“Voilà! Baireuth, the Wagner theatre!” and they all craned their necks to catch the first glimpse of that mystic edifice built on the hill, the new musical Pantheon, the new St. Peter’s of the Bewitched Ones. And the Englishman continued to calmly read about the Loki-motif as the train slowly steamed into Baireuth. III Paul found comfortable lodgings in the Lisztstrasse and his new friends went to the Hotel Sonne. At half-past four he was up on the hill looking at the world, and as immaculately dressed as if he stood in the bow window of the Calumel Club, ogling Fifth Avenue girls. He was only vaguely interested in the approaching performance, and his pulses did not quicken when Donner’s motif told the gabbling, eager throng that the great Trilogy was about to unfold its fables of water, wood, and wind. He took his seat unconcernedly, and then the house became black and from space welled up those elemental sounds, not merely music, but the sighing, droning swish of waters. The Rhine calmly, majestically stole over Paul’s senses, he forgot New York, and when the curtains parted he was with the Rhine Daughters, with Alberich, and his heart seemed to stop beating. All sense of identity vanished at a wave of Wagner’s magic wand, and not being a music-critic, his ego was absorbed as by the shining mirror in the hand of a hypnotist. This, then, was Wagner, a Wagner who attacked simultaneously all the senses, vanquished the strongest brain, smothered, bruised, and smashed it; wept, sang, surged, roared, sighed in it; searched and ravished your soul until it was put to flight, routed, vanquished, and brought bleeding and captive to the feet of the master. The eye was promise-crammed, the ears sealed with bliss, and Paul _felt_ the wet of the waters. He panted as Alberich scaled the slimy steeps, and the curves, described by the three swimming mermaids, filled him with the joy of the dance. The rape of the Rhinegold, the hoarse shout of laughter from Alberich’s love-forsworn lips, and the terrified cries of the three watchers were to Paul as real as Wall Street.