Chapter II

The train puffed and panted as it laboured up the slope which rises without interruption from Lindau to Munich. We were' already very high up, for occasional mists of cloud drifted across our carriage. Wonderful landscapes opened before us; far away peaks tearing the mist into ribbons, glimpses of deep valleys soon lost to sight, forests of pines, hills of a fresh velvety green which undulated to the sky, and at the stations of the infrequent hamlets and villages which we passed, the blue and white of the royal escutcheons always reappeared upon the gates and arches.

"_Königreich Bayern_!" How happy we were to be in the domain of King Charming! We thought and spoke only of him.

This same route, by which we were coming, he once travelled in the opposite direction, alone and in secret, in order to go and surprise the Master at Tribschen and, "to experience again during a few wonderful hours the joy of being with him."

Wagner had told us the story of this journey of the King.

"It was the 22nd of May, 1866, on the fifty-third anniversary of my birth. Early in the morning the king had started out alone from the castle of Starnberg, riding his horse to Biesenhofen where he had taken the train to Lindau; there he disembarked, and to my profound astonishment, arrived that same afternoon at Tribschen. They set up a camp-bed for him in my study. He begged me to return with him to Bavaria, but, for his own sake, I felt that I must refuse.

"In the following year, Ludwig II. was affianced to his cousin, the Archduchess Sophie, sister to the Empress of Austria, and, in order to add to the significance of the marriage ceremonies, fixed for the 12th October, they reserved for this date the first representation of "_Die Meistersinger_." But, before that time arrived, one evening when "_Tristan_" was being given at the Royal Theatre, the prospective bride appeared in a box in an unceremonious toilet; she listened to the work with an absent air, and without attempting to disguise the fact that she was bored. She was not Wagnerian in her tastes! The discovery abruptly broke the spell: the King judged that a person who shared so little in his faith and his enthusiasm ought not to be his wife, and he closed his heart against her.

"We admired him for that, and Villiers declared that if he understood German better he would compose a poem in which he would say magnificent things, and would send it to Ludwig II."

This idea led us back to the dedication printed at the beginning of the score of _"Die Walküre,"_ those well-known stanzas that Wagner addressed "To the royal friend," consecrating him in this way to an ever glorious immortality.

The verses are reputed to be untranslatable into French, and that fact naturally incited us to make the attempt. One of our number was thoroughly conversant with the language of Goethe, and for some time back we had been working at the translation. What a good chance to go on with it, during these hours of the journey!

In the original, Wagner's poem is very beautiful, with an unusual grace and exquisite subtlety of expression.

What would it be in French?

Here is our attempt at a translation:

AU ROYAL AMI.

"O roi, doux seigneur qui protèges ma vie!
Toi qui révélés la suprême bonté,
Combien, arrivé au but de mes efforts, je m'efforce
De trouver le mot juste qui t'exprimerait ma gratitude!
Pour le dire ou l'écrire, comme je la cherche en vain!
Et pourtant, de plus en plus impérieux, m'entraîne le désir
De trouver ce mot qui exprimerait
Le sentiment de reconnaissance que je porte dans mon coeur.

Ce que tu es pour moi, je ne puis, émerveillé, m'en rendre
compte
Qu'en évoquant ce que je fus sans toi...
Pas une étoile ne se leva pour moi, que je ne la visse pâlir;
Pas un espoir que je n'eusse perdu.
Livré au bon plaisir, à la faveur du monde,
Aux jeux du gain et du risque,
Tout ce qui en moi luttait pour l'émancipation de l'art
Se vit trahi par le sort, sombra dans la bassesse.

Celui qui, jadis, commanda à la branche desséchée
De reverdir dans la main du prêtre,
Bien qu'il m'eût ravi tout espoir de salut
Et que la dernière illusion consolante se fût évanouie,
Fortifia en mon sein cette foi
En moi que je puisais en moi-même;
Comme je lui demeurais fidèle,
Il fit refleurir pour moi la branche desséchée.

Ce que solitaire et muet je gardais au fond de moi
Vivait aussi dans le sein d'un autre;
Ce qui agitait profondément et douloureusement l'esprit
d'un homme
Emplissait d'un joie sacrée un coeur d'adolescent;
Ce qui nous entraînait dans une ardeur printanière
Vers un même but,--conscient... inconscient...
Devait s'épancher comme une joie du printemps:
Double foi, faisant naître une frondaison nouvelle.

Tu es le doux printemps qui m'as paré à nouveau,
Qui as rajeuni la sève de mes branches et de mes ramures;
C'est ton appel qui m'a fait sortit de la nuit,
De la nuit hivernale qui tenait inerte ma force;
Ton altier salut, qui m'a charmé,
M'arrache à la souffrance dans une joie soudaine
Et je marche, à présent, fier et heureux, par de nouveaux
sentiers,
Dans le royaume estival de la grâce....

Quel mot pourrait donc te faire comprendre
Tout ce que tu es pour moi?
Si je peux à peine exprimer le peu que je suis,
Toi, au contraire, tu es roi en tout.
Aussi la lignée de mes oeuvres repose-t-elle en toi,
Dans une paix bien heureuse.
Et puisque tu as comblé tous mes espoirs,
Délicieusement j'ai renoncé à l'espoir.

Donc je suis pauvre, je ne garde qu'une chose,
La foi à laquelle s'unit la tienne:
C'est elle, la puissance qui fait que je me montre fier,
C'est elle qui saintement trempe mon amour.
Mais si, partagée, cette foi est encore à moitié mienne
Elle sérait tout entière perdu pour moi si elle venait à te
manquer:
Ainsi, c'est toi seul qui me donnes la force de te remercier
Grâce à ta foi royale et sans défaillance."

We had great difficulty in making this translation and were far from satisfied with it. But there was no more time, the train was already slowing up to the station, we had reached. Munich--_München_!

Outside the station, the omnibus which we took for the hotel of _"Trois Rois Mages,"_ after going a short distance was obliged to stop before a military orchestra. Fine looking, fair-haired soldiers in sky-blue uniforms, were grouped about their leader, and were playing nothing else than the religious march from "_Lohengrin_!"

Later on, Wagner, in fun, tried to make us believe that we owed it to him that we had been "so religiously received."