Then Father Maurice paid his congratulations. He invited the head of the
house and all his _company_,--that is to say, all his children, all his
friends, and all his servants,--to the benediction, _to the feast, to
the sports, to the dance, and to everything that follows_. He did not
fail to say, "I have come _to do you the honor of inviting you_"; a very
right manner of speech, even though it appears to us to convey the wrong
meaning, for it expresses the idea of doing honor to those who seem
worthy of it.

Despite the generosity of the invitation carried from house to house
throughout the parish, politeness, which is very cautious amongst
peasants, demands that only two persons from each family take advantage
of it--one of the heads of the house, and one from the number of their
children.

After the invitations were made, the betrothed couple and their families
took dinner together at the farm.

Little Marie kept her three sheep on the common, and Germain tilled the
soil as though nothing had happened.

About two in the afternoon before the day set for the wedding, the music
came. The music means the players of the bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy,
their instruments decorated with long streaming ribbons, playing an
appropriate march to a measure which would have been rather slow for
feet foreign to the soil, but admirably adapted to the heavy ground and
hilly roads of the country.

Pistol-shots, fired by the young people and the children, announced
the beginning of the wedding ceremonies. Little by little the guests
assembled, and danced on the grass-plot before the house in order to
enter into the spirit of the occasion. When evening was come they began
strange preparations; they divided into two bands, and when night had
settled down they proceeded to the ceremony of the _favors_.

All this passed at the dwelling of the bride, Mother Guillette's
cottage. Mother Guillette took with her her daughter, a dozen pretty
shepherdesses, friends and relatives of her daughter, two or three
respectable housewives, talkative neighbors, quick of wit and strict
guardians of ancient customs. Next she chose a dozen stout fellows,
her relatives and friends; and last of all the parish hemp-dresser, a
garrulous old man, and as good a talker as ever there was.

The part which, in Brittany, is played by the bazvalon, the village
tailor, is taken in our part of the country by the hemp-dresser and the
wool-carder, two professions which are unusually combined in one. He
is present at all ceremonies, sad or gay, for he is very learned and
a fluent talker, and on these occasions he must always figure as
spokesman, in order to fulfil with exactitude certain formalities used
from time immemorial. Traveling occupations, which bring a man into the
midst of other families, without allowing him to shut himself up within
his own, are well fitted to make him talker, wit, storyteller, and
singer.

The hemp-dresser is peculiarly skeptical. He and another village
functionary, of whom we have spoken before, the grave-digger, are always
the daring spirits of the neighborhood. They have talked so much about
ghosts, and they know so well all the tricks of which these malicious
spirits are capable, that they fear them scarcely at all. It is
especially at night that all of them--grave-diggers, hemp-dressers, and
ghosts--do their work. It is also at night when the hemp-dresser tells
his melancholy stories. Permit me to make a digression.

When the hemp has reached the right stage, that is to say, when it has
been steeped sufficiently in running water, and half dried on the bank,
it is brought into the yard and arranged in little upright sheaves,
which, with their stalks divided at the base, and their heads bound in
balls, bear in the dusk some small resemblance to a long procession
of little white phantoms, standing on their slender legs, and moving
noiselessly along the wall.

It is at the end of September, when the nights are still warm, that they
begin to beat it by the pale light of the moon. By day the hemp has been
heated in the oven; at night they take it out to beat it while it is
still hot. For this they use a kind of horse surmounted by a wooden
lever which falls into grooves and breaks the plant without cutting it.
It is then that you hear in the night that sudden, sharp noise of three
blows in quick succession. Then there is silence; it is the movement of
the arm drawing out the handful of hemp to break it in a fresh spot. The
three blows begin again; the other arm works the lever, and thus it goes
on until the moon is hidden by the early streaks of dawn. As the work
continues but a few days in the year, the dogs are not accustomed to it,
and yelp their plaintive howls toward every point of the horizon.

It is the time of unwonted and mysterious sounds in the country. The
migrating cranes fly so high that by day they are scarcely visible. By
night they are only heard, and their hoarse wailing voices, lost in the
clouds, sound like the parting cry of souls in torment, striving to find
the road to heaven, yet forced by an unconquerable fate to wander near
the earth about the haunts of men; for these errant birds have strange
uncertainties, and many a mysterious anxiety in the course of their airy
flight. Sometimes they lose the wind when the capricious gusts battle,
or come and go in the upper regions. When this confusion comes by day,
you can see the leader of the file fluttering aimlessly in the air, then
turn about and take his place at the tail of the triangular phalanx,
while a skilful manoeuver of his companions forms them soon in good
order behind him. Often, after vain efforts, the exhausted leader
relinquishes the guidance of the caravan; another comes forward, tries
in his turn, and yields his place to a third, who finds the breeze, and
continues the march in triumph. But what cries, what reproaches, what
protests, what wild curses or anxious questionings are exchanged in an
unknown tongue amongst these winged pilgrims!

Sometimes, in the resonant night, you can hear these sinister noises
whirling for a long time above the housetops, and as you can see
nothing, you feel, despite your efforts, a kind of dread and kindred
discomfort, until the sobbing multitude is lost in boundless space.

