The Wagnerian Romances

by Gertrude Hall Brownell

"That was a stanza." Sachs states, as Walther pauses. "Take careful heed now that the one following must be exactly like it."—"Why exactly alike?" the free-born asks, ready to chafe at the shadow of a restriction. Sachs, indulgent, makes play for this prodigious child's sake of the to him so grave business of song-making: "That one may see that you have selected a mate!"

In that blissful garden a magnificent tree had proffered to his desire a sumptuous harvest of golden fruit.... Such is the matter of the second stanza.

"You did not," Sachs critically considers, "close on the same tone. Excruciating is that to the masters, but Hans Sachs learns from your doing it that in Spring-time it must perforce be so! Proceed now to the aftersong."—"What is that?" asks Walther. "Your success in finding a well-suited couple will appear now from their off-spring!"

In the garden, by an exquisite miracle, he had found suddenly standing at his side a woman, more sweetly and graciously beautiful than any he had ever beheld. Like a bride she had entwined her arms softly about him, and had guided him, with eyes and hand, toward the fruit of his desire, the fair fruit of the tree of life....

Joyfully stirred as he is by the beauty of dream and song, Sachs controls his emotion, to secure all he can from the young poet's momentary docility. "There's what I call an aftersong!" he exclaims cordially; "See, now, how rounded and fine is the whole first part. With the melody you deal, to be sure, a bit freely. I do not say, however, that it is a fault. But it makes the thing more difficult to retain, and that incenses our old men. Let us have now a second part, that we may gain a clear idea of the first. I do not even know, so skilfully have you cast them into rhyme, what in your song was invention and what was dream...."

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 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, 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 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 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 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, "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!... 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..."