The night was dark, and large pine fagots had been provided for torches; and the lads who carried them danced about and shouted with joy.  Scarcely had the musicians gone back, and scarcely had the party left Endringen well behind, when the cry was:  “Put out the torches!  They only dazzle us!” And two soldiers in particular, who were then off duty and had joined the party, made fun of the torches, in proud consciousness of their sabres.  Accordingly the torches were extinguished in a ditch.  And now they began to miss this or that boy, and this or that girl, and when their comrades called out to them, they would answer from a distance.

Barefoot walked behind the rest, a good distance from those of her own village.  They let her alone, and that was the greatest kindness they could have done her; she was with the people of her own village, and yet she was alone.  She often looked around at the fields and the woods; how wonderful it all looked in the night!—­so strange and yet so familiar!  The whole world seemed as strange to her as she had become to herself.  And as she went along, step by step, as if she were being pulled or pushed, without realizing that she was moving, so did her thoughts move, involuntarily, in her mind; they seemed to be whirling on, and she could not grasp or control them—­she did not know what it meant.  Her cheeks glowed as if every star in the heavens were a heat-radiating sun, and her very heart burned within her.

And now, just as if she had begun it, as if she herself had struck up the tune, her companions ahead began to sing the song that had risen to her lips that morning: 

  “There were two lovers in Allgau,
  Who loved each other so dear;

  And the young lad went away to war;
  When comest thou home again?

  Ah, that I cannot, love, tell thee,
  What year, or what day, or what hour!”

And then the “Good Night” song was sung; and Amrei, in the distance, joined in: 

  “A fair ‘good night’ to thee, love, farewell! 
    When all are sleeping
    Then watch I’m keeping,
      So wearily.

  A fair “good night” to thee, love, farewell! 
    Now I must leave thee,
    And joy be with thee,
      Till I come back.

  And when I come back, then I’ll come to thee,
    And then I’ll kiss thee,
    That tastes so sweetly,—­
      Love, thou art mine!

  Love, thou art mine, and I am thine,
    And that doth content me,
    And shall not repent thee,
      Love, fare thee well!”

At last they came to the village, where one group after another detached itself.  Barefoot paused under the tree by her father’s house, and stood there for a long time in dreamy meditation.  She would have liked to go in and tell Black Marianne everything, but gave up the idea.  Why should she disturb the old woman’s rest at night?  What good would it do?  She went quietly home,