Description
Martin Schüler
CHAPTER I
THERE were in old times, before Europe was divided amongst the children of Asia, nine peahens. These peahens were in reality nine spellbound damsels of surpassing loveliness. Eight of them were fit brides for the princes of the earth, but the ninth was far lovelier than any queen or princess man has ever imagined. The ninth peahen, who was a queen in her own right, fell in love nevertheless with an ordinary prince, the youngest son of a king— antiquaries suspect that this prince was Joseph, son of Jacob—and therefore she came every evening to perch in the branches of a golden apple-tree that grew in the garden of his father’s palace. This tree blossomed, bore fruit, and yielded it all in the same night. The peahen, by perseverance, decoyed the young prince into the garden and, after revealing to him her true nature, disappeared. After many adventures and in spite of the powers of evil, the prince recovered her and they were married. They had several children who became kings and princes. Martin Schiiler read this tale carefully in a more elaborate edition than the above, namely, in the pleasant translation made from the Serbian by Madame Elodie Mejatovitch. He was searching for some tale upon which to erect an opera, and there lay around him English, French, and German books of fairylore, ancient legends and ghost stories. Martin Schiiler was very ambitious and very young. At twenty years old he was a hot Wagnerite and hoped, if possible, to create a counter-type of Tristan and Isolde and one or two Gotterdammerungs ; his heart was full of the passionate fire that results in magnificent if somewhat commonplace noise; his mind yearned to stretch itself in wide orchestration; the nerves of his ears strained to balance themselves upon flute-arias played perfectly, even a little too perfectly, in tune. His musical temperature was a little too sharp, whe
Product ID: 9781776758449
Sku: 9781776758449
