Should I relate to you how passed the marriage feast at Castle
Ringstetten, it would be as if you saw a heap of bright and pleasant
things, but all overspread with a black mourning crape, through whose
darkening veil their brilliancy would appear but a mockery of the
nothingness of all earthly joys.
It was not that any spectral delusion disturbed the scene of
festivity; for the castle, as we well know, had been secured against
the mischief of the water spirits. But the knight, the fisherman, and
all the guests were unable to banish the feeling that the chief
personage of the feast was still wanting, and that this chief
personage could be no other than the gentle and beloved Undine.
Whenever a door was heard to open, all eyes were involuntarily turned
in that direction; and if it was nothing but the steward with new
dishes, or the cup-bearer with a supply of wine of higher flavor than
the last, they again looked down in sadness and disappointment, while
the flashes of wit and merriment which had been passing at times from
one to another were extinguished by tears of mournful remembrance.
The bride was the least thoughtful of the company, and therefore the
most happy; but even to her it sometimes seemed strange that she
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 awake 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
already 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 that they
were destroying the work of their former beloved mistress. Their
labor, 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
workpeople, 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 differently had she once passed through these rooms!
The knight had in the mean time 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.