And she vanished over the side of the boat.  Whether she plunged into the stream, or whether, like water melting into water, she flowed away with it, they knew not—­her disappearance was like both and neither.  But she was lost in the Danube, instantly and completely; only little waves were yet whispering and sobbing around the boat, and they could almost be heard to say, “Oh, woe, woe!  Ah, remain true!  Oh, woe!”

But Huldbrand, in a passion of burning tears, threw himself upon the deck of the bark; and a deep swoon soon wrapped the wretched man in a blessed forgetfulness of misery.

Shall we call it a good or an evil thing, that our mourning has no long duration?  I mean that deep mourning which comes from the very well-springs of our being, which so becomes one with the lost objects of our love that we hardly realize their loss, while our grief devotes itself religiously to the honouring of their image until we reach that bourne which they have already reached!

Truly all good men observe in a degree this religious devotion; but yet it soon ceases to be that first deep grief.  Other and new images throng in, until, to our sorrow, we experience the vanity of all earthly things.  Therefore I must say:  Alas, that our mourning should be of such short duration!

The lord of Ringstetten experienced this; but whether for his good, we shall discover in the sequel of this history.  At first he could do nothing but weep—­weep as bitterly as the poor gentle Undine had wept when he snatched out of her hand that brilliant ornament, with which she so kindly wished to make amends for Bertalda’s loss.  And then he stretched his hand out, as she had done, and wept again like her, with renewed violence.  He cherished a secret hope, that even the springs of life would at last become exhausted by weeping.  And has not the like thought passed through the minds of many of us with a painful pleasure in times of sore affliction?  Bertalda wept with him; and they lived together a long while at the castle of Ringstetten in undisturbed quiet, honouring the memory of Undine, and having almost wholly forgotten their former attachment.  And therefore the good Undine, about this time, often visited Huldbrand’s dreams:  she soothed him with soft and affectionate caresses, and then went away again, weeping in silence; so that when he awoke, he sometimes knew not how his cheeks came to be so wet—­whether it was caused by her tears, or only by his own.

But as time advanced, these visions became less frequent, and the sorrow of the knight less keen; still he might never, perhaps, have entertained any other wish than thus quietly to think of Undine, and to speak of her, had not the old fisherman arrived unexpectedly at the castle, and earnestly insisted on Bertalda’s returning with him as his child.  He had received information of Undine’s disappearance; and he was not willing to allow Bertalda to continue longer at the castle with the widowed knight.  “For,” said he, “whether my daughter loves me or not is at present what I care not to know; but her good name is at stake:  and where that is the case, nothing else may be thought of.”