This gloomy place need not be a mine: it might just as well be a
match-factory, with yellow phosphorus, phossy jaw, a large dividend, and
plenty of clergymen shareholders. Or it might be a whitelead factory,
or a chemical works, or a pottery, or a railway shunting yard, or a
tailoring shop, or a little gin-sodden laundry, or a bakehouse, or a big
shop, or any other of the places where human life and welfare are daily
sacrificed in order that some greedy foolish creature may be able to
hymn exultantly to his Platonic idol:
Thou mak'st me eat whilst others starve, And sing while others do
lament: Such untome Thy blessings are, As if I were Thine only care.
In the mine, which resounds with the clinking anvils of the dwarfs
toiling miserably to heap up treasure for their master, Alberic has set
his brother Mime--more familiarly, Mimmy--to make him a helmet. Mimmy
dimly sees that there is some magic in this helmet, and tries to keep
it; but Alberic wrests it from him, and shows him, to his cost, that it
is the veil of the invisible whip, and that he who wears it can appear
in what shape he will, or disappear from view altogether. This helmet is
a very common article in our streets, where it generally takes the form
of a tall hat. It makes a man invisible as a shareholder, and changes
him into various shapes, such as a pious Christian, a subscriber to
hospitals, a benefactor of the poor, a model husband and father, a
shrewd, practical independent Englishman, and what not, when he is
really a pitiful parasite on the commonwealth, consuming a great deal,
and producing nothing, feeling nothing, knowing nothing, believing
nothing, and doing nothing except what all the rest do, and that only
because he is afraid not to do it, or at least pretend to do it.
When Wotan and Loki arrive, Loki claims Alberic as an old acquaintance.
But the dwarf has no faith in these civil strangers: Greed instinctively
mistrusts Intellect, even in the garb of Poetry and the company of
Godhead, whilst envying the brilliancy of the one and the dignity of the
other. Alberic breaks out at them with a terrible boast of the power now
within his grasp. He paints for them the world as it will be when his
dominion over it is complete, when the soft airs and green mosses of
its valleys shall be changed into smoke, slag, and filth; when slavery,
disease, and squalor, soothed by drunkenness and mastered by the
policeman's baton, shall become the foundation of society; and when
nothing shall escape ruin except such pretty places and pretty women as
he may like to buy for the slaking of his own lusts. In that kingdom of
evil he sees that there will be no power but his own. These gods, with
their moralities and legalities and intellectual subtlety, will go under
and be starved out of existence. He bids Wotan and Loki beware of
it; and his "Hab' Acht!" is hoarse, horrible, and sinister. Wotan
is revolted to the very depths of his being: he cannot stifle the
execration that bursts from him. But Loki is unaffected: he has no moral
passion: indignation is as absurd to him as enthusiasm. He finds it
exquisitely amusing--having a touch of the comic spirit in him--that the
dwarf, in stirring up the moral fervor of Wotan, has removed his last
moral scruple about becoming a thief. Wotan will now rob the dwarf
without remorse; for is it not positively his highest duty to take this
power out of such evil hands and use it himself in the interests of
Godhead? On the loftiest moral grounds, he lets Loki do his worst.
A little cunningly disguised flattery makes short work of Alberic. Loki
pretends to be afraid of him; and he swallows that bait unhesitatingly.
But how, enquires Loki, is he to guard against the hatred of his million
slaves? Will they not steal from him, whilst he sleeps, the magic ring,
the symbol of his power, which he has forged from the gold of the Rhine?
"You think yourself very clever," sneers Alberic, and then begins to
boast of the enchantments of the magic helmet. Loki refuses to believe
in such marvels without witnessing them. Alberic, only too glad to
show off his powers, puts on the helmet and transforms himself into a
monstrous serpent. Loki gratifies him by pretending to be frightened out
of his wits, but ventures to remark that it would be better still if the
helmet could transform its owner into some tiny creature that could hide
and spy in the smallest cranny. Alberic promptly transforms himself
into a toad. In an instant Wotan's foot is on him; Loki tears away the
helmet; they pinion him, and drag him away a prisoner up through the
earth to the meadow by the castle.