Ere we resumed our seats, the ancient wassail-bowl of the Nidecks, blackened by centuries past, was filled to overflowing with sparkling wine from the Drachenfels, and went the round of the table, each one draining all he could at a breath. The generous draught served to increase the already growing hilarity. The happy eyes and faces sparkled more brightly under its magic spell. Then, in response to a signal from the Count, we seated ourselves about the board.
The table fairly groaned beneath its burden of dishes ranged everywhere with lavish profusion. Bottles of all shapes and sizes, cobwebbed and redolent of the Castle's earthen vaults, were dotted all about, with glasses of as various patterns beside them, and long-stemmed pipes lay beside the plate of each smoker, while an army of small dishes, the contents of which I could not even guess, were ranged the length of the board. Directly in the centre of it all, in an enormous platter of flowered china, rested the head of the ill-favored boar, swimming in a lake of white wine sauce.
The meal progressed; the merriment increased. To-night there was license everywhere, and each one enjoyed himself after his own manner. Healths were emptied with marvellous rapidity till I felt my head reeling with the fumes of the wine and the intoxication of happiness.
An hour passed. The Count, Odile, and I, were toasted at intervals of every few minutes. I wondered how long this state of things could continue successfully. I looked about me.
There was Sperver, a little distance down the table, with his thin forehead and bristling gray head, his eyes shining and his mustache wet with wine; at his right sat Knapwurst and on his left Marie Lagoutte. His cheeks were a good deal flushed, and on his breast sparkled the badge of his office; it was a pleasure to see his honest, happy face. Marie Lagoutte was even more loquacious than was her wont; her large, cotton cap was pushed very much to one side, and she drank first with one and then with another with the greatest impartiality.
Knapwurst, squatting in his armchair, his head on a level with Sperver's elbow, looked like an enormous cabbage. Then came Tobias Offenloch, so red that he looked as though he had dipped his face in the wine before him. His wig rested against the chair-back, and his wooden leg was stuck straight out before him under the table. Further on, Sebalt's long, melancholy face stood out in grotesque relief, smiling faintly into his glass.
There were, besides the musicians, the serving-men and women, domestics and hangers-on,—all that little world, in short, which lives and flourishes around great families as the moss, the ivy, and the convolvulus cling about the forest oak. Their eyes were moist with wine-begotten tears. The Vine of Bacchus wept freely everywhere. The light of the great bronze lamp shed over all its beautiful amber tint and left in the shadows the old gray walls where hung in wreaths the trumpets, bugles, and horns of the former lords of the Castle. The scene was like a glimpse from ages past.
The roof rang with songs and shouts, and ballads long lain dormant in the minds of the singers now came forth and woke the startled echoes of the Castle.
For my part, I did little else but listen and occupy myself with the faces about me; for thanks to the exercise of the morning and my long inhaling of the old wine, smelling of vervain and cypress, that mounted to my brain, and clothed all things for me in vague, unreal beauty, I was in that wholly receptive mood which disaffects even the semblance of effort.
So I listened with entire complacency to the singularly successful efforts of the entertainers, who were elated to an unusual degree by every circumstance of the occasion.