h strange clearness
a scene: the sea stretching to the horizon, under leaden sunshine,
empty of every sail--the sea which lies in fact before us when
the curtain rises, fading off into the sky beyond low battlements
which enclose on the outer-side a neglected castle-garden.

Tristan lies with closed eyes upon a couch, in the shadow of a
tree. Kurwenal, sitting at his head, bends a careworn face to listen
for his breathing. A shepherd's pipe is heard playing a little
wavering tune, melancholy in its simplicity to heartbreak. The
tune grieves itself out. A shepherd looks over the wall and, after
a moment watching, calls to Kurwenal, asking if _he_ does not yet
awake? Kurwenal sadly shakes his head. "Even if he should awake,
it would only be to take his leave forever, unless the Physician,
the only one who can help us, should first arrive...." Has he seen
nothing, he inquires, no ship on the sea? "In that case you should
hear a different tune," the shepherd answers, "as merry a one as
I can play! But tell me the truth, old friend, what has happened
to our master?"--"Let be that question!" Kurwenal heavily turns
from it: "not for any asking can you learn! Keep diligent look-out;
go, and when you see a ship pipe loud and merrily." The shepherd
shades his eyes and looks off over the endless blue waste of the
waters. "Barren and empty the sea!" He sets his pipe to his lips
again and plays over, withdrawing, the hauntingly melancholy tune
of before.

Without premonitory sign of returning consciousness, Tristan's
lips move. His voice comes very faint: "The ancient tune.... what
does it wake me?" He opens his hollow eyes. "Where am I?" Kurwenal
starts up with a shout of joy: "Ha, that voice! His voice! Tristan,
my master! my hero! my Tristan!" Tristan by a great effort brings
his mind to consider these sounds, and with great effort speaks:
"Who... calls me?"--"At last! At last!" Kurwenal's heart overflows.
"Life! Oh, life! Sweet life, given back to my Tristan!" Tristan
knows him now. "Kurwenal... is it you? Where have I been?... Where
am I?" Kurwenal on the spot assumes that ultra-joyous tone of persons
about a sick-bed when their faces are turned toward the patient
whom they are determined to infect with hope. "Where you are? In
peace, in safety, in freedom! At Kareol, master! Do you not recognise
the castle of your fathers.?"--"Of my fathers?" Tristan murmurs
stupidly. "Just look about you!"--"What--" the sick man asks after