What can you say to the cousins who kiss you, to the aunts who cling round your neck and weep into your waistcoat, to all these smiling faces ranged one beyond the other before you, to all those eyes which have been staring at you for twelve hours past, to all those outbursts of affection which you have not sought, but which claim a word from the heart in reply?

At the end of such a day one’s very heart is foundered.  You say to yourself:  “Come, is it all over?  Is there yet a tear to wipe away, a compliment to receive, an agitated hand to clasp?  Is every one satisfied?  Have they seen enough of the bridegroom?  Does any one want any more of him?  Can I at length give a thought to my own happiness, think of my dear little wife who is waiting for me with her head buried in the folds of her pillow?  Who is waiting for me!” That flashes through your mind all at once like a train of powder.  You had not thought of it.  During the whole of the day this luminous side of the question had remained veiled, but the hour approaches, at this very moment the silken laces of her bodice are swishing as they are unloosed; she is blushing, agitated, and dare not look at herself in the glass for fear of noting her own confusion.  Her aunt and her mother, her cousin and her bosom friend, surround and smile at her, and it is a question of who shall unhook her dress, remove the orange-blossoms from her hair, and have the last kiss.

Good! now come the tears; they are wiped away and followed by kisses.  The mother whispers something in her ear about a sacrifice, the future, necessity, obedience, and finds means to mingle with these simple but carefully prepared words the hope of celestial benedictions and of the intercession of a dove or two hidden among the curtains.

The poor child does not understand anything about it, except it be that something unheard-of is about to take place, that the young man—­she dare not call him anything else in her thoughts—­is about to appear as a conqueror and address her in wondrous phrases, the very anticipation of which makes her quiver with impatience and alarm.  The child says not a word—­she trembles, she weeps, she quivers like a partridge in a furrow.  The last words of her mother, the last farewells of her family, ring confusedly in her ears, but it is in vain that she strives to seize on their meaning; her mind—­where is that poor mind of hers?  She really does not know, but it is no longer under her control.

“Ah!  Captain,” I said to myself, “what joys are hidden beneath these alarms, for she loves you.  Do you remember that kiss which she let you snatch coming out of church that evening when the Abbe What’s-his-name preached so well, and those hand-squeezings and those softened glances, and—­happy Captain, floods of love will inundate you; she is awaiting you!”

Here I gnawed my moustache, I tore my gloves off and then put them on again, I walked up and down the little drawing-room, I shifted the clock, which stood on the mantel-shelf; I could not keep still.  I had already experienced such sensations on the morning of the assault on the Malakoff.  Suddenly the General, who was still going on with his eternal game at ecarte with the prefect, turned round.