[Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouque]@TWC D-Link bookUndine CHAPTER 8 4/12
It is my misfortune that my steps are haunted and disturbed by the wild humours of her kindred, but it is not my crime." By reflections like these, he felt himself in some measure strengthened; but, on the other hand, he felt the more ill-humour, almost dislike, towards Undine.
He would look angrily at her, and the unhappy wife but too well understood his meaning.
One day, grieved by this unkindness, as well as exhausted by her unremitted exertions to frustrate the artifices of Kuhleborn, she toward evening fell into a deep slumber, rocked and soothed by the gentle motion of the bark.
But hardly had she closed her eyes, when every person in the boat, in whatever direction he might look, saw the head of a man, frightful beyond imagination: each head rose out of the waves, not like that of a person swimming, but quite perpendicular, as if firmly fastened to the watery mirror, and yet moving on with the bark.
Every one wished to show to his companion what terrified himself, and each perceived the same expression of horror on the face of the other, only hands and eyes were directed to a different quarter, as if to a point where the monster, half laughing and half threatening, rose opposite to each. When, however, they wished to make one another understand the site, and all cried out, "Look, there!" "No, there!" the frightful heads all became visible to each, and the whole river around the boat swarmed with the most horrible faces.
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