Germain talked as if he were dreaming, and did not know what he said.
Little Marie was still trembling; but as he was trembling even more than
she, he did not notice it. Suddenly she turned; she was all in tears,
and looked at him with a reproachful expression.

The poor ploughman thought that that was the last stroke, and rose to
go, without awaiting his sentence, but the girl detained him by throwing
her arms about him, and hid her face against his breast.

"Ah! Germain," she said, sobbing, "haven't you guessed that I love you?"

Germain would have gone mad, had not his son, who was looking for him
and who entered the cottage galloping on a stick, with his little sister
_en croupe_, lashing the imaginary steed with a willow switch, recalled
him to himself. He lifted him up, and said, as he put him in his
fiancée's arms:

"You have made more than one person happy by loving me!"




APPENDIX

I

THE COUNTRY WEDDING


Here ends the story of Germain's courtship, as he told it to me himself,
cunning ploughman that he is! I ask your pardon, dear reader, for having
been unable to translate it better; for the old-fashioned, artless
language of the peasants of the district that _I sing_--as they used to
say--really has to be translated. Those people speak too much French for
us, and the development of the language since Rabelais and Montaigne has
deprived us of much of the old wealth. It is so with all progress, and
we must make up our minds to it. But it is pleasant still to hear those
picturesque idioms in general use on the old soil of the centre of
France; especially as they are the genuine expressions of the mockingly
tranquil and pleasantly loquacious character of the people who use them.
Touraine has preserved a considerable number of precious patriarchal
locutions. But Touraine has progressed rapidly in civilization during
and since the Renaissance. It is covered with châteaux, roads,
activity, and foreigners. Berry has remained stationary, and I think
that, next to Bretagne and some provinces in the extreme south of
France, it is the most _conservative_ province to be found at the
present moment. Certain customs are so strange, so curious, that I hope
to be able to entertain you a moment longer, dear reader, if you will
permit me to describe in detail a country wedding, Germain's for
instance, which I had the pleasure of attending a few years ago.

For everything passes away, alas! In the short time that I have lived,
there has been more change in the ideas and customs of my village than
there was for centuries before the Revolution. Half of the Celtic,
pagan, or Middle-Age ceremonials that I saw in full vigor in my
childhood, have already been done away with. Another year or two,
perhaps, and the railroads will run their levels through our deep
valleys, carrying away, with the swiftness of lightning, our ancient
traditions and our wonderful legends.

It was in winter, not far from the Carnival, the time of year when it is
considered becoming and proper, among us, to be married. In the summer,
we hardly have time, and the work on a farm cannot be postponed three
days, to say nothing of the extra days required for the more or less
laborious digestion attending the moral and physical intoxication that
follows such a festivity.--I was sitting under the huge mantel-piece of
an old-fashioned kitchen fire-place, when pistol-shots, the howling of
dogs, and the shrill notes of the bagpipe announced the approach of the
fiancés. Soon Père and Mère Maurice, Germain, and little Marie, followed
by Jacques and his wife, the nearest relations of the bride and groom,
and their godfathers and godmothers, entered the court-yard.

Little Marie, not having as yet received the wedding-gifts, called
_livrées_, was dressed in the best that her modest wardrobe afforded: a
dress of dark-gray cloth, a white fichu with large bright-colored
flowers, an apron of the color called _incarnat_, an Indian red then
much in vogue but despised to-day, a cap of snow-white muslin and of the
shape, fortunately preserved, which recalls the head-dress of Anne
Boleyn and Agnès Sorel. She was fresh and smiling, and not at all proud,
although she had good reason to be. Germain was beside her, grave and
deeply moved, like the youthful Jacob saluting Rachel at Laban's well.
Any other girl would have assumed an air of importance and a triumphant
bearing; for in all ranks of life it counts for something to be married
for one's _beaux yeux_. But the girl's eyes were moist and beaming with
love; you could see that she was deeply smitten, and that she had no
time to think about the opinions of other people. She had not lost her
little determined manner; but she was all sincerity and good nature;
there was nothing impertinent in her success, nothing personal in her
consciousness of her strength. I never saw such a sweet fiancée as she
when she quickly answered some of her young friends who asked her if she
was content: "Bless me! indeed I am! I don't complain of the good Lord."

Père Maurice was the spokesman; he had come to offer the customary
compliments and invitations. He began by fastening a laurel branch
adorned with ribbons to the mantel-piece; that is called the _exploit_,
that is to say, the invitation; then he gave to each of the guests a
little cross made of a bit of blue ribbon crossed by another bit of pink
ribbon; the pink for the bride, the blue for the groom; and the guests
were expected to keep that token to wear on the wedding-day, the women
in their caps, the men in their button-holes. It was the ticket of
admission.

Then Père Maurice delivered his speech. He invited the master of the
house and all _his company_, that is to say, all his children, all his
relations, all his friends, all his servants, to the marriage-ceremony,
_to the feast, to the sports, to the dancing, and to everything that
comes after_. He did not fail to say:--I come _to do you the honor_ to
_invite_ you. A very proper locution, although it seems a misuse of
words to us, as it expresses the idea of rendering honor to those who
are deemed worthy thereof.

Despite the general invitation carried thus from house to house
throughout the parish, good-breeding, which is extremely conservative
among the peasantry, requires that only two persons in each family
should take advantage of it,--one of the heads of the family to
represent the household, one of their children to represent the other
members.

