"And I am old in years.

Easily enough may the stream of my life run itself out before the overflowing of the forest-stream may subside.

And indeed it were not impossible that more and more of the foaming waters may force their way between you and yonder forest, until you are so far sundered from the rest of the world that your little fishing-boat will no longer be sufficient to carry you across, and the inhabitants of the continent in the midst of their diversions will have entirely forgotten you in your old age." The fisherman's wife started at this, crossed herself and exclaimed.
"God forbid." But her husband looked at her with a smile, and said "What creatures we are after all! even were it so, things would not be very different--at least not for you, dear wife--than they now are.

For have you for many years been further than the edge of the forest?
and have you seen any other human beings than Undine and myself?
The knight and this holy man have only come to as lately.
They will remain with us if we do become a forgotten island; so you would even be a gainer by it after all." "I don't know," said the old woman; "it is somehow a gloomy thought, when one imagines that one is irrecoverably separated from other people, although, were it otherwise, one might neither know nor see them." "Then you will remain with us! then you will remain with us!" whispered Undine, in a low, half-singing tone, as she nestled closer to Huldbrand's side.

But he was absorbed in the deep and strange visions of his own mind.
The region on the other side of the forest-river seemed to dissolve into distance during the priest's last words: and the blooming island upon which he lived grew more green, and smiled more freshly in his mind's vision.