I have a perfect wife, but I certainly married her much
against my will."

"Nonsense!"

"Yes--this is the adventure. I was thirty-five, and I had no more idea
of marrying than I had of hanging myself. Young girls seemed to me to be
inane, and I loved pleasure.

"During the month of May I was invited to the wedding of my cousin,
Simon d'Erabel, in Normandy. It was a regular Normandy wedding. We sat
down at the table at five o'clock in the evening and at eleven o'clock
we were still eating. I had been paired off, for the occasion, with a
Mademoiselle Dumoulin, daughter of a retired colonel, a young, blond,
soldierly person, well formed, frank and talkative. She took complete
possession of me for the whole day, dragged me into the park, made me
dance willy-nilly, bored me to death. I said to myself: 'That's all very
well for to-day, but tomorrow I'll get out. That's all there is to it!'

"Toward eleven o'clock at night the women retired to their rooms; the
men stayed, smoking while they drank or drinking while they smoked,
whichever you will.

"Through the open window we could see the country folks dancing. Farmers
and peasant girls were jumping about in a circle yelling at the top of
their lungs a dance air which was feebly accompanied by two violins and
a clarinet. The wild song of the peasants often completely drowned
the sound of the instruments, and the weak music, interrupted by
the unrestrained voices, seemed to come to us in little fragments of
scattered notes. Two enormous casks, surrounded by flaming torches,
contained drinks for the crowd. Two men were kept busy rinsing the
glasses or bowls in a bucket and immediately holding them under the
spigots, from which flowed the red stream of wine or the golden stream
of pure cider; and the parched dancers, the old ones quietly, the girls
panting, came up, stretched out their arms and grasped some receptacle,
threw back their heads and poured down their throats the drink which
they preferred. On a table were bread, butter, cheese and sausages. Each
one would step up from time to time and swallow a mouthful, and under
the starlit sky this healthy and violent exercise was a pleasing sight,
and made one also feel like drinking from these enormous casks and
eating the crisp bread and butter with a raw onion.

"A mad desire seized me to take part in this merrymaking, and I left my
companions. I must admit that I was probably a little tipsy, but I was
soon entirely so