To
attempt arriving at clearness by questions does not occur to them;
and, indeed, what to each is the principal thing, known from the
proof of his eyes, no discussion could affect: for Bruennhilde,
Siegfried is estranged from her; for Gunther, his marriage is turned
to Dead-Sea apples.

The cheerful music, the summons to the wedding, dies away. Hagen
bends his black brow in reflection as to how he shall utilise to
his advantage the passions he has aroused; covertly he watches
his victims. Gunther has cast himself down and muffled his face
from the day, in the clutch of his jealous suspicion of Siegfried
and the smart of his public shame.

Bruennhilde stands staring ahead, with set countenance of horror
and grief. In an hour she has lived the tragedy which, spread over
howsoever many years, is still one of the hardest in human experience,
the tragedy which extorted Othello's groan: "But there, where I
have garnered up my heart, where either I must live or bear no
life--to be discarded thence!" She seeks in the void and blackness
some glimmer of light on the incredible mystery of these events.
With returning calm, a flash of the truth illuminates her, to the
extent that she suspects in the unnatural developments of the last
hour the work of sorcery. While hardly helping the actual situation,
this interpretation frees Siegfried from the hatefulness of such
black guilt as has appeared his, and we feel from this moment that
Bruennhilde's undeterred reaching after vengeance, her consent to
Siegfried's death, is less a personal need to make an offender
pay, than the instinct to cut short the dishonour in which the most
magnificent hero in the world is fallen. Impossible of endurance
is a world where Siegfried is false to all his vows, where Siegfried
and Bruennhilde are no longer each to the other "for ever and ever,
his only and his all!" Heartbreak much more than resentment stamps
Bruennhilde's cry: "Where is my wisdom against this enigma? Where
are my runes? Oh, lamentation! All my wisdom I bestowed on him.
In his power he holds the bondmaid, in thongs the captive, whom,
wailing over her wrong, the rich one joyously makes gift of to
another! Where shall I find a sword with which to cut the thongs?"

Hagen approaches her: "Place your trust in me, deceived woman! I
will avenge you on him who betrayed you...."

"On whom?..." she inquires, hazily. _Him who betrayed you_ describes
more than one. "On Siegfried, who betraye