The Nymph of the Rhine

The Nymph of the Rhine. 

Die Nymphe des Rheins 

Charlotte von Ahlefeld, 1812

This story tells the tale of an undine nymph who falls in love with a young count. They find brief happiness, but he ultimately betrays her for a human woman, being too intimidated by the nymph’s supernatural powers to stay with her. The nymph, heartbroken and embittered, enlists the help of a poor fisherman to seek her revenge on her former lover, in exchange for helping him gain the approval of his beloved’s father.

When I first read this tale, I was taken aback by the vindictive spite of the nymph, but the more I reflect on it, the more I admire von Ahlefeld for writing over two hundred years ago a tale that punishes male inconstancy and that allows a title female character to speak up against the callous way in which women were discarded by men. The count cannot reconcile himself with loving a woman he feels subservient to, and it is sadly only too easy to imagine how many women were cast aside in von Ahlefeld’s time simply for having a voice and for refusing to be passive devotees to their husbands.  

Charlotte Sophie Luise Wilhelmine von Ahlefeld (1781-1849) was a German novelist, born as Charlotte von Seebach to a noble family of Hanover. She began to write at a young age, but her family disapproved of her literary pursuits. This led to her publishing her first novel in 1797 in secret, under a pseudonym. She used many pseudonyms across her literary career, including Elise Selbig, Natalia and Ernestine, but interestingly she never chose to write under a male name. She married in 1798 but separated from her husband in 1807. In 1821 she moved to Weimar where she befriended other women writers such as Charlotte von Stein, Bettine von Arnim and Friederike Helene Unger, alongside Goethe and Clemens Brentano, who both supported her literary work. Von Ahlefeld’s writings were so popular that she was able to publish around fifty volumes of prose, poetry, and travelogues, and use the income generated to support the poor in and around Weimar.

The Nymph of the Rhine

Translated by Eve Mason

Silent and cool, night hung over the region; the wide, serene blue sky unfolded above, mirrored in the calm surface of the Rhine which flowed through the slumbering fields. The moon had risen and was painting the quietly whispering waves in a golden light. In the huts on the bank the dim lamps had long since been extinguished and a deep tranquillity enveloped the flourishing valley. It was only above in the clifftop castle where Count Raimund lived, the lord of this region, that lights continued to glimmer through the high arched windows and muffled, indistinct notes of some joyful music echoed from afar, announcing that a celebration of clamorous mirth was underway.

Ambrose, a young fisherman, sat alone, still awake, in front of the door of his house repairing his nets, which a difficult haul had torn asunder, with the help of the friendly, luminous light of the moon. Balmy breezes played with the brown locks that curled around his brow, and sweet aromas rose up rewardingly around him from the small garden that in his hours of leisure he had planted with fragrant flowers. His thoughts floated around like butterflies on the blossoms of the past, and his throbbing breast heaved in the memory of his beloved who had fallen into an innocent slumber long ago in her father’s hut. Golden dreams of hope interwove themselves within his mind, and he exhaled the ardour of his fervent desire in intimate melodies of heartfelt songs.

Suddenly it seemed to him as if the waves’ murmuring was accompanying his song in harmonious chimes. He looked up; no storm had risen up, but the Rhine rushed along more powerfully than before, and high surges soaring up in his midst carried a maiden towards him, as if on a swaying gondola. The moon appeared to enhance its gleam twofold so as to illustrate her youthful, charming figure in its full splendour. A dazzling robe cloaked her slim stature, held together by a belt of reeds beneath her breast. Her eyes sparkled like stars in the sky and her long tresses swam around her in abundant waves.

Ambrose was astonished. His first thought was that the beautiful maiden might have had an accident on the other bank, and he hastened towards her to unfasten the small boat to save her. On seeing, however, her proud composure, like a swan, as she was carried from the treacherous torrent, indeed, the way she commanded the elements as if they were her inferior servants, a shiver rippled through his limbs, and he crossed himself, quietly praying: “All good spirits praise God our Lord.”

