And later on, when he used to tell this story of his wedding night, he generally added:  “Ah!  As far as a joke went, it was a good joke.  They caught me in a snare, as if I had been a rabbit, the dirty brutes, and they shoved my head into a bag.  But if I can only catch them some day, they had better look out for themselves!”

That is how they amuse themselves in Normandy on a wedding day.

A COCK CROWED

Madame Berthe d’Avancelles had up till that time resisted all the prayers of her despairing adorer, Baron Joseph de Croissard.  He had pursued her ardently in Paris during the winter, and now he was giving fetes and shooting parties in her honor at his Chateau at Carville, in Normandy.

Monsieur d’Avancelles, her husband, saw nothing and knew nothing, as usual.  It was said that he lived apart from his wife on account of physical weakness, for which Madame d’Avancelles would not pardon him.  He was a short, stout, bald man, with short arms, legs, neck, nose and everything else, while Madame d’Avancelles, on the contrary, was a tall, dark and determined young woman, who laughed in her husband’s face with sonorous laughter, while he called her openly Mrs. Housewife, who looked at the broad shoulders, strong build and fair moustaches of her titled admirer, Baron Joseph de Croissard, with a certain amount of tenderness.

She had not, however, granted him anything as yet.  The baron was ruining himself for her, and there was a constant round of feting, hunting parties and new pleasures, to which he invited the neighboring nobility.  All day long the hounds gave tongue in the woods, as they followed the fox or the wild boar, and every night dazzling fireworks mingled their burning plumes with the boars, while the illuminated windows of the drawing-room cast long rays of light onto the wide lawns, where shadows were moving to and fro.

It was autumn, the russet-colored season of the year, and the leaves were whirling about on the grass like flights of birds.  One noticed the smell of damp earth in the air, of the naked earth, like one smells the odor of the bare skin, when a woman’s dress falls off her, after a ball.

One evening, in the previous spring, during an entertainment, Madame d’Avancelles had said to Monsieur de Croissard, who was worrying her by his importunities:  “If I do succumb to you, my friend, it will not be before the fall of the leaf.  I have too many things to do this summer to have any time for it.”  He had not forgotten that bold and amusing speech, and every day he became more pressing, every day he pushed his approaches nearer—­to use a military phrase—­and gained a step in the heart of the fair, audacious woman, who seemed only to be resisting for form’s sake.