II

The second act shows the exterior of Pogner's house and of Sachs's,

his neighbour across the street. It is the close of day; David,

putting up the shutters, is thinking of the morrow and its pleasures

so intently that he does not, for a moment, recognise Lene's voice

calling him. He mistakes it for that of some teasing fellow-apprentice,

until he turns around and beholds her, as so often! with a

promising-looking basket on her arm. "I bring you something good.

Yes, you may peep. That is for my precious treasure, but first,

quick, tell me, what success had the Knight? Did you instruct him

to some purpose? Was he made a master?"--"Ah, Mistress Lene, it's

a bad case! He failed utterly and miserably!"--"He failed?..."

"Ay,--why should you so particularly care?" She jerks away the

basket from his outstretched hand: "Keep your hands to yourself!

Here is nothing for you! God ha' mercy, our young lord defeated!"

and hurries into the house, leaving him crest-fallen, an object of

mockery to his companions, who have lost nothing of the interview.

Goaded, he has finally plunged among them with punishing fist,

when Sachs's arrival upon the scene stops the disorder. The boys

nimbly scatter. David is ordered indoors. "Close the shop and make

a light. Put the new shoes on the lasts!" Both go in.

The peacefulness of evening is upon the scene. Pogner, with his

daughter on his arm, returning from a walk, comes down the lane

which divides his house from Sachs's. He hesitates at Sachs's door.

"Shall we see whether neighbour Sachs be at home? I should be glad

of a talk with him. Shall I go in?..." But he decides against it.

"Why should I, after all? Better not! When a man undertakes a course

out of the usual, how should he accept advice?... Was it not he who

considered that I went too far? Yet, in forsaking the beaten track,

was I not doing even as he does? Or, was I actuated peradventure--by

vanity?" Pogner is not easy in his mind, it is plain. He invites

his silent and preoccupied daughter to sit beside him a little

space on the stone seat under the linden in front of their house;

he tries to fortify his faltering heart with the review of his

plan for the morrow, held in the poetic light in which he first

saw and found it alluring. "Deliciously mild is the evening. It

presages a most beautiful day to shine upon you to-morrow. Oh,

child, does no throb of the heart tell you what happiness awaits

you to-morrow, when the whole of Nuremberg, with its burghers and

plebeians, its guilds, its populace and high officials, is to gather

in your presence to see you award the prize, the noble laurel-wreath,

to the master of your choice and your chosen bridegroom?" But he

speaks to the Evchen of day before yesterday. So recently as that

his scheme no doubt attracted the daughter of his blood even as it

did him; she saw it with kindred eyes. Her youthful pride rejoiced

in the part she was to play of lovely lady of romance, to know that

she should become from that day a heroine of legend, her name for

long years recurring in the songs of song-loving Nuremberg. As for

the practical side of the question, she felt safe. She believed

she knew which of the master-singers was sure of election by the

majority of the masters, and him she had it in her heart to crown

with a right good-will--so recently as day before yesterday. But

to-day, at her father's "the master of your choice" she wistfully

inquires, "Dear father, _must_ it be a master?"--"Understand me

well, _a master of your choice_," the uneasy parent replies.

Magdalene is making signs from the doorway to Eva. The girl becomes

absent-minded, drops the subject in question, and suggests to her

father that he go in to supper. Vexed with himself and her, he

rises from her side. "We are not expecting any guest, are we?"

he asks, a shade querulously. "Why, surely, the Knight?"--"How is

that?"--"Did you not see him to-day?"--"No desire have I to see

him!" the troubled father mutters. Then, in a flash, two and two

leap together and make four to his startled mind. "What's this?...

Nay, thick-witted am I grown!"--"Dear little father, go in and

change your coat!" urges the pretty daughter. "Humph!" he murmurs,

now as absent-minded as she, "What is this buzzing in my head?"

and goes indoors.

