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+
+Produced by Sandra Laythorpe
+
+
+
+
+
+UNDINE
+
+By Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
+
+With foreword by Charlotte M Yonge
+
+
+
+
+Introduction
+
+
+
+
+Four tales are, it is said, intended by the Author to be appropriate to
+the Four Seasons: the stern, grave "Sintram", to winter; the tearful,
+smiling, fresh "Undine", to Spring; the torrid deserts of the "Two
+Captains", to summer; and the sunset gold of "Aslauga's Knight", to
+autumn. Of these two are before us.
+
+The author of these tales, as well as of many more, was Friedrich, Baron
+de la Motte Fouque, one of the foremost of the minstrels or tale-tellers
+of the realm of spiritual chivalry--the realm whither Arthur's knights
+departed when they "took the Sancgreal's holy quest,"--whence Spenser's
+Red Cross knight and his fellows came forth on their adventures, and in
+which the Knight of la Mancha believed, and endeavoured to exist.
+
+La Motte Fouque derived his name and his title from the French Huguenot
+ancestry, who had fled on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His
+Christian name was taken from his godfather, Frederick the Great,
+of whom his father was a faithful friend, without compromising his
+religious principles and practice. Friedrich was born at Brandenburg on
+February 12, 1777, was educated by good parents at home, served in the
+Prussian army through disaster and success, took an enthusiastic part
+in the rising of his country against Napoleon, inditing as many
+battle-songs as Korner. When victory was achieved, he dedicated his
+sword in the church of Neunhausen where his estate lay. He lived there,
+with his beloved wife and his imagination, till his death in 1843.
+
+And all the time life was to him a poet's dream. He lived in a continual
+glamour of spiritual romance, bathing everything, from the old deities
+of the Valhalla down to the champions of German liberation, in an ideal
+glow of purity and nobleness, earnestly Christian throughout, even in
+his dealings with Northern mythology, for he saw Christ unconsciously
+shown in Baldur, and Satan in Loki.
+
+Thus he lived, felt, and believed what he wrote, and though his dramas
+and poems do not rise above fair mediocrity, and the great number of his
+prose stories are injured by a certain monotony, the charm of them is
+in their elevation of sentiment and the earnest faith pervading all. His
+knights might be Sir Galahad--
+
+
+            "My strength is as the strength of ten,
+             Because my heart is pure."
+
+
+Evil comes to them as something to be conquered, generally as a form of
+magic enchantment, and his "wondrous fair maidens" are worthy of them.
+Yet there is adventure enough to afford much pleasure, and often we have
+a touch of true genius, which has given actual ideas to the world, and
+precious ones.
+
+This genius is especially traceable in his two masterpieces, Sintram and
+Undine. Sintram was inspired by Albert Durer's engraving of the "Knight
+of Death," of which we give a presentation. It was sent to Fouque by his
+friend Edward Hitzig, with a request that he would compose a ballad
+on it. The date of the engraving is 1513, and we quote the description
+given by the late Rev. R. St. John Tyrwhitt, showing how differently it
+may be read.
+
+"Some say it is the end of the strong wicked man, just overtaken by
+Death and Sin, whom he has served on earth. It is said that the tuft on
+the lance indicates his murderous character, being of such unusual size.
+You know the use of that appendage was to prevent blood running down
+from the spearhead to the hands. They also think that the object under
+the horse's off hind foot is a snare, into which the old oppressor is
+to fall instantly. The expression of the faces may be taken either way:
+both good men and bad may have hard, regular features; and both good men
+and bad would set their teeth grimly on seeing Death, with the sands of
+their life nearly run out. Some say they think the expression of Death
+gentle, or only admonitory (as the author of "Sintram"); and I have to
+thank the authoress of the "Heir of Redclyffe" for showing me a fine
+impression of the plate, where Death certainly had a not ungentle
+countenance--snakes and all. I think the shouldered lance, and quiet,
+firm seat on horseback, with gentle bearing on the curb-bit, indicate
+grave resolution in the rider, and that a robber knight would have his
+lance in rest; then there is the leafy crown on the horse's head; and
+the horse and dog move on so quietly, that I am inclined to hope the
+best for the Ritter."
+
+Musing on the mysterious engraving, Fouque saw in it the life-long
+companions of man, Death and Sin, whom he must defy in order to reach
+salvation; and out of that contemplation rose his wonderful romance,
+not exactly an allegory, where every circumstance can be fitted with an
+appropriate meaning, but with the sense of the struggle of life, with
+external temptation and hereditary inclination pervading all, while
+Grace and Prayer aid the effort. Folko and Gabrielle are revived from
+the Magic Ring, that Folko may by example and influence enhance all
+higher resolutions; while Gabrielle, in all unconscious innocence,
+awakes the passions, and thus makes the conquest the harder.
+
+It is within the bounds of possibility that the similarities of
+folk-lore may have brought to Fouque's knowledge the outline of the
+story which Scott tells us was the germ of "Guy Mannering"; where a boy,
+whose horoscope had been drawn by an astrologer, as likely to encounter
+peculiar trials at certain intervals, actually had, in his twenty-first
+year, a sort of visible encounter with the Tempter, and came off
+conqueror by his strong faith in the Bible. Sir Walter, between
+reverence and realism, only took the earlier part of the story, but
+Fouque gives us the positive struggle, and carries us along with the
+final victory and subsequent peace. His tale has had a remarkable power
+over the readers. We cannot but mention two remarkable instances at
+either end of the scale. Cardinal Newman, in his younger days, was
+so much overcome by it that he hurried out into the garden to read it
+alone, and returned with traces of emotion in his face. And when Charles
+Lowder read it to his East End boys, their whole minds seemed engrossed
+by it, and they even called certain spots after the places mentioned.
+Imagine the Rocks of the Moon in Ratcliff Highway!
+
+May we mention that Miss Christabel Coleridge's "Waynflete" brings
+something of the spirit and idea of "Sintram" into modern life?
+
+"Undine" is a story of much lighter fancy, and full of a peculiar grace,
+though with a depth of melancholy that endears it. No doubt it
+was founded on the universal idea in folk-lore of the nixies or
+water-spirits, one of whom, in Norwegian legend, was seen weeping
+bitterly because of the want of a soul. Sometimes the nymph is a wicked
+siren like the Lorelei; but in many of these tales she weds an earthly
+lover, and deserts him after a time, sometimes on finding her diving
+cap, or her seal-skin garment, which restores her to her ocean kindred,
+sometimes on his intruding on her while she is under a periodical
+transformation, as with the fairy Melusine, more rarely if he becomes
+unfaithful.
+
+There is a remarkable Cornish tale of a nymph or mermaiden, who thus
+vanished, leaving a daughter who loved to linger on the beach rather
+than sport with other children. By and by she had a lover, but no sooner
+did he show tokens of inconstancy, than the mother came up from the sea
+and put him to death, when the daughter pined away and died. Her name
+was Selina, which gives the tale a modern aspect, and makes us wonder
+if the old tradition can have been modified by some report of Undine's
+story.
+
+There was an idea set forth by the Rosicrucians of spirits abiding in
+the elements, and as Undine represented the water influences, Fouque's
+wife, the Baroness Caroline, wrote a fairly pretty story on the sylphs
+of fire. But Undine's freakish playfulness and mischief as an elemental
+being, and her sweet patience when her soul is won, are quite
+original, and indeed we cannot help sharing, or at least understanding,
+Huldbrand's beginning to shrink from the unearthly creature to something
+of his own flesh and blood. He is altogether unworthy, and though in
+this tale there is far less of spiritual meaning than in Sintram, we
+cannot but see that Fouque's thought was that the grosser human nature
+is unable to appreciate what is absolutely pure and unearthly.
+
+C. M. YONGE.
+
+
+
+
+UNDINE
+
+by Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
+
+
+
+
+TO UNDINE
+
+
+Undine! thou fair and lovely sprite, Since first from out an ancient lay
+I saw gleam forth thy fitful light, How hast thou sung my cares away!
+
+How hast thou nestled next my heart, And gently offered to impart Thy
+sorrows to my listening ear, Like a half-shy, half-trusting child, The
+while my lute, in wood-notes wild, Thine accents echoed far and near!
+
+Then many a youth I won to muse With love on thy mysterious ways, With
+many a fair one to peruse The legend of thy wondrous days.
+
+And now both dame and youth would fain List to my tale yet once again;
+Nay, sweet Undine, be not afraid! Enter their halls with footsteps
+light, Greet courteously each noble knight, But fondly every German
+maid.
+
+And should they ask concerning me, Oh, say, "He is a cavalier, Who truly
+serves and valiantly, In tourney and festivity, With lute and sword,
+each lady fair!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+
+
+On a beautiful evening, many hundred years ago, a worthy old fisherman
+sat mending his nets. The spot where he dwelt was exceedingly
+picturesque. The green turf on which he had built his cottage ran far
+out into a great lake; and this slip of verdure appeared to stretch into
+it as much through love of its clear waters as the lake, moved by a like
+impulse, strove to fold the meadow, with its waving grass and flowers,
+and the cooling shade of the trees, in its embrace of love. They seemed
+to be drawn toward each other, and the one to be visiting the other as a
+guest.
+
+With respect to human beings, indeed, in this pleasant spot, excepting
+the fisherman and his family, there were few, or rather none, to be
+met with. For as in the background of the scene, toward the west and
+north-west, lay a forest of extraordinary wildness, which, owing to its
+sunless gloom and almost impassable recesses, as well as to fear of the
+strange creatures and visionary illusions to be encountered in it, most
+people avoided entering, unless in cases of extreme necessity. The pious
+old fisherman, however, many times passed through it without harm, when
+he carried the fine fish which he caught by his beautiful strip of land
+to a great city lying only a short distance beyond the forest.
+
+Now the reason he was able to go through this wood with so much ease may
+have been chiefly this, because he entertained scarcely any thoughts but
+such as were of a religious nature; and besides, every time he crossed
+the evil-reported shades, he used to sing some holy song with a clear
+voice and from a sincere heart.
+
+Well, while he sat by his nets this evening, neither fearing nor
+devising evil, a sudden terror seized him, as he heard a rushing in the
+darkness of the wood, that resembled the tramping of a mounted steed,
+and the noise continued every instant drawing nearer and nearer to his
+little territory.
+
+What he had fancied, when abroad in many a stormy night, respecting
+the mysteries of the forest, now flashed through his mind in a moment,
+especially the figure of a man of gigantic stature and snow-white
+appearance, who kept nodding his head in a portentous manner. And when
+he raised his eyes towards the wood, the form came before him in perfect
+distinctness, as he saw the nodding man burst forth from the mazy
+web-work of leaves and branches. But he immediately felt emboldened,
+when he reflected that nothing to give him alarm had ever befallen him
+even in the forest; and moreover, that on this open neck of land the
+evil spirit, it was likely, would be still less daring in the exercise
+of his power. At the same time he prayed aloud with the most earnest
+sincerity of devotion, repeating a passage of the Bible. This inspired
+him with fresh courage, and soon perceiving the illusion, and the
+strange mistake into which his imagination had betrayed him, he could
+with difficulty refrain from laughing. The white nodding figure he had
+seen became transformed, in the twinkling of an eye, to what in reality
+it was, a small brook, long and familiarly known to him, which ran
+foaming from the forest, and discharged itself into the lake.
+
+But what had caused the startling sound was a knight arrayed in
+sumptuous apparel, who from under the shadows of the trees came riding
+toward the cottage. His doublet was violet embroidered with gold, and
+his scarlet cloak hung gracefully over it; on his cap of burnished gold
+waved red and violet-coloured plumes; and in his golden shoulder-belt
+flashed a sword, richly ornamented, and extremely beautiful. The white
+barb that bore the knight was more slenderly built than war-horses
+usually are, and he touched the turf with a step so light and elastic
+that the green and flowery carpet seemed hardly to receive the slightest
+injury from his tread. The old fisherman, notwithstanding, did not feel
+perfectly secure in his mind, although he was forced to believe that no
+evil could be feared from an appearance so pleasing, and therefore, as
+good manners dictated, he took off his hat on the knight's coming near,
+and quietly remained by the side of his nets.
+
+When the stranger stopped, and asked whether he, with his horse, could
+have shelter and entertainment there for the night, the fisherman
+returned answer: "As to your horse, fair sir, I have no better stable
+for him than this shady meadow, and no better provender than the grass
+that is growing here. But with respect to yourself, you shall be welcome
+to our humble cottage, and to the best supper and lodging we are able to
+give you."
+
+The knight was well contented with this reception; and alighting from
+his horse, which his host assisted him to relieve from saddle and
+bridle, he let him hasten away to the fresh pasture, and thus spoke:
+"Even had I found you less hospitable and kindly disposed, my worthy old
+friend, you would still, I suspect, hardly have got rid of me to-day;
+for here, I perceive, a broad lake lies before us, and as to riding back
+into that wood of wonders, with the shades of evening deepening around
+me, may Heaven in its grace preserve me from the thought."
+
+"Pray, not a word of the wood, or of returning into it!" said the
+fisherman, and took his guest into the cottage.
+
+There beside the hearth, from which a frugal fire was diffusing its
+light through the clean twilight room, sat the fisherman's aged wife in
+a great chair. At the entrance of their noble guest, she rose and gave
+him a courteous welcome, but sat down again in her seat of honour,
+not making the slightest offer of it to the stranger. Upon this the
+fisherman said with a smile:
+
+"You must not be offended with her, young gentleman, because she has not
+given up to you the best chair in the house; it is a custom among poor
+people to look upon this as the privilege of the aged."
+
+"Why, husband!" cried the old lady, with a quiet smile, "where can your
+wits be wandering? Our guest, to say the least of him, must belong to
+a Christian country; and how is it possible, then, that so well-bred
+a young man as he appears to be could dream of driving old people from
+their chairs? Take a seat, my young master," continued she, turning to
+the knight; "there is still quite a snug little chair on the other side
+of the room there, only be careful not to shove it about too roughly,
+for one of its legs, I fear, is none of the firmest."
+
+The knight brought up the seat as carefully as she could desire, sat
+down upon it good-humouredly, and it seemed to him almost as if he must
+be somehow related to this little household, and have just returned home
+from abroad.
+
+These three worthy people now began to converse in the most friendly and
+familiar manner. In relation to the forest, indeed, concerning which the
+knight occasionally made some inquiries, the old man chose to know and
+say but little; he was of opinion that slightly touching upon it at
+this hour of twilight was most suitable and safe; but of the cares and
+comforts of their home, and their business abroad, the aged couple
+spoke more freely, and listened also with eager curiosity as the knight
+recounted to them his travels, and how he had a castle near one of
+the sources of the Danube, and that his name was Sir Huldbrand of
+Ringstetten.
+
+Already had the stranger, while they were in the midst of their talk,
+heard at times a splash against the little low window, as if some one
+were dashing water against it. The old man, every time he heard the
+noise, knit his brows with vexation; but at last, when the whole sweep
+of a shower came pouring like a torrent against the panes, and bubbling
+through the decayed frame into the room, he started up indignant, rushed
+to the window, and cried with a threatening voice--
+
+"Undine! will you never leave off these fooleries?--not even to-day,
+when we have a stranger knight with us in the cottage?"
+
+All without now became still, only a low laugh was just audible, and
+the fisherman said, as he came back to his seat, "You will have the
+goodness, my honoured guest, to pardon this freak, and it may be a
+multitude more; but she has no thought of evil or of any harm. This
+mischievous Undine, to confess the truth, is our adopted daughter, and
+she stoutly refuses to give over this frolicsome childishness of hers,
+although she has already entered her eighteenth year. But in spite of
+this, as I said before, she is at heart one of the very best children in
+the world."
+
+"YOU may say so," broke in the old lady, shaking her head; "you can give
+a better account of her than I can. When you return home from fishing,
+or from selling your fish in the city, you may think her frolics very
+delightful, but to have her dancing about you the whole day long, and
+never from morning to night to hear her speak one word of sense; and
+then as she grows older, instead of having any help from her in the
+family, to find her a continual cause of anxiety, lest her wild humours
+should completely ruin us, that is quite another thing, and enough at
+last to weary out the patience even of a saint."
+
+"Well, well," replied the master of the house with a smile, "you have
+your trials with Undine, and I have mine with the lake. The lake often
+beats down my dams, and breaks the meshes of my nets, but for all that I
+have a strong affection for it, and so have you, in spite of your mighty
+crosses and vexations, for our graceful little child. Is it not true?"
+
+"One cannot be very angry with her," answered the old lady, as she gave
+her husband an approving smile.
+
+That instant the door flew open, and a fair girl, of wondrous beauty,
+sprang laughing in, and said, "You have only been making a mock of me,
+father; for where now is the guest you mentioned?"
+
+The same moment, however, she perceived the knight also, and continued
+standing before the young man in fixed astonishment. Huldbrand was
+charmed with her graceful figure, and viewed her lovely features with
+the more intense interest, as he imagined it was only her surprise that
+allowed him the opportunity, and that she would soon turn away from his
+gaze with increased bashfulness. But the event was the very reverse of
+what he expected; for, after looking at him for a long while, she became
+more confident, moved nearer, knelt down before him, and while she
+played with a gold medal which he wore attached to a rich chain on his
+breast, exclaimed,
+
+"Why, you beautiful, you kind guest! how have you reached our poor
+cottage at last? Have you been obliged for years and years to wander
+about the world before you could catch one glimpse of our nook? Do you
+come out of that wild forest, my beautiful knight?"
+
+The old woman was so prompt in her reproof as to allow him no time to
+answer. She commanded the maiden to rise, show better manners, and go to
+her work. But Undine, without making any reply, drew a little footstool
+near Huldbrand's chair, sat down upon it with her netting, and said in a
+gentle tone--
+
+"I will work here."
+
+The old man did as parents are apt to do with children to whom they have
+been over-indulgent. He affected to observe nothing of Undine's strange
+behaviour, and was beginning to talk about something else. But this the
+maiden did not permit him to do. She broke in upon him, "I have asked
+our kind guest from whence he has come among us, and he has not yet
+answered me."
+
+"I come out of the forest, you lovely little vision," Huldbrand
+returned; and she spoke again:
+
+"You must also tell me how you came to enter that forest, so feared and
+shunned, and the marvellous adventures you met with in it; for there is
+no escaping without something of this kind."
+
+Huldbrand felt a slight shudder on remembering what he had witnessed,
+and looked involuntarily toward the window, for it seemed to him that
+one of the strange shapes which had come upon him in the forest must be
+there grinning in through the glass; but he discerned nothing except the
+deep darkness of night, which had now enveloped the whole prospect. Upon
+this he became more collected, and was just on the point of beginning
+his account, when the old man thus interrupted him:
+
+"Not so, sir knight; this is by no means a fit hour for such relations."
+
+But Undine, in a state of high excitement, sprang up from her little
+stool and cried, placing herself directly before the fisherman: "He
+shall NOT tell his story, father? he shall not? But it is my will:--he
+shall!--stop him who may!"
+
+Thus speaking, she stamped her little foot vehemently on the floor,
+but all with an air of such comic and good-humoured simplicity, that
+Huldbrand now found it quite as hard to withdraw his gaze from her wild
+emotion as he had before from her gentleness and beauty. The old man,
+on the contrary, burst out in unrestrained displeasure. He severely
+reproved Undine for her disobedience and her unbecoming carriage towards
+the stranger, and his good old wife joined him in harping on the same
+string.
+
+By these rebukes Undine was only excited the more. "If you want to
+quarrel with me," she cried, "and will not let me hear what I so much
+desire, then sleep alone in your smoky old hut!" And swift as an arrow
+she shot from the door, and vanished amid the darkness of the night.
+
+Huldbrand and the fisherman sprang from their seats, and were rushing to
+stop the angry girl; but before they could reach the cottage-door, she
+had disappeared in the stormy darkness without, and no sound, not so
+much even as that of her light footstep, betrayed the course she had
+taken. Huldbrand threw a glance of inquiry towards his host; it almost
+seemed to him as if the whole of the sweet apparition, which had so
+suddenly plunged again amid the night, were no other than a continuation
+of the wonderful forms that had just played their mad pranks with him in
+the forest. But the old man muttered between his teeth,
+
+"This is not the first time she has treated us in this manner. Now must
+our hearts be filled with anxiety, and our eyes find no sleep for the
+whole night; for who can assure us, in spite of her past escapes, that
+she will not some time or other come to harm, if she thus continue out
+in the dark and alone until daylight?"
