The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 05

"It may be," thought I, "that he himself expects from this measure, perhaps, to get his two other daughters the sooner married; for who knows but a spark may fall in this or that young man's breast, and kindle a longing for the green Snake; whom, on Ascension-day, under the elder-bush, he will forthwith seek and find? From the woe which befell Anselmus, when inclosed in the glass bottle, he will take warning to be doubly and trebly on his guard against all doubt and unbelief."

Precisely at eleven o'clock I extinguished my study-lamp and glided forth to Archivarius Lindhorst, who was already waiting for me in the lobby.

"Are you there, my worthy friend? Well, this is what I like, that you have not mistaken my good intentions; do but follow me!"

And with this he led the way through the garden, now filled with dazzling brightness, into the azure chamber, where I observed the same violet table at which Anselmus had been writing.

Archivarius Lindhorst disappeared, but soon came back, carrying in his hand a fair golden goblet out of which a high blue flame was sparkling up. "Here," said he, "I bring you the favorite drink of your friend the Bandmaster, Johannes Kreisler.[45 - An imaginary musical enthusiast of whom Hoffmann has written much; under the fiery, sensitive, wayward character of this crazy bandmaster, presenting, it would seem, a shadowy likeness of himself. The Kreisleriana occupy a large space among these Fantasy-pieces; and Johannes Kreisler is the main figure in Kater Murr, Hoffmann's favorite but unfinished work. In the third and last volume, Kreisler was to end, not in composure and illumination, as the critics would have required, but in utter madness: a sketch of a wild, flail-like scarecrow, dancing vehemently and blowing soap-bubbles, and which had been intended to front the last title-page, was found among Hoffmann's papers, and engraved and published in his Life and Remains.] It is burning arrack, into which I have thrown a little sugar. Sip a touch or two of it; I will doff my nightgown, and, to amuse myself and enjoy your worthy company while you sit looking and writing, shall just bob up and down a little in the goblet."

"As you please, honored Herr Archivarius," answered I: "but if I am to ply the liqueur, you will get none."

"Don't fear that, my good fellow," cried the Archivarius; then hastily threw off his nightgown, mounted, to my no small amazement, into the goblet, and vanished in the blaze. Without fear, softly blowing black the flame, I partook of the drink; it was truly delicious!

Stir not the emerald leaves of the palm-trees in soft sighing and rustling, as if kissed by the breath of the morning wind? Awakened from their sleep, they move and mysteriously whisper of the wonders which, from the far distance, approach like tones of melodious harps! The azure rolls from the walls, and floats like airy vapor to and fro; but dazzling beams shoot through the perfume which, whirling and dancing, as in jubilee of childlike sport, mounts and mounts to immeasurable heights, and vaults over the palm-trees. But brighter and brighter shoots beam on beam, till in bright sunshine and boundless expanse opens the grove where I behold Anselmus. Here glowing hyacinths, and tulips, and roses, lift their fair heads; and their perfumes, in loveliest sound, call to the happy youth: "Wander, wander among us, our beloved; for thou understandest us! Our perfume is the Longing of Love; we love thee, and are thine forevermore!" The golden rays burn in glowing tones: "We are Fire, kindled by Love. Perfume is Longing; but Fire is Desire: and dwell we not in thy bosom? We are thy own!" The dark bushes, the high trees, rustle and sound: "Come to us, thou loved, thou happy one! Fire is Desire; but Hope is our cool Shadow. Lovingly we rustle round thy head; for thou understandest us, because Love dwells in thy breast!" The fountains and brooks murmur and patter. "Loved one, walk not so quickly by; look into our crystal! Thy image dwells in us, which we preserve with Love, for thou hast understood us." In the triumphal choir, bright birds are singing: "Hear us! Hear us! We are Joy, we are Delight, the rapture of Love!" But longingly Anselmus turns his eyes to the Glorious Temple, which rises behind him in the distance. The artful pillars seem trees; and the capitals and friezes acanthus leaves, which in wondrous wreaths and figures form splendid decorations. Anselmus walks to the Temple; he views with inward delight the variegated marble, the steps with their strange veins of moss. "Ah, no!" cries he, as if in the excess of rapture, "she is not far from me now; she is near!" Then advances Serpentina, in the fulness of beauty and grace, from the Temple; she bears the Golden Pot, from which a bright Lily has sprung. The nameless rapture of infinite longing glows in her bright eyes; she looks at Anselmus, and says: "Ah! Dearest, the Lily has sent forth her bowl; what we longed for is fulfilled; is there a happiness to equal ours?" Anselmus clasps her with the tenderness of warmest ardor; the Lily burns in flaming beams over his head. And louder move the trees and bushes; clearer and gladder play the brooks; the birds, the shining insects dance in the waves of perfume; a gay, bright rejoicing tumult, in the air, in the water, in the earth, is holding the festival of Love! Now rush sparkling streaks, gleaming over all the bushes; diamonds look from the ground like shining eyes; high gushes spurt from the wells; strange perfumes are wafted hither on sounding wings; they are the Spirits of the Elements, who do homage to the Lily, and proclaim the happiness of Anselmus. Then Anselmus raises his head, as if encircled with a beamy glory. Is it looks? Is it words? Is it song? You hear the sound: "Serpentina! Belief in thee, Love of thee, has unfolded to my soul the inmost spirit of Nature! Thou hast brought me the Lily, which sprung from Gold, from the primeval Force of the earth, before Phosphorus had kindled the spark of Thought; this Lily is Knowledge of the sacred Harmony of all Beings; and in this do I live in highest blessedness forevermore. Yes, I, thrice happy, have perceived what was highest; I must indeed love thee forever, O Serpentina! Never shall the golden blossoms of the Lily grow pale; for, like Belief and Love, Knowledge is eternal."

