HOW THE KNIGHT HULDBRAND IS MARRIED.
If I were to tell you how the marriage-feast passed at castle
Ringstetten, it would seem to you as if you saw a heap of bright and
pleasant things, but a gloomy veil of mourning spread over them all,
the dark hue of which would make the splendor of the whole look less
like happiness than a mockery of the emptiness of all earthly joys.
It was not that any spectral apparitions disturbed the festive
company, for we know that the castle had been secured from the
mischief of the threatening water-spirits. But the knight and the
fisherman and all the guests felt as if the chief personage were
still lacking at the feast, and that this chief personage could be
none other than the loved and gentle Undine. Whenever a door opened,
the eyes of all were involuntarily turned in that direction, and if
it was nothing but the butler with new dishes, or the cup-bearer
with a flask of still richer wine, they would look down again sadly,
and the flashes of wit and merriment which had passed to and fro,
would be extinguished by sad remembrances. The bride was the most
thoughtless of all, 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 attire, while
Undine was lying at the bottom of the Danube, a cold and stiff
corpse, or floating away with the current into the mighty ocean.
For, ever since her father had spoken of something of the sort, his
words were ever ringing in her ear, and this day especially they
were not inclined to give place to other thoughts.
The company dispersed early in the evening, not broken up by the
bridegroom himself, but sadly and gloomily by the joyless mood of
the guests and their forebodings of evil. Bertalda retired with her
maidens, and the knight with his attendants; but at this mournful
festival there was no gay, laughing train of bridesmaids and
bridesmen.
Bertalda wished to arouse more cheerful thoughts; she ordered a
splendid ornament of jewels which Huldbrand had given her, together
with rich apparel and veils, to be spread out before her, in order
that from these latter she might select the brightest and most
beautiful for her morning attire. Her attendants were delighted at
the opportunity of expressing their good wishes to their young
mistress, not failing at the same time to extol the beauty of the
bride in the most lively terms. They were more and more absorbed in
these considerations, till Bertalda at length, looking in a mirror,
said with a sigh: "Ah, but don't you see plainly how freckled I am
growing here at the side of my neck?"
They looked at her throat, and found the freckles as their fair
mistress had said, but they called them beauty-spots, and mere tiny
blemishes only, tending to enhance the whiteness of her delicate
skin. Bertalda shook her head and asserted that a spot was always a
defect.
"And I could remove them," she sighed a last, "only the fountain is
closed from which I used to have that precious and purifying water.
Oh! if I had but a flask of it to-day!"
"Is that all?" said an alert waiting-maid, laughing, as she slipped
from the apartment.
"She will not be mad," exclaimed Bertalda, in a pleased and
surprised tone, "she will not be so mad as to have the stone removed
from the fountain this very evening!" At the same moment they heard
the men crossing the courtyard, and could see from the window how
the officious waiting-woman was leading them straight up to the
fountain, and that they were carrying levers and other instruments
on their shoulders. "It is certainly my will," said Bertalda,
smiling, "if only it does not take too long." And, happy in the
sense that a look from her now was able to effect what had formerly
been so painfully refused her, she watched the progress of the work
in the moonlit castle-court.
The men raised the enormous stone with an effort; now and then
indeed one of their number would sigh, as he remembered that they
were destroying the work of their former beloved mistress. But the
labor was far lighter than they had imagined. It seemed as if a
power within the spring itself were aiding them in raising the
stone.
"It is just," said the workmen to each other in astonishment, "as if
the water within had become a springing fountain." And the stone
rose higher and higher, and almost without the assistance of the
workmen, it rolled slowly down upon the pavement with a hollow
sound. But from the opening of the fountain there rose solemnly a
white column of water; at first they imagined it had really become a
springing fountain, till they perceived that the rising form was a
pale female figure veiled in white. She was weeping bitterly,
raising her hands wailingly above her head and wringing them, as she
walked with a slow and serious step to the castle-building. The
servants fled from the spring; the bride, pale and stiff with
horror, stood at the window with her attendants. When the figure had
now come close beneath her room, it looked moaningly up to her, and
Bertalda thought she could recognize beneath the veil the pale
features of Undine. But the sorrowing form passed on, sad,
reluctant, and faltering, as if passing to execution.
Bertalda screamed out that the knight was to be called, but none of
her maids ventured from the spot; and even the bride herself became
mute, as if trembling at her own voice.
While they were still standing fearfully at the window, motionless
as statues, the strange wanderer had reached the castle, had passed
up the well-known stairs, and through the well-known halls, ever in
silent tears. Alas! how differently had she once wandered through
them!
The knight, partly undressed, had already dismissed his attendants,
and in a mood of deep dejection he was standing before a large
mirror; a taper was burning dimly beside him. There was a gentle tap
at his door. Undine used to tap thus when she wanted playfully to
tease him "It is all fancy," said he to himself; "I must seek my
nuptial bed."
"So you must, but it must be a cold one!" he heard a tearful voice
say from without, and then he saw in the mirror his door opening
slowly--slowly--and the white figure entered, carefully closing it
behind her. "They have opened the spring," said she softly, "and now
I am here, and you must die."
He felt in his paralyzed heart that it could not be otherwise, but
covering his eyes with his hands he said: "Do not make me mad with
terror in my hour of death. If you wear a hideous face behind that
veil, do not raise it, but take my life, and let me see you not."
"Alas!" replied the figure, "will you then not look upon me once
more? I am as fair as when you wooed me on the promontory."
"Oh, if it were so!" sighed Huldbrand, "and if I might die in your
fond embrace!"
"Most gladly, my loved one," said she; and throwing her veil back,
her lovely face smiled forth divinely beautiful. Trembling with love
and with the approach of death, she kissed him with a holy kiss; but
not relaxing her hold she pressed him fervently to her, and as if
she would weep away her soul. Tears rushed into the knight's eyes,
and seemed to surge through his heaving breast, till at length his
breathing ceased, and he fell softly back from the beautiful arms of
Undine, upon the pillows of his couch--a corpse.
"I have wept him to death," said she to some servants who met her in
the ante-chamber; and, passing through the affrighted group, she
went slowly out toward the fountain.