+
+"Then pray, for God's sake, father, let us follow her," cried Huldbrand
+anxiously.
+
+"Wherefore should we?" replied the old man. "It would be a sin were I
+to suffer you, all alone, to search after the foolish girl amid the
+lonesomeness of night; and my old limbs would fail to carry me to this
+wild rover, even if I knew to what place she has betaken herself."
+
+"Still we ought at least to call after her, and beg her to return," said
+Huldbrand; and he began to call in tones of earnest entreaty, "Undine!
+Undine! come back, come back!"
+
+The old man shook his head, and said, "All your shouting, however loud
+and long, will be of no avail; you know not as yet, sir knight, how
+self-willed the little thing is." But still, even hoping against hope,
+he could not himself cease calling out every minute, amid the gloom of
+night, "Undine! ah, dear Undine! I beseech you, pray come back--only
+this once."
+
+It turned out, however, exactly as the fisherman had said. No Undine
+could they hear or see; and as the old man would on no account consent
+that Huldbrand should go in quest of the fugitive, they were both
+obliged at last to return into the cottage. There they found the fire
+on the hearth almost gone out, and the mistress of the house, who took
+Undine's flight and danger far less to heart than her husband, had
+already gone to rest. The old man blew up the coals, put on dry wood,
+and by the firelight hunted for a flask of wine, which he brought and
+set between himself and his guest.
+
+"You, sir knight, as well as I," said he, "are anxious on the silly
+girl's account; and it would be better, I think, to spend part of the
+night in chatting and drinking, than keep turning and turning on our
+rush-mats, and trying in vain to sleep. What is your opinion?"
+
+Huldbrand was well pleased with the plan; the fisherman pressed him to
+take the empty seat of honour, its late occupant having now left it for
+her couch; and they relished their beverage and enjoyed their chat as
+two such good men and true ever ought to do. To be sure, whenever the
+slightest thing moved before the windows, or at times when even nothing
+was moving, one of them would look up and exclaim, "Here she comes!"
+Then would they continue silent a few moments, and afterward, when
+nothing appeared, would shake their heads, breathe out a sigh, and go on
+with their talk.
+
+But, as neither could think of anything but Undine, the best plan they
+could devise was, that the old fisherman should relate, and the knight
+should hear, in what manner Undine had come to the cottage. So the
+fisherman began as follows:
+
+"It is now about fifteen years since I one day crossed the wild forest
+with fish for the city market. My wife had remained at home as she was
+wont to do; and at this time for a reason of more than common interest,
+for although we were beginning to feel the advances of age, God had
+bestowed upon us an infant of wonderful beauty. It was a little girl;
+and we already began to ask ourselves the question, whether we ought
+not, for the advantage of the new-comer, to quit our solitude, and, the
+better to bring up this precious gift of Heaven, to remove to some more
+inhabited place. Poor people, to be sure, cannot in these cases do all
+you may think they ought, sir knight; but we must all do what we can.
+
+"Well, I went on my way, and this affair would keep running in my head.
+This slip of land was most dear to me, and I trembled when, amidst
+the bustle and broils of the city, I thought to myself, 'In a scene of
+tumult like this, or at least in one not much more quiet, I must soon
+take up my abode.' But I did not for this murmur against our good God;
+on the contrary, I praised Him in silence for the new-born babe. I
+should also speak an untruth, were I to say that anything befell me,
+either on my passage through the forest to the city, or on my returning
+homeward, that gave me more alarm than usual, as at that time I had
+never seen any appearance there which could terrify or annoy me. The
+Lord was ever with me in those awful shades."
+
+Thus speaking he took his cap reverently from his bald head, and
+continued to sit for a considerable time in devout thought. He then
+covered himself again, and went on with his relation.
+
+"On this side the forest, alas! it was on this side, that woe burst upon
+me. My wife came wildly to meet me, clad in mourning apparel, and her
+eyes streaming with tears. 'Gracious God!' I cried, 'where's our child?
+Speak!'
+
+"'With Him on whom you have called, dear husband,' she answered, and we
+now entered the cottage together, weeping in silence. I looked for the
+little corpse, almost fearing to find what I was seeking; and then it
+was I first learnt how all had happened.
+
+"My wife had taken the little one in her arms, and walked out to the
+shore of the lake. She there sat down by its very brink; and while she
+was playing with the infant, as free from all fear as she was full
+of delight, it bent forward on a sudden, as if seeing something very
+beautiful in the water. My wife saw her laugh, the dear angel, and try
+to catch the image in her tiny hands; but in a moment--with a motion
+swifter than sight--she sprang from her mother's arms, and sank in the
+lake, the watery glass into which she had been gazing. I searched
+for our lost darling again and again; but it was all in vain; I could
+nowhere find the least trace of her.
+
+"The same evening we childless parents were sitting together by our
+cottage hearth. We had no desire to talk, even if our tears would have
+permitted us. As we thus sat in mournful stillness, gazing into the
+fire, all at once we heard something without,--a slight rustling at the
+door. The door flew open, and we saw a little girl, three or four years
+old, and more beautiful than I can say, standing on the threshold,
+richly dressed, and smiling upon us. We were struck dumb with
+astonishment, and I knew not for a time whether the tiny form were a
+real human being, or a mere mockery of enchantment. But I soon perceived
+water dripping from her golden hair and rich garments, and that the
+pretty child had been lying in the water, and stood in immediate need of
+our help.
+
+"'Wife,' said I, 'no one has been able to save our child for us; but let
+us do for others what would have made us so blessed could any one have
+done it for us.'
+
+"We undressed the little thing, put her to bed, and gave her something
+to drink; at all this she spoke not a word, but only turned her eyes
+upon us--eyes blue and bright as sea or sky--and continued looking at us
+with a smile.
+
+"Next morning we had no reason to fear that she had received any other
+harm than her wetting, and I now asked her about her parents, and how
+she could have come to us. But the account she gave was both confused
+and incredible. She must surely have been born far from here, not only
+because I have been unable for these fifteen years to learn anything
+of her birth, but because she then said, and at times continues to say,
+many things of so very singular a nature, that we neither of us know,
+after all, whether she may not have dropped among us from the moon; for
+her talk runs upon golden castles, crystal domes, and Heaven knows what
+extravagances beside. What, however, she related with most distinctness
+was this: that while she was once taking a sail with her mother on the
+great lake, she fell out of the boat into the water; and that when she
+first recovered her senses, she was here under our trees, where the gay
+scenes of the shore filled her with delight.
+
+"We now had another care weighing upon our minds, and one that caused us
+no small perplexity and uneasiness. We of course very soon determined
+to keep and bring up the child we had found, in place of our own darling
+that had been drowned; but who could tell us whether she had been
+baptized or not? She herself could give us no light on the subject. When
+we asked her the question, she commonly made answer, that she well knew
+she was created for God's praise and glory, and that she was willing to
+let us do with her all that might promote His glory and praise.
+
+"My wife and I reasoned in this way: 'If she has not been baptized,
+there can be no use in putting off the ceremony; and if she has been, it
+still is better to have too much of a good thing than too little.'
+
+"Taking this view of our difficulty, we now endeavoured to hit upon a
+good name for the child, since, while she remained without one, we were
+often at a loss, in our familiar talk, to know what to call her. We at
+length agreed that Dorothea would be most suitable for her, as I had
+somewhere heard it said that this name signified a gift of God, and
+surely she had been sent to us by Providence as a gift, to comfort us
+in our misery. She, on the contrary, would not so much as hear Dorothea
+mentioned; she insisted, that as she had been named Undine by her
+parents, Undine she ought still to be called. It now occurred to me that
+this was a heathenish name, to be found in no calendar, and I resolved
+to ask the advice of a priest in the city. He would not listen to the
+name of Undine; and yielding to my urgent request, he came with me
+through the enchanted forest in order to perform the rite of baptism
+here in my cottage.
+
+"The little maid stood before us so prettily adorned, and with such an
+air of gracefulness, that the heart of the priest softened at once in
+her presence; and she coaxed him so sweetly, and jested with him so
+merrily, that he at last remembered nothing of his many objections to
+the name of Undine.
+
+"Thus, then, was she baptized Undine; and during the holy ceremony she
+behaved with great propriety and gentleness, wild and wayward as at
+other times she invariably was; for in this my wife was quite right,
+when she mentioned the anxiety the child has occasioned us. If I should
+relate to you--"
+
+At this moment the knight interrupted the fisherman, to direct his
+attention to a deep sound as of a rushing flood, which had caught his
+ear during the talk of the old man. And now the waters came pouring on
+with redoubled fury before the cottage-windows. Both sprang to the door.
+There they saw, by the light of the now risen moon, the brook which
+issued from the wood rushing wildly over its banks, and whirling onward
+with it both stones and branches of trees in its rapid course. The
+storm, as if awakened by the uproar, burst forth from the clouds, whose
+immense masses of vapour coursed over the moon with the swiftness of
+thought; the lake roared beneath the wind that swept the foam from its
+waves; while the trees of this narrow peninsula groaned from root to
+topmost branch as they bowed and swung above the torrent.
+
+"Undine! in God's name, Undine!" cried the two men in an agony. No
+answer was returned. And now, regardless of everything else, they
+hurried from the cottage, one in this direction, the other in that,
+searching and calling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+
+
+The longer Huldbrand sought Undine beneath the shades of night, and
+failed to find her, the more anxious and confused he became. The
+impression that she was a mere phantom of the forest gained a new
+ascendency over him; indeed, amid the howling of the waves and the
+tempest, the crashing of the trees, and the entire change of the once
+so peaceful and beautiful scene, he was tempted to view the whole
+peninsula, together with the cottage and its inhabitants, as little
+more than some mockery of his senses. But still he heard afar off the
+fisherman's anxious and incessant shouting, "Undine!" and also his aged
+wife, who was praying and singing psalms.
+
+At length, when he drew near to the brook, which had overflowed its
+banks, he perceived by the moonlight, that it had taken its wild course
+directly in front of the haunted forest, so as to change the peninsula
+into an island.
+
+"Merciful God!" he breathed to himself, "if Undine has ventured a step
+within that fearful wood, what will become of her? Perhaps it was all
+owing to her sportive and wayward spirit, because I would give her no
+account of my adventures there. And now the stream is rolling between
+us, she may be weeping alone on the other side in the midst of spectral
+horrors!"
+
+A shuddering groan escaped him; and clambering over some stones and
+trunks of overthrown pines, in order to step into the impetuous current,
+he resolved, either by wading or swimming, to seek the wanderer on the
+further shore. He felt, it is true, all the dread and shrinking awe
+creeping over him which he had already suffered by daylight among the
+now tossing and roaring branches of the forest. More than all, a tall
+man in white, whom he knew but too well, met his view, as he stood
+grinning and nodding on the grass beyond the water. But even monstrous
+forms like this only impelled him to cross over toward them, when the
+thought rushed upon him that Undine might be there alone and in the
+agony of death.
+
+He had already grasped a strong branch of a pine, and stood supporting
+himself upon it in the whirling current, against which he could
+with difficulty keep himself erect; but he advanced deeper in with a
+courageous spirit. That instant a gentle voice of warning cried near
+him, "Do not venture, do not venture!--that OLD MAN, the STREAM, is too
+full of tricks to be trusted!" He knew the soft tones of the voice; and
+while he stood as it were entranced beneath the shadows which had now
+duskily veiled the moon, his head swam with the swelling and rolling
+of the waves as he saw them momentarily rising above his knee. Still he
+disdained the thought of giving up his purpose.
+
+"If you are not really there, if you are merely gambolling round me like
+a mist, may I, too, bid farewell to life, and become a shadow like you,
+dear, dear Undine!" Thus calling aloud, he again moved deeper into
+the stream. "Look round you--ah, pray look round you, beautiful young
+stranger! why rush on death so madly?" cried the voice a second time
+close by him; and looking on one side he perceived, by the light of
+the moon, again cloudless, a little island formed by the flood; and
+crouching upon its flowery turf, beneath the branches of embowering
+trees, he saw the smiling and lovely Undine.
+
+O how much more gladly than before the young man now plied his sturdy
+staff! A few steps, and he had crossed the flood that was rushing
+between himself and the maiden; and he stood near her on the little spot
+of greensward in security, protected by the old trees. Undine half rose,
+and she threw her arms around his neck to draw him gently down upon the
+soft seat by her side.
+
+"Here you shall tell me your story, my beautiful friend," she breathed
+in a low whisper; "here the cross old people cannot disturb us; and,
+besides, our roof of leaves here will make quite as good a shelter as
+their poor cottage."
+
+"It is heaven itself," cried Huldbrand; and folding her in his arms, he
+kissed the lovely girl with fervour.
+
+The old fisherman, meantime, had come to the margin of the stream, and
+he shouted across, "Why, how is this, sir knight! I received you with
+the welcome which one true-hearted man gives to another; and now you
+sit there caressing my foster-child in secret, while you suffer me in my
+anxiety to wander through the night in quest of her."
+
+"Not till this moment did I find her myself, old father," cried the
+knight across the water.
+
+"So much the better," said the fisherman, "but now make haste, and bring
+her over to me upon firm ground."
+
+To this, however, Undine would by no means consent. She declared
+that she would rather enter the wild forest itself with the beautiful
+stranger, than return to the cottage where she was so thwarted in her
+wishes, and from which the knight would soon or late go away. Then,
+throwing her arms round Huldbrand, she sang the following verse with the
+warbling sweetness of a bird:
+
+     "A rill would leave its misty vale,
+     And fortunes wild explore,
+     Weary at length it reached the main,
+     And sought its vale no more."
+
+The old fisherman wept bitterly at her song, but his emotion seemed to
+awaken little or no sympathy in her. She kissed and caressed her new
+friend, who at last said to her: "Undine, if the distress of the old man
+does not touch your heart, it cannot but move mine. We ought to return
+to him."
+
+She opened her large blue eyes upon him in amazement, and spoke at last
+with a slow and doubtful accent, "If you think so, it is well, all is
+right to me which you think right. But the old man over there must first
+give me his promise that he will allow you, without objection, to
+relate what you saw in the wood, and--well, other things will settle
+themselves."
+
+"Come--only come!" cried the fisherman to her, unable to utter another
+word. At the same time he stretched his arms wide over the current
+towards her, and to give her assurance that he would do what she
+required, nodded his head. This motion caused his white hair to fall
+strangely over his face, and Huldbrand could not but remember the
+nodding white man of the forest. Without allowing anything, however, to
+produce in him the least confusion, the young knight took the beautiful
+girl in his arms, and bore her across the narrow channel which the
+stream had torn away between her little island and the solid shore.
+The old man fell upon Undine's neck, and found it impossible either to
+express his joy or to kiss her enough; even the ancient dame came up and
+embraced the recovered girl most cordially. Every word of censure was
+carefully avoided; the more so, indeed, as even Undine, forgetting her
+waywardness, almost overwhelmed her foster-parents with caresses and the
+prattle of tenderness.
+
+When at length the excess of their joy at recovering their child had
+subsided, morning had already dawned, shining upon the waters of the
+lake; the tempest had become hushed, the small birds sung merrily on the
+moist branches.
+
+As Undine now insisted upon hearing the recital of the knight's promised
+adventures, the aged couple readily agreed to her wish. Breakfast was
+brought out beneath the trees which stood behind the cottage toward the
+lake on the north, and they sat down to it with contented hearts;
+Undine at the knight's feet on the grass. These arrangements being made,
+Huldbrand began his story in the following manner:--
+
+"It is now about eight days since I rode into the free imperial city
+which lies yonder on the farther side of the forest. Soon after my
+arrival a splendid tournament and running at the ring took place there,
+and I spared neither my horse nor my lance in the encounters.
+
+"Once while I was pausing at the lists to rest from the brisk exercise,
+and was handing back my helmet to one of my attendants, a female figure
+of extraordinary beauty caught my attention, as, most magnificently
+attired, she stood looking on at one of the balconies. I learned, on
+making inquiry of a person near me, that the name of the young lady
+was Bertalda, and that she was a foster-daughter of one of the powerful
+dukes of this country. She too, I observed, was gazing at me, and the
+consequences were such as we young knights are wont to experience;
+whatever success in riding I might have had before, I was now favoured
+with still better fortune. That evening I was Bertalda's partner in the
+dance, and I enjoyed the same distinction during the remainder of the
+festival."
+
+A sharp pain in his left hand, as it hung carelessly beside him, here
+interrupted Huldbrand's relation, and drew his eye to the part affected.
+Undine had fastened her pearly teeth, and not without some keenness
+too, upon one of his fingers, appearing at the same time very gloomy
+and displeased. On a sudden, however, she looked up in his eyes with an
+expression of tender melancholy, and whispered almost inaudibly,--
+
+"It is all your own fault."
+
+She then covered her face; and the knight, strangely embarrassed and
+thoughtful, went on with his story.
+
+"This lady, Bertalda, of whom I spoke, is of a proud and wayward spirit.
+The second day I saw her she pleased me by no means so much as she
+had the first, and the third day still less. But I continued about her
+because she showed me more favour than she did any other knight, and
+it so happened that I playfully asked her to give me one of her gloves.
+'When you have entered the haunted forest all alone,' said she; 'when
+you have explored its wonders, and brought me a full account of them,
+the glove is yours.' As to getting her glove, it was of no importance
+to me whatever, but the word had been spoken, and no honourable knight
+would permit himself to be urged to such a proof of valour a second
+time."
+
+"I thought," said Undine, interrupting him, "that she loved you."
+
+"It did appear so," replied Huldbrand.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed the maiden, laughing, "this is beyond belief; she must
+be very stupid. To drive from her one who was dear to her! And worse
+than all, into that ill-omened wood! The wood and its mysteries, for all
+I should have cared, might have waited long enough."
+
+"Yesterday morning, then," pursued the knight, smiling kindly upon
+Undine, "I set out from the city, my enterprise before me. The early
+light lay rich upon the verdant turf. It shone so rosy on the slender
+boles of the trees, and there was so merry a whispering among the
+leaves, that in my heart I could not but laugh at people who feared
+meeting anything to terrify them in a spot so delicious. 'I shall soon
+pass through the forest, and as speedily return,' I said to myself, in
+the overflow of joyous feeling, and ere I was well aware, I had entered
+deep among the green shades, while of the plain that lay behind me I was
+no longer able to catch a glimpse.
+
+"Then the conviction for the first time impressed me, that in a forest
+of so great extent I might very easily become bewildered, and that this,
+perhaps, might be the only danger which was likely to threaten those
+who explored its recesses. So I made a halt, and turned myself in the
+direction of the sun, which had meantime risen somewhat higher, and
+while I was looking up to observe it, I saw something black among the
+boughs of a lofty oak. My first thought was, 'It is a bear!' and I
+grasped my weapon. The object then accosted me from above in a human
+voice, but in a tone most harsh and hideous: 'If I, overhead here, do
+not gnaw off these dry branches, Sir Noodle, what shall we have to roast
+you with when midnight comes?' And with that it grinned, and made such a
+rattling with the branches that my courser became mad with affright,
+and rushed furiously forward with me before I had time to see distinctly
+what sort of a devil's beast it was."
+
+"You must not speak so," said the old fisherman, crossing himself. His
+wife did the same, without saying a word, and Undine, while her eye
+sparkled with delight, looked at the knight and said, "The best of the
+story is, however, that as yet they have not roasted you! Go on, now,
+you beautiful knight."
