were heavy with fruit, through the high grass and through the midst of
the calves, who looked at them with their great eyes, got up slowly and
remained standing, with their muzzles turned towards the wedding party.

The men became serious when they came within measurable distance of the
wedding dinner. Some of them, the rich ones, had on tall, shining silk
hats, which seemed altogether out of place there; others had old
head-coverings with a long nap, which might have been taken for
moleskin, while the humblest among them wore caps. All the women had on
shawls, which they wore loose on their backs, and they held the tips
ceremoniously under their arms. They were red, parti-colored, flaming
shawls, and their brightness seemed to astonish the black fowls on the
dung-heap, the ducks on the side of the pond, and the pigeons on the
thatched roofs.

The extensive farm buildings seemed to be waiting there, at the end of
that archway of apple trees, and a sort of vapor came out of the open
door and windows, and an almost overwhelming smell of eatables was
exhaled from the vast building, from all its openings and from all its
very walls. The string of guests extended through the yard; when the
foremost of them reached the house, they broke the chain and dispersed,
while behind they were still coming in at the open gate. The ditches
were now lined with urchins and poor curious people, and the shots did
not cease, but came from every side at once, and mingled a cloud of
smoke, and that smell which has the same intoxicating effects as
absinthe, with the atmosphere.

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