he poor wife understood well. Wearied with this exhibition of
displeasure, and exhausted by the constant effort to frustrate
Kuhleborn's artifices, she sank one evening into a deep slumber,
rocked soothingly by the softly gliding bark.

Scarcely, however, had she closed her eyes than every one in the
vessel imagined he saw, in whatever direction he turned, a most
horrible human head; it rose out of the waves, not like that of a
person swimming, but perfectly perpendicular as if invisibly
supported upright on the watery surface, and floating along in the
same course with the bark. Each wanted to point out to the other the
cause of his alarm, but each found the same expression of horror
depicted on the face of his neighbor, only that his hands and eyes
were directed to a different point where the monster, half-laughing
and half-threatening, rose before him. When, however, they all
wished to make each other understand what each saw, and all were
crying out: "Look there! No, there!" the horrible heads all at one
and the same time appeared to their view, and the whole river around
the vessel swarmed with the most hideous apparitions. The universal
cry raised at the sight awoke Undine. As she opened her eyes, the
wild crowd of distorted visages disappeared. But Huldbrand was
indignant at such unsightly jugglery. He would have burst forth in
uncontrolled imprecations had not Undine said to him with a humble
manner and a softly imploring tone: "For God's sake, my husband, we
are on the water, do not be angry with me now."

The knight was silent, and sat down absorbed in revery. Undine
whispered in his ear: "Would it not be better, my love, if we gave
up this foolish journey, and returned to castle Ringstetten in
peace?"

But Huldbrand murmured moodily: "So I must be a prisoner in my own
castle, and only be able to breathe so long as the fountain is
closed! I would your mad kindred"--Undine lovingly pressed her fair
hand upon his lips. He paused, pondering in silence over much that
Undine had before said to him.

Bertalda had meanwhile given herself up to a variety of strange
thoughts. She knew a good deal of Undine's origin, and yet not the
whole, and the fearful Kuhleborn especially had remained to her a
terrible but wholly unrevealed mystery. She had indeed never even
heard his name. Musing on these strange things, she unclasped,
scarcely conscious of the act, a gold necklace, which Huldbrand had
lately purchased for he