+
+The knight then went on with his adventures. "My horse was so wild, that
+he well-nigh rushed with me against limbs and trunks of trees. He was
+dripping with sweat through terror, heat, and the violent straining of
+his muscles. Still he refused to slacken his career. At last, altogether
+beyond my control, he took his course directly up a stony steep, when
+suddenly a tall white man flashed before me, and threw himself athwart
+the way my mad steed was taking. At this apparition he shuddered with
+new affright, and stopped trembling. I took this chance of recovering my
+command of him, and now for the first time perceived that my deliverer,
+so far from being a white man, was only a brook of silver brightness,
+foaming near me in its descent from the hill, while it crossed and
+arrested my horse's course with its rush of waters."
+
+"Thanks, thanks, dear brook!" cried Undine, clapping her little hands.
+But the old man shook his head, and looked down in deep thought.
+
+"Hardly had I well settled myself in my saddle, and got the reins in my
+grasp again," Huldbrand pursued, "when a wizard-like dwarf of a man was
+already standing at my side, diminutive and ugly beyond conception, his
+complexion of a brownish-yellow, and his nose scarcely smaller than the
+rest of him together. The fellow's mouth was slit almost from ear to
+ear, and he showed his teeth with a grinning smile of idiot courtesy,
+while he overwhelmed me with bows and scrapes innumerable. The farce now
+becoming excessively irksome, I thanked him in the fewest words I could
+well use, turned about my still trembling charger, and purposed either
+to seek another adventure, or, should I meet with none, to take my way
+back to the city; for the sun, during my wild chase, had passed the
+meridian, and was now hastening toward the west. But this villain of
+a dwarf sprang at the same instant, and, with a turn as rapid as
+lightning, stood before my horse again. 'Clear the way there!' I cried
+fiercely; 'the beast is wild, and will make nothing of running over
+you.'
+
+"'Ay, ay,' cried the imp with a snarl, and snorting out a laugh still
+more frightfully idiotic; 'pay me, first pay what you owe me. I stopped
+your fine little nag for you; without my help, both you and he would be
+now sprawling below there in that stony ravine. Hu! from what a horrible
+plunge I've saved you!'
+
+"'Well, don't make any more faces,' said I, 'but take your money and
+be off, though every word you say is false. It was the brook there, you
+miserable thing, and not you, that saved me,' and at the same time I
+dropped a piece of gold into his wizard cap, which he had taken from his
+head while he was begging before me.
+
+"I then trotted off and left him, but he screamed after me; and on a
+sudden, with inconceivable quickness, he was close by my side. I started
+my horse into a gallop. He galloped on with me, though it seemed with
+great difficulty, and with a strange movement, half ludicrous and
+half horrible, forcing at the same time every limb and feature into
+distortion, he held up the gold piece and screamed at every leap,
+'Counterfeit! false! false coin! counterfeit!' and such was the strange
+sound that issued from his hollow breast, you would have supposed that
+at every scream he must have tumbled upon the ground dead. All this
+while his disgusting red tongue hung lolling from his mouth.
+
+"I stopped bewildered, and asked, 'What do you mean by this screaming?
+Take another piece of gold, take two, but leave me.'
+
+"He then began again his hideous salutations of courtesy, and snarled
+out as before, 'Not gold, it shall not be gold, my young gentleman. I
+have too much of that trash already, as I will show you in no time.'
+
+"At that moment, and thought itself could not have been more
+instantaneous, I seemed to have acquired new powers of sight. I could
+see through the solid green plain, as if it were green glass, and the
+smooth surface of the earth were round as a globe, and within it I saw
+crowds of goblins, who were pursuing their pastime and making themselves
+merry with silver and gold. They were tumbling and rolling about, heads
+up and heads down; they pelted one another in sport with the precious
+metals, and with irritating malice blew gold-dust in one another's eyes.
+My odious companion ordered the others to reach him up a vast quantity
+of gold; this he showed to me with a laugh, and then flung it again
+ringing and chinking down the measureless abyss.
+
+"After this contemptuous disregard of gold, he held up the piece I had
+given him, showing it to his brother goblins below, and they laughed
+immoderately at a coin so worthless, and hissed me. At last, raising
+their fingers all smutched with ore, they pointed them at me in scorn;
+and wilder and wilder, and thicker and thicker, and madder and madder,
+the crowd were clambering up to where I sat gazing at these wonders.
+Then terror seized me, as it had before seized my horse. I drove my
+spurs into his sides, and how far he rushed with me through the forest,
+during this second of my wild heats, it is impossible to say.
+
+"At last, when I had now come to a dead halt again, the cool of evening
+was around me. I caught the gleam of a white footpath through the
+branches of the trees; and presuming it would lead me out of the forest
+toward the city, I was desirous of working my way into it. But a face,
+perfectly white and indistinct, with features ever changing, kept
+thrusting itself out and peering at me between the leaves. I tried to
+avoid it, but wherever I went, there too appeared the unearthly face. I
+was maddened with rage at this interruption, and determined to drive my
+steed at the appearance full tilt, when such a cloud of white foam came
+rushing upon me and my horse, that we were almost blinded and glad to
+turn about and escape. Thus from step to step it forced us on, and ever
+aside from the footpath, leaving us for the most part only one direction
+open. When we advanced in this, it kept following close behind us, yet
+did not occasion the smallest harm or inconvenience.
+
+"When at times I looked about me at the form, I perceived that the white
+face, which had splashed upon us its shower of foam, was resting on a
+body equally white, and of more than gigantic size. Many a time, too, I
+received the impression that the whole appearance was nothing more than
+a wandering stream or torrent; but respecting this I could never attain
+to any certainty. We both of us, horse and rider, became weary as we
+shaped our course according to the movements of the white man, who
+continued nodding his head at us, as if he would say, 'Quite right!' And
+thus, at length, we came out here, at the edge of the wood, where I saw
+the fresh turf, the waters of the lake, and your little cottage, and
+where the tall white man disappeared."
+
+"Well, Heaven be praised that he is gone!" cried the old fisherman; and
+he now began to talk of how his guest could most conveniently return to
+his friends in the city. Upon this, Undine began laughing to herself,
+but so very low that the sound was hardly perceivable. Huldbrand
+observing it, said, "I thought you were glad to see me here; why, then,
+do you now appear so happy when our talk turns upon my going away?"
+
+"Because you cannot go away," answered Undine. "Pray make a single
+attempt; try with a boat, with your horse, or alone, as you please, to
+cross that forest stream which has burst its bounds; or rather, make no
+trial at all, for you would be dashed to pieces by the stones and trunks
+of trees which you see driven on with such violence. And as to the lake,
+I know that well; even my father dares not venture out with his boat far
+enough to help you."
+
+Huldbrand rose, smiling, in order to look about and observe whether the
+state of things were such as Undine had represented it to be. The old
+man accompanied him, and the maiden went merrily dancing beside them.
+They found all, in fact, just as Undine had said, and that the knight,
+whether willing or not willing, must submit to remaining on the island,
+so lately a peninsula, until the flood should subside.
+
+When the three were now returning to the cottage after their ramble, the
+knight whispered in the ear of the little maiden, "Well, dear Undine,
+are you angry at my remaining?"
+
+"Ah," she pettishly replied, "do not speak to me! If I had not bitten
+you, who knows what fine things you would have put into your story about
+Bertalda?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+
+
+It may have happened to thee, my dear reader, after being much driven to
+and fro in the world, to reach at length a spot where all was well with
+thee. The love of home and of its peaceful joys, innate to all, again
+sprang up in thy heart; thou thoughtest that thy home was decked with
+all the flowers of childhood, and of that purest, deepest love which had
+grown upon the graves of thy beloved, and that here it was good to live
+and to build houses. Even if thou didst err, and hast had bitterly to
+mourn thy error, it is nothing to my purpose, and thou thyself wilt
+not like to dwell on the sad recollection. But recall those unspeakably
+sweet feelings, that angelic greeting of peace, and thou wilt be able
+to understand what was the happiness of the knight Huldbrand during his
+abode on that narrow slip of land.
+
+He frequently observed, with heartfelt satisfaction, that the forest
+stream continued every day to swell and roll on with a more impetuous
+sweep; and this forced him to prolong his stay on the island. Part of
+the day he wandered about with an old cross-bow, which he found in a
+corner of the cottage, and had repaired in order to shoot the waterfowl
+that flew over; and all that he was lucky enough to hit he brought home
+for a good roast in the kitchen. When he came in with his booty, Undine
+seldom failed to greet him with a scolding, because he had cruelly
+deprived the happy joyous little creatures of life as they were sporting
+above in the blue ocean of the air; nay more, she often wept bitterly
+when she viewed the water-fowl dead in his hand. But at other times,
+when he returned without having shot any, she gave him a scolding
+equally serious, since, owing to his carelessness and want of skill,
+they must now put up with a dinner of fish. Her playful taunts ever
+touched his heart with delight; the more so, as she generally strove to
+make up for her pretended ill-humour with endearing caresses.
+
+The old people saw with pleasure this familiarity of Undine and
+Huldbrand; they looked upon them as betrothed, or even as married, and
+living with them in their old age on their island, now torn off from the
+mainland. The loneliness of his situation strongly impressed also
+the young Huldbrand with the feeling that he was already Undine's
+bridegroom. It seemed to him as if, beyond those encompassing floods,
+there were no other world in existence, or at any rate as if he could
+never cross them, and again associate with the world of other men; and
+when at times his grazing steed raised his head and neighed to him,
+seemingly inquiring after his knightly achievements and reminding him
+of them, or when his coat-of-arms sternly shone upon him from the
+embroidery of his saddle and the caparisons of his horse, or when his
+sword happened to fall from the nail on which it was hanging in the
+cottage, and flashed on his eye as it slipped from the scabbard in its
+fall, he quieted the doubts of his mind by saying to himself, "Undine
+cannot be a fisherman's daughter. She is, in all probability, a native
+of some remote region, and a member of some illustrious family."
+
+There was one thing, indeed, to which he had a strong aversion: this
+was to hear the old dame reproving Undine. The wild girl, it is true,
+commonly laughed at the reproof, making no attempt to conceal the
+extravagance of her mirth; but it appeared to him like touching his own
+honour; and still he found it impossible to blame the aged wife of
+the fisherman, since Undine always deserved at least ten times as
+many reproofs as she received; so he continued to feel in his heart an
+affectionate tenderness for the ancient mistress of the house, and his
+whole life flowed on in the calm stream of contentment.
+
+There came, however, an interruption at last. The fisherman and the
+knight had been accustomed at dinner, and also in the evening when the
+wind roared without, as it rarely failed to do towards night, to enjoy
+together a flask of wine. But now their whole stock, which the fisherman
+had from time to time brought with him from the city, was at last
+exhausted, and they were both quite out of humour at the circumstance.
+That day Undine laughed at them excessively, but they were not disposed
+to join in her jests with the same gaiety as usual. Toward evening she
+went out of the cottage, to escape, as she said, the sight of two such
+long and tiresome faces.
+
+While it was yet twilight, some appearances of a tempest seemed to be
+again mustering in the sky, and the waves already heaved and roared
+around them: the knight and the fisherman sprang to the door in terror,
+to bring home the maiden, remembering the anguish of that night when
+Huldbrand had first entered the cottage. But Undine met them at the same
+moment, clapping her little hands in high glee.
+
+"What will you give me," she cried, "to provide you with wine? or
+rather, you need not give me anything," she continued; "for I am already
+satisfied, if you look more cheerful, and are in better spirits, than
+throughout this last most wearisome day. Only come with me; the forest
+stream has driven ashore a cask; and I will be condemned to sleep
+through a whole week, if it is not a wine-cask."
+
+The men followed her, and actually found, in a bushy cove of the shore,
+a cask, which inspired them with as much joy as if they were sure it
+contained the generous old wine for which they were thirsting. They
+first of all, and with as much expedition as possible, rolled it toward
+the cottage; for heavy clouds were again rising in the west, and they
+could discern the waves of the lake in the fading light lifting their
+white foaming heads, as if looking out for the rain, which threatened
+every instant to pour upon them. Undine helped the men as much as she
+was able; and as the shower, with a roar of wind, came suddenly sweeping
+on in rapid pursuit, she raised her finger with a merry menace toward
+the dark mass of clouds, and cried:
+
+"You cloud, you cloud, have a care! beware how you wet us; we are some
+way from shelter yet."
+
+The old man reproved her for this sally, as a sinful presumption;
+but she laughed to herself softly, and no mischief came from her wild
+behaviour. Nay more, what was beyond their expectation, they reached
+their comfortable hearth unwet, with their prize secured; but the cask
+had hardly been broached, and proved to contain wine of a remarkably
+fine flavour, when the rain first poured down unrestrained from the
+black cloud, the tempest raved through the tops of the trees, and swept
+far over the billows of the deep.
+
+Having immediately filled several bottles from the cask, which promised
+them a supply for a long time, they drew round the glowing hearth; and,
+comfortably secured from the tempest, they sat tasting the flavour of
+their wine and bandying jests.
+
+But the old fisherman suddenly became extremely grave, and said: "Ah,
+great God! here we sit, rejoicing over this rich gift, while he to
+whom it first belonged, and from whom it was wrested by the fury of the
+stream, must there also, it is more than probable, have lost his life."
+
+"No such thing," said Undine, smiling, as she filled the knight's cup to
+the brim.
+
+But he exclaimed: "By my unsullied honour, old father, if I knew where
+to find and rescue him, no fear of exposure to the night, nor any peril,
+should deter me from making the attempt. At least, I can promise you
+that if I again reach an inhabited country, I will find out the owner of
+this wine or his heirs, and make double and triple reimbursement."
+
+The old man was gratified with this assurance; he gave the knight a nod
+of approbation, and now drained his cup with an easier conscience and
+more relish.
+
+Undine, however, said to Huldbrand: "As to the repayment and your gold,
+you may do whatever you like. But what you said about your venturing
+out, and searching, and exposing yourself to danger, appears to me far
+from wise. I should cry my very eyes out, should you perish in such a
+wild attempt; and is it not true that you would prefer staying here with
+me and the good wine?"
+
+"Most assuredly," answered Huldbrand, smiling.
+
+"Then, you see," replied Undine, "you spoke unwisely. For charity begins
+at home; and why need we trouble ourselves about our neighbours?"
+
+The mistress of the house turned away from her, sighing and shaking
+her head; while the fisherman forgot his wonted indulgence toward the
+graceful maiden, and thus rebuked her:
+
+"That sounds exactly as if you had been brought up by heathens and
+Turks;" and he finished his reproof by adding, "May God forgive both me
+and you--unfeeling child!"
+
+"Well, say what you will, that is what I think and feel," replied
+Undine, "whoever brought me up; and all your talking cannot help it."
+
+"Silence!" exclaimed the fisherman, in a voice of stern rebuke; and she,
+who with all her wild spirit was extremely alive to fear, shrank from
+him, moved close up to Huldbrand, trembling, and said very softly:
+
+"Are you also angry, dear friend?"
+
+The knight pressed her soft hand, and tenderly stroked her locks. He
+was unable to utter a word, for his vexation, arising from the old man's
+severity towards Undine, closed his lips; and thus the two couples sat
+opposite to each other, at once heated with anger and in embarrassed
+silence.
+
+In the midst of this stillness a low knocking at the door startled them
+all; for there are times when a slight circumstance, coming unexpectedly
+upon us, startles us like something supernatural. But there was the
+further source of alarm, that the enchanted forest lay so near them, and
+that their place of abode seemed at present inaccessible to any human
+being. While they were looking upon one another in doubt, the knocking
+was again heard, accompanied with a deep groan. The knight sprang to
+seize his sword. But the old man said, in a low whisper:
+
+"If it be what I fear it is, no weapon of yours can protect us."
+
+Undine in the meanwhile went to the door, and cried with the firm voice
+of fearless displeasure: "Spirits of the earth! if mischief be your aim,
+Kuhleborn shall teach you better manners."
+
+The terror of the rest was increased by this wild speech; they looked
+fearfully upon the girl, and Huldbrand was just recovering presence
+of mind enough to ask what she meant, when a voice reached them from
+without:
+
+"I am no spirit of the earth, though a spirit still in its earthly body.
+You that are within the cottage there, if you fear God and would afford
+me assistance, open your door to me."
+
+By the time these words were spoken, Undine had already opened it; and
+the lamp throwing a strong light upon the stormy night, they perceived
+an aged priest without, who stepped back in terror, when his eye fell on
+the unexpected sight of a little damsel of such exquisite beauty. Well
+might he think there must be magic in the wind and witchcraft at work,
+when a form of such surpassing loveliness appeared at the door of so
+humble a dwelling. So he lifted up his voice in prayer:
+
+"Let all good spirits praise the Lord God!"
+
+"I am no spectre," said Undine, with a smile. "Do I look so very
+frightful? And you see that I do not shrink from holy words. I too have
+knowledge of God, and understand the duty of praising Him; every one, to
+be sure, has his own way of doing this, for so He has created us. Come
+in, father; you will find none but worthy people here."
+
+The holy man came bowing in, and cast round a glance of scrutiny,
+wearing at the same time a very placid and venerable air. But water was
+dropping from every fold of his dark garments, from his long white beard
+and the white locks of his hair. The fisherman and the knight took him
+to another apartment, and furnished him with a change of raiment, while
+they gave his own clothes to the women to dry. The aged stranger thanked
+them in a manner the most humble and courteous; but on the knight's
+offering him his splendid cloak to wrap round him, he could not be
+persuaded to take it, but chose instead an old grey coat that belonged
+to the fisherman.
+
+They then returned to the common apartment. The mistress of the house
+immediately offered her great chair to the priest, and continued urging
+it upon him till she saw him fairly in possession of it. "You are old
+and exhausted," said she, "and are, moreover, a man of God."
+
+Undine shoved under the stranger's feet her little stool, on which at
+all other times she used to sit near to Huldbrand, and showed herself
+most gentle and amiable towards the old man. Huldbrand whispered some
+raillery in her ear, but she replied, gravely:
+
+"He is a minister of that Being who created us all; and holy things are
+not to be treated with lightness."
+
+The knight and the fisherman now refreshed the priest with food and
+wine; and when he had somewhat recovered his strength and spirits, he
+began to relate how he had the day before set out from his cloister,
+which was situated far off beyond the great lake, in order to visit the
+bishop, and acquaint him with the distress into which the cloister and
+its tributary villages had fallen, owing to the extraordinary floods.
+After a long and wearisome wandering, on account of the rise of the
+waters, he had been this day compelled toward evening to procure the
+aid of a couple of boatmen, and cross over an arm of the lake which had
+burst its usual boundary.
+
+"But hardly," continued he, "had our small ferry-boat touched the waves,
+when that furious tempest burst forth which is still raging over our
+heads. It seemed as if the billows had been waiting our approach only to
+rush on us with a madness the more wild. The oars were wrested from the
+grasp of my men in an instant; and shivered by the resistless force,
+they drove farther and farther out before us upon the waves. Unable to
+direct our course, we yielded to the blind power of nature, and seemed
+to fly over the surges toward your distant shore, which we already saw
+looming through the mist and foam of the deep. Then it was at last that
+our boat turned short from its course, and rocked with a motion that
+became more wild and dizzy: I know not whether it was overset, or the
+violence of the motion threw me overboard. In my agony and struggle at
+the thought of a near and terrible death, the waves bore me onward, till
+I was cast ashore here beneath the trees of your island."
+
+"Yes, an island!" cried the fisherman; "a short time ago it was only a
+point of land. But now, since the forest stream and lake have become all
+but mad, it appears to be entirely changed."
+
+"I observed something of it," replied the priest, "as I stole along the
+shore in the obscurity; and hearing nothing around me but a sort of wild
+uproar, I perceived at last that the noise came from a point exactly
+where a beaten footpath disappeared. I now caught the light in your
+cottage, and ventured hither, where I cannot sufficiently thank my
+Heavenly Father that, after preserving me from the waters, He has also
+conducted me to such pious people as you are; and the more so, as it is
+difficult to say whether I shall ever behold any other persons in this
+world except you four."
+
+"What mean you by those words?" asked the fisherman.
+
+"Can you tell me, then, how long this commotion of the elements will
+last?" replied the priest. "I am old; the stream of my life may easily
+sink into the ground and vanish before the overflowing of that forest
+stream shall subside. And, indeed, it is not impossible that more and
+more of the foaming waters may rush in between you and yonder forest,
+until you are so far removed from the rest of the world, that your small
+fishing-canoe may be incapable of passing over, and the inhabitants of
+the continent entirely forget you in your old age amid the dissipation
+and diversions of life."
