Undine (2nd translation) | Page 9

now were often at a loss to know what to call her. We
agreed at last that Dorothea would be the most suitable for her, for I
once heard that it meant a gift of God, and she had surely been sent to
us by God as a gift and comfort in our misery. She, on the other hand,
would not hear of this, and told us that she thought she had been called

Undine by her parents, and that Undine she wished still to be called.
Now this appeared to me a heathenish name, not to be found in any
calendar, and I took counsel therefore of a priest in the city. He also
would not hear of the name of Undine, but at my earnest request he
came with me through the mysterious forest in order to perform the rite
of baptism here in my cottage. The little one stood before us so prettily
arrayed and looked so charming that the priest's heart was at once
moved within him, and she flattered him so prettily, and braved him so
merrily, that at last he could no longer remember the objections he had
had ready against the name of Undine. She was therefore baptized
'Undine,' and during the sacred ceremony she behaved with great
propriety and sweetness, wild and restless as she invariably was at
other times. For my wife was quite right when she said that it has been
hard to put up with her. If I were to tell you"--
The knight interrupted the fisherman to draw his attention to a noise, as
of a rushing flood of waters, which had caught his ear during the old
man's talk, and which now burst against the cottage- window with
redoubled fury. Both sprang to the door. There they saw, by the light of
the now risen moon, the brook which issued from the wood, widely
overflowing its banks, and whirling away stones and branches of trees
in its sweeping course. The storm, as if awakened by the tumult, burst
forth from the mighty clouds which passed rapidly across the moon; the
lake roared under the furious lashing of the wind; the trees of the little
peninsula groaned from root to topmost bough, and bent, as if reeling,
over the surging waters. "Undine! for Heaven's sake, Undine." cried the
two men in alarm. No answer was returned, and regardless of every
other consideration, they ran out of the cottage, one in this direction,
and the other in that, searching and calling.


CHAPTER III.
HOW THEY FOUND UNDINE AGAIN.

The longer Huldbrand sought Undine beneath the shades of night, and
failed to find her, the more anxious and confused did he become.
The idea that Undine had been only a mere apparition of the forest,
again gained ascendancy over him; indeed, amid the howling of the
waves and the tempest, the cracking of the trees, and the complete
transformation of a scene lately so calmly beautiful, he could almost
have considered the whole peninsula with its cottage and its inhabitants
as a mocking illusive vision; but from afar he still ever heard through
the tumult the fisherman's anxious call for Undine, and the loud praying
and singing of his aged wife. At length he came close to the brink of
the swollen stream. and saw in the moonlight how it had taken its wild
course directly in front of the haunted forest, so as to change the
peninsula into an island. "Oh God!" he thought to himself, "if Undine
has ventured a step into that fearful forest, perhaps in her charming
wilfulness, just because I was not allowed to tell her about it; and now
the stream may be rolling between us, and she may be weeping on the
other side alone, among phantoms and spectres!"
A cry of horror escaped him, and he clambered down some rocks and
overthrown pine-stems, in order to reach the rushing stream and by
wading or swimming to seek the fugitive on the other side. He
remembered all the awful and wonderful things which he had
encountered, even by day, under the now rustling and roaring branches
of the forest. Above all it seemed to him as if a tall man in white, whom
he knew but too well, was grinning and nodding on the opposite shore;
but it was just these monstrous forms which forcibly impelled him to
cross the flood, as the thought seized him that Undine might be among
them in the agonies of death and alone.
He had already grasped the strong branch of a pine, and was standing
supported by it, in the whirling current, against which he could with
difficulty maintain himself; though with a courageous spirit he
advanced deeper into it. Just then a gentle voice exclaimed