Undine
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