Madame Bovary, senior, had not opened her mouth all day.  She had been consulted neither as to the dress of her daughter-in-law nor as to the arrangement of the feast; she went to bed early.  Her husband, instead of following her, sent to Saint-Victor for some cigars, and smoked till daybreak, drinking kirsch-punch, a mixture unknown to the company.  This added greatly to the consideration in which he was held.

Charles, who was not of a facetious turn, did not shine at the wedding.  He answered feebly to the puns, doubles entendres*, compliments, and chaff that it was felt a duty to let off at him as soon as the soup appeared.

     Double meanings.

The next day, on the other hand, he seemed another man.  It was he who might rather have been taken for the virgin of the evening before, whilst the bride gave no sign that revealed anything.  The shrewdest did not know what to make of it, and they looked at her when she passed near them with an unbounded concentration of mind.  But Charles concealed nothing.  He called her “my wife”, tutoyed* her, asked for her of everyone, looked for her everywhere, and often he dragged her into the yards, where he could be seen from far between the trees, putting his arm around her waist, and walking half-bending over her, ruffling the chemisette of her bodice with his head.

     Used the familiar form of address.

Two days after the wedding the married pair left.  Charles, on account of his patients, could not be away longer.  Old Rouault had them driven back in his cart, and himself accompanied them as far as Vassonville.  Here he embraced his daughter for the last time, got down, and went his way.  When he had gone about a hundred paces he stopped, and as he saw the cart disappearing, its wheels turning in the dust, he gave a deep sigh.  Then he remembered his wedding, the old times, the first pregnancy of his wife; he, too, had been very happy the day when he had taken her from her father to his home, and had carried her off on a pillion, trotting through the snow, for it was near Christmas-time, and the country was all white.  She held him by one arm, her basket hanging from the other; the wind blew the long lace of her Cauchois headdress so that it sometimes flapped across his mouth, and when he turned his head he saw near him, on his shoulder, her little rosy face, smiling silently under the gold bands of her cap.  To warm her hands she put them from time to time in his breast.  How long ago it all was!  Their son would have been thirty by now.  Then he looked back and saw nothing on the road.  He felt dreary as an empty house; and tender memories mingling with the sad thoughts in his brain, addled by the fumes of the feast, he felt inclined for a moment to take a turn towards the church.  As he was afraid, however, that this sight would make him yet more sad, he went right away home.

Monsieur and Madame Charles arrived at Tostes about six o’clock.