And see, now. One of the Jews in the shop across the street has observed him. Now two stand together and scrutinize him; and now there are three, looking and smiling. Plainly, they recognize him. One starts to come across, but on that instant the quiet of the hamlet is broken by a sound of galloping hoofs.
Bonaventure stands still. How sudden is this change! He is not noticed now; every thing is in the highest animation. There are loud calls and outcries; children are shouting and running, and women’s heads are thrust out of doors and windows. Horsemen come dashing into the village around through the lanes and up the street. Look! they wheel, they rein up, they throw themselves from the rattling saddles; they leave the big wooden stirrups swinging and the little unkempt ponies shaking themselves, and rush into the boutique de Monsieur Lichtenstein, and are talking like mad and decking themselves out on hats and shoulders with ribbons in all colors of the rainbow!
Suddenly they shout, all together, in answer to a shout outside. More horsemen appear. Lichtenstein’s store belches all its population.
“La calége! La calége!” The calèche is coming!
Something, he knows not what, makes Bonaventure tremble.
“Madame,” he says in French to a chattering woman who has just run out of her door, and is standing near him tying a red Madras kerchief on her head as she prattles to a girl,—“madame, what wedding is this?”
“C’est la noce à Zoséphine,” she replies, without looking at him, and goes straight on telling her companion how fifty dollars has been paid for the Pope’s dispensation, because the bridal pair are first cousins.
Bonaventure moves back and leans against a paling fence, pallid and faint. But there is no time to notice him—look, look!
Some women on horseback come trotting into the street. Cheers! cheers! and in a moment louder cheers yet—the calèche with the bride and groom and another with the parents have come.
Throw open the church door!