“Forever and ever! Amen!”, a voice responded that chimed like celestial music before his ears. “I am no spirit of darkness,” the voice continued, and, as the youth sunk tremulously to his knees, a white, cold hand raised him back to his feet. “I am the nymph of this river, and only rarely do I leave my watery home to give humankind, amongst whom I was once happy, proof of my love and compassion. Your song has often penetrated the depths and I have carefully listened out for the sweet, melodious sound of your songs. You dearest, fair youth!, for what other fire could warm your tones so much that they could pierce into the innermost part of the soul like glowing arrows? I too have loved, and I hear in the laments of your yearning only the reverberation of my own pain and in the exultation of your hopes the memory of the fleeting dream of my long-gone happiness. That is why I emerged from the current to ask you what obstacles stand in your way towards the granting of your wishes? If I can get rid of them, then see that I am willing, for long ago I found the only remedy for my deep wound to be the endeavour to make others happier than I am myself.”

Her words alleviated the pale fear that still stirred in Ambrose. “Oh nymph!”, he cried out, “you, whose existence like a fairy tale I always doubted when others told me about it, until now—how am I meant to express my amazement to you? So you are then really no figment of the imagination, and you have seen me, the unworthy, appeared to me and would become by benefactor? But alas! – in your transcendence from earthly needs you could not even anticipate what stands in the way of my happiness. For in the flowing current in which you live the wretched metal that here in this world so often decides the fate of men is surely worth no more than the sand which your delicate foot floats above. Yet sadly here on earth it determines all too powerfully the prosperity and adversity of even the most frugal mind. So I too am still far away from the threshold of the bridal chamber since my poverty is the stone of offence that keeps the father of my beloved from giving me her hand.”

“Fortunate youth!”, the maiden responded with a painful sigh, “how I envy you your so easily resolved worries. Have courage! Ere the moon mirrors its lustrous silver in the waves of my home for the third time, you shall be the richest fisherman in the Rhine district. Remember then and bless on occasion the helpful hand that opened up for you the paradise of your wishes, and in gratitude let the echo of your delighted heart reverberate often down to me in joyful melodies so that I might rejoice in your contentedness and forget myself.”

“Benevolent, gracious being!”, cried Ambrose rapturously; “after the Mother of God I will honour you the most for the rest of my life. Oh, if I could prove to you more compellingly than through words how grateful, how devoted I am to you!”

“You can do,” the nymph interrupted him with haste, “you can do, if you want to. It is within your power to do me a service that commits me more earnestly to you than any rich gift can bind you to me.”

“Then demand it of me,” Ambrose replied, “Human powers and human will permitting, I swear to you I will do it for you.”

“I accept your oath,” said the nymph, “but I do not require you to obey me blindly and unconditionally. You seem worthy of my trust—so look into this heart, torn apart by its own grief and strange fickleness, and then stay true to your word and soothe its torments.

“The ability to love with consuming fervour was the trait I inherited when my mother passed away. Passion for an unfaithful inhabitant of the earth brought her, already aged fifteen hundred, to the desperate decision to renounce her immortal nature in order to seek that sorrowful tranquillity in the oblivion of death which, even after a career full of thorns, reconciles man with his fate.

“I, her only daughter, owed my existence to that unhappy relationship which ripped her motherly guidance from me too soon. Inconsolable, I knelt at her bed and appealed to her not to give up the privilege of immortality which, as a unique feature of the elemental spirits, elevates the undines above the swiftly dying human race.

“‘Do not bind me with your laments to the circle of unalterable misery,’ she said, her voice already breaking, ‘for the pain of betrayed love is healed only by the one thing that heaven withheld from us in an unfortunate favour when he gave it to the mortals as the last solace: death. I willingly put myself on a level with those creatures that, created from dust, return to dust once more; only your future troubles me in the moments that lead up to my peaceful dissolution of my being. For you too, Libella! You will love and suffer. Of course, I could protect you from the sensation of every terrific passion, as the victim of which I pass away, but I would rob more from you than the indifference of peace is worth if I were to desensitize your soul to the ecstasies of love through which I experienced alone the full breadth of my existence. So give yourself to them with all the strength of your soul when someday their divine flame reaches you. But heed the advice of your dying mother and never let the fear of losing possession mar your bliss. Enjoy every happy moment as if it was your last; then someday, when you are forsaken and crying, like me, no inner reproach shall remind you of wasted hours, whose bliss you have cheated yourself of.’