There are other noises too which belong to this time of year, and which
sound usually in the orchards. Gathering the fruit is not yet over, and
the thousand unaccustomed cracklings make the tree seem alive. A branch
groans as it bends beneath a burden which has reached, of a sudden,
the last stage of growth; or perhaps an apple breaks from the twig, and
falls on the damp earth at your feet with a dull sound. Then you hear
rush by, brushing the branches and the grass, a creature you cannot
see; it is the peasant's dog, that prowling and uneasy rover, at once
impudent and cowardly, always wandering, never sleeping, ever seeking
you know not what, spying upon you, hiding in the brush, and taking
flight at the sound of a falling apple, which he thinks a stone that you
are throwing at him.

It is during those nights, nights misty and gray, that the hemp-dresser
tells his weird stories of will-o'-the-wisps and milk-white hares, of
souls in torment and wizards changed to wolves, of witches' vigils at
the cross-roads, and screech-owls, prophetesses of the graveyard. I
remember passing the early hours of such a night while the hemp-dressing
was going on, and the pitiless strokes, interrupting the dresser's story
at its most awful place, sent icy shivers through our veins. And often
too the good man continued his story as he worked, and four or five
words were lost, terrible words, no doubt, which we dared not make him
repeat, and whose omission added a mystery yet more fearful to the
dark mysteries of the story which had gone before. It was in vain the
servants warned us that it was too late to stay without doors, and that
bedtime had sounded for us long since; they too were dying to hear more;
and then with what terror we crossed the hamlet on our way home! How
deep did the church porch appear to us, and how thick and black the
shadows of the old trees! The graveyard we dared not see; we shut our
eyes tight as we passed it.

But no more than the sacristan is the hemp-dresser gifted solely
with the desire of frightening; he loves to make people laugh; he is
sarcastic and sentimental at need, when love and marriage are to be
sung. It is he who collects and keeps stored in his memory the oldest
songs, and who transmits them to posterity. And so it is he who acts at
weddings the part we shall see him play at the presentation of little
Marie's favors.




II -- The Wedding Favors

WHEN all the guests were met together in the house, the doors and
windows were closed with the utmost care; even the garret window was
barricaded; boards and benches, logs and tables were placed behind every
entrance, just as if the inhabitants were making ready to sustain a
siege; and within these fortifications solemn stillness prevailed until
at a distance were heard songs and laughter and the sounds of rustic
music. It was the band of the bridegroom, Germain at the head, followed
by his most trusty companions and by the grave-digger, relatives,
friends, and servants, who formed a compact and merry train. Meanwhile,
as they came nearer the house they slackened their pace, held a council
of war, and became silent. The girls, shut up in the house, had arranged
little loop-holes at the windows by which they could see the enemy
approach and deploy in battle array. A fine, cold rain was falling,
which added zest to the situation, while a great tire blazed on the
hearth within. Marie wished to cut short the inevitable slowness of this
well-ordered siege; she had no desire to see her lover catch cold,
but not being in authority she had to take an ostensible share in the
mischievous cruelty of her companions.

When the two armies met, a discharge of firearms on the part of the
besiegers set all the dogs in the neighborhood to barking. Those within
the house dashed at the door with loud yelps, thinking that the attack
was in earnest, and the children, little reassured by the efforts of
their mothers, began to weep and to tremble. The whole scene was played
so well that a stranger would have been deceived, and would have made
his preparations to tight a band of brigands. Then the grave-digger,
bard and orator of the groom, took his stand before the door, and with
a rueful voice, exchanged the following dialogue with the hemp-dresser,
who was stationed above the same door:

_The Grave-digger_: "Ah, my good people, my fellow-townsmen, for the
love of Heaven, open the door."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "Who are you, and what right have you to call us
your dear fellow-townsmen? We don't know you."

_The Grave-digger_: "We are worthy folk in great distress. Don't be
afraid of us, my friends. Extend us your hospitality. Sleet is falling;
our poor feet are frozen, and our journey home has been so long that our
sabots are split."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "If your sabots are split, you can look on
the ground; you will find very soon a sprig of willow to make some
_arcelets_ [small curved blades of iron which are fastened on split
sabots to hold them together]."

_The Grave-digger_: "Willow _arcelets_ are scarcely strong enough. You
are making fun of us, good people, and you would do better to open your
doors. We can see a splendid fire blazing in your dwelling. The spit
must be turning, and we can make merry with you, heart and belly. So
open your doors to poor pilgrims who will die on the threshold if you
are not merciful."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "Ah ha! so you are pilgrims? You never told us that.
And what pilgrimage do you come from, may I ask?"

_The Grave-digger_: "We shall tell you that when you open the door, for
we come from so far that you would never believe it."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "Open the door to you? I rather think not. We can't
trust you. Tell us, is it from Saint Sylvain of Pouligny that you come?"

_The Grave-digger_: "We have been at Saint Sylvain of Pouligny, but we
have been farther still."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "Then you have been as far as Saint Solange?"

_The Grave-digger_: "At Saint Solange we have been, sure enough, but we
have been farther yet."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "You are lying. You have never been as far as Saint
Solange."

_The Grave-digger_: "We have been farther, for now we are come from
Saint Jacques of Compostelle."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "What absurdity are you telling us? We don't know
that parish. We can easily see that you are bad people, brigands,
nobodies, and liars. Go away with your nonsense. We are on our guard.
You can't come in."