+
+At this melancholy foreboding the old lady shrank back with a feeling of
+alarm, crossed herself, and cried, "God forbid!"
+
+But the fisherman looked upon her with a smile and said, "What a strange
+being is man! Suppose the worst to happen; our state would not be
+different; at any rate, your own would not, dear wife, from what it is
+at present. For have you, these many years, been farther from home than
+the border of the forest? And have you seen a single human being beside
+Undine and myself? It is now only a short time since the coming of the
+knight and the priest. They will remain with us, even if we do become a
+forgotten island; so after all you will be a gainer."
+
+"I know not," replied the ancient dame; "it is a dismal thought, when
+brought fairly home to the mind, that we are for ever separated from
+mankind, even though in fact we never do know nor see them."
+
+"Then YOU will remain with us--then you will remain with us!" whispered
+Undine, in a voice scarcely audible and half singing, while she nestled
+closer to Huldbrand's side. But he was immersed in the deep and strange
+musings of his own mind. The region, on the farther side of the
+forest river, seemed, since the last words of the priest, to have been
+withdrawing farther and farther, in dim perspective, from his view; and
+the blooming island on which he lived grew green and smiled more freshly
+in his fancy. His bride glowed like the fairest rose, not of this
+obscure nook only, but even of the whole wide world; and the priest was
+now present.
+
+Added to which, the mistress of the family was directing an angry glance
+at Undine, because, even in the presence of the priest, she leant
+so fondly on the knight; and it seemed as if she was on the point
+of breaking out in harsh reproof. Then burst forth from the mouth of
+Huldbrand, as he turned to the priest, "Father, you here see before you
+an affianced pair; and if this maiden and these good old people have no
+objection, you shall unite us this very evening."
+
+The aged couple were both exceedingly surprised. They had often, it is
+true, thought of this, but as yet they had never mentioned it; and now,
+when the knight spoke, it came upon them like something wholly new and
+unexpected. Undine became suddenly grave, and looked down thoughtfully,
+while the priest made inquiries respecting the circumstances of their
+acquaintance, and asked the old people whether they gave their consent
+to the union. After a great number of questions and answers, the affair
+was arranged to the satisfaction of all; and the mistress of the house
+went to prepare the bridal apartment of the young couple, and also,
+with a view to grace the nuptial solemnity, to seek for two consecrated
+tapers, which she had for a long time kept by her, for this occasion.
+
+The knight in the meanwhile busied himself about his golden chain,
+for the purpose of disengaging two of its links, that he might make
+an exchange of rings with his bride. But when she saw his object, she
+started from her trance of musing, and exclaimed--
+
+"Not so! my parents by no means sent me into the world so perfectly
+destitute; on the contrary, they foresaw, even at that early period,
+that such a night as this would come."
+
+Thus speaking she went out of the room, and a moment after returned with
+two costly rings, of which she gave one to her bridegroom, and kept the
+other for herself. The old fisherman was beyond measure astonished at
+this; and his wife, who was just re-entering the room, was even more
+surprised than he, that neither of them had ever seen these jewels in
+the child's possession.
+
+"My parents," said Undine, "sewed these trinkets to that beautiful
+raiment which I wore the very day I came to you. They also charged me
+on no account whatever to mention them to any one before my wedding
+evening. At the time of my coming, therefore, I took them off in secret,
+and have kept them concealed to the present hour."
+
+The priest now cut short all further questioning and wondering, while he
+lighted the consecrated tapers, placed them on a table, and ordered the
+bridal pair to stand opposite to him. He then pronounced the few solemn
+words of the ceremony, and made them one. The elder couple gave the
+younger their blessing; and the bride, gently trembling and thoughtful,
+leaned upon the knight.
+
+The priest then spoke out: "You are strange people, after all; for why
+did you tell me that you were the only inhabitants of the island? So far
+is this from being true, I have seen, the whole time I was performing
+the ceremony, a tall, stately man, in a white mantle, standing opposite
+to me, looking in at the window. He must be still waiting before the
+door, if peradventure you would invite him to come in."
+
+"God forbid!" cried the old lady, shrinking back; the fisherman shook
+his head, without opening his lips; and Huldbrand sprang to the window.
+It seemed to him that he could still discern a white streak, which soon
+disappeared in the gloom. He convinced the priest that he must have
+been mistaken in his impression; and they all sat down together round a
+bright and comfortable hearth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+
+
+Before the nuptial ceremony, and during its performance, Undine had
+shown a modest gentleness and maidenly reserve; but it now seemed as if
+all the wayward freaks that effervesced within her burst forth with
+an extravagance only the more bold and unrestrained. She teased her
+bridegroom, her foster-parents, and even the priest, whom she had just
+now revered so highly, with all sorts of childish tricks; but when the
+ancient dame was about to reprove her too frolicsome spirit, the knight,
+in a few words, imposed silence upon her by speaking of Undine as his
+wife.
+
+The knight was himself, indeed, just as little pleased with Undine's
+childish behaviour as the rest; but all his looks and half-reproachful
+words were to no purpose. It is true, whenever the bride observed the
+dissatisfaction of her husband--and this occasionally happened--she
+became more quiet, placed herself beside him, stroked his face with
+caressing fondness, whispered something smilingly in his ear, and in
+this manner smoothed the wrinkles that were gathering on his brow.
+But the moment after, some wild whim would make her resume her antic
+movements; and all went worse than before.
+
+The priest then spoke in a kind although serious tone: "My fair young
+maiden, surely no one can look on you without pleasure; but remember
+betimes so to attune your soul that it may produce a harmony ever in
+accordance with the soul of your wedded bridegroom."
+
+"SOUL!" cried Undine with a laugh. "What you say has a remarkably
+pretty sound; and for most people, too, it may be a very instructive and
+profitable caution. But when a person has no soul at all, how, I pray
+you, can such attuning be then possible? And this, in truth, is just my
+condition."
+
+The priest was much hurt, but continued silent in holy displeasure, and
+turned away his face from the maiden in sorrow. She, however, went up to
+him with the most winning sweetness, and said:
+
+"Nay, I entreat you first listen to me, before you are angry with me;
+for your anger is painful to me, and you ought not to give pain to a
+creature that has not hurt you. Only have patience with me, and I will
+explain to you every word of what I meant."
+
+It was evident that she had come to say something important; when she
+suddenly faltered as if seized with inward shuddering, and burst into
+a passion of tears. They were none of them able to understand the
+intenseness of her feelings; and, with mingled emotions of fear and
+anxiety, they gazed on her in silence. Then, wiping away her tears, and
+looking earnestly at the priest, she at last said:
+
+"There must be something lovely, but at the same time something most
+awful, about a soul. In the name of God, holy man, were it not better
+that we never shared a gift so mysterious?"
+
+Again she paused, and restrained her tears, as if waiting for an answer.
+All in the cottage had risen from their seats, and stepped back from her
+with horror. She, however, seemed to have eyes for no one but the holy
+man; an awful curiosity was painted on her features, which appeared
+terrible to the others.
+
+"Heavily must the soul weigh down its possessor," she pursued, when no
+one returned her any answer--"very heavily! for already its approaching
+image overshadows me with anguish and mourning. And, alas, I have till
+now been so merry and light-hearted!" and she burst into another flood
+of tears, and covered her face with her veil.
+
+The priest, going up to her with a solemn look, now addressed himself
+to her, and conjured her, by the name of God most holy, if any spirit of
+evil possessed her, to remove the light covering from her face. But
+she sank before him on her knees, and repeated after him every sacred
+expression he uttered, giving praise to God, and protesting "that she
+wished well to the whole world."
+
+The priest then spoke to the knight: "Sir bridegroom, I leave you
+alone with her whom I have united to you in marriage. So far as I can
+discover, there is nothing of evil in her, but assuredly much that is
+wonderful. What I recommend to you is--prudence, love, and fidelity."
+
+Thus speaking, he left the apartment; and the fisherman, with his wife,
+followed him, crossing themselves.
+
+Undine had sunk upon her knees. She uncovered her face, and exclaimed,
+while she looked fearfully round upon Huldbrand, "Alas! you will now
+refuse to look upon me as your own; and still I have done nothing evil,
+poor unhappy child that I am!" She spoke these words with a look so
+infinitely sweet and touching, that her bridegroom forgot both the
+confession that had shocked, and the mystery that had perplexed him;
+and hastening to her, he raised her in his arms. She smiled through her
+tears; and that smile was like the morning light playing upon a small
+stream. "You cannot desert me!" she whispered confidingly, and stroked
+the knight's cheeks with her little soft hands. He turned away from the
+frightful thoughts that still lurked in the recesses of his soul,
+and were persuading him that he had been married to a fairy, or some
+spiteful and mischievous being of the spirit-world. Only the single
+question, and that almost unawares, escaped from his lips.
+
+"Dearest Undine, tell me this one thing: what was it you meant by
+'spirits of earth' and 'Kuhleborn,' when the priest stood knocking at
+the door?"
+
+"Tales! mere tales of children!" answered Undine, laughing, now quite
+restored to her wonted gaiety. "I first frightened you with them, and
+you frightened me. This is the end of the story, and of our nuptial
+evening."
+
+"Nay, not so," replied the enamoured knight, extinguishing the tapers,
+and a thousand times kissing his beautiful and beloved bride; while,
+lighted by the moon that shone brightly through the windows, he bore her
+into their bridal apartment.
+
+The fresh light of morning woke the young married pair: but Huldbrand
+lay lost in silent reflection. Whenever, during the night, he had fallen
+asleep, strange and horrible dreams of spectres had disturbed him; and
+these shapes, grinning at him by stealth, strove to disguise themselves
+as beautiful females; and from beautiful females they all at once
+assumed the appearance of dragons. And when he started up, aroused by
+the intrusion of these hideous forms, the moonlight shone pale and cold
+before the windows without. He looked affrighted at Undine, in whose
+arms he had fallen asleep: and she was reposing in unaltered beauty and
+sweetness beside him. Then pressing her rosy lips with a light kiss, he
+again fell into a slumber, only to be awakened by new terrors.
+
+When fully awake, he had thought over this connection. He reproached
+himself for any doubt that could lead him into error in regard to his
+lovely wife. He also confessed to her his injustice; but she only gave
+him her fair hand, sighed deeply, and remained silent. Yet a glance of
+fervent tenderness, an expression of the soul beaming in her eyes, such
+as he had never witnessed there before, left him in undoubted assurance
+that Undine bore him no ill-will.
+
+He then rose joyfully, and leaving her, went to the common apartment,
+where the inmates of the house had already met. The three were sitting
+round the hearth with an air of anxiety about them, as if they feared
+trusting themselves to raise their voice above a low, apprehensive
+undertone. The priest appeared to be praying in his inmost spirit, with
+a view to avert some fatal calamity. But when they observed the young
+husband come forth so cheerful, they dispelled the cloud that remained
+upon their brows: the old fisherman even began to laugh with the
+knight till his aged wife herself could not help smiling with great
+good-humour.
+
+Undine had in the meantime got ready, and now entered the room; all
+rose to meet her, but remained fixed in perfect admiration--she was so
+changed, and yet the same. The priest, with paternal affection beaming
+from his countenance, first went up to her; and as he raised his hand to
+pronounce a blessing, the beautiful bride sank on her knees before him
+with religious awe; she begged his pardon in terms both respectful and
+submissive for any foolish things she might have uttered the evening
+before, and entreated him with emotion to pray for the welfare of her
+soul. She then rose, kissed her foster-parents, and, after thanking them
+for all the kindness they had shown her, said:
+
+"Oh, I now feel in my inmost heart how much, how infinitely much, you
+have done for me, you dear, dear friends of my childhood!"
+
+At first she was wholly unable to tear herself away from their
+affectionate caresses; but the moment she saw the good old mother busy
+in getting breakfast, she went to the hearth, applied herself to cooking
+the food and putting it on the table, and would not suffer her to take
+the least share in the work.
+
+She continued in this frame of spirit the whole day: calm, kind
+attentive--half matronly, and half girlish. The three who had been
+longest acquainted with her expected every instant to see her capricious
+spirit break out in some whimsical change or sportive vagary. But their
+fears were quite unnecessary. Undine continued as mild and gentle as an
+angel. The priest found it all but impossible to remove his eyes from
+her; and he often said to the bridegroom:
+
+"The bounty of Heaven, sir, through me its unworthy instrument,
+entrusted to you yesterday an invaluable treasure; cherish it as you
+ought, and it will promote your temporal and eternal welfare."
+
+Toward evening Undine was hanging upon the knight's arm with lowly
+tenderness, while she drew him gently out before the door, where the
+setting sun shone richly over the fresh grass, and upon the high,
+slender boles of the trees. Her emotion was visible: the dew of sadness
+and love swam in her eyes, while a tender and fearful secret seemed to
+hover upon her lips, but was only made known by hardly-breathed sighs.
+She led her husband farther and farther onward without speaking. When he
+asked her questions, she replied only with looks, in which, it is true,
+there appeared to be no immediate answer to his inquiries, but a whole
+heaven of love and timid devotion. Thus they reached the margin of the
+swollen forest stream, and the knight was astonished to see it gliding
+away with so gentle a murmuring of its waves, that no vestige of its
+former swell and wildness was now discernible.
+
+"By morning it will be wholly drained off," said the beautiful wife,
+almost weeping, "and you will then be able to travel, without anything
+to hinder you, whithersoever you will."
+
+"Not without you, dear Undine," replied the knight, laughing; "think,
+only, were I disposed to leave you, both the Church and the spiritual
+powers, the Emperor and the laws of the realm, would require the
+fugitive to be seized and restored to you."
+
+"All this depends on you--all depends on you," whispered his little
+companion, half weeping and half smiling. "But I still feel sure that
+you will not leave me; I love you too deeply to fear that misery. Now
+bear me over to that little island which lies before us. There shall
+the decision be made. I could easily, indeed, glide through that mere
+rippling of the water without your aid, but it is so sweet to lie in
+your arms; and should you determine to put me away, I shall have rested
+in them once more,... for the last time."
+
+Huldbrand was so full of strange anxiety and emotion, that he knew not
+what answer to make her. He took her in his arms and carried her over,
+now first realizing the fact that this was the same little island from
+which he had borne her back to the old fisherman, the first night of his
+arrival. On the farther side, he placed her upon the soft grass, and
+was throwing himself lovingly near his beautiful burden; but she said to
+him, "Not here, but opposite me. I shall read my doom in your eyes, even
+before your lips pronounce it: now listen attentively to what I shall
+relate to you." And she began:
+
+"You must know, my own love, that there are beings in the elements which
+bear the strongest resemblance to the human race, and which, at the
+same time, but seldom become visible to you. The wonderful salamanders
+sparkle and sport amid the flames; deep in the earth the meagre and
+malicious gnomes pursue their revels; the forest-spirits belong to the
+air, and wander in the woods; while in the seas, rivers, and streams
+live the widespread race of water-spirits. These last, beneath
+resounding domes of crystal, through which the sky can shine with its
+sun and stars, inhabit a region of light and beauty; lofty coral-trees
+glow with blue and crimson fruits in their gardens; they walk over the
+pure sand of the sea, among exquisitely variegated shells, and amid
+whatever of beauty the old world possessed, such as the present is no
+more worthy to enjoy--creations which the floods covered with their
+secret veils of silver; and now these noble monuments sparkle below,
+stately and solemn, and bedewed by the water, which loves them, and
+calls forth from their crevices delicate moss-flowers and enwreathing
+tufts of sedge.
+
+"Now the nation that dwell there are very fair and lovely to behold,
+for the most part more beautiful than human beings. Many a fisherman has
+been so fortunate as to catch a view of a delicate maiden of the waters,
+while she was floating and singing upon the deep. He would then spread
+far the fame of her beauty; and to such wonderful females men are wont
+to give the name of Undines. But what need of saying more?--You, my dear
+husband, now actually behold an Undine before you."
+
+The knight would have persuaded himself that his lovely wife was under
+the influence of one of her odd whims, and that she was only amusing
+herself and him with her extravagant inventions. He wished it might be
+so. But with whatever emphasis he said this to himself, he still could
+not credit the hope for a moment: a strange shivering shot through his
+soul; unable to utter a word, he gazed upon the sweet speaker with a
+fixed eye. She shook her head in distress, sighed from her full heart,
+and then proceeded in the following manner:--"We should be far superior
+to you, who are another race of the human family,--for we also call
+ourselves human beings, as we resemble them in form and features--had
+we not one evil peculiar to ourselves. Both we and the beings I have
+mentioned as inhabiting the other elements vanish into air at death and
+go out of existence, spirit and body, so that no vestige of us remains;
+and when you hereafter awake to a purer state of being, we shall remain
+where sand, and sparks, and wind, and waves remain. Thus we have no
+souls; the element moves us, and, again, is obedient to our will, while
+we live, though it scatters us like dust when we die; and as we
+have nothing to trouble us, we are as merry as nightingales, little
+gold-fishes, and other pretty children of nature.
+
+"But all beings aspire to rise in the scale of existence higher than
+they are. It was therefore the wish of my father, who is a powerful
+water-prince in the Mediterranean Sea, that his only daughter should
+become possessed of a soul, although she should have to endure many of
+the sufferings of those who share that gift.
+
+"Now the race to which I belong have no other means of obtaining a soul
+than by forming with an individual of your own the most intimate union
+of love. I am now possessed of a soul, and my soul thanks you, my best
+beloved, and never shall cease to thank you, if you do not render my
+whole future life miserable. For what will become of me, if you avoid
+and reject me? Still, I would not keep you as my own by artifice. And
+should you decide to cast me off, then do it now, and return alone to
+the shore. I will plunge into this brook, where my uncle will receive
+me; my uncle, who here in the forest, far removed from his other
+friends, passes his strange and solitary existence. But he is powerful,
+as well as revered and beloved by many great rivers; and as he brought
+me hither to the fisherman a light-hearted and laughing child, he will
+take me home to my parents a woman, gifted with a soul, with power to
+love and to suffer."
+
+She was about to add something more, when Huldbrand, with the most
+heartfelt tenderness and love, clasped her in his arms, and again bore
+her back to the shore. There, amid tears and kisses, he first swore
+never to forsake his affectionate wife, and esteemed himself even more
+happy than Pygmalion, for whom Venus gave life to his beautiful statue,
+and thus changed it into a beloved wife. Supported by his arm, and in
+the confidence of affection, Undine returned to the cottage; and now
+she first realized with her whole heart how little cause she had for
+regretting what she had left--the crystal palace of her mysterious
+father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+
+
+Next morning, when Huldbrand awoke from slumber, and perceived that his
+beautiful wife was not by his side, he began to give way again to
+his wild imaginations--that his marriage, and even the lovely Undine
+herself, were only shadows without substance--only mere illusions of
+enchantment. But she entered the door at the same moment, kissed him,
+seated herself on the bed by his side, and said:
+
+"I have been out somewhat early this morning, to see whether my uncle
+keeps his word. He has already restored the waters of the flood to
+his own calm channel, and he now flows through the forest a rivulet as
+before, in a lonely and dreamlike current. His friends, too, both of
+the water and the air, have resumed their usual peaceful tenor; all will
+again proceed with order and tranquillity; and you can travel homeward,
+without fear of the flood, whenever you choose."
+
+It seemed to the mind of Huldbrand that he must be in some waking dream,
+so little was he able to understand the nature of his wife's strange
+relative. Notwithstanding this he made no remark upon what she had
+told him, and her surpassing loveliness soon lulled every misgiving and
+discomfort to rest.
+
+Some time afterwards, while he was standing with her before the door,
+and surveying the verdant point of land, with its boundary of bright
+waters, such a feeling of bliss came over him in this cradle of his
+love, that he exclaimed:
+
+"Shall we, then, so early as to-day, begin our journey? Why should
+we? It is probable that abroad in the world we shall find no days more
+delightful than those we have spent in this green isle so secret and so
+secure. Let us yet see the sun go down here two or three times more."
