Scan 10
Musical Courier 1890-07-02: Vol 21 Iss 541, 1890
16 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 11. See the scan on archive.org.
1the son of woe and seek the golden sword that my father promised me for the day of sorrow." But who can describe his delight as she responds: "Siegmund, see in me thy sister Sieglinde. The golden sword shall be thine; This evening, when spring awakens and unlocks the doors of huts and hearts, we will seal our compact with a kiss." Whereupon Izel intones the song of the sword and sings it with such fervor that this modern "Siegmund" is quite overcome. Naturally for him this meeting is an agreeable one. Not alone has he thus discovered a kindred soul but he also unexpectedly obtains an opulent wife, one that he, as a poor author—Adar by name—needs greatly. The sword "Nothung" promised him by "Sieglinde" thus becomes in this novel after Wagner's style a golden sword, fit to redeem him from menial service for others.
3The lovers are agreed, the foster father possesses a sufficient fund of politeness to give his consent and thus the wedding may at once take place. Whither shall the bridal tour lead if not to Bayreuth, where that sublimely glorious festival season is soon to commence? Now the author is fairly launched and gives us his own impressions received at the time and place itself. Bayreuth is naturally enchanted ground. Where a Wagner has dwelt and clothed old Northern Myths in new and dazzling garb, wonders may occur even in our realistic day. Izel, now Madame Adar, shall become cognizant of this fact at once. Roaming through the park at the side of her husband she espies a wondrous rose with which she would decorate Adar's buttonhole. But police regulations forbid the plucking of flowers and longingly her glances rest upon the perfect rose. A crackling is heard amid the branches and suddenly she sees the rose in her own hand. It remains doubtful whether the laudable Bayreuth police would content itself with this explanation were it to apprehend this charming rose thief in the act.
5The festival begins. The first performance witnessed by the happy pair is "Tristan and Isolde." The prelude so moves our author that he expresses his feelings in a poetic, bombastic dithyramb. "Darkness enveloped the entire scene, and from the mystic depths, where the invisible orchestra mixed its tone colors, a strange ringing sobbing arose, long drawn out and heart thrilling. It conjured up tears that ascended toward heaven, like the drops from a fountain; tears that rose instead of falling; tears that were wept on earth but longed to bedew heaven." Intimately associated with this lament of a weeping Prometheus eye, we experienced a frenzied desire for the hereafter of the physical, the suffocating embrace of a pair that longed literally to melt into one. The young lovers gave themselves up fully to the magic charm of Wagner's canticle of love. Held in a close embrace they listen to the love effusions of "Tristan" and "Isolde;" they imagine themselves transported above the earth and soaring in the higher regions; and whenever the lips of the lovers on the stage met, they joined their own in an ardent kiss, an electric effect that Wagner has taken pains to favor by his wise obscurity in the auditorium. Drunken with overwhelming emotion they finally reach their home, where they forget their necessities for food and drink in their glowing embraces.
7The following day "Parsifal" was performed. Adar fancies that the divine repose exhaled by this tone creation would dampen the consuming fire of their passion and be grateful to both. Izel, however, is not of his opinion. She finds the "Tristan" tumult so sweet that she is unwilling to renounce it. "Parsifal," who withstands "Kundry's" blandishments, may be a holy and chaste knight, but she had a fear of him. This composition must exercise a fatal effect on the love that they experienced, and she was alarmed lest it might separate Adar from her. These reasons for not attending "Parsifal" she aided by such glowing kisses that Adar was obliged to comply. They then remained at home whenever "Parsifal" was given, yet never missed a "Tristan" performance. Thus their feelings became ever more intense, their souls completely flowed together into one; they existed in that condition that the philosopher Péladan designates as the "Nirvana of Love." But now the festival comes to a close, and this is to be the last performance of "Parsifal." Not to attend it would be a sin for which Adar could not forgive himself.
9Under some plausible pretext he leaves his lovesick Izel and repairs to the theatre. There he encounters Izel's music teacher, who immediately suspects why he has come alone. "You have not mentioned to her that you intended coming here, Mr. Adar? Certainly, her wonderful instinct forewarns her that 'Parsifal' is an antidote, the death potion to love. We men are proof against it, but women are not. Oh, divine Wagner! On the 'Tristan' evenings I am simply a sensual human being, on 'Parsifal' evenings I am with my God." Adar is profoundly moved by the work, but its effect on him is also a similar one. When he reaches his home he cannot hide where he has been. "I have been taking a religious bath to cool my feverish soul. It has done me good. Equally tender but more quieted I return to you. Let us be merely brother and sister to-day; we will certainly not love each other any the less on that account." Izel finds that her fears have been realized and is not quite satisfied with Adar's proposition—he should have remained away from "Parsifal." Meanwhile she consoles herself with the thought that the "Tristan" mood has taken a deeper hold than the "Parsifal" mood.
11The festival has now come to an end, and our young couple visit the neighboring old romantic Nurnberg. Adar's religious philosophical mood still adheres to him, and his desire to perfect himself in magical art and like the whilom Dr. Faust to penetrate to the depths of knowledge leads him to seek the acquaintance of the great magician, philosopher, occultist and Hermetist, "Meister Dr. Sextenthal," who is an adapt in the mysterious arts of magic, and compared with whom our table movers and spiritistic conjurers of ghosts are the merest bunglers. This wise man is, however, a Don Juan in disguise, who has a desire not only to cultivate the tree of knowledge, but also to nibble its sweet fruits. He is by no means indifferent to Izel's beauty and, after he had one moonlight evening observed the loving banter of the pair while Adar readjusted Izel's garter whereby the classical form of her limb was cast in shadow upon the opposite wall, he was consumed with an ardent passion for the young wife. As he well knew that he would never in his bodily form be granted a hearing by her, he doffs the same, transports himself into her chamber, where in spirit she becomes his. Izel, conscious of her guilt, confesses all to her husband and deems herself no longer worthy of his love. The latter accepts the matter coolly, appeases Izel's anxiety, but resolves to wreak dire vengeance on this sinner of a magician.
13Thus far the plot has been developed according to the usual manner of French novelists, with the exception that it treats of spiritual adultery alone. The former would now have produced the inevitable duel. Péladan remains true to himself; a magical crime must be followed by a magical expiation. Adar returns with Izel to his lonely castle in the Landes, and, according to the teachings of his Nurnberg master and rival, he studies by night and by day in the old folio until he even excels his antagonist in the black art. Whereupon he summons him—as a matter of course in a spiritual form—to his wife's chamber, and kills him with a powerful stroke of the sword Nothung. The following day a telegram from Nurnberg announces that the learned master, "Dr. Sextenthal," had been found dead in his apartment.
15After the evil principle had in this manner been vanquished and put out of the way the story might well have ended with a simple reconciliation, but Mr. Peladan was aware that this course would not satisfy his readers. And so another corporeal rival and disturber of the conjugal
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