Bright opening day,
Wild flowers so gay,
Tall grasses their thirst that slake,
On the banks of the billowy lake!
What glimmers there so shining
The reedy growth entwining?
Is it a blossom white as snow
Fallen from heav’n here below?
It is an infant, frail and dear!
With flowerets playing in its dreams
And grasping morning’s golden beams;
Oh! whence, sweet stranger, art thou here?
From some far-off and unknown strand,
The lake has borne thee to this land.
Nay, grasp not, tender little one,
With thy tiny hand outspread;
No hand will meet thy touch with love,
Mute is that flowery bed.
The flowers can deck themselves so fair
And breathe forth fragrance blest,
Yet none can press thee to itself,
Like that far-off mother’s breast.
So early at the gate of life,
With smiles of heav’n on thy brow,
Thou hast the best of treasures lost,
Poor wand’ ring child, nor know’st it now.
A noble duke comes riding by,
And near thee checks his courser’s speed,
And full of ardent chivalry
He bears thee home upon his steed.
Much, endless much, has been thy gain!
Thou bloom’st the fairest in the land!
Yet ah! the priceless joy of all,
Thou’st left upon an unknown strand.
Undine dropped her lute with a melancholy smile, and the eyes of Bertalda’s foster-parents were filled with tears. “Yes, so it was on the morning that I found you, my poor sweet orphan,” said the duke, deeply agitated; “the beautiful singer is certainly right; we have not been able to give you that ‘priceless joy of all.’”
“But we must also hear how it fared with the poor parents,” said Undine, as she resumed her lute, and sang:
Thro’ every chamber roams the mother,
Moves and searches everywhere,
Seeks, she scarce knows what, with sadness,
And finds an empty house is there.
An empty house! Oh, word of sorrow,
To her who once had been so blest,
Who led her child about by day
And cradled it at night to rest.
The beech is growing green again,
The sunshine gilds its wonted spot,
But mother, cease thy searching vain!
Thy little loved one cometh not.
And when the breath of eve blows cool,
And father in his home appears,
The smile he almost tries to wear
Is quenched at once by gushing tears.
Full well he knows that in his home
He naught can find but wild despair,
He hears the mother’s grieved lament
And no bright infant greets him there.
“Oh! for God’s sake, Undine, where are my parents?” cried the weeping Bertalda; “you surely know; you have discovered them, you wonderful being, for otherwise you would not have thus torn me heart. Are they perhaps already here? Can it be?” Her eye passed quickly over the brilliant company and lingered on a lady of high rank who was sitting next her foster-father. Undine, however, turned toward the door, while her eyes overflowed with the sweetest emotion. “Where are the poor waiting parents?” she inquired, and, the old fisherman and his wife advanced hesitatingly from the crowd of spectators. Their glance rested inquiringly now on Undine, now on the beautiful girl who was said to be their daughter. “It is she,” said the delighted benefactress, in a faltering tone, and the two old people hung round the neck of their recovered child, weeping and praising God.
But amazed and indignant, Bertalda tore herself from their embrace. Such a recognition was too much for this proud mind, at a moment when she had surely imagined that her former splendor would even be increased, and when hope was deluding her with a vision of almost royal honors. It seemed to her as if her rival had devised all this on purpose signally to humble her before Huldbrand and the whole world. She reviled Undine, she reviled the old people, and bitter invectives, such as “deceiver” and “bribed impostors,” fell from her lips. Then the old fisherman’s wife said in a low voice to herself: “Ah me, she is become a wicked girl; and yet I feel in my heart that she is my child.”
