CHAPTER 1

On a beautiful evening, many hundred years ago, a worthy old fisherman

sat mending his nets. The spot where he dwelt was exceedingly

picturesque. The green turf on which he had built his cottage ran far

out into a great lake; and this slip of verdure appeared to stretch into

it as much through love of its clear waters as the lake, moved by a like

impulse, strove to fold the meadow, with its waving grass and flowers,

and the cooling shade of the trees, in its embrace of love. They seemed

to be drawn toward each other, and the one to be visiting the other as a

guest.

With respect to human beings, indeed, in this pleasant spot, excepting

the fisherman and his family, there were few, or rather none, to be

met with. For as in the background of the scene, toward the west and

north-west, lay a forest of extraordinary wildness, which, owing to its

sunless gloom and almost impassable recesses, as well as to fear of the

strange creatures and visionary illusions to be encountered in it, most

people avoided entering, unless in cases of extreme necessity. The pious

old fisherman, however, many times passed through it without harm, when

he carried the fine fish which he caught by his beautiful strip of land

to a great city lying only a short distance beyond the forest.

Now the reason he was able to go through this wood with so much ease may

have been chiefly this, because he entertained scarcely any thoughts but

such as were of a religious nature; and besides, every time he crossed

the evil-reported shades, he used to sing some holy song with a clear

voice and from a sincere heart.

Well, while he sat by his nets this evening, neither fearing nor

devising evil, a sudden terror seized him, as he heard a rushing in the

darkness of the wood, that resembled the tramping of a mounted steed,

and the noise continued every instant drawing nearer and nearer to his

little territory.

What he had fancied, when abroad in many a stormy night, respecting

the mysteries of the forest, now flashed through his mind in a moment,

especially the figure of a man of gigantic stature and snow-white

appearance, who kept nodding his head in a portentous manner. And when

he raised his eyes towards the wood, the form came before him in perfect

distinctness, as he saw the nodding man burst forth from the mazy

web-work of leaves and branches. But he immediately felt emboldened,

when he reflected that nothing to give him alarm had ever befallen him

even in the forest; and moreover, that on this open neck of land the

evil spirit, it was likely, would be still less daring in the exercise

of his power. At the same time he prayed aloud with the most earnest

sincerity of devotion, repeating a passage of the Bible. This inspired

him with fresh courage, and soon perceiving the illusion, and the

strange mistake into which his imagination had betrayed him, he could

with difficulty refrain from laughing. The white nodding figure he had

seen became transformed, in the twinkling of an eye, to what in reality

it was, a small brook, long and familiarly known to him, which ran

foaming from the forest, and discharged itself into the lake.

But what had caused the startling sound was a knight arrayed in

sumptuous apparel, who from under the shadows of the trees came riding

toward the cottage. His doublet was violet embroidered with gold, and

his scarlet cloak hung gracefully over it; on his cap of burnished gold

waved red and violet-coloured plumes; and in his golden shoulder-belt

flashed a sword, richly ornamented, and extremely beautiful. The white

barb that bore the knight was more slenderly built than war-horses

usually are, and he touched the turf with a step so light and elastic

that the green and flowery carpet seemed hardly to receive the slightest

injury from his tread. The old fisherman, notwithstanding, did not feel

perfectly secure in his mind, although he was forced to believe that no

evil could be feared from an appearance so pleasing, and therefore, as

good manners dictated, he took off his hat on the knight’s coming near,

and quietly remained by the side of his nets.

When the stranger stopped, and asked whether he, with his horse, could

have shelter and entertainment there for the night, the fisherman

returned answer: “As to your horse, fair sir, I have no better stable

for him than this shady meadow, and no better provender than the grass

that is growing here. But with respect to yourself, you shall be welcome

to our humble cottage, and to the best supper and lodging we are able to

give you.”

The knight was well contented with this reception; and alighting from

his horse, which his host assisted him to relieve from saddle and

bridle, he let him hasten away to the fresh pasture, and thus spoke:

“Even had I found you less hospitable and kindly disposed, my worthy old

friend, you would still, I suspect, hardly have got rid of me to-day;

for here, I perceive, a broad lake lies before us, and as to riding back

into that wood of wonders, with the shades of evening deepening around

me, may Heaven in its grace preserve me from the thought.”

“Pray, not a word of the wood, or of returning into it!” said the

fisherman, and took his guest into the cottage.

There beside the hearth, from which a frugal fire was diffusing its

light through the clean twilight room, sat the fisherman’s aged wife in

a great chair. At the entrance of their noble guest, she rose and gave

him a courteous welcome, but sat down again in her seat of honour,

not making the slightest offer of it to the stranger. Upon this the

fisherman said with a smile:

“You must not be offended with her, young gentleman, because she has not

given up to you the best chair in the house; it is a custom among poor

people to look upon this as the privilege of the aged.”

“Why, husband!” cried the old lady, with a quiet smile, “where can your

wits be wandering? Our guest, to say the least of him, must belong to

a Christian country; and how is it possible, then, that so well-bred

a young man as he appears to be could dream of driving old people from

their chairs? Take a seat, my young master,” continued she, turning to

the knight; “there is still quite a snug little chair on the other side

of the room there, only be careful not to shove it about too roughly,

for one of its legs, I fear, is none of the firmest.”

The knight brought up the seat as carefully as she could desire, sat

down upon it good-humouredly, and it seemed to him almost as if he must

be somehow related to this little household, and have just returned home

from abroad.

These three worthy people now began to converse in the most friendly and

familiar manner. In relation to the forest, indeed, concerning which the

knight occasionally made some inquiries, the old man chose to know and

say but little; he was of opinion that slightly touching upon it at

this hour of twilight was most suitable and safe; but of the cares and

comforts of their home, and their business abroad, the aged couple

spoke more freely, and listened also with eager curiosity as the knight

recounted to them his travels, and how he had a castle near one of

the sources of the Danube, and that his name was Sir Huldbrand of

Ringstetten.

Already had the stranger, while they were in the midst of their talk,

heard at times a splash against the little low window, as if some one

were dashing water against it. The old man, every time he heard the

noise, knit his brows with vexation; but at last, when the whole sweep

of a shower came pouring like a torrent against the panes, and bubbling

through the decayed frame into the room, he started up indignant, rushed

to the window, and cried with a threatening voice--

“Undine! will you never leave off these fooleries?--not even to-day,

when we have a stranger knight with us in the cottage?”

All without now became still, only a low laugh was just audible, and

the fisherman said, as he came back to his seat, “You will have the

goodness, my honoured guest, to pardon this freak, and it may be a

multitude more; but she has no thought of evil or of any harm. This

mischievous Undine, to confess the truth, is our adopted daughter, and

she stoutly refuses to give over this frolicsome childishness of hers,

although she has already entered her eighteenth year. But in spite of

this, as I said before, she is at heart one of the very best children in

the world.”

“YOU may say so,” broke in the old lady, shaking her head; “you can give

a better account of her than I can. When you return home from fishing,

or from selling your fish in the city, you may think her frolics very

delightful, but to have her dancing about you the whole day long, and

never from morning to night to hear her speak one word of sense; and

then as she grows older, instead of having any help from her in the

family, to find her a continual cause of anxiety, lest her wild humours

should completely ruin us, that is quite another thing, and enough at

last to weary out the patience even of a saint.”

“Well, well,” replied the master of the house with a smile, “you have

your trials with Undine, and I have mine with the lake. The lake often

beats down my dams, and breaks the meshes of my nets, but for all that I

have a strong affection for it, and so have you, in spite of your mighty

crosses and vexations, for our graceful little child. Is it not true?”

“One cannot be very angry with her,” answered the old lady, as she gave

her husband an approving smile.

That instant the door flew open, and a fair girl, of wondrous beauty,

sprang laughing in, and said, “You have only been making a mock of me,

father; for where now is the guest you mentioned?”

