The bridegroom was a good looking young fellow, Jean Patu, the richest farmer in the neighborhood, but he was, above all things, an ardent sportsman who seemed to lose all common sense in order to satisfy that passion, and who spent large sums on his dogs, his keepers, his ferrets and his guns.  The bride, Rosalie Roussel, had been courted by all the likely young fellows in the district, for they all thought her prepossessing, and they knew that she would have a good dowry, but she had chosen Patu, partly, perhaps, because she liked him better than she did the others, but still more, like a careful Normandy girl, because he had more crown pieces.

When they went in at the white gateway of the husband’s farm, forty shots resounded without their seeing those who fired, as they were hidden in the ditches, and the noise seemed to please the men, who were sprawling about heavily in their best clothes, very much; and Patu left his wife, and running up to a farm servant whom he perceived behind a tree, he seized his gun and fired a shot himself, kicking his heels about like a colt.  Then they went on, beneath the apple-trees which were heavy with fruit, through the high grass and through the midst of the calves, who looked at them with their great eyes, got up slowly and remained standing, with their muzzles turned towards the wedding party.

The men became serious when they came within measurable distance of the wedding dinner.  Some of them, the rich ones, had on tall, shining silk hats, which seemed altogether out of place there; others had old head-coverings with a long nap, which might have been taken for moleskin, while the humblest among them wore caps.  All the women had on shawls, which they wore loose on their backs, and they held the tips ceremoniously under their arms.  They were red, parti-colored, flaming shawls, and their brightness seemed to astonish the black fowls on the dung-heap, the ducks on the side of the pond, and the pigeons on the thatched roofs.

The extensive farm buildings seemed to be waiting there, at the end of that archway of apple trees, and a sort of vapor came out of the open door and windows, and an almost overwhelming smell of eatables was exhaled from the vast building, from all its openings and from all its very walls.  The string of guests extended through the yard; when the foremost of them reached the house, they broke the chain and dispersed, while behind they were still coming in at the open gate.  The ditches were now lined with urchins and poor curious people, and the shots did not cease, but came from every side at once, and mingled a cloud of smoke, and that smell which has the same intoxicating effects as absinthe, with the atmosphere.