ad.

"Better that _he_ (may he enter a lightsome paradise!) should have died
than lived to see what I have seen, and the dear delight which I have
had, at the wedding of my youngest child! Better that I myself should
not have lived to see his marriage canopy. Canopy, indeed! Four sticks
stuck up in the middle of the room to make fun with, for people to play
at being married, like monkeys! Then at table: no Seven Blessings, not a
Jewish word, not a Jewish face, no Minyan to be seen, only shaven
Gentiles upon Gentiles, a roomful of naked women and girls that make you
sick to look at them. Moishehle had better have married a poor orphan,
I shouldn't have been half so ashamed or half so unhappy."

Gittel called to mind the sort of a bridegroom's mother she had been at
the marriage of her eldest son, and the satisfaction she had felt. Four
hundred women had accompanied her to the Shool when Avremele was called
to the Reading of the Law as a bridegroom, and they had scattered nuts,
almonds, and raisins down upon him as he walked; then the party before
the wedding, and the ceremony of the canopy, and the procession with the
bride and bridegroom to the Shool, the merry home-coming, the golden
soup, the bridegroom brought at supper time to the sound of music, the
cantor and his choir, who sang while they sat at table, the Seven
Blessings, the Vivat played for each one separately, the Kosher-Tanz,
the dance round the bridegroom--and the whole time it had been Gittel
here and Gittel there: "Good luck to you, Gittel, may you be happy in
the young couple and in all your other children, and live to dance at
the wedding of your youngest" (it was a delight and no mistake!). "Where
is Gittel?" she hears them cry. "The uncle, the aunt, a cousin have paid
for a dance for the Mechuteneste on the bridegroom's side! Play,
musicians all!" The company make way for her, and she dances with the
uncle, the aunt, and the cousin, and all the rest clap their hands. She
is tired with dancing, but still they call "Gittel"! An old friend sings
a merry song in her honor. "Play, musicians all!" And Gittel dances on,
the company clap their hands, and wish her all that is good, and she is
penetrated with genuine happiness and the joy of the occasion. Then,
then, when the guests begin to depart, and the mothers of bridegroom and
bride whisper together about the forthcoming Veiling Ceremony, she sees
the bride in her wig, already a wife, her daughter-in-law!