h!
ooh! What suffering! Ooh! I can't. My back is stiffened up. The cold
wind must have rushed in through this cursed roof."

"Well, you'll get no dinner, as I'm having a spread at Polyte's inn.
This will teach you what comes of acting mulishly."

And he hurried down the ladder and started out, accompanied by his
relatives and guests.

The men had turned up the bottoms of their trousers so as not to get
them wet in the snow. The women held up their petticoats and showed
their lean ankles with gray woollen stockings and their bony shanks
resembling broomsticks. And they all moved forward with a swinging gait,
one behind the other, without uttering a word, moving cautiously, for
fear of losing the road which was-hidden beneath the flat, uniform,
uninterrupted stretch of snow.

As they approached the farmhouses they saw one or two persons waiting to
join them, and the procession went on without stopping and wound its
way forward, following the invisible outlines of the road, so that it
resembled a living chaplet of black beads undulating through the white
countryside.

In front of the bride's door a large group was stamping up and down the
open space awaiting the bridegroom. When he appeared they gave him a
loud greeting, and presently Celeste came forth from her room, clad in
a blue dress, her shoulders covered with a small red shawl and her head
adorned with orange flowers.

But every one asked Cesaire:

"Where's your father?"

He replied with embarrassment:

"He couldn't move on account of the pains."

And the farmers tossed their heads with a sly, incredulous air.

They directed their steps toward the mayor's office. Behind the pair
about to be wedded a peasant woman carried Victor's child, as if it were
going to be baptized; and the risen, in pairs now, with arms linked,
walked through the snow with the movements of a sloop at sea.

After having been united by the mayor in the little municipal house the
pair were made one by the cure, in his turn, in the modest house of God.
He blessed their union by promising them fruitfulness, then he preached
to them on the matrimonial virtues, the simple and healthful virtues of
the country, work, concord and fidelity, while the child, who was cold,
began to fret behind the bride.

As soon as the couple reappeared on the threshold of the church shots
were discharged from the ditch of the cemetery. Only the barrels of the
guns could be seen whence came forth rapid j