e should have found it in the
last act. Instead, there is not a word on the subject. Wagner's
thinking might be misty: his dramatic instinct was supremely right and
sure.

In the first act Isolda and Tristan enjoy their love only for a few
minutes; the world, daylight, breaks in and separates them. In the
second they revel in it for hours; the world, daylight, again
separates them. In the last the world again breaks in; but Tristan has
already found his refuge in death, and Isolda, obedient to her
promise, follows him, and they are joined, safe from the annoyances of
the "phantoms of the day," in "the impregnable fortress," the grave.
The action, as in the preceding portions of the drama, is of the
simplest. On his bed of pain and sorrow Tristan lies wounded and
unconscious. Kurvenal has got him away from Mark's court in Cornwall
to his own castle in Brittany; and now he has been brought out into
the castle yard for coolness and air. It is hot, sultry, close; the
sea in the distance seems to burn; the castle is dilapidated and
overgrown with weeds. Kurvenal watches by his master; from outside the
saddest melody ever conceived is heard on a shepherd's pipe. Presently
the shepherd looks over the wall and asks how the master fares, does
he still sleep? If he awakes it will only be to die, replies Kurvenal;
unless the lady leech (Isolda) comes there is no hope. A moment after
Tristan comes out of his coma, wanders in his mind a little, but at
last understands where he is and that Isolda will come. At that news
he works himself into a condition of unbounded excitement, fancies he
sees the ship bringing Isolda, but at the sound of that sad, droning
pipe melody, and when Kurvenal tells him it is a signal that no ship
is yet in sight, he lapses into unconsciousness again. Then he wakes
up, goes over the whole history of his love for Isolda, and faints
once more; once more he half awakes and as in a dream sees the ship
decked with flowers speeding over the summer sea. Suddenly the
shepherd strikes in with a lively tune: "Isolda is at hand," cries
Kurvenal. "Hasten to bring her," shouts Tristan, and Kurvenal does so.
Tristan, left to himself, goes mad for sheer joy, staggers off his
couch, tears his bandages off so that his wound bleeds afresh, and
Isolda rushes in just in time to catch him in her arms, where he dies
murmuring "Isolda." She laments over his body and sinks down beside
it. Another alarm is given; Kurvenal barricad