The old fisherman, however, had folded his hands, and was praying silently that this might not be his daughter. Undine, pale as death, turned with agitation from the parents to Bertalda, and from Bertalda to the parents; suddenly cast down from that heaven of happiness of which she had dreamed, and overwhelmed with a fear and a terror such as she had never known even in imagination. “Have you a soul? Have you really a soul, Bertalda?” she cried again and again to her angry friend, as if forcibly to rouse her to consciousness from some sudden delirium or maddening nightmare. But when Bertalda only became more and more enraged, when the repulsed parents began to weep aloud, and the company, in eager dispute, were taking different sides, she begged in such a dignified and serious manner to be allowed to speak in this her husband’s hall, that all around were in a moment silenced. She then advanced to the upper end of the table, where Bertalda has seated herself, and with a modest and yet proud air, while every eye was fixed upon her, she spoke as follows:
“My friends, you look so angry and disturbed and you have interrupted my happy feast by your disputings. Ah! I knew nothing of your foolish habits and your heartless mode of thinking, and I shall never all my life long become accustomed to them. It is not my fault that this affair has resulted in evil; believe me, the fault is with yourselves alone, little as it may appear to you to be so. I have therefore but little to say to you, but one thing I must say: I have spoken nothing but truth. I neither can nor will give you proofs beyond my own assertion, but I will swear to the truth of this. I received this information from the very person who allured Bertalda into the water, away from her parents, and who afterward placed her on the green meadow in the duke’s path.”
“She is an enchantress!” cried Bertalda, “a witch, who has intercourse with evil spirits. She acknowledges it herself.”
“I do not,” said Undine, with a whole heaven of innocence and confidence beaming, in her eyes. “I am no witch; only look at me.”
“She is false and boastful,” interrupted Bertalda, “and she cannot prove that I am the child of these low people. My noble parents, I beg you to take me from this company and out of this city, where they are only bent on insulting me.”
But the aged and honorable duke remained unmoved, and his wife, said: “We must thoroughly examine how we are to act. God forbid that we should move a step from this hall until we have done so.”
Then the old wife of the fisherman drew near, and making a low reverence to the duchess, she said: “Noble, god-fearing lady, you have opened my heart. I must tell you, if this evil-disposed young lady is my daughter, she has a mark, like a violet, between her shoulders, and another like it on the instep of her left foot. If she would only go out of the hall with me!”
“I shall not uncover myself before the peasant woman!” exclaimed Bertalda, proudly turning her back on her.
“But before me you will,” rejoined the duchess, very gravely. “Follow me into that room, girl, and the good old woman shall come with us.” The three disappeared, and the rest of the company remained where they were, in silent expectation. After a short time they returned; Bertalda was pale as death. “Right is right,” said the duchess; “I must therefore declare that our hostess has spoken perfect truth. Bertalda is the fisherman’s daughter, and that is as much as it is necessary to inform you here.”
The princely pair left with their adopted daughter; and at a sign from the duke, the fisherman and his wife followed them. The other guests retired in silence or with secret murmurs, and Un
dine sank weeping into Huldbrand’s arms.
CHAPTER XII.
How They Left the Imperial City.
The Lord of Ringstetten would have certainly preferred the events of this day to have been different; but even as they were, he could scarcely regret them wholly, as they had exhibited his charming wife under such a good and sweet and kindly aspect. “If I have given her a soul,” he could not help saying to himself, “I have indeed given her a better one than my own;” and his only thought now was to speak soothingly to the weeping Undine, and on the following morning to quit with her a place which, after this incident, must have become distasteful to her. It is true that she was not estimated differently to what she had been. As something mysterious had long been expected of her, the strange discovery of Bertalda’s origin had caused no great surprise, and every one who had heard the story and had seen Bertalda’s violent behavior, was disgusted with her alone. Of this, however, the knight and his lady knew nothing as yet; and, besides, the condemnation or approval of the public was equally painful to Undine, and thus there was no better course to pursue than to leave the walls of the old city behind them with all the speed possible.
With the earliest beams of morning a pretty carriage drove up to the entrance gate for Undine; the horses which Huldbrand and his squires were to ride stood near, pawing the ground with impatient eagerness. The knight was leading his beautiful wife from the door, when a fisher-girl crossed their way. “We do not need your fish,” said Huldbrand to her, “we are now starting on our journey.” Upon this the fisher-girl began to weep bitterly, and the young couple perceived for the first time that it was Bertalda. They immediately returned with her to their apartment, and learned from her that the duke and duchess were so displeased at her violent and unfeeling conduct on the preceding day, that they had entirely withdrawn their protection from her, though not without giving her a rich portion.
The fisherman, too, had been handsomely rewarded, and had the evening before set out with his wife to return to their secluded home.
