mendaciously aver to me that from your wild castle you had seen the dark deed committed? With your own eyes seen how Elsa drowned her brother in the tarn? And did you not ensnare my ambitious heart with the prophecy that the ancient princely dynasty of Radbot soon should flourish anew and reign over Brabant, moving me thereby to withdraw my claim to the hand of Elsa, the immaculate, and take to wife yourself, because you were the last descendant of Radbot?"--"Ha!

How mortally offensive is your speech!" she speaks, but suppresses her natural annoyance to continue: "Very true, all you have stated, I did say, and confirmed it with proof."--"And made me, whose name stood so high in honour, whose life had earned the prize due to highest virtue, made me into the shameful accomplice of your lie!"--"Who lied?" she asks coolly. "You!" he unceremoniously flings at her; "Has not G.o.d because of it, through his judgment, brought me to shame?"--"G.o.d?..." She utters the word with such vigour of derision that he involuntarily starts back. "Horrible!" he shudders after a moment; "How dreadful does that name sound upon your lips!"--"Ha!

Do you call your own cowardice G.o.d?" He raises against her his maddened hand: "Ortrud!..."--"Do you threaten me? Threaten a woman?"

she sneers, unmoved; "Oh, lily-livered! Had you been equally bold in threatening him who now sends us forth to our miserable doom, full easily might you have earned victory in place of shame. Ha!

He who should manfully stand up to the encounter with him would find him weaker than a child!"--"The weaker he," Telramund observes, ill-pleased, "the more mightily was exhibited the strength of G.o.d!"--"The strength of G.o.d!... Ha, ha!" laughs loud Ortrud, with the same unmoderated effect of scorn and defiance, which sends her husband staggering back it step, gasping. "Give me the opportunity,"

she proceeds, with a return to that uncanny quiet of hers, "and I will show you, infallibly, what a feeble G.o.d it is protects him!"

Telramund is impressed. She is telling him after all that which he would like to believe. Still, the impression of the day's events is strong upon him,--his overthrow at G.o.d's own hand. After that, how dare he trust her? And yet-- But then again-- "You wild seeress," he exclaims, torn with doubt, "what are you trying, with your mysterious hints, to entangle my soul afresh?" She points at the Palace, from the windows of which the lights have disappeared. "The revellers have laid them down to their luxurious repose. Sit here beside me! The hour is come when my seer's eye shall read the invisible for you." Telramund draws nearer, fascinated, reconquered to her by this suggestion of some dim hope rearising upon his blighted life.

He sits down beside her and holds close his ear for her guarded tones. "Do you know who this hero is whom a swan brought to the sh.o.r.e?"--"No!"--"What would you give to know? If I should tell you that were he forced to reveal his name and kind there would be an end to the power which laboriously he borrows from sorcery?"--"Ha!

I understand then his prohibition!"--"Now listen! No one here has power to wring from him his secret, save she alone whom he forbade so stringently ever to put to him the question!"--"The thing to do then would be to prevail upon Elsa not to withhold from asking it!"--"Ha! How quickly and well you apprehend me!"--"But how should we succeed in that?"--"Listen! It is necessary first of all not to forsake the spot. Wherefore, sharpen your wit! To arouse well-justified suspicion in her, step forward, accuse him of sorcery, whereby he perverted the ordeal!"--"Ha! By sorcery it was, and treachery!"--"If you fail, there is still left the expedient of violence."--"Violence?"--"Not for nought am I learned in the most hidden arts. Every being deriving his strength from magic, if but the smallest shred of flesh be torn from his body, must instantly appear in his original weakness."--"Oh, if it might be that you spoke true!" wistfully groans Telramund. "If in the encounter you had struck off one of his fingers," Ortrud continues, "nay, but one joint of a finger, that hero would have been in your power!"

Rage and excitement possess Telramund at the retrospect of the combat in which he had been beaten, not, as he had supposed, by G.o.d, but by the tricks of a sorcerer, and at the prospect of avenging his disgrace, proving his uprightness, recovering his honour. But--he is checked by a sudden return of suspicion of this dark companion and adviser. "Oh, woman, whom I see standing before me in the night,"

he addresses the dim figure, "if you are again deceiving me, woe to you, I tell you, woe!" She quiets him with the promise of teaching him the sweet joys of vengeance. A foretaste of these they have, sitting on the minster-steps, gloating upon the walls which enclose the unconscious foes. "Oh, you, sunk in sweet slumber, know that mischief is awake and lying in wait for you!"

