is his policy of the moment, he adds, lest emotion
too far unnerve them all: "Full time it was that the right one should
appear, or I should after all have run into the snare!... Aha!
There comes Lene looking for you. Hey, David, aren't you coming?"
Nurse and apprentice enter, one from outside and one from within,
in their holiday garments.

"The witnesses are here, the sponsors present, now quickly to the
christening! Take your places!" Sachs directs. All look at him
in wonder. He lays before them his idea of giving, with proper
ceremony, a name to the master-song born in his house. It is a
poet's fancy, an act of tender superstition on Sachs's part, a
form by which he tries to lay a helpful charm or blessing upon the
new-born creation on which so much depends; send it forth equipped
as well as possible with spiritual arms, that it may, as he says,
"grow great without harm or mishap." The young melody's father,
of course, is Walther; the Pognerin and he, Sachs, will stand its
sponsors; Lene and David shall be witnesses. But as an apprentice
is not a proper witness, David is promoted with the rite of a smart
box on the ear from apprentice to journeyman. Sachs suggests as
the name of the new-born: Song of Interpretation of the Blissful
Morning-Dream, and the young godmother is requested to speak appropriate
words over it. The point of what follows is hardly in Eva's words,
pretty as they are; the point is that one of the most extraordinary
quintets that ever charmed human ear serves as baptismal send-off
to the infant melody.

Each of the five singing together expresses, according to custom
in concerted pieces, the aspect which the common subject, or the
hour, has for him. And so dear Sachs, while Eva and Walther rejoice
on their side, and David and Lene--to whom the apprentice's promotion
opens vistas of mastership and marriage,--rejoice on theirs, Sachs,
adding a less glad but more serene voice to the glorious sheaf
of song, reveals his heart,--with no one to listen, for all are
singing. "Full fain"--he sighs, "Full fain had I been to sing before
the winsome child, but need was that I should place restraint upon
the sweet disorderly motions of the heart. A lovely evening dream it
was, hardly dare I to think upon it...." But the wreath of immortal
youth shall be the poet's reward. Impertinent to pity the sturdy
Sachs, who has his poetry and his strong heart. And he has at all
moments been wiser than his lovely evenin