"God give thee what is grandest and best!" exclaimed Babette.
"That He will!" said Rudy. "To-morrow I shall have it! to-morrow thou wilt be mine! my own little, charming wife!"
"The boat!" cried Babette at that moment.
The boat, which was to take them back, had broken loose and drifted from the island.
"I will fetch it!" said Rudy, throwing off his coat; and he pulled off his boots, sprang into the lake, and took rapid strokes towards the boat.
Cold and deep was the clear, bluish-green water from the mountain glacier. Rudy looked down below, only one single glance—and he thought he saw a golden ring rolling, and gleaming, and playing—he thought of his lost betrothal ring, and the ring became larger, and expanded into a sparkling circle, and in that shone the clear glacier; interminable deep crevasses yawned around him, and the dripping water sounded like a carillon of bells and gleamed with bluish flames; in an instant he saw what we have to tell in so many words. Young huntsmen and young maidens, men and women, once swallowed up in the crevasses of the glacier, stood here alive, with open eyes and smiling mouth, and deep under them came the sound of church bells from submerged towns; a congregation knelt under the church arches, pieces of ice formed the organ-pipes, mountain torrents played on it. The Ice-Maiden sat on the clear, transparent floor; she raised herself up towards Rudy, kissed his feet, and there ran a deadly coldness through his limbs, an electric shock—ice and fire! one does not know the difference at the first touch.
"Mine! mine!" sounded about him and in him. "I kissed thee when thou wast little! I kissed thee on the mouth! now I kiss thee on the toe and on the heel—thou art mine altogether!"
And he was lost in the clear blue water.
All was still; the church bells ceased to ring, the last notes died away with the splendor on the red clouds. "Mine thou art!" sounded again in the depths; "Mine thou art!" sounded in the heights, from the Infinite.
The icy kiss of Death overcame that which was corruptible; the prelude was over before the drama of life could begin, the discord resolved into harmony.