The invitations being delivered, the fiancés and their relations went to
the farm and dined together.

Little Marie tended her three sheep on the common land, and Germain
turned up the ground as if there were nothing in the air.

On the day before that fixed for the marriage, about two o'clock in the
afternoon, the musicians arrived, that is to say, the bagpipers and
viol-players, with their instruments decorated with long floating
ribbons, and playing a march written for the occasion, in a measure
somewhat slow for the feet of any but natives, but perfectly adapted to
the nature of the heavy ground and the hilly roads of that region.
Pistol-shots, fired by youths and children, announced the beginning of
the ceremony. The guests assembled one by one and danced on the
greensward in front of the house, for practice. When night had come,
they began to make strange preparations: they separated into two
parties, and when it was quite dark, they proceeded to the ceremony of
the _livrées_.

That ceremony was performed at the home of the fiancée, La Guillette's
cabin. La Guillette took with her her daughter, a dozen or more young
and pretty shepherdesses, her daughter's friends or relations, two or
three respectable matrons, neighbors with well-oiled tongues, quick at
retort, and unyielding observers of the ancient customs. Then she
selected a dozen sturdy champions, her relations and friends; and,
lastly, the old _hemp-beater_ of the parish, a fine and fluent talker,
if ever there was one.

The rôle played in Bretagne by the _bazvalan_, or village tailor, is
assumed in our country districts by the hemp-beater or the wool-carder,
the two professions being often united in a single person. He attends
all solemnities, sad or gay, because he is essentially erudite and a
fine speaker, and on such occasions it is always his part to act as
spokesman in order that certain formalities that have been observed from
time immemorial may be worthily performed. The wandering trades which
take men into the bosoms of other families and do not permit them to
concentrate their attention upon their own, are well calculated to make
them loquacious, entertaining, good talkers, and good singers.

The hemp-beater is peculiarly sceptical. He and another rustic
functionary, of whom we shall speak anon, the grave-digger, are always
the strong-minded men of the neighborhood. They have talked so much
about ghosts, and are so familiar with all the tricks of which those
mischievous spirits are capable, that they fear them hardly at all.
Night is the time when all three, hemp-beaters, grave-diggers, and
ghosts, principally exercise their callings. At night, too, the
hemp-beater tells his harrowing tales. May I be pardoned for a slight
digression.

When the hemp has reached the proper point, that is to say, when it has
been sufficiently soaked in running water and half dried on the bank,
it is carried to the yards of the different houses; there they stand it
up in little sheaves, which, with their stalks spread apart at the
bottom and their heads tied together in balls, greatly resemble, in the
dark, a long procession of little white phantoms, planted on their slim
legs and walking noiselessly along the walls.

At the end of September, when the nights are still warm, they begin the
process of beating, by the pale moonlight. During the day, the hemp has
been heated in the oven; it is taken out at night to be beaten hot. For
that purpose, they use a sort of wooden horse, surmounted by a wooden
lever, which, falling upon the grooves, breaks the plant without cutting
it. Then it is that you hear at night, in the country, the sharp,
clean-cut sound of three blows struck in rapid succession. Then there is
silence for a moment; that means that the arm is moving the handful of
hemp, in order to break it in another place. And the three blows are
repeated; it is the other arm acting on the lever, and so it goes on
until the moon is dimmed by the first rays of dawn. As this work is done
only a few days in the year, the dogs do not become accustomed to it,
and howl plaintively at every point of the compass.

It is the time for unusual and mysterious noises in the country. The
migrating cranes fly southward at such a height that the eye can hardly
distinguish them in broad daylight. At night, you can only hear them;
and their hoarse, complaining voices, lost among the clouds, seem like
the salutation and the farewell of souls in torment, striving to find
the road to heaven and compelled by an irresistible fatality to hover
about the abodes of men, not far from earth; for these migratory birds
exhibit strange uncertainty and mysterious anxiety in their aerial
wanderings. It sometimes happens that they lose the wind, when fitful
breezes struggle for the mastery or succeed one another in the upper
regions. Thereupon, when one of those reverses happens during the day,
we see the leader of the line soar at random through the air, then turn
sharply about, fly back, and take his place at the rear of the
triangular phalanx, while a skilful manoeuvre on the part of his
companions soon brings them into line behind him. Often, after vain
efforts, the exhausted leader abandons the command of the caravan;
another comes forward, takes his turn at the task, and gives place to a
third, who finds the current and leads the host forward in triumph. But
what shrieks, what reproaches, what remonstrances, what fierce
maledictions or anxious questions are exchanged by those winged pilgrims
in an unfamiliar tongue!

In the resonant darkness you hear the dismal uproar circling above the
houses sometimes for a long while; and as you can see nothing, you feel,
in spite of yourself, a sort of dread and a sympathetic uneasiness until
the sobbing flock has passed out of hearing in space.