The same moment, however, she perceived the knight also, and continued

standing before the young man in fixed astonishment. Huldbrand was

charmed with her graceful figure, and viewed her lovely features with

the more intense interest, as he imagined it was only her surprise that

allowed him the opportunity, and that she would soon turn away from his

gaze with increased bashfulness. But the event was the very reverse of

what he expected; for, after looking at him for a long while, she became

more confident, moved nearer, knelt down before him, and while she

played with a gold medal which he wore attached to a rich chain on his

breast, exclaimed,

“Why, you beautiful, you kind guest! how have you reached our poor

cottage at last? Have you been obliged for years and years to wander

about the world before you could catch one glimpse of our nook? Do you

come out of that wild forest, my beautiful knight?”

The old woman was so prompt in her reproof as to allow him no time to

answer. She commanded the maiden to rise, show better manners, and go to

her work. But Undine, without making any reply, drew a little footstool

near Huldbrand’s chair, sat down upon it with her netting, and said in a

gentle tone--

“I will work here.”

The old man did as parents are apt to do with children to whom they have

been over-indulgent. He affected to observe nothing of Undine’s strange

behaviour, and was beginning to talk about something else. But this the

maiden did not permit him to do. She broke in upon him, “I have asked

our kind guest from whence he has come among us, and he has not yet

answered me.”

“I come out of the forest, you lovely little vision,” Huldbrand

returned; and she spoke again:

“You must also tell me how you came to enter that forest, so feared and

shunned, and the marvellous adventures you met with in it; for there is

no escaping without something of this kind.”

Huldbrand felt a slight shudder on remembering what he had witnessed,

and looked involuntarily toward the window, for it seemed to him that

one of the strange shapes which had come upon him in the forest must be

there grinning in through the glass; but he discerned nothing except the

deep darkness of night, which had now enveloped the whole prospect. Upon

this he became more collected, and was just on the point of beginning

his account, when the old man thus interrupted him:

“Not so, sir knight; this is by no means a fit hour for such relations.”

But Undine, in a state of high excitement, sprang up from her little

stool and cried, placing herself directly before the fisherman: “He

shall NOT tell his story, father? he shall not? But it is my will:--he

shall!--stop him who may!”

Thus speaking, she stamped her little foot vehemently on the floor,

but all with an air of such comic and good-humoured simplicity, that

Huldbrand now found it quite as hard to withdraw his gaze from her wild

emotion as he had before from her gentleness and beauty. The old man,

on the contrary, burst out in unrestrained displeasure. He severely

reproved Undine for her disobedience and her unbecoming carriage towards

the stranger, and his good old wife joined him in harping on the same

string.

By these rebukes Undine was only excited the more. “If you want to

quarrel with me,” she cried, “and will not let me hear what I so much

desire, then sleep alone in your smoky old hut!” And swift as an arrow

she shot from the door, and vanished amid the darkness of the night.

Huldbrand and the fisherman sprang from their seats, and were rushing to

stop the angry girl; but before they could reach the cottage-door, she

had disappeared in the stormy darkness without, and no sound, not so

much even as that of her light footstep, betrayed the course she had

taken. Huldbrand threw a glance of inquiry towards his host; it almost

seemed to him as if the whole of the sweet apparition, which had so

suddenly plunged again amid the night, were no other than a continuation

of the wonderful forms that had just played their mad pranks with him in

the forest. But the old man muttered between his teeth,

“This is not the first time she has treated us in this manner. Now must

our hearts be filled with anxiety, and our eyes find no sleep for the

whole night; for who can assure us, in spite of her past escapes, that

she will not some time or other come to harm, if she thus continue out

in the dark and alone until daylight?”

“Then pray, for God’s sake, father, let us follow her,” cried Huldbrand

anxiously.

“Wherefore should we?” replied the old man. “It would be a sin were I

to suffer you, all alone, to search after the foolish girl amid the

lonesomeness of night; and my old limbs would fail to carry me to this

wild rover, even if I knew to what place she has betaken herself.”

“Still we ought at least to call after her, and beg her to return,” said

Huldbrand; and he began to call in tones of earnest entreaty, “Undine!

Undine! come back, come back!”

The old man shook his head, and said, “All your shouting, however loud

and long, will be of no avail; you know not as yet, sir knight, how

self-willed the little thing is.” But still, even hoping against hope,

he could not himself cease calling out every minute, amid the gloom of

night, “Undine! ah, dear Undine! I beseech you, pray come back--only

this once.”

