quickly lost in harmony. Do you think this a sad story? Poor Babette! for
her it was unspeakable anguish.
The boat drifted farther and farther away. No one on the opposite shore
knew that the betrothed pair had gone over to the little island. The clouds
sunk as the evening drew on, and it became dark. Alone, in despair, she
waited and trembled. The weather became fearful; flash after flash lighted
up the mountains of Jura, Savoy, and Switzerland, while peals of thunder,
that lasted for many minutes, rolled over her head. The lightning was so
vivid that every single vine stem could be seen for a moment as distinctly as
in the sunlight at noon-day; and then all was veiled in darkness. It flashed
across the lake in winding, zigzag lines, lighting it up on all sides; while the
echoes of the thunder grew louder and stronger. On land, the boats were all
carefully drawn up on the beach, every living thing sought shelter, and at
length the rain poured down in torrents.
“Where can Rudy and Babette be in this awful weather?” said the miller.
Poor Babette sat with her hands clasped, and her head bowed down,
dumb with grief; she had ceased to weep and cry for help.
“In the deep water!” she said to herself; “far down he lies, as if beneath a
glacier.”
Deep in her heart rested the memory of what Rudy had told her of the
death of his mother, and of his own recovery, even after he had been taken
up as dead from the cleft in the glacier.
“Ah,” she thought, “the Ice Maiden has him at last.”
Suddenly there came a flash of lightning, as dazzling as the rays of the
sun on the white snow. The lake rose for a moment like a shining glacier;
and before Babette stood the pallid, glittering, majestic form of the Ice
Maiden, and at her feet lay Rudy’s corpse.
“Mine!” she cried, and again all was darkness around the heaving water.
“How cruel,” murmured Babette; “why should he die just as the day of
happiness drew near? Merciful God, enlighten my understanding, shed light
