A WEDDING NIGHT

Thanks to country manners and the solemnity of the occasion, the guests
had left fairly early. Almost every one had shaken hands with me, some
with a cunning smile and others with a foolish one, some with an
officious gravity that suggested condolence, and others with a stupid
cordiality verging on indiscretion.

General de S. and the prefect, two old friends of the family, were
lingering over a game of ecarte, and frankly, in spite of all the good-
will I bore toward them, I should have liked to see them at the devil, so
irritable did I feel that evening.

All this took place, I had forgotten to tell you, the very day of my
marriage, and I was really rather tired. Since morning I had been
overwhelmed by an average of about two hundred people, all actuated by
the best intentions, but as oppressive as the atmosphere before a storm.
Since morning I had kept up a perpetual smile for all, and then the good
village priest who had married us had thought it his duty, in a very neat
sermon so far as the rest of it went, to compare me to Saint Joseph, and
that sort of thing is annoying when one is Captain in a lancer regiment.
The Mayor, who had been good enough to bring his register to the chateau,
had for his part not been able, on catching sight of the prefect, to
resist the pleasure of crying, "Long live the Emperor!" On quitting the
church they had fired off guns close to my ears and presented me with an
immense bouquet. Finally--I tell you this between ourselves--since eight
o'clock in the morning I had had on a pair of boots rather too tight for
me, and at the moment this narrative begins it was about half an hour
after midnight.