The guests arrived early in carriages, in one-horse chaises, two-wheeled

cars, old open gigs, waggonettes with leather hoods, and the young

people from the nearer villages in carts, in which they stood up in

rows, holding on to the sides so as not to fall, going at a trot

and well shaken up. Some came from a distance of thirty miles, from

Goderville, from Normanville, and from Cany.

All the relatives of both families had been invited, quarrels between

friends arranged, acquaintances long since lost sight of written to.

From time to time one heard the crack of a whip behind the hedge; then

the gates opened, a chaise entered. Galloping up to the foot of the

steps, it stopped short and emptied its load. They got down from all

sides, rubbing knees and stretching arms. The ladies, wearing bonnets,

had on dresses in the town fashion, gold watch chains, pelerines with

the ends tucked into belts, or little coloured fichus fastened down

behind with a pin, and that left the back of the neck bare. The lads,

dressed like their papas, seemed uncomfortable in their new clothes

(many that day hand-sewed their first pair of boots), and by their

sides, speaking never a work, wearing the white dress of their first

communion lengthened for the occasion were some big girls of fourteen or

sixteen, cousins or elder sisters no doubt, rubicund, bewildered, their

hair greasy with rose pomade, and very much afraid of dirtying their

gloves. As there were not enough stable-boys to unharness all the

carriages, the gentlemen turned up their sleeves and set about it

themselves. According to their different social positions they wore

tail-coats, overcoats, shooting jackets, cutaway-coats; fine tail-coats,

redolent of family respectability, that only came out of the wardrobe

on state occasions; overcoats with long tails flapping in the wind and

round capes and pockets like sacks; shooting jackets of coarse

cloth, generally worn with a cap with a brass-bound peak; very short

cutaway-coats with two small buttons in the back, close together like

a pair of eyes, and the tails of which seemed cut out of one piece by a

carpenter's hatchet. Some, too (but these, you may be sure, would sit at

the bottom of the table), wore their best blouses--that is to say,

with collars turned down to the shoulders, the back gathered into small

plaits and the waist fastened very low down with a worked belt.

And the shirts stood out from the chests like cuirasses! Everyone had

just had his hair cut; ears stood out from the heads; they had been

close-shaved; a few, even, who had had to get up before daybreak, and

not been able to see to shave, had diagonal gashes under their noses or

cuts the size of a three-franc piece along the jaws, which the fresh

air en route had enflamed, so that the great white beaming faces were

mottled here and there with red dabs.




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