CHAPTER 2

The longer Huldbrand sought Undine beneath the shades of night, and

failed to find her, the more anxious and confused he became. The

impression that she was a mere phantom of the forest gained a new

ascendency over him; indeed, amid the howling of the waves and the

tempest, the crashing of the trees, and the entire change of the once

so peaceful and beautiful scene, he was tempted to view the whole

peninsula, together with the cottage and its inhabitants, as little

more than some mockery of his senses. But still he heard afar off the

fisherman’s anxious and incessant shouting, “Undine!” and also his aged

wife, who was praying and singing psalms.

At length, when he drew near to the brook, which had overflowed its

banks, he perceived by the moonlight, that it had taken its wild course

directly in front of the haunted forest, so as to change the peninsula

into an island.

“Merciful God!” he breathed to himself, “if Undine has ventured a step

within that fearful wood, what will become of her? Perhaps it was all

owing to her sportive and wayward spirit, because I would give her no

account of my adventures there. And now the stream is rolling between

us, she may be weeping alone on the other side in the midst of spectral

horrors!”

A shuddering groan escaped him; and clambering over some stones and

trunks of overthrown pines, in order to step into the impetuous current,

he resolved, either by wading or swimming, to seek the wanderer on the

further shore. He felt, it is true, all the dread and shrinking awe

creeping over him which he had already suffered by daylight among the

now tossing and roaring branches of the forest. More than all, a tall

man in white, whom he knew but too well, met his view, as he stood

grinning and nodding on the grass beyond the water. But even monstrous

forms like this only impelled him to cross over toward them, when the

thought rushed upon him that Undine might be there alone and in the

agony of death.

He had already grasped a strong branch of a pine, and stood supporting

himself upon it in the whirling current, against which he could

with difficulty keep himself erect; but he advanced deeper in with a

courageous spirit. That instant a gentle voice of warning cried near

him, “Do not venture, do not venture!--that OLD MAN, the STREAM, is too

full of tricks to be trusted!” He knew the soft tones of the voice; and

while he stood as it were entranced beneath the shadows which had now

duskily veiled the moon, his head swam with the swelling and rolling

of the waves as he saw them momentarily rising above his knee. Still he

disdained the thought of giving up his purpose.

“If you are not really there, if you are merely gambolling round me like

a mist, may I, too, bid farewell to life, and become a shadow like you,

dear, dear Undine!” Thus calling aloud, he again moved deeper into

the stream. “Look round you--ah, pray look round you, beautiful young

stranger! why rush on death so madly?” cried the voice a second time

close by him; and looking on one side he perceived, by the light of

the moon, again cloudless, a little island formed by the flood; and

crouching upon its flowery turf, beneath the branches of embowering

trees, he saw the smiling and lovely Undine.

O how much more gladly than before the young man now plied his sturdy

staff! A few steps, and he had crossed the flood that was rushing

between himself and the maiden; and he stood near her on the little spot

of greensward in security, protected by the old trees. Undine half rose,

and she threw her arms around his neck to draw him gently down upon the

soft seat by her side.

“Here you shall tell me your story, my beautiful friend,” she breathed

in a low whisper; “here the cross old people cannot disturb us; and,

besides, our roof of leaves here will make quite as good a shelter as

their poor cottage.”

“It is heaven itself,” cried Huldbrand; and folding her in his arms, he

kissed the lovely girl with fervour.

The old fisherman, meantime, had come to the margin of the stream, and

he shouted across, “Why, how is this, sir knight! I received you with

the welcome which one true-hearted man gives to another; and now you

sit there caressing my foster-child in secret, while you suffer me in my

anxiety to wander through the night in quest of her.”

“Not till this moment did I find her myself, old father,” cried the

knight across the water.

“So much the better,” said the fisherman, “but now make haste, and bring

her over to me upon firm ground.”

To this, however, Undine would by no means consent. She declared

that she would rather enter the wild forest itself with the beautiful

stranger, than return to the cottage where she was so thwarted in her

wishes, and from which the knight would soon or late go away. Then,

throwing her arms round Huldbrand, she sang the following verse with the

warbling sweetness of a bird:

“A rill would leave its misty vale,

And fortunes wild explore,

Weary at length it reached the main,

And sought its vale no more.”

The old fisherman wept bitterly at her song, but his emotion seemed to

awaken little or no sympathy in her. She kissed and caressed her new

friend, who at last said to her: “Undine, if the distress of the old man

does not touch your heart, it cannot but move mine. We ought to return

to him.”

She opened her large blue eyes upon him in amazement, and spoke at last

with a slow and doubtful accent, “If you think so, it is well, all is

right to me which you think right. But the old man over there must first

give me his promise that he will allow you, without objection, to

relate what you saw in the wood, and--well, other things will settle

themselves.”

“Come--only come!” cried the fisherman to her, unable to utter another

word. At the same time he stretched his arms wide over the current

towards her, and to give her assurance that he would do what she

required, nodded his head. This motion caused his white hair to fall

strangely over his face, and Huldbrand could not but remember the

nodding white man of the forest. Without allowing anything, however, to

produce in him the least confusion, the young knight took the beautiful

girl in his arms, and bore her across the narrow channel which the

stream had torn away between her little island and the solid shore.

