The longer Huldbrand sought Undine beneath the shades of night, and failed to find her, the more anxious and confused did he become. The idea that Undine had been only a mere apparition of the forest, again gained ascendancy over him；indeed, amid the howling of the waves and the tempest, the cracking of the trees, and the complete transformation of a scene lately so calmly beautiful, he could almost have considered the whole peninsula with its cottage and its inhabitants as a mocking illusive vision；but from afar he still ever heard through the tumult the fsherman's anxious call for Undine, and the loud praying and singing of his aged wife.At length he came close to the brink of the swollen stream, and saw in the moonlight how it had taken its wild course directly in front of the haunted forest, so as to change the peninsula into an island.
“Oh God!”he thought to himself,“if Undine has ventured a step into that fearful forest, perhaps in her charming wilfulness, just because I was not allowed to tell her about it；and now the stream may be rolling between us, and she may be weeping on the other side alone, among phantoms and spectres!”A cry of horror escaped him, and he clambered down some rocks and overthrownpine-stems, in order to reach the rushing stream and by wading or swimming to seek the fugitive on the other side. He remembered all the awful and wonderful things which he had encountered, even by day, under the now rustling and roaring branches of the forest.Above all it seemed to him as if a tall man in white, whom he knew but too well, was grinning and nodding on the opposite shore；but it was just these monstrous forms which forcibly impelled him to cross the flood, as the thought seized him that Undine might be among them in the agonies of death and alone.
He had already grasped the strong branch of a pine, and was standing supported by it, in the whirling current, against which he could with difficulty maintain himself；though with a courageous spirit he advanced deeper into it. Just then a gentle voice exclaimed near him：“Venture not, venture not, the old man, the stream, is full of tricks!”
He knew the sweet tones；he stood as if entranced beneath the shadows that duskily shrouded the moon, and his head swam with the swelling of the waves, which he now saw rapidly rising to his waist. Still he would not desist.“If thou art not really there, if thou art only foating about me like a mist, then may I too cease to live and become a shadow like thee, dear, dear Undine!”
Thus exclaiming aloud, he again stepped deeper into the stream.
“Look round thee, oh!look round thee, beautiful but infatuated youth!”cried a voice again close beside him, and looking aside, he saw by the momentarily unveiled moon, a little island formed by the food, on which he perceived under the interweaved branches of the overhanging trees, Undine smiling and happy, nestling in the fowery grass.
Oh!how much more gladly than before did the young man now use the aid of his pine-branch!With a few steps he had crossed the flood which was rushing between him and the maiden, and he was standing beside her on a little spot of turf, safely guarded and screened by the good old trees. Undine had half-raised herself, and now under the green leafy tent she threw her arms round his neck, and drew him down beside her on her soft seat.
“You shall tell me your story here, beautiful friend,”said she, in a low whisper；“the cross old people cannot hear us here：and our roof of leaves is just as good a shelter as their poor cottage.”
“It is heaven itself!”said Huldbrand, embracing the beautiful girl and kissing her fervently.
The old fisherman meanwhile had come to the edge of the stream, and shouted across to the two young people；“Why, sir knight, I have received you as one honest-hearted man is wont to receive another, and now here you are caressing my foster-child in secret, and letting me run hither and thither through the night in anxious search of her.”
“I have only just found her myself, old father,”returned the knight.
“So much the better,”said the fisherman；“but now bring her across to me without delay upon frm ground.”
Undine, however, would not hear of this；she declared she would rather go with the beautiful stranger, into the wild forest itself, than return to the cottage, where no one did as she wished, and from which the beautiful knight would himself depart sooneror later. Then, throwing her arms round Huldbrand, she sang with indescribable grace：—
A stream ran out of the misty vale
Its fortunes to obtain,
the ocean's depths it found a home
And ne'er returned again.
The old fisherman wept bitterly at her song, but this did not seem to affect her particularly. She kissed and caressed her new friend, who at last said to her：“Undine, if the old man's distress does not touch your heart, it touches mine—let us go back to him.”
She opened her large blue eyes in amazement at him, and spoke at last, slowly and hesitatingly：“If you think so—well, whatever you think is right to me. But the old man yonder must frst promise me that he will let you, without objection, relate to me what you saw in the wood, and—well, other things will settle themselves.”
“Come, only come,”cried the fsherman to her, unable to utter another word：and at the same time he stretched out his arms far over the rushing stream toward her, and nodded his head as if to promise the fulflment of her request, and as he did this, his white hair fell strangely over his face, and reminded Huldbrand of the nodding white man in the forest. Without allowing himself, however, to grow confused by such an idea the young knight took the beautiful girl in his arms, and bore her over the narrow passage which the stream had forced between her little island and the shore.The old man fell upon Undine's neck and could not satisfy the exuberance of his joy；his good wife also came up and caressed the newly-found in the heartiest manner.Not a word of reproach passed their lips；nor was it thought of, for Undine, forgetting all her waywardness, almost overwhelmed her foster-parents with affection and fond expressions.
When at last they had recovered from the excess of their joy, day had already dawned, and had shed its purple hue over the lake；stillness had followed the storm, and the little birds were singing merrily on the wet branches. As Undine now insisted upon hearing the knight's promised story, the aged couple smilingly and readily acceded to her desire.Breakfast was brought out under the trees which screened the cottage from the lake, and they sat down to it with contented hearts—Undine on the grass at the knight's feet, the place chosen by herself.
Huldbrand then proceeded with his story.