CHAPTER 6

The company were sitting at dinner. Bertalda, adorned with jewels and

flowers without number, the presents of her foster-parents and friends,

and looking like some goddess of spring, sat beside Undine and Huldbrand

at the head of the table. When the sumptuous repast was ended, and the

dessert was placed before them, permission was given that the doors

should be left open: this was in accordance with the good old custom in

Germany, that the common people might see and rejoice in the festivity

of their superiors. Among these spectators the servants carried round

cake and wine.

Huldbrand and Bertalda waited with secret impatience for the promised

explanation, and hardly moved their eyes from Undine. But she still

continued silent, and merely smiled to herself with secret and heartfelt

satisfaction. All who were made acquainted with the promise she had

given could perceive that she was every moment on the point of revealing

a happy secret; and yet, as children sometimes delay tasting their

choicest dainties, she still withheld the communication. Bertalda and

Huldbrand shared the same delightful feeling, while in anxious hope they

were expecting the unknown disclosure which they were to receive from

the lips of their friend.

At this moment several of the company pressed Undine to sing. This she

seemed pleased at; and ordering her lute to be brought, she sang the

following words:--

“Morning so bright,

Wild-flowers so gay,

Where high grass so dewy

Crowns the wavy lake’s border.

On the meadow’s verdant bosom

What glimmers there so white?

Have wreaths of snowy blossoms,

Soft-floating, fallen from heaven?

Ah, see! a tender infant!--

It plays with flowers, unwittingly;

It strives to grasp morn’s golden beams.

O where, sweet stranger, where’s your home?

Afar from unknown shores

The waves have wafted hither

This helpless little one.

Nay, clasp not, tender darling,

With tiny hand the flowers!

No hand returns the pressure,

The flowers are strange and mute.

They clothe themselves in beauty,

They breathe a rich perfume:

But cannot fold around you

A mother’s loving arms;--

Far, far away that mother’s fond embrace.

Life’s early dawn just opening faint,

Your eye yet beaming heaven’s own smile,

So soon your tenderest guardians gone;

Severe, poor child, your fate,--

All, all to you unknown.

A noble duke has crossed the mead,

And near you checked his steed’s career:

Wonder and pity touch his heart;

With knowledge high, and manners pure,

He rears you,--makes his castle home your own.

How great, how infinite your gain!

Of all the land you bloom the loveliest;

Yet, ah! the priceless blessing,

The bliss of parents’ fondness,

You left on strands unknown!”

Undine let fall her lute with a melancholy smile. The eyes of Bertalda’s

noble foster-parents were filled with tears.

“Ah yes, it was so--such was the morning on which I found you, poor

orphan!” cried the duke, with deep emotion; “the beautiful singer is

certainly right: still

‘The priceless blessing,

The bliss of parents’ fondness,’

it was beyond our power to give you.”

“But we must hear, also, what happened to the poor parents,” said

Undine, as she struck the chords, and sung:--

“Through her chambers roams the mother

Searching, searching everywhere;

Seeks, and knows not what, with yearning,

Childless house still finding there.

Childless house!--O sound of anguish!

She alone the anguish knows,

There by day who led her dear one,

There who rocked its night-repose.

Beechen buds again are swelling,

Sunshine warms again the shore;

Ah, fond mother, cease your searching!

Comes the loved and lost no more.

Then when airs of eve are fresh’ning,

Home the father wends his way,

While with smiles his woe he’s veiling,

Gushing tears his heart betray.

Well he knows, within his dwelling,

Still as death he’ll find the gloom,

Only hear the mother moaning,--

No sweet babe to SMILE him home.”

“O, tell me, in the name of Heaven tell me, Undine, where are my

parents?” cried the weeping Bertalda. “You certainly know; you must have

discovered them, you wonderful being; for, otherwise you would never

have thus torn my heart. Can they be already here? May I believe it

possible?” Her eye glanced rapidly over the brilliant company,

and rested upon a lady of high rank who was sitting next to her

foster-father.

Then, bending her head, Undine beckoned toward the door, while her eyes

overflowed with the sweetest emotion. “Where, then, are the poor parents

waiting?” she asked; and the old fisherman, hesitating, advanced with

his wife from the crowd of spectators. They looked inquiringly, now at

Undine, and now at the beautiful lady who was said to be their daughter.

“It is she! it is she there before you!” exclaimed the restorer of their

child, her voice half choked with rapture. And both the aged parents

embraced their recovered daughter, weeping aloud and praising God.

But, terrified and indignant, Bertalda tore herself from their arms.

Such a discovery was too much for her proud spirit to bear, especially

at the moment when she had doubtless expected to see her former

splendour increased, and when hope was picturing to her nothing less

brilliant than a royal canopy and a crown. It seemed to her as if her

rival had contrived all this on purpose to humble her before Huldbrand

and the whole world. She reproached Undine; she reviled the old

people; and even such offensive words as “deceiver, bribed and perjured

impostors,” burst from her lips.