Magdalene reports to Eva David's news: the Knight has been refused

admission to the guild. "God help me! What shall I do!" cries Eva,

in a sea of troubles; "Ah, Lene, the anxiety!... Where to turn

to find out something?"--"From Sachs, perhaps?"--"Ah, yes, he is

fond of me. Certainly, I will go to him."--"Beware of arousing

suspicion. Your father will notice if we stay out any longer at

present. Wait until after supper. I shall have something further to

communicate to you then, a message which a certain person charged me

with privately."--"Who?.. The Knight?"--"No, Beckmesser."--"Something

proper that must be!" the fair girl scoffs as they enter the house.

Sachs, in working-clothes, is seen moving within his shop. He orders

David to place his table and stool beside the door, and go to bed.

Reluctantly David goes off. He is troubled over Magdalene's

unaccountable behaviour to him, and this sitting up late of his

master's interferes with his slipping over to her for an explanation.

Sachs takes his seat before the work-table, sets his materials

aright, but having done it, instead of falling to work, leans back

and lets the sweetness of the evening beguile him, dreams possess

and waft him whither they will. That haunting strain from Walther's

song, repeated slowly, as by one savouring it with pensive pleasure,

again sings itself to his inward ear; it, indeed, is partly to

blame for his mood of gentle unrest. The memory will not let him

alone of that marvellous, that unprecedented experience of the

afternoon. Unreservedly the grey-haired man's homage flies to the

youngling who so easily outstrips them all, with their inveterate

painstaking, their multitudinous canons. Not only without a shade

of bitterness but with a tender elation, he lives over again the

emotions created in him by that passionate song. To his true poet's

heart it is a matter for exultation that just something beautiful

should have been, and he there to witness and rejoice. He reconsiders

it all with affectionate disquisition, fresh delight in every point.

If just a shade of sadness belongs to the hour, it lies in the

recognition that though the vision of beauty has by the contagion

that is proper to it stimulated in him the impulse to be at once

producing, he too, beautiful things, not by any longing could he,

after a life of faithful effort in the service of Poesy, produce

anything to compare with the unprepared effusion of that youth!

In the serenity of the lovely evening his thoughts breathe themselves

forth upon the scented June air: "What fragrance--how mild, how

sweet, how abundant,--exhaled from the elder-tree! Its soft spell

loosens my fibres, solicits me to seek expression for my thoughts.

To what purpose, any expression of mine? A poor, simple fellow

am I! Little in the mood for work as I am, you had best, friend,

let me alone! Far wiser I should attend to my leather and desist

altogether from poetry!" Resolutely he falls to work. But Friend

Elder-tree does not therefore cease to shed scent. It casts its

spell over him again almost at once. "No, there is no use in trying

to work!" Sachs leans back and listens again to the echo in his

memory of Walther's song. "I feel it," he meditates, lending ear

to the persistent voice in his brain, "and cannot understand it.

I cannot retain it--nor yet can forget it! And if for a moment I

grasp it, to measure it is beyond me. But how should I hope to

grasp that which struck me as illimitable? No rule fitted it, and yet

it had not one fault! It sounded so old, and was yet so new,--like

the song of birds in the sweet May-time. One who should hear it,

and, smitten with madness, try to sing in imitation of that Bird,

would meet with scorn and derision.... The law of Spring,--exquisite

compulsion!--according to that were the rules of song laid in his

breast. And he sang even as he must! And as he must, the power

to do it came to him, I marked that quite particularly.... The

Bird who sang to-day, his beak is fashioned aright! Great as was

the dismay created by him among the masters, he was much to Hans

Sachs's mind!"

Evchen has come out of her house and softly approached. Sachs looks

up, joyfully surprised, at her greeting: "Good-evening, master; still

so diligent?" There follows as pretty an exhibition of youthful

feminine arts as one could wish to see. The cajoling inflections

of the music alone would inform one of what is in action. Eva has

come to Sachs with an ulterior motive: to hear the details of the

song-trial. She has no mind, of course, to avow her interest frankly.

She must gain her end as she can, and, as a beginning, to flatter

her man and challenge his fondness for her can never fall wholly

wide of the mark. Sachs loves her dearly, that she knows, and she

has, in the innocent presumption of her young beauty, not questioned

that he would enter the song-tournament for her; and until yesterday

she rested in placid contentment upon the intention of crowning this

affection which never since her birth has failed her. Her narrow

eighteen years have no conception of a devotion so generous and deep

it would not dream, however fair the opportunity, of laying upon her

youth the burden of his maturity, the oppression of his thoughtfulness.

