The bishop, who had performed the marriage ceremony, was at the dinner. Hermann went straight up to him, knelt down, and confessed aloud, and with many tears, that a young girl named Gottfriede, fairer and better than all her sisters, had loved him dearly, and that he had returned her love and then abandoned her. Gottfriede had sought oblivion of her sufferings in the river, and now was bent upon revenge.
“Bless me, father, for I am going to die!”
The bishop, before uttering the words of absolution, demanded first that the Count should abjure his impious faith in such supernatural beings, of whom the Church knew nothing.
“How can I refuse to believe what I see? There she is! Looking as pale as she was this morning at the bow of the boat. Her hair, full of green grass, is hanging in disorder all over her shoulders; she looks at me with a tearful smile.”
“Nothing but visions!” replies the bishop. “Your eyes deceive you.”
“But it is not only by the eye that I am aware of her presence, I hear her voice; she is calling me? Forgive me, Gottfriede!”
