Suddenly, Villiers, pale and with dilated eyes, drew back, and dropped upon the seat, exclaiming,
[1] In the introduction to the third act.
Standing alone, a big straw hat on his head, Wagner waited for us on the platform. To be sure, we had never before seen him, but how could anyone fail to recognise him?
He, who had no idea how we looked, counted upon us to disclose ourselves. Motionless, in full view, he scanned with close attention the stream of arriving people. It was I who hurried toward him, in an effusion of joy which dominated every other emotion.
He included us all in a steady and luminous gaze that reached to the very soul, and then shook hands with us.
After a moment of solemn silence, he smiled and offered me his arm.
"Come," said he to me, "if you do not look for too much magnificence, you will like the Hôtel du Lac. I have engaged rooms for you there." And, with quick steps, he drew me outside the station.
On the way to the hotel he paused for a moment, and turning on me a steady and serious gaze said, with every appearance of emotion, "It is a very noble sentiment that brings us together, Madam!"
The hotel was near the station, and when we arrived, the Master, after recommending us to the care of the host, turned and said to us with a whimsical air: "Now I am going to prepare myself to receive you, otherwise I should make blunders. You will come presently to 'Tribschen,' will you not, as soon as you have rested a little? Come by the lake, that is the most convenient way."
From an upper window we watched him, as with quick steps he went away, saw him cross the old bridge, reach the quay, take a boat.
Without speaking a word, with the same worshipping expression upon every face, we followed him with our eyes.... Then, when he had quite disappeared, "Quick! let us dress quickly! We certainly will not allow him to wait for us."
Behold us, in our turn, at the edge of the lake of the "Four Cantons," on the wharf, which shelters a whole fleet of white boats with slackened sails.
What a landscape! What scenery!--And what a harmonious setting for the picture!
The lake, so pure, so clear that it seems like a mass of blue crystal, a liquid sapphire, is lost to sight between the spurs of the mountains. On one side looms Mount Pilatus, of the purple grey of storm clouds, rugged and bare, outlining against the sky its rocky summit; on the other, verdant Righi undulates, bristling with dark green firs that form a contrast to its bright lawns of tender green. And beyond, dim, cloudy, and unreal, appear the indentations of the Alps.