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, a