Undine
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.”