“Therefore an acquaintance of your childhood?” said Wilhelm.
“Of my childhood,” repeated Otto, and they made themselves a way through the tumult.
They met with several young noblemen, relatives of Wilhelm, with the cousin who had written the verses for the Christmas tree; also several friends from the carouse, and the company increased. They intended, like many others, to pass the night in the wood, and at midnight drink out of Kirsten Piil’s well. “Only with the increasing darkness will it become thoroughly merry here,” thought they: but Otto had appointed to be in the city again toward evening. “Nothing will come out of that!” said the poet; “if you wish to escape, we shall bind you fast to one of us.”
“Then I carry him away with me on my back,” replied Otto; “and still run toward the city. What shall I do here at night in the wood?”
“Be merry!” answered Wilhelm. “Come, give us no follies, or I shall grow restive.”
Hand-organs, drums, and trumpets, roared against each other; Bajazzo growled; a couple of hoarse girls sang and twanged upon the guitar: it was comic or affecting, just as one was disposed. The evening approached, and now the crowd became greater, the joy more noisy.
“But where is Otto?” inquired Wilhelm. Otto had vanished in the crowd. Search after him would help nothing, chance must bring them together again. Had he designedly withdrawn himself? no one knew wherefore, no one could dream what had passed within his soul. It became evening. The highway and the foot-path before the park resembled two moving gay ribbons.
In the park itself the crowd perceptibly diminished. It was now the high-road which was become the Park-hill. The carriages dashed by each other as at a race; the people shouted and sung, if not as melodiously as the barcarole of the fisher men below Lido, still with the thorough carnival joy of the south. The steamboat moved along the coasts. From the gardens surrounding the pretty country-houses arose rockets into the blue sky, the Moccoli of the north above the Carnival of the Park.
Wilhelm remained with his young friends in the wood, and there they intended, with the stroke of twelve, to drink out of Kirsten’s well. Men and women, girls and boys of the lower class, and jovial young men, meet, after this manner, to enjoy St. John’s Eve. Still sounded the music, the swings were in motion, lamps hung out, whilst the new moon shone through the thick tree boughs. Toward midnight the noise died away; only a blind peasant still scratched upon the three strings which were left on his violin; some servant-girls wandered, arm-in-arm, with their sweethearts, and sang. At twelve o’clock all assembled about the well, and drank the clear, ice-cold water. From no great distance resounded, through the still night, a chorus of four manly voices. It was as if the wood gods sang in praise of the nymph of the well.
Upon the hill all was now deserted and quiet. Bajazzo and il Padrone slept behind the thin linen partition, under a coverlid. The moon set, but the night was clear; no clear, frosty winter night has a snore beautiful starry heaven to exhibit. Wilhelm’s party was merry, quickly flew the hours away; singing in chorus, the party wandered through the wood, and down toward the strand. The day already dawned; a red streak along the horizon announced its approach.