euser, flushed and radiant, magnificent in his festival robes
of a noble minstrel-knight, casts himself impetuously at her feet.
His sudden appearance startles her painfully. Her manner speaks a
confusion almost tremulous: "Father in Heaven!... Do not kneel!...
It is not meet that I should see you here!"--"What else so meet?
Oh, do not leave," he cries ardently, "and suffer me to remain
thus at your feet!" Her timidity wears away like dew in sunshine;
we fancy the play of faint gracious smiles upon her next words.
"Stand up, then! Not in this place must you kneel, for this hall
is your rightful kingdom. Oh, rise to your feet! Take my thanks for
having come back to us. Where did you tarry so long?" Tannhaeuser
rises slowly. As when the Landgrave asked him the same question,
a shadow falls across his countenance, his answer is vague and
mysterious. "Far from here, in distant, distant lands. Heavy oblivion
has dropped between to-day and yesterday. All memory of the past has
quickly faded from me, and one thing only I know: that I had not
hoped ever again to bow before you, or ever again to lift my eyes to
you."--"What was it then that brought you back?"--"A miracle it was,
an inconceivable, highest miracle!"--"Oh, from the depths of my heart
I give thanks to God for that miracle!" she exclaims, and confused at
her own fervour catches herself back, only to proceed further, with
the candour of an angel: "Your pardon, if I hardly know what I am
about! I move as if in a dream, and am feather-brained as a child,
given over, hand-bound, in thrall to a miraculous power! Hardly do
I recognise myself; oh, do you help me to solve the enigma of my
heart!" Not only with the candour of an angel, but the simplicity
of very high rank, accepting the prerogative of her station to
step forward a little way to meet the favoured lover, she lays
before him the puzzle over the small difficulty of which her purity
and greatness make one unable to smile. "To the wise songs of the
minstrels I was wont to listen often and with delight. Their singing
and their descanting appeared to me a charming pastime. But what
strange new life did your song awake in my breast! Now it pierced
me through like pain, now roused me to mad joy. Emotions I had
never felt! Desires I had never known! Things that until then had
seemed to me lovely lost their charm by comparison with delights I
had not even a name for! Then, when you went from among us, peace
and happiness