For the vision, in which I had now beheld Anselmus bodily, in his Freehold of Atlantis, I stand indebted to the arts of the Salamander; and most fortunate was it that, when all had melted into air, I found a paper lying on the violet table, with the foregoing statement of the matter, written fairly and distinctly by my own hand. But now I felt myself as if transpierced and torn in pieces by sharp sorrow. "Ah, happy Anselmus, who hast cast away the burden of week-day life, who in the love of thy kind Serpentina fliest with bold pinion, and now livest in rapture and joy on thy Freehold in Atlantis! while I—poor I!—must soon, nay, in a few moments, leave even this fair hall, which itself is far from a Freehold in Atlantis, and again be transplanted to my garret, where, enthralled among the pettinesses of necessitous existence, my heart and my sight are so bedimmed with thousand mischiefs, as with thick fog, that the fair Lily will never, never be beheld by me."

Then Archivarius Lindhorst patted me gently on the shoulder, and said: "Soft, soft, my honored friend! Lament not so! Were you not even now in Atlantis, and have you not at least a pretty little copyhold Farm there, as the poetical possession of your inward sense? And is the blessedness of Anselmus aught else but a Living in Poesy? Can aught else but Poesy reveal itself as the sacred Harmony of all Beings, as the deepest secret of Nature?"

FRIEDRICH BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ

* * * * *

SELECTIONS FROM UNDINE[46 - Permission Bernhard Tauchnitz, Leipzig.] (1811)

TRANSLATED BY F.E. BUNNETT

CHAPTER VIII

The Day after the wedding

The fresh light of the morning awoke the young married pair. Undine hid bashfully beneath her covers while Huldbrand lay still, absorbed in deep meditation. Wonderful and horrible dreams had disturbed Huldbrand's rest; he had been haunted by spectres, who, grinning at him by stealth, had tried to disguise themselves as beautiful women, and from beautiful women they all at once assumed the faces of dragons, and when he started up from these hideous visions the moonlight shone pale and cold into the room; terrified he looked at Undine on whose bosom he fell asleep and who still lay in unaltered beauty and grace. Then he would press a light kiss upon her rosy lips and would fall asleep again only to be awakened by new terrors. After he had reflected on all this, now that he was fully awake, he reproached himself for any doubt that could have led him into error with regard to his beautiful wife. He begged her to forgive him for the injustice he had done her, but she only held out to him her fair hand, sighed deeply, and remained silent. But a glance of exquisite fervor, such as he had never seen before, beamed from her eyes, carrying with it the full assurance that Undine bore him no ill-will. He then rose cheerfully and left her, to join his friends in the common apartment.