“She wanted to carry on speaking, but death, whom she had called for so often, closed her lips and froze the flow of her thoughts. Childlike plaintiveness enveloped my consciousness in dark night, and as I awoke amongst my handmaidens once more, I found her painful life already to be over.

“Her last words had impressed themselves upon me in a profound way, but the memory of her suffering seemed to me like an eternal counter-poison against the sweet, enticing dangers of love. Uninhibited and mirthful, time rolled on by me; but alas! my own hour struck too, and the dreamed of security in which I frolicked, carefree, perhaps served only to hasten my sorrow.

“There, in sweet silence, where the Rhine, not far from its source, winds itself through the alpine valleys, I once listened out for the earthly splendour with which spring embellished that rich nature. I then became aware of a young man walking alone along the banks of my home. He looked for a long time into the green waves that still shimmered there in youthful purity, and it was as if his gaze could reach me, the eavesdropper, in the undulating depths. The dark fire of desire that burned in his eyes ignited the hot fervour of longing in me too, unlike I’d ever imagined, and his features, marked by the stamp of a heavenly beauty, entrenched themselves swiftly and inextinguishably within my heart.  

“The sun was blazing; the vicinity was secluded and the soft rippling of the waves inviting for a bathe. He threw his garments to the ground and leapt boldly and joyfully into the river, playing buoyantly with the whispering waves which, proud of their handsome load, embraced him and carried him along upon sparkling foam as if he were Neptune in the wealth of the sea. Yet suddenly a cramp inhibited the attractive exercising of his strength. A deathly pallor supplanted the roses of his countenance, and in dreadful caprice the floods swept him along with them. I then raised myself up from the waterbed and grasped him, as he was sinking down, in my arms, trembling, feeding on the magic of his proximity, quivering, and hoping to join him to me. I climbed onto land at the point where he had undressed himself. I carefully wrapped him in his cloak and laid his curl-adorned head against my breast which was overwhelmed with wonderful stirrings. But he gave away no sign of consciousness and, drunk off the sight of his beauty and made audacious by the slumber of the swoon that closed his eyes, I dared to touch his pale mouth with my lips. I lingered for a long time in the first kiss of my life, until I felt the warm pulse of his returning sensation and he, waking from a dream, opened the heaven of his eyes before me.

“He had lost consciousness in the moment when the current tried to drag him down into a watery grave. Astounded, he found himself alive and embraced by the arms of his saviour who, unacquainted with the artificiality of womanly conduct on earth, was in euphoric, uninhibited raptures over the new, sweet stirrings of her heart. His amazement heightened quickly into joy; deep gratitude rewarded me for the gift of life he received from my protecting hand, and soon delicate bonds secured him to me and returned every secret sensation of my bosom. Blessed time! —why could you not last forever? – and if you must pass fleetingly, why not take the desolate dream of my existence with you, since it froze me in despair when love ceased to animate it!

“Nevertheless, I followed the advice of my mother and revelled carelessly in the enjoyment of my happiness. For a long time, I left my lover under the illusion that I was a being of his kind. A timid apprehension kept me from confiding in him that I belonged to the powerful race of the undines, for I, who would have loved so much as to have happily subjected my entire better self to him, feared quietly that the superiority imparted to me over the limitation of men would rather draw him further away from me than it would bring him closer.

“Unexpected, as a deadly lightning bolt strikes down out of the bright blue ether, I was shocked in the midst of my love’s joys by the end of the very same. For when once I had been awaiting the idol of my soul for an unusually long time in the rocky gulf that always secretly concealed our meetings, he finally rushed into my arms, but not with the delight that every new reunion poured out over us, but dismal, pensive, and his forehead cloaked in clouds of sorrow.

“‘We must part, Libella!’, he said thereupon. ‘A messenger has come from the deathbed of my mother with the imperative to appear before her to receive her final blessing.’

“At his words, ‘We must part’, dread had already stifled with its leaden weight the joyful surges of emotion with which I greeted him, but soon a tremendous pain joined the agonizing trepidation that alarmed me.

