Parsifal | Page 4

two knights--a stalwart youth, fearless, unabashed, while the death-music of the swan, the slow distilling and stiffening of its life-blood, is marvelously rendered by the orchestra. Conviction of his fault comes over the youth as he listens to the reproaches of Gurnemanz. He hangs his head ashamed and penitent, and at last, with a sudden passion of remorse, snaps his bow and flings it aside. The swan is borne off, and Parsifal, the "guileless one" (for he it is), with Gurnemanz and Kundry--who rouses herself and surveys Parsifal with strange, almost savage curiosity--hold the stage.
In this scene Kundry tells the youth more than he cares to hear about himself: how his father, Gamuret, was a great knight killed in battle; how his mother, Herzeleide (Heart's Affliction), fearing a like fate for her son, brought him up in the lonely forest; how he left her to follow a troop of knights that he met one day winding through the forest glade, and being led on and on in pursuit of them, never overtook them and never returned to his mother, Heart's Affliction, who died of grief. At this point the frantic youth seizes Kundry by the throat in an agony of rage and grief, but is held back by Gurnemanz, till, worn out by the violence of his emotion, he faints away, and is gradually revived by Kundry and Gurnemanz.
Suddenly, Kundry rises with a wild look, like one under a spell. Her mood of service is over. She staggers across the stage--she can hardly keep awake. "Sleep," she mutters, "I must sleep--sleep!" and falls down in one of those long trances which apparently last for months, or years, and form the transition periods between her mood of Grail service and the Klingsor slavery into which she must next relapse in spite of herself.
And is this the guileless one? This wild youth who slays the fair swan--who knows not his own name nor whence he comes, nor whither he goes, nor what are his destinies? The old knight eyes him curiously--he will put him to the test. This youth had seen the king pass once--he had marked his pain. Was he "enlightened by pity"? Is he the appointed deliverer? The old knight now invites him to the shrine of the Grail. "What is the Grail?" asks the youth. Truly a guileless, innocent one! yet a brave and pure knight, since he has known no evil, and so readily repents of a fault committed in ignorance.
Gurnemanz is strangely drawn to him. He shall see the Grail, and in the Holy Palace, what time the mystic light streams forth and the assembled knights bow themselves in prayer, the voice which comforted Amfortas shall speak to his deliverer and bid him arise and heal the king.
* * * * *
Gurnemanz and Parsifal have ceased to speak. They stand in the glowing light of the summer-land. The tide of music rolls on continuously, but sounds more strange and dreamy.
Is it a cloud passing over the sky? There seems to be a shuddering in the branches--the light fades upon yonder sunny woodlands--the foreground darkens apace. The whole scene is moving, but so slowly that it seems to change like a dissolving view. I see the two figures of Gurnemanz and Parsifal moving through the trees--they are lost behind yonder rock. They emerge farther off--higher up. The air grows very dim; the orchestra peals louder and louder. I lose the two in the deepening twilight. The forest is changing, the land is wild and mountainous. Huge galleries and arcades, rock-hewn, loom through the dim forest; but all is growing dark. I listen to the murmurs of the "Grail," the "Spear," the "Pain," the "Love and Faith" motives--hollow murmurs, confused, floating out of the depths of lonely caves. Then I have a feeling of void and darkness, and there comes a sighing as of a soul swooning away in a trance, and a vision of waste places and wild caverns; and then through the confused dream I hear the solemn boom of mighty bells, only muffled. They keep time as to some ghastly march. I strain my eyes into the thick gloom before me. Is it a rock, or forest, or palace?
As the light returns slowly, a hall of more than Alhambralike splendor opens before me. My eyes are riveted on the shining pillars of variegated marble, the tessellated pavements, the vaulted roof glowing with gold and color; beyond, arcades of agate columns, bathed in a misty moonlight air, and lost in a bewildering perspective of halls and corridors.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1903, by Pach Bros., N. Y.
PARSIFAL AND GURNEMANZ PASSING THROUGH THE RAVINE]
I hear the falling of distant water in marble fonts; the large bells of Montsalvat peal louder and louder, and to music of unimaginable stateliness the knights, clad