Not to-morrow!"

Brangaene hurries to her, alarmed and wondering at the hurricane
of passion she now lets loose,--calling upon the arts of magic to
restore to her the lost power of commanding sea and storm, calling
upon the winds and waves to wreck this insolent ship and drown
everyone upon it! Brangaene stands aghast. What she had but dimly
apprehended, then, was true. She clings to her mistress, endeavouring
to calm her. "What, dear heart, have you so long been concealing from
me? Not one tear did you shed at parting from father and mother.
Hardly a word of farewell did you speak to those remaining behind.
Coldly and dumbly you left the land of home; pale and silent you
have been on the voyage, taking no food, taking no sleep, deeply
troubled, rigid and wretched,--how am I to endure to see you thus,
to be nothing to you, to stand before you as a stranger? Oh, tell
me what troubles you! Tell me, make known to me what is torturing
you! If she is to think herself in any measure dear to you, confide
now in Brangaene!" The unhappy Isolde, suffocating, gasps for air:
"Air!... Air!... My heart is smothering!... Open! Open wide!" Brangaene
hurriedly draws apart the tapestries which form the wall of the
apartment at the back. The deck of the ship is seen from mainmast
to stern; sailors busy with ropes, groups of knights and their
esquires lounging. Tristan stands apart from the rest, with folded
arms, staring abstractedly over the water. His servant Kurwenal
lies idly outstretched at his feet. Isolde's eyes at once find
the half-averted figure; her absorption in it becomes equal to
his in the unknown object of the thoughts engrossing him. She does
not hear this time the sailor at the topmast singing over again
the song she had before resented; "O Irish maid, where tarriest
thou? Is it the force of thy sighs which fills my sails?" Slow,
involuntary, words drop from her lips, her inmost thoughts speaking
to herself, while her eyes brood gloomily upon the unconscious
head. "Mine elected,--lost to me! Lofty and beautiful,--brave and
craven! Death-devoted head! Death-devoted heart!" Starting awake
at the ring of her own words, she laughs unpleasantly and, turning
to Brangaene: "What do you think of the lackey yonder?" Brangaene's
glance follows Isolde's. She does not understand. "Whom do you
mean?"--"The hero over there who averts his glance from mine, who
in shame and embarassment gazes away from me. Tell me, how does
he impress