than pitied--how Undine wept, and her tears stung the conscience of
her husband, without recalling his former love; so that though at
times he showed kindness to her, a cold shudder soon forced him to
turn from her to his fellow-mortal Bertalda;--all this, the writer
knows, might have been drawn out fully, and perhaps it ought to have
been. But it would have made him too sad; for he has witnessed such
things, and shrinks from recalling even their shadow. Thou knowest,
probably, the like feeling, dear reader; for it is the lot of mortal
man. Happy art thou if thou hast received the injury, not inflicted
it; for in this case it is more blessed to receive than to give.
Then only a soft sorrow at such a recollection passes through thy
heart, and perhaps a quiet tear trickles down thy cheek over the
faded flowers in which thou once so heartily rejoiced. This is
enough: we will not pierce our hearts with a thousand separate
stings, but only bear in mind that all happened as I just now said.

Poor Undine was greatly troubled; and the other two were very far
from being happy. Bertalda in particular, whenever she was in the
slightest degree opposed in her wishes, attributed the cause to the
jealousy and oppression of the injured wife. She was therefore daily
in the habit of showing a haughty and imperious demeanour, to which
Undine yielded with a sad submission; and which was generally
encouraged strongly by the now blinded Huldbrand.

What disturbed the inmates of the castle still more, was the endless
variety of wonderful apparitions which assailed Huldbrand and
Bertalda in the vaulted passages of the building, and of which
nothing had ever been heard before within the memory of man. The
tall white man, in whom Huldbrand but too plainly recognized Undine's
uncle Kuhleborn, and Bertalda the spectral master of the waterworks,