And the workers listen. They honor his sacrifice. They will not bereave him of his war. Like the crowd at the Opera House, they offer him “stormy applause.” At his drumbeat comes the gorgeous flash of ten thousand spades raised upon the Labor Front. In his honor, German women have strung buntings upon their gingerbread houses. Soon enemy bombs will tumble upon them, and he’ll turn away, his face milkily shining by torchlight.
He always attends the first cycle at Bayreuth every year. This time again he comes early. At Bayreuth the stage is roofless like bombarded Stalingrad. The sleepwalker paces unyieldingly in his private box, brooding down the fan-shaped tiers of empty seats. He strokes the Corinthian columns. He unbuttons the collar of his shirt. He can almost hear the breathing of Verena Wagner outside. The Schalldeckel gapes before him: music’s open grave. Like the bridegroom who longs to meet his bride beneath the linen sheets, he craves this hollow of secret repose. Only there can he hoard himself safe from the others whom he must ever watch with turning head. His magic renews itself there; he sleeps without dreaming.
And so he descends into the Schalldeckel. The old floorboards creak beneath his jackbooted tread. Coldheartedly nervous, he grips his sweaty forelock, gibbering softly to himself, wondering where to rest. But this time, beyond the darkness he spies the flickering fires of forecourts! Call him not afraid. He’s the blond against the dark. But it’s so dark, just as it once was during the previous World War when he was young and blinded by poison gas… He strides blindly forward. Don’t his own soldiers hunker down to run through tunnels in the ruins even though flashes of Russian rocket-light and snakes of flame pursue them?
The flames lunge up. A tall woman stands ahead. He scarcely comes up to her knees. The pupils of her eyes resemble sparks from the spearpoints of Valkyries. Jealously mistrusting, he halts, mistrusting, his own eyes glaring like twin red rings.
She clenches her fist. Then he knows he’s on trial. Momentarily he awakes, staring candidly at her with his wide, piercing eyes. He could win her over if he put his mind to it. He thrusts his head back, speaks from the chin. He’s somber, godlike, expressionless. Dreaming an answer to what she hasn’t yet said, he tells her that in the operas, Wotan’s noblest striving is for his own supplanting. He doesn’t care if he loses the war, if he can only keep the Jews from getting back the magic ring.
Why, then, it’s well for you, she replies.
What do they name you?
Laugh-at-Wailing.
Who gave you birth?
Fire’s my father. Doom is my mother called.
And why do you await me here?
To tell you what you’ve always known—that you were born guilty and overmastered, that the nothingness you burn for refuses to receive you, that olden treasures grow corrupted at your touch.
The sleepwalker screams: It’s all treason! Now I know why my Russian offensive’s failed! That’s my justification. If I was fated, then how was I to blame? You Jewish bitches have opposed me at every step, but do you think I care? Go ahead; stab me in the back; I’ll annihilate you; I’ll exterminate you all! You think you’re immortal, but I’ll test you with every poisoned acid there is! I’ve always been too lenient. Well, that’s about to change. I’ll have you broken without mercy; I know what it takes; I’ll wear you down…
But Laugh-at-Wailing answers with a chuckle like a rattle of futurity, like bones jiggling inside a procession of pale coffins across the scorched earth of liberated Auschwitz.
I won’t give up! cries the sleepwalker. I don’t care if it’s useless!
The Valkyrie stands silent.
So then, in a pleading tone, he whispers: Why did you make me? I never wanted to be made…
For propaganda, of course. It’s all in your own book. How can we persuade others to be good, without evil we can point to?
Mercurially calming himelf, he smiles and remarks: You might as well have spared yourself the trouble. What did you think I’d do—walk sheepishly to the gallows? Do you think I’ve never been judged before?
I don’t need opinions, little man.
And you truly believe I’ll deviate one hair’s breadth from the course I’ve laid out for myself? You think you can goad me into doing anything more extreme than I would do in any case? Are you so hopeful? Why, then, it’s well for you.
He withdraws, escorted almost into the light by goblins like Russian tanks scuttering across ruins. He’s in a panic. He rushes home to Berlin, where he can closet himself with Speer and gaze down at the Grand Avenue of postwar Berlin, modeled at one to one thousand scale. Speer’s cabinetmakers have built the new Opera House at one to fifty scale, and over here there’ll be a cinema for the masses. Every edifice will be the same height.
With deferential formality, Speer asks his opinion on some aspect of the Central Railroad Station. Carefully, the sleepwalker tries out the Valkyrie’s phrase: I don’t need opinions. I already see everything.
Speer stares woodenly. The sleepwalker feels inspired.
And now what? The inclined arm replicated a millionfold, the knife-edge hand, the shouting voices of his echoers, his chin-strapped orators, all sing out to stand firm. Germany lies obediently below him, like an aerial view of fields, a corduroy of bodies who soon will fight in Russia, shivering, warmed only by the pain of their own wounds. His swastika banners are grassblades in an infinite meadow of war. Up standards! Sieg Heil! He’s guarded by grimy soldiers with deep-sunk eyes. Comes the great battle between Siegmund and Hunding; the Nibelungs fight on in the burning hall; then long lines of gravediggers are carting corpses two by two to the open pit; down the chute they go; then we paper them over, and add a sprinkle of dirt, hastily so that we will not get into even more trouble with the Germans who have dressed us in the striped uniforms and pale wrinkles of concentration camp inmates and who are even now building our doom out of squat towers and barbed wire.
Italy falls, but the sleepwalker knows how to save her from the Jews. Parachutes as beautiful as white flowers bloom upon the skies which he’s now capturing. Black columns of smoke have translated the beaches of Normandy into the stage darkness after an intermission. In the next act he must sing of retreating German troops, of dead horses and throttled light. The inky moustache in his grey face, the black, gaping mouth, and above all the raised hands of him suck new blood down the marching orchard-lanes of swastika standards. Before him, beyond his warriors hunched under their caps, he seems to see a plain of faces and lights. Where might it be? Increasingly golden, this country draws him on beyond himself. Now he comprehends in his soul why Gunnar and Hogni could not resist the Hunnish invitation: Although it meant doom and sister-woe, at least they’d win that brilliant if sinister moment of light when they drew near their foemen’s forecourts. Futurity shone like a flame-flicker reflected on gold foil. They knew they’d be greeted by raised arms and by faces, faces more pale and numerous than raindrops. The sleepwalker mutters, as he did on the eve of the Russian campaign: The world will hold its breath…
Soothed by solid rows of columns marching alongside the seats at Bayreuth, he fingers the acanthus scrolls. He helps Verena Wagner and her mother with gifts of munificent gold. Soon his Ring will begin again. He’ll watch it from start to finish, without fail. He always keeps his promises.