izabeth!"

Tannhaeuser had violently wrested himself from Wolfram, but the
name roots him to the spot. "Elizabeth!" It is as if to reach Venus
now he must first thrust her aside. The spell of that name changes
in an instant the current of his being; fills his eyes with a memory
that blots out the riot of rose-faces and golden hair toward which
all his desire had pitched him.

Moving torches spot the darkness of the road winding down from the
Wartburg; voices are heard approaching, chanting a dirge. "Peace
to the soul" the words come floating, "just escaped from the clay
of the saintly sufferer!" Wolfram understands but to well. "Your
angel pleads for you now before the throne of God. Her prayer is
heard. Heinrich, you are saved!" With a cry of "Woe! Lost to me!"
the apparition vanishes of Venus and her train; the hill-side
mysteriously engulfs them.

The torches flicker nearer, the singing becomes louder. "Do you hear
it?" Wolfram asks of Tannhaeuser, who stands transfixed, corpse-like
still and pale and staring. "I hear it!" he murmurs in a dying
voice.

The funeral train, pilgrims, nobles, minstrels, Landgrave, descend
into the valley chanting their requiem. At a motion of Wolfram's
they set down the uncovered bier at the foot of the Virgin's shrine.
In the torch-light they recognise the unhappy Tannhaeuser. Seized
with pity at sight of his ravaged countenance, "Holy," they sing,
"the pure one who now united to the host of Heaven stands before
the Eternal. Blessed the sinner over whom she wept, for whom she
now implores the salvation of Heaven!"

She lies outstretched, still and serene, all white beneath her
white pall. She has saved him, after all,--by dying. Her dead body
has barred his way back to Venus. The infinitely-tired and worn
pilgrim, destroyed by the violence of his passions good and bad,
with faltering steps,--helped, in the faintness of death upon him,
by Wolfram,--approaches the white bier. He sinks down beside it,
giving up his proud soul in the so humble prayer: "Sainted Elizabeth,
pray for me!"

And behold, a second band of pilgrims arriving from the Holy City
announce a miracle: The dry staff in the Pope's hand, which he had
declared should sooner return to bloom than so black a sinner be
forgiven, had in the night burst into leaf and blossom; and order
had gone forth to proclaim the sign through all lands, that the
forgiven sinner should learn of it. The company lift their voices
in awe a