Tales Before Narnia

by Douglas A. Anderson

  CHAPTER XVII.

  The Knight’s Dream.

  It was between night and dawn of day that the knight was lying on his couch, half-waking, half-sleeping. Whenever he was on the point of falling asleep a terror seemed to come upon him and scare his rest away, for his slumbers were haunted with spectres. If he tried, however, to rouse himself in good earnest he felt fanned as by the wings of a swan, and he heard the soft murmuring of waters, until soothed by the agreeable delusion, he sunk back again into a half-conscious state. At length he must have fallen sound asleep, for it seemed to him as if he were lifted up upon the fluttering wings of the swans and borne by them far over land and sea, while they sang to him their sweetest music. “The music of the swan! the music of the swan!” he kept saying to himself; “does it not always portend death?” But it had yet another meaning. All at once he felt as if he were hovering over the Mediterranean Sea. A swan was singing musically in his ear that this was the Mediterranean Sea. And while he was looking down upon the waters below they became clear as crystal, so that he could see through them to the bottom. He was delighted at this, for he could see Undine sitting beneath the crystal arch. It is true she was weeping bitterly, and looking much sadder than in the happy days when they had lived together at the castle of Ringstetten, especially at their commencement, and afterward also, shortly before they had begun their unhappy Danube excursion. The knight could not help thinking upon all this very fully and deeply, but it did not seem as if Undine perceived him.

  Meanwhile Kühleborn had approached her, and was on the point of reproving her for her weeping. But she drew herself up, and looked at him with such a noble and commanding air that he almost shrunk back with fear. “Although I live here beneath the waters,” said she, “I have yet brought down my soul with me; and therefore I may well weep, although you can not divine what such tears are. They too are blessed, for everything is blessed to him in whom a true soul dwells.”

  He shook his head incredulously, and said, after some reflection: “And yet, niece, you are subject to the laws of our element, and if he marries again and is unfaithful to you, you are in duty bound to take away his life.”

  “He is a widower to this very hour,” replied Undine, “and his sad heart still holds me dear.”

  “He is, however, at the same time betrothed,” laughed Kühleborn, with scorn; “and let only a few days pass, and the priest will have given the nuptial blessing, and then you will have to go upon earth to accomplish the death of him who has taken another to wife.”

  “That I cannot do,” laughed Undine in return; “I have sealed up the fountain securely against myself and my race.”

  “But suppose he should leave his castle,” said Kühleborn, “or should have the fountain opened again! for he thinks little enough of these things.”

  “It is just for that reason,” said Undine, still smiling amid her tears, “it is just for that reason, that he is now hovering in spirit over the Mediterranean Sea, and is dreaming of this conversation of ours as a warning. I have intentionally arranged it so.”

  Kühleborn, furious with rage, looked up at the knight, threatened, stamped with his feet, and then swift as an arrow shot under the waves. It seemed as if he were swelling in his fury to the size of a whale. Again the swans began to sing, to flap their wings, and to fly. It seemed to the knight as if he were soaring away over mountains and streams, and that he at length reached the castle Ringstetten, and awoke on his couch.

  He did, in reality, awake upon his couch, and his squire coming in at that moment informed him that Father Heilmann was still lingering in the neighborhood; that he had met him the night before in the forest, in a hut which he had formed for himself of the branches of trees, and covered with moss and brushwood. To the question what he was doing here, since he would not give the nuptial blessing, he had answered: “There are other blessings besides those at the nuptial altar, and though I have not gone to the wedding, it may be that I shall be at another solemn ceremony. We must be ready for all things. Besides, marrying and mourning are not so unlike, and every one not wilfully blinded must see that well.”

  The knight placed various strange constructions upon these words, and upon his dream, but it is very difficult to break off a thing which a man has once regarded as certain, and so everything remained as it had been arranged.

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  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 cupbearer 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 m
en 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.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  How the Knight Huldbrand Was Buried.

  Father Heilmann had returned to the castle as soon as the death of the lord of Ringstetten had been made known in the neighborhood, and he appeared at the very same moment that the monk who had married the unfortunate couple was fleeing from the gates overwhelmed with fear and terror.

  “It is well,” replied Heilmann, when he was informed of this; “now my duties begin, and I need no associate.”

  Upon this he began to console the bride, now a widow, small result as it produced upon her worldly thoughtless mind. The old fisherman, on the other hand, although heartily grieved, was far more resigned to the fate which had befallen his daughter and son-in-law, and while Bertalda could not refrain from abusing Undine as a murderess and sorceress, the old man calmly said: “It could not be otherwise after all; I see nothing in it but the judgment of God, and no one’s heart has been more deeply grieved by Huldbrand’s death than that of her by whom it was inflicted—the poor forsaken Undine!”