The aged wife of the fisherman then said to herself, in a low voice:

“Ah, my God, she has become wicked! and yet I feel in my heart that she

is my child.”

The old fisherman had meanwhile folded his hands, and offered up a

silent prayer that she might NOT be his daughter.

Undine, faint and pale as death, turned from the parents to Bertalda,

from Bertalda to the parents. She was suddenly cast dawn from all that

heaven of happiness in which she had been dreaming, and plunged into an

agony of terror and disappointment, which she had never known even in

dreams.

“Have you, then, a soul? Have you indeed a soul, Bertalda?” she cried

again and again to her angry friend, as if with vehement effort she

would arouse her from a sudden delirium or some distracting dream of

night, and restore her to recollection.

But when Bertalda became every moment only more and more enraged--when

the disappointed parents began to weep aloud--and the company, with much

warmth of dispute, were espousing opposite sides--she begged, with

such earnestness and dignity, for the liberty of speaking in this

her husband’s hall, that all around her were in an instant hushed to

silence. She then advanced to the upper end of the table, where, both

humbled and haughty, Bertalda had seated herself, and, while every eye

was fastened upon her, spoke in the following manner:--

“My friends, you appear dissatisfied and disturbed; and you are

interrupting, with your strife, a festivity I had hoped would bring joy

to you and to me. Ah! I knew nothing of your heartless ways of thinking;

and never shall understand them: I am not to blame for the mischief this

disclosure has done. Believe me, little as you may imagine this to be

the case, it is wholly owing to yourselves. One word more, therefore, is

all I have to add; but this is one that must be spoken:--I have

uttered nothing but truth. Of the certainty of the fact, I give you the

strongest assurance. No other proof can I or will I produce, but this

I will affirm in the presence of God. The person who gave me this

information was the very same who decoyed the infant Bertalda into the

water, and who, after thus taking her from her parents, placed her on

the green grass of the meadow, where he knew the duke was to pass.”

“She is an enchantress!” cried Bertalda; “a witch, that has intercourse

with evil spirits. She acknowledges it herself.”

“Never! I deny it!” replied Undine, while a whole heaven of innocence

and truth beamed from her eyes. “I am no witch; look upon me, and say if

I am.”

“Then she utters both falsehood and folly,” cried Bertalda; “and she

is unable to prove that I am the child of these low people. My noble

parents, I entreat you to take me from this company, and out of this

city, where they do nothing but shame me.”

But the aged duke, a man of honourable feeling, remained unmoved; and

his wife remarked:

“We must thoroughly examine into this matter. God forbid that we should

move a step from this hall before we do so.”

Then the aged wife of the fisherman drew near, made a low obeisance to

the duchess and said: “Noble and pious lady, you have opened my heart.

Permit me to tell you, that if this evil-disposed maiden is my daughter,

she has a mark like a violet between her shoulders, and another of the

same kind on the instep of her left foot. If she will only consent to go

out of the hall with me--”

“I will not consent to uncover myself before the peasant woman,”

interrupted Bertalda, haughtily turning her back upon her.

“But before me you certainly will,” replied the duchess gravely. “You

will follow me into that room, maiden; and the old woman shall go with

us.”

The three disappeared, and the rest continued where they were, in

breathless expectation. In a few minutes the females returned--Bertalda

pale as death; and the duchess said: “Justice must be done; I therefore

declare that our lady hostess has spoken exact truth. Bertalda is the

fisherman’s daughter; no further proof is required; and this is all of

which, on the present occasion, you need to be informed.”

The princely pair went out with their adopted daughter; the fisherman,

at a sign from the duke, followed them with his wife. The other guests

retired in silence, or suppressing their murmurs; while Undine sank

weeping into the arms of Huldbrand.

The lord of Ringstetten would certainly have been more gratified, had

the events of this day been different; but even such as they now were,

he could by no means look upon them as unwelcome, since his lovely wife

had shown herself so full of goodness, sweetness, and kindliness.

“If I have given her a soul,” he could not help saying to himself, “I

have assuredly given her a better one than my own;” and now he only

thought of soothing and comforting his weeping wife, and of removing

her even so early as the morrow from a place which, after this cross

accident, could not fail to be distasteful to her. Yet it is certain

that the opinion of the public concerning her was not changed. As

something extraordinary had long before been expected of her, the

mysterious discovery of Bertalda’s parentage had occasioned little or no

surprise; and every one who became acquainted with Bertalda’s story, and

with the violence of her behaviour on that occasion, was only disgusted

and set against her. Of this state of things, however, the knight and

his lady were as yet ignorant; besides, whether the public condemned

Bertalda or herself, the one view of the affair would have been as

distressing to Undine as the other; and thus they came to the conclusion

that the wisest course they could take, was to leave behind them the

walls of the old city with all the speed in their power.

With the earliest beams of morning, a brilliant carriage for Undine

drove up to the door of the inn; the horses of Huldbrand and his

attendants stood near, stamping the pavement, impatient to proceed. The

knight was leading his beautiful wife from the door, when a fisher-girl

came up and met them in the way.