Sachs is unwilling, too, very likely, in his wisdom, to compromise

the peace of his Indian summer by assuming the guardianship of

an over-fair young wife. His neighbour's picturesque whim, the

song-contest in prospect, has no doubt given Sachs sufficient

uneasiness, but he finally, as we heard him declare to Pogner,

rests satisfied with the maiden's privilege of refusal. Not one of

the guild of master-singers seems to him worthy of this blooming

young Eve. As for the father's "Never!" applied to her marriage

if she shall not accept the master-singers' choice, Sachs knows

his Pogner and his Eva, and is willing to entrust the matter to

Time.

And so the ingenuous seductress finds the genial, clever, mellow

neighbour's attitude toward her in this scene more canny than she

can have expected, or quite relishes. It almost appears he had

no idea of trying for her. Perhaps an intuition of her momentary

insincerity has made him more than naturally wary. The practising

upon himself of her pretty coquetries he suffers however without

unreasonable distaste. "Ha, child, dear Evchen, out so late? But

I know--I know what brings you so late. The new shoes?"--"You are

mistaken! I have not even tried on the shoes. They are so beautiful,

so richly ornamented, I have not yet ventured so much as to put them

on my feet!"--"And yet you are to wear them to-morrow as a bride?"

She takes a seat on the stone bench by his door and leans confidingly

close to him. "Who, then, is to be the bridegroom?"--"How should I

know?"--"How can you know then that I am to be a bride?"--"What a

question! The town knows it!"--"And if the town knows it, friend

Sachs feels that he has good authority. I should have thought that

he knew more than the town."--"What should I know?"--"See, now, I

shall be obliged to tell him! I am certainly a fool!..."--"I did not

say so."--"It is you then who are more than common knowing...."--"I

do not know."--"You do not know!.. You have nothing to say!..."

She draws away, nettled: "Ah, friend Sachs, I now perceive that

pitch is not wax! I had supposed you cleverer." Calmly he takes

up her words and by them guides the conversation from that ground.

"Child, the properties both of wax and pitch I am well acquainted

with. With wax I stroke the silken threads with which I stitch

your dainty shoes; the shoes I am at this moment making, I sew

with coarse cord, and use pitch to stiffen it, for the hard-fibred

customer who is to wear them."--"Who is it? Some one of great

consequence, I suppose?"--"Of consequence, indeed! A proud master,

on wooing bent, who has no doubt whatever of coming forth victorious

from to-morrow's event. For Master Beckmesser I am making these

shoes."--"Then use pitch in plenty, that he may stick fast in them

and trouble me no more!"--"He hopes surely by his song to win

you."--"What can justify such a hope?"--"He is a bachelor, you

see; there are not many in the place." Again she draws near and

bends close to him. "Might not a widower be successful?" In his

kind, sane, unsentimental voice he replies promptly: "My child, he

would be too old for you!"--"What do you mean, too old? The question

here is one of art. The man who has achieved distinction in art,

let him contend for me." Sachs smiles, indulgently, paternally.

"Dear little Eva, are you making a fool of me?" (_Machst mir blauen

Dunst?_ Are you blinding me with blue haze?)--"Not I! It is you--"

she retorts warmly, "it is you who are playing tricks on me. Confess

that you are of an inconstant nature. God knows who it is you have

now housed in your heart. And I have been supposing for years it

was I!"--"Because I used to be fond of carrying you in my arms?"--"I

see! It was only because you had no children of your own!"--"Time was

when I had a wife and children enough," Sachs reminds her gently.

"But your wife died, and I grew up!"--"And you grew up, tall and

most fair!"--"And so I thought you would take me into your house

in place of wife and child...."--"Thus I should have a child and a

wife in one ... A pleasant pastime, indeed! Ha ha! How beautifully

you have planned it all!"--"I believe," she pouts, and bends her

brows on him in a puzzled frown, "I believe that the master is

making fun of me! In the end he will calmly acquiesce in Beckmesser

to-morrow carrying me off, right under his nose, from him and all the

rest!"--"How could I prevent it," says Sachs, not upset apparently

by the fearful thought, "if he is successful? Your father alone

could find a remedy to that."--"Where such a master carries his

head!" cries Eva, in acute exasperation, "If I were to come to

your house, should I so much as be made at home?" Somewhat dryly

he takes up her words, as before, to steer the conversation from

these dubious borders; and by some hazard, or intuition, turns it

upon the subject nearest her heart. "Ah, yes, you are right! My

head is in a state of confusion. I have had much care and bother

to-day. Something of it clings very probably to my wits."--"At the

singing-school, do you mean?" she asks, with covert eagerness;

"There was song-trial to-day."--"Yes, child, I had considerable

trouble over an election." She draws close to him. "Now, Sachs!

You should have said so at once, and I would not have harassed

you with senseless questions. Tell me now who it was that sought

for election?"--"A knight, my child, wofully untaught!"--"A knight?

You do not say so! And was he admitted?"--"Far from it, my dear.

There was too much difference of opinion."--"Well, tell me, then.

Tell me how it all happened. If it troubles you, how should it

leave me untroubled? So he stood the trial discreditably and was

defeated...."--"Hopelessly defeated, the gallant cavalier!" Walther's

failure is symbolised by a melodious groan. "Hopelessly, you say?

There was no way then by which he might have been saved? Did he

sing so badly, so faultily, that there is no possibility more of

his becoming a master?"--"My child," Sachs broadly assevers, "for

him all is definitely lost. And never in any land will he be made

a master. For he who is a master born occupies ever among masters

the very lowest place." On the verge of tears, with difficulty

controlling her indignation, Eva continues her questioning: "One

thing more tell me. Did he not find among the masters a single

friend?" Sachs nearly laughs. "That were not bad! To be, on top of

everything, his friend! His friend--before whom all feel themselves

so small!..." (If Eva were not so engrossed with her single idea,

the gleam in Sachs's eye, the fire in his tone, would interpret to

her this brutal-sounding speech.) "Young Lord Arrogance, let him

go his way! Let him go brawling and slashing through the world!

As for us, let us draw our breath in peaceful enjoyment of what

we have acquired with labour and difficulty. Keep off the fiery

fellow from running amuck among us! Let fortune bloom for him

elsewhere!" Trembling with anger, and dropping all concealment,

Eva springs to her feet: "Yes, elsewhere shall fortune bloom for

him than in the neighbourhood of you repulsive envy-ridden

creatures!--elsewhere, where hearts still have some warmth in them,

in spite of all cantankerous Master Hanses!--Directly, yes, I am

coming!" (This to Magdalene, who has been calling to her from her

father's door.) "I go home much comforted! It reeks of pitch here

till God take pity on us! Kindle a fire with it, do, Master Sachs,

and get a little warmth into you, if you can!"

"I thought so!" Sachs says to himself as he watches her cross the

street to her own door. Two and two have leaped together in his

mind, too. "The question is now what will be the sage course to

pursue." He goes within and closes his door... all but a crack.

"Your father is asking for you," Magdalene reports to her agitated

mistress. "Go to him," weeps Eva, "and say that I have gone to my

room and to bed." But Beckmesser--the nurse reminds her of the

message from him. He desires her to be at the window; he will sing

and play to her a beautiful composition by which he hopes on the

morrow to win her. He wishes to discover whether it be to her taste.

Eva, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her lover, disposes of the

subject by ordering Magdalene to be at the window in her place.

"That would make David jealous!" reflects Magdalene; "His chamber

is toward the lane." The prospect tickles her spirits. Even as

she is urging Eva to go in, for her father, is calling, Walther

comes down the lane. Hopeless after that, Magdalene recognises,

to attempt dragging indoors the damsel. She hurries in by herself

to content Pogner with some discreet misrepresentation.

With passionate endearments Walther and Eva have rushed into each

other's arms. All is lost which depended upon his winning the title

of master-singer. There is nothing further to hope from that quarter;

no choice is left, they must fly together. "Away, where liberty

is!" he cries, "That is where I belong, there where I am master in

the house!" He grows hot with anger at remembrance of the masters'

treatment of him, but, even more, with loathing at the thought

of his beloved sitting to-morrow in their midst, looked upon by

them with covetous eyes as a possible bride. "And I would endure

it, do you think? I would not fall upon them all, sword in hand?"

The night-watchman's horn breaks across his heated outburst. He

claps hand to his sword. Eva draws him gently into the shadow of

the linden-tree, to lie concealed until the watchman have passed,

and leaves him a moment to go within.

The night-watchman, with pike, horn, and lantern, comes down the

lane, calling the hour of ten; he bids the householders look to

their fires and lights, avoiding disaster, and so let God the Lord

be praised! He turns the corner, the sound of his horn dies away.

Sachs from behind his door has played the eavesdropper. "Evil doings

are under way! No less than an elopement! Attention! This must

not be!"

Eva creeps forth from her father's house, disguised for the journey

in Magdalene's things. "No stopping for reflection!" she cries; "Away

from here! Away! Oh, that we were already off and afar!"--"This way,

through the lane...." Walther draws her along with him. "At the

city-gate we shall find servant and horses." But right across the

lane falls suddenly a great shaft of light, projected from Sachs's

window, cast by a lamp placed behind a glass globe which magnifies

it to intense brilliancy. The lovers find themselves standing in

a bright illumination. Eva pulls Walther quickly back into the

dark. "Woe's me, the shoe-maker! If he were to see us!... Hide! Do

not go near that man!"--"What other road can we take?"--"The street

there--but it is a winding one, I am not well acquainted with it,

and, besides, we should run into the night-watchman."--"Well, then,

through the lane!"--"The shoe-maker must first leave the window!"--"I

will force him to leave it!" says Walther, fiercely.--"He must

not see you. He knows you."--"The shoe-maker?..."--"Yes, it is

Sachs."--"Hans Sachs, my friend?"--"Do not believe it! He had nothing

but evil to say of you!"--"What, Sachs? He, too?... I will put out

his lamp!" She catches again at his arm, and even at that moment

both are startled into immobility by the sound of a lute. Some one

approaches, testing as he comes the strings of a lute, if they be

in tune. The light has disappeared from the shoe-maker's window.

Walther is again for dashing down the lane toward the city-gate and

the horses. "But no! Can't you hear?"--his lady hangs back. "Some

one else has come and taken up his station there."--"I hear it

and see it. It is some street-musician. What is he doing so late

at night?"--"It is Beckmesser!"--"What, the Marker? The Marker

in my power? There is one whose loafing in the street shall not

trouble us long...." Again she catches in terror at his arm, so

ready ever to catch at the sword. "For the love of Heaven, listen!

Do you wish to waken my father? The man will sing his song and

then will go his way. Let us hide behind the shrubs yonder." She

draws her lover to the stone seat under the linden-tree.

Sachs at the sound of the lute has drawn in his light, become

superfluous, since the road is effectually blocked for the lovers by

the musical interloper. He overhears Eva's exclamation, "Beckmesser!"

and has an idea. Beckmesser shall be made of use to prevent the

lovers as long as possible from moving any farther from the safe

parental roof than that stone seat under the linden, where they

huddle close, whispering together, while keeping a watchful eye

on the actors of the comedy which follows. Sachs, as one might

know of him, loves a joke. He softly opens his door, places his

work-bench and lamp right in the doorway, and sets himself at his

work. When Beckmesser, after impatiently preluding to bring to

the window the figure he is expecting, clears his throat to begin

the serenade, Sachs, vigourously hammering on his last, prevents

him by bursting forth on his own account in a lusty ditty with

much loud Ohe, Ohe, Trallalei!--a playful ditty, sweet at the core,

about Eve, the original mother, and the first pair of shoes, ordered

for her from an angel by the Lord himself, who was sorry to see the

pitiful sinner, when turned out of Paradise, go bruising her little

feet, for which He had a tenderness, on the hard stones; and Adam,

too, stubbing his toes against the flints, the song tells how he

on the same occasion was measured for boots. Beckmesser can hardly

contain his impatience and disgust till the first verse comes to an

end. Upon the last note of it, he addresses the shoe-maker with

what sickly civility he can summon: "How is this, master? Still

up? So late at night?" Sachs expresses an equal surprise to find

the town-clerk moving abroad: "I suppose you are concerned for

your shoes. I am at work on them, as you see; you shall have them

to-morrow."--"Devil take the shoes!" groans Beckmesser; "What I want

here is quiet!" But his words are lost amid Sachs's hammer-blows

and unmoderated voice launching forth upon the second verse. "You

are to stop at once!" Beckmesser, in mounting anger, orders Sachs,

as, hardly pausing to take breath, the shoe-maker is attacking

the third verse. "Is it a practical joke you are playing on me?

Do you make no distinction between the night and the day?" Sachs

looks at him in innocent surprise. "What does it matter to you that

I should sing? You are anxious, are you not, to have your shoes

finished?"--"Shut yourself up indoors then and keep quiet!"--"Nay,

night-labour is burdensome; if I am to keep cheerful at my work, I

must have air and light-hearted song. So hear how the third verse

goes!" And he attacks it with a will. There is added to Beckmesser's

other troubles the fearful thought that the maiden may mistake this

outrageous bellowing for his love-song. A second-story window in

Pogner's house has softly opened, a form is dimly outlined within

the frame of it. "I am lost now," Beckmesser desperately reflects,

"if he goes on singing!" He resolutely steps up to Sachs: "Friend

Sachs, just listen to one word! How bent you seem upon those shoes!

I truly had forgotten all about them. As a shoe-maker, the fact is,

I hold you in great esteem, but as an artist and critic I honour

you even more highly. I beseech you therefore to give your attention

to a little song by which I hope to-morrow to win the prize. I am

eager to be told whether you think well of it." While talking,

he strums, as if casually, upon his lute, to keep the lady from

leaving the window. "Oh, no!" Sachs replies; "You wish to catch

me by my weak side. I have no wish for another berating. Since

your shoe-maker takes himself for a poet, it fares but ill with

your footgear. I can see for myself that it is in a deplorable

condition. And so I drop verse and rhyme, knowledge and erudition,

and I make you the new shoes for to-morrow."--"Let that be, do!"

Beckmesser adjures him; "That was only a joke. Understand now what

my true sentiments are. You stand high in honour with the people,

and the daughter of Pogner has a great opinion of you. Now, if

I intend to offer myself as a suitor for her to-morrow, can you

not see how I might be destroyed by her not taking kindly to my

song? Therefore listen to me quietly, do, and when I have finished

my song tell me what in it you like, and what not, that I may make

my dispositions accordingly."--"Go along! Let me alone!" Sachs

still excuses himself; "How should so much honour accrue to me? My

songs are but common street-songs; let me therefore, in my common

way, sing them to the street!" He is taking up his noisy lay again

about Eve and shoes when Beckmesser's rage explodes. Quaking, the

town-clerk pours forth reproach and insult. This conduct of the

shoe-maker's has its source in envy, nothing else; envy of the

dignity of Marker which has never been bestowed upon him, and which

now never will be, not so long as Beckmesser lives and has influence

with the masters. When he stops at last, for lack of breath, Sachs

asks artlessly: "Was that your song?... Somewhat irregular in form,

but it sounded right spirited!"

Walther, in the shadow, clasping his troubled lady, who is unaccountably

saddened by the untimely farce, struggles with a hysterical desire

to laugh--it is all so like a fantastic dream.

At last shoe-maker and town-clerk come to an arrangement. Beckmesser

shall sing his song, and Sachs, whose criticism he so unwontedly

desires, shall act as Marker; but Sachs, who contends that he is

loath to stop work on his shoes, instead of marking with chalk,

shall mark the singer's mistakes by blows of his hammer on the

last, and so, peradventure, while listening, forward his work. A

disgusting arrangement, but Beckmesser is in such terror lest the

lady leave her post before he have sung that he consents. "Begin!"

hollaes Sachs, and Beckmesser, after preluding, sings, while Sachs

punctuates the lines with smart taps on the last. These at first

discompose the singer, and he stops at each tap to inquire angrily

what it is that is not right; he shortly resolves, however, to pay

no heed to the spiteful enemy, but cover over the interruptions with

his voice. Louder and louder and ever more breathlessly he sings,

a lyric that is more prosy than prose, a piece of common statement

of facts, tortured into verse, which attains metre only by throwing

the accent continually, ludicrously, on the wrong syllables. The

melody, nasal and snuffling, is the very prose, too, of music. A

ridiculous, dead-in-earnest song, relating in three long verses the

circumstances of the song-contest and the singer's tender hopes.

By the end of the second verse, the teasing shoe-maker has tapped

so much that the soles are solid with the vamps. He swings the

finished shoes triumphantly before his customer, announcing that

he has thought of an appropriate verse to write on the soles, and

it is: "A good song must keep time!" But Beckmesser does not stop

for him. Beckmesser disdainfully goes on, as if he and the lady

were alone in the world, and he sang thus loud to overpower some

such thing as the sea-surf. In his engrossment he fails to take

account of various ominous signs. He does not see David appear at

his chamber-window. In spite of Eva's clothes which she is wearing,

the boy recognises Magdalene at the casement across the way. His

jealousy is quick to suppose her cold treatment of himself due to

an inclination toward this new admirer. The neighbours, too, begin

to lean out of their windows and ask the reason of this abominable

caterwauling. A crowd collects in the street, of persons trying

to find out what is the matter. The apprentices come flocking,

mischievous instigators to mischief, and the journeymen, little

better than they. Soon, there is difference and quarreling among

those arriving to inquire the cause of the disturbance. Neighbours

pour into the street, men and women in night-attire; finally, the heavy

burghers arrive, the masters themselves, noisy, almost disorderly, in

their attempts to restore order. Beckmesser, singing at the top of

his lungs, does not wake to consciousness of his surroundings until

a cudgel falls across his back, wielded by David. He flees--but is

at every few steps overtaken again and beaten. The two figures, in

flight and pursuit, waving lute and brandishing cudgel, disappear

and reappear at intervals among the swaying crowd. In vain Magdalene

from above screams to David to let the gentleman go. Pogner's hand

draws her away from the window; in the dim light he mistakes her

for Eva. Sachs, when the confusion is well under way, draws in his

work-bench and closes his door ... again all but a crack, through

which he can watch the two figures wrapped in a single cloak beneath

the linden-tree. When the disorder is at its height, Walther clasps

the girl with his left arm, with his right bares his sword, and

attempts a rush through the crowd, toward the gates and horses

of freedom. Quick as thought, Sachs has cleared his way to the

couple; he grasps Walther by the arm. Pogner at the same moment

appears at his door, calling for Lene. Sachs pushes toward him

Eva, half-fainting, bereft by panic of all power to withstand the

impulsion. Pogner receives her in his arms and draws her within

doors, not suspecting but that she is the faithful nurse whose

garments she wears. With deft foot Sachs propels David before him

into the house; then, forcibly drawing Walther with him across the

threshold, fastens the door,--his object happily accomplished.

The street-battle is still raging. But at this point women pour

water from the windows on the heads of the combatants, as they would

on fighting dogs. Simultaneously, the horn of the night-watchman

is heard. In the space of a yawn the scene is deserted; all down

the street are fast-closed windows and doors; Beckmesser hobbles

off rubbing his back. The old night-watchman, reaching the spot,

rubs his eyes, clearly wondering if he have dreamed that he heard

alarming sounds from that quarter. After looking all around, he

droningly calls the hour of eleven, enjoins the people to be on

guard against phantoms and spooks, that no evil spirit may work

harm to their souls, and so let God the Lord be praised! The full

moon rising above the housetops suddenly floods the quiet lane.

The watchman slowly goes down it. As he vanishes around the corner,

the curtain falls.