_The Grave-digger_: "Ah, my poor fellow, take pity on us. We are not
pilgrims, as you have guessed, but we are unlucky poachers pursued by
the keepers. Even the police are after us, and if you don't hide us in
your hay-loft, we shall be taken and led off to prison."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "And who will prove you are what you say you
are, this time? For you have told us one lie already that you can't
maintain."

_The Grave-digger_: "If you will let us in, we shall show you a pretty
piece of game we have killed."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "Show it right away, for we have our suspicions."

_The Grave-digger_: "All right, open the door or a window to let us pass
the creature in."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "Oh, no, not quite so foolish. I am looking at you
through a little chink, and I can see neither hunters nor game amongst
you."

Here an ox-driver, a thick-set fellow of herculean strength, detached
himself from a group where he had stood unperceived, and raised toward
the window a plucked goose, spitted on a strong iron bar decorated with
tufts of straw and ribbons.

"Ho, ho!" cried the hemp-dresser, after cautiously extending an arm to
feel the roast. "That is n't a quail nor a partridge; it is n't a hare
nor a rabbit; it 's something like a goose or a turkey. Upon my word,
you 're clever hunters, and that game did n't make you run very far.
Move on, you rogues; we know all your lies, and you had best go home and
cook your supper. You are not going to eat ours."

_The Grave-digger_: "O Heavens, where can we go to cook our game? It is
very little for so many as we, and, besides, we have neither place nor
fire. At this time every door is closed, and every soul asleep. You are
the only people who are celebrating a wedding at home, and you must he
hardhearted indeed to let us freeze outside. Once again, good people,
open the door; we shall not cost you anything. You can see that we bring
our own meat; only a little room at your hearth, a little blaze to cook
with, and we shall go on our way rejoicing."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "Do you suppose that we have too much room here, and
that wood is bought tor nothing?"

_The Grave-digger_: "We have here a small bundle of hay to make the
fire. We shall be satisfied with that; only grant us leave to place the
spit across your fireplace."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "That will never do. We are disgusted, and don't
pity you at all. It is my opinion that you are drunk, that you need
nothing, and that you only wish to come in and steal away our fire and
our daughters."

_The Grave-digger_: "Since you won't listen to reason, we shall make our
way in by force."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "Try, if you want; we are shut in well enough to
have no fear of you, and since you are impudent fellows, we shall not
answer you again."

Thereupon the hemp-dresser shut the garret window with a bang, and came
down into the room below by a step-ladder. Then he took the bride by
the hand, the young people of both sexes followed, and they all began to
sing and chatter merrily, while the matrons sang in piercing voices, and
shrieked with laughter in derision and bravado at those without who were
attempting an attack.

The besiegers, on their side, made a great hubbub. They discharged their
pistols at the doors, made the dogs growl, whacked the walls, shook
the blinds, and uttered frightful shrieks. In short, there was such a
pandemonium that nobody could hear, and such a cloud of dust that nobody
could see.

And yet this attack was all a sham. The time had not come for breaking
through the etiquette. If, in prowling about, anybody were to find an
unguarded aperture, or any opening whatsoever, he might try to slip in
unobserved, and then, if the carrier of the spit succeeded in placing
his roast before the fire, and thus prove the capture of the hearth, the
comedy was over and the bridegroom had conquered.

The entrances of the house, however, were not numerous enough for any to
be neglected in the customary precautions, and nobody might use violence
before the moment fixed for the struggle.

When they were weary of dancing and screams, the hemp-dresser began
to think of capitulation. He went up to his window, opened it with
precaution, and greeted the baffled assailants with a burst of laughter.

"Well, my boys," said he, "you look very sheep-faced. You thought there
was nothing easier than to come in, and you see that our defense is
good. But we are beginning to have pity on you, if you will submit and
accept our conditions."

_The Grave-digger_: "Speak, good people. Tell us what we must do to
approach your hearth."

_The Hemp-dresser_: "You must sing, my friends; but sing a song we don't
know,--one that we can't answer by a better."

"That 's not hard to do," answered the grave-digger, and he thundered in
a powerful voice: "'Six months ago, 'twas in the spring...'"

"'I wandered through the sprouting grass,'" answered the hemp-dresser
in a slightly hoarse but terrible voice. "You must be jesting, my poor
friends, singing us such time-worn songs. You see very well that we can
stop you at the first word."

     "'She was a prince's daughter...'"

"'Right gladly would she wed,'" answered the hemp-dresser. "Come, move
on to the next; we know that a little too well."

_The Grave-digger_: "How do you like this one?--

     "'As I was journeying home from Nantes.'"

_The Hemp-dresser_:

     "'Weary, oh, weary, was I, was I.'"

"That dates from my grandmother's time. Let's have another."

 _The Grave-digger_:

     "'One day I went a-walking...'"

_The Hemp-dresser_:

     "'Along a lovely wood!'"

"That one is too stupid! Our little children would n't take the trouble
to answer you. What! Are these all you know?"

_The Grave-digger_: "Oh, we shall sing you so many that you will never
be able to hear them all."

In this way a full hour passed. As the two antagonists were champions
of the country round in the matter of songs, and as their store seemed
inexhaustible, the contest might last all night with ease, all the
more because the hemp-dresser, with a touch of malice, allowed several
ballads of ten, twenty, or thirty couplets to be sung through, feigning
by his silence to admit his defeat. Then the bridegroom's camp rejoiced
and sang aloud in chorus, and thought that this time the foe was
worsted; but at the first line of the last couplet, they heard the
hoarse croaking of the old hemp-dresser bellow forth the second rhyme.
Then he cried:

"You need not tire yourselves by singing such a long one, my
children--we know that one to our finger-tips."

