“I should say I do!”

And a little detail here or there would be remembered, and all these things brought joy to the hearts.

The conversation turned on marriage, and each one said with a sincere air:  “Oh, if it were to do over again!” Georges Duportin added:  “It’s strange how easily one falls into it.  You have fully decided never to marry; and then, in the springtime, you go to the country; the weather is warm; the summer is beautiful; the fields are full of flowers; you meet a young girl at some friend’s house—­crash! all is over.  You return married!”

Pierre Letoile exclaimed:  “Correct! that is exactly my case, only there were some peculiar incidents—­”

His friend interrupted him:  “As for you, you have no cause to complain.  You have the most charming wife in the world, pretty, amiable, perfect!  You are undoubtedly the happiest one of us all.”

The other one continued:  “It’s not my fault.”

“How so?”

“It is true that 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.