The whole household were glad to be able to please their gentle mistress; they made no further inquiry, but seized the enormous stone.  They were just raising it in their hands and were already poising it over the fountain, when Bertalda came running up and called out to them to stop, as it was from this fountain that the water was brought which was so good for her complexion and she would never consent to its being closed.  Undine, however, although gentle as usual, was this time more than usually firm.  She told Bertalda that it was her due, as mistress of the house, to arrange her household as she thought best, and that, in this, she was accountable to no one but her lord and husband.  “See, oh, pray see,” exclaimed Bertalda, in an angry yet uneasy tone, “how the poor beautiful water is curling and writhing at being shut out from the bright sunshine and from the cheerful sight of the human face, for whose mirror it was created!” The water in the fountain was indeed wonderfully agitated and hissing; it seemed as if something within were struggling to free itself, but Undine only the more earnestly urged the fulfilment of her orders.  The earnestness was scarcely needed.  The servants of the castle were as happy in obeying their gentle mistress as in opposing Bertalda’s haughty defiance; and in spite of all the rude scolding and threatening of the latter, the stone was soon firmly lying over the opening of the fountain.  Undine leaned thoughtfully over it and wrote with her beautiful fingers on its surface.  She must, however, have had something very sharp and corrosive in her hand, for when she turned away and the servants drew near to examine the stone, they perceived all sorts of strange characters upon it, which none of them had seen there before.

Bertalda received the knight, on his return home in the evening, with tears and complaints of Undine’s conduct.  He cast a serious look at his poor wife, and she looked down in great distress; yet she said with great composure, “My lord and husband does not reprove even a bond-slave without a hearing, how much less, then, his wedded wife?”

“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: