And now from the orchestra came the complaint of the violin-strings, proclaiming their readiness, and the deep, gasping grunts of the 'cellos, saying as plainly as 'cellos could speak: "Begin! begin!" And there was Franzius, in correct evening attire (how different from the long coat of the Schloss Lichtenberg!), and I was swept right back to the gallery overlooking the hall; and it seemed to me that I was standing once more in my nightshirt, looking down at the guests, at General Hahn, and my father, and the Countess Feliciani; at Major von der Goltz, at the jägers crowding to the doorway, and then—three taps of the conductor's magic bâton; and with the first bars of the overture, Spring, who had been walking all day in the forest of Sènart, Spring herself entered the Opera House; the rush of the wind over leagues of blowing trees swept Paris and the glittering ceiling away; and the jewels and decorations, the Faubourg St. Germain and the Chaussée d'Antin, became trash under the blue of immortal skies.
"All things bright and all things fair," sang the music, flowing and beautiful, gemmed with star-like points of song. The skylark called from the seventh heaven, and the wind and the rivers, the echoes of the hills, the shepherd's song and the bells of sheep, the dim blue violets and dancing daffodils made answer, heaven echoing earth, earth heaven, till, deepening and changing, as a landscape stained with cloud shadows, the music became overcast as if by the shadow of that tragic figure Man. Man, for whom Spring is everything, and for whom Spring cares not at all. Man, who gives a soul to Nature as her mortal lover gave a soul to Undine; Man, who pursues a shadow for ever, even as the mysterious hunters in the hunting-song pursued the shadow stag.
"Hound and horn give voice and tongue,
Fill the woods with music gay;
Let your echoes sweet be flung
To the Brocken far away."
Yes; there it was, the song that seemed woven in the texture of my life; and as I sat, holding Eloise's hand and listening, it seemed to me that the overture of "Undine" was in some way connected with the story of my life, so gay and joyous in the opening bars, deepening now and shadowed by Fate.
There it was, the horn and the echoes of the horn leading the shadowy dogs and the ghostly huntsmen—where? In pursuit of a shadow. Whither?
That was the last mysterious message of the overture, in whose last bars, sublime and peaceful, lay spread the mysterious country where all hunting ceases, recalling from the loveliest of poems that country where Orion, the hunter of the shadowy stag, possessed of Merope, dwells with her in a remote and dense grove of cedars for ever and happily, whilst the tamed shadow-stag drinks for ever at the stream.
"The shadow of a stag stoops to the stream.