e, he told Mimi all about things he already knew, but
of which the audience was ignorant. Then Siegfried seized some bits
that were supposed to represent pieces of a sword, and sang:

'Heaho, heaho, hoho! Hoho, hoho, hoho, hoho! Hoheo, haho, haheo,
hoho!' And that was the end of the first act. It was all so
artificial and stupid that I had great difficulty in sitting it
out. But my friends begged me to stay, and assured me that the
second act would be better.

"The next scene represented a forest. Wotan was waking up the
dragon. At first the dragon said, 'I want to go to sleep'; but
eventually he came out of his grotto. The dragon was represented by
two men clothed in a green skin with some scales stuck about it. At
one end of the skin they wagged a tail, and at the other end they
opened a crocodile's mouth, out of which came fire. The dragon,
which ought to have been a frightful beast--and perhaps he would
have frightened children about five years old--said a few words in
a bass voice. It was so childish and feeble that one was astonished
to see grown-up people present; even thousands of so-called
cultured people looked on and listened attentively, and went into
raptures. Then Siegfried arrived with his horn. He lay down during
a pause, which is reputed to be very beautiful; and sometimes he
talked to himself, and sometimes he was quite silent. He wanted to
imitate the song of the birds, and cut a rush with his horn, and
made a flute out of it. But he played the flute badly, and so he
began to blow his horn. The scene is intolerable, and there is not
the least trace of music in it. I was annoyed to see three thousand
people round about me, listening submissively to this absurdity
and dutifully admiring it.

"With some courage I managed to wait for the next
scene--Siegfried's fight with the dragon. There were roarings and
flames of fire and brandishings of the sword. But I could not stand
it any longer; and I fled out of the theatre with a feeling of
disgust that I have not yet forgotten."

I admit I cannot read this delightful criticism without laughing; and it
does not affect me painfully like Nietzsche's pernicious and morbid
irony. It used to be a grief to me that two men whom I loved with an
equal affection, and whom I reverenced as the finest spirits in