+
+"Just as my lord wills," replied Undine meekly. "Only we must remember,
+that my foster-parents will, at all events, see me depart with pain; and
+should they now, for the first time, discover the true soul in me, and
+how fervently I can now love and honour them, their feeble eyes would
+surely become blind with weeping. As yet they consider my present
+quietness and gentleness as of no better promise than they were
+formerly--like the calm of the lake just while the air remains
+tranquil--and they will learn soon to cherish a little tree or flower as
+they have cherished me. Let me not, then, make known to them this newly
+bestowed, this loving heart, at the very moment they must lose it for
+this world; and how could I conceal what I have gained, if we continued
+longer together?"
+
+Huldbrand yielded to her representation, and went to the aged couple to
+confer with them respecting his journey, on which he proposed to set out
+that very hour. The priest offered himself as a companion to the young
+married pair; and, after taking a short farewell, he held the bridle,
+while the knight lifted his beautiful wife upon his horse; and with
+rapid steps they crossed the dry channel with her toward the forest.
+Undine wept in silent but intense emotion; the old people, as she
+moved away, were more clamorous in the expression of their grief. They
+appeared to feel, at the moment of separation, all that they were losing
+in their affectionate foster-daughter.
+
+The three travellers had reached the thickest shades of the forest
+without interchanging a word. It must have been a fair sight, in that
+hall of leafy verdure, to see this lovely woman's form sitting on the
+noble and richly-ornamented steed, on her left hand the venerable priest
+in the white garb of his order, on her right the blooming young knight,
+clad in splendid raiment of scarlet, gold, and violet, girt with a sword
+that flashed in the sun, and attentively walking beside her. Huldbrand
+had no eyes but for his wife; Undine, who had dried her tears of
+tenderness, had no eyes but for him; and they soon entered into the
+still and voiceless converse of looks and gestures, from which, after
+some time, they were awakened by the low discourse which the priest
+was holding with a fourth traveller, who had meanwhile joined them
+unobserved.
+
+He wore a white gown, resembling in form the dress of the priest's
+order, except that his hood hung very low over his face, and that the
+whole drapery floated in such wide folds around him as obliged him every
+moment to gather it up and throw it over his arm, or by some management
+of this sort to get it out of his way, and still it did not seem in the
+least to impede his movements. When the young couple became aware of his
+presence, he was saying:
+
+"And so, venerable sir, many as have been the years I have dwelt here in
+this forest, I have never received the name of hermit in your sense of
+the word. For, as I said before, I know nothing of penance, and I think,
+too, that I have no particular need of it. Do you ask me why I am so
+attached to the forest? It is because its scenery is so peculiarly
+picturesque, and affords me so much pastime when, in my floating white
+garments, I pass through its world of leaves and dusky shadows;--and
+when a sweet sunbeam glances down upon me at times unexpectedly."
+
+"You are a very singular man," replied the priest, "and I should like to
+have a more intimate acquaintance with you."
+
+"And who, then, may you be yourself, to pass from one thing to another?"
+inquired the stranger.
+
+"I am called Father Heilmann," answered the holy man; "and I am from the
+cloister of Our Lady of the Salutation, beyond the lake."
+
+"Well, well," replied the stranger, "my name is Kuhleborn; and were I
+a stickler for the nice distinctions of rank, I might, with equal
+propriety, require you to give me the title of noble lord of Kuhleborn,
+or free lord of Kuhleborn; for I am as free as the birds in the forest,
+and, it may be, a trifle more so. For example, I now have something to
+tell that young lady there." And before they were aware of his purpose,
+he was on the other side of the priest, close to Undine, and stretching
+himself high into the air, in order to whisper something in her ear. But
+she shrank from him in terror, and exclaimed:
+
+"I have nothing more to do with you."
+
+"Ho, ho," cried the stranger with a laugh, "you have made a grand
+marriage indeed, since you no longer know your own relations! Have you
+no recollection, then, of your uncle Kuhleborn, who so faithfully bore
+you on his back to this region?"
+
+"However that may be," replied Undine, "I entreat you never to appear in
+my presence again. I am now afraid of you; and will not my husband fear
+and forsake me, if he sees me associate with such strange company and
+kindred?"
+
+"You must not forget, my little niece," said Kuhleborn, "that I am with
+you here as a guide; otherwise those madcap spirits of the earth, the
+gnomes that haunt this forest, would play you some of their mischievous
+pranks. Let me therefore still accompany you in peace. Even the old
+priest there had a better recollection of me than you have; for he just
+now assured me that I seemed to be very familiar to him, and that I must
+have been with him in the ferry-boat, out of which he tumbled into
+the waves. He certainly did see me there; for I was no other than the
+water-spout that tore him out of it, and kept him from sinking, while I
+safely wafted him ashore to your wedding."
+
+Undine and the knight turned their eyes upon Father Heilmann; but he
+appeared to be moving forward, just as if he were dreaming or walking
+in his sleep, and no longer to be conscious of a word that was spoken.
+Undine then said to Kuhleborn: "I already see yonder the end of the
+forest. We have no further need of your assistance, and nothing now
+gives us alarm but yourself. I therefore beseech you, by our mutual love
+and good-will, to vanish, and allow us to proceed in peace."
+
+Kuhleborn seemed to become angry at this: he darted a frightful look at
+Undine, and grinned fiercely upon her. She shrieked aloud, and called
+her husband to protect her. The knight sprang round the horse as quick
+as lightning, and, brandishing his sword, struck at Kuhleborn's head.
+But instead of severing it from his body, the sword merely flashed
+through a torrent, which rushed foaming near them from a lofty cliff;
+and with a splash, which much resembled in sound a burst of laughter,
+the stream all at once poured upon them and gave them a thorough
+wetting. The priest, as if suddenly awakening from a trance, coolly
+observed: "This is what I have been some time expecting, because the
+brook has descended from the steep so close beside us--though at first
+sight, indeed, it appeared to resemble a man, and to possess the power
+of speech."
+
+As the waterfall came rushing from its crag, it distinctly uttered these
+words in Huldbrand's ear: "Rash knight! valiant knight! I am not angry
+with you; I have no quarrel with you; only continue to defend your
+lovely little wife with the same spirit, you bold knight! you valiant
+champion!"
+
+After advancing a few steps farther, the travellers came out upon open
+ground. The imperial city lay bright before them; and the evening sun,
+which gilded its towers with gold, kindly dried their garments that had
+been so completely drenched.
+
+The sudden disappearance of the young knight, Huldbrand of Ringstetten,
+had occasioned much remark in the imperial city, and no small concern
+amongst those who, as well on account of his expertness in tourney and
+dance, as of his mild and amiable manners, had become attached to him.
+His attendants were unwilling to quit the place without their master,
+although not a soul of them had been courageous enough to follow him
+into the fearful recesses of the forest. They remained, therefore, at
+the hostelry, idly hoping, as men are wont to do, and keeping the fate
+of their lost lord fresh in remembrance by their lamentations.
+
+Now when the violent storms and floods had been observed immediately
+after his departure, the destruction of the handsome stranger became
+all but certain; even Bertalda had openly discovered her sorrow, and
+detested herself for having been the cause of his taking that fatal
+excursion into the forest. Her foster-parents, the duke and duchess, had
+meanwhile come to take her away; but Bertalda persuaded them to remain
+with her until some certain news of Huldbrand should be obtained,
+whether he were living or dead. She endeavoured also to prevail upon
+several young knights, who were assiduous in courting her favour, to
+go in quest of the noble adventurer in the forest. But she refused
+to pledge her hand as the reward of the enterprise, because she still
+cherished, it might be, a hope of its being claimed by the returning
+knight; and no one would consent, for a glove, a riband, or even a kiss,
+to expose his life to bring back so very dangerous a rival.
+
+When Huldbrand now made his sudden and unexpected appearance, his
+attendants, the inhabitants of the city, and almost every one rejoiced.
+This was not the case with Bertalda; for although it might be quite
+a welcome event to others that he brought with him a wife of such
+exquisite loveliness, and Father Heilmann as a witness of their
+marriage, Bertalda could not but view the affair with grief and
+vexation. She had, in truth, become attached to the young knight with
+her whole soul; and her mourning for his absence, or supposed death, had
+shown this more than she could now have wished.
+
+But notwithstanding all this, she conducted herself like a wise maiden
+in circumstances of such delicacy, and lived on the most friendly
+terms with Undine, whom the whole city looked upon as a princess that
+Huldbrand had rescued in the forest from some evil enchantment. Whenever
+any one questioned either herself or her husband relative to surmises of
+this nature, they had wisdom enough to remain silent, or wit enough
+to evade the inquiries. The lips of Father Heilmann had been sealed
+in regard to idle gossip of every kind; and besides, on Huldbrand's
+arrival, he had immediately returned to his cloister: so that people
+were obliged to rest contented with their own wild conjectures; and even
+Bertalda herself ascertained nothing more of the truth than others.
+
+For the rest, Undine daily felt more love for the fair maiden. "We must
+have been before acquainted with each other," she often used to say to
+her, "or else there must be some mysterious connection between us,
+for it is incredible that any one so perfectly without cause--I mean,
+without some deep and secret cause--should be so fondly attached to
+another as I have been to you from the first moment of our meeting."
+
+And even Bertalda could not deny that she felt a confiding impulse,
+an attraction of tenderness toward Undine, much as she deemed this
+fortunate rival the cause of her bitterest disappointment. Under the
+influence of this mutual regard, they found means to persuade, the
+one her foster-parents, and the other her husband, to defer the day of
+separation to a period more and more remote; nay, more, they had already
+begun to talk of a plan for Bertalda's accompanying Undine to Castle
+Ringstetten, near one of the sources of the Danube.
+
+Once on a fine evening they happened to be talking over their scheme
+just as they passed the high trees that bordered the public walk.
+The young married pair, though it was somewhat late, had called upon
+Bertalda to invite her to share their enjoyment; and all three proceeded
+familiarly up and down beneath the dark blue heaven, not seldom
+interrupted in their converse by the admiration which they could not but
+bestow upon the magnificent fountain in the middle of the square, and
+upon the wonderful rush and shooting upward of its waters. All was sweet
+and soothing to their minds. Among the shadows of the trees stole in
+glimmerings of light from the adjacent houses (sic). A low murmur as
+of children at play, and of other persons who were enjoying their walk,
+floated around them--they were so alone, and yet sharing so much of
+social happiness in the bright and stirring world, that whatever had
+appeared rough by day now became smooth of its own accord. All the three
+friends could no longer see the slightest cause for hesitation in regard
+to Bertalda's taking the journey.
+
+At that instant, while they were just fixing the day of their departure,
+a tall man approached them from the middle of the square, bowed
+respectfully to the company, and spoke something in the young bride's
+ear. Though displeased with the interruption and its cause, she walked
+aside a few steps with the stranger; and both began to whisper, as it
+seemed, in a foreign tongue. Huldbrand thought he recognized the strange
+man of the forest, and he gazed upon him so fixedly, that he neither
+heard nor answered the astonished inquiries of Bertalda. All at
+once Undine clapped her hands with delight, and turned back from the
+stranger, laughing: he, frequently shaking his head, retired with
+a hasty step and discontented air, and descended into the fountain.
+Huldbrand now felt perfectly certain that his conjecture was correct.
+But Bertalda asked:
+
+"What, then, dear Undine, did the master of the fountain wish to say to
+you?"
+
+Undine laughed within herself, and made answer: "The day after
+to-morrow, my dear child, when the anniversary of your name-day returns,
+you shall be informed." And this was all she could be prevailed upon to
+disclose. She merely asked Bertalda to dinner on the appointed day, and
+requested her to invite her foster-parents; and soon afterwards they
+separated.
+
+"Kuhleborn?" said Huldbrand to his lovely wife, with an inward shudder
+when they had taken leave of Bertalda, and were now going home through
+the darkening streets.
+
+"Yes, it was he," answered Undine; "and he would have wearied me
+with his foolish warnings. But, in the midst, quite contrary to his
+intentions, he delighted me with a most welcome piece of news. If you,
+my dear lord and husband, wish me to acquaint you with it now, you
+need only command me, and I will freely and from my heart tell you all
+without reserve. But would you confer upon your Undine a very, very
+great pleasure, wait till the day after to-morrow, and then you too
+shall have your share of the surprise."
+
+The knight was quite willing to gratify his wife in what she had asked
+so sweetly. And even as she was falling asleep, she murmured to herself,
+with a smile: "How she will rejoice and be astonished at what her master
+of the fountain has told me!--dear, dear Bertalda!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+
+
+The company were sitting at dinner. Bertalda, adorned with jewels and
+flowers without number, the presents of her foster-parents and friends,
+and looking like some goddess of spring, sat beside Undine and Huldbrand
+at the head of the table. When the sumptuous repast was ended, and the
+dessert was placed before them, permission was given that the doors
+should be left open: this was in accordance with the good old custom in
+Germany, that the common people might see and rejoice in the festivity
+of their superiors. Among these spectators the servants carried round
+cake and wine.
+
+Huldbrand and Bertalda waited with secret impatience for the promised
+explanation, and hardly moved their eyes from Undine. But she still
+continued silent, and merely smiled to herself with secret and heartfelt
+satisfaction. All who were made acquainted with the promise she had
+given could perceive that she was every moment on the point of revealing
+a happy secret; and yet, as children sometimes delay tasting their
+choicest dainties, she still withheld the communication. Bertalda and
+Huldbrand shared the same delightful feeling, while in anxious hope they
+were expecting the unknown disclosure which they were to receive from
+the lips of their friend.
+
+At this moment several of the company pressed Undine to sing. This she
+seemed pleased at; and ordering her lute to be brought, she sang the
+following words:--
+
+
+                   "Morning so bright,
+                    Wild-flowers so gay,
+                    Where high grass so dewy
+                    Crowns the wavy lake's border.
+
+                    On the meadow's verdant bosom
+                    What glimmers there so white?
+                    Have wreaths of snowy blossoms,
+                    Soft-floating, fallen from heaven?
+
+                    Ah, see! a tender infant!--
+                    It plays with flowers, unwittingly;
+                    It strives to grasp morn's golden beams.
+                    O where, sweet stranger, where's your home?
+                    Afar from unknown shores
+                    The waves have wafted hither
+                    This helpless little one.
+
+                    Nay, clasp not, tender darling,
+                    With tiny hand the flowers!
+                    No hand returns the pressure,
+                    The flowers are strange and mute.
+
+                    They clothe themselves in beauty,
+                    They breathe a rich perfume:
+                    But cannot fold around you
+                    A mother's loving arms;--
+                    Far, far away that mother's fond embrace.
+
+                    Life's early dawn just opening faint,
+                    Your eye yet beaming heaven's own smile,
+                    So soon your tenderest guardians gone;
+                    Severe, poor child, your fate,--
+                    All, all to you unknown.
+
+                    A noble duke has crossed the mead,
+                    And near you checked his steed's career:
+                    Wonder and pity touch his heart;
+                    With knowledge high, and manners pure,
+                    He rears you,--makes his castle home your own.
+
+                    How great, how infinite your gain!
+                    Of all the land you bloom the loveliest;
+                    Yet, ah! the priceless blessing,
+                    The bliss of parents' fondness,
+                    You left on strands unknown!"
+
+
+Undine let fall her lute with a melancholy smile. The eyes of Bertalda's
+noble foster-parents were filled with tears.
+
+"Ah yes, it was so--such was the morning on which I found you, poor
+orphan!" cried the duke, with deep emotion; "the beautiful singer is
+certainly right: still
+
+
+                        'The priceless blessing,
+                    The bliss of parents' fondness,'
+
+
+it was beyond our power to give you."
+
+"But we must hear, also, what happened to the poor parents," said
+Undine, as she struck the chords, and sung:--
+
+
+                  "Through her chambers roams the mother
+                     Searching, searching everywhere;
+                   Seeks, and knows not what, with yearning,
+                     Childless house still finding there.
+
+                   Childless house!--O sound of anguish!
+                     She alone the anguish knows,
+                   There by day who led her dear one,
+                     There who rocked its night-repose.
+
+                   Beechen buds again are swelling,
+                     Sunshine warms again the shore;
+                   Ah, fond mother, cease your searching!
+                     Comes the loved and lost no more.
+
+                   Then when airs of eve are fresh'ning,
+                     Home the father wends his way,
+                   While with smiles his woe he's veiling,
+                     Gushing tears his heart betray.
+
+                   Well he knows, within his dwelling,
+                     Still as death he'll find the gloom,
+                   Only hear the mother moaning,--
+                     No sweet babe to SMILE him home."
+
+
+"O, tell me, in the name of Heaven tell me, Undine, where are my
+parents?" cried the weeping Bertalda. "You certainly know; you must have
+discovered them, you wonderful being; for, otherwise you would never
+have thus torn my heart. Can they be already here? May I believe it
+possible?" Her eye glanced rapidly over the brilliant company,
+and rested upon a lady of high rank who was sitting next to her
+foster-father.
+
+Then, bending her head, Undine beckoned toward the door, while her eyes
+overflowed with the sweetest emotion. "Where, then, are the poor parents
+waiting?" she asked; and the old fisherman, hesitating, advanced with
+his wife from the crowd of spectators. They looked inquiringly, now at
+Undine, and now at the beautiful lady who was said to be their daughter.
+
+"It is she! it is she there before you!" exclaimed the restorer of their
+child, her voice half choked with rapture. And both the aged parents
+embraced their recovered daughter, weeping aloud and praising God.
+
+But, terrified and indignant, Bertalda tore herself from their arms.
+Such a discovery was too much for her proud spirit to bear, especially
+at the moment when she had doubtless expected to see her former
+splendour increased, and when hope was picturing to her nothing less
+brilliant than a royal canopy and a crown. It seemed to her as if her
+rival had contrived all this on purpose to humble her before Huldbrand
+and the whole world. She reproached Undine; she reviled the old
+people; and even such offensive words as "deceiver, bribed and perjured
+impostors," burst from her lips.
+
+The aged wife of the fisherman then said to herself, in a low voice:
+"Ah, my God, she has become wicked! and yet I feel in my heart that she
+is my child."
+
+The old fisherman had meanwhile folded his hands, and offered up a
+silent prayer that she might NOT be his daughter.
+
+Undine, faint and pale as death, turned from the parents to Bertalda,
+from Bertalda to the parents. She was suddenly cast dawn from all that
+heaven of happiness in which she had been dreaming, and plunged into an
+agony of terror and disappointment, which she had never known even in
+dreams.
+
+"Have you, then, a soul? Have you indeed a soul, Bertalda?" she cried
+again and again to her angry friend, as if with vehement effort she
+would arouse her from a sudden delirium or some distracting dream of
+night, and restore her to recollection.
+
+But when Bertalda became every moment only more and more enraged--when
+the disappointed parents began to weep aloud--and the company, with much
+warmth of dispute, were espousing opposite sides--she begged, with
+such earnestness and dignity, for the liberty of speaking in this
+her husband's hall, that all around her were in an instant hushed to
+silence. She then advanced to the upper end of the table, where, both
+humbled and haughty, Bertalda had seated herself, and, while every eye
+was fastened upon her, spoke in the following manner:--
+
+"My friends, you appear dissatisfied and disturbed; and you are
+interrupting, with your strife, a festivity I had hoped would bring joy
+to you and to me. Ah! I knew nothing of your heartless ways of thinking;
+and never shall understand them: I am not to blame for the mischief this
+disclosure has done. Believe me, little as you may imagine this to be
+the case, it is wholly owing to yourselves. One word more, therefore, is
+all I have to add; but this is one that must be spoken:--I have
+uttered nothing but truth. Of the certainty of the fact, I give you the
+strongest assurance. No other proof can I or will I produce, but this
+I will affirm in the presence of God. The person who gave me this
+information was the very same who decoyed the infant Bertalda into the
+water, and who, after thus taking her from her parents, placed her on
+the green grass of the meadow, where he knew the duke was to pass."
+
+"She is an enchantress!" cried Bertalda; "a witch, that has intercourse
+with evil spirits. She acknowledges it herself."
