ice, 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, sa