Undine
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.