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Title: Undine

Author: Freiherr de Friedrich Heinrich Karl La Motte-Fouqué

Author of introduction, etc.: Charlotte M. Yonge

Release date: September 1, 2001 [eBook #2825]
Most recently updated: August 9, 2019

Language: English

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UNDINE

By Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

With foreword by Charlotte M Yonge

Contents

Introduction
UNDINE

CHAPTER
1
CHAPTER
2
CHAPTER
3
CHAPTER
4
CHAPTER
5
CHAPTER
6

CHAPTER
7
CHAPTER
8
CHAPTER
9
CHAPTER
10

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

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.

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