undry
of the first act, but so changed,--pale with the strained pallor
of one lately exorcised; the wildness and roughness all gone out
of her face, and in its place a strange rapt fixity; in her bearing
an unknown humility. In silence she recovers remembrance of the
facts of her existence; mechanically orders her hair and garments,
and without a word leaves Gurnemanz to set about the work of a
servant. As she is moving towards the hut, he asks: "Have you no
word for me? Is this my thanks for having waked you once more out
of the sleep of death?" And she brings forth brokenly the last
words she is heard to utter: "To serve!... To serve!..." the only
need now of her being. "How different her bearing is," Gurnemanz
muses, "from what it used to be! Is it the influence of the holy
day?" She brings from the cell a water-jar, and, gazing off into the
distance while it fills, sees among the trees some one approaching,
to which, by a sign, she calls Gurnemanz's attention. He marvels
at the figure in sable armour; but we, saddened and slowed as it
is, have recognized the Parsifal-motif heralding it. The sable
knight is faring slowly on his way, with closed helmet, bowed head
and lowered spear, unconscious of his observers, until, when he
drops on a grassy knoll to rest, Gurnemanz greets and addresses
him: "Have you lost your way? Shall I guide you?" Receiving no
answer to this or the questions which follow, save by signs of
the head, he with the bluffness we remember offers a reprimand:
"If your vow binds you not to speak to me, my vow obliges me to
tell you what is befitting. You are upon a consecrated spot, it
is improper here to go in armour, with closed helmet, with shield
and spear. And of all days upon this one! Do you not know what
holy day it is?" The knight gently shakes his head. "Among what
heathen have you lived, not to be aware that this is the most holy
Good-Friday? Lay down, forthwith, your arms! Do not offend the
Lord, who on this day, unarmed in very truth, offered His sacred
blood in atonement for the sins of the world!" The knight upon this,
still without a word, drives the haft of his spear into the ground,
lays down his arms and sinks upon his knees in prayer before the
Spear. The removal of his helmet has revealed the face of Parsifal,
but another Parsifal, even as Kundry is another. The stage-directions
have no word concerning it, but it must be in accordance with the
custom of Bayreuth that the latter Pa