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As the introductory part of this act turned out very well, thanks to my favourable frame of mind, I burst out laughing at the thought that I ought to call my new home 'Fafner's Ruhe, to correspond with the first piece of work done in it. It was not destined to be so, however.
The dwarf tries to excite the feeling of fear in Siegfried's bosom by a blood-curdling description of the terrible dragon, but finding it useless, leaves Siegfried at the mouth of Fafner's cave and retires into the brake. Left alone, Siegfried yields to the fascination of the summer woods.
Take the first scene the cave with the dull red forge fires smouldering in the black darkness, and the tools of the smith's trade scattered about, and, seen through the mouth of the cave, all the blazing colours of the sunlit forest; or again the second the darkness, then the dawn and the sunrise, and lastly the full glory of the summer day near Fafner's hole in a mysterious haunted corner of the forest; or the third a far-away nook in the hills, where the spirit of the earth slumbers everlastingly; or the final scene the calm morning on Brünnhilde's fell, the flames fallen, and all things transfigured and made remote by the enchantment of lingering mists, these scenes form a background for the dramatic action such as no composer dreamed of before, nor will dream of again until we cease to dwell in dusty stone cities and learn once again to know nature and her greatest moods as our forefathers knew them.
Fafner's dying speech is better, for Wagner had something urgent to say on his own account: he wishes to urge on us the significance of Siegfried's coming career; and he does it with immense impressiveness. The day of the Ending of the gods comes a little nearer when Siegfried takes possession of the Ring and places it on his finger.
Gladly will I do as you bid!" He enters the cave. As he disappears, Mime crawls near to convince himself ocularly of Fafner's death. At the same moment, Alberich slips from his hiding-place and throws himself across Mime's path, to bar his way to the treasure.
With a laugh for the double-horned dilemma in which he leaves the "honest dwarf," he passes forth into the woods. As Mime gazes after him, violent trembling seizes the poor little smith. The flashing among the leaves of Wotan's winged horse his terror mistakes for the flaming of Fafner's gaping jaws; and the sound of a rushing approach for the monster crashing toward him through the underbrush.
Off he storms into the forest, leaving Mime shouting after him, a prey to the utmost anxiety. The dwarf's difficulty is now twofold: "To the old care I have a new one added!" How to retain the wild fellow and guide him to Fafner's nest, and how to mend those pieces of stubborn steel. "No forge is there whose glow can soften the thorough-bred fragments.
When the fire plays round Brünnhilde's fell Hinde Fell, Morris calls it lighting the icy tops of the farthest hills, or when Mime and Alberich squabble in the dark of early morning at the mouth of Fafner's hole, or again when the Wanderer comes in and scarifies Mime out of his wits, we are taken back to the remotest and dimmest past, to the beginnings of time, to a time that never existed save in the imagination of our forebears.
Show caitiffs your gleam! Strike the traitor! Fell the villain!" He waves over his head the finished sword: "Look, Mime, you smith thus cuts Siegfried's sword!" He brings it down upon the anvil, which falls apart, cleft from top to bottom. Mime tumbles over with amazement. The next scene shows the woods before Fafner's cave. It is night.
"Did I say anything of the sort?" Then again, in accents sickly-sweet, with the writhings and grimaces of an excessive affection: "Siegfried, listen, my son! You and the like of you I have always hated from my very heart. Out of love I did not rear you, burdensome nuisance. The trouble I took was for the sake of the treasure in Fafner's keeping.
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