There are other sounds that are peculiar to that time of year, and are
heard principally in the orchards. The fruit is not yet gathered, and a
thousand unaccustomed snappings and crackings make the trees resemble
animate beings. A branch creaks as it bends under a weight that has
suddenly reached the last stage of development; or an apple detaches
itself and falls at your feet with a dull thud on the damp ground. Then
you hear a creature whom you cannot see, brushing against the branches
and bushes as he runs away; it is the peasant's dog, the restless,
inquisitive prowler, impudent and cowardly as well, who insinuates
himself everywhere, never sleeps, is always hunting for nobody knows
what, watches you from his hiding-place in the bushes and runs away at
the noise made by a falling apple, thinking that you are throwing a
stone at him.

On such nights as those--gray, cloudy nights--the hemp-beater narrates
his strange adventures with will-o'-the-wisps and white hares, souls in
torment and witches transformed into wolves, the witches' dance at the
cross-roads and prophetic night-owls in the grave-yard. I remember
passing the early hours of the night thus around the moving flails,
whose pitiless blow, interrupting the beater's tale at the most exciting
point, caused a cold shiver to run through our veins. Often, too, the
goodman went on talking as he worked; and four or five words would be
lost: awful words, of course, which we dared not ask him to repeat, and
the omission of which imparted a more awe-inspiring mystery to the
mysteries, sufficiently harrowing before, of his narrative. In vain did
the servants warn us that it was very late to remain out-of-doors, and
that the hour for slumber had long since struck for us; they themselves
were dying with longing to hear more. And with what terror did we
afterward walk through the hamlet on our homeward way! how deep the
church porch seemed, and how dense and black the shadow of the old
trees! As for the grave-yard, that we did not see; we closed our eyes as
we passed it.

But the hemp-beater does not devote himself exclusively to frightening
his hearers any more than the sacristan does; he likes to make them
laugh, he is jocose and sentimental at need, when love and marriage are
to be sung; he it is who collects and retains in his memory the most
ancient ballads and transmits them to posterity. He it is, therefore,
who, at wedding-festivals, is entrusted with the character which we are
to see him enact at the presentation of the _livrées_ to little Marie.




II

THE LIVRÉES


When everybody was assembled in the house, the doors and windows were
closed and fastened with the greatest care; they even barricaded the
loop-hole in the attic; they placed boards, trestles, stumps, and tables
across all the issues as if they were preparing to sustain a siege; and
there was the solemn silence of suspense in that fortified interior
until they heard in the distance singing and laughing, and the notes of
the rustic instruments. It was the bridegroom's contingent, Germain at
the head, accompanied by his stoutest comrades, by his relations,
friends, and servants and the grave-digger,--a substantial, joyous
procession.

But, as they approached the house, they slackened their pace, took
counsel together, and became silent. The maidens, shut up in the house,
had arranged little cracks at the windows, through which they watched
them march up and form in battle-array. A fine, cold rain was falling,
and added to the interest of the occasion, while a huge fire was
crackling on the hearth inside. Marie would have liked to abridge the
inevitable tedious length of this formal siege; she did not like to see
her lover catching cold, but she had no voice in the council under the
circumstances, and, indeed, she was expected to join, ostensibly, in the
mischievous cruelty of her companions.

When the two camps were thus confronted, a discharge of fire-arms
without created great excitement among all the dogs in the neighborhood.
Those of the household rushed to the door barking vociferously, thinking
that a real attack was in progress, and the small children, whom their
mothers tried in vain to reassure, began to tremble and cry. The whole
scene was so well played that a stranger might well have been deceived
by it and have considered the advisability of preparing to defend
himself against a band of brigands.

Thereupon, the grave-digger, the bridegroom's bard and orator, took his
place in front of the door, and, in a lugubrious voice, began the
following dialogue with the hemp-beater, who was stationed at the small
round window above the same door:


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Alas! my good people, my dear parishioners, for the love of God open the
door.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

Who are you, pray, and why do you presume to call us your dear
parishioners? We do not know you.


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We are honest folk in sore distress. Be not afraid of us, my friends!
receive us hospitably. The rain freezes as it falls, our poor feet are
frozen, and we have come such a long distance that our shoes are split.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

If your shoes are split, you can look on the ground; you will surely
find osier withes to make _arcelets_ [little strips of iron in the shape
of bows, with which shoes (wooden) were mended].


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Osier _arcelets_ are not very strong. You are making sport of us, good
people, and you would do better to open the door to us. We can see the
gleam of a noble blaze within your house; doubtless the spit is in
place, and your hearts and your stomachs are rejoicing together. Open,
then, to poor pilgrims, who will die at your door if you do not have
mercy on them.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

Aha! you are pilgrims? you did not tell us that. From what pilgrimage
are you returning, by your leave?


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We will tell you that when you have opened the door, for we come from so
far away that you would not believe it.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

Open the door to you? indeed! we should not dare trust you. Let us see:
are you from Saint-Sylvain de Pouligny?


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We have been to Saint-Sylvain de Pouligny, but we have been farther than
that.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

Then you have been as far as Sainte-Solange?


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We have been to Sainte-Solange, for sure; but we have been farther
still.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

You lie; you have never been as far as Sainte-Solange.


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We have been farther, for we have just returned from Saint-Jacques de
Compostelle.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

What foolish tale are you telling us? We don't know that parish. We see
plainly enough that you are bad men, brigands, _nobodies_, liars. Go
somewhere else and sing your silly songs; we are on our guard, and you
won't get in here.


