promises, and in a few minutes Frederick is overcome and, with his wife,
disgraced, and the act ends with a regular opera finale. Next, Ortruda
comes as a suppliant in the night to Elsa, gains admittance, and poisons
her mind with doubts about Lohengrin. However, the wedding arrangements
go forward, and at the very church door Frederick interrupts the
procession, and accuses Lohengrin of witchcraft and what not. He is put
aside; but in the next act we see the poison at work in Elsa's mind. She
and her unknown husband are left alone, and, as Nietzsche observed, they
sit up too late. Elsa, with all the exasperating pertinacity of an
illogical, curious woman, persists in questioning Lohengrin, getting
nearer and nearer to the vital matter, until at last she can restrain
herself no longer. In fancy she sees the swan returning to carry off her
lover; and, wholly terrified, she asks, "Who are you and where do you
come from?" At the moment Frederick rushes in with some confederates,
only to be slain by Lohengrin. Sadly Lohengrin says that all now is
ended; his hopes are shattered because his bride could not subdue her
inquisitiveness for a year. In the next act he appears before the King
and nobles; he relates what has happened, says that he comes from
Montsalvat, where his father, Parcival, is King, and now he must return.
Ortruda breaks through the crowd, and in malicious triumph confesses her
crime. Lohengrin prays to Heaven; the swan is changed back to Elsa's
brother, a dove descends and is attached to the boat, and Lohengrin
sails away up the shining river, while all give a cry of distress.

We have here a simple fairy story. It is the only opera in which
character, a personal idiosyncrasy as distinct from an overwhelming
passion, produces the dramatic action. It has been urged that
Lohengrin's stipulation is monstrous; but seeing that he is bound--we do
not know how--and that if Elsa had not agreed her fate had been quickly
settled, it seems to me that (accepting the magical and supernatural