the torture of expectation, hope, uncertainty, joy, frenzy, delight, love delirious!  And what an orchestra to accompany these noble song melodies!  What inventiveness!  What ingenious discoveries!  What treasures of sudden inspiration!  These flutes in the depths; this quartet of violins; these passages in sixths between violas and ’cellos; this crescendo bursting into refulgence at the close; these pauses during which the passions seem to be gathering themselves together in order to launch their forces anew with greater vehemence!  No, this piece has not its fellow!  Here is an art that is divine!  This is poetry; this is love itself!”

Max comes at last, but he is preoccupied, and his words and acts do little to reassure Agathe.  She wants to know what luck he had at the shooting-match, and he replies that he did not participate in the target-shooting, but had nevertheless been marvellously lucky, pointing to the eagle’s feather in his hat as proof.  At the same moment he notices the blood upon his sweetheart’s hair, and her explanation of the falling of the portrait of her ancestor just as the clock struck seven greatly disturbs him.  Agathe, too, lapses into gloomy brooding; she has fears for the morrow, and the thought of the monstrous eagle terrifies her.  And now Max, scarcely come, announces that he must go; he had shot, he says, a stag deep in the woods near the Wolf’s Glen, indeed, and must bring it in lest the peasants steal it.  In a trio Aennchen recalls the uncanny nature of the spot, Agathe warns against the sin of tempting Providence and begs him to stay; but Max protests his fearlessness and the call of duty, and hurries away to meet Caspar, at the appointed time in the appointed place.  We see him again in the Wolf’s Glen, but Caspar is there before him.  The glen lies deep in the mountains.  A cascade tumbles down the side of a mighty crag on the one hand; on the other sits a monstrous owl on the branch of a blasted tree, blinking evilly.  A path leads steeply down to a great cave.  The moon throws a lurid light on the scene and shows us Caspar in his shirt-sleeves preparing for his infernal work.  He arranges black stones in a circle around a skull.  His tools lie beside him:  a ladle, bullet-mould, and eagle’s-wing fan.  The high voices of an invisible chorus utter the cry of the owl, which the orchestra mixes with gruesome sounds, while bass voices monotonously chant:—­

  Poisoned dew the moon hath shed,
  Spider’s web is dyed with red;
  Ere to-morrow’s sun hath died
  Death will wed another bride. 
  Ere the moon her course has run
  Deeds of darkness will be done. {1}

On the last stroke of a distant bell which rings midnight, Caspar thrusts his hunting-knife into the skull, raises it on high, turns around three times, and summons his familiar:—­

  By th’ enchanter’s skull, oh, hear,
  Samiel, Samiel, appear!