This day, the big northern clouds, the gray clouds laden with glittering rain had disappeared, and the blue sky showed itself above the white earth on which the rising sun cast silvery reflections.
Césaire looked straight before him through the window, thinking of nothing happy.
The door opened, two women entered, peasant women in their Sunday clothes, the aunt and the cousin of the bridegroom, then three men, his cousins, then a woman who was a neighbor. They sat down on chairs, and they remained motionless and silent, the women on one side of the kitchen, the men on the other suddenly seized with timidity, with that embarrassed sadness which takes possession of people assembled for a ceremony. One of the cousins soon asked:
"It is not the hour—is it?"
Césaire replied:
"I am much afraid it is."
"Come on! Let us start," said another.
Those rose up. Then Césaire, whom a feeling of uneasiness had taken possession of, climbed up the ladder of the loft to see whether his father was ready. The old man, always as a rule an early riser, had not yet made his appearance. His son found him on his bed of straw, wrapped up in his blanket, with his eyes open, and a malicious look in them.
He bawled out into his ear: "Come, daddy, get up. 'Tis the time for the wedding."
The deaf man murmured in a doleful tone: