Gnomes--types of the powers of Nature--attend the car and do homage to the God of Money. The gnomes offer to show their master Plutus a subterranean treasure-horde of molten gold. He approaches too close and his beard catches fire. In a few moments an immense conflagration spreads through the crowds of revellers, which would have ended in a terrible catastrophe (such as had actually happened at the French court shortly before Goethe wrote this scene, and such as happened some fifteen years ago in Paris at some bazaar) had not Faust with the help of Mephistopheles extinguished the flames by the aid of magic. The young Kaiser now demands from Faust that he shall give the court a display of his magic arts. He commands him to raise the shades of Paris and Helen. Faust applies to Mephisto, but he professes himself unable to raise the shades of classical heroes and heroines. 'This heathen Greek folk,' he says, 'have their own hell and their own devils. _I_ have no power over them. Still--there _is_ a means.' He then tells Faust that he will have to descend to the 'Mothers,' 'die Mütter,' mysterious deities (mentioned by Greek authors) as worshipped in Sicily and dwelling in the inmost depths of the universe, at the very heart of Nature, beyond the conditions of Time and Space. He who will raise the shade of Helen, or ideal beauty, must descend first to the 'Mothers'--must enter the realm of the spiritual, the unconditioned, the ideal, to which there is no defined road, and to which even _thought_ cannot guide him. He must surrender himself in _contemplation_ and sink to the very centre of the world of appearances. Mephistopheles gives Faust a key, which glows and emits flames as he grasps it. Holding this key he will sink down to the realm of the Mothers, where he will find a glowing tripod (the symbol of that Triad or Trinity which plays so large a part in the old Pythagorean philosophy and in more than one religion). This tripod he is to touch with the key, and it will rise with him to the surface of the earth.