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Alas! my dear man, have pity on us! We are not pilgrims, as you have
rightly guessed; but we are unfortunate poachers pursued by the keepers.
The gendarmes are after us, too, and, if you don't let us hide in your
hay-loft, we shall be caught and taken to prison.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

But what proof have we this time that you are what you say? for here is
one falsehood already that you could not follow up.


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

If you will open the door, we will show you a fine piece of game we have
killed.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

Show it now, for we are suspicious.


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Well, open a door or a window, so that we can pass in the creature.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

Oh! nay, nay! not such fools! I'm looking at you through a little hole,
and I see neither hunters nor game.

At that point, a drover's boy, a thick-set youth of herculean strength,
came forth from the group in which he had been standing unnoticed, and
held up toward the window a goose all plucked and impaled on a stout
iron spit, decorated with bunches of straw and ribbons.

"Hoity-toity!" cried the hemp-beater, after he had cautiously put out an
arm to feel the bird; "that's not a quail or a partridge, a hare or a
rabbit; it looks like a goose or a turkey. Upon my word, you are noble
hunters! and that game did not make you ride very fast. Go elsewhere,
my knaves! all your falsehoods are detected, and you may as well go home
and cook your supper. You won't eat ours."


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Alas! _mon Dieu_! where shall we go to have our game cooked? it's very
little among so many of us; and, besides, we have no fire nor place to
go to. At this time of night, every door is closed, everybody has gone
to bed; you are the only ones who are having a wedding-feast in your
house, and you must be very hardhearted to leave us to freeze outside.
Once more, good people, let us in; we won't cause you any expense. You
see we bring our own food; only a little space at your fireside, a
little fire to cook it, and we will go hence satisfied.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

Do you think that we have any too much room, and that wood costs
nothing?


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We have a little bundle of straw to make a fire with, we will be
satisfied with it; only give us leave to place the spit across your
fire-place.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

We will not do it; you arouse disgust, not pity, in us. It's my opinion
that you are drank, that you need nothing, and that you simply want to
get into our house to steal our fire and our daughters.


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

As you refuse to listen to any good reason, we propose to force our way
into your house.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

Try it, if you choose. We are so well protected that we need not fear
you. You are insolent knaves, too, and we won't answer you any more.


Thereupon, the hemp-beater closed the window-shutter with a great noise,
and went down to the lower room by a ladder. Then he took the bride by
the hand, the young people of both sexes joined them, and they all began
to dance and utter joyous exclamations, while the matrons sang in
piercing tones and indulged in loud peals of laughter in token of their
scorn and defiance of those who were attempting an assault without.

The besiegers, on their side, raged furiously together: they discharged
their pistols against the doors, made the dogs growl, pounded on the
walls, rattled the shutters, and uttered terror-inspiring yells; in
short, there was such an uproar that you could not hear yourself talk,
such a dust and smoke that you could not see yourself.

The attack was a mere pretence, however: the moment had not come to
violate the laws of etiquette. If they could succeed, by prowling about
the house, in finding an unguarded passage, any opening whatsoever, they
could try to gain an entrance by surprise, and then, if the bearer of
the spit succeeded in placing his bird in front of the fire, that
constituted a taking possession of the hearth-stone, the comedy was at
an end, and the bridegroom was victor.

But the entrances to the house were not so numerous that they were
likely to have neglected the usual precautions, and no one would have
assumed the right to employ violence before the moment fixed for the
conflict.

When they were weary of jumping about and shouting, the hemp-beater
meditated a capitulation. He went back to his window, opened it
cautiously, and hailed the discomfited besiegers with a roar of
laughter:

"Well, my boys," he said, "you're pretty sheepish, aren't you? You
thought that nothing could be easier than to break in here, and you
have discovered that our defences are strong. But we are beginning to
have pity on you, if you choose to submit and accept our conditions."


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Speak, my good friends; tell us what we must do to be admitted to your
fireside.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

You must sing, my friends, but sing some song that we don't know, and
that we can't answer with a better one.

"Never you fear!" replied the grave-digger, and he sang in a powerful
voice:

"'_Tis six months since the spring-time_,"

"_When I walked upon the springing grass_," replied the hemp-beater, in
a somewhat hoarse but awe-inspiring voice. "Are you laughing at us, my
poor fellows, that you sing us such old trash? you see that we stop you
at the first word."

"_It was a prince's daughter_--"

"_And she would married be_" replied the hemp-beater. "Go on, go on to
another! we know that a little too well."


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

What do you say to this:

"_When from Nantes I was returning_--"


THE HEMP-BEATER.

"_I was weary, do you know! oh! so weary_." That's a song of my
grandmother's day. Give us another one.


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

"_The other day as I was walking_--"


THE HEMP-BEATER.

"_Along by yonder charming wood_!" That's a silly one! Our grandchildren
wouldn't take the trouble to answer you! What! are those all you know?


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Oh! we'll sing you so many of them, that you will end by stopping short.


Fully an hour was passed in this contest. As the two combatants were the
most learned men in the province in the matter of ballads, and as their
repertory seemed inexhaustible, it might well have lasted all night,
especially as the hemp-beater seemed to take malicious pleasure in
allowing his opponent to sing certain laments in ten, twenty, or thirty
stanzas, pretending by his silence to admit that he was defeated.
Thereupon, there was triumph in the bridegroom's camp, they sang in
chorus at the tops of their voices, and every one believed that the
adverse party would make default; but when the final stanza was half
finished, the old hemp-beater's harsh, hoarse voice would bellow out the
last words; whereupon he would shout: "You don't need to tire yourselves
out by singing such long ones, my children! We have them at our fingers'
ends!"

