In my heart all was as serenely bright as on that blissful Sunday when
I had played on my fiddle far into the night at the open window where
stood the flask of wine. Since the rumpus showed no signs of abating,
I hastily pulled out my violin, and without more ado played an Italian
dance, popular among the mountains, which I had learned at the old
castle in the forest.
All turned their heads to listen. "Bravo! Bravissimo! A delicious
idea!" cried the merry connoisseur of Art, running from one to another
to arrange a rustic _divertissement_, as he called it. He made a
beginning himself by leading out the lady who had played the guitar
in the arbor. Thereupon he began to dance with extraordinary artistic
skill, and describe all sorts of letters on the grass with the points
of his toes, really trilling with his feet, and now and then jumping
pretty high in the air. But he soon had enough of it, for he was
rather corpulent. His jumps grew fewer and clumsier, until at last he
withdrew from the circle, puffing violently, and mopping the moisture
from his forehead with a snowy pocket-handkerchief. Meanwhile, the
young man, who had regained his composure, brought from the inn some
castanets, and before I was aware all were dancing merrily beneath the
trees. The sun had set, but the crimson sky in the west cast bright
reflections among the shadows, and upon the old walls and the
half-buried columns covered with ivy in the depths of the garden,
while below the vineyards we could see the Eternal City bathed in the
evening glow.
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