It turned out, however, exactly as the fisherman had said. No Undine

could they hear or see; and as the old man would on no account consent

that Huldbrand should go in quest of the fugitive, they were both

obliged at last to return into the cottage. There they found the fire

on the hearth almost gone out, and the mistress of the house, who took

Undine’s flight and danger far less to heart than her husband, had

already gone to rest. The old man blew up the coals, put on dry wood,

and by the firelight hunted for a flask of wine, which he brought and

set between himself and his guest.

“You, sir knight, as well as I,” said he, “are anxious on the silly

girl’s account; and it would be better, I think, to spend part of the

night in chatting and drinking, than keep turning and turning on our

rush-mats, and trying in vain to sleep. What is your opinion?”

Huldbrand was well pleased with the plan; the fisherman pressed him to

take the empty seat of honour, its late occupant having now left it for

her couch; and they relished their beverage and enjoyed their chat as

two such good men and true ever ought to do. To be sure, whenever the

slightest thing moved before the windows, or at times when even nothing

was moving, one of them would look up and exclaim, “Here she comes!”

Then would they continue silent a few moments, and afterward, when

nothing appeared, would shake their heads, breathe out a sigh, and go on

with their talk.

But, as neither could think of anything but Undine, the best plan they

could devise was, that the old fisherman should relate, and the knight

should hear, in what manner Undine had come to the cottage. So the

fisherman began as follows:

“It is now about fifteen years since I one day crossed the wild forest

with fish for the city market. My wife had remained at home as she was

wont to do; and at this time for a reason of more than common interest,

for although we were beginning to feel the advances of age, God had

bestowed upon us an infant of wonderful beauty. It was a little girl;

and we already began to ask ourselves the question, whether we ought

not, for the advantage of the new-comer, to quit our solitude, and, the

better to bring up this precious gift of Heaven, to remove to some more

inhabited place. Poor people, to be sure, cannot in these cases do all

you may think they ought, sir knight; but we must all do what we can.

“Well, I went on my way, and this affair would keep running in my head.

This slip of land was most dear to me, and I trembled when, amidst

the bustle and broils of the city, I thought to myself, ‘In a scene of

tumult like this, or at least in one not much more quiet, I must soon

take up my abode.’ But I did not for this murmur against our good God;

on the contrary, I praised Him in silence for the new-born babe. I

should also speak an untruth, were I to say that anything befell me,

either on my passage through the forest to the city, or on my returning

homeward, that gave me more alarm than usual, as at that time I had

never seen any appearance there which could terrify or annoy me. The

Lord was ever with me in those awful shades.”

Thus speaking he took his cap reverently from his bald head, and

continued to sit for a considerable time in devout thought. He then

covered himself again, and went on with his relation.

“On this side the forest, alas! it was on this side, that woe burst upon

me. My wife came wildly to meet me, clad in mourning apparel, and her

eyes streaming with tears. ‘Gracious God!’ I cried, ‘where’s our child?

Speak!’

“‘With Him on whom you have called, dear husband,’ she answered, and we

now entered the cottage together, weeping in silence. I looked for the

little corpse, almost fearing to find what I was seeking; and then it

was I first learnt how all had happened.

“My wife had taken the little one in her arms, and walked out to the

shore of the lake. She there sat down by its very brink; and while she

was playing with the infant, as free from all fear as she was full

of delight, it bent forward on a sudden, as if seeing something very

beautiful in the water. My wife saw her laugh, the dear angel, and try

to catch the image in her tiny hands; but in a moment--with a motion

swifter than sight--she sprang from her mother’s arms, and sank in the

lake, the watery glass into which she had been gazing. I searched

for our lost darling again and again; but it was all in vain; I could

nowhere find the least trace of her.

