Siegfried is a bastard, a cloven man. Slav and German, ministerial and serf, he has been put in a position of power because of his mathematical gifts and because his half-ness lubricates the unsavory elements of his work, allows him to negotiate with everyone. Besides, if he dies, he is only a bastard.

When he rises, he prays to God in one language and dresses himself in another. The first is the language of the internal current of his thought, the language in which he was raised and in which he learned belief. The second is the language of the coat of arms on his surcoat, the way things are, the title he bears.