It had been snowing for a week, and the brown earth, already made fruitful by the autumn sowing, had turned livid and slept under a vast sheet of ice.
It was cold in the cottages, whose thatched roofs wore a white bonnet; and the round apple trees in the orchards looked as if they were in flower, powdered over as in the lovely month of their blossoming.
Today, the heavy clouds from the north, grey clouds swollen with fleecy showers, had vanished, and the blue sky opened on a white earth on which the rising sun flung silver rays.
Césaire sat staring in front of him through the window, thinking of nothing, quite happy.
The door opened, two woman came in, peasants in their Sunday clothes, the aunt and cousin of the bridegroom; then three men cousins, then a woman neighbour. They found themselves chairs, and sat silent and motionless, the women on one side of the kitchen and the men on the other, overwhelmed by a sudden timidity, the embarrassed melancholy that seizes people gathered together for a ceremony. Shortly one of the cousins asked:
“Isn’t it time?”
“I’m sure ’tis,” Césaire answered.
“Let’s be off, then,” cried another.
They rose to their feet. Césaire had been growing more and more uneasy: he stood up now and climbed the attic ladder to see if his father was ready. The old man, always up so early in the morning, had not yet put in an appearance. His son found him on his mattress, his eyes open and a malicious expression on his face.
He shouted right inside his ear:
“Come, dad, get up. It’s time to go to t’wedding.”
The deaf man murmured in a dying voice:
“I can’t. I’ve gotten such a chill it’s stiffened my back. I can’t move hand nor foot.”
The young man stared at him in horror, seeing through the manoeuvre.
“Come, dad, you must make yourself get up.”
“I can’t.”
“Here, I’ll help you.”
And he bent over the old man, pushed back the quilt, took him by the arm and lifted him up. But father Amable began to groan:
“Hou, hou, hou! The pain! Hou, hou, I can’t. My back’s all knotted up.”
Césaire realised that he could not do anything, and, furious with his father for the first time in his life, he cried:
“Very well, you won’t get any dinner, for I’m having a meal at Polyte’s inn. That’ll teach you to behave like a mule.”
And he scrambled down the ladder and set off, followed by his relatives and guests.
The men had turned up their trousers to keep the edges from getting sodden in the snow; the women held their petticoats well up, showing their thin ankles, their grey woollen stockings, and their bony shins, as stiff as broomsticks. The whole company rolled along in silence, one behind the other, picking their way with great caution, for fear of losing the road, which had quite vanished under the flat monotonous unbroken covering of snow.
As they approached each farm, they saw one or two people waiting to join them; and the procession grew longer and longer; it wound along, following the unseen line of the road, looking like a living rosary of black beads slithering over the white fields.
In front of the bride’s door, a number of people were stamping their feet while they waited for the bridegroom. They hailed him when he appeared; and Céleste came out of her room at once, dressed in a blue gown, her shoulders covered with a little red shawl, and wearing a wreath of orange-flowers on her head.
But everyone asked Césaire:
“Where’s your dad?”
He made the embarrassed answer:
“He couldn’t move with rheumatics.”
The farmers shook their heads, and looked at him with malicious incredulity.
They set off for the registrar’s. A peasant woman carried Victor’s child behind the future husband and wife, as if they were going to a christening; and the peasants, arm in arm now, in double file, made their way through the snow with the motion of a sloop on the sea.
After the mayor had married the betrothed in the little town hall, the priest proceeded to unite them in the modest house of God. He blessed their marriage and promised them a fruitful union; then he preached to them of wedded virtue, the simple healthy virtue of the country, work, peace and faithfulness, while the child, feeling the cold, whimpered behind the bride’s back.
The moment the couple reappeared on the threshold of the church, shots rang out in the cemetery moat. Nothing was visible but the barrels of the guns from which issued quick spurts of smoke; then a head emerged and looked at the procession; it was Victor Lecoq celebrating the marriage of his dear friend, congratulating her on her happiness and throwing her his vows with each flash of powder. He had recruited some of his friends, five or six hired men, to deliver these musketry salvoes. Everyone agreed that he was behaving very well.
The meal took place at the inn kept by Polyte Cacheprune. Twenty places had been laid in the big dining room where the people dined on market day; and the great joint turning on the spit, the birds roasting in their juice, the black puddings crisping on the clear hot fire, filled the house with a pungent fragrance, the smoke of red-hot charcoal spattered with drops of grease, and the strong heavy smell of country food.
They sat down at the table at noon, and the soup was soon poured into the plates. Faces were already animated; mouths opened to utter broad jests, eyes wrinkled up in malicious mirth. They were going to enjoy themselves, by God.
The door opened, and old Amable appeared. He looked spiteful and furiously angry, and he dragged himself along on his sticks, groaning at every step to let them see how he was suffering.
Everyone fell