“The same evening we childless parents were sitting together by our

cottage hearth. We had no desire to talk, even if our tears would have

permitted us. As we thus sat in mournful stillness, gazing into the

fire, all at once we heard something without,--a slight rustling at the

door. The door flew open, and we saw a little girl, three or four years

old, and more beautiful than I can say, standing on the threshold,

richly dressed, and smiling upon us. We were struck dumb with

astonishment, and I knew not for a time whether the tiny form were a

real human being, or a mere mockery of enchantment. But I soon perceived

water dripping from her golden hair and rich garments, and that the

pretty child had been lying in the water, and stood in immediate need of

our help.

“‘Wife,’ said I, ‘no one has been able to save our child for us; but let

us do for others what would have made us so blessed could any one have

done it for us.’

“We undressed the little thing, put her to bed, and gave her something

to drink; at all this she spoke not a word, but only turned her eyes

upon us--eyes blue and bright as sea or sky--and continued looking at us

with a smile.

“Next morning we had no reason to fear that she had received any other

harm than her wetting, and I now asked her about her parents, and how

she could have come to us. But the account she gave was both confused

and incredible. She must surely have been born far from here, not only

because I have been unable for these fifteen years to learn anything

of her birth, but because she then said, and at times continues to say,

many things of so very singular a nature, that we neither of us know,

after all, whether she may not have dropped among us from the moon; for

her talk runs upon golden castles, crystal domes, and Heaven knows what

extravagances beside. What, however, she related with most distinctness

was this: that while she was once taking a sail with her mother on the

great lake, she fell out of the boat into the water; and that when she

first recovered her senses, she was here under our trees, where the gay

scenes of the shore filled her with delight.

“We now had another care weighing upon our minds, and one that caused us

no small perplexity and uneasiness. We of course very soon determined

to keep and bring up the child we had found, in place of our own darling

that had been drowned; but who could tell us whether she had been

baptized or not? She herself could give us no light on the subject. When

we asked her the question, she commonly made answer, that she well knew

she was created for God’s praise and glory, and that she was willing to

let us do with her all that might promote His glory and praise.

“My wife and I reasoned in this way: ‘If she has not been baptized,

there can be no use in putting off the ceremony; and if she has been, it

still is better to have too much of a good thing than too little.’

“Taking this view of our difficulty, we now endeavoured to hit upon a

good name for the child, since, while she remained without one, we were

often at a loss, in our familiar talk, to know what to call her. We at

length agreed that Dorothea would be most suitable for her, as I had

somewhere heard it said that this name signified a gift of God, and

surely she had been sent to us by Providence as a gift, to comfort us

in our misery. She, on the contrary, would not so much as hear Dorothea

mentioned; she insisted, that as she had been named Undine by her

parents, Undine she ought still to be called. It now occurred to me that

this was a heathenish name, to be found in no calendar, and I resolved

to ask the advice of a priest in the city. He would not listen to the

name of Undine; and yielding to my urgent request, he came with me

through the enchanted forest in order to perform the rite of baptism

here in my cottage.

“The little maid stood before us so prettily adorned, and with such an

air of gracefulness, that the heart of the priest softened at once in

her presence; and she coaxed him so sweetly, and jested with him so

merrily, that he at last remembered nothing of his many objections to

the name of Undine.

“Thus, then, was she baptized Undine; and during the holy ceremony she

behaved with great propriety and gentleness, wild and wayward as at

other times she invariably was; for in this my wife was quite right,

when she mentioned the anxiety the child has occasioned us. If I should

relate to you--”

At this moment the knight interrupted the fisherman, to direct his

attention to a deep sound as of a rushing flood, which had caught his

ear during the talk of the old man. And now the waters came pouring on

with redoubled fury before the cottage-windows. Both sprang to the door.

There they saw, by the light of the now risen moon, the brook which

issued from the wood rushing wildly over its banks, and whirling onward

with it both stones and branches of trees in its rapid course. The

storm, as if awakened by the uproar, burst forth from the clouds, whose

immense masses of vapour coursed over the moon with the swiftness of

thought; the lake roared beneath the wind that swept the foam from its

waves; while the trees of this narrow peninsula groaned from root to

topmost branch as they bowed and swung above the torrent.

“Undine! in God’s name, Undine!” cried the two men in an agony. No

answer was returned. And now, regardless of everything else, they

hurried from the cottage, one in this direction, the other in that,

searching and calling.