"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."