I was ashamed in presence of the old woman, who began to
smirk and wink odiously, and I flew like an arrow to the loneliest
nook of the garden. There I threw myself on the grass beneath the
hazel-bushes and read the note again, repeating the words by heart,
and then re-reading them over and over, while the sunlight danced
between the leaves upon the letters, so that they were blended and
blurred before my eyes like golden and bright-green and crimson
blossoms. "Is she not married, then?" I thought; "was that young
officer her brother, perhaps, or is he dead, or am I crazy, or--but no
matter!" I exclaimed at last, leaping to my feet. "It is clear enough,
she loves me! she loves me!"
When I crept out of the shrubbery the sun was near its setting. The
heavens were red, the birds were singing merrily in the woods,
the valleys were full of a golden sheen, but in my heart all was a
thousand times more beautiful and more glad.
I shouted to them in the castle to serve my supper out in the garden.
The old woman, the grim old man, the maids--I made them all come and
sit at table with me under the trees. I brought out my fiddle and
played, and ate and drank between-whiles. Then they all grew merry;
the old man smoothed the grim wrinkles out of his face, and emptied
glass after glass, the old woman chattered away--heaven knows about
what, and the maids began to dance together on the green-sward.
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