He found the three sitting round the hearth with an air of anxiety, as if they dared not venture to speak aloud. The priest seemed to be praying in his inmost spirit that all evil might be averted. When, however, they saw the young husband come forth so cheerfully, the careworn expression of their faces vanished.

The old fisherman even began to tease the knight, but in so chaste and modest a manner that the aged wife herself smiled good-humoredly as she listened to them. Undine at length made her appearance. All rose to meet her and all stood still with surprise, for the young wife seemed so strange to them and yet the same. The priest was the first to advance toward her, with paternal affection beaming in his face, and, as he raised his hand to bless her, the beautiful woman sank reverently on her knees before him. With a few humble and gracious words she begged him to forgive her for any foolish things she might have said the evening before, and entreated him in an agitated tone to pray for the welfare of her soul. She then rose, kissed her foster-parents, and thanking them for all the goodness they had shown her, she exclaimed, "Oh, I now feel in my innermost heart, how much, how infinitely much, you have done for me, dear, kind people!" She could not at first desist from her caresses, but scarcely had she perceived that the old woman was busy in preparing breakfast than she went to the hearth, cooked and arranged the meal, and would not suffer the good old mother to take the least trouble.

She continued thus throughout the whole day, quiet, kind, and attentive—at once a little matron and a tender bashful girl. The three who had known her longest expected every moment to see some whimsical vagary of her capricious spirit burst forth; but they waited in vain for it. Undine remained as mild and gentle as an angel. The holy father could not take his eyes from her, and he said repeatedly to the bridegroom, "The goodness of heaven, sir, has intrusted a treasure to you yesterday through me, unworthy as I am; cherish it as you ought, and it will promote your temporal and eternal welfare."

Toward evening Undine was hanging on the knight's arm with humble tenderness, and drew him gently out of the door where the declining sun was shining pleasantly on the fresh grass and upon the tall slender stems of the trees. The eyes of the young wife were moist, as with the dew of sadness and love, and a tender and fearful secret seemed hovering on her lips—which, however, was disclosed only by scarcely audible sighs. She led her husband onward and onward in silence; when he spoke she answered him only with looks, in which, it is true, there lay no direct reply to his inquiries, but a whole heaven of love and timid devotion. Thus they reached the edge of the swollen forest-stream, and the knight was astonished to see it rippling along in gentle waves, without a trace of its former wildness and swell. "By the morning, it will be quite dry," said the beautiful wife, in a regretful tone, "and you can then travel away wherever you will, without anything to hinder you."

"Not without you, my little Undine," replied the knight, laughing; "remember, even if I wished to desert you, the church, and the spiritual powers, and the emperor, and the empire, would interpose and bring the fugitive back again."

"All depends upon you, all depends upon you," whispered his wife, half weeping and half smiling. "I think, however, nevertheless, that you will keep me with you; I love you so heartily. Now carry me across to that little island that lies before us. The matter shall be decided there. I could easily indeed glide through the rippling waves, but it is so restful in your arms, and, if you are to cast me off, I shall have sweetly rested in them once more for the last time." Huldbrand, full as he was of strange fear and emotion, knew not what to reply. He took her in his arms and carried her across, remembering now for the first time that this was the same little island from which he had borne her back to the old fisherman on that first night. On the farther side he put her down on the soft grass, and was on the point of placing himself lovingly near his beautiful burden when she said, "No, there, opposite to me! I will read my sentence in your eyes, before your lips speak; now, listen attentively to what I will relate to you!" And she began:

