Undine
“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