The Rhine Gold - Page 2

course has become to us is plain enough to those who have the
power of understanding what they see as they look at the
plutocratic societies 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 the water begins to glitter in the sun, and the
gold to reflect its glory. They break into ecstatic worship of