"You must know, my loved one, that there are beings in the elements which appear almost like you mortals, and which rarely allow themselves to become visible to your race. Wonderful salamanders glitter and sport in the flames; lean and malicious gnomes dwell deep within the earth; spirits, belonging to the air, wander through the forests; and a vast family of water spirits live in the lakes and streams and brooks. In resounding domes of crystal, through which the sky looks in with its sun and stars, these latter spirits find their beautiful abode; lofty trees of coral, with blue and crimson fruits, gleam in the gardens; they wander over the pure sand of the sea, and among lovely variegated shells, and amid all exquisite treasures of the old world, which the present is no longer worthy to enjoy; all these the floods have covered with their secret veils of silver, and the noble monuments sparkle below, stately and solemn, and bedewed by the loving waters which allure from them many a beautiful moss-flower and entwining cluster of sea-grass. Those, however, who dwell there, are very fair and lovely to behold, and for the most part are more beautiful than human beings. Many a fisherman has been so fortunate as to surprise some tender mermaid, as she rose above the waters and sang. He would then tell afar of her beauty, and such wonderful beings have been given the name of Undines. You, moreover, are now actually beholding an Undine."

The knight tried to persuade himself that his beautiful wife was under the spell of one of her strange humors and that she was taking pleasure in teasing him with one of her extravagant inventions. But repeatedly as he said this to himself, he could not believe it for a moment; a strange shudder passed through him; unable to utter a word, he stared at the beautiful narrator with an immovable gaze. Undine shook her head sorrowfully, drew a deep sigh, and then proceeded.

"Our condition would be far superior to that of you human beings—for human beings we call ourselves, being similar to them in form and culture—but there is one evil peculiar to us. We and our like in the other elements vanish into dust and pass away, body and spirit, so that not a vestige of us remains behind; and when you mortals hereafter awake to a purer life we remain with the sand and the sparks and the wind and the waves. Hence we have also no souls; the element moves us and is often obedient to us while we live, though it scatters us to dust when we die; and we are merry, without having aught to grieve us—merry as the nightingales and little gold-fishes and other pretty children of nature. But all beings aspire to be higher than they are. Thus my father, who is a powerful water-prince in the Mediterranean Sea, desired that his only daughter should become possessed of a soul, even though she must then endure many of the sufferings of those thus endowed. Such as we, however, can obtain a soul only by the closest union of love with one of your human race. I am now possessed of a soul, and my soul I owe you, my inexpressibly beloved one, and it will ever thank you if you do not make my whole life miserable. For what is to become of me if you avoid and reject me? Still I would not retain you by deceit. And if you mean to reject me do so now, and return alone to the shore. I will dive into this brook, which is my uncle; and here in the forest, far removed from other friends, he passes his strange and solitary life. He is, however, powerful, and is esteemed and beloved by many great streams; and as he brought me hither to the fisherman, a light-hearted, laughing child, he will take me back again to my parents, a loving, suffering, and soul-endowed woman."

She was about to say still more, but Huldbrand embraced her with the most heartfelt emotion and love, and bore her back again to the shore. It was not till he reached it that he swore, amid tears and kisses, never to forsake his sweet wife, calling himself more happy than the Greek sculptor Pygmalion, whose beautiful statue received life from Venus and became his loved one. In endearing confidence Undine walked back to the cottage, leaning on his arm, and feeling now for the first time with all her heart how little she ought to regret the forsaken crystal palaces of her mysterious father.

CHAPTER XIII

How they lived at Castle Ringstetten

The writer of this story, both because it moves his own heart and because he wishes it to move that of others, begs you, dear reader, to pardon him if he now briefly passes over a considerable space of time, only cursorily mentioning the events that marked it. He knows well that he might portray according to the rules of art, step by step, how Huldbrand's heart began to turn from Undine to Bertalda; how Bertalda more and more responded with ardent love to the young knight, and how they both looked upon the poor wife as a mysterious being rather to be feared than pitied; how Undine wept, and how her tears stung the knight's heart with remorse without awakening his former love, so that though he at times was kind and endearing to her, a cold shudder would soon draw him from her and he would turn to his fellow-mortal, Bertalda. All this the writer knows might be fully detailed, and perhaps ought to have been so; but such a task would have been too painful, for similar things have been known to him by sad experience, and he shrinks from their shadow even in remembrance. You know probably a like feeling, dear reader, for such is the lot of mortal man. Happy are you if you have received rather than inflicted the pain, for in such things it is more blessed to receive than to give. If it be so, such recollections will bring only a feeling of sorrow to your mind, and perhaps a tear will trickle down your cheek over the faded flowers that once caused you such delight. But let that be enough. We will not pierce our hearts with a thousand separate things, but only briefly state, as I have just said, how matters were.

