rself to no one but the Stranger. She lifts the emerald above her
head, and it shines with a lurid light. "'Receive, O sea, as a token of
my oath, the sacred stone, the holy emerald! Then may its power be no
longer invoked, and none may know again its protecting virtue. Jealous
sea, take back your own, the last offering of a betrothed!' With an
impressive gesture she throws the emerald into the waves, and a dark
green light suddenly shines out against the black sky. This supernatural
light slowly spreads over the water until it reaches the horizon, and
the sea begins to roll in great billows." Then the sea takes up its song
in an angrier tone; the orchestra thunders, and the storm bursts.

The boats put hurriedly back to land, and one of them seems likely to be
dashed to pieces on the shore. The whole village turns out to watch the
disaster; but the men refuse to risk their lives in aid of the
shipwrecked crew. Then the Stranger gets into a boat, and Vita jumps in
after him. The squall redoubles in violence. A wave of enormous height
breaks on the jetty, flooding the scene with a dazzling green light. The
crowd recoil in fear. There is a silence; and an old fisherman takes off
his woollen cap and intones the _De Profundis_. The villagers take up
the chant....

One may see by this short account what a heterogeneous work it is. Two
or three quite different worlds are brought into it: the realism of the
bourgeois characters of Vita's mother and lover is mixed up with
symbolisms of Christianity, represented by the Stranger, and with the
fairy-tale of the magic emerald and the voices of the ocean. This
complexity, which is evident enough in the poem, is even more evident in
the music, where a union of different arts and different ideas is
attempted. We get the art of the folk-song, religious art, the art of
Wagner, the art of Franck, as well as a note of familiar realism (which
is something akin to the Italian _opera-bouffe_) and descriptions of
sensation that are quite personal. As there are only two short acts, the
rapidity of the action only serves to accentuate this impression. The
changes are very abrupt: we are hurried from a world of human beings to
a world of abstract ideas, and then taken from an atmosphere of religion
to a land of fairies. The work is, however, clear enough from a musical
point of view. The more complex the elements that M. d'Indy gathers
round him the more anxious he is to bring them into harmony.