“We have no need of your fish,” said Huldbrand, accosting her; “we are

this moment setting out on a journey.”

Upon this the fisher-girl began to weep bitterly; and then it was that

the young couple first perceived it was Bertalda. They immediately

returned with her to their apartment, when she informed them that, owing

to her unfeeling and violent conduct of the preceding day, the duke and

duchess had been so displeased with her, as entirely to withdraw from

her their protection, though not before giving her a generous portion.

The fisherman, too, had received a handsome gift, and had, the evening

before, set out with his wife for his peninsula.

“I would have gone with them,” she pursued, “but the old fisherman, who

is said to be my father--”

“He is, in truth, your father, Bertalda,” said Undine, interrupting her.

“See, the stranger whom you took for the master of the water-works gave

me all the particulars. He wished to dissuade me from taking you with me

to Castle Ringstetten, and therefore disclosed to me the whole mystery.”

“Well then,” continued Bertalda, “my father--if it must needs be so--my

father said: ‘I will not take you with me until you are changed. If you

will venture to come to us alone through the ill-omened forest, that

shall be a proof of your having some regard for us. But come not to me

as a lady; come merely as a fisher-girl.’ I do as he bade me, for since

I am abandoned by all the world, I will live and die in solitude, a poor

fisher-girl, with parents equally poor. The forest, indeed, appears

very terrible to me. Horrible spectres make it their haunt, and I am so

fearful. But how can I help it? I have only come here at this early hour

to beg the noble lady of Ringstetten to pardon my unbecoming behaviour

of yesterday. Sweet lady, I have the fullest persuasion that you meant

to do me a kindness, but you were not aware how severely you would

wound me; and then, in my agony and surprise, so many rash and frantic

expressions burst from my lips. Forgive me, ah, forgive me! I am in

truth so unhappy, already. Only consider what I was but yesterday

morning, what I was even at the beginning of your yesterday’s festival,

and what I am to-day!”

Her words now became inarticulate, lost in a passionate flow of tears,

while Undine, bitterly weeping with her, fell upon her neck. So powerful

was her emotion, that it was a long time before she could utter a word.

At length she said:

“You shall still go with us to Ringstetten; all shall remain just as

we lately arranged it; but say ‘thou’ to me again, and do not call me

‘noble lady’ any more. Consider, we were changed for each other when

we were children; even then we were united by a like fate, and we will

strengthen this union with such close affection as no human power shall

dissolve. Only first of all you must go with us to Ringstetten. How we

shall share all things as sisters, we can talk of after we arrive.”

Bertalda looked up to Huldbrand with timid inquiry. He pitied her in her

affliction, took her hand, and begged her tenderly to entrust herself to

him and his wife.

“We will send a message to your parents,” continued he, “giving them the

reason why you have not come;”--and he would have added more about his

worthy friends of the peninsula, when, perceiving that Bertalda shrank

in distress at the mention of them, he refrained. He took her under

the arm, lifted her first into the carriage, then Undine, and was soon

riding blithely beside them; so persevering was he, too, in urging

forward their driver, that in a short time they had left behind them the

limits of the city, and a crowd of painful recollections; and now the

ladies could take delight in the beautiful country which their progress

was continually presenting.

After a journey of some days, they arrived, on a fine evening, at Castle

Ringstetten. The young knight being much engaged with the overseers and

menials of his establishment, Undine and Bertalda were left alone. They

took a walk upon the high rampart of the fortress, and were charmed with

the delightful landscape which the fertile Suabia spread around them.

While they were viewing the scene, a tall man drew near, who greeted

them with respectful civility, and who seemed to Bertalda much

to resemble the director of the city fountain. Still less was the

resemblance to be mistaken, when Undine, indignant at his intrusion,

waved him off with an air of menace; while he, shaking his head,

retreated with rapid strides, as he had formerly done, then glided among

the trees of a neighbouring grove and disappeared.

“Do not be terrified, Bertalda,” said Undine; “the hateful master of the

fountain shall do you no harm this time.” And then she related to her

the particulars of her history, and who she was herself--how Bertalda

had been taken away from the people of the peninsula, and Undine left in

her place. This relation at first filled the young maiden with amazement

and alarm; she imagined her friend must be seized with a sudden

madness. But from the consistency of her story, she became more and more

convinced that all was true, it so well agreed with former occurrences,

and still more convinced from that inward feeling with which truth

never fails to make itself known to us. She could not but view it as an

extraordinary circumstance that she was herself now living, as it were,

in the midst of one of those wild tales which she had formerly heard

related. She gazed upon Undine with reverence, but could not keep from a

shuddering feeling which seemed to come between her and her friend;

and she could not but wonder when the knight, at their evening repast,

showed himself so kind and full of love towards a being who appeared to

her, after the discoveries just made, more to resemble a phantom of the

spirit-world than one of the human race.