opera ever written. It was my first real introduction to Wagner, my first glimpse of that enchanted field. I was ravished, rapt away.
‘Wagner was a great artist in spite of himself,’ said Diaz, when he had finished. ‘He assigned definite and precise ideas to all those melodies. Nothing could be more futile. I shall not label them for you. But perhaps you can guess the love-motive for yourself.’
‘Yes, I can,’ I said positively. ‘It is this.’
I tried to hum the theme, but my voice refused obedience. So I came to the piano, and played the theme high up in the treble, while Diaz was still sitting on the piano-stool. I trembled even to touch the piano in his presence; but I did it.
‘You have guessed right,’ he said; and then he asked me in a casual tone: ‘Do you ever play pianoforte duets?’
‘Often,’ I replied unsuspectingly, ‘with my aunt. We play the symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, and overtures, and so on.’
‘Awfully good fun, isn’t it?’ he smiled.
‘Splendid!’ I said.
‘I’ve got Tristan here arranged for pianoforte duet,’ he said. ‘Tony, my secretary, enjoys playing it. You shall play part of the second act with me.’
‘Me! With you!’
‘Certainly.’
‘Impossible! I should never dare! How do you know I can play at all?’
‘You have just proved it to me,’ said he. ‘Come; you will not refuse me this!’
I wanted to leave the vicinity of the piano. I felt that, once out of the immediate circle of his tremendous physical influence, I might manage to escape the ordeal which he had suggested. But I could not go away. The silken nets of his personality had been cast, and I was enmeshed. And if I was happy, it was with a dreadful happiness.
‘But, really, I can’t play with you,’ I said weakly.
His response was merely to look up at me over his shoulder. His beautiful face was so close to mine, and it expressed such a naïve and strong yearning for my active and intimate sympathy, and such divine frankness, and such perfect kindliness, that I had no more will to resist. I knew I should suffer horribly in spoiling by my coarse amateurishness the miraculous finesse of his performance, but I resigned myself to suffering. I felt towards him as I had felt during the concert: that he must have his way at no matter what cost, that he had already earned the infinite gratitude of the entire world—in short, I raised him in my soul to a god’s throne; and I accepted humbly the great, the incredible honour he did me. And I was right—a thousand times right.
And in the same moment he was like a charming child to me: such is always in some wise the relation between the creature born to enjoy and the creature born to suffer.
‘I’ll try,’ I said; ‘but it will be appalling.’
I laughed and shook my head.
‘We shall see how appalling it will be,’ he murmured, as he got the volume of music.
He fetched a chair for me, and we sat down side by side, he on the stool and I on the chair.
‘I’m afraid my chair is too low,’ I said.
‘And I’m sure this stool is too high,’ he said. ‘Suppose we exchange.’
So we both rose to change the positions of the chair and the stool, and our garments touched and almost our faces, and at that very moment there was a loud rap at the door.
I darted away from him.
‘What’s that?’ I cried, low in a fit of terror.
‘Who’s there?’ he called quietly; but he did not stir.
We gazed at each other.
The knock was repeated, sharply and firmly.
‘Who’s there?’ Diaz demanded again.
‘Go to the door,’ I whispered.
He hesitated, and then we heard footsteps receding down the corridor. Diaz went slowly to the door, opened it wide, slipped out into the corridor, and looked into the darkness.
‘Curious!’ he commented tranquilly. ‘I see no one.’
He came back into the room and shut the door softly, and seemed thereby to shut us in, to enclose us against the world in a sweet domesticity of our own. The fire was burning brightly, the glasses and the decanter on the small table spoke of cheer, the curtains were drawn, and through a half-open door behind the piano one had a hint of a mysterious other room; one could see nothing within it save a large brass knob or ball, which caught the light of the candle on the piano.
‘You were startled,’ he said. ‘You must have a little more of our cordial—just a spoonful.’
He poured out for me an infinitesimal quantity, and the same for himself.
I sighed with relief as I drank. My terror left me. But the trifling incident had given me the clearest perception of what I was doing, and that did not leave me.
We sat down a second time to the piano.
‘You understand,’ he explained, staring absently at the double page of music, ‘this is the garden scene. When the curtain goes up it is dark in the garden, and Isolda is there with her maid Brangaena. The king, her husband, has just gone off hunting—you will hear the horns dying in the distance—and Isolda is expecting her lover, Tristan. A torch is burning in the wall of the castle, and as soon as she gives him the signal by extinguishing it he comes to her. You will know the exact moment when they meet. Then there is the love-scene. Oh! when we arrive at that you will be astounded. You will hear the very heart-beats of the lovers. Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’
We began to play. But it was ridiculous. I knew it would be ridiculous. I was too dazed, and artistically too intimidated, to read the notes. The notes danced and pranced before me. All I could see on my page was the big black letters at the top, ‘Zweiter Aufzug.’ And furthermore, on that first page both the theme and the accompaniment were in the bass of the piano. Diaz had scarcely anything to do. I threw up my hands and closed my eyes.
‘I can’t,’ I whispered, ‘I can’t. I would if I could.’
He gently took my hand.
‘My dear companion,’ he said, ‘tell me your name.’
I was surprised. Memories of the Bible, for some inexplicable reason, flashed through my mind.
‘Magdalen,’ I replied, and my voice was so deceptively quiet and sincere that he believed it.
I could see that he was taken aback.
‘It is a holy name and a good name,’ he said, after a pause. ‘Magda, you are perfectly capable of reading this music with me, and you will read it, won’t
