BRYNHILD'S IMMOLATION
She had infinitely sad, wide eyes. The sweet pangs of maternity and art had not been denied this woman with the vibrant voice and temperament of fire. Singing only in the Wagner music dramas critics awarded her the praise that pains. She did not sing as Patti, but oh! the sonorous heart....
"Götterdämmerung" was being declaimed in a fervent and eminently Teutonic fashion. The house was fairly filled though it could hardly be called a brilliant gathering; the conductor dragged the tempi, the waits were interminable. A young girl sat and wonderingly watched. Her mother was the Brynhild....
This daughter was a strange girl. Her only education was the continual smatter which comes from many cities superficially glided. She spoke French with the accent of Vienna, and her German had in it some of the lingering lees of the Dutch. Wherever they pitched their tent the girl went abroad in the city, absorbing it. Thus she knew many things denied women; and when her mother was summoned to Bayreuth, she soon forgot all in the mists, weavings and golden noise of Wagner. Then followed five happy years. The singer prospered at Bayreuth and engagements trod upon the heels of engagements. Her girl was petted, grew tall, shy, and one day they said, "She is a young woman." The heart of the child beat tranquilly in her bosom, and her thoughts took on little color of the life about her.
Once, after "Tristan und Isolde" she asked:
"Why do you never speak of my father?"
Her mother, sitting on the bed, was coiling her glorious hair; the open dress revealed the massive throat and great white shoulders.
"Your father died years ago, child. Why do you ask now?"
The girl looked directly at her.
"I thought to-night how lovely if he had only been Tristan instead of Herr Albert."