  At the same time he assisted in arranging the funeral solemnities as befitted the rank of the deceased.

  The knight was to be interred in the village churchyard which was filled with the graves of his ancestors. And this church had been endowed with rich privileges and gifts both by these ancestors and by himself. His shield and helmet lay already on the coffin, to be lowered with it into the grave, for Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten had died the last of his race; the mourners began their sorrowful march, singing requiems under the bright, calm canopy of heaven; Father Heilmann walked in advance, bearing a high crucifix, and the inconsolable Bertalda followed, supported by her aged father. Suddenly, in the midst of the black-robed attendants in the widow’s train, a snow-white figure was seen, closely veiled, and wringing her hands with fervent sorrow. Those near whom she moved felt a secret dread, and retreated either backward or to the side, increasing by their movements the alarm of the others near to whom the white stranger was now advancing, and thus a confusion in the funeral-train was well-nigh beginning. Some of the military escort were so daring as to address the figure, and to attempt to remove it from the procession; but she seemed to vanish from under their hands, and yet was immediately seen advancing again amid the dismal cortége with slow and solemn step. At length, in consequence of the continued shrinking of the attendants to the right and to the left, she came close behind Bertalda. The figure now moved so slowly that the widow did not perceive it, and it walked meekly and humbly behind her undisturbed.

  This lasted till they came to the churchyard, where the procession formed a circle round the open grave. Then Bertalda saw her unbidden companion, and starting up half in anger and half in terror, she commanded her to leave the knight’s last resting-place. The veiled figure, however, gently shook her head in refusal, and raised her hands as if in humble supplication to Bertalda, deeply agitating her by the action, and recalling to her with tears how Undine had so kindly wished to give her that coral necklace on the Danube. Father Heilmann motioned with his hand and commanded silence, as they were to pray in mute devotion over the body, which they were now covering with the earth. Bertalda knelt silently, and all knelt, even the grave-diggers among the rest, when they had finished their task. But when they rose again, the white stranger had vanished; on the spot where she had knelt there gushed out of the turf a little silver spring, which rippled and murmured away till it had almost entirely encircled the knight’s grave; then it ran further and emptied itself into a lake which lay by the side of the burial-place. Even to this day the inhabitants of the village show the spring, and cherish the belief that it is the poor rejected Undine, who in this manner still embraces her husband in her loving arms.

  LETTERS FROM HELL: LETTER III

  by Valdemar Thisted

  * * *

  In 1884, George MacDonald published a preface to a book titled Letters from Hell, the bibliographical details about which are rather complicated. The 1884 edition bears no author name, but the book originally appeared in Danish as Breve fra Helvede (1866), by “M. Rowel,” a pseudonym of Valdemar Adolph Thisted. Lewis sought out the translation because of MacDonald’s recommendation, but he was disappointed, reporting to his friend Arthur Greeves that he put it away unfinished: “I don’t really know why I disliked it so much, because I could see all the time that there was good in it if only I could appreciate it…For one thing I expected beauties of the phantastic type, and in reality it turns out only a novel.” Though its content is unlike Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, its title could ce
rtainly have been an unconscious inspiration. I reprint here the third letter (of thirty), which gives a description of hell.

  * * *

  How long I sat, shut in with myself and darkness, how long that terrible night continued, I cannot tell—maybe a year, maybe some hours only. This only I know, that in the space of that single night I lived over again the whole of my earthly life, and what inconceivable horrors are included in this statement!

  Light broke at last, but oh how slowly! The walls of darkness seemed to shift, making way for the faintest streak of dawn. This time of expectation, of hope—if so I may call it—was the least painful time I had yet known in hell. And as I waited, longed for the returning light, a shadow, as it were, of forgetfulness wrapped me about. Ah, surely forgetfulness is the one state of bliss to be imagined here! Did I speak of light? Alas it is only less of darkness—light there is none in hell. And forgetfulness is not real, but illusive here.

  But poor as the light was, it roused me to something like love of existence even. I gathered up my wretched being and went my way, following the direction of the breaking dawn. How long I moved, or how far, is of no consequence. The terrors of hell were about me. Presently, however, I reached a spot where I could rest. Did I say rest? Once for all, let me beg you not to be misled by such meaningless expressions—meaningless here, and proving old habit merely. In this place of anguish rest, in the sense you take it, naturally is impossible; all I meant to say is that I reached a spot where the pressure of motion quitted me for a while, and I stopped.