flowers in the warm summer night: "I," says the man,
"shall be Isolde, you will be Tristan."--"I shall be Tristan," the
woman says, "and you Isolde." Nay, there shall be no more Tristan,
no more Isolde, but nameless, indivisible, possessed of a single
consciousness, they shall float in an eternal night of love to
ever-new recognitions, ever-new ardours....

The story belongs to the period of King Arthur and his Round Table.
At that time Cornwall, we learn, was subject to Ireland, to the
extent at least of owing tribute. But the subject country, with
increase of power, had become impatient of the tax, and, when the
Irish hero Morold was sent to collect it, a knight of the Cornish
court, Tristan, fought and slew him, and in lieu of the exacted
tribute sent back his head to Ireland.

Tristan had not come forth unhurt from the combat in which Morold
had fallen. With the peculiar daring which earned him the fame of
"hero without equal, wonder of all nations," he took the wound
of which he was dying to the country of the enemy, to the very
castle of the Irish King whose daughter Isolde's affianced he had
slain. For Isolde was renowned for her skill in the art of medicine.
The Queen, her mother, possessed even rarer secrets of magic. In a
small skiff, almost unattended, Tristan, obscuring his glory under
the name of Tantris, came to Isolde to be healed. The high-born
physician gave him faithful care. No one suspected him, until Isolde,
remarking a trifling notch in his sword, made the discovery that
a steel splinter which she had removed from the severed head of
Morold fitted it. This man, then, completely in her power, was
Tristan, the enemy of her land, the slayer of her betrothed. The
duty of a princess of the time was clear. She caught up the sword
and approached his bed with the intention of avenging Morold's
death. But the wounded man unclosed his eyes, and glancing past
the sword, past the hand which brandished it, looked into her eyes.
And, inexplicably, she could not proceed; pity moved her, she let
the sword sink. She kept the secret of his identity. She applied
herself more than ever diligently to heal him, "that he might betake
himself home, and burden her no more with the look of his eyes."
He went at last with professions of eternal gratitude. The least
he could have done, in accordance with these, so it seemed to her,
was to preserve silence as she had preserved it, to let the incident
have no more result tha