The old man fell upon Undine’s neck, and found it impossible either to

express his joy or to kiss her enough; even the ancient dame came up and

embraced the recovered girl most cordially. Every word of censure was

carefully avoided; the more so, indeed, as even Undine, forgetting her

waywardness, almost overwhelmed her foster-parents with caresses and the

prattle of tenderness.

When at length the excess of their joy at recovering their child had

subsided, morning had already dawned, shining upon the waters of the

lake; the tempest had become hushed, the small birds sung merrily on the

moist branches.

As Undine now insisted upon hearing the recital of the knight’s promised

adventures, the aged couple readily agreed to her wish. Breakfast was

brought out beneath the trees which stood behind the cottage toward the

lake on the north, and they sat down to it with contented hearts;

Undine at the knight’s feet on the grass. These arrangements being made,

Huldbrand began his story in the following manner:--

“It is now about eight days since I rode into the free imperial city

which lies yonder on the farther side of the forest. Soon after my

arrival a splendid tournament and running at the ring took place there,

and I spared neither my horse nor my lance in the encounters.

“Once while I was pausing at the lists to rest from the brisk exercise,

and was handing back my helmet to one of my attendants, a female figure

of extraordinary beauty caught my attention, as, most magnificently

attired, she stood looking on at one of the balconies. I learned, on

making inquiry of a person near me, that the name of the young lady

was Bertalda, and that she was a foster-daughter of one of the powerful

dukes of this country. She too, I observed, was gazing at me, and the

consequences were such as we young knights are wont to experience;

whatever success in riding I might have had before, I was now favoured

with still better fortune. That evening I was Bertalda’s partner in the

dance, and I enjoyed the same distinction during the remainder of the

festival.”

A sharp pain in his left hand, as it hung carelessly beside him, here

interrupted Huldbrand’s relation, and drew his eye to the part affected.

Undine had fastened her pearly teeth, and not without some keenness

too, upon one of his fingers, appearing at the same time very gloomy

and displeased. On a sudden, however, she looked up in his eyes with an

expression of tender melancholy, and whispered almost inaudibly,--

“It is all your own fault.”

She then covered her face; and the knight, strangely embarrassed and

thoughtful, went on with his story.

“This lady, Bertalda, of whom I spoke, is of a proud and wayward spirit.

The second day I saw her she pleased me by no means so much as she

had the first, and the third day still less. But I continued about her

because she showed me more favour than she did any other knight, and

it so happened that I playfully asked her to give me one of her gloves.

‘When you have entered the haunted forest all alone,’ said she; ‘when

you have explored its wonders, and brought me a full account of them,

the glove is yours.’ As to getting her glove, it was of no importance

to me whatever, but the word had been spoken, and no honourable knight

would permit himself to be urged to such a proof of valour a second

time.”

“I thought,” said Undine, interrupting him, “that she loved you.”

“It did appear so,” replied Huldbrand.

“Well!” exclaimed the maiden, laughing, “this is beyond belief; she must

be very stupid. To drive from her one who was dear to her! And worse

than all, into that ill-omened wood! The wood and its mysteries, for all

I should have cared, might have waited long enough.”

“Yesterday morning, then,” pursued the knight, smiling kindly upon

Undine, “I set out from the city, my enterprise before me. The early

light lay rich upon the verdant turf. It shone so rosy on the slender

boles of the trees, and there was so merry a whispering among the

leaves, that in my heart I could not but laugh at people who feared

meeting anything to terrify them in a spot so delicious. ‘I shall soon

pass through the forest, and as speedily return,’ I said to myself, in

the overflow of joyous feeling, and ere I was well aware, I had entered

deep among the green shades, while of the plain that lay behind me I was

no longer able to catch a glimpse.

“Then the conviction for the first time impressed me, that in a forest

of so great extent I might very easily become bewildered, and that this,

perhaps, might be the only danger which was likely to threaten those

who explored its recesses. So I made a halt, and turned myself in the

direction of the sun, which had meantime risen somewhat higher, and

while I was looking up to observe it, I saw something black among the

boughs of a lofty oak. My first thought was, ‘It is a bear!’ and I

grasped my weapon. The object then accosted me from above in a human

voice, but in a tone most harsh and hideous: ‘If I, overhead here, do

not gnaw off these dry branches, Sir Noodle, what shall we have to roast

you with when midnight comes?’ And with that it grinned, and made such a

rattling with the branches that my courser became mad with affright,

and rushed furiously forward with me before I had time to see distinctly

what sort of a devil’s beast it was.”

“You must not speak so,” said the old fisherman, crossing himself. His

wife did the same, without saying a word, and Undine, while her eye

sparkled with delight, looked at the knight and said, “The best of the

story is, however, that as yet they have not roasted you! Go on, now,

you beautiful knight.”

The knight then went on with his adventures. “My horse was so wild, that

he well-nigh rushed with me against limbs and trunks of trees. He was

dripping with sweat through terror, heat, and the violent straining of

his muscles. Still he refused to slacken his career. At last, altogether

beyond my control, he took his course directly up a stony steep, when

suddenly a tall white man flashed before me, and threw himself athwart

the way my mad steed was taking. At this apparition he shuddered with

new affright, and stopped trembling. I took this chance of recovering my

command of him, and now for the first time perceived that my deliverer,

so far from being a white man, was only a brook of silver brightness,

foaming near me in its descent from the hill, while it crossed and

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?”