And now the drama developed upon a background as rich and glowing in color as were its language and its characters. The magnificent verdure, the fairy-like splendor of its temples and palaces, the people with their wild hatred and wilder love, and the severe, iron laws of their belief--all, all, was fantastic and strange; but the feeling and acting of these people were familiar to every one, for they stood under the power which was the same centuries ago, as to-day, and which takes root the same under the glowing sky of the tropics as in the cold North--the passion and power of the human heart.
This was indeed a "glowing doctrine," and it preached without restraint the right of the passions to storm over law and institutions--over oaths and vows--to reach their aims; a right such as Hartmut Rojanow had understood and practised with his unreined will, who recognized no law or duty, but who was all in all unto himself.
The awakening of the passion--its powerful growth, its final triumph--were all depicted in transporting language, in words and acts which seemed to originate, now from the pure heights of the ideal, and now from the depths of an abyss.
Not in vain had the poet shrouded his characters in the veil of Oriental legend, but under this veil he dared to speak and indorse that which would hardly have been permitted him, and he did it with a boldness which threw igniting sparks into the hearts of the listeners, enchaining them demoniacally.
Arivana's success was assured already at the second act. The work was done by artists who belonged to the best on the stage, and they were doing the best playing ever witnessed. Those taking the principal rôles especially acted with the perfection of abandon which only real enthusiasm can give.
The heroine's name was no longer Ada. Another form now bore this name--one who was strangely foreign to this excited picture of passions; one of those tender, half-fairy-like beings with whom the Indian legends inhabit the snow dwellings upon the icy heights of the Himalayas--cold and pure as the eternal snow which shines upon them.
Only in one single instance, in the parting scene, she floated on spirit's wings through the stormy, excited gathering, remonstrating, entreating, warning; and Egon was right. The words which the poet had put into her lips were, perhaps, the most beautiful of the entire drama. It burst suddenly like pure, heavenly light into the flaming glow of a crater; but the scene was as short as beautiful. Quick as a breath the apparition disappeared again into her snow dwelling, and down yonder at the moonlit bank of the river floated the entrancing song of the Hindoo girl--Marietta Volkmar's soft, swelling voice--under the coaxing charm of which the cry of warning from the heights was dispelled and unheeded.