Once or twice, however, the hemp-dresser made a wry face, contracted his
brow, and turned toward the expectant housewives with a baffled air.
The grave-digger was singing something so old that his adversary had
forgotten it, or perhaps had never even heard it; but instantly the good
gossips chanted the victorious refrain through their noses with voices
shrill as a sea-mew's, and the grave-digger, forced to surrender, went
on to fresh attempts.

It would have taken too long to wait for a decision of the victory. The
bride's party declared itself disposed to be merciful, provided that the
bride were given a present worthy of her.

Then began the song of the favors to a tune solemn as a church chant.

The men without sang together in bass voices:

     "'Open the door, true love,
     Open the door; I have presents for you, love,
     Oh, say not adieu, love.'"

To this the women answered from within in falsetto, with mournful
voices:

     "'My father is sorry, my mother is sad,
     And I am a maiden too kind by far
     At such an hour my gate to unbar.'"

The men took up the first verse as far as the fourth line and modified
it thus:

     "'And a handkerchief new, love.'"

But, on behalf of the bride, the women answered in the same way as at
first.

For twenty couplets, at least, the men enumerated all the
wedding-presents, always mentioning something new in the last line: a
handsome apron, pretty ribbons, a cloth dress, laces, a golden cross,
and even a hundred pins to complete the modest list of wedding-presents.
The refusal of the women could not be shaken, but at length the men
decided to speak of

     "A good husband, too, love."

And the women answered, turning toward the bride and singing in unison
with the men:

     "'Open the door, true love,
     Open the door;
     Here's a sweetheart for you, love,
     Pray let us enter, too, love.'"




III -- The Wedding

IMMEDIATELY the hemp-dresser drew back the wooden bolt which barred the
door within. At this time it was still the only fastening known in most
of the dwellings of our hamlet. The groom's band burst into the bride's
house, but not without a struggle; for the young men quartered within,
and even the old hemp-dresser and the gossips, made it their duty to
defend the hearth. The spit-bearer, upheld by his supporters, had to
plant the roast before the fireplace. It was a regular battle, although
people abstained from striking, and there was no anger shown in this
struggle. But everybody was pushing and shoving so hard, and there was
so much playful pride in this display of muscular strength, that the
results might well have been serious, although they did not appear so
across the laughs and songs. The poor old hemp-dresser, fighting like a
lion, was pinned to the wall and squeezed by the crowd until his breath
almost left him. More than one champion was upset and trodden under foot
involuntarily; more than one hand, jammed against the spit, was covered
with blood. These games are dangerous, and latterly the accidents have
been so severe that our peasants have determined to allow the ceremony
of the favors to fall into disuse; I believe we saw the last at the
marriage of François Meillant, although there was no real struggle on
that occasion.

The battle was earnest enough, however, at Germain's wedding. It was
a point of honor on one side to invade, on the other to defend, Mother
Guillette's hearth. The great spit was twisted like a screw beneath
the strong fists which fought for it A pistol-shot set fire to a small
quantity of hemp arranged in sheaves and laid on a wicker shelf near
the ceiling. This incident created a diversion, and while some of the
company crowded about to extinguish the sparks, the grave-digger, who
had climbed unbeknown into the garret, came down the chimney and seized
the spit, at the very moment when the ox-driver, who was defending it
near the hearth, raised it above his head to prevent it from being torn
away. Some time before the attack, the women had taken the precaution
to put out the fire lest in the struggle somebody should fall in and get
burned. The jocular grave-digger, in league with the ox-driver, grasped
the trophy and tossed it easily across the andirons. It was done! Nobody
might interfere. The grave-digger sprang to the middle of the room
and lighted a few wisps of straw, which he placed about the spit under
pretense of cooking the roast, for the goose was in pieces and the floor
was strewn with its scattered fragments.

Then there was a great deal of laughter and much boastful dispute.
Everybody showed the marks of the blows he had received, and as it
was often a friend's hand that had struck them, there was no word of
complaint nor of quarreling. The hemp-dresser, half flattened out, kept
rubbing the small of his back and saying that, although it made small
difference to him, he protested against the ruse of his friend, the
grave-digger, and that if he had not been half dead, the hearth had
never been captured so easily. The women swept the floor and order
was restored. The table was covered with jugs of new wine. When the
contestants had drunk together and taken breath, the bridegroom was led
to the middle of the chamber, and, armed with a wand, he was obliged to
submit to a fresh trial.

During the struggle, the bride and three of her companions had been
hidden by her mother, godmother, and aunts, who had made the four girls
sit down in a remote corner of the room while they covered them with
a large white cloth. Three friends of Marie's height, with caps of a
uniform size, were chosen, so that when they were enveloped from head to
toe by the cloth it was impossible to tell them apart.

The bridegroom might not touch them, except with the tip of his staff,
and then merely to designate which he thought to be his wife. They
allowed him time enough to make an examination with no other help than
his eyes afforded, and the women, placed on either side, kept zealous
watch lest cheating should occur. Should he guess wrong, he might not
dance, with his bride, but only with her he had chosen by mistake.

