The women were shaking their dresses outside the door, to get rid of the dust, were undoing their cap strings and pulling their shawls over their arms, and then they went into the house to lay them aside altogether for the time.  The table was laid in the great kitchen, that would hold a hundred persons; they sat down to dinner at two o’clock and at eight o’clock they were still eating, and the men, in their shirt sleeves, with their waistcoats unbuttoned, and with red faces, were swallowing the food and drink down, as if they had been whirlpools.  The cider sparkled merrily, clear and golden in the large glasses, by the side of the dark, blood-colored wine, and between every dish they made the hole, the Normandy hole, with a glass of brandy which inflamed the body, and put foolish notions into the head.

From time to time, one of the guests, being as full as a barrel, would go out for a few moments to get a mouthful of fresh air, as they said, and then return with redoubled appetite.  The farmers’ wives, with scarlet faces and their stays nearly bursting, did not like to follow their example, until one of them, feeling more uncomfortable than the others, went out, when all the rest followed her example, and they came back quite ready for any fun, and the rough jokes began afresh.  Broad-sides of obscenities were exchanged across the table, and all about the wedding-night, until the whole arsenal of peasant wit was exhausted.  For the last hundred years, the same broad jokes had served for similar occasions, and although every one knew them, they still hit the mark, and made both rows of guests roar with laughter.

At the bottom of the table four young fellows, who were neighbors, were preparing some practical jokes for the newly married couple, and they seemed to have got hold of a good one, by the way they whispered and laughed, and suddenly, one of them profiting by a moment of silence, exclaimed:  “The poachers will have a good time to-night, with this moon!...  I say, Jean, you will not be looking at the moon, will you?” The bridegroom turned to him quickly and replied:  “Only let them come, that’s all!” But the other young fellow began to laugh, and said:  “I do not think you will neglect your business for them!”

The whole table was convulsed with laughter, so that the glasses shook, but the bridegroom became furious at the thought that anybody would profit by his wedding to come and poach on his land, and repeated:  “I only say:  Just let them come!”

Then there was a flood of talk with a double meaning which made the bride blush somewhat, although she was trembling with expectation, and when they had emptied the kegs of brandy they all went to bed; the young couple went into their own room, which was on the ground floor, as most rooms in farmhouses are.  As it was very warm, they opened the window and closed the shutters.  A small lamp in bad taste, a present from the bride’s father, was burning on the chest of drawers, and the bed stood ready to receive the young people, who did not stand upon all the ceremony which is usual among towns-people, in their first embraces.