of our modern capitals.

First Scene

Here, then, is the subject of the first scene of The Rhine Gold. As
you sit waiting for the curtain to rise, you suddenly catch the booming
ground-tone of a mighty river. It becomes plainer, clearer: you get
nearer to the surface, and catch the green light and the flights of
bubbles. Then the curtain goes up and you see what you heard--the depths
of the Rhine, with three strange fairy fishes, half water-maidens,
singing and enjoying themselves exuberantly. They are not singing
barcarolles or ballads about the Lorely and her fated lovers, but simply
trolling any nonsense that comes into their heads in time to the dancing
of the water and the rhythm of their swimming. It is the golden age; and
the attraction of this spot for the Rhine maidens is a lump of the Rhine
gold, which they value, in an entirely uncommercial way, for its bodily
beauty and splendor. Just at present it is eclipsed, because the sun is
not striking down through the water.

Presently there comes a poor devil of a dwarf stealing along the
slippery rocks of the river bed, a creature with energy enough to make
him strong of body and fierce of passion, but with a brutish narrowness
of intelligence and selfishness of imagination: too stupid to see that
his own welfare can only be compassed as part of the welfare of the
world, too full of brute force not to grab vigorously at his own gain.
Such dwarfs are quite common in London. He comes now with a fruitful
impulse in him, in search of what he lacks in himself, beauty, lightness
of heart, imagination, music. The Rhine maidens, representing all these
to him, fill him with hope and longing; and he never considers that he
has nothing to offer that they could possibly desire, being by natural
limitation incapable of seeing anything from anyone else's point of
view. With perfect simplicity, he offers himself as a sweetheart to
them. But they are thoughtless, elemental, only half real things, much
like modern young ladies. That the poor dwarf is repulsive to their
sense of physical beauty and their romantic conception of heroism, that
he is ugly and awkward, greedy and ridiculous, disposes for them of his
claim to live and love. They mock him atrociously, pretending to fall in
love with him at first sight, and then slipping away and making game of
him, heaping ridicule and disgust on the poor wretch until he is beside
himself with mortification and rage. They forget him when