The village band had already commenced its noisy tum-tum, beer flowed from the mighty barrels which Olkewicz had sent there.
Red lamps illumined the place with a festive light. The couples whirled round in merry dance. A joyous hurrah greeted the master, who immediately led his young wife amongst the groups of glad people. She was obliged to open a dance with Olkewicz, and never in his life did the worthy steward experience greater pride than when footing it with the princess out of the fairy lake, the vision of a former occasion, in a place where he usually commanded the united threshing flails of the village.
But Giulia had to dance with the young people also. There were Poles from beyond the frontiers; one a fine lad, in a laced jacket, knelt down before Giulia, after the dance, and begged her to allow him to take off her shoe, according to Polish custom, so as to drink her health. Resistance was in vain, and the princess of Lago Maggiore had as little cause as Cinderella to conceal her shoe and feet from the world. The lad filled the slipper with brandy, and gave one lusty cheer for the lady of the manor, while vowing himself to her service for evermore. The fiddlers struck up a furious tune, with them the two horns in the village band, and the night-watchman's horn, too-tooed joyously. Great was the gladness of the people, and Giulia moved like a strange fairy indeed amongst the women and girls of the village, mostly lacking any beauty. The master himself went about from one to another, talked to the tenants, shook hands pleasantly with those peasants, who, according to old privileges, farmed their own acres, here and there caught a better-looking maiden under her chin, and said a kindly word to her.
Then, suddenly, from behind a pear tree, as if out of a hiding place, two glaring eyes stared at him; they were Kätchen's.
In his pleasantly excited mood he hardly remembered their last weird meeting.
"What in the world brings you here?" asked he.
She did not answer for some time.
"Have you become dumb again?"
Now Kätchen wriggled out from behind the wooden monster, and stood on the bench beside it. She pointed to Giulia with outstretched arms, and said, "Must I take part in your wedding after all? Marriage on land and sea! Hurrah!"
And, like a mad woman, she jumped down, mingled alone in the confusion of the dancers with wild gnome-like bounds, until a little crooked fellow, who could find no partner, took pity on her and twirled her round in the ring.