Poor Undine was very sad, and the other two were not to be called happy. Bertalda, especially, thought that she could trace the effect of jealousy on the part of the injured wife whenever her wishes were in any way thwarted. She had therefore habituated herself to an imperious demeanor, to which Undine yielded in sorrowful submission, and the now blinded Huldbrand usually encouraged this arrogant behavior in the strongest manner. But the circumstance that most of all disturbed the inmates of the castle was a variety of wonderful apparitions which met Huldbrand and Bertalda in the vaulted galleries of the castle, and which had never been heard of before as haunting the locality. The tall white man, in whom Huldbrand recognized only too plainly Uncle Kühleborn, and Bertalda the spectral master of the fountain, often passed before them with a threatening aspect, and especially before Bertalda, on so many occasions that she had several times been made ill with terror and had frequently thought of quitting the castle. But still she stayed there, partly because Huldbrand was so dear to her, and she relied on her innocence, no words of love having ever passed between them, and partly also because she knew not whither to direct her steps. The old fisherman, on receiving the message from the lord of Ringstetten that Bertalda was his guest, had written a few lines in an almost illegible hand but as well as his advanced age and long disuse would admit of. "I have now become," he wrote, "a poor old widower, for my dear and faithful wife is dead. However lonely I now sit in my cottage, Bertalda is better with you than with me. Only let her do nothing to harm my beloved Undine! She will have my curse if it be so." The last words of this letter Bertalda flung to the winds, but she carefully retained the part respecting her absence from her father—just as we are all wont to do in similar circumstances.

One day, when Huldbrand had just ridden out, Undine summoned the domestics of the family and ordered them to bring a large stone and carefully to cover with it the magnificent fountain which stood in the middle of the castle-yard. The servants objected that it would oblige them to bring water from the valley below. Undine smiled sadly. "I am sorry, my people," she replied, "to increase your work. I would rather myself fetch up the pitchers, but this fountain must be closed. Believe me that it cannot be otherwise, and that it is only by so doing that we can avoid a greater evil."

The whole household were glad to be able to please their gentle mistress; they made no further inquiry, but seized the enormous stone. They were just raising it in their hands and were already poising it over the fountain, when Bertalda came running up and called out to them to stop, as it was from this fountain that the water was brought which was so good for her complexion and she would never consent to its being closed. Undine, however, although gentle as usual, was this time more than usually firm. She told Bertalda that it was her due, as mistress of the house, to arrange her household as she thought best, and that, in this, she was accountable to no one but her lord and husband. "See, oh, pray see," exclaimed Bertalda, in an angry yet uneasy tone, "how the poor beautiful water is curling and writhing at being shut out from the bright sunshine and from the cheerful sight of the human face, for whose mirror it was created!" The water in the fountain was indeed wonderfully agitated and hissing; it seemed as if something within were struggling to free itself, but Undine only the more earnestly urged the fulfilment of her orders. The earnestness was scarcely needed. The servants of the castle were as happy in obeying their gentle mistress as in opposing Bertalda's haughty defiance; and in spite of all the rude scolding and threatening of the latter, the stone was soon firmly lying over the opening of the fountain. Undine leaned thoughtfully over it and wrote with her beautiful fingers on its surface. She must, however, have had something very sharp and corrosive in her hand, for when she turned away and the servants drew near to examine the stone, they perceived all sorts of strange characters upon it, which none of them had seen there before.

Bertalda received the knight, on his return home in the evening, with tears and complaints of Undine's conduct. He cast a serious look at his poor wife, and she looked down in great distress; yet she said with great composure, "My lord and husband does not reprove even a bond-slave without a hearing, how much less, then, his wedded wife?"

"Speak," said the knight with a gloomy countenance, "what induced you to act so strangely?"

"I should like to tell you when we are quite alone," sighed Undine.

"You can tell me just as well in Bertalda's presence," was the rejoinder.

