guardian of the mountain, round the crest of which the fires of
Loki now break into a red background for the majesty of the god.
But all this is lost on Siegfried Bakoonin. "Aha!" he cries, as
the spear is levelled against his breast: "I have found my
father's foe"; and the spear falls in two pieces under the stroke
of Nothung. "Up then," says Wotan: "I cannot withhold you," and
disappears forever from the eye of man. The fires roll down the
mountain; but Siegfried goes at them as exultantly as he went at
the forging of the sword or the heart of the dragon, and
shoulders his way through them, joyously sounding his horn to the
accompaniment of their crackling and seething. And never a hair
of his head is singed. Those frightful flames which have scared
mankind for centuries from the Truth, have not heat enough in
them to make a child shut its eyes. They are mere phantasmagoria,
highly creditable to Loki's imaginative stage-management; but
nothing ever has perished or will perish eternally in them except
the Churches which have been so poor and faithless as to trade
for their power on the lies of a romancer.

BACK TO OPERA AGAIN

And now, O Nibelungen Spectator, pluck up; for all allegories
come to an end somewhere; and the hour of your release from these
explanations is at hand. The rest of what you are going to see is
opera, and nothing but opera. Before many bars have been played,
Siegfried and the wakened Brynhild, newly become tenor and
soprano, will sing a concerted cadenza; plunge on from that to
a magnificent love duet; and end with a precipitous allegro a
capella, driven headlong to its end by the impetuous semiquaver
triplets of the famous finales to the first act of Don