in his dress-coat, which was too large for him, and which his scarf
caused to rise up. He was a very respectable man who had amassed a
decent fortune from the sale of iron bedsteads; yet how could I bring
myself to think that this embarrassed-looking, ill-dressed, timid little
creature could, with a word hesitatingly uttered, unite me in eternal
bonds? Moreover, he had a fatal likeness to my piano-tuner.

The Mayor, after bowing to us, as a man bows when without his hat, and
in a white cravat, that is to say, clumsily, blew his nose, to the
great relief of his two arms which he did not know what to do with, and
briskly began the little ceremony. He hurriedly mumbled over several
passages of the Code, giving the numbers of the paragraphs; and I was
given confusedly to understand that I was threatened with the police if
I did not blindly obey all the orders and crotchets of my husband, and
if I did not follow wherever he might choose to take me, even if it
should be to a sixth floor in the Rue-Saint-Victor. A score of times
I was on the point of interrupting the Mayor, and saying, "Excuse me,
Monsieur, but those remarks are hardly polite as regards myself, and you
yourself must know that they are devoid of meaning."

But I restrained myself for fear I might frighten the magistrate, who
seemed to me to be in a hurry to finish. He added, however, a few words
on the mutual duties of husband and wife--copartnership--paternity,
etc., etc.; but all these things, which would perhaps have made me weep
anywhere else, seemed grotesque to me, and I could not forget that dozen
of soldiers playing piquet round the stove, and that row of doors on
which I had read "Public Health," "Burials," "Deaths," "Expropriations,"
etc. I should have been aggrieved at this dealer in iron bedsteads
touching on my cherished dreams if the comic side of the situation had
not absorbed my whole attention, and if a mad wish to laugh outright had
not seized me.

"Monsieur Georges--------, do you swear to take for your wife
Mademoiselle-----------," said the Mayor, bending forward.

My husband bowed and answered "Yes" in a very low voice. He has since
acknowledged to me that he never felt more emotion in his life than in
uttering that "Yes."

"Mademoiselle Berthe--------," continued the magistrate, turning to me,
"do you swear to take for your husband-----------"

I bowed, with a smile, and said to myself: "Certainly; that is plain
enough; I came here