Bertalda had meanwhile given herself up to a variety of strange
thoughts. She knew a good deal of Undine's origin, and yet not the
whole, and the fearful Kuehleborn especially had remained to her a
terrible but wholly unrevealed mystery. She had indeed never even
heard his name. Musing on these strange things, she unclasped,
scarcely conscious of the act; a gold necklace, which Huldbrand had
lately purchased for her of a traveling trader; half dreamingly she
drew it along the surface of the water, enjoying the light glimmer
it cast upon the evening-tinted stream. Suddenly a huge hand was
stretched out of the Danube, seizing the necklace and vanishing with
it beneath the waters. Bertalda screamed aloud, and a scornful laugh
resounded from the depths of the stream. The knight could now restrain
his anger no longer. Starting up, he inveighed against the river; he
cursed all who ventured to intrude upon his family and his life, and
challenged them, be they spirits or sirens, to show themselves before
his avenging sword.
Bertalda wept meanwhile for her lost ornament, which was so precious
to her, and her tears added fuel to the flame of the knight's anger,
while Undine held her hand over the side of the vessel, dipping it
into the water, softly murmuring to herself, and only now and then
interrupting her strange mysterious whisper, as she entreated her
husband, "My dearly loved one, do not scold me here; reprove others
if you will, but not me here.
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