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Oh, that I had chosen death sooner than life so abject and miserable!..." With the agonised cry, "My honour, oh, my honour! I have lost my honour!" he casts himself face downward upon the ground. Ortrud has not stirred, or taken her eyes from the bright orange-gold windows. As Telramund's harsh voice ceases, music is heard again from the banquet-hall.
"But where loiters," he is inquiring, "the one whom God sent to the glory, the greatness of Brabant?" when a covered bier is borne before him and set down in the midst of the wondering company, by men whom they recognise as former retainers of Telramund's. This is done, explain these last, by order of the Protector of Brabant. Elsa attended by her ladies appears at the place of gathering.
With dark artfulness she rouses in Elsa more than proportionate compassion for her plight, by casting upon the tender-conscienced creature the whole blame for it. In no scene does the youthfulness of Telramund's ward appear more pathetically than in this. "In the solitary forest, where I lived quiet and at peace, what had I done to you," Ortrud upbraids, "what had I done to you?
Trumpets gave the signal for the fight to begin. Telramund's strokes fell thick as hail, but suddenly the stranger knight rose and with one fearful stroke split the count's helmet and cut his head. "God has decided," cried the king.
He himself, renouncing the sweetness of repose, will lead them to glory. These proclamations are followed by general assent and gladness. A small group there is, however, of malcontents, former adherents of Telramund's, who grumble: "Hear that! He is to remove us out of the country, against an enemy who has never so much as threatened us! Such a bold beginning is ill-beseeming.
Hence the dance with which Carmen fascinates poor Don José, argues an intense readiness to be pleased on the part of the latter, and Telramund's defeat at the hands of Lohengrin is never quite free from a certain degree of contributory negligence." "But tell me this, Harding Effendi, are there composers who have carried the union of the arts to a higher point than others?"
Very gently he lifts Elsa, sufficiently revived to realise that she has somehow worked irreparable destruction, and decisively places her away from him. By a sign he orders Telramund's followers to their feet and bids them carry the dead man to the King's judgment-place. He rings a bell; the women who appear in answer, he instructs: "To accompany her before the King, attire Elsa, my sweet wife!
After a triple summons by the heralds, he is seen approaching on the Scheldt, in a boat drawn by a swan. Before the combat Lohengrin betroths himself to Elsa, naming only the condition that she shall never question him as to his name or race. She assents, and the combat results in Telramund's defeat and public disgrace.
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