When Germain stood in front of these ghosts wrapped in the same shroud,
he feared he should make a wrong choice; and, in truth, that had
happened to many another, so carefully and conscientiously were the
precautions made. His heart beat loud. Little Marie did her best to
breathe hard and shake the cloth a little, but her malicious companions
followed her example, and kept poking the cloth with their fingers, so
that there were as many mysterious signals as there were girls beneath
the canopy. The square head-dresses upheld the cloth so evenly that it
was impossible to discern the contour of a brow outlined by its folds.

After ten minutes' hesitation, Germain shut his eyes, commended his soul
to God, and stretched out the wand at random. It touched the forehead
of little Marie, who cast the cloth from her, and shouted with triumph.
Then it was his right to kiss her, and lifting her in his strong arms,
he bore her to the middle of the room, where together they opened the
dance, which lasted until two in the morning. The company separated to
meet again at eight. As many people had come from the country round, and
as there were not beds enough for everybody, each of the village
maidens took to her bed two or three other girls, while the men spread
themselves pell-mell on the hay in the barn-loft. You can imagine well
that they had little sleep, for they did nothing but wrestle and joke,
and tell foolish stories. Properly, there were three sleepless nights at
weddings, and these we cannot regret.

At the time appointed for departure, when they had partaken of
milk-soup, seasoned with a strong dose of pepper to stimulate the
appetite,--for the wedding-feast gave promise of great bounty,--the
guests assembled in the farm-yard. Since our parish had been abolished,
we had to go half a league from home to receive the marriage blessing.
It was cool and pleasant weather, but the roads were in such wretched
condition that everybody was on horseback, and each man took a companion
on his crupper, whether she were young or old. Germain started on the
gray, and the mare, well-groomed, freshly shod, and decked out
with ribbons, pranced about and snorted fire from her nostrils. The
husbandman went to the cottage for his bride in company with his
brother-in-law, Jacques, who rode the old gray, and carried Mother
Guillette on the crupper, while Germain returned to the farm-yard in
triumph, holding his dear little wife before him.

Then the merry cavalcade set out, escorted by the children, who ran
ahead and fired off their pistols to make the horses jump. Mother
Maurice was seated in a small cart, with Germain's three children and
the fiddlers. They led the march to the sound of their instruments.
Petit-Pierre was so handsome that his old grandmother was pride itself.
But the eager child did not stay long at her side. During a moment's
halt made on the journey, before passing through a difficult piece of
road, he slipped away and ran to beg his father to carry him in front on
the gray.

"No, no," replied Germain, "that will call forth some disagreeable joke;
we must n't do it."

"It's little that I care what the people of Saint Chartier say," said
little Marie. "Take him up, Germain, please do; I shall be prouder of
him than I am of my wedding-gown."

Germain yielded, and the pretty trio darted into the crowd borne by the
triumphant gallop of the gray.

And so it was; the people of Saint Chartier, although they were very
sarcastic, and somewhat disdainful of the neighboring parishes which had
been annexed to theirs, never thought of laughing when they saw such
a handsome husband, such a lovely wife, and a child that a king's wife
might court. Petit-Pierre was all dressed in light blue cloth, with a
smart red waistcoat so short that it descended scarcely below his chin.
The village tailor had fitted his armholes so tight that he could not
bring his two little hands together. But, oh, how proud he was! He wore
a round hat, with a black-and-gold cord, and a peacock's plume which
stuck out proudly from a tuft of guinea feathers. A bunch of flowers,
bigger than his head, covered his shoulder, and ribbons fluttered to his
feet The hemp-dresser, who was also the barber and hair-dresser of the
district, had cut his hair evenly, by covering his head with a bowl, and
clipping off the protruding locks, an infallible method for guiding the
shears. Thus arrayed, the poor child was less poetic, certainly, than
with his curls streaming in the wind, and his Saint John Baptist's
sheepskin about him; but he knew nothing of this, and everybody admired
him and said that he had quite the air of a little man. His beauty
triumphed over everything, for what is there over which the exceeding
beauty of childhood could not triumph?

His little sister, Solange, had, for the first time in her life, a
peasant's cap in place of the calico hood which little girls wear until
they are two or three years old. And what a cap it was! Longer and
larger than the poor little thing's whole body. How beautiful she
thought it! She dared not even turn her head; so she kept quite still
and thought the people would take her for the bride.

As for little Sylvain, he was still in long clothes, and, fast asleep on
his grandmother's knees, he did not even know what a wedding was.

Germain looked at his children tenderly, and when they reached the town
hall, he said to his bride:

"Marie, I have come here with a happier heart than I had the day when I
brought you home from the forest of Chanteloube, thinking that you could
never love me. I took you in my arms to put you on the ground as I do
here; but I thought that never again should we be mounted on the good
gray with the child on our knees. I love you so dearly, I love these
little creatures so dearly, I am so happy that you love me and that you
love them, and that my family love you, and I love your mother so well
and all my friends so well, and everybody else so well today, that I
wish I had three or four hearts to fill all of them; for surely one is
too small to hold so much love and so much happiness. It almost makes my
stomach ache."

