What she wished above all was to escape Pierre’s reproaches, her grandmother’s blame, and not to hear the echo of all the gossip of the town, which she knew would reach her ears. The humiliation of being condemned by public opinion, the sorrow to have made Pierre suffer, who had already suffered so much, was such agonising pain to her that she felt obliged to fly. She was trying to escape from her own self-condemnation, which followed her.
After proceeding some miles, little used to walking, exhausted, she sat down on a heap of stones, her head in her hands, weeping aloud in despair.
A horseman passed in a dress coat and white cravat, bare-headed and mounted on a saddleless horse: it was Pierre, and he saw her.
“Your father has consented again,” he said, jumping off the horse. “Come quickly, I will put you up behind, and, to be sure that he does not take back his word again and that you will not commit any other folly, we will go straight to the church, where your grandmother has had everything prepared. It was she who divined that you had taken the road to Noyon, unless you should have come to my house, for she even suspected you of being capable of that, silly girl that you are!”
He lifted her up on the horse, supported her there with one arm, while with the other hand he held a simple halter passed round the animal’s neck.
“Come, come,” said he, “it is high time you should have a master. You deserve to be whipped.”
“But,” she replied, made merry with the romantic adventure; “I am not going to be married in a night-cap.”
“Why not? It is a penance you deserve, and you have great need of absolution. You can dress yourself as a bride when you have become one, at the end of the wedding.”
And so it was, sitting up behind a bare-backed horse, that my grandmother made her entrance into Chauny. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and all the gossips were at the windows, in the street, and at the church door.
Pélagie got down from the horse, with hair dishevelled under her night-cap, and her eyes still swollen from tears. A woman in the street pinned a white pink on her night-cap, and she entered the church on Pierre’s arm. There was a general outburst of laughter. Never had such a bride been seen.