Once or twice, however, the hemp-beater made a wry face, drew his
eyebrows together, and turned with a disappointed air toward the
observant matrons. The grave-digger was singing something so old that
his adversary had forgotten it, or perhaps had never known it; but the
good dames instantly sang the victorious refrain through their noses, in
tones as shrill as those of the sea-gull; and the grave-digger, summoned
to surrender, passed to something else.

It would have been too long to wait until one side or the other won the
victory. The bride's party announced that they would show mercy on
condition that the others should offer her a gift worthy of her.

Thereupon, the song of the _livrées_ began, to an air as solemn as a
church chant.

The men outside sang in unison:

     "Ouvrez la porte, ouvrez,
     Marie, ma mignonne,
    _J'ons_ de beaux cadeaux à vous présenter.
    Hélas! ma mie, laissez-nous entrer."[3]

To which the women replied from the interior, in falsetto, in doleful
tones:

    "Mon père est en chagrin, ma mère en grand' tristesse,
    Et moi je suis fille de trop grand' merci
    Pour ouvrir ma porte à _cette heure ici_."[4]

The men repeated the first stanza down to the fourth line, which they
modified thus:

    "J'ons un beau mouchoir à vous présenter."[5]

But the women replied, in the name of the bride, in the same words as
before.

Through twenty stanzas, at least, the men enumerated all the gifts in
the _livrée_, always mentioning a new article in the last verse: a
beautiful _devanteau_,--apron,--lovely ribbons, a cloth dress, lace, a
gold cross, even to _a hundred pins_ to complete the bride's modest
outfit. The matrons invariably refused; but at last the young men
decided to mention _a handsome husband to offer_, and they replied by
addressing the bride, and singing to her with the men:

     "Ouvrez la porte, ouvrez,
     Marie, ma mignonne,
    C'est un beau man qui vient vous chercher.
    Allons, ma mie, laissons-les entrer."[6]




III

THE WEDDING


The hemp-beater at once drew the wooden latch by which the door was
fastened on the inside; at that time, it was still the only lock known
in most of the houses in our village. The bridegroom's party invaded the
bride's dwelling, but not without a combat; for the boys stationed
inside the house, and even the old hemp-beater and the old women, made
it their duty to defend the hearthstone. The bearer of the spit,
supported by his adherents, was bound to succeed in bestowing his bird
in the fire-place. It was a genuine battle, although they abstained from
striking one another, and there was no anger in it. But they pushed and
squeezed one another with such violence, and there was so much
self-esteem at stake in that conflict of muscular strength, that the
results might be more serious than they seemed to be amid the laughter
and the singing. The poor old hemp-beater, who fought like a lion, was
pressed against the wall and squeezed until he lost his breath. More
than one champion was floored and unintentionally trodden under foot,
more than one hand that grasped at the spit was covered with blood.
Those sports are dangerous, and the accidents were so serious in later
years that the peasants determined to allow the ceremony of the
_livrées_ to fall into desuetude. I believe that we saw the last of it
at Françoise Meillant's wedding, and still it was only a mock-battle.

The contest was animated enough at Germain's wedding. It was a point of
honor on one side and the other to attack and to defend La Guillette's
fireside. The huge spit was twisted like a screw in the powerful hands
that struggled for possession of it. A pistol-shot set fire to a small
store of hemp in skeins that lay on a shelf suspended from the ceiling.
That incident created a diversion, and while some hastened to smother
the germ of a conflagration, the grave-digger, who had climbed to the
attic unperceived, came down the chimney and seized the spit, just as
the drover, who was defending it near the hearth, raised it above his
head to prevent its being snatched from him. Some time before the
assault, the matrons had taken care to put out the fire, fearing that
some one might fall in and be burned while they were struggling close
beside it. The facetious grave-digger, in concert with the drover,
possessed himself of the trophy without difficulty, therefore, and threw
it across the fire-dogs. It was done! No one was allowed to touch it
after that. He leaped into the room, and lighted a bit of straw which
surrounded the spit, to make a pretence of cooking the goose, which was
torn to pieces and its limbs strewn over the floor.

Thereupon, there was much laughter and burlesque discussion. Every one
showed the bruises he had received, and as it was often the hand of a
friend that had dealt the blow, there was no complaining or quarrelling.
The hemp-beater, who was half flattened out, rubbed his sides, saying
that he cared very little for that, but that he did protest against the
stratagem of his good friend the grave-digger, and that, if he had not
been half-dead, the hearth would not have been conquered so easily. The
matrons swept the floor, and order was restored. The table was covered
with jugs of new wine. When they had drank together and recovered their
breath, the bridegroom was led into the centre of the room, and, being
armed with a staff, was obliged to submit to a new test.

During the contest, the bride had been concealed with three of her
friends by her mother, her godmother, and aunts, who had seated the four
girls on a bench in the farthest corner of the room, and covered them
over with a great white sheet. They had selected three of Marie's
friends who were of the same height as she, and wore caps of exactly the
same height, so that, as the sheet covered their heads and descended to
their feet, it was impossible to distinguish them from each other.

The bridegroom was not allowed to touch them, except with the end of his
wand, and only to point out the one whom he judged to be his wife. They
gave him time to examine them, but only with his eyes, and the matrons,
who stood by his side, watched closely to see that there was no
cheating. If he made a mistake, he could not dance with his betrothed
during the evening, but only with her whom he had chosen by mistake.

Germain, finding himself in the presence of those phantoms enveloped in
the same winding-sheet, was terribly afraid of making a mistake; and, as
a matter of fact, that had happened to many others, for the precautions
were always taken with scrupulous care. His heart beat fast. Little
Marie tried to breathe hard and make the sheet move, but her mischievous
rivals did the same, pushed out the cloth with their fingers, and there
were as many mysterious signs as there were girls under the veil. The
square caps kept the veil so perfectly level that it was impossible to
distinguish the shape of a head beneath its folds.

Germain, after ten minutes of hesitation, closed his eyes, commended his
soul to God, and stuck his staff out at random. He touched little
Marie's forehead, and she threw the sheet aside with a cry of triumph.
He obtained leave then to kiss her, and, taking her in his strong arms,
he carried her to the middle of the room, and with her opened the ball,
which lasted until two o'clock in the morning.

Then they separated to meet again at eight o'clock. As there was a
considerable number of young people from the neighboring towns, and as
there were not beds enough for everybody, each invited guest among the
women of the village shared her bed with two or three friends, while the
young men lay pell-mell on the hay in the loft at the farm. You can
imagine that there was not much sleep there, for they thought of nothing
but teasing, and playing tricks on one another and telling amusing
stories. At all weddings, there are three sleepless nights, which no one
regrets.

At the hour appointed for setting out, after they had eaten their soup
_au lait_ seasoned with a strong dose of pepper to give them an
appetite, for the wedding-banquet bade fair to be abundant, they
assembled in the farm-yard. Our parish church being suppressed, they
were obliged to go half a league away to receive the nuptial
benediction. It was a lovely, cool day; but, as the roads were very bad,
every man had provided himself with a horse, and took _en croupe_ a
female companion, young or old. Germain was mounted upon Grise, who,
being well groomed, newly shod, and decked out in ribbons, pranced and
capered and breathed fire through her nostrils. He went to the cabin for
his fiancée, accompanied by his brother-in-law Jacques, who was mounted
on old Grise and took Mère Guillette _en croupe_, while Germain returned
triumphantly to the farm-yard with his dear little wife.

Then the merry cavalcade set forth, escorted by children on foot, who
fired pistols as they ran and made the horses jump. Mère Maurice was
riding in a small cart with Germain's three children and the fiddlers.
They opened the march to the sound of the instruments. Petit-Pierre was
so handsome that the old grandmother was immensely proud. But the
impulsive child did not stay long beside her. He took advantage of a
halt they were obliged to make, when they had gone half the distance, in
order to pass a difficult ford, to slip down and ask his father to take
him up on Grise in front of him.

"No, no!" said Germain, "that will make people say unkind things about
us! you mustn't do it."

"I care very little what the people of Saint-Chartier say," said little
Marie. "Take him, Germain, I beg you; I shall be prouder of him than of
my wedding-dress."

Germain yielded the point, and the handsome trio dashed forward at
Grise's proudest gallop.

And, in fact, the people of Saint-Chartier, although very satirical and
a little inclined to be disagreeable in their intercourse with the
neighboring parishes which had been combined with theirs, did not think
of laughing when they saw such a handsome bridegroom and lovely bride,
and a child that a king's wife would have envied. Petit-Pierre had a
full coat of blue-bottle colored cloth, and a cunning little red
waistcoat so short that it hardly came below his chin. The village
tailor had made the sleeves so tight that he could not put his little
arms together. And how proud he was! He had a round hat with a black and
gold buckle and a peacock's feather protruding jauntily from a tuft of
Guinea-hen's feathers. A bunch of flowers larger than his head covered
his shoulder, and ribbons floated down to his feet. The hemp-beater, who
was also the village barber and wig-maker, had cut his hair in a circle,
covering his head with a bowl and cutting off all that protruded, an
infallible method of guiding the scissors accurately. Thus accoutred, he
was less picturesque, surely, than with his long hair flying in the wind
and his lamb's fleece _à la_ Saint John the Baptist; but he had no such
idea, and everybody admired him, saying that he looked like a little
man. His beauty triumphed over everything, and, in sooth, over what
would not the incomparable beauty of childhood triumph?

His little sister Solange had, for the first time in her life, a real
cap instead of the little child's cap of Indian muslin that little girls
wear up to the age of two or three years. And such a cap! higher and
broader than the poor little creature's whole body. And how lovely she
considered herself! She dared not turn her head, and sat perfectly
straight and stiff, thinking that people would take her for the bride.

As for little Sylvain, he was still in long dresses and lay asleep on
his grandmother's knees, with no very clear idea of what a wedding might
be.

Germain gazed affectionately at his children, and said to his fiancée,
as they arrived at the mayor's office:

"Do you know, Marie, I ride up to this door a little happier than I was
the day I brought you home from the woods of Chanteloube, thinking that
you would never love me; I took you in my arms to put you on the ground
just as I do now, but I didn't think we should ever be together again on
good Grise with this child on our knees. I love you so much, you see, I
love those dear little ones so much, I am so happy because you love me
and love them and because my people love you, and I love my mother and
my friends and everybody so much to-day, that I wish I had three or four
hearts to hold it all. Really, one is too small to hold so much love and
so much happiness! I have something like a pain in my stomach."