There was a crowd at the door of the town hall and another at the church
to see the pretty bride. Why should we not tell about her dress? it
became her so well. Her muslin cap, without spot and covered with
embroidery, had lappets trimmed with lace. At that time peasant women
never allowed a single lock to be seen, and, although they conceal
beneath their caps splendid coils of hair tied up with tape to hold the
coif in place, even to-day it would be thought a scandal and a shame for
them to show themselves bareheaded to men. Nowadays, however, they allow
a slender braid to appear over their foreheads, and this improves their
appearance very much. Yet I regret the classic head-dress of my time;
its spotless laces next the bare skin gave an effect of pristine purity
which seemed to me very solemn; and when a face looked beautiful thus it
was with a beauty of which nothing can express the charm and unaffected
majesty.

Little Marie wore her cap thus, and her forehead was so white and so
pure that it defied the whiteness of linen to cast it in the shade.
Although she had not closed an eye the night before, the morning air
and, yet more, the joy within of a soul pure as the heaven, and, more
than all, a small secret flame guarded with the modesty of girlhood,
caused a bloom to mount to her cheeks delicate as the peach-blossom in
the first beams of an April sun.

Her white scarf, modestly crossed over her breast, left visible only the
soft curves of a neck rounded like a turtle-dove's; her home-made cloth
gown of myrtle-green outlined her pretty figure, which looked already
perfect, yet which must still grow and develop, for she was but
seventeen. She wore an apron of violet silk with the bib our peasant
women were so foolish as to suppress, which added so much elegance and
decency to the breast. Nowadays they display their scarfs more proudly,
but there is no longer in their dress that delicate flower of the purity
of long ago, which made them look like Holbein's virgins. They are more
forward and more profuse in their courtesies. The good old custom used
to be a kind of staid reserve which made their rare smile deeper and
more ideal.

During the offertory, after the fashion of the day, Germain placed the
"thirteen"--that is to say, thirteen pieces of silver--in his bride's
hand. He slipped over her finger a silver ring of a form unchanged
for centuries, but which is replaced for henceforth by the golden
wedding-ring. As they walked out of church, Marie said in a low voice:

"Is this really the ring I wanted? Is it the one I asked you for,
Germain?"

"Yes," answered he, "my Catherine wore it on her finger when she died.
There is but one ring for both my weddings."

"Thank you, Germain," said the young woman, in a serious and impressive
tone. "I shall die with it on, and if I go before you, you must keep it
for the marriage of your little Solange."




IV -- The Cabbage

THEY mounted and returned very quickly to Belair. The feast was
bountiful, and, mingled with songs and dances, it lasted until
midnight. For fourteen hours the old people did not leave the table. The
grave-digger did the cooking, and did it very well. He was celebrated
for this, and he would leave his fire to come in and dance and sing
before and after every course. And yet this poor Father Bontemps was
epileptic. Who would have thought it? He was fresh and strong, and merry
as a young man. One day we found him in a ditch, struck down by his
malady at nightfall. We carried him home with us, in a wheelbarrow, and
we spent all night in caring for him. Three days afterward, he was at a
wedding, singing like a thrush, jumping like a kid, and bustling about
after his old fashion. When he left a marriage, he would go to dig a
grave, and nail up a coffin. Then he would become very grave, and
though nothing of this appeared in his gay humor, it left a melancholy
impression which hastened the return of his attacks. His wife was
paralyzed, and had not stirred from her chair for twenty years. His
mother is living yet, at a hundred and forty, but he, poor man, so happy
and good and amusing, was killed last year by falling from his loft
to the sidewalk. Doubtless he died a victim to a fatal attack of his
disease, and, as was his habit, had hidden in the hay, so as not to
frighten and distress his family. In this tragic manner he ended a life
strange as his disposition--a medley of things sad and mad, awful and
gay; and, in the midst of all, his heart was ever good and his nature
kind.

Now we come to the third day of the wedding, the most curious of all,
which is kept to-day in all its vigor. We shall not speak of the roast
which they carry to the bridal bed; it is a very silly custom, and hurts
the self-respect of the bride, while it tends to ruin the modesty of
the attendant girls. Besides, I believe that it is practised in all the
provinces, and does not belong peculiarly to our own.

Just as the ceremony of the wedding favors is a symbol that the heart
and home of the bride are won, that of the cabbage is a symbol of the
fruit-fulness of marriage. When breakfast is over on the day after the
wedding, this fantastic representation begins. Originally of Gallic
derivation, it has passed through primitive Christianity, and little by
little it has become a kind of mystery, or droll morality-play of the
Middle Ages.

Two boys, the merriest and most intelligent of the company, disappear
from breakfast, and after costuming themselves, return escorted by dogs,
children, and pistol-shots. They represent a pair of beggars--husband
and wife--dressed in rags. The husband is the filthier of the two; it is
vice which has brought him so low; the wife is unhappy and degraded only
through the misdeeds of her husband.

They are called the gardener and the gardener's wife, and they pretend
it is their duty to guard and care for the sacred cabbage. The husband
has several names, each with a meaning. Sometimes they call him the
"scarecrow," because his head is covered with straw or hemp, and because
his legs and a portion of his body are surrounded with straw to hide
his nakedness, ill concealed by his rags. He has also a great belly,
or hump, constructed of straw or hay underneath his blouse. Then he is
known as the "ragamuffin," on account of his covering of rags. Lastly he
is termed the "infidel," and this is most significant of all, because by
his cynicism and his debauchery he is supposed to typify the opposite of
every Christian virtue.