“For he continued in the deadened tone of melancholy: ‘I know well that nature’s path leads the aged to that eternal rest earlier than the youth, who first must exercise and call on their strengths in the storms of the world and refine their senses for a worthy transition into a better being. I wanted to approach her bedside with resolve, albeit not without childlike pain, provided I didn’t have to anticipate conflicts that would tear my very core apart. For I cannot hide from you that she chose a bride for me long ago, whose charm and kindness she expects to gladden my future and whose hand she wishes to join to mine before her death.’

“‘Then I will lose you,’ I cried out, ‘and lose you twice!’

“The violence of my emotions robbed me of speech and all I could do was to sink to his chest in a stream of tears, silent and half-destroyed. ‘What’s the matter, Libella?’, he said gently. ‘How can a doubt about the holiness of my fidelity find room in your heart that has received and reciprocated my vow? No, in the hour of parting that will soon, but not for long, thrust me away from your blissful proximity, I renew my oaths to you and swear to you by the ecstasy of our past to live only for you and love you alone. Take’, he added as he dried my tears, ‘take this ring as a pledge of betrothal and constancy. It will bind me to you always, and only if your sentiments should ever change and you return it to me of your own accord, only then and not before shall I consider myself free; yet this freedom would be a sorrowful gift for me, for it is only since I lost my freedom to you that my life smiles like a paradise which would be hopeless and desolate without you.’

“I took the ring which, as the symbol of eternity in the form of a snake, guaranteed me the unhesitating continuity of his fidelity in silent eloquence. Since then I have always worn it on a gold necklace against my heart; but alas, its meaning has changed, for it was only an eternity of suffering, not of love, that fate granted me.  

“‘Now in these last moments,’ my beloved continued, ‘let the veil of secrecy fall. With that noble trust that goes hand in hand with pure love, reveal to me who you are and what name I may utter when I confess to my dying mother that I have already chosen the companion of my future life. Whether it is the daughter of one of the noblemen here in this land or of one of the proof shepherds in these meadows—it is all the same to me, for love overrides class distinctions just as the sun overpowers hazy clouds. Obscure yourself from me no longer and tell me your name, for I wish only to learn it in order to exchange it with my own as soon as possible.’

“The passion of his speech and the fervency with which he begged me finally released the seal of silence from my lips. I admitted who I was and well observed a quiet shudder tremble down his body; yet I took merely for the discomposure of the surprise what was perhaps already the distaste with which cruel natures associate with a higher being. His steed neighed and stamped beside him, reminding him of the separation that in tender melancholy I sought to delay. I detached a string of pearls from my breast and gave them to him as a token to remind him of this hour and of my love. ‘Whenever you yearn to speak to me’, I told him, ‘go then to the banks of the Rhine, wherever it flows, and throw one of the pearls down as a messenger of yearning to proclaim your desire to me. Unstoppable, I will fly then into your arms, and oh if you would call me often! I wish to wear the whole string assembled together again at my neck and no longer have need of them to see you again!’

“Speechless, lost in a sombre silence, he took my gift, pressed me fiercely to him once more, then leapt onto his brave steed and escaped as fast as a momentary thought. Numb, I watched him for a long time in bleak, painful stupefaction, before turning back to the confines of my realm and hopefully awaited the appearance of my pearls. Yet moons waned and none summoned me upwards to a reunion with my beloved. But nevertheless heartache had only bowed my soul, no suspicion had hurt it, and when finally, after a year, one of these pearls, bright as a tear, sank down before me, I rejoiced loudly, seized by blissful apprehension of approaching happiness, and rushed upwards such that the waves foamed far and wide as if whipped by a gale.