There was a crowd at the mayor's door and at the church to see the
pretty bride. Why should we not describe her costume? it became her so
well. Her cap of white embroidered muslin had flaps trimmed with lace.
In those days, peasant-women did not allow themselves to show a single
hair; and although their caps conceal magnificent masses of hair rolled
in bands of white thread to keep the head-dress in place, even in these
days it would be considered an immodest and shameful action to appear
before men bareheaded. They do allow themselves now, however, to wear a
narrow band across the forehead, which improves their appearance very
much. But I regret the classic head-dress of my time: the white lace
against the skin had a suggestion of old fashioned chastity which seemed
to me more solemn, and when a face was beautiful under those
circumstances, it was a beauty whose artless charm and majesty no words
can describe.

Little Marie still wore that head dress, and her forehead was so white
and so pure that it defied the white of the linen to cast a shadow upon
it. Although she had not closed her eyes during the night, the morning
air, and above all things the inward joy of a soul as spotless as the
sky, and a little hidden fire, held in check by the modesty of youth,
sent to her cheeks a flush as delicate as the peach-blossom in the early
days of April.

Her white fichu, chastely crossed over her bosom, showed only the
graceful contour of a neck as full and round as a turtle-dove's; her
morning dress of fine myrtle-green cloth marked the shape of her slender
waist, which seemed perfect, but was likely to grow and develop, for she
was only seventeen. She wore an apron of violet silk, with the pinafore
which our village women have made a great mistake in abolishing, and
which imparted so much modesty and refinement to the chest. To-day, they
spread out their fichus more proudly, but there is no longer that sweet
flower of old-fashioned pudicity in their costume that made them
resemble Holbein's virgins. They are more coquettish, more graceful. The
correct style in the old days was a sort of unbending stiffness which
made their infrequent smiles more profound and more ideal.

At the offertory, Germain, according to the usual custom, placed the
_treizain_--that is to say, thirteen pieces of silver--in his fiancée's
hand. He placed on her finger a silver ring of a shape that remained
invariable for centuries, but has since been replaced by the _band of
gold._ As they left the church, Marie whispered: "Is it the ring I
wanted? the one I asked you for, Germain?"

"Yes," he replied, "the one my Catherine had on her finger when she
died. The same ring for both my marriages."

"Thank you, Germain," said the young wife in a serious tone and with
deep feeling. "I shall die with it, and if I die before you, you must
keep it for your little Solange."




IV

THE CABBAGE


They remounted their horses, and rode rapidly back to Belair. The
banquet was a sumptuous affair, and lasted, intermingled with dancing
and singing, until midnight. The old people did not leave the table for
fourteen hours. The grave-digger did the cooking, and did it very well.
He was renowned for that, and he left his ovens to come and dance and
sing between every two courses. And yet he was epileptic, was poor Père
Bontemps. Who would have suspected it? He was as fresh and vigorous and
gay as a young man. One day we found him lying like a dead man in a
ditch, all distorted by his malady, just at nightfall. We carried him to
our house in a wheelbarrow, and passed the night taking care of him.
Three days later, he was at a wedding, singing like a thrush, leaping
like a kid, and frisking about in the old-fashioned way. On leaving a
marriage-feast, he would go and dig a grave and nail up a coffin. He
performed those duties devoutly, and although they seemed to have no
effect on his merry humor, he retained a melancholy impression which
hastened the return of his attacks. His wife, a paralytic, had not left
her chair for twenty years. His mother is a hundred and forty years old
and is still alive. But he, poor man, so jovial and kind-hearted and
amusing, was killed last year by falling from his loft to the pavement.
Doubtless he was suddenly attacked by his malady, and had hidden himself
in the hay, as he was accustomed to do, in order not to frighten and
distress his family. Thus ended, in a tragic way, a life as strange as
himself, a mixture of gloom and folly, of horror and hilarity, amid
which his heart remained always kind and his character lovable.

But we are coming to the third day of the wedding-feast, which is the
most interesting of all, and has been retained in full vigor down to our
own day. We will say nothing of the slice of toast that is carried to
the nuptial bed; that is an absurd custom which offends the modesty of
the bride, and tends to destroy that of the young girls who are present.
Moreover, I think that it is a custom which obtains in all the provinces
and has no peculiar features as practised among us.

[Illustration: Chapter IV (Appendix)

_He fell on his knees in the furrow through which he was about to run
his plough once more, and repeated the morning prayer with such emotion
that the tears rolled down his cheeks, still moist with perspiration_]

Just as the ceremony of the _livrées_ is the symbol of the taking
possession of the bride's heart and home, that of the _cabbage_ is the
symbol of the fruitfulness of the union. After breakfast on the day
following the marriage-ceremony, comes this strange performance, which
is of Gallic origin, but, as it passed through the hands of the
primitive Christians, gradually became a sort of _mystery_, or burlesque
morality-play of the Middle Ages.