He comes with his face all smeared with soot and the lees of wine, and
sometimes made yet more hideous by a grotesque mask. An earthenware cup,
notched and broken, or an old sabot attached to his girdle by a cord,
shows that he has come to beg for alms of wine. Nobody refuses him, and
he pretends to drink; then he pours the wine on the ground by way of
libation. At every step he falls, rolls in the mud, and feigns to be
a prey to the most shameful drunkenness. His poor wife runs after him,
picks him up, calls for help, arranges his hempen locks, which straggle
forth in unkempt wisps from beneath his filthy hat, sheds tears over her
husband's degradation, and pours forth pathetic reproaches.

"Wretched man," she cries, "see the misery to which your wickedness
has brought us. I have to spend all my time sewing and working for you,
mending your clothes. You tear and bedraggle yourself incessantly. You
have eaten up all my little property; our six children lie on straw, and
we are living in a stable with the beasts. Here we are forced to beg for
alms, and, besides, you are so ugly and vile and despicable that very
soon they will be tossing us bread as if we were dogs. Ah, my poor
people, take pity on us! Take pity on me! I have n't deserved my lot,
and never had woman a more dirty and detestable husband. Help me to
pick him up, else the wagons will run over him as they run over broken
bottles, and I shall be a widow, and that will end by killing me with
grief, though all the world says it would be an excellent riddance
for me." Such is the part of the gardener's wife, and her continued
lamentations last during the entire play. For it is a genuine
spontaneous comedy acted on the spur of the moment in the open air,
along the roads and across the fields, aided by every chance occurrence
that presents itself. Everybody shares in the acting, people within the
wedding-party and people without, wayfarers and dwellers in houses, for
three or four hours of the day, as we shall see. The theme is always the
same, but the variations are infinite; and it is here that we can see
the instinct of mimicry, the abundance of droll ideas, the fluency, the
wit at repartee, and even the natural eloquence of our peasants.

The rГґle of gardener's wife is intrusted commonly to a slender man,
beardless and fresh of face, who can give a great appearance of truth to
his personification and plays the burlesque despair naturally enough to
make people sad and glad at once, as they are in real life. These thin,
beardless men are not rare among us, and, strangely enough, they are
sometimes most remarkable for their muscular strength.

When the wife's misfortunes have been explained, the young men of the
company try to persuade her to leave her drunken husband and to amuse
herself with them. They offer her their arms and drag her away. Little
by little she gives way; her spirits rise, and she begins to run about,
first with one and then with another, and grows more scandalous in her
behavior: a fresh "morality"; the ill-conduct of the husband excites and
aggravates the evil in the wife.

Then the "infidel" wakes from his drunkenness. He looks about for his
companion, arms himself with a rope and a stick and rushes after her.
They make him run, they hide, they pass the wife from one to another,
they try to divert her attention and to deceive her jealous spouse. His
friends try to get him drunk. At length he catches his unfaithful wife,
and wishes to beat her. What is truest and most carefully portrayed in
this play is that the jealous husband never attacks the men who carry
off his wife. He is very polite and prudent with them, and wishes only
to take vengeance on the sinning woman, because she is supposed to be
too feeble to offer resistance.

At the moment, however, when he raises his stick and prepares his cord
to strike the delinquent, all the men in the party interpose and throw
themselves between husband and wife.

"Don't strike her! Never strike your wife," is the formula repeated to
satiety during these scenes. They disarm the husband, and force him to
pardon and to kiss his wife, and soon he pretends to love her better
than ever. He walks along, his arm linked in hers, singing and dancing
until, in a new access of drunkenness, he rolls upon the ground,
and then begin all over again the lamentations of the wife, her
discouragements, her pretended unfaithfulness, her husband's jealousy,
the interference of the neighbors, and the reconciliation. In all
this there is a simple and even coarse lesson, which, though it savors
strongly of its Middle-Age origin, does not fail to fix its impression
if not on the married folk, who are too loving or too sensible to
have need of it, at least upon the children and the young people. The
"infidel," racing after young girls and pretending to wish to kiss them,
frightens and disgusts them to such a degree that they fly in unaffected
terror. His dirty face and his great stick, harmless as it is, make
the children shriek aloud. It is the comedy of customs in their most
elementary but their most striking state.

When this farce is well under way, people make ready to hunt for the
cabbage. They bring a stretcher and place upon it the "infidel," armed
with a spade, a cord, and a large basket. Four powerful men raise him
on their shoulders. His wife follows on foot, and after her come
the "elders" in a body with serious and thoughtful looks; then the
wedding-march begins by couples to a step tuned to music. Pistol-shots
begin anew, and dogs bark louder than ever at the sight of the filthy
"infidel" borne aloft in triumph. The children swing incense in derision
with sabots fastened at the end of a cord.

But why this ovation to an object so repulsive? They are marching to the
capture of the sacred cabbage, emblem of the fruitfulness of marriage,
and it is this drunkard alone who can bear the symbolic plant in his
hand. Doubtless, there is in it a pre-Christian mystery which recalls
the Saturnalian feasts or some rout of the Bacchanals. Perhaps this
"infidel," who is, at the same time, preeminently a gardener, is
none other than Priapus himself, god of gardens and of drunkenness, a
divinity who must have been pure and serious in his origin as is the
mystery of birth, but who has been degraded bit by bit through license
of manners and distraction of thought.