"Yes, if you command me," said Undine; "but command it not. Oh pray, pray command it not!" She looked so humble, so sweet, so obedient, that the knight's heart felt a passing gleam from better times. He kindly placed her arm within his own and led her to his apartment, when she began to speak as follows:

"You already know, my beloved lord, something of my evil uncle, Kühleborn, and you have frequently been displeased at meeting him in the galleries of this castle. He has several times frightened Bertalda into illness. This is because he is devoid of soul, a mere elemental mirror of the outward world, without the power of reflecting the world within. He sees, too, sometimes, that you are dissatisfied with me; that I, in my childishness, am weeping at this, and that Bertalda perhaps is at the very same moment laughing. Hence he imagines various discrepancies in our home life, and in many ways mixes unbidden with our circle. What is the good of my reproving him? What is the use of my sending him angrily away? He does not believe a word I say. His poor nature has no idea that the joys and sorrows of love have so sweet a resemblance, and are so closely linked that no power can separate them. Amid tears a smile shines forth, and a smile allures tears from their secret chambers."

She looked up at Huldbrand, smiling and weeping; and he again experienced within his heart all the charm of his old love. She felt this, and, pressing him more tenderly to her, she continued amid tears of joy, "As the disturber of our peace was not to be dismissed with words, I have been obliged to shut the door upon him. And the only door by which he obtains access to us, is that fountain. He is at odds with the other water-spirits in the neighborhood, counting from the adjacent valleys, and his kingdom only recommences further off on the Danube, into which some of his good friends direct their course. For this reason I had the stone placed over the opening of the fountain, and I inscribed characters upon it which cripple all my uncle's power, so that he can now neither intrude upon you, nor upon me, nor upon Bertalda. Human beings, it is true, can raise the stone again with ordinary effort, in spite of the characters inscribed on it; the inscription does not hinder them. If you wish, therefore, follow Bertalda's desire, but, truly, she knows not what she asks! The ill-bred Kühleborn has set his mark especially upon her; and if this or that came to pass which he has predicted to me and which might indeed happen without your meaning any evil—ah! dear one, even you would then be exposed to danger!"

Huldbrand felt deeply the generosity of his sweet wife, in her eagerness to shut up her formidable protector while she had even been chided for it by Bertalda. He pressed her therefore in his arms with the utmost affection, and said with emotion, "The stone shall remain, and all shall remain, now and ever, as you wish to have it, my sweet little Undine."

She caressed him with humble delight as she heard the expressions of love so long withheld, and then at length she said, "My dearest friend, since you are so gentle and kind today, may I venture to ask a favor of you? See now, it is just the same with you as it is with summer. In the height of its glory summer puts on the flaming and thundering crown of mighty storms and assumes the air of a king over the earth. You too sometimes let your fury rise, and your eyes flash, and your voice is angry, and this becomes you well, though I in my folly may sometimes weep at it. But never, I pray you, behave thus toward me on the water, or even when we are near it. You see, my relatives would then acquire a right over me. They would unrelentingly tear me from you in their rage because they would imagine that one of their race was injured, and I should be compelled all my life to dwell below in the crystal palaces, and should never be permitted to ascend to you again; or they would send me up to you—and that, oh God, would be infinitely worse. No, no, my beloved friend, do not let it come to that, however dear poor Undine be to you." He promised solemnly to do as she desired, and husband and wife returned from the apartment, full of happiness and affection.

At that moment Bertalda appeared with some workmen to whom she had already given orders, and said in the sullen tone which she had assumed of late, "I suppose the secret conference is at an end, and now the stone may be removed. Go out, workmen, and attend to it." But the knight, angry at her impertinence, directed in short and very decisive words that the stone should be left; he reproved Bertalda, too, for her violence toward his wife. Whereupon the workmen withdrew, smiling with secret satisfaction; while Bertalda, pale with rage, hurried away to her rooms.

The hour for the evening repast arrived, and Bertalda was waited for in vain. They sent after her, but the domestic found her apartments empty, and only brought back with him a sealed letter addressed to the knight. He opened it with alarm, and read: "I feel with shame that I am only a poor fisher-girl. I will expiate my fault in having forgotten this for a moment, by returning to the miserable cottage of my parents. Farewell to you and your beautiful wife."

