"Heaven help us! What are you doing?" "When a worthless brute like this refuses to listen to reason and will not be decent and let itself be gilded, it ought to have its confounded bones smashed!"
He then wrenched the cow's head around and decorated her even more beautifully than her mates. For the animal, having in her pain become more tractable, now stood perfectly still and permitted the rough artist to do anything he wanted to with her.
While the preparations for the wedding were being carried on below in this energetic manner, the Justice was upstairs in the room where he kept the sword of Charles the Great, putting on his best finery. The chief factor in the festive attire which the peasants of that region wear is the number of vests that they put on under their coats. The richer a peasant is, the more vests he wears on extraordinary occasions. The Justice had nine, and all of them were destined by him to be assembled around his body on this day. He kept them hung up in a row on wooden pegs behind a seed-cloth, which partitioned off one part of the room from the other like a curtain. First the under ones of silver-gray or red woolen damask, adorned with flowers, and then the outside ones of brown, yellow and green cloth. These were all adorned with heavy silver buttons.
Behind this seed-cloth the Justice was dressing. He had neatly combed his white hair, and his yellow, freshly-washed face shone forth under it like a rape-field over which the snow has fallen in May. The expression of natural dignity, which was peculiar to these features, was today greatly intensified; he was the father of the bride, and felt it. His movements were even slower and more measured than on the day when he bargained with the horse-dealer. He examined each vest carefully before he removed it from its peg, and then deliberately put them on, one after the other, without over-hurrying himself in the process of buttoning them up.
When the Justice was ready he slowly descended the stairs. In the entrance-hall he surveyed the preparations—the fires, the kettles, the pots, the green twigs, the ribboned and gilded horns of his cattle. He seemed to be satisfied with everything, for several times he nodded his head approvingly. He walked through the entrance-hall to the yard, then toward the side of the oak grove, looked at the fires which were burning there, and gave similar signs of approval, although always with a certain dignity. When the white sand, with which the entire entrance-hall and the space in front of the house was thickly sprinkled, grated and crunched in a lively manner under his feet, this seemed to afford him a special pleasure.
A maid was asked to put a chair for him in front of the house; he sat down there, opposite the oak grove, and, with his legs stretched out in front of him, his hat and cane in his hand, he awaited in sturdy silence the continuation of the proceedings, while the golden sunlight shone brightly down on him.
In the meantime two bridesmaids were adorning the bride in her room. All around her were standing chests and linen bags, gaily painted with flowers, which contained her dowry of cloth, bedding, yarn, linen and flax. Even in the door-way and far out into the hall all the space was occupied. In the midst of all these riches sat the bride in front of a small mirror, very red and serious. The first bridesmaid put on her blue stockings with the red clocks, the second threw over her a skirt of fine black cloth, and on top of this a bodice of the same material and color. Thereupon both occupied themselves with her hair, which was combed back and braided behind into a sort of wheel.
During these preparations the bride never once said a word, while her friends were all the more talkative. They praised her finery, extolled her piled-up treasures, and every now and then a furtive sigh led one to suspect that they would rather have been the adorned than the adorning.
Finally both girls, with solemn mien, came bringing in the bride's crown; for the girls in that region do not wear a wreath on their wedding-day, but a crown of gold and silver tinsel. The merchant who provides their adornment merely rents the crown, and after the wedding-day takes it back. Thus it wanders from one bride's head to another.
The bride lowered her head a little while her friends were putting on the crown, and her face, when she felt the light weight of it on her hair, became, if possible, even redder than before. In her hair, which, strange enough, was black, although she lived among a blond people, the gold and silver tinsel glittered gaily. She straightened herself up, supported by her friends, and the two broad, gold bands which belonged to the crown hung far down her back.