THE WEDDING DAY

A Thursday, early in February, a fine icy Thursday evening with a high wind blowing: somewhere about half-past three or four.... Near the villages, clothes have been hung on hedges since midday and are drying in the strong breeze. Children, tired of playing, sit by their mothers asking for the story of their wedding days. In every house the dining-room fire brightly lights up what seems an altar of shining toys.

Any one who does not wish to be happy has only to climb up to the attics to hear till evening the whistle and moan of shipwrecks; or he can go out on the road for the wind to flap back his scarf on his mouth as in a sudden warm kiss which will make him weep. But for him who loves happiness there stands, by the side of a muddy lane, the Sand Pit house which my friend Meaulnes has just entered with Yvonne de Galais who has been his wife since midday.

The engagement had lasted five months. It had been a peaceful time, as peaceful as the first meeting had been full of excitement. Meaulnes had often come to the Sand Pit during those days, either on his bicycle or driving. At least twice a week, as she sat sewing or reading by the window overlooking the moor and the firs, Mademoiselle de Galais would suddenly see his tall hurrying shadow move behind the curtain, for he always comes that roundabout way, up the drive he once came by. But this is the only allusion--a tacit one--which he makes to the past. Happiness seems to have lulled his strange anguish.

Some trivial happenings have marked these five quiet months. I have been appointed teacher at the little hamlet of Saint-Benoist-des-Champs. Saint-Benoist is not a village, but only a few farms scattered about the countryside, with the schoolhouse standing completely isolated on the side of the road some way up a hill. I lead a very solitary life; but going across the fields it takes me only three quarters of an hour to reach the Sand Pit.

Delouche lives now with his uncle who is a builder at Vieux-Nançay. He will soon be the head man. He often comes to see me. Meaulnes, at the request of Mademoiselle de Galais, is now very nice to him.

All this explains why we are there rambling about together, towards four in the afternoon, when all the wedding people have already left.

The ceremony was held at midday as quietly as possible, in the old chapel of the Sand Pit, which was not pulled down and stands partly hidden by firs, on the slope of the adjoining hill. Meaulnes’ mother, M. Seurel and Millie, Florentin and the others went off in their carriages after a hurried lunch. Jasmin and I alone remained.

We are taking a stroll along the woods behind the Sand Pit house, by the side of a wide expanse of land, the site of the manor now destroyed. Without owning to it and without knowing why, we are filled with anxiety. We try in vain to divert our thoughts and beguile our uneasiness during this wandering walk, by attracting one another’s attention to the forms of hares and the small sandy furrows where rabbits have been scratching ... to a trap set in the wood ... or to the trail of a poacher ... But we always come back hauntingly to the edge of the copse from where the silent and closed house can be seen....

The wide window which looks on the firs opens onto a wooden balcony invaded by unruly grass bending under the wind. A light, as of a burning fire, is reflected on the panes of the window where from time to time a shadow is seen to pass. Silence and solitude are all around: in the neighbouring fields, in the kitchen garden, in the farm which alone remains of the old outhouses. The farm hands have gone to the village to celebrate the happiness of their master and mistress. From time to time the wind, heavy with a mist which feels almost like rain, comes to damp our faces, and brings us the remote phrases of a piano. Out there, in the closed house, some one is playing. I stopped a moment to listen in silence. It is at first like a trembling voice which, from afar, scarcely dares to sing its joy.... It is like the laughter of a little girl who, in her room, fetches all her toys out and displays them to her sweetheart.... It also brings to my mind the shy pleasure of a woman who, having gone to put on a beautiful dress, comes back to show it and is not yet sure it will please.... This air which I do not know is also a prayer, an entreaty to happiness not to be too cruel, a bowing of the head and as it were a falling on the knees before happiness....

The thought comes to me: ‘At last they are happy. Meaulnes is there close to her....’

And to know this, to feel sure of it, is sufficient to bring perfect satisfaction to the simple child that I am.

But just then, while thus dreaming, and my face wet from the wind crossing the moor as if by sea-spray, I feel some one touch me on the shoulder.

‘Listen!’ says Jasmin in a low voice.

I look at him. He beckons to me not to move; and he too, with bent head and knitted brow, stands listening.