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.
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