Close by Daland's house lies the rock-bound bay into which his ship
and the Dutchman's have come to anchor. The two crafts are seen in
the clear night, lying at a short distance from each other, hard by
the shore. The Norwegian is brightly illuminated, the sailors are
on deck making holiday. The Hollander presents a striking contrast:
not a light does it show, not a sound issues from it; it looms
shadowy and forbidding.
"Steersman, leave the watch!" sing the roistering Norway lads;
"Furl the sails! Anchor fast! Come along, steersman! No wind is
there to fear nor adverse coast, and we mean to be right jolly.
Each of us has a sweetheart on shore, excellent tobacco and superior
brandy-wine. Rocks and storms are far outside, we laugh at rocks
and storms! Steersman, come and drink!" They dance on deck, marking
time with their heavy boots.
From Daland's house comes the bevy of girls we know, laden with
generous baskets of food and drink. Finding their sweethearts so
merrily employed, "Just look at them!" they say; "As we live, they
are dancing! The ladies do certainly seem superfluous!" With a
playful feint of pique they pass without further notice the lighted,
noisy ship, and go toward the Hollander, whose blood-tinted sails
and black masts form but a grim silhouette against the star-sown
sky. "Hi, girls,--stop! Where are you going?" the simple-minded
sailors cry after them. But the girls do not abandon their small
vengeance of serving the strangers first. "You have a mind to fresh
wine, have you not? And is not your neighbour to have something too?
Are the liquor and the feast to be solely for you?" The young mate
rises to the occasion and has a fling at these suddenly-instituted
rivals: "Indeed, indeed, take something, do, to the poor lads. They
appear to be quite faint with thirst!" All turn their attention
squarely now to the foreign ship and take account of the strangeness
of its conditions. "Not a sound on board! And see, not a light! No
sign of the crew!"--"Halloo, sea-folk!" the maidens shout, "Halloo!
Do you need lights? Where are you? We cannot see...."--"Don't wake
them," chaff the Norwegians, "they are still asleep!" The girls
go close to the ship and shout again. "Halloo, sea-folk! Halloo,
answer!" There is along silence. The sailor-lads have the laugh now
on the girls. "Ha, ha! In very truth, they are dead. They are in no
need of food and drink." But the girls will not accept their defeat.
"What?" they continue calling to the invisible Dutch crew; "Are you
so lazy as to have gone already to bed? Is it not holiday-time for
you, too?"--"They lie fast in their lairs," jest the Norwegians;
"like dragons they guard their treasure!"--"Halloo, sea-folk!"
persist the girls; "Do you not wish for golden wine? Surely you
are thirsty?"--"They do not care to drink, they do not care to
sing," the sailor-lads tease; "there is no light burning in all
their ship!"--"Say," the girls continue addressing the unresponding
crew, "have you no sweethearts on land? Do you not wish to come
and dance on the friendly shore?"--"They are already old, they are
pale instead of ruddy," put in the sailors, "and their sweethearts,
they are dead!"--"Halloo!" the girls call louder, "Seafolk, wake
up! We are bringing you food and drink to heart's content!" The
sailors good-humouredly unite in chorus: "They are bringing you
food and drink to heart's content!" Another long pause, unbroken
by the faintest sound from the Dutch ship. The girls are becoming
uneasy. "It is a fact," they speak lower, struck; "They seem to
be all dead. They do not need food and drink." But the boys feel
jollier than ever. "You have heard of the Flying Dutchman," they
cry, by way of wild joke; "His ship, big as life and true to life,
you behold there!"--"Then don't wake the crew!" say the girls; "They
are ghosts, we could swear!" The sailor-lads take their turn now
shouting questions, humourously intended, at the sombre hull: "How
many hundreds of years have you already been at sea? Storm and rocks
have no terrors for you! Have you no letters, no commissions for
shore? We will see that they come to our great-great-grandfathers'
hands!" In the extravagance of fun, finally, raising their voices
to the very loudest, "Halloo, sea-folk!" they cry; "Spread your
sails! Give us a specimen of the Flying Dutchman's speed!" At the
prolonged silence following, the girls shrink away, at last really
frightened. "They do not hear. It makes our flesh creep. They do
not want anything. Why do we continue to call?"--"That is it, you
girls," the sailors heartily agree, "let the dead rest in peace! And
let us who are alive be happy!" The girls hand up to them the savoury
baskets. "There, take, since your neighbours disdain it."--"But
what? Are you not coming on board yourselves?" inquire the sailors,
when the girls do not as expected follow. It is early still; they
will return a little later, they promise, Till then let the boys
drink and dance, but be careful not to disturb the repose of their
weary neighbours!
When the girls have returned to the house, the sailors open the
hampers and lustily fall to, casting playful thanks to those dumb
neighbours for this double share of victuals and wine. In the lightness
of their hearts they sing, and to the verses of their rollicking
"Steersman, leave the watch!" clash their goblets noisily together.
Absorbed in their carousal, they have not remarked a beginning of
movement on the ship close by and in the water immediately around
it. This rises and falls in a mysterious violent swell, which rocks
the awakening ship, while the rest of the sea is calm. Storm-wind
whistles and howls among the rigging, though the night elsewhere is
still and bright. Livid fire flares up in the place of the watch-light,
bringing into distinctness the black cordage and spectral crew. The
latter seem to come to life in the weird illumination, and with
hollow voices suddenly entone a sea-song of strange intervals and
cadences, disquieting to ears of warm flesh and blood. "Yohohey!
Yohohohey!--Huissa! The storm drives us to land!--Huissa! Sail
in! Anchor loose!--Huissa! Run into the bay!--Black captain, go
ashore! Seven years are over, sue for the hand of a golden-haired
maiden. Golden-haired maiden, be true to him, be true! Cheerily,
cheerily, bridegroom, today! The storm-wind howls wedding-music, the
ocean dances to the tune.--Hui! Hark! His whistle sounds. Captain,
are you back again?--Hui! Hoist the sail! Your bride, say, where
is she?--Hui! Off, to sea! Captain, captain, you have no luck in
love! Ha, ha, ha! Blow, storm-wind, howl away! No damage can you
do to our sails! Satan has charmed them, they will not rend in
all eternity!"
The Norwegian sailors, suspending their own clamour, have looked
and listened in an increasing wonder, which gradually turns to
horror. To overcome the superstitious fear they frankly own to,
they start singing together with all their might, to drown their
terror as well as the voices of the rival singers. The two sharply
contrasting sea-songs strive one against the other for a few moments,
then the Norwegians, giving up the contention, retire from deck to the
last man, tremulously making the sign of the cross. As they disappear
below, the Dutchmen break into a fearful yell of derision,--and
instantly darkness and complete silence reinvade the ship, while
perfect calm falls upon the sea. For a long interval the scene
so crowded and noisy a moment before, remains empty and still.
Senta comes hurriedly from the house, followed by Erik, both in
great agitation. He has learned of her betrothal to the stranger.
"What have I heard?" he cries in incredulous anguish; "O God, what
have I seen? Is it a delusion? Can it be truth? Can it be fact?"--"Ask
not, Erik," she falters, in anguish, too; "I must not answer."--"Just
God! There can be no doubt of it. It is truth! What unholy power
swept you along? What force so quickly prevailed with you to make
you break this devoted heart? Was it your father? Ha, he brought
the bridegroom home with him. I recognised him. I forboded what
is coming to pass. But you? Is it possible? You give your hand
to the man who has hardly more than crossed your doorstep?"--"Oh,
say no more!" pleads the girl, torn by the sight of his sorrow,
and her necessity to refuse the only possible comfort, "Be silent!
I must! I must!..."--"Oh, that docility, blind as your act!" he
raves; "You were glad, at a beck from your father, to follow. With
a blow you crush the life out of my heart!"--"No more! No more!"
she tries to stop him; "I must not see you again, must not think of
you. High duty commands it!"--"What high duty? Is it not a higher
duty still to observe that which you once swore to me,--eternal
constancy?"--"What?..." she cries, in utmost dismay; "You say that
I swore eternal constancy to you?"--"Oh, Senta," he goes on, subdued
by her shocked amazement, sorrowfully to explain the simple rhetoric
of his misstatement, "will you deny it? Do you refuse to remember
that day when you called me to you in the valley? When in order to
gather the upland flowers for you I endured dangers and labours
innumerable? Do you remember how from the steep rocks on the shore
we watched your father departing? He sailed upon the white-winged
ship, and confided you to my care. When your arm encircled my neck,
did you not own once more your love for me? That which thrilled me
at the pressure of your hand, tell me, was it not the assurance
of your constancy?"
Unseen of the two, for the moment so absorbed in each other, the
Hollander has come from the house. He has been standing near enough
to overhear Erik's last sentences; the significance of these seems
scarcely ambiguous, his inference is natural. It is a lovers' meeting
which he has chanced upon. Whatever her reasons for accepting him,
the Hollander,--it is clear that this young huntsman has a claim on
the girl who declared so glibly that the law of truth was written
in her soul.
The two are interrupted by a wail. "Lost! Oh, lost! To all eternity
lost!" They turn and start in horror at sight of the Hollander.
"Farewell, Senta," he cries, and with the precipitation of despair
is making straight for the boundless deep. Senta throws herself
across his path. "Stay, O unfortunate!" But the Hollander pushes
past. "To sea! To sea! To sea until the end of time!--It is at an
end with your truth! At an end with your truth and my salvation!
Farewell, I would not bring about your ruin!" Erik, catching sight
of his face, the face of a lost soul, shudders at the measureless
woe in his eyes. "Stay," Senta implores, "stay, you shall never
depart!" Disregarding her, the Hollander blows a shrill note on
his whistle and shouts to his crew: "Hoist sail! Lift anchor! For
ever and ever bid farewell to the land!"
There is struggle for a long moment among the three: hers to prevent
the Hollander; Erik's to keep back her, caught, as he believes, in
the claws of Satan; the Hollander's to leave. Since her faith is
turned to mockery, he, forced to doubt her, has fallen to doubting
God himself. There is no faith more on earth. Away, then, forever
away! "Learn the fate from which I save you!" he finally turns
to her, as if softened by her pleading to the point of wishing
her to know that he leaves not in hate and anger, but very pity
for her feminine frailty; and he states plainly the threatening
fate of which we heard him give but a warning before. "Condemned
am I to the most dreadful of dooms. Tenfold death would be to me
yearned-for bliss. A woman alone can deliver me, a woman who shall
keep her faith to me even until death. You, it is true, had sworn
truth to me, but not as yet before the Almighty, and that it is
which saves you. For know, unhappy woman, the fate which overtakes
her who breaks her vow of eternal constancy to me: Everlasting
damnation is her portion. Innumerable have been the victims already,
through me, of that dread sentence. But you--you shall be saved.
Farewell, then, and farewell, to all time, salvation!" Again he
turns shoreward. "Indeed, indeed, I know you," Senta follows still;
"Full well I know your fate. From the first moment of seeing you
I knew you. The end is at hand of your torture! I am she through
whose fidelity you shall find salvation!"
Erik, in terror for Senta, has called wildly toward the house,
toward the ship, for help to save her. Daland, Mary, and the young
girls have come hurrying from the house, the Norwegian sailors
from the ship. "No, no, you know me not!" the Hollander is saying;
"No suspicion have you who I am! Inquire of the seas of every zone,
inquire of the seaman overscoring the main--Behold"--he points
at the ship whose blood-red sails are set and whose ghastly crew
show uncannily active in preparations for departure; "Behold and
recognise this ship, terror of every pious soul.... The Flying
Dutchman I am called!"
With lightning rapidity he has gone aboard. Instantly the weird
ship is under way and amid the cavernous Yohohoes of its seamen
making for the open sea.
Senta struggles to follow. Her father, Erik, her nurse, all forcibly
hold her back. But she is suddenly stronger than them all. She
tears herself free and rushing from them climbs a rock projecting
into the deep water. With all her strength she calls after the
departing Hollander, "Praise be to your angel and his decree! Here
am I, faithful to you until death!" and springs into the sea.
Upon the instant, the red-sailed ship, with all its crew, sinks. A
great wave heaves high and falls again eddying, burying the whole.
Above the drifting wreckage, in the rosy light, fore-shine of sunrise,
are seen the transfigured and glorified forms of Senta and the
Hollander rising from the sea, clasped in each others' arms, and
floating heavenward.
We are always touched in this old world of daily wickedness and
pettiness to come upon stories which seem statements of a popular
ineradicable assurance that love has power to save. It is perhaps
oftenest the love of a woman, clinging pertinaciously to her affection;
but there are legends, too, of men,--who do not save, however, that
we remember, by long fidelity, but by ardour rather in overcoming
obstacles. They kiss the fair enchanted one in the form of a hideous
dragon and she is restored to beauty. One sees the simple philosophy
of such folk-tales. The evil doom is usually the punishment for
sin. The one who loves the person so doomed is innocent. If then
she makes the fate of the sufferer her own, she suffers unjust
punishment, and God, who inclines to mercy, must sooner pardon the
sinner for her sake than condemn the innocent.