Two youths--the merriest and most energetic of the party--disappear
during the breakfast, don their costumes, and return, escorted by the
musicians, dogs, children, and pistol-shots. They represent a couple of
beggars, husband and wife, covered with the vilest rags. The husband is
the dirtier of the two: it is vice that has degraded him; the woman is
unhappy simply and debased by her husband's evil ways.

They are called the _gardener_ and the _gardener's wife_, and claim to
be fitted to watch and cultivate the sacred cabbage. But the husband is
known by several appellations, all of which have a meaning. He is
called, indifferently, the _pailloux_,[7] because he wears a wig made of
straw or hemp, and, to hide his nakedness, which is ill protected by his
rags, he surrounds his legs and a part of his body with straw. He also
provides himself with a huge belly or a hump by stuffing straw or hay
under his blouse. The _peilloux_ because he is covered with _peille_
(rags). And, lastly, the _païen_ (heathen), which is the most
significant of all, because he is supposed, by his cynicism and his
debauched life, to represent in himself the antipodes of all the
Christian virtues.

He arrives with his face daubed with grease and wine lees, sometimes
swallowed up in a grotesque mask. A wretched, cracked earthen cup, or an
old wooden shoe, hanging by a string to his belt, he uses to ask alms in
the shape of wine. No one refuses him, and he pretends to drink, then
pours the wine on the ground by way of libation. At every step, he falls
and rolls in the mud; he pretends to be most disgustingly drunk. His
poor wife runs after him, picks him up, calls for help, tears out the
hempen hair that protrudes in stringy locks from beneath her soiled cap,
weeps over her husband's degradation, and reproaches him pathetically.

"You wretch!" she says, "see what your bad conduct has reduced us to!
It's no use for me to spin, to work for you, to mend your clothes! you
never stop tearing and soiling them. You have run through my little
property, our six children are in the gutter, we live in a stable with
the beasts; here we are reduced to asking alms, and you're so ugly, so
revolting, so despised, that soon they will toss bread to us as they do
to the dogs. Alas! my poor _mondes_ [people], take pity on us! take pity
on me! I don't deserve my fate, and no woman ever had a filthier, more
detestable husband. Help me to pick him up, or else the wagons will
crush him like an old broken bottle, and I shall be a widow, which would
kill me with grief, although everybody says it would be great good
fortune for me."

Such is the rôle of the gardener's wife and her constant lamentation
throughout the play. For it is a genuine, spontaneous, improvised
comedy, played in the open air, on the highways, among the fields,
seasoned by all the incidents that happen to occur; and in it everybody
takes a part, wedding-guests and outsiders, occupants of the houses and
passers-by, for three or four hours in the day, as we shall see. The
theme is always the same, but it is treated in an infinite variety of
ways, and therein we see the instinct of mimicry, the abundance of
grotesque ideas, the fluency, the quickness at repartee, and even the
natural eloquence of our peasants.

The part of the gardener's wife is ordinarily entrusted to a slender,
beardless man with a fresh complexion, who is able to give great
verisimilitude to the character he assumes and to represent burlesque
despair so naturally that the spectators may be amused and saddened at
the same time as by the genuine article. Such thin, beardless men are
not rare in our country districts, and, strangely enough, they are
sometimes the most remarkable for muscular strength.

After the wife's wretched plight is made evident, the younger
wedding-guests urge her to leave her sot of a husband and divert herself
with them. They offer her their arms and lead her away. Gradually she
yields, becomes animated, and runs about, now with one, now with
another, behaving in a scandalous way: a new moral lesson--the husband's
misconduct incites and causes misconduct on the part of his wife.

The _païen_ thereupon awakes from his drunken stupor; he looks about for
his companion, provides himself with a rope and a stick, and runs after
her. They lead him a long chase, they hide from him, they pass the woman
from one to another, they try to keep her amused, and to deceive her
jealous mate. His _friends_ try hard to intoxicate him. At last, he
overtakes his faithless spouse and attempts to beat her. The most
realistic, shrewdest touch in this parody of the miseries of conjugal
life, is that the jealous husband never attacks those who take his wife
away from him. He is very polite and prudent with them, he does not
choose to vent his wrath on any one but the guilty wife, because she is
supposed to be unable to resist him.

But just as he raises his stick and prepares his rope to bind the
culprit, all the men in the wedding-party interpose and throw themselves
between the two. _Don't strike her! never strike your wife_! is the
formula that is repeated to satiety in these scenes. They disarm the
husband, they force him to pardon his wife and embrace her, and soon he
pretends to love her more dearly than ever. He walks about arm-in-arm
with her, singing and dancing, until a fresh attack of intoxication
sends him headlong to the ground once more: and with that his wife's
lamentations recommence, her discouragement, her pretended misconduct,
the husband's jealousy, the intervention of the bystanders, and the
reconciliation. There is in all this an ingenuous, even commonplace,
lesson, which savors strongly of its origin in the Middle Ages, but
which always makes an impression, if not upon the bride and groom,--who
are too much in love and too sensible to-day to need it,--at all
events, upon the children and young girls and boys. The _païen_ so
terrifies and disgusts the girls, by running after them and pretending
to want to kiss them, that they fly from him with an emotion in which
there is nothing artificial. His besmeared face and his great
stick--perfectly harmless, by the way--makes the youngsters shriek with
fear. It is the comedy of manners in its most elementary but most
impressive state.