the way to my beloved!"--"Oh, let the torch of warning stand!"
Brangaene struggles with her still, "Let it stand to illumine your
danger!" And she wrings her hands anew, lamenting over this which is
the work of those unfaithful hands, in a single instance disobedient
to the mistress's will. "Your work?" Isolde smiles, with that mortal
lightness which is upon her to-night; "Oh, foolish girl! Do you not
know the Lady of Love? Do you not know her power, her miracles?
Queen of high hearts, ruler of earth's destinies, life and death
are subject to her. She weaves them out of pain and pleasure. She
can change hate into love. Presumptuous, I took in hand the work
of death. The Lady of Love wrested it from me. The death-devoted
she took into her keeping, she seized the work in her own hands.
To whatever purpose she will to turn it, however she will to end
it, whatever the doom she appoint me, I am become her own. Let
me then show myself obedient to her!" Clearly, Isolde to-night
is _fey_. A rapturous madness is upon her. Aphrodite, the Lady
of Love, possesses her indeed, and no impression is to be made
upon her great mood by anything Brangaene can say. The girl might
talk more hopefully to a gust of summer wind. Poor-spirited and
grey-hued she appears, with her anguish and forebodings, beside
the glowing, rosily-smiling queen, in her secure expectation. Still
she presses the prayer of her terror: Just this one night let Isolde
listen to her pleading! Just this one night let her not put out the
light! But the mad Queen declares bafflingly that _Frau Minne_,
Madam Love, desires that it shall become night, that she herself may
illumine the place whence Brangaene's torch banishes her. To the
watch-turret with Brangaene, whence let her keep faithful look-out.
"The torch," Isolde cries, grasping it, "were it the light of my
life, laughing, without a tremor, I would put it out!" She dashes
it to the ground, where it slowly dies. The troubled Brangaene
disappears with heavy step up the stairway to the battlements.

Then is heard the motif again of love's impatience, of love listening.
Isolde peers down the avenue of trees, strains her ear for the
sound of footsteps. She waves her veil, which glimmers white in the
darkness; she waves it, in her impatience, more and more quickly.
She has caught sight of him, as an ecstatic gesture betrays. She
hurries to the top of the stairs, the better to see him from afar
and wave welcome to him. She