The diffused light increased and concentrated, surging higher and higher; the prelude to Lohengrin sang itself in our hearts, and when, at last, the full moon emerged, lifted above the highest summit, it was for us the Grail shining upon the altar, before the Master of the Grail.
"Allons, Enfants de la Patrie! Le jour de gloire est arrivé!"
So sang Wagner from the _Marseillaise_ at the top of his voice, as he beat a tattoo on the door of my bedroom to awaken me; and he passed on to each door, beating the same refrain.
We should have to dress very quickly, as we must climb a mountain and reach the summit before noon, if we wished to breakfast there.
This mountain was called the Axenstein. We commenced the ascent on foot, on a lovely day, under a sunshine already warm. The way at the beginning was charming, and mounted very slowly between trees and bushes, like a garden path.
Senta ran on before and gathered little wild flowers; very soon she gave a cry of joy. She had just discovered some strawberries. Surely enough, there were wild strawberries reddening under the leaves here and there. We also, Madam Cosima and I, were intent upon finding them; but Wagner, already far in advance, called out to us not to linger, and so, by a path grown more rugged and without any shade, we hurried on. My companion seemed very tired and almost fainting. I made her sit down on a grassy hillock, and after inhaling some salts, she recovered herself quickly.
"Do not speak of it. Above all, do not let the Master know," she said. Then she told me that she had been more or less ailing and feeble since the birth of Siegfried, her son, whom she had not yet presented to me.
"Wagner, who is indefatigable, always supposes that one has strength to follow him, and would be inconsolable if he were to know that he is mistaken. That is why it is necessary to triumph over weakness and continue the ascent."
The hotel was one of those sumptuous and comfortable structures which are to be found all over Switzerland, with the domestic in a dress coat, whose presence gives you a shock of disappointment when he receives you with a smile, at the moment when you reach a summit which you had imagined to be almost inaccessible. The view was, undoubtedly, very wonderful, since we had been obliged to mount so high in order to enjoy it, but I am ashamed to say that I have not retained any memory of it. The Master was exuberantly gay: again he found old acquaintances, old servants, among the retainers of the hotel, with whom he joked familiarly, which annoyed Madam Cosima very much, as she could have wished him to be more reserved, more Olympian.