“Then I saw him again, but oh! how altered! He no longer flew as usual to my beating heart; he greeted me from afar, reserved and ashamed. ‘Libella’, he said with his eyes lowered, the glowing blush that spilled over his face like an aurora making him twice as handsome, ‘Libella, you saved my life; do yet more and save my happiness also. At painful length I have scrutinised myself in order to gain clarity, and I believe that now I understand how to distinguish between delusion and reality. For that reason I can no longer deny either to you or to myself that I consider equality to be the upmost necessary condition of an indissoluble connection and, as deeply as I worship you, I shudder at the thought of your supernatural power, which extinguishes all warm feelings of the heart, compelling the spirit irresistibly to a reverent submission. When I left you, I got to know the bride that the last will of my mother designated for me. The gentle, human attraction of her company healed my bleeding soul that then was still filled with your image, and I feel that only by her side can the dawn of a serene day arise. Be generous, my saviour, my friend! Give up to my Bertha, who cannot live without me, the rights which I have granted you without knowing you, in a drunken delusion of my senses, and return the ring to me that I so hastily left with you as a pledge of fidelity.’

“‘Oh, traitor!’, I exclaimed, overcome with blazing wrath, ‘do you dare to demand the ring from me that consecrates you as my possession for eternity? Ha, up until now you have only experienced my love, not my iron will. It was you who of your own accord bound your freedom to this ring, and nothing in the world would induce me to give it back to you.’

“‘Well then,’ he responded coldly, ‘I shall keep it, but do not flatter yourself that it will bind me. I thought I would give it to a mortal girl, no elemental spirit, and that releases my oath. I would have happily remained on good terms with you for the sake of the former errors of my heart, yet you do not want this, you desire passion that cannot be forced. Farewell then forever—I shall return to my castle since every moment that I spend away from my Bertha seems wasted to me.’

“With this the cruel man left me and I have not seen him since. Regret, melancholy and compassion soon ousted the anger that betrayed hope and aggrieved love had inflamed within me. I abandoned myself to agony without measure and hoped he would himself break the bonds of the spirit world and kill me, for I have not the resigned determination of my mother to request my annihilation as a favour of fate. My sighs made the waves heave in hollow roars—my tears made them burst their banks—but I remained deserted all in vain, and no new message called me up to a gentler dissolution of this hapless relationship.”

Upon these words the sounds of convivial joy from the clifftop castle reached their ears even more brightly than before through the silent air. As the night-time breeze stirs the calyx of the lily, a quiet tremor shuddered through the delicate limbs of the undine. “Do you hear,” she said with a wild look, “do you hear those sounds? Ambrose, can you explain them to me?” 

“They’re proclaiming the engagement party of Count Raimund,” the fisherman replied, “his wedding takes place in three days.” 

“Ha,” she exclaimed, “then I must hasten away if my gift should still be of some value in his eyes, for know, young man, that Raimund was my beloved, and the ring that I wear against my heart I received from him. Indeed, he is right: love cannot be forced. I renounce him, but too firm, too true, too profound, is my affection for him that I should not without any thirst for revenge take every thorn from the wreath of his joys and save his soul from the torment of perjury. Go to him, when the morning dawns, tell him that Libella sends you, the deserted, deceived, nay, only the loving Libella, Say that she wishes nothing more than to see him one more time, to ask his forgiveness for her severity that she so often regrets, and to return to him herself the precious pledge of his broken trust. Lead him to the banks of the Rhine and let him board your small boat. Then steer bravely with him into the middle of the river and ask him to throw down the string of pearls of mine that he still possesses in order to call me from the night of my sorrow and at the same time to sink the last reminder of me. I shall then appear, give him the ring, receive his farewell and return to the water’s depths never to leave there again. You, however, once you have provided me this final reassurance, shall receive a resplendent reward from me, of the like a long, arduous life could earn you.”

How joyfully did the fisherman promise to fulfil this wish of humble, self-denying love. “Oh, our lord is good,” he cried out; “evil stars must have estranged his spirit from you. How your gentleness shall move him! —trust that you will see him, for I am convinced that he will not deny you your last request.”

“I too believe so,” Libella replied with a bitter smile. “And now,” she continued, “before I depart, give me some of your flowers to take down with me into my cool dominion where none will take root.” Ambrose gladly opened the gate to his little garden and wanted to pick the fairest first buds of summer for her. “No roses,” she said mournfully, pushing his laden hand away. Nature has dedicated roses only to contented love. Give me night pansies and dark cypresses—give me the pale narcissi that keenly admire themselves in the murmuring springs, the touch-me-not’s dun, sorrowful leaves and rosemary blossoms, the sacred token for the dead.

