for serving, tending, protecting, mothering,
and the passion for subduing man, proving herself more powerful
than the stronger, by remorseless practice upon his point of least
strength. This inveterate spirit of seduction it must be which
Klingsor apostrophises as "Most Ancient of Devils," and "Rose of
Hell."

The character of Kundry has many aspects, exhibited here and there
by a flash, but, when all is said, and before all else, what we are
watching is an upward-struggling human soul, whose storm-beaten
progress could never move us as it does did we not feel in her
simply our sister.

We saw her, forspent, crawl into the thicket to sleep. Now, Klingsor
who can command her while in that state, has compelled her to him
to accomplish the undoing of Parsifal. The idea is to her, all
heavy and clogged with sleep, the personality of the _Gralsbotin_
still in the ascendant, one of horror only. With wails of protest
at having been waked, and lamentation over what is proposed, she
refuses to obey, rejecting Klingsor's claim to be her master. Even
when he puts his request in the form of the suggestion: "He who
should defy you would set you free. Try it then with the boy at
hand!" she stubbornly refuses. "He is even now climbing the rampart!"
Klingsor persists. Kundry wrings her hands. "Woe! Woe! Have I waked
for this? Must I, indeed?... Must I?" At which first intimation
of weakening, Klingsor ceases to press his authority, and adopts
a different method of persuasion. Climbing to the battlement, he
describes the approaching figure: "Ha! He is beautiful, the boy!"
"Oh! Oh!" moans Kundry, "woe is me!"

Klingsor blows his horn, to warn the garrison of the palace--the
host of the victims of folly, the lost knights--of the approaching
enemy. A commotion is heard of arms caught up in haste and of fighting;
Klingsor from his post follows the contest, with glee in the daring
of the beautiful boy, who has snatched the sword from one of his
assailants and with it, one against the swarm, is cutting his way
through them. Kundry, ceasing from her moans, has begun to laugh,
and as Klingsor continues his report of the skirmish laughs more and
more uncontrollably. "They yield, they flee, each of them carries
home his wound! Ha! How proudly he stands upon the rampart! How the
roses bloom and smile in his cheeks, as, in childlike amazement,
he gazes down upon the solitary garden! ... Hey! Kundry!" But with
her laughter ending in a scream,