ly spoke about this, said:

"But, my dear, perhaps you don't know that marriage at the Town Hall
before the registrar is gratis, while--" I put my hand over his mouth to
prevent him from finishing; it seemed to me that he was about to utter
some impiety.

Gratis, gratis. That is exactly what I find so very unseemly.

CHAPTER XI. A WEDDING NIGHT

Thanks to country manners and the solemnity of the occasion, the guests
had left fairly early. Almost every one had shaken hands with me,
some with a cunning smile and others with a foolish one, some with an
officious gravity that suggested condolence, and others with a stupid
cordiality verging on indiscretion.

General de S. and the prefect, two old friends of the family, were
lingering over a game of ecarte, and frankly, in spite of all the
good-will I bore toward them, I should have liked to see them at the
devil, so irritable did I feel that evening.

All this took place, I had forgotten to tell you, the very day of
my marriage, and I was really rather tired. Since morning I had been
overwhelmed by an average of about two hundred people, all actuated by
the best intentions, but as oppressive as the atmosphere before a storm.
Since morning I had kept up a perpetual smile for all, and then the good
village priest who had married us had thought it his duty, in a very
neat sermon so far as the rest of it went, to compare me to Saint
Joseph, and that sort of thing is annoying when one is Captain in
a lancer regiment. The Mayor, who had been good enough to bring his
register to the chateau, had for his part not been able, on catching
sight of the prefect, to resist the pleasure of crying, "Long live the
Emperor!" On quitting the church they had fired off guns close to my
ears and presented me with an immense bouquet. Finally--I tell you this
between ourselves--since eight o'clock in the morning I had had on a
pair of boots rather too tight for me, and at the moment this narrative
begins it was about half an hour after midnight.

I had spoken to every one except my dear little wife, whom they seemed
to take pleasure in keeping away from me. Once, however, on ascending
the steps, I had squeezed her hand on the sly. Even then this rash act
had cost me a look, half sharp and half sour, from my mother-in-law,
which had recalled me to a true sense of the situation. If, Monsieur,
you happen to have gone through a similar day of violent effusion and
general expansion, you w