A door opens in the upper story of the Kemenate. A white figure steps out on to the balcony and leans against the parapet, head upon hand. The pair in the shade watch with suspended breath, recognising Elsa. She is too happy, obviously, to sleep; her heart is too heavily oppressed with grat.i.tude for all that this wonderful day has brought. The well-born gentle soul that she is must be offering thanks to everything that has contributed to this hour; and so, girlishly, she speaks to the wind: "You breezes, whom I used so often to burden with my sadness and complaints, I must tell you in very grat.i.tude what happy turn my fortunes have taken!

By your means he came travelling to me, you smiled upon his voyage, on his way over the wild waves you kept him safe. Full many a time have I troubled you to dry my tears. I ask you now of your kindness to cool my cheek aglow with love!" Ortrud has kept basilisk eyes fixed upon the sweet love-flushed face touched with moonlight.

"She shall curse the hour," speaks the bitter enemy in her teeth, "in which my eyes beheld her thus!" She bids Telramund under-breath leave her for a little while. "Wherefore?" he asks. "She falls to my share," comes grimly from the wife; "take her hero for yours!"

Telramund slips obediently away into the black shadow.

Ortrud watches Elsa for a time breathing her innocent fancies to the wind; then abruptly cuts short the pastime, calling her name in a loud, deliberately-plaintive tone. Elsa peers anxiously down in the dark court. "Who calls me? How lamentably did my name come shuddering through the night!"--"Elsa, is my voice so strange to you? Is it your mind to disclaim all acquaintance with the wretch whom you have driven forth to exile and misery?"--"Ortrud, is it you? What are you doing here, unhappy woman?"--"Unhappy woman?..."

Ortrud repeats after her, giving the turn of scorn to the young girl's pitying intonation; "Ample reason have you indeed to call me so!" With dark artfulness she rouses in Elsa more than proportionate compa.s.sion for her plight, by casting upon the tender-conscienced creature the whole blame for it. In no scene does the youthfulness of Telramund's ward appear more pathetically than in this. "In the solitary forest, where I lived quiet and at peace, what had I done to you," Ortrud upbraids, "what had I done to you? Living there joylessly, my days solely spent in mourning over the misfortunes that had long pursued my house, what had I done to you,--what had I done to you?"--"Of what, in G.o.d's name, do you accuse me?" asks Elsa, bewildered. Ortrud pursues in her chosen line of incrimination at all cost: "However could you envy me the fortune of being chosen for wife by the man whom you had of your free will disdained?"--"All-merciful G.o.d," exclaims Elsa, "What is the meaning of this?"--"And if, blinded by an unhappy delusion, he attributed guilt to you, guiltless, his heart is now torn with remorse; grim indeed has his punishment been. Oh, you are happy! After brief period of suffering, mitigated by conscious innocence, you see all life smiling unclouded before you. You can part from me well-pleased, and send me forth on my way to death, that the dull shadow of my grief may not disturb your feasts."

Ortrud's policy is completely successful; this last imputation is intolerable to the generous girl, made even more tender-hearted than wont by her overflowing happiness. "What mean sense of Thy mercies would I be showing," she cries, "All-powerful, who have so greatly blessed me, should I repulse the wretched bowed before me in the dust! Oh, nevermore! Ortrud, wait for me! I myself will come down and let you in!"

She hurries indoors. Ortrud has gained what she wanted, intimate access to the young d.u.c.h.ess's ear, that she may pour her poison into it. She has a moment's joy of triumph, while the fair dupe is hastening down to her within. We discover at this point that she is no Christian like the rest; that the secret G.o.ds of the secret sorceress are the old superseded ones, Wotan and Freia.

For that reason it was the Silver Knight did not impress her as he did the others. She could not admit that he came from G.o.d, the false G.o.d whose name we heard her p.r.o.nounce with such unconcealable scorn; but, herself a witch, supposed that he performed the feat through wizardry. She had explained the phenomenon to her husband in good faith; she believed what she said, that were he forced to tell his name, or might a shred of flesh be torn from him, he would stand before them undisguised, shorn of his magic power.

Wild with evil joy at the success of her acting, she calls upon her desecrated G.o.ds to help her further against the apostates.

"Wotan, strong G.o.d, I appeal to you! Freia, highest G.o.ddess, hear me! Vouchsafe your blessing upon my deceit and hypocrisy, that I may happily accomplish my vengeance!"

At the sound of Elsa's voice calling: "Ortrud, where are you?"