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— Rhinemaidens!… The baton rapped sharply through their declining wail. — This is your shout of triumph. A joyful cry! Bast thumped out the theme again on the piano, missed a note, winced, repeated it. — Can’t you sound joyful, Rhinemaidens? Look, look around you. The river is glittering with golden light. You’re swimming around the rock where the Rhinegold is. The Rhinegold! You love the Rhinegold Rhinemaidens, you…

— So where’s the Rhinegold?

— We’re pretending it’s on the table there, you’re all swimming around…

— No like she means we can pretend we’re out here swimming like around this old table which we can even pretend it’s this big rock but there’s nothing on it, like there’s nothing which we can pretend it’s this here Rhinegold.

Again he tapped the baton against the music stand. — The art department has promised the real Rhinegold for Friday, so today you’ll just have to pretend. Pretend it’s there shimmering and glittering, you’re swimming around it protecting it, but you don’t dream it’s in danger. You don’t dream anyone would dare try to steal it, even when the dwarf appears. The dwarf Alberich, who comes first seeking love… what’s the matter there?

— Like if we’re all so beautiful who would want to love this here lousy little dwarf?

— Well, that… that’s what happens, isn’t it. You don’t. You laugh at his… his advances, and that hurts him, it hurts him so deeply that he decides he’ll take the Rhinegold instead, so that he can… where is he now, Alberich the dwarf, where is he…? Bast rattled the baton briskly against the music stand, and a trumpet blast shattered the comparative quiet. — What was that!

A salute stirred from the shadows in the wings. — That’s where I come in here with the trumpet when you hit that thing with your stick, answered a martial miniature advancing into the glare with a clatter of knife and ax, flashlight, whistle, compass, and a coil of rope crowding his small waist.

— You come in when I point the baton right at you, and you come in playing the Rhinegold motif. Now what was that you think you just played?

— The Call to the Colors, anybody knows that. Besides I don’t even know this here Rhinegold thing and my father said I probly should play this anyway because it’s the best thing I can play.

— Well, what eke can you play.

— Nothing.

Bast rested his head on his right hand, weakly flexing his left and studying the gouge on its back as a smart slap of salute wheeled the trumpeter off in the general direction of Valhalla, and he gave them the key with a chord.

— And like right here Miss Flesch said might be a good place for our specialty numbers, like we already have ballet tap and toe and if we’re on the school tv and all…

— You… straighten that out with her.

— She’s going to be here today?

— That’s a good question, Bast muttered. — Has anyone seen her?

— I seen her, came a voice from the wings.

— This morning? Where.

— No, last night in this green car parked up in the woods with this here…

— That’s enough! Bast, and the crack of his baton, severed that response and the billow of tittering it rode out on, breaking against the banks of empty seats; he struck the chord and with the power of music set their brittle limbs undulating in unsavory suggestion, bony fronts heaving with nameless longing straining the garlands of streaked paper and seamed up remnants of other cultural crusades, here the gold fringe of an epaulette quivered, there a gold tassel shook as, revived by Bast’s flailing arm, the cry of — R H I N E gold…! filled the hall, brought up short by the Call to the Colors: down the keyboard Bast darted as though fleeing that, into the Ring motif, and now more faintly, the last to realize that the stage had been taken over by one enthralling bellow. Undismayed by lack of piano accompaniment, or now the peremptory rattle of the baton, this baying augmented as the apparition drew up at the footlights for breath.

— She’s being Wotan, a Flosshilde offered in awe.

— Wotan isn’t on yet. You’re not on yet! Bast shouted at this eruption freely adorned with horns, feathers, and bicycle reflectors, the helmet hung askew over a face where mascara awash in perspiration descended a bad complexion to streak the imbrications of silvered cardboard covering the padded bosom below. Simulated fox tails dangled at the flanks. The spear sagged forward. — I thought you all knew, there was to be no makeup until your actual performance, he said, and as Wotan obediently drew a glistening forearm across that face he looked away, noting apparently for the first time the epaulettes and gold tassels trimming jackets tailored to imaginary bosoms, the gold piped shorts cloistering assorted hams. — What’s that you’re wearing there? And you…?

— She’s wearing her mother’s falsies in there, said one Wellgunde, delivering a Woglinde a punch in the bloated chest, bringing blushes and brays of laughter.

— No, those gold tassels, those costumes…

— We got twirling after.

— You have what?