“I will fetch it back,” said Rudy; throwing off his coat and boots, he
sprang into the lake, and swam with strong efforts towards it.
The dark-blue water, from the glaciers of the mountains, was icy cold and
very deep. Rudy gave but one glance into the water beneath; but in that one
glance he saw a gold ring rolling, glittering, and sparkling before him. His
engaged ring came into his mind; but this was larger, and spread into a
glittering circle, in which appeared a clear glacier. Deep chasms yawned
around it, the water-drops glittered as if lighted with blue flame, and tinkled
like the chiming of church bells. In one moment he saw what would require
many words to describe. Young hunters, and young maidens-men and
women who had sunk in the deep chasms of the glaciers-stood before him
here in lifelike forms, with eyes open and smiles on their lips; and far
beneath them could be heard the chiming of the church bells of buried
villages, where the villagers knelt beneath the vaulted arches of churches in
which ice-blocks formed the organ pipes, and the mountain stream the
music.
On the clear, transparent ground sat the Ice Maiden. She raised herself
towards Rudy, and kissed his feet; and instantly a cold, deathly chill, like an
electric shock, passed through his limbs. Ice or fire! It was impossible to
tell, the shock was so instantaneous.
“Mine! mine!” sounded around him, and within him; “I kissed thee when
thou wert a little child. I once kissed thee on the mouth, and now I have
kissed thee from heel to toe; thou art wholly mine.” And then he
disappeared in the clear, blue water.
All was still. The church bells were silent; the last tone floated away with
the last red glimmer on the evening clouds. “Thou art mine,” sounded from
the depths below: but from the heights above, from the eternal world, also
sounded the words, “Thou art mine!” Happy was he thus to pass from life to
life, from earth to heaven. A chord was loosened, and tones of sorrow burst
forth. The icy kiss of death had overcome the perishable body; it was but
the prelude before life’s real drama could begin, the discord which was
