He looked sternly at his poor wife,
who mournfully cast down her eyes, saying, however, with firmness, "My
lord and husband would not chide the meanest of his vassals, without
giving him a hearing, much less his wedded wife."--"Speak, then; what
was your reason for this strange proceeding?" said the Knight with a
frown. "I would rather tell it you quite alone!" sighed Undine. "You
can say it just as well in Bertalda's presence," replied he. "Yes, if
thou requirest it," said Undine, "but require it not." She looked so
humble, and so submissive in her touching beauty, that the Knight's
heart was melted, as by a sunbeam from happier days. He took her
affectionately by the hand, and led her to his own room, where she
spoke to him as follows.
"You know that wicked Uncle Kuehleborn, my dearest lord, and have often
been provoked at meeting him about the castle. Bertalda, too, has been
often terrified by him. No wonder; he is soulless, shallow, and
unthinking as a mirror, in whom no feeling can pierce the surface. He
has two or three times seen that you were displeased with me, that I
in my childishness could not help weeping, and that Bertalda might
chance to laugh at the same moment. And upon this he builds all manner
of unjust suspicions, and interferes, unasked, in our concerns. What
is the use of my reproaching him, or repulsing him with angry words?
He believes nothing that I say. A poor cold life is his! How should he
know, that the sorrows and the joys of love are so sweetly alike, so
closely linked, that it is not in human power to part them.
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