friend in the family, and with Wotan
he preserves the attitude of a self-acknowledged underling. He
stands in fear of his immediate strength, while nourishing a hardly
disguised contempt for his wit, as well as that of his cousins
collectively. A secret hater of them all, and clear-minded in estimating
them. A touch of Mephistophelian there is in the pleasure which he
seems to find in the contemplation of the canker-spot in Wotan's
nature, drawing from the god over and over again, as if the admission
refreshed him, that he has no intention of dealing justly toward
the Rhine-maidens.

"Is this your manner of hastening to set aright the evil bargain
concluded by you?" Wotan chides, as he appears from the valley.

"How? What bargain concluded by me?..."

Pinned down to accounting for himself, "I promised," he says, "to
think over the matter, and try to find means of loosing you from
the bargain.... But how should I have promised to perform the
impossible?" Under the pressure of all their angers, he finally
airily delivers himself: "Having at heart to help you, I travelled
the world over, visiting its most recondite corners, in search
of such a substitute for Freia as might be found acceptable to
the giants. Vainly I sought, and now at last I plainly see that
nothing upon this earth is so precious that it can take the place
in man's affection of the loveliness and worth of woman."

Struck and uplifted by this thought, the gods, moved, look in one
another's faces, and the music expresses the sweet expansion of
the heart overflowing with thoughts of beauty and love. It is one
of the memorable moments of the Prologue.

"Everywhere," proceeds Loge, "far as life reaches, in water, earth,
and air, wherever is quickening of germs and stirring of nature's
forces, I investigated and inquired what there might be in existence
that a man should hold dearer than woman's beauty and worth? Everywhere
my inquiry was met with derision. No creature, in water, earth, or
air, is willing to renounce love and woman."

As he pauses, the gods again gaze at one another, with tender tearful
smiles, in an exalted emotion over the recognition of this touching
truth; and the music reexpresses that blissful expansion of the
heart.

"Only one did I see," Loge says further--the light fading out of
the music--"who had renounced love; for red gold he had forsworn
the favor of woman." He relates Alberich's theft of the gold, as
it had been told hi