“Come, not here!” said the counselor, thoroughly scandalized. “You are going out of your mind, my dear fellow.”
Octave unfolded the letter. The emotion had increased amongst the congregation. There were whisperings, and nudgings of elbows, and glancing over the tops of prayer-books; no one was now paying the least attention to the ceremony. The bride and bridegroom alone remained grave and stiff before the priest. Then Berthe, turning her head, caught sight of Théophile getting whiter and whiter as he addressed Octave; and, from that moment, her mind was absent—she kept casting bright side glances in the direction of the chapel of Saint-Joseph.
Meanwhile, the young man was reading in a low voice:
“My duck, what bliss yesterday! Tuesday next, in the confessional of the chapel of the Holy Angels.”
The priest, after having obtained from the bridegroom the “yes” of a serious man who signs nothing without reading it, had turned toward the bride.
“You promise and swear to be faithful to Monsieur Auguste Vabre in all things, like a true wife should be to her husband, in accordance with God’s commandment?”
But Berthe, having seen the letter, and full of the thought of the blows she was expecting would be given, was not listening, but was following the scene from beneath her veil. There was an awkward silence. At length she became aware that they were waiting for her.
“Yes, yes,” she hastily replied, in a happen-what-may manner.
The abbé followed the direction of her glance with surprise; and, guessing that something unusual was taking place in one of the aisles, he in turn became singularly absent-minded. The story had now circulated; every one knew it. The ladies, pale and grave, did not withdraw their eyes from Octave. The men smiled in a discreetly waggish way. And, whilst Madame Josserand reassured Madame Duveyrier, with slight shrugs of her shoulders, Valérie alone seemed to give all her attention to the wedding, beholding nothing else, as though overcome by emotion.
“My duck, what bliss yesterday—” Octave read again, affecting intense surprise.