Bluebeard, if not the swords of the other Brothers. This, you say, might
not have been necessarily fatal, since those hardy ruffians of a bygone age
were proof against many a stab; but in this case the sword of the heroic
Mustapha was accompanied by the killing "Schwert Motiv," consequently the
villain is dead.

But what has become of him? We have the one clue only, which will be known
by all students in future as the "_Tod_und_Ho'lle_ _Motiv_," just given
above: Bluebeard has gone where we will not follow him unless we are
obliged. Is this asserting too much? Alas, it is only too evident. If it
had been Wagner's intention to refer to the glorious immortality of a
godlike hero, we should have had the exquisite strains of a heavenly harp,
thus:

[rising arpeggios]

or the whir of angels' wings, thus:

[trills off the right-hand end of the keyboard]

And a final significant note, thus:

[a good 1 « inches above the treble staff] (Stretch the keyboard a little
if necessary and play a half, if there is not room for a whole note.)

whose piercing sweetness and dizzy altitude would have symbolized Heaven,
or at least _Walhalla_.

Alas, it is all too plain. We have this: