Monsieur, Madame, and Bebe -- C

ergone like every one else this painful formality, and I can not look back on it without feeling a kind of humiliation. On alighting from the carriage I descried a muddy staircase; walls placarded w

ntering this barrack-room was that I had done wisely in not putting on my gray dress. We ascended the staircase and I saw a long, dirty, dim passage, with a number of half-

or not having at once ushered us into the Mayor's drawing-room, which is no other than the first-class waiting-room. I darted into it as one jumps into a cab when it begins to rain suddenly. Almost immediately two serious persons, one of whom greatly resembled the old cashie

, that which he had put down, and of which I could understand nothing, except that my name was severa

Georges, who to my great

st now go into the hall, where t

y merry, over the empty chairs. The gentlemen, who no doubt affected not to think as we did, were, on the contrary, all very serious, and I could discern very well that Georges was actually trembling. At length the Mayor came in by a little door and appeared before us, awkward and podgy in his dress-coat, which was too large for him, and which h

eral 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,

, 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," "Ex

o take for your wife Mademoiselle----

ce. He has since acknowledged to me that he never fel

the magistrate, turning to me, "do yo

elf: "Certainly; that is plain enough;

all. I wa

were moist. As for myself, it was impossible for me to share their emotion. I was very hungry, an

n a large white box, nothing was lacking. I drank a glass of water. I was nervous, uneasy, happy, trembling. It seemed like the morning of a battle when one is sure of winning a medal. I thought of neither my past nor m

o was half dressed. It seemed to me that the servants took greater pains in waiting on me and showed me more respec

ed to my mind. I dressed; the hairdresser called me "Madame" too, and arranged my hair so nicely that I said, I remember, "Things are beginning well; this coiffure is a good omen." I stopped Marie, who wished to lace me tighter than usual. I know that white makes one look stouter and that Ma

little more room and to spread out my trailing skirts. M

will see to everything-and the marriage coin-certainly, I have the ring-Mon Di

ges caught sight of me he kissed my hand, and while the maids kneeling about me were settling the skirt, a

east of what he was saying,

he veil, Monsieur Silvani. Don't f

Georges' husky voice recurred to me, and I said to myself, "I am sure that

the true sta

, my dear fellow

er, and with a somewhat embarrassed smile: "Will you be so kin

ly, my d

s, ver

, when going downstairs with them holding up my train behind me, I

be, but it was something delightful. The sound of the beadles' canes on the pavement will forever reecho in my heart. We halted for a moment on the red drugget. The great organ poured forth the full tones of a triu

exander the Great into Babylon; he is on an elephant which is glittering with precious stones. You mus

emies, bowed to us, and I saw-for one sees everything in spite of one's self on these solemn occasions-that they did not think that I looked ugly. On reaching the gilt chair, I bent forward with restrained eagerness-my chignon was high, revealing my neck, which is passable-and thanked the Lord. The organ ceased its triumphal song and I could hear my poor mother bursting into tears beside me. Oh! I und

's voice was listened to. Then at one point he turned toward me, and gave me to understand with a thousand delicacies that I was wedding one of the noblest officers in the army. "Heaven smiles," said he, "on the warrior who places at the service of his country a sword blessed by God, and who, when he darts into the fray, ca

usband as she has loved her father, that father full of kindness, who, from the cradle, implanted in her the sentiments of nobility and disinterestedness which-" (Papa smiled despite himself.) "Her father, whose name is known to the poor, and who in the house of God has his place marked among the elect." (Since his retirement, papa has become church

nderstand, but which greatly moved me, for the prelate's hand, white, delicate, and transparent, seemed to be blessing me. The censer, with its bluish smoke, swung by the hands of children, shed in the air its holy perfume. What a day, great heaven

eral's arm, and it was then that I saw t

les, to all these compliments, by a slight bow in which religious emotion peeped forth in spite of me. I felt conscious tha

r in iron bedsteads, ill at ease in his dress-coat, to the priest; the trivial and commonplace words of the mayor, with the eloquent outbu

I lately spoke

the registrar is gratis, while-" I put my hand over his mouth to prevent h

is exactly what I f