We lingered there, spell-bound by this sight, when, suddenly, we heard a song, that seemed to rise clear and strong out of the tumult of waters. Could we be dreaming? It was well known to us. The sailors' song from The Flying Dutchman. What! Did that ill-omened ship come to roam by night upon this impassable stream? Bending lower, we peered into the black water, but we could see nothing; yet now the voices were very near—it seemed as if the invisible ship were passing under the arch of the bridge itself.
We were greatly agitated, but when the voices were silent, we went away without wishing to fathom the mystery, shunning the possible discovery of some cheerful tavern concealed in a recess of the high bank, where lusty Swiss peasants found shelter, and grouped about their mugs of foaming beer, sang with their clear, sonorous voices the song that had so mystified us.
Now, while the train crept along, we recalled this episode of our pilgrimage, and it seemed to us a happy omen.
For the first time we had been able to listen with an untroubled enjoyment to a passage from the Master. In Paris, it was always in a state of feverish excitement—with watchful eyes and fists clenched, ready to pounce upon the interrupters—that we absorbed the new music.
Outside our own country, it appeared, the cause was already won, and the music of Richard Wagner already popular. Very slowly we counted off the different stations, and at length we were approaching the last one. Our excitement increased. We were overcome by a sort of sacred terror. We searched among the gods of art for the one who should appear to us greater than this one, into whose presence we should so soon be ushered—for that one in the whole sublime Olympus of geniuses whom we could prefer to him, or whom we would rather see, could we be given the power to choose.
Homer, Æschylus, Dante, Goethe, Beethoven, we named them all. Even the divine Shakespeare failed to make us hesitate. To us the name of Wagner flamed higher, with a more magical lustre.
He was Orpheus and Apollo both, blended to one lyre. Poet, musician, philosopher—what, indeed, was he not? this latest comer.
"He is cubic. He comprises all," said Villiers, with finality.
"Emmenbrücke," called out the porter.
The last station was passed; one more half-hour, and then Lucerne!