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 Had he designedly withdrawn himself?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