+
+"Never! I deny it!" replied Undine, while a whole heaven of innocence
+and truth beamed from her eyes. "I am no witch; look upon me, and say if
+I am."
+
+"Then she utters both falsehood and folly," cried Bertalda; "and she
+is unable to prove that I am the child of these low people. My noble
+parents, I entreat you to take me from this company, and out of this
+city, where they do nothing but shame me."
+
+But the aged duke, a man of honourable feeling, remained unmoved; and
+his wife remarked:
+
+"We must thoroughly examine into this matter. God forbid that we should
+move a step from this hall before we do so."
+
+Then the aged wife of the fisherman drew near, made a low obeisance to
+the duchess and said: "Noble and pious lady, you have opened my heart.
+Permit me to tell you, that if this evil-disposed maiden is my daughter,
+she has a mark like a violet between her shoulders, and another of the
+same kind on the instep of her left foot. If she will only consent to go
+out of the hall with me--"
+
+"I will not consent to uncover myself before the peasant woman,"
+interrupted Bertalda, haughtily turning her back upon her.
+
+"But before me you certainly will," replied the duchess gravely. "You
+will follow me into that room, maiden; and the old woman shall go with
+us."
+
+The three disappeared, and the rest continued where they were, in
+breathless expectation. In a few minutes the females returned--Bertalda
+pale as death; and the duchess said: "Justice must be done; I therefore
+declare that our lady hostess has spoken exact truth. Bertalda is the
+fisherman's daughter; no further proof is required; and this is all of
+which, on the present occasion, you need to be informed."
+
+The princely pair went out with their adopted daughter; the fisherman,
+at a sign from the duke, followed them with his wife. The other guests
+retired in silence, or suppressing their murmurs; while Undine sank
+weeping into the arms of Huldbrand.
+
+The lord of Ringstetten would certainly have been more gratified, had
+the events of this day been different; but even such as they now were,
+he could by no means look upon them as unwelcome, since his lovely wife
+had shown herself so full of goodness, sweetness, and kindliness.
+
+"If I have given her a soul," he could not help saying to himself, "I
+have assuredly given her a better one than my own;" and now he only
+thought of soothing and comforting his weeping wife, and of removing
+her even so early as the morrow from a place which, after this cross
+accident, could not fail to be distasteful to her. Yet it is certain
+that the opinion of the public concerning her was not changed. As
+something extraordinary had long before been expected of her, the
+mysterious discovery of Bertalda's parentage had occasioned little or no
+surprise; and every one who became acquainted with Bertalda's story, and
+with the violence of her behaviour on that occasion, was only disgusted
+and set against her. Of this state of things, however, the knight and
+his lady were as yet ignorant; besides, whether the public condemned
+Bertalda or herself, the one view of the affair would have been as
+distressing to Undine as the other; and thus they came to the conclusion
+that the wisest course they could take, was to leave behind them the
+walls of the old city with all the speed in their power.
+
+With the earliest beams of morning, a brilliant carriage for Undine
+drove up to the door of the inn; the horses of Huldbrand and his
+attendants stood near, stamping the pavement, impatient to proceed. The
+knight was leading his beautiful wife from the door, when a fisher-girl
+came up and met them in the way.
+
+"We have no need of your fish," said Huldbrand, accosting her; "we are
+this moment setting out on a journey."
+
+Upon this the fisher-girl began to weep bitterly; and then it was that
+the young couple first perceived it was Bertalda. They immediately
+returned with her to their apartment, when she informed them that, owing
+to her unfeeling and violent conduct of the preceding day, the duke and
+duchess had been so displeased with her, as entirely to withdraw from
+her their protection, though not before giving her a generous portion.
+The fisherman, too, had received a handsome gift, and had, the evening
+before, set out with his wife for his peninsula.
+
+"I would have gone with them," she pursued, "but the old fisherman, who
+is said to be my father--"
+
+"He is, in truth, your father, Bertalda," said Undine, interrupting her.
+"See, the stranger whom you took for the master of the water-works gave
+me all the particulars. He wished to dissuade me from taking you with me
+to Castle Ringstetten, and therefore disclosed to me the whole mystery."
+
+"Well then," continued Bertalda, "my father--if it must needs be so--my
+father said: 'I will not take you with me until you are changed. If you
+will venture to come to us alone through the ill-omened forest, that
+shall be a proof of your having some regard for us. But come not to me
+as a lady; come merely as a fisher-girl.' I do as he bade me, for since
+I am abandoned by all the world, I will live and die in solitude, a poor
+fisher-girl, with parents equally poor. The forest, indeed, appears
+very terrible to me. Horrible spectres make it their haunt, and I am so
+fearful. But how can I help it? I have only come here at this early hour
+to beg the noble lady of Ringstetten to pardon my unbecoming behaviour
+of yesterday. Sweet lady, I have the fullest persuasion that you meant
+to do me a kindness, but you were not aware how severely you would
+wound me; and then, in my agony and surprise, so many rash and frantic
+expressions burst from my lips. Forgive me, ah, forgive me! I am in
+truth so unhappy, already. Only consider what I was but yesterday
+morning, what I was even at the beginning of your yesterday's festival,
+and what I am to-day!"
+
+Her words now became inarticulate, lost in a passionate flow of tears,
+while Undine, bitterly weeping with her, fell upon her neck. So powerful
+was her emotion, that it was a long time before she could utter a word.
+At length she said:
+
+"You shall still go with us to Ringstetten; all shall remain just as
+we lately arranged it; but say 'thou' to me again, and do not call me
+'noble lady' any more. Consider, we were changed for each other when
+we were children; even then we were united by a like fate, and we will
+strengthen this union with such close affection as no human power shall
+dissolve. Only first of all you must go with us to Ringstetten. How we
+shall share all things as sisters, we can talk of after we arrive."
+
+Bertalda looked up to Huldbrand with timid inquiry. He pitied her in her
+affliction, took her hand, and begged her tenderly to entrust herself to
+him and his wife.
+
+"We will send a message to your parents," continued he, "giving them the
+reason why you have not come;"--and he would have added more about his
+worthy friends of the peninsula, when, perceiving that Bertalda shrank
+in distress at the mention of them, he refrained. He took her under
+the arm, lifted her first into the carriage, then Undine, and was soon
+riding blithely beside them; so persevering was he, too, in urging
+forward their driver, that in a short time they had left behind them the
+limits of the city, and a crowd of painful recollections; and now the
+ladies could take delight in the beautiful country which their progress
+was continually presenting.
+
+After a journey of some days, they arrived, on a fine evening, at Castle
+Ringstetten. The young knight being much engaged with the overseers and
+menials of his establishment, Undine and Bertalda were left alone. They
+took a walk upon the high rampart of the fortress, and were charmed with
+the delightful landscape which the fertile Suabia spread around them.
+While they were viewing the scene, a tall man drew near, who greeted
+them with respectful civility, and who seemed to Bertalda much
+to resemble the director of the city fountain. Still less was the
+resemblance to be mistaken, when Undine, indignant at his intrusion,
+waved him off with an air of menace; while he, shaking his head,
+retreated with rapid strides, as he had formerly done, then glided among
+the trees of a neighbouring grove and disappeared.
+
+"Do not be terrified, Bertalda," said Undine; "the hateful master of the
+fountain shall do you no harm this time." And then she related to her
+the particulars of her history, and who she was herself--how Bertalda
+had been taken away from the people of the peninsula, and Undine left in
+her place. This relation at first filled the young maiden with amazement
+and alarm; she imagined her friend must be seized with a sudden
+madness. But from the consistency of her story, she became more and more
+convinced that all was true, it so well agreed with former occurrences,
+and still more convinced from that inward feeling with which truth
+never fails to make itself known to us. She could not but view it as an
+extraordinary circumstance that she was herself now living, as it were,
+in the midst of one of those wild tales which she had formerly heard
+related. She gazed upon Undine with reverence, but could not keep from a
+shuddering feeling which seemed to come between her and her friend;
+and she could not but wonder when the knight, at their evening repast,
+showed himself so kind and full of love towards a being who appeared to
+her, after the discoveries just made, more to resemble a phantom of the
+spirit-world than one of the human race.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+
+
+The writer of this tale, both because it moves his own heart and he
+wishes it to move that of others, asks a favour of you, dear reader.
+Forgive him if he passes over a considerable space of time in a few
+words, and only tells you generally what therein happened. He knows well
+that it might be unfolded skilfully, and step by step, how Huldbrand's
+heart began to turn from Undine and towards Bertalda--how Bertalda met
+the young knight with ardent love, and how they both looked upon the
+poor wife as a mysterious being, more to be dreaded than pitied--how
+Undine wept, and her tears stung the conscience of her husband, without
+recalling his former love; so that though at times he showed kindness
+to her, a cold shudder soon forced him to turn from her to his
+fellow-mortal Bertalda;--all this, the writer knows, might have been
+drawn out fully, and perhaps it ought to have been. But it would have
+made him too sad; for he has witnessed such things, and shrinks from
+recalling even their shadow. Thou knowest, probably, the like feeling,
+dear reader; for it is the lot of mortal man. Happy art thou if thou
+hast received the injury, not inflicted it; for in this case it is
+more blessed to receive than to give. Then only a soft sorrow at such a
+recollection passes through thy heart, and perhaps a quiet tear trickles
+down thy cheek over the faded flowers in which thou once so heartily
+rejoiced. This is enough: we will not pierce our hearts with a thousand
+separate stings, but only bear in mind that all happened as I just now
+said.
+
+Poor Undine was greatly troubled; and the other two were very far from
+being happy. Bertalda in particular, whenever she was in the slightest
+degree opposed in her wishes, attributed the cause to the jealousy and
+oppression of the injured wife. She was therefore daily in the habit of
+showing a haughty and imperious demeanour, to which Undine yielded with
+a sad submission; and which was generally encouraged strongly by the now
+blinded Huldbrand.
+
+What disturbed the inmates of the castle still more, was the endless
+variety of wonderful apparitions which assailed Huldbrand and Bertalda
+in the vaulted passages of the building, and of which nothing had ever
+been heard before within the memory of man. The tall white man, in
+whom Huldbrand but too plainly recognized Undine's uncle Kuhleborn, and
+Bertalda the spectral master of the waterworks, often passed before them
+with threatening aspect and gestures; more especially, however, before
+Bertalda, so that, through terror, she had several times already fallen
+sick, and had, in consequence, frequently thought of quitting the
+castle. Yet partly because Huldbrand was but too dear to her, and she
+trusted to her innocence, since no words of love had passed between
+them, and partly also because she knew not whither to direct her steps,
+she lingered where she was.
+
+The old fisherman, on receiving the message from the lord of Ringstetten
+that Bertalda was his guest, returned answer in some lines almost too
+illegible to be deciphered, but still the best his advanced life and
+long disuse of writing permitted him to form.
+
+"I have now become," he wrote, "a poor old widower, for my beloved and
+faithful wife is dead. But lonely as I now sit in my cottage, I prefer
+Bertalda's remaining where she is, to her living with me. Only let her
+do nothing to hurt my dear Undine, else she will have my curse."
+
+The last words of this letter Bertalda flung to the winds; but the
+permission to remain from home, which her father had granted her, she
+remembered and clung to--just as we are all of us wont to do in similar
+circumstances.
+
+One day, a few moments after Huldbrand had ridden out, Undine called
+together the domestics of the family, and ordered them to bring a large
+stone, and carefully to cover with it a magnificent fountain, that was
+situated in the middle of the castle court. The servants objected that
+it would oblige them to bring water from the valley below. Undine smiled
+sadly.
+
+"I am sorry, my friends," replied she, "to increase your labour; I would
+rather bring up the water-vessels myself: but this fountain must indeed
+be closed. Believe me when I say that it must be done, and that only by
+doing it we can avoid a greater evil."
+
+The domestics were all rejoiced to gratify their gentle mistress; and
+making no further inquiry, they seized the enormous stone. While they
+were raising it in their hands, and were now on the point of adjusting
+it over the fountain, Bertalda came running to the place, and cried,
+with an air of command, that they must stop; that the water she used,
+so improving to her complexion, was brought from this fountain, and that
+she would by no means allow it to be closed.
+
+This time, however, Undine, while she showed her usual gentleness,
+showed more than her usual resolution: she said it belonged to her, as
+mistress of the house, to direct the household according to her best
+judgment; and that she was accountable in this to no one but her lord
+and husband.
+
+"See, O pray see," exclaimed the dissatisfied and indignant Bertalda,
+"how the beautiful water is curling and curving, winding and waving
+there, as if disturbed at being shut out from the bright sunshine, and
+from the cheerful view of the human countenance, for whose mirror it was
+created."
+
+In truth the water of the fountain was agitated, and foaming and hissing
+in a surprising manner; it seemed as if there were something within
+possessing life and will, that was struggling to free itself from
+confinement. But Undine only the more earnestly urged the accomplishment
+of her commands. This earnestness was scarcely required. The servants
+of the castle were as happy in obeying their gentle lady, as in opposing
+the haughty spirit of Bertalda; and however the latter might scold
+and threaten, still the stone was in a few minutes lying firm over the
+opening of the fountain. Undine leaned thoughtfully over it, and wrote
+with her beautiful fingers on the flat surface. She must, however,
+have had something very sharp and corrosive in her hand, for when she
+retired, and the domestics went up to examine the stone, they discovered
+various strange characters upon it, which none of them had seen there
+before.
+
+When the knight returned home, toward evening, Bertalda received him
+with tears, and complaints of Undine's conduct. He cast a severe glance
+of reproach at his poor wife, and she looked down in distress; yet she
+said very calmly:
+
+"My lord and husband, you never reprove even a bondslave before you hear
+his defence; how much less, then, your wedded wife!"
+
+"Speak! what moved you to this singular conduct?" said the knight with a
+gloomy countenance.
+
+"I could wish to tell you when we are entirely alone," said Undine, with
+a sigh.
+
+"You can tell me equally well in the presence of Bertalda," he replied.
+
+"Yes, if you command me," said Undine; "but do not command me--pray,
+pray do not!"
+
+She looked so humble, affectionate, and obedient, that the heart of the
+knight was touched and softened, as if it felt the influence of a ray
+from better times. He kindly took her arm within his, and led her to his
+apartment, where she spoke as follows:
+
+"You already know something, my beloved lord, of Kuhleborn, my
+evil-disposed uncle, and have often felt displeasure at meeting him in
+the passages of this castle. Several times has he terrified Bertalda
+even to swooning. He does this because he possesses no soul, being a
+mere elemental mirror of the outward world, while of the world within
+he can give no reflection. Then, too, he sometimes observes that you
+are displeased with me, that in my childish weakness I weep at this, and
+that Bertalda, it may be, laughs at the same moment. Hence it is that he
+imagines all is wrong with us, and in various ways mixes with our circle
+unbidden. What do I gain by reproving him, by showing displeasure, and
+sending him away? He does not believe a word I say. His poor nature has
+no idea that the joys and sorrows of love have so sweet a resemblance,
+and are so intimately connected that no power on earth is able to
+separate them. A smile shines in the midst of tears, and a smile calls
+forth tears from their dwelling-place."
+
+She looked up at Huldbrand, smiling and weeping, and he again felt
+within his heart all the magic of his former love. She perceived it, and
+pressed him more tenderly to her, while with tears of joy she went on
+thus:
+
+"When the disturber of our peace would not be dismissed with words, I
+was obliged to shut the door upon him; and the only entrance by which
+he has access to us is that fountain. His connection with the other
+water-spirits here in this region is cut off by the valleys that border
+upon us; and his kingdom first commences farther off on the Danube, in
+whose tributary streams some of his good friends have their abode. For
+this reason I caused the stone to be placed over the opening of the
+fountain, and inscribed characters upon it, which baffle all the efforts
+of my suspicious uncle; so that he now has no power of intruding either
+upon you or me, or Bertalda. Human beings, it is true, notwithstanding
+the characters I have inscribed there, are able to raise the stone
+without any extraordinary trouble; there is nothing to prevent them. If
+you choose, therefore, remove it, according to Bertalda's desire; but
+she assuredly knows not what she asks. The rude Kuhleborn looks with
+peculiar ill-will upon her; and should those things come to pass that he
+has predicted to me, and which may happen without your meaning any evil,
+ah! dearest, even you yourself would be exposed to peril."
+
+Huldbrand felt the generosity of his gentle wife in the depth of
+his heart, since she had been so active in confining her formidable
+defender, and even at the very moment she was reproached for it by
+Bertalda. He pressed her in his arms with the tenderest affection, and
+said with emotion:
+
+"The stone shall remain unmoved; all remains, and ever shall remain,
+just as you choose to have it, my sweetest Undine!"
+
+At these long-withheld expressions of tenderness, she returned his
+caresses with lowly delight, and at length said:
+
+"My dearest husband, since you are so kind and indulgent to-day, may I
+venture to ask a favour of you? See now, it is with you as with
+summer. Even amid its highest splendour, summer puts on the flaming and
+thundering crown of glorious tempests, in which it strongly resembles a
+king and god on earth. You, too, are sometimes terrible in your rebukes;
+your eyes flash lightning, while thunder resounds in your voice; and
+although this may be quite becoming to you, I in my folly cannot but
+sometimes weep at it. But never, I entreat you, behave thus toward me
+on a river, or even when we are near any water. For if you should, my
+relations would acquire a right over me. They would inexorably tear me
+from you in their fury, because they would conceive that one of their
+race was injured; and I should be compelled, as long as I lived, to
+dwell below in the crystal palaces, and never dare to ascend to you
+again; or should THEY SEND me up to you!--O God! that would be far worse
+still. No, no, my beloved husband; let it not come to that, if your poor
+Undine is dear to you."
+
+He solemnly promised to do as she desired, and, inexpressibly happy and
+full of affection, the married pair returned from the apartment. At this
+very moment Bertalda came with some work-people whom she had meanwhile
+ordered to attend her, and said with a fretful air, which she had
+assumed of late:
+
+"Well, now the secret consultation is at an end, the stone may be
+removed. Go out, workmen, and see to it."
+
+The knight, however, highly resenting her impertinence, said, in brief
+and very decisive terms: "The stone remains where it is!" He reproved
+Bertalda also for the vehemence that she had shown towards his wife.
+Whereupon the workmen, smiling with secret satisfaction, withdrew; while
+Bertalda, pale with rage, hurried away to her room.
+
+When the hour of supper came, Bertalda was waited for in vain. They sent
+for her; but the domestic found her apartments empty, and brought back
+with him only a sealed letter, addressed to the knight. He opened it in
+alarm, and read:
+
+"I feel with shame that I am only the daughter of a poor fisherman. That
+I for one moment forgot this, I will make expiation in the miserable hut
+of my parents. Farewell to you and your beautiful wife!"
+
+Undine was troubled at heart. With eagerness she entreated Huldbrand to
+hasten after their friend, who had flown, and bring her back with him.
+Alas! she had no occasion to urge him. His passion for Bertalda again
+burst forth with vehemence. He hurried round the castle, inquiring
+whether any one had seen which way the fair fugitive had gone. He
+could gain no information; and was already in the court on his horse,
+determining to take at a venture the road by which he had conducted
+Bertalda to the castle, when there appeared a page, who assured him that
+he had met the lady on the path to the Black Valley. Swift as an arrow,
+the knight sprang through the gate in the direction pointed out, without
+hearing Undine's voice of agony, as she cried after him from the window:
+
+"To the Black Valley? Oh, not there! Huldbrand, not there! Or if you
+will go, for Heaven's sake take me with you!"
+
+But when she perceived that all her calling was of no avail, she ordered
+her white palfrey to be instantly saddled, and followed the knight,
+without permitting a single servant to accompany her.
+
+The Black Valley lies secluded far among the mountains. What its present
+name may be I am unable to say. At the time of which I am speaking, the
+country-people gave it this appellation from the deep obscurity produced
+by the shadows of lofty trees, more especially by a crowded growth of
+firs that covered this region of moorland. Even the brook, which bubbled
+between the rocks, assumed the same dark hue, and showed nothing of that
+cheerful aspect which streams are wont to wear that have the blue sky
+immediately over them.
