There was a fantastic play of light and shadow up through the enormously high vault of the stage, which extended over their heads with five more galleries. The electric footlights below threw splintered rays up through the grilled flooring of the galleries, until the gleams were lost in an incredible labyrinth of ropes, weights and pulleys. The whole was like a giant skeleton, a fantastic loom. This is where they weave dusty lies, thought Leonard, who found the rear view of the drama grotesque and oppressive, so that he almost began to long for the streets again. People must love illusion astoundingly, if it can be made big business to such an extent. But with this the trickling tones of the orchestra tuning up were suddenly silent, and after a few moments the prelude broke out with a voice of powerful earnestness. A thrill passed through Leonard’s nerves and in a moment he was tense and expectant. Like a living, overwhelming stream of actuality the music burst forth through all the dusty rubbish of illusion. Now the curtain was raised and the human voices came up, gushed up. There was the sailor’s gay song of yearning on his billowy journey to the land of King Mark, Isolde’s wildly surging hate and suffering, Tristan’s timid, rock-firm defiance of death. So it went on to the magic potion and the helpless, the irresistible love cry which is lost in endless jubilation. The curtain fell again. Leonard looked at Lundstrom, wondering what he could possibly fish up from such a stream. The old man seemed tranquil and unmoved, as he sat on the scaly dragon and held in his mouth his unlighted pipe. “Now they’ve got to hurry down there,” he said, “for now the ship must become a park.” Threads began to move on the giant loom, blocks creaked and giant fabrics gave forth dust. With that the park was there, though it looked very strange from the back, and the curtain solemnly came aloft once more. The two sat squatting again at the brink of the great music torrent. Heavy, bottomless well of tone--dark purple, restlessly driving waves, which now and then break into foam with a cry: “O thou spirit’s Highest, maddest Exquisite burning joy!” Love rescued from the cold glance of day--night without morning--yearning for death--the world’s redemption through passionate ecstasy! “Quiet our trembling, Sweetest death, With yearning awaited, O love-blent Death!” And so on to the end--the sinister dawn with the chill spectres of day, the discovery, the crossed blades and Tristan’s wound. Such things are too much for a poor lonely and hungry artist on a lovely evening in May. “The deuce is in it,” he muttered, “the very deuce! Why after that should a poor devil sit and carve in wood?”