“I told you so,” said her husband, and then took her in his arms and “rode” her so nicely that she forgot the pain of the beating.
“What do you call that you have just done?” she asked.
“It is called,” he said, “‘to blow up the backside’.”
“Blow up the backside!” she said. “The expression is not so pretty as ‘to ride’, but the operation is much nicer, and, now that I have learned the difference, I shall know what to ask for in future.”
Now you must know that the curé was always on the look-out for when the newly married bride should come to church, to remind her of her promise. The first time she appeared, he sidled up to the font, and when she passed him, he gave her holy water, and said in a low voice,
“My dear! you promised me that I should ride you when you were married! You are married now, thank God, and it is time to think when and how you will keep your word.”
“Ride?” she said. “By God, I would rather see you hanged or drowned! Don’t talk to me about riding. But I will let you blow up my backside if you like!”
“And catch your quartain fever!” said the curé, “beastly dirty, ill-mannered whore that you are! Am I to be rewarded after all I have done for you, by being permitted to blow up your backside!”
So the curé went off in a huff, and the bride took her seat that she might hear the holy Mass, which the good curé was about to read.
And thus, in the manner which you have just heard, did the curé lose his chance of enjoying the girl, by his own fault and no other’s, because he spoke too loudly to her the day when he confessed her, for her husband prevented him, in the way described above, by making his wife believe that the act of ‘riding’ was called ‘to blow up the backside’.