+
+It was now the dusk of evening; and between the heights it had become
+extremely wild and gloomy. The knight, in great anxiety, skirted the
+border of the brook. He was at one time fearful that, by delay, he
+should allow the fugitive to advance too far before him; and then again,
+in his too eager rapidity, he was afraid he might somewhere overlook
+and pass by her, should she be desirous of concealing herself from his
+search. He had in the meantime penetrated pretty far into the valley,
+and might hope soon to overtake the maiden, provided he were pursuing
+the right track. The fear, indeed, that he might not as yet have gained
+it, made his heart beat with more and more of anxiety. In the stormy
+night which was now approaching, and which always fell more fearfully
+over this valley, where would the delicate Bertalda shelter herself,
+should he fail to find her? At last, while these thoughts were darting
+across his mind, he saw something white glimmer through the branches on
+the ascent of the mountain. He thought he recognized Bertalda's robe;
+and he directed his course towards it. But his horse refused to go
+forward; he reared with a fury so uncontrollable, and his master was so
+unwilling to lose a moment, that (especially as he saw the thickets were
+altogether impassable on horseback) he dismounted, and, having fastened
+his snorting steed to an elm, worked his way with caution through the
+matted underwood. The branches, moistened by the cold drops of the
+evening dew, struck against his forehead and cheeks; distant thunder
+muttered from the further side of the mountains; and everything put on
+so strange an appearance, that he began to feel a dread of the white
+figure, which now lay at a short distance from him upon the ground.
+Still, he could see distinctly that it was a female, either asleep or
+in a swoon, and dressed in long white garments such as Bertalda had worn
+the past day. Approaching quite near to her, he made a rustling with the
+branches and a ringing with his sword; but she did not move.
+
+"Bertalda!" he cried, at first low, then louder and louder; yet she
+heard him not. At last, when he uttered the dear name with an energy yet
+more powerful, a hollow echo from the mountain-summits around the valley
+returned the deadened sound, "Bertalda!" Still the sleeper continued
+insensible. He stooped down; but the duskiness of the valley, and the
+obscurity of twilight would not allow him to distinguish her features.
+While, with painful uncertainty, he was bending over her, a flash of
+lightning suddenly shot across the valley. By this stream of light he
+saw a frightfully distorted visage close to his own, and a hoarse voice
+reached his ear:
+
+"You enamoured swain, give me a kiss!" Huldbrand sprang upon his feet
+with a cry of horror, and the hideous figure rose with him.
+
+"Go home!" it cried, with a deep murmur: "the fiends are abroad. Go
+home! or I have you!" And it stretched towards him its long white arms.
+
+"Malicious Kuhleborn!" exclaimed the knight, with restored energy; "if
+Kuhleborn you are, what business have you here?--what's your will, you
+goblin? There, take your kiss!" And in fury he struck his sword at the
+form. But it vanished like vapour; and a rush of water, which wetted
+him through and through, left him in no doubt with what foe he had been
+engaged.
+
+"He wishes to frighten me back from my pursuit of Bertalda," said he to
+himself. "He imagines that I shall be terrified at his senseless tricks,
+and resign the poor distressed maiden to his power, so that he can wreak
+his vengeance upon her at will. But that he shall not, weak spirit of
+the flood! What the heart of man can do, when it exerts the full force
+of its will and of its noblest powers, the poor goblin cannot fathom."
+
+He felt the truth of his words, and that they had inspired his heart
+with fresh courage. Fortune, too, appeared to favour him; for, before
+reaching his fastened steed, he distinctly heard the voice of Bertalda,
+weeping not far before him, amid the roar of the thunder and the
+tempest, which every moment increased. He flew swiftly towards the
+sound, and found the trembling maiden, just as she was attempting to
+climb the steep, hoping to escape from the dreadful darkness of this
+valley. He drew near her with expressions of love; and bold and proud as
+her resolution had so lately been, she now felt nothing but joy that the
+man whom she so passionately loved should rescue her from this frightful
+solitude, and thus call her back to the joyful life in the castle. She
+followed almost unresisting, but so spent with fatigue, that the knight
+was glad to bring her to his horse, which he now hastily unfastened from
+the elm, in order to lift the fair wanderer upon him, and then to lead
+him carefully by the reins through the uncertain shades of the valley.
+
+But, owing to the wild apparition of Kuhleborn, the horse had become
+wholly unmanageable. Rearing and wildly snorting as he was, the knight
+must have used uncommon effort to mount the beast himself; to place
+the trembling Bertalda upon him was impossible. They were compelled,
+therefore, to return home on foot. While with one hand the knight drew
+the steed after him by the bridle, he supported the tottering Bertalda
+with the other. She exerted all the strengths in her power in order to
+escape speedily from this vale of terrors. But weariness weighed her
+down like lead; and all her limbs trembled, partly in consequence
+of what she had suffered from the extreme terror which Kuhleborn had
+already caused her, and partly from her present fear at the roar of the
+tempest and thunder amid the mountain forest.
+
+At last she slid from the arm of the knight; and sinking upon the moss,
+she said: "Only let me lie here, my noble lord. I suffer the punishment
+due to my folly; and I must perish here through faintness and dismay."
+
+"Never, gentle lady, will I leave you," cried Huldbrand, vainly trying
+to restrain the furious animal he was leading, for the horse was all
+in a foam, and began to chafe more ungovernably than before, till the
+knight was glad to keep him at such a distance from the exhausted maiden
+as to save her from a new alarm. But hardly had he withdrawn five steps
+with the frantic steed when she began to call after him in the most
+sorrowful accents, fearful that he would actually leave her in this
+horrible wilderness. He was at a loss what course to take. He would
+gladly have given the enraged beast his liberty; he would have let him
+rush away amid the night and exhaust his fury, had he not feared that
+in this narrow defile his iron-shod hoofs might come thundering over the
+very spot where Bertalda lay.
+
+In this extreme peril and embarrassment he heard with delight the
+rumbling wheels of a waggon as it came slowly descending the stony way
+behind them. He called out for help; answer was returned in the deep
+voice of a man, bidding them have patience, but promising assistance;
+and two grey horses soon after shone through the bushes, and near them
+their driver in the white frock of a carter; and next appeared a great
+sheet of white linen, with which the goods he seemed to be conveying
+were covered. The greys, in obedience to a shout from their master,
+stood still. He came up to the knight, and aided him in checking the
+fury of the foaming charger.
+
+"I know well enough," said he, "what is the matter with the brute.
+The first time I travelled this way my horses were just as wilful and
+headstrong as yours. The reason is, there is a water-spirit haunts this
+valley--and a wicked wight they say he is--who takes delight in mischief
+and witcheries of this sort. But I have learned a charm; and if you will
+let me whisper it in your horse's ear, he will stand just as quiet as my
+silver greys there."
+
+"Try your luck, then, and help us as quickly as possible!" said the
+impatient knight.
+
+Upon this the waggoner drew down the head of the rearing courser close
+to his own, and spoke some words in his ear. The animal instantly stood
+still and subdued; only his quick panting and smoking sweat showed his
+recent violence.
+
+Huldbrand had little time to inquire by what means this had been
+effected. He agreed with the man that he should take Bertalda in his
+waggon, where, as he said, a quantity of soft cotton was stowed, and
+he might in this way convey her to Castle Ringstetten. The knight could
+accompany them on horseback. But the horse appeared to be too much
+exhausted to carry his master so far. Seeing this, the man advised him
+to mount the waggon with Bertalda. The horse could be attached to it
+behind.
+
+"It is down-hill," said he, "and the load for my greys will therefore be
+light."
+
+The knight accepted his offer, and entered the waggon with Bertalda.
+The horse followed patiently after, while the waggoner, sturdy and
+attentive, walked beside them.
+
+Amid the silence and deepening obscurity of the night, the tempest
+sounding more and more remote, in the comfortable feeling of their
+security, a confidential conversation arose between Huldbrand and
+Bertalda. He reproached her in the most flattering words for her
+resentful flight. She excused herself with humility and feeling; and
+from every tone of her voice it shone out, like a lamp guiding to the
+beloved through night and darkness, that Huldbrand was still dear to
+her. The knight felt the sense of her words rather than heard the words
+themselves, and answered simply to this sense.
+
+Then the waggoner suddenly shouted, with a startling voice: "Up,
+my greys, up with your feet! Hey, now together!--show your
+spirit!--remember who you are!"
+
+The knight bent over the side of the waggon, and saw that the horses
+had stepped into the midst of a foaming stream, and were, indeed, almost
+swimming, while the wheels of the waggon were rushing round and flashing
+like mill-wheels; and the waggoner had got on before, to avoid the swell
+of the flood.
+
+"What sort of a road is this? It leads into the middle of the stream!"
+cried Huldbrand to his guide.
+
+"Not at all, sir," returned he, with a laugh; "it is just the contrary.
+The stream is running in the middle of our road. Only look about you,
+and see how all is overflowed!"
+
+The whole valley, in fact, was in commotion, as the waters, suddenly
+raised and visibly rising, swept over it.
+
+"It is Kuhleborn, that evil water-spirit, who wishes to drown us!"
+exclaimed the knight. "Have you no charm of protection against him,
+friend?"
+
+"I have one," answered the waggoner; "but I cannot and must not make use
+of it before you know who I am."
+
+"Is this a time for riddles?" cried the knight. "The flood is every
+moment rising higher; and what does it concern ME to know who YOU are?"
+
+"But mayhap it does concern you, though," said the guide; "for I am
+Kuhleborn."
+
+Thus speaking he thrust his head into the waggon, and laughed with a
+distorted visage. But the waggon remained a waggon no longer; the grey
+horses were horses no longer; all was transformed to foam--all sank
+into the waters that rushed and hissed around them; while the
+waggoner himself, rising in the form of a gigantic wave, dragged the
+vainly-struggling courser under the waters, then rose again huge as a
+liquid tower, swept over the heads of the floating pair, and was on the
+point of burying them irrecoverably beneath it. Then the soft voice of
+Undine was heard through the uproar; the moon emerged from the clouds;
+and by its light Undine was seen on the heights above the valley.
+She rebuked, she threatened the floods below her. The menacing and
+tower-like billow vanished, muttering and murmuring; the waters gently
+flowed away under the beams of the moon; while Undine, like a hovering
+white dove, flew down from the hill, raised the knight and Bertalda,
+and bore them to a green spot, where, by her earnest efforts, she soon
+restored them and dispelled their terrors. She then assisted Bertalda
+to mount the white palfrey on which she had herself been borne to the
+valley; and thus all three returned homeward to Castle Ringstetten.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+
+
+After this last adventure they lived at the castle undisturbed and in
+peaceful enjoyment. The knight was more and more impressed with the
+heavenly goodness of his wife, which she had so nobly shown by her
+instant pursuit and by the rescue she had effected in the Black Valley,
+where the power of Kuhleborn again commenced. Undine herself enjoyed
+that peace and security which never fails the soul as long as it
+knows distinctly that it is on the right path; and besides, in the
+newly-awakened love and regard of her husband, a thousand gleams of hope
+and joy shone upon her.
+
+Bertalda, on the other hand, showed herself grateful, humble, and timid,
+without taking to herself any merit for so doing. Whenever Huldbrand or
+Undine began to explain to her their reasons for covering the fountain,
+or their adventures in the Black Valley, she would earnestly entreat
+them to spare her the recital, for the recollection of the fountain
+occasioned her too much shame, and that of the Black Valley too much
+terror. She learnt nothing more about either of them; and what would
+she have gained from more knowledge? Peace and joy had visibly taken up
+their abode at Castle Ringstetten. They enjoyed their present blessings
+in perfect security, and now imagined that life could produce nothing
+but pleasant flowers and fruits.
+
+In this happiness winter came and passed away; and spring, with its
+foliage of tender green, and its heaven of softest blue, succeeded to
+gladden the hearts of the three inmates of the castle. The season was in
+harmony with their minds, and their minds imparted their own hues to the
+season. What wonder, then, that its storks and swallows inspired them
+also with a disposition to travel? On a bright morning, while they were
+wandering down to one of the sources of the Danube, Huldbrand spoke of
+the magnificence of this noble stream, how it continued swelling as it
+flowed through countries enriched by its waters, with what splendour
+Vienna rose and sparkled on its banks, and how it grew lovelier and more
+imposing throughout its progress.
+
+"It must be glorious to trace its course down to Vienna!" Bertalda
+exclaimed, with warmth; but immediately resuming the humble and modest
+demeanour she had recently shown, she paused and blushed in silence.
+
+This much moved Undine; and with the liveliest wish to gratify her
+friend, she said, "What hinders our taking this little voyage?"
+
+Bertalda leapt up with delight, and the two friends at the same
+moment began painting this enchanting voyage on the Danube in the most
+brilliant colours. Huldbrand, too, agreed to the project with pleasure;
+only he once whispered, with something of alarm, in Undine's ear--
+
+"But at that distance Kuhleborn becomes possessed of his power again!"
+
+"Let him come, let him come," she answered with a laugh; "I shall be
+there, and he dares do none of his mischief in my presence."
+
+Thus was the last impediment removed. They prepared for the expedition,
+and soon set out upon it with lively spirits and the brightest hopes.
+
+But be not surprised, O man, if events almost always happen very
+differently from what you expect. That malicious power which lies in
+ambush for our destruction delights to lull its chosen victim asleep
+with sweet songs and golden delusions; while, on the other hand, the
+messenger of heaven often strikes sharply at our door, to alarm and
+awaken us.
+
+During the first days of their passage down the Danube they were
+unusually happy. The further they advanced upon the waters of this proud
+river, the views became more and more fair. But amid scenes otherwise
+most delicious, and from which they had promised themselves the purest
+delight, the stubborn Kuhleborn, dropping all disguise, began to show
+his power of annoying them. He had no other means of doing this, indeed,
+than by tricks--for Undine often rebuked the swelling waves or the
+contrary winds, and then the insolence of the enemy was instantly
+humbled and subdued; but his attacks were renewed, and Undine's reproofs
+again became necessary, so that the pleasure of the fellow-travellers
+was completely destroyed. The boatmen, too, were continually whispering
+to one another in dismay, and eying their three superiors with distrust,
+while even the servants began more and more to form dismal surmises, and
+to watch their master and mistress with looks of suspicion.
+
+Huldbrand often said in his own mind, "This comes when like marries not
+like--when a man forms an unnatural union with a sea-maiden." Excusing
+himself, as we all love to do, he would add: "I did not, in fact, know
+that she was a maid of the sea. It is my misfortune that my steps are
+haunted and disturbed by the wild humours of her kindred, but it is not
+my crime."
+
+By reflections like these, he felt himself in some measure strengthened;
+but, on the other hand, he felt the more ill-humour, almost dislike,
+towards Undine. He would look angrily at her, and the unhappy wife but
+too well understood his meaning. One day, grieved by this unkindness, as
+well as exhausted by her unremitted exertions to frustrate the artifices
+of Kuhleborn, she toward evening fell into a deep slumber, rocked and
+soothed by the gentle motion of the bark. But hardly had she closed
+her eyes, when every person in the boat, in whatever direction he might
+look, saw the head of a man, frightful beyond imagination: each head
+rose out of the waves, not like that of a person swimming, but quite
+perpendicular, as if firmly fastened to the watery mirror, and yet
+moving on with the bark. Every one wished to show to his companion what
+terrified himself, and each perceived the same expression of horror on
+the face of the other, only hands and eyes were directed to a different
+quarter, as if to a point where the monster, half laughing and half
+threatening, rose opposite to each.
+
+When, however, they wished to make one another understand the site,
+and all cried out, "Look, there!" "No, there!" the frightful heads all
+became visible to each, and the whole river around the boat swarmed with
+the most horrible faces. All raised a scream of terror at the sight, and
+Undine started from sleep. As she opened her eyes, the deformed visages
+disappeared. But Huldbrand was made furious by so many hideous visions.
+He would have burst out in wild imprecations, had not Undine with the
+meekest looks and gentlest tone of voice said--
+
+"For God's sake, my husband, do not express displeasure against me
+here--we are on the water."
+
+The knight was silent, and sat down absorbed in deep thought. Undine
+whispered in his ear, "Would it not be better, my love, to give up this
+foolish voyage, and return to Castle Ringstetten in peace?"
+
+But Huldbrand murmured wrathfully: "So I must become a prisoner in
+my own castle, and not be allowed to breathe a moment but while the
+fountain is covered? Would to Heaven that your cursed kindred--"
+
+Then Undine pressed her fair hand on his lips caressingly. He said no
+more; but in silence pondered on all that Undine had before said.
+
+Bertalda, meanwhile, had given herself up to a crowd of thronging
+thoughts. Of Undine's origin she knew a good deal, but not the whole;
+and the terrible Kuhleborn especially remained to her an awful, an
+impenetrable mystery--never, indeed, had she once heard his name. Musing
+upon these wondrous things, she unclasped, without being fully conscious
+of what she was doing, a golden necklace, which Huldbrand, on one of
+the preceding days of their passage, had bought for her of a travelling
+trader; and she was now letting it float in sport just over the
+surface of the stream, while in her dreamy mood she enjoyed the bright
+reflection it threw on the water, so clear beneath the glow of evening.
+That instant a huge hand flashed suddenly up from the Danube, seized the
+necklace in its grasp, and vanished with it beneath the flood. Bertalda
+shrieked aloud, and a scornful laugh came pealing up from the depth of
+the river.
+
+The knight could now restrain his wrath no longer. He started up, poured
+forth a torrent of reproaches, heaped curses upon all who interfered
+with his friends and troubled his life, and dared them all,
+water-spirits or mermaids, to come within the sweep of his sword.
+
+Bertalda, meantime, wept for the loss of the ornament so very dear to
+her heart, and her tears were to Huldbrand as oil poured upon the flame
+of his fury; while Undine held her hand over the side of the boat,
+dipping it in the waves, softly murmuring to herself, and only at times
+interrupting her strange mysterious whisper to entreat her husband--
+
+"Do not reprove me here, beloved; blame all others as you will, but not
+me. You know why!" And in truth, though he was trembling with excess of
+passion, he kept himself from any word directly against her.
+
+She then brought up in her wet hand, which she had been holding under
+the waves, a coral necklace, of such exquisite beauty, such sparkling
+brilliancy, as dazzled the eyes of all who beheld it. "Take this," said
+she, holding it out kindly to Bertalda, "I have ordered it to be brought
+to make some amends for your loss; so do not grieve any more, poor
+child."
+
+But the knight rushed between then, and snatching the beautiful ornament
+out of Undine's hand, hurled it back into the flood; and, mad with rage,
+exclaimed: "So, then, you have still a connection with them! In the
+name of all witches go and remain among them with your presents, you
+sorceress, and leave us human beings in peace!"
+
+With fixed but streaming eyes, poor Undine gazed on him, her hand still
+stretched out, just as when she had so lovingly offered her brilliant
+gift to Bertalda. She then began to weep more and more, as if her heart
+would break, like an innocent tender child, cruelly aggrieved. At last,
+wearied out, she said: "Farewell, dearest, farewell. They shall do you
+no harm; only remain true, that I may have power to keep them from you.
+But I must go hence! go hence even in this early youth! Oh, woe, woe!
+what have you done! Oh, woe, woe!"
+
+And she vanished over the side of the boat. Whether she plunged into the
+stream, or whether, like water melting into water, she flowed away with
+it, they knew not--her disappearance was like both and neither. But she
+was lost in the Danube, instantly and completely; only little waves were
+yet whispering and sobbing around the boat, and they could almost be
+heard to say, "Oh, woe, woe! Ah, remain true! Oh, woe!"
+
+But Huldbrand, in a passion of burning tears, threw himself upon the
+deck of the bark; and a deep swoon soon wrapped the wretched man in a
+blessed forgetfulness of misery.
+
+Shall we call it a good or an evil thing, that our mourning has no
+long duration? I mean that deep mourning which comes from the very
+well-springs of our being, which so becomes one with the lost objects
+of our love that we hardly realize their loss, while our grief devotes
+itself religiously to the honouring of their image until we reach that
+bourne which they have already reached!
