 Nevertheless, by 31 March 1857 the full score of Act I was finished.Sometime thereafter Wagner began to make a fair copy, but he abandoned this task after just one scene.Almost two months elapsed before he began work on Act II; the prelude, "Fafners Ruhe" ("Fafner's Rest") was sketched on 20 May 1857, while the preliminary draft was begun on 22 May, the composer's forty-fourth birthday.