Undine was heartily distressed. She earnestly entreated Huldbrand to hasten after their friend and bring her back again. Alas! she had no need to urge him. His affection for Bertalda burst forth again with vehemence. He hurried round the castle, inquiring if any one had seen which way the beautiful fugitive had gone. He could learn nothing of her and was already on his horse in the castle-yard, resolved to take at a venture the road by which he had brought Bertalda hither. Just then a page appeared, who assured him that he had met the lady on the path to the Black Valley. Like an arrow the knight sprang through the gate-way in the direction indicated, without hearing Undine's voice of agony as she called to him from the window: "To the Black Valley! Oh, not there! Huldbrand, don't go there! or, for Heaven's sake, take me with you!" But when she perceived that all her calling was in vain, she ordered her white palfrey to be saddled immediately and rode after the knight without allowing any servant to accompany her.

CHAPTER XIV

How Bertalda returned home with the Knight

The Black Valley lies deep within the mountains. What it is now called we do not know. At that time the people of the country gave it this appellation on account of the deep obscurity in which the low land lay, owing to the shadows of the lofty trees, and especially firs, that grew there. Even the brook which bubbled between the rocks wore the same dark hue, and dashed along with none of that gladness with which streams are wont to flow that have the blue sky immediately above them. Now, in the growing twilight of evening, it looked altogether wild and gloomy between the heights. The knight trotted anxiously along the edge of the brook, fearful at one moment that by delay he might allow the fugitive to advance too far, and, at the next, that by too great rapidity he might overlook her in case she were concealing herself from him. Meanwhile he had already penetrated quite a ways into the valley, and might soon hope to overtake the maiden if he were on the right track, but the fear that this might not be the case made his heart beat with anxiety. Where would the tender Bertalda tarry through the stormy night, which was so fearful in the valley, should he fail to find her? At length he saw something white gleaming through the branches on the slope of the mountain. He thought he recognized Bertalda's dress, and turned his course in that direction. But his horse refused to go forward; it reared impatiently; and its master, unwilling to lose a moment, and seeing moreover that the copse was impassable on horseback, dismounted; then, fastening his snorting steed to an elm-tree, he worked his way cautiously through the bushes. The branches sprinkled his forehead and cheeks with the cold drops of the evening dew; a distant roll of thunder was heard murmuring from the other side of the mountains; everything looked so strange that he began to feel a dread of the white figure which now lay only a short distance from him on the ground. Still he could plainly see that it was a woman, either asleep or in a swoon, and that she was attired in long white garments such as Bertalda had worn on that day. He stepped close up to her, made a rustling with the branches, and let his sword clatter, but she moved not. "Bertalda!" he exclaimed, at first in a low voice, and then louder and louder—but still she heard not. At last, when he uttered the dear name with a more powerful effort, a hollow echo from the mountain-caverns of the valley indistinctly reverberated "Bertalda!" but still the sleeper woke not. He bent down over her; the gloom of the valley and the obscurity of approaching night would not allow him to distinguish her features.

Just as he was stooping closer over her with a feeling of painful doubt, a flash of lightning shot across the valley, he saw before him a frightfully distorted countenance, and a hollow voice exclaimed, "Give me a kiss, you enamoured swain!" Huldbrand sprang up with a cry of horror, and the hideous figure rose with him. "Go home!" it murmured; "wizards are on the watch. Go home, or I will have you!" and it stretched out its long white arms toward him.

"Malicious Kühleborn!" cried the knight, recovering himself. "Hey, 'tis you, you goblin? There, take your kiss!" And he furiously hurled his sword at the figure. But it vanished like vapor, and a gush of water which wetted him through left the knight in no doubt as to the foe with whom he had been engaged. "He wishes to frighten me back from Bertalda," said he aloud to himself; "he thinks to terrify me with his foolish tricks, and to make me give up the poor distressed girl to him so that he can wreak his vengeance on her. But he shall not do that, weak spirit of the elements as he is. No powerless phantom may understand what a human heart can do when its best energies are aroused." He felt the truth of his words, and that the very expression of them had inspired his heart with fresh courage.