It had been a stag dinner. These men still came together once in a while without their
wives as they had done when they were bachelors. They would eat for a long time, drink
for a long time; they would talk of everything, stir up those old and joyful memories
which bring a smile to the lip and a tremor to the heart. One of them was saying:
"Georges, do you remember our excursion to Saint-Germain with those two little girls
from Montmartre?"
And a little detail here or there would be remembered, and all these things brought joy to
the hearts.
The conversation turned on marriage, and each one said with a sincere air: "Oh, if it were
to do over again!" Georges Duportin added: "It's strange how easily one falls into it. You
have fully decided never to marry; and then, in the springtime, you go to the country; the
weather is warm; the summer is beautiful; the fields are full of flowers; you meet a young
girl at some friend's house--crash! all is over. You return married!"
Pierre Letoile exclaimed: "Correct! that is exactly my case, only there were some peculiar
incidents--"
His friend interrupted him: "As for you, you have no cause to complain. You have the
most charming wife in the world, pretty, amiable, perfect! You are undoubtedly the
happiest one of us all."
The other one continued: "It's not my fault."
"It is true that I have a perfect wife, but I certainly married her much against my will."
"Yes--this is the adventure. I was thirty-five, and I had no more idea of marrying than I
had of hanging myself. Young girls seemed to me to be inane, and I loved pleasure.
"During the month of May I was invited to the wedding of my cousin, Simon d'Erabel, in
Normandy. It was a regular Normandy wedding. We sat down at the table at five o'clock
in the evening and at eleven o'clock we were still eating. I had been paired off, for the
occasion, with a Mademoiselle Dumoulin, daughter of a retired colonel, a young, blond,
soldierly person, well formed, frank and talkative. She took complete possession of me
for the whole day, dragged me into the park, made me dance willy-nilly, bored me to
