h,
so little, and he has a funny, fetching twist or quaver in his
voice, indicated by the notes themselves of his rather mean little
sing-song melodies. Alberich's nominal reason for indulging his
present passion for hurting--he is haling Mime by the ear--is that
the latter is overslow with certain piece of work which, with minute
instructions, he has been ordered to do. Mime, under pressure, produces
the article, which he had in truth been trying to keep for his own,
suspecting in it some mysterious value. It is the _Tarnhelm_, a
curious cap of linked metal. Its uncanny character is confided to us
even before we see it at work, by the motif which first appears with
its appearance: a motif preparing for some unearthly manifestation
the mind pricked to disquieted attention by the weirdness of the
air. Alberich places it upon his head, utters a brief incantation,
and disappears from sight. A column of vapour stands in his place.

"Do you see me?" asks Alberich's disembodied voice. Mime looks
around, astonished. "Where are you? I see you not!" "Then feel
me!" cries the power-drunken tyrant, and Mime winces and cowers
under blows from an unseen scourge, while Alberich's voice laughs.
Out of measure exhilarated by his successful new device for ensuring
diligence and inspiring fear, he storms out of hearing with the
terrible words, "Nibelungs all, bow to Alberich!... He can now
be everywhere at once, keeping watch over you. Rest and leisure
are done and over with for you! For him you must labour.... His
conquered slaves are you forever!" The moment of his overtaking
the Nibelungs is indicated by their sudden distant outcry.

Mime has been left crouching and whimpering on the rocky floor.
Thus Wotan and Loge find him.

Loge is in all the following scene Wotan's very active vizier,
furnishing the invention and carrying out the stratagems. Wotan,
except to the eye, takes the background and has little to say;
but as the blue of his mantle and the fresh chaplet on his locks
strike the eye refreshingly in the fire-reddened cave, so his voice,
with echoes in it of the noble upper world, comes like gusts of
sweet air.

Loge sets the cowering dwarf on his feet and by artful questions
gets the whole story from him of the ring and the Nibelungs' woe.
About the Tarnhelm, too, Mime tells Loge. At the recollection of
the stripes he has suffered, he rubs his back howling. The gods
laugh. That gives Mime the idea that these strangers m