However this may be, the triumphal procession arrives at the bride's
house, and enters the garden. Then they select the choicest cabbage, and
this is not done very quickly, for the old people keep consulting and
disputing interminably, each one pleading for the cabbage he thinks most
suitable. They put it to vote, and when the choice is made the gardener
fastens his cord to the stalk, and moves away as far as the size of the
garden permits. The gardener's wife takes care that the sacred
vegetable shall not be hurt in its fall. The wits of the wedding, the
hemp-dresser, the grave-digger, the carpenter, and the sabot-maker, form
a ring about the cabbage, for men who do not till the soil, but pass
their lives in other people's houses, are thought to be, and are really,
wittier and more talkative than simple farmhands. One digs, with a
spade, a ditch deep enough to uproot an oak. Another places on his
nose a pair of wooden or cardboard spectacles. He fulfils the duties of
"engineer," walks up and down, constructs a plan, stares at the workmen
through his glasses, plays the pedant, cries out that everything will be
spoiled, has the work stopped and begun afresh as his fancy directs, and
makes the whole performance as long and ridiculous as he can. This is
an addition to the formula of an ancient ceremony held in mockery of
theorists in general, for peasants despise them royally, or from hatred
of the surveyors who decide boundaries and regulate taxes, or of the
workmen employed on bridges and causeways, who transform commons into
highways, and suppress old abuses which the peasants love. Be this as it
may, this character in the comedy is called the "geometrician," and
does his best to make himself unbearable to those who are toiling with
pickaxe and shovel.

After a quarter of an hour spent in mummery, and difficulties raised in
order to avoid cutting the roots, and to transplant the cabbage without
injury, while shovelfuls of dirt are tossed into the faces of the
onlookers,--so much the worse for him who does not retreat in time,
for were he bishop or prince he must receive the baptism of earth,--the
"infidel" pulls the rope, the "infidel's wife" holds her apron, and the
cabbage falls majestically amidst the applause of the spectators. Then a
basket is brought, and the "infidel" pair plant the cabbage therein
with every care and precaution. They surround it with fresh earth, and
support it with sticks and strings, such as city florists use for their
splendid potted camellias; they fix red apples to the points of the
sticks, and twist sprigs of thyme, sage, and laurel all about them; they
bedeck the whole with ribbons and streamers; they place the trophy
upon the stretcher with the "infidel," whose duty it is to maintain its
equilibrium and preserve it from harm; and, at length, they move away
from the garden in good order and in marching step.

But when they are about to pass the gate, and again when they enter the
yard of the bridegroom's house, an imaginary obstacle blocks the way.
The bearers of the burden stagger, utter loud cries, retreat, advance
once more, and, as though crushed by a resistless force, they pretend
to sink beneath its weight. While this is going on, the bystanders shout
loudly, exciting and steadying this human team.

"Slowly, slowly, my child. There, there, courage! Look out! Be patient!
Lower your head; the door is too low! Close up; it's too narrow! A little
more to the left; now to the right; on with you; don't be afraid; you
're almost there."

Thus it is that in years of plentiful harvest, the ox-cart, loaded to
overflowing with hay or corn, is too broad or too high to enter the
barn door. Thus it is that the driver shouts at the strong beasts, to
restrain them or to urge them on; thus it is that with skill and mighty
efforts they force this mountain of riches beneath the rustic arch of
triumph. It is, above all, the last load, called "the cart of sheaves,"
which requires these precautions, for this is a rural festival, and
the last sheaf lifted from the last furrow is placed on the top of the
cart-load ornamented with ribbons and flowers, while the foreheads of
the oxen and the whip of the driver are decorated also. The triumphant
and toilsome entry of the cabbage into the house is a symbol of the
prosperity and fruitfulness it represents.

Safe within the bridegroom's yard, the cabbage is taken from its
stretcher and borne to the topmost peak of the house or barn. Whether it
be a chimney, a gable, or a dove-cote that crowns the roof, the burden
must, at any risk, be carried to the very highest point of the building.
The "infidel" accompanies it as far as this, sets it down securely, and
waters it with a great pitcher of wine, while a salvo of pistol-shots
and demonstrations of joy from the "infidel's wife" proclaim its
inauguration.

Without delay, the same ceremony is repeated all over again. Another
cabbage is dug from the garden of the husband and is carried with the
same formalities and laid upon the roof which his wife has deserted to
follow him. These trophies remain in their places until the wind and the
rain destroy the baskets and carry away the cabbage. Yet their lives are
long enough to give some chance of fulfilment to the prophecies which
the old men and women make with bows and courtesies.

"Beautiful cabbage," they say, "live and flourish that our young bride
may have a fine baby before a year is over; for if you die too quickly
it is a sign of barrenness, and you will stick up there like an ill
omen."

The day is already far gone when all these things are accomplished. All
that remains undone is to take home the godfathers and godmothers of the
newly married couple. When the so-called parents dwell at a distance,
they are accompanied by the music and the whole wedding procession as
far as the limits of the parish; there they dance anew on the highroad,
and everybody kisses them good-by. The "infidel" and his wife are then
washed and dressed decently, if the fatigue of their parts has not
already driven them away to take a nap.