+
+Truly all good men observe in a degree this religious devotion; but yet
+it soon ceases to be that first deep grief. Other and new images throng
+in, until, to our sorrow, we experience the vanity of all earthly
+things. Therefore I must say: Alas, that our mourning should be of such
+short duration!
+
+The lord of Ringstetten experienced this; but whether for his good,
+we shall discover in the sequel of this history. At first he could do
+nothing but weep--weep as bitterly as the poor gentle Undine had wept
+when he snatched out of her hand that brilliant ornament, with which
+she so kindly wished to make amends for Bertalda's loss. And then he
+stretched his hand out, as she had done, and wept again like her, with
+renewed violence. He cherished a secret hope, that even the springs of
+life would at last become exhausted by weeping. And has not the like
+thought passed through the minds of many of us with a painful pleasure
+in times of sore affliction? Bertalda wept with him; and they lived
+together a long while at the castle of Ringstetten in undisturbed quiet,
+honouring the memory of Undine, and having almost wholly forgotten their
+former attachment. And therefore the good Undine, about this time, often
+visited Huldbrand's dreams: she soothed him with soft and affectionate
+caresses, and then went away again, weeping in silence; so that when he
+awoke, he sometimes knew not how his cheeks came to be so wet--whether
+it was caused by her tears, or only by his own.
+
+But as time advanced, these visions became less frequent, and the sorrow
+of the knight less keen; still he might never, perhaps, have entertained
+any other wish than thus quietly to think of Undine, and to speak of
+her, had not the old fisherman arrived unexpectedly at the castle, and
+earnestly insisted on Bertalda's returning with him as his child. He had
+received information of Undine's disappearance; and he was not willing
+to allow Bertalda to continue longer at the castle with the widowed
+knight. "For," said he, "whether my daughter loves me or not is at
+present what I care not to know; but her good name is at stake: and
+where that is the case, nothing else may be thought of."
+
+This resolution of the old fisherman, and the fearful solitude that, on
+Bertalda's departure, threatened to oppress the knight in every hall and
+passage of the deserted castle, brought to light what had disappeared in
+his sorrow for Undine,--I mean, his attachment to the fair Bertalda; and
+this he made known to her father.
+
+The fisherman had many objections to make to the proposed marriage. The
+old man had loved Undine with exceeding tenderness, and it was doubtful
+to his mind that the mere disappearance of his beloved child could be
+properly viewed as her death. But were it even granted that her corpse
+were lying stiff and cold at the bottom of the Danube, or swept away
+by the current to the ocean, still Bertalda had had some share in her
+death; and it was unfitting for her to step into the place of the poor
+injured wife. The fisherman, however, had felt a strong regard also for
+the knight: this and the entreaties of his daughter, who had become much
+more gentle and respectful, as well as her tears for Undine, all exerted
+their influence, and he must at last have been forced to give up his
+opposition, for he remained at the castle without objection, and a
+messenger was sent off express to Father Heilmann, who in former and
+happier days had united Undine and Huldbrand, requesting him to come and
+perform the ceremony at the knight's second marriage.
+
+Hardly had the holy man read through the letter from the lord of
+Ringstetten, ere he set out upon the journey and made much greater
+dispatch on his way to the castle than the messenger from it had made in
+reaching him. Whenever his breath failed him in his rapid progress, or
+his old limbs ached with fatigue, he would say to himself:
+
+"Perhaps I shall be able to prevent a sin; then sink not, withered body,
+before I arrive at the end of my journey!" And with renewed vigour he
+pressed forward, hurrying on without rest or repose, until, late one
+evening, he entered the shady court-yard of the castle of Ringstetten.
+
+The betrothed were sitting side by side under the trees, and the aged
+fisherman in a thoughtful mood sat near them. The moment they saw Father
+Heilmann, they rose with a spring of joy, and pressed round him with
+eager welcome. But he, in a few words, asked the bridegroom to return
+with him into the castle; and when Huldbrand stood mute with surprise,
+and delayed complying with his earnest request, the pious preacher said
+to him--
+
+"I do not know why I should want to speak to you in private; what I have
+to say as much concerns Bertalda and the fisherman as yourself; and what
+we must at some time hear, it is best to hear as soon as possible. Are
+you, then, so very certain, Knight Huldbrand, that your first wife is
+actually dead? I can hardly think it. I will say nothing, indeed, of the
+mysterious state in which she may be now existing; I know nothing of
+it with certainty. But that she was a most devoted and faithful wife is
+beyond all dispute. And for fourteen nights past, she has appeared to me
+in a dream, standing at my bedside wringing her tender hands in anguish,
+and sighing out, 'Ah, prevent him, dear father! I am still living! Ah,
+save his life! Ah, save his soul!'
+
+"I did not understand what this vision of the night could mean, then
+came your messenger; and I have now hastened hither, not to unite, but,
+as I hope, to separate what ought not to be joined together. Leave her,
+Huldbrand! leave him, Bertalda! He still belongs to another; and do you
+not see on his pale cheek his grief for his lost wife? That is not the
+look of a bridegroom; and the spirit says to me, that 'if you do not
+leave him you will never be happy!'"
+
+The three felt in their inmost hearts that Father Heilmann spoke the
+truth; but they would not believe it. Even the old fisherman was so
+infatuated, that he thought it could not be otherwise than as they
+had latterly settled amongst themselves. They all, therefore, with a
+determined and gloomy eagerness, struggled against the representations
+and warnings of the priest, until, shaking his head and oppressed with
+sorrow, he finally quitted the castle, not choosing to accept their
+offered shelter even for a single night, or indeed so much as to taste a
+morsel of the refreshment they brought him. Huldbrand persuaded himself,
+however, that the priest was a mere visionary; and sent at daybreak to a
+monk of the nearest monastery, who, without scruple, promised to perform
+the ceremony in a few days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+
+
+It was between night and dawn of day that Huldbrand was lying on his
+couch, half waking and half sleeping. Whenever he attempted to compose
+himself to sleep, a terror came upon him and scared him, as if his
+slumbers were haunted with spectres. But he made an effort to rouse
+himself fully. He felt fanned as by the wings of a swan, and lulled as
+by the murmuring of waters, till in sweet confusion of the senses he
+sank back into his state of half-consciousness.
+
+At last, however, he must have fallen perfectly asleep; for he seemed to
+be lifted up by wings of the swans, and to be wafted far away over land
+and sea, while their music swelled on his ear most sweetly. "The music
+of the swan! the song of the swan!" he could not but repeat to himself
+every moment; "is it not a sure foreboding of death?" Probably, however,
+it had yet another meaning. All at once he seemed to be hovering over
+the Mediterranean Sea. A swan sang melodiously in his ear, that this
+was the Mediterranean Sea. And while he was looking down upon the waves,
+they became transparent as crystal, so that he could see through them to
+the very bottom.
+
+At this a thrill of delight shot through him, for he could see Undine
+where she was sitting beneath the clear crystal dome. It is true she was
+weeping very bitterly, and looked much sadder than in those happy days
+when they lived together at the castle of Ringstetten, both on their
+arrival and afterward, just before they set out upon their fatal passage
+down the Danube. The knight could not help thinking upon all this
+with deep emotion, but it did not appear that Undine was aware of his
+presence.
+
+Kuhleborn had meanwhile approached her, and was about to reprove her for
+weeping, when she drew herself up, and looked upon him with an air so
+majestic and commanding, that he almost shrank back.
+
+"Although I now dwell here beneath the waters," said she, "yet I have
+brought my soul with me. And therefore I may weep, little as you can
+know what such tears are. They are blessed, as everything is blessed to
+one gifted with a true soul."
+
+He shook his head incredulously; and after some thought, replied, "And
+yet, niece, you are subject to our laws, as a being of the same nature
+with ourselves; and should HE prove unfaithful to you and marry again,
+you are obliged to take away his life."
+
+"He remains a widower to this very hour," replied Undine, "and I am
+still dear to his sorrowful heart."
+
+"He is, however, betrothed," said Kuhleborn, with a laugh of scorn;
+"and let only a few days wear away, and then comes the priest with his
+nuptial blessing; and then you must go up to the death of the husband
+with two wives."
+
+"I have not the power," returned Undine, with a smile. "I have sealed up
+the fountain securely against myself and all of my race."
+
+"Still, should he leave his castle," said Kuhleborn, "or should he once
+allow the fountain to be uncovered, what then? for he thinks little
+enough of these things."
+
+"For that very reason," said Undine, still smiling amid her tears,
+"for that very reason he is at this moment hovering in spirit over the
+Mediterranean Sea, and dreaming of the warning which our discourse gives
+him. I thoughtfully planned all this."
+
+That instant, Kuhleborn, inflamed with rage, looked up at the knight,
+wrathfully threatened him, stamped on the ground, and then shot like an
+arrow beneath the waves. He seemed to swell in his fury to the size of
+a whale. Again the swans began to sing, to wave their wings and fly; the
+knight seemed to soar away over mountains and streams, and at last to
+alight at Castle Ringstetten, and to awake on his couch.
+
+Upon his couch he actually did awake; and his attendant entering at the
+same moment, informed him that Father Heilmann was still lingering in
+the neighbourhood; that he had the evening before met with him in the
+forest, where he was sheltering himself under a hut, which he had formed
+by interweaving the branches of trees, and covering them with moss and
+fine brushwood; and that to the question "What he was doing there, since
+he would not give the marriage blessing?" his answer was--
+
+"There are many other blessings than those given at marriages; and
+though I did not come to officiate at the wedding, I may still officiate
+at a very different solemnity. All things have their seasons; we must
+be ready for them all. Besides, marrying and mourning are by no means so
+very unlike; as every one not wilfully blinded must know full well."
+
+The knight made many bewildered reflections on these words and on his
+dream. But it is very difficult to give up a thing which we have
+once looked upon as certain; so all continued as had been arranged
+previously.
+
+Should I relate to you how passed the marriage-feast at Castle
+Ringstetten, it would be as if you saw a heap of bright and pleasant
+things, but all overspread with a black mourning crape, through whose
+darkening veil their brilliancy would appear but a mockery of the
+nothingness of all earthly joys.
+
+It was not that any spectral delusion disturbed the scene of festivity;
+for the castle, as we well know, had been secured against the mischief
+of water-spirits. But the knight, the fisherman, and all the guests were
+unable to banish the feeling that the chief personage of the feast was
+still wanting, and that this chief personage could be no other than the
+gentle and beloved Undine.
+
+Whenever a door was heard to open, all eyes were involuntarily turned in
+that direction; and if it was nothing but the steward with new dishes,
+or the cupbearer with a supply of wine of higher flavour than the last,
+they again looked down in sadness and disappointment, while the flashes
+of wit and merriment which had been passing at times from one to
+another, were extinguished by tears of mournful remembrance.
+
+The bride was the least thoughtful of the company, and therefore the
+most happy; but even to her it sometimes seemed strange that she
+should be sitting at the head of the table, wearing a green wreath and
+gold-embroidered robe, while Undine was lying a corpse, stiff and cold,
+at the bottom of the Danube, or carried out by the current into the
+ocean. For ever since her father had suggested something of this
+sort, his words were continually sounding in her ear; and this day, in
+particular, they would neither fade from her memory, nor yield to other
+thoughts.
+
+Evening had scarcely arrived, when the company returned to their homes;
+not dismissed by the impatience of the bridegroom, as wedding parties
+are sometimes broken up, but constrained solely by heavy sadness and
+forebodings of evil. Bertalda retired with her maidens, and the knight
+with his attendants, to undress, but there was no gay laughing company
+of bridesmaids and bridesmen at this mournful festival.
+
+Bertalda wished to awaken more cheerful thoughts; she ordered her
+maidens to spread before her a brilliant set of jewels, a present from
+Huldbrand, together with rich apparel and veils, that she might select
+from among them the brightest and most beautiful for her dress in the
+morning. The attendants rejoiced at this opportunity of pouring forth
+good wishes and promises of happiness to their young mistress, and
+failed not to extol the beauty of the bride with the most glowing
+eloquence. This went on for a long time, until Bertalda at last, looking
+in a mirror, said with a sigh--
+
+"Ah, but do you not see plainly how freckled I am growing? Look here on
+the side of my neck."
+
+They looked at the place, and found the freckles, indeed, as their fair
+mistress had said; but they called them mere beauty spots, the faintest
+touches of the sun, such as would only heighten the whiteness of her
+delicate complexion. Bertalda shook her head, and still viewed them as a
+blemish. "And I could remove them," she said at last, sighing. "But
+the castle fountain is covered, from which I formerly used to have that
+precious water, so purifying to the skin. Oh, had I this evening only a
+single flask of it!"
+
+"Is that all?" cried an alert waiting-maid, laughing as she glided out
+of the apartment.
+
+"She will not be so foolish," said Bertalda, well-pleased and surprised,
+"as to cause the stone cover of the fountain to be taken off this very
+evening?" That instant they heard the tread of men passing along the
+court-yard, and could see from the window where the officious maiden was
+leading them directly up to the fountain, and that they carried levers
+and other instruments on their shoulders.
+
+"It is certainly my will," said Bertalda with a smile, "if it does not
+take them too long." And pleased with the thought, that a word from her
+was now sufficient to accomplish what had formerly been refused with
+a painful reproof, she looked down upon their operations in the bright
+moonlit castle-court.
+
+The men raised the enormous stone with an effort; some one of the number
+indeed would occasionally sigh, when he recollected they were destroying
+the work of their former beloved mistress. Their labour, however, was
+much lighter than they had expected. It seemed as if some power from
+within the fountain itself aided them in raising the stone.
+
+"It appears," said the workmen to one another in astonishment, "as if
+the confined water had become a springing fountain." And the stone rose
+more and more, and, almost without the assistance of the work-people,
+rolled slowly down upon the pavement with a hollow sound. But an
+appearance from the opening of the fountain filled them with awe, as it
+rose like a white column of water; at first they imagined it really to
+be a fountain, until they perceived the rising form to be a pale female,
+veiled in white. She wept bitterly, raised her hands above her head,
+wringing them sadly as with slow and solemn step she moved toward the
+castle. The servants shrank back, and fled from the spring, while the
+bride, pale and motionless with horror, stood with her maidens at the
+window. When the figure had now come close beneath their room, it looked
+up to them sobbing, and Bertalda thought she recognized through the
+veil the pale features of Undine. But the mourning form passed on,
+sad, reluctant, and lingering, as if going to the place of execution.
+Bertalda screamed to her maids to call the knight; not one of them dared
+to stir from her place; and even the bride herself became again mute, as
+if trembling at the sound of her own voice.
+
+While they continued standing at the window, motionless as statues,
+the mysterious wanderer had entered the castle, ascended the well-known
+stairs, and traversed the well-known halls in silent tears. Alas, how
+different had she once passed through these rooms!
+
+The knight had in the meantime dismissed his attendants. Half-undressed
+and in deep dejection, he was standing before a large mirror, a wax
+taper burned dimly beside him. At this moment some one tapped at his
+door very, very softly. Undine had formerly tapped in this way, when she
+was playing some of her endearing wiles.
+
+"It is all an illusion!" said he to himself. "I must to my nuptial bed."
+
+"You must indeed, but to a cold one!" he heard a voice, choked with
+sobs, repeat from without; and then he saw in the mirror, that the door
+of his room was slowly, slowly opened, and the white figure entered, and
+gently closed it behind her.
+
+"They have opened the spring," said she in a low tone; "and now I am
+here, and you must die."
+
+He felt, in his failing breath, that this must indeed be; but covering
+his eyes with his hands, he cried: "Do not in my death-hour, do not make
+me mad with terror. If that veil conceals hideous features, do not lift
+it! Take my life, but let me not see you."
+
+"Alas!" replied the pale figure, "will you not then look upon me once
+more? I am as fair now as when you wooed me on the island!"
+
+"Oh, if it indeed were so," sighed Huldbrand, "and that I might die by a
+kiss from you!"
+
+"Most willingly, my own love," said she. She threw back her veil;
+heavenly fair shone forth her pure countenance. Trembling with love and
+the awe of approaching death, the knight leant towards her. She kissed
+him with a holy kiss; but she relaxed not her hold, pressing him more
+closely in her arms, and weeping as if she would weep away her soul.
+Tears rushed into the knight's eyes, while a thrill both of bliss and
+agony shot through his heart, until he at last expired, sinking softly
+back from her fair arms upon the pillow of his couch a corpse.
+
+"I have wept him to death!" said she to some domestics, who met her
+in the ante-chamber; and passing through the terrified group, she went
+slowly out, and disappeared in the fountain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+
+
+Father Heilmann had returned to the castle as soon as the death of the
+lord of Ringstetten was made known in the neighbourhood; and he arrived
+at the very hour when the monk who had married the unfortunate couple
+was hurrying from the door, overcome with dismay and horror.
+
+When Father Heilmann was informed of this, he replied, "It is all well;
+and now come the duties of my office, in which I have no need of an
+assistant."
+
+He then began to console the bride, now a widow though with little
+benefit to her worldly and thoughtless spirit.
+
+The old fisherman, on the other hand, though severely afflicted, was
+far more resigned to the fate of his son-in-law and daughter; and while
+Bertalda could not refrain from accusing Undine as a murderess and
+sorceress, the old man calmly said, "After all, it could not happen
+otherwise. I see nothing in it but the judgment of God; and no one's
+heart was more pierced by the death of Huldbrand than she who was
+obliged to work it, the poor forsaken Undine!"
+
+He then assisted in arranging the funeral solemnities as suited the
+rank of the deceased. The knight was to be interred in the village
+church-yard, in whose consecrated ground were the graves of his
+ancestors; a place which they, as well as himself, had endowed with rich
+privileges and gifts. His shield and helmet lay upon his coffin, ready
+to be lowered with it into the grave, for Lord Huldbrand of Ringstetten
+had died the last of his race. The mourners began their sorrowful march,
+chanting their melancholy songs beneath the calm unclouded heaven;
+Father Heilmann preceded the procession, bearing a high crucifix, while
+the inconsolable Bertalda followed, supported by her aged father.
+
+Then they suddenly saw in the midst of the mourning females in the
+widow's train, a snow-white figure closely veiled, and wringing its
+hands in the wild vehemence of sorrow. Those next to whom it moved,
+seized with a secret dread, started back or on one side; and owing to
+their movements, the others, next to whom the white stranger now came,
+were terrified still more, so as to produce confusion in the funeral
+train. Some of the military escort ventured to address the figure, and
+attempt to remove it from the procession, but it seemed to vanish from
+under their hands, and yet was immediately seen advancing again, with
+slow and solemn step, among the followers of the body. At last, in
+consequence of the shrinking away of the attendants, it came close
+behind Bertalda. It now moved so slowly, that the widow was not aware of
+its presence, and it walked meekly and humbly behind her undisturbed.
+
+This continued until they came to the church-yard, where the procession
+formed a circle round the open grave. Then it was that Bertalda
+perceived her unbidden companion, and, half in anger and half in terror,
+she commanded her to depart from the knight's place of final rest. But
+the veiled female, shaking her head with a gentle denial, raised her
+hands towards Bertalda in lowly supplication, by which she was greatly
+moved, and could not but remember with tears how Undine had shown such
+sweetness of spirit on the Danube when she held out to her the coral
+necklace.
+
+Father Heilmann now motioned with his hand, and gave order for all to
+observe perfect stillness, that they might breathe a prayer of silent
+devotion over the body, upon which earth had already been thrown.
+Bertalda knelt without speaking; and all knelt, even the grave-diggers,
+who had now finished their work. But when they arose, the white stranger
+had disappeared. On the spot where she had knelt, a little spring, of
+silver brightness, was gushing out from the green turf, and it kept
+swelling and flowing onward with a low murmur, till it almost encircled
+the mound of the knight's grave; it then continued its course,
+and emptied itself into a calm lake, which lay by the side of the
+consecrated ground. Even to this day, the inhabitants of the village
+point out the spring; and hold fast the belief that it is the poor
+deserted Undine, who in this manner still fondly encircles her beloved
+in her arms.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Undine, by Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
+
+*** 
\ No newline at end of file