"Well, you'll have 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, then set out for his destination,
accompanied by his relatives and guests.

The men had turned up their trousers so as not to soil the ends of them
in the snow. The women held up their petticoats and showed their lean
ankles, their gray woolen stockings, and their bony shanks resembling
broomsticks. And they all moved forward balancing themselves on their
legs, one behind the other without uttering a word in a very gingerly
fashion through caution lest they might miss their way owing to flat,
uniform uninterrupted sweep of snow that obliterated the track.

As they approached some of the farm houses, 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 with black beads undulating through
the white country side.

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 everyone 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 an incredulous and waggish air.

They directed their steps towards 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 male peasants, in pairs, now went on, with
arms linked, 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 the
good God. He blessed their couplement 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, seized with cold, began bawling behind the backs of the
newly-married pair.

As soon as the couple reappeared on the threshold of the church, shots
were discharged in the moat of the cemetery. Only the barrels of the guns
could be seen whence came fort