Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/183

 like a wild plant or a young animal—he knows nothing of society, mankind or laws; he is pure spontaneity, nature itself in its unfettered expansion. Despising Mime, who does not exist in his eyes, he only knows himself and the sky; he therefore possesses instinttivelyinstinctively [sic] all the virtues, not forgetting muscles of iron; he is intrepid, kind, generous, charming, delicate, chivalrous; all this is as natural to him as breathing. In short, he, Siegfried, is the man expected, the man at once summoned and feared by Wotan, who is to free and redeem the world from the antique laws to which Wotan holds it subject, not without feeling weariness and disgust.

Mime also has views on his nursling, whom he regards as a great simpleton. With arms like his to wield the magic sword, it should be mere child's play to Siegfried to slay the giant Fafner, who in the guise of a hideous and formidable dragon passes his life sprawling over the treasure of which he is now the possessor. Once the feat is accomplished, it will only remain for the cunning dwarf to offer the youth a certain refreshing draught that will send him to sleep for eternity, and to appropriate the Treasure himself. However, Mime is powerless to weld together the fragments of the spear, the metal being too hard for his strength. Siegfried does it with ease; he slays the dragon, despatches Mime who offers him the draught, and while lying stretched on the grass in the forest hears a bird singing, and is quite bewildered to find he understands its song. It is the dragon's blood with which he has been splashed that gives him this power. The bird reveals to him among other secrets the value of the treasure and the existence of the maiden surrounded by fire. Siegfried rushes to undertake this conquest.