“I would have gone with them,” she continued, “but the old fisherman, who is said to be my father”—
“And he is so indeed, Bertalda,” interrupted Undine. “Mark me, the stranger, whom you took for the master of the fountain, told me the whole story in detail. He wished to dissuade me from taking you with me to castle Ringstetten, and this led him to disclose the secret.”
“Well, then,” said Bertalda, “if it must be so, my father said, ‘I will not take you with me until you are changed. Venture to come to us alone through the haunted forest; that shall be the proof whether you have any regard for us. But do not come to me as a lady; come only as a fisher-girl!’ So I will do just as he has told me, for I am forsaken by the whole world, and I will live and die in solitude as a poor fisher-girl, with my poor parents. I have a terrible dread though of the forest. Horrible spectres are said to dwell in it, and I am so fearful. But how can I help it? I only came here to implore pardon of the noble lady of Ringstetten for my unbecoming behavior yesterday. I feel sure, sweet lady, you meant to do me a kindness, but you knew not how you would wound me, and in my agony and surprise, many a rash and frantic expression passed my lips. Oh forgive, forgive! I am already so unhappy. Only think yourself what I was yesterday morning, yesterday at the beginning of your banquet, and what I am now!”
Her voice became stifled with a passionate flood of tears, and Undine, also weeping bitterly, fell on her neck. It was some time before the deeply agitated Undine could utter a word; at length she said:
“You can go with us to Ringstetten; everything shall remain as it was arranged before; only do not speak to me again as ‘noble lady.’ You see, we were exchanged for each other as children; our faces even then sprang as it were from the same stem, and we will now so strengthen this kindred destiny that no human power shall be able to separate it. Only, first of all, come with us to Ringstetten. We will discuss there how we shall share all things as sisters.”
Bertalda looked timidly toward Huldbrand. He pitied the beautiful girl in her distress, and offering her his hand he begged her tenderly to intrust herself with him and his wife. “We will send a message to your parents,” he continued, “to tell them why you are not come;” and he would have added more with regard to the worthy fisherman and his wife, but he saw that Bertalda shrunk with pain from the mention of their name, and he therefore refrained from saying more.
He then assisted her first into the carriage, Undine followed her; and he mounted his horse and trotted merrily by the side of them, urging the driver at the same time to hasten his speed, so that very soon they were beyond the confines of the Imperial city and all its sad remembrances; and now the ladies began to enjoy the beautiful country through which their road lay.
After a journey of some days, they arrived one exquisite evening, at castle Ringstetten. The young knight had much to hear from his overseers and vassals, so that Undine and Bertalda were left alone.
They both repaired to the ramparts of the fortress, and were delighted with the beautiful landscape which spread far and wide through fertile Swabia.
Presently a tall man approached them, greeting them respectfully, and Bertalda fancied she saw a resemblance to the master of the fountain in the Imperial city. Still more unmistakable grew the likeness, when Undine angrily and almost threateningly waved him off, and he retreated with hasty steps and shaking head, as he had done before, and disappeared into a neighboring copse.
Undine, however, said: “Don’t be afraid, dear Bertalda, this time the hateful master of the fountain shall do you no harm.” And then she told her the whole story in detail, and who she was herself, and how Bertalda had been taken away from the fisherman and his wife, and Undine had gone to them. The girl was at first terrified with this relation; she imagined her friend must be seized with sudden madness, but she became more convinced that all was true, for Undine’s story was so connected, and fitted so well with former occurrences, and still more she had that inward feeling with which truth never fails to make itself known to us. It seemed strange to her that she was now herself living, as it were, in the midst of one of those fairy tales to which she had formerly only listened.
She gazed upon Undine with reverence, but she could not resist a sense of dread that seemed to come between her and her friend, and at their evening repast she could not but wonder, how the knight could behave so lovingly and kindly toward a being who appeared to her, since the discovery she had just made, more of a phantom than a human being.
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 skilfully, step by step, how Huldbrand’s heart began to turn from Undine to Bertalda; how Bertalda more and more responded with ardent affection 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 only bring 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 sepa
rate 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 by her. 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; so much so, that she had already 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 good 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.
Tales Before Narnia Page 13