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Wedding guests: Country finery:
The procession from the church: A rural banquet:
Confectioner’s masterpiece: After the
feast: The bride’s parents:
An old man’s memories.
THE guests arrived betimes, in all sorts of conveyances- one-horse tilt-carts, waggonettes, old cabriolets minus their hoods, carriers’ vans with leather curtains. The young folk from the villages close by drove up in farm carts, standing up in rows, holding on to the side rails to prevent themselves from falling, jolting along at a short, sharp trot. Some of the people came from thirty miles away, from such places as Goderville, Normanville and Cany. All the relations on both sides had been invited. Old quarrels had been patched up, and letters sent to friends they had not heard of for ages.
From time to time the crack of a whip was heard the other side of the hedge. Then the gate would swing open, and a cart would enter. It would drive at a canter right up to the doorstep, pull up with a jerk and discharge its occupants, who would clamber down on either side, rubbing the stiffness out of their knees and stretching their arms. The ladies, in their best bonnets, wore town-made costumes, gold watch-chains, tippets with ends crossing over at the waist, or little coloured kerchiefs fastened behind with a pin and showing a little bit of neck at the back. The little boys, dressed like their papas, seemed rather ill at ease in their new clothes (a good few of them were sporting the first pair of boots they had ever had in their lives), and alongside of them, not daring to utter a word, and wearing her white first communion dress lengthened for the occasion, you might see a gawky girl of anything from fourteen to sixteen- a sister or a cousin, no doubt- all red and flustered, her hair plastered down with strong-smelling pomade and terribly afraid of soiling her gloves. As there were not enough stable-boys to unharness all the horses, the gentlemen rolled up their sleeves and turned-to themselves. According to their different social grades they wore dress-coats, frock-coats, jackets, and cardigans- fine black suits, venerable symbols of family respectability which only issued from the press on occasions of special solemnity; frock-coats with voluminous skirts floating in the wind, collars like cylinders and pockets as big as sacks; coats of coarse homespun, of the sort usually worn with a cap with a band of copper round the peak; very short jackets with two buttons in the small of the back, close together like a pair of eyes, the abbreviated tails of which looked as if they had been cut out of a single block with a carpenter’s chisel. Yet others (but they, for sure, would have to sit below the salt) were wearing their party smocks, that is to say, smocks with the collar turned down over the shoulder, the back gathered in with little puckers, and encircled, very low down, by an embroidered belt.
And the shirts bulged out on the chests like breastplates. All the gentlemen had had their hair cut, their ears were sticking out from their heads, and they had all shaved especially close for the occasion. Some of them who had got up before it was light, when it was really too dark to shave, had gashes running crosswise under the nose, or pieces as big as shillings taken out of their cheeks. The cold air blowing against them on the journey had inflamed them so that their broad, highly polished countenances were diversified like marble with pink patches.
The Mairie being but a mile or so from the farm they went on foot, and as soon as the ceremony at the church was over they trudged back again. The procession, at first keeping well together, resembled a coloured scarf as it undulated through the countryside, winding slowly along the narrow footpath through the green cornfields. But before long it began to straggle, and broke up into separate groups that loitered on the way to gossip. The fiddler went on ahead, the top of his fiddle all bedecked with streamers; after him walked the bridegroom and his bride, the relations and friends following in what order they pleased. Last of all came the children, who amused themselves by plucking little sprays of oats, or had a little game all to themselves, when no one was looking. Emma’s dress, which was too long for her, dragged a little behind. Every now and again she would stop to gather it up and, delicately, with her gloved hand, pick off the blades of rough grass and bits of briar, while Charles stood sheepishly by, waiting till she had finished. Farmer Rouault, resplendent in a new silk hat, the cuffs of his best coat covering his hands as far as his fingertips, had given his arm to the dowager Madame Bovary. Monsieur Bovary senior, who in his heart thought all these people very small beer indeed, had come in an austere frock-coat of military cut with a single row of buttons. He was delivering himself of some rather dubious jocularities to a fair-haired country wench, who curtseyed, and blushed, and didn’t know what to say. The rest of the party talked business or indulged in a little skylarking by way of warming themselves up for the gaiety to come; and whenever you cared to listen, you could hear the scrape-scrape of the fiddler who pranced on ahead, fiddling over hill and dale. When he noticed that the party had fallen a good way behind, he stopped to take breath and applied the rosin with vigour to his bow, so that the strings should squeak the louder. Then he marched on again, swaying the top of his instrument alternately up and down, the better to mark the time. The sound of the fiddle startled the birds far and wide.
The table had been laid under the roof of the cartshed. Upon it there stood four sirloins, six dishes of hashed chicken, stewed veal, three legs of mutton and, in the centre, a comely roast sucking-pig flanked with four hogs-puddings garnished with sorrel. At each corner was a decanter filled with spirits. Sweet cider in bottles was fizzling out round the corks, and every glass had already been charged with wine to the brim. Yellow custard in great dishes, which would undulate at the slightest jog of the table, displayed on its smooth surface the initials of the wedded pair in arabesques of candied peel. They had had recourse to a confectioner at Yvetot for the tarts and the iced cakes. As he was just starting business in the district, he had given a special eye to things; and when the dessert was brought on, he himself, personally, carried in a set piece which drew cries of admiration from the assembled company. At the base of this erection was a rectangular piece of blue cardboard, representing a temple with porticoes, colonnades, and stucco statuettes all around in little niches embellished with gilt-paper stars. Above it, on the second storey, stood a castle-keep or donjon wrought in Savoy cake, surrounded with diminutive fortifications in angelica, almonds, raisins, and bits of orange; and finally, on the topmost level of all, which was nothing less than a verdant meadow where there were rocks with pools of jam and boats made out of nut-shells, was seen a little Cupid balancing himself on a chocolate swing, the posts of which were tipped with two real rosebuds.
The feasting went on till evening. When they grew tired of sitting, the gentlemen got up and strolled about the yard or played a game of pitch-and-toss in the barn, after which they came back again to the table. A few of them at the finish fell asleep and snored. But when the coffee arrived, everything brightened up again. Songs were struck up, feats of strength performed. They did some weight-lifting, tried to raise the carts with their shoulders, made risky jokes, embraced the ladies. At night, when it was time to go, the horses, stuffed to the teeth with oats, could hardly be got into the shafts. They plunged, they reared, they snapped their harness, their masters cursed or laughed, and all night long, far and wide, by the light of the moon, there were runaway vehicles going hard-a-gallop, careering into ditches, bounding over stone-heaps, dashing up embankments, with women-folk leaning out of the carriage windows frantically trying to clutch the reins. Those who stayed on at les Bertaux spent the night drinking in the kitchen. The children dropped off to sleep on the floor under the benches.
The bride had implored her father that the customary practical jokes might be dispensed with. However, one of their cousins, a fish tranter (who by the same token had brought a couple of soles as a wedding present), was preparing to squirt water out of his mouth through the keyhole, when Farmer Rouault came up just in time to stop him, and explained that, his son-in-law being a professional man, such buffoonery was out of place.
However, it was difficult to make the cousin see things in this light. In his own mind he accused Farmer Rouault of being stuck-up, and went and made an alliance with four or five other guests sitting apart in a corner who had happened to get inferior cuts of meat several times running at dinner, and who, consequently, said they had been shabbily treated, muttered unflattering things about their host and secretly wished him no good.
Madame Bovary senior had sat glum the whole day. No one had ever consulted her about the bride’s dress, or the arrangements for the party. She went to bed early. Her husband did not follow her, but sent into Saint Victor for some cigars and smoked away till daybreak, wetting his gullet with kirschwasser toddy, which, being a mixture hitherto unknown to the company, augmented still further the consideration with which they regarded him.
Charles was by no means of a facetious disposition, and he made rather a poor show during the festivity. He retorted with only qualified success to the quips, puns, innuendoes, compliments and ribald jests with which they made it their business to assail him as soon as the soup was on the table.
Next day, however, he seemed a different man. He was the one you would have taken for the virgin of the pair, whereas the bride never let fall anything that would give you the faintest hint of what she thought about it all. Even the most knowing ones could make nothing of her, though whenever she passed by they scrutinized her with the most searching curiosity. But there was no reserve about Charles. He called her his wife, his dear, kept asking where she was, looked about for her everywhere and frequently took her out into the yard, where he was seen away up among the trees with his arm round her waist, walking along bending over her, and rumpling the front of her bodice with his head.
Two days after the wedding, the newly married couple departed. Charles could not be away from his practice any longer. Farmer Rouault sent them home in his carriage, and went with them himself as far as Vassonville. There he kissed his daughter ’good-bye’, stepped down from the carriage and started for home again. When he had gone about a hundred paces he halted, and gazing at the carriage vanishing into the distance, its wheels turning in the dust, he heaved a profound sigh. Then he thought of his own wedding, of the days gone by, of his wife’s first pregnancy. He, too, was very happy when he took her from her father’s, back to his own house; when she rode behind him on the crupper, trotting through the snow; for the season was near Christmas and the country all white. One of her arms was holding on to him, and on the other she carried her basket. The wind fluttered the long lace strings of her Caux head-dress and sometimes blew them across her mouth, and when he turned his head he saw close by him, just above his shoulder, her little rosy mouth smiling silently beneath the gold rim of her bonnet. To warm her fingers she would thrust them, every now and again, into his bosom. How far away it seemed now, all that! Their son would have been thirty by this time if he had lived. He looked back again, and there was nothing to be seen along the road. He felt as gloomy as an empty house. And as these tender memories and sombre reflections blended together in his brain, a little clouded with the vapours of the merrymaking, he felt a momentary desire to take a walk round by the churchyard. As, however, he was afraid that the sight of it would only depress him still more, he went straight home.
Monsieur and Madame Charles arrived at Tostes about six o’clock. The neighbours hastened to their windows to take a look at the doctor’s new wife.
The old servant came to pay her respects and made excuses for the dinner not being ready, and suggested that, in the meantime, Madame should come and see over her house.