ous stroke shall overtake our love?" He comes a little
more awake to protest that death cannot destroy such love as theirs,
that love is stronger than death, is eternally living, that all
that could die in death would be the disturbing things which now
prevent him from being always with her, whereas were they to
die,--inseparable,--to all eternity one,--nevermore to awake,--nevermore
to know fear,--nameless, close enfolded in love,--belonging singly
to themselves,--they should live wholly for love!... She says the
words after him, dreamily, charmed, allured by the vista they open
before her. And when Brangaene's voice is heard again from her
turret warning them to have a care, have a care, day is at hand,
and Tristan bends over her smiling to ask: "Shall I heed?" she
sighs, as he had done before: "Let me die!"--"Shall I awake?" he
very gently teases. "Never to wake again!"--"Must the Day rouse
Tristan?"--"Let the Day yield unto death!"--"We will brave then
the threats of the Day?" With increasing earnestness she cries:
"To be rid of his malice forever!"--"Day-break shall never more
frighten us apart?"--"Eternal shall be our night!"

This is really but a lovers' device for clinging together a little
longer; one does not feel that they have seriously determined to
remain where they are till they shall have been discovered and
sacrificed on the altar of a husband's honour. They plainly are
in the state they have described: quenched is thought, is memory;
they are intoxicated with the _Liebes-wonne_ they celebrate, and
so while day is whitening overhead, feeling really, as far as they
are capable of thought, besottedly secure,--Frau Minne will
protect!--they caress, clasped in each other's arms, the thought of
the eternal night lying beyond the death they would die for love,
where far from the sun, far from the lamentation of Day-decreed
partings, delivered from fear, delivered from all ill, they shall
dream, in exquisite solitude and in unbounded space, a super-adorable
dream. He shall be Isolde, she Tristan,--but no, there shall be
no more Tristan, no more Isolde, but undivided, inexpressible,
they shall move to ever-new recognitions, new ardours, possessed
in everlasting of a single consciousness--Ineffable joy of love!
Their voices soar with these flights of fancy.... Of a sudden, as
if with a crash, the sweet harmonies turn to discord. A shriek is
heard from Brangaene. Kurwenal rushes in with drawn sword, crying:
"Sa