Ambrose did as she asked and soon handed her the melancholy bouquet. She contemplated it sombrely and her tears softly mingled with the glistening dew drops within. Then she left. She bid him farewell with a delirious smile and in the same way that her first appearance had filled Ambrose with horror, so now he did not watch her disappear without a shudder as the whispering waves parted to accommodate her.

Soon, however, sleep poured its gentle balm over his tired eyes, and when he opened them again, the morning was breaking and he was reminded of his promise. He climbed the cliff and was led into Raimund’s chamber who had just woken from delightful dreams. “What do you bring me?”, Raimund called over to him cheerfully.

Ambrose executed his task in a simple but determined manner, and Raimund listened to his words not without signs of inner satisfaction. “Then the heavens wish to grant all my wishes!”, he exclaimed. “Please feel welcome, you envoy of peace, for I must admit to you that even in the arms of my Bertha some painful twinge of memory reminded me of my broken vow. Anyhow, let us not miss a moment of Libella’s generosity. The dawn still blazes in its first glow, and my fair fiancée still slumbers. We can be back before she wakes and then I shall be able to lay the fateful ring down at her feet and say: ‘Now I am wholly yours, my Bertha, and even the shadows of the past can no longer dare to come between us.’”

He took the string of pearls that Libella had given him and followed the fisherman who rushed on ahead to get the boat ready. The sun was just rising, weaving liquid gold into the greenish waves of the Rhine, the birds were singing their morning hymns in the temple of nature, and meadows and woods emanated balmy fragrances that hovered on the wings of warm breezes. Raimund valiantly boarded the rowboat that Ambrose steered with a steady hand, and slowly the rudder distanced him from the reliable ground of the earth. There Raimund dropped the pearls, and suddenly the waves whispered more quietly, seeming to reach a standstill. Clear and mirror-bright, the swirling movement of the river flattened out into a calm surface which genially reflected the sky’s image, and Libella rose out of the pure water, sitting on an emerald throne and wearing a silver robe whose long, shimmering submerged themselves into the waters. Night pansies, touch-me-not, rosemary and cypress wound themselves into a wreath around her floating curls, and the pale narcissi adorned her breasts with their bowed heads. Sparkling diamonds were strung together into a belt, and she held a silver staff in her hands.

Emotional, Raimund threw himself to his knees before her. “Have thanks, Libella, for the message of your more lenient attitude,” he said, “see me here once again, deeply steeped in your goodness, asking for the gift back which can be of no more use to you and which would bestow on me once more the wholly untroubled peace of my soul.”

“Raimund!”, Libella responded, “so you really believed that I would have summoned you here to sacrifice to a happier rival the only thing, the last thing, I had left of yours? Oh, forgive me, forgive me my love, for deceiving you and for luring you to my domain under a pretext that was welcome to your cruelty, only to never leave you again. For you must either return my affection and rule my realm with me or meet your maker in its depths.”

Enraged, Raimund leapt to his feet. “You fool!”, he shouted, “expect no advantage to come from your deceitful trickery, for free or in chains, dead or alive, I belong only to my Bertha and abhor you, monster! Hellish creature born of the night!” Libella’s eyes sparked like thunderbolts in a dark, stormy sky. Silently, she touched the water with her staff: it began to roar and surge up as if trying to surpass its limits. The boat rocked; in vain, Ambrose exerted his strength to guide it through the tumultuous raging of the waves. But how formidable are the elements in their uproar! As if seized by an invisible vortex, it capsized and Raimund went under into the enraged river.

Ambrose sought at length to keep himself alive by swimming, but eventually the strength in his arms left him and so, too, his consciousness; when it returned, the red evening sky was already glimmering, and he found himself, exhausted, not far from his home, on the bank of the now calm river. A silver net lay beside him, garlanded with the flowers he had given Libella, and beneath it, a reed leaf, inscribed with the words: “Be more constant than Raimund, then you shall be happier.”

Ambrose rubbed his eyes. His adventure seemed to him like the confused vision of a heated imagination, and only the glinting gold in the net convinced him of the reality of what had happened as it fulfilled the promise of the nymph, making him the richest fisherman in the Rhine district.