if her heart would break, like an innocent tender child, cruelly
aggrieved. At last, wearied out, she said: "Farewell, dearest,
farewell. They shall do you no harm; only remain true, that I may
have power to keep them from you. But I must go hence! go hence even
in this early youth! Oh, woe, woe! what have you done! Oh, woe,
woe!"

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