Undine
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.