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Chapter 19 〇Two gift

Demon Swamp 喬治.桑 4100Words 2023-02-05
When all the people gathered in the house, the family members closed the doors and windows tightly, even blocked the skylight in the attic, and blocked all the exits with wooden boards, benches, tree roots and tables, as if preparing to guard In the fortified house there was a rather solemn waiting silence, at last the distant singing, laughter, and country instruments were heard.This is the procession of the suitors, with Germain at the head, surrounded by his most valiant companion, the gravedigger, relatives, friends, and servants, forming a joyful and mighty procession. As they approached the bride's house, they walked more and more slowly. After discussing for a while, they fell silent.The girls locked in the room stood behind the windows with gaps, through which they saw the team of troops coming, spreading out into a battle formation.A cold drizzle at this time added to the excitement of the scene, and the fire in the stove of the house was blazing brightly.Mary would have liked to shorten the inevitable slowness of this routine siege; she did not wish to see her fiancé thus exposed to the cold, but she had no say in the councils called under the circumstances, and she even had to Openly participates in the shenanigans of her female companions.

When the two camps took their positions, a volley of fire from the guns outside set the dogs in the vicinity barking loudly.The dogs of the bride's house barked and rushed to the door, thinking that there was an attack, and the mothers tried to comfort the children, but to no avail, they began to cry and tremble with fear.The whole scene was so well acted out that a stranger who met him would have thought he was resisting an attack by bandits. At this time, the gravedigger representing the fiancé, the orator and the troubadour, stood in front of the door, and the hemp-hitter also stood under the skylight above the same door, and the two began the following conversation:

Gravedigger: Alas!Good people, my dear parishioners, for God's sake, open the door for me. Playing hemp man: who are you?Why are you so presumptuous, calling us your dear parishioners?We don't know you. Gravedigger: We are honest men who suffer.Don't be afraid of us, my friends!Treat us.It was snowing and our poor feet were numb from the cold, and our wooden shoes were cracked when we traveled a long way. Maman: If your wooden shoes are cracked, you can look for them on the ground; you will find wicker and make bow nails (small arc-shaped iron hooks nailed on the cracked wooden shoes to fix the wood) .

Gravedigger: The wicker bow nails are not strong at all.Stop laughing at us, good people, and you'd better open the door for us.We see many fires lit in your houses; you must have set up your forks, and you will have a good heart and a good belly in your house.Open the door to the poor pilgrims, who will starve to death at your door if you do not show them mercy. Hitting the hemp man: Ha!ha!Are you pilgrims?You didn't tell us just now.Excuse me, what holy place did you come back from? Gravedigger: We'll tell you when you open the door for us, because we came from far away, and you wouldn't believe it.

Da Ma Ren: Open the door for you?It's a good idea!We cannot trust you.Hello, are you from Saint-Sylvain of Pliny? Gravedigger: We have been to Saint-Sylvain of Pliny, but we have been farther. Da Ma Man: So you have been to Saint-Saulange? Gravedigger: Of course we have been to Saint-Saulange; but we have been farther. Hitter: You lie; you have never been to Saint-Saulange. Gravedigger: We have been farther afield, and this time we are from Saint-Jacques in Compostele. 【Note】Compostel, a Spanish city, is a famous pilgrimage site. Hacking Man: What are you talking about with us?We do not know this parish.We see that you are villains, robbers, paupers, and liars.Go away and talk nonsense; we're well guarded and you can't get in.

Gravedigger: Alas!Come on guys!We are not pilgrims, as you have guessed; but we are unfortunate poachers, being pursued by the watchmen.The police were right behind us, and if you wouldn't let us hide in the hayloft, we'd be caught and put in jail. Da Ma Ren: Can anyone prove to us that this time you are the kind of people you said?Because there is already a lie, and you cannot justify it. Gravedigger: If you will open the door for us, we will show you a very large game we killed. Da Ma Ren: Take it out immediately, we don't believe it. Gravedigger: Then, please open a door or a window, and we'll put the game in for you to see.

Ma man: Oh!no!Not so stupid!I watch you through a small hole!Among you I see neither hunter nor prey. At this moment, a young cattle herder, short and strong, with the strength of a strong man, came out from the crowd. A large iron fork, holding a plucked goose, was held up to the skylight. Really good!The hempman carefully stretched out his arm to touch the goose to be roasted, and cried out: This is neither quail nor partridge, neither hare nor domestic rabbit; it is something like a goose or a turkey.You are excellent hunters!This prey doesn't need you to run at all.Get the hell out of here, you guys!Your lies have been found out, you can go back to cooking your dinner.You can't eat us.

Gravedigger: Alas!Oh my God!Where shall we burn our game?It is too little to feed so many of us; besides, we have neither fire nor place.At this moment, the doors are closed and everyone is asleep; only your family is having a wedding, and you let us freeze outside, it is too hard-hearted.Good people, we beg again, please open the door; we won't cost you.You see, we have venison to roast; it takes only a little room in your hearth, and it'll be cooked in a moment, and we'll go away satisfied. Maman: Do you think our house has too much space and firewood doesn’t cost much? Gravedigger: We've brought a little bundle of hay for the fire, and that's enough, just let us stick the forks in the hearth.

Ma-hitter: Not at all; you annoy us and get no sympathy from us.I see you're drunk, you don't need anything, you want to come into our house and take our fire and girls. Gravedigger: Since you don't listen to good advice at all, it's no wonder we broke in by force. Da Ma Ren: If you want to, just try it.We are locked up tightly, so we don't need to be afraid of you.Since you're so unreasonable, we won't bother you anymore. With that, the hemp hitter slammed the skylight; he descended the ladder into the room.He led the bride, and together with the young men and women, they danced and yelled happily, while the married women sang and laughed loudly, expressing contempt and challenge to those who tried to attack outside.

The besiegers also went berserk: they shot at the door, making the dogs bark, banged on the walls, shook the shutters, and uttered terrible yells.In short, the noise was so loud that people could not hear each other clearly, and the dust and smoke made it difficult for people to see each other's faces clearly. But the offense was feigned: the moment to break protocol was yet to come.If someone, while looking around, finally finds an unguarded passage or a gap, he can break into the house suddenly. The comedy was over, and the bridegroom was victorious. However, there are not many entrances and exits in the house, so that due care will not be neglected, and no one is allowed to steal the right to use force without authorization before the time to decide to fight.

Only when you are tired from dancing and screaming do you think of making the opponent surrender.He climbed up the skylight again, opened the window carefully, and laughed at the despondent besiegers. Now, boys, he said, you are ashamed!You thought it was too easy to break in, but now you see that we are well defended.We begin to pity you, as long as you are willing to submit and accept our terms. Gravedigger: Speak, upright men; tell us what we must do to come near your hearth. The Mapper: You've got to sing, my friends, but a song we've never heard, and we can't answer with a better song. That's not difficult!The gravedigger answered, and he sang in a powerful voice: Half a year ago, it was spring. I walk on the tender grass.The Maman sang in a slightly hoarse but terrifying voice, poor people, aren't you joking when you sing us such an old-fashioned song?You see, we stopped you at the first sentence! once upon a time there was a princess She wants to get married.The hemp man responded, change one, change another!We are all too familiar with this one. Gravedigger: Do you want to hear this one?return from nantes Da Ma Ren: I am exhausted, ah!I am exhausted.This one is from my grandmother's time, let's try another one! Gravedigger: That day, I was walking Mackerel: Walk along this enchanted woods!This song is so boring!Our dolls are too lazy to sing duet with you!how?You all know this? Gravedigger: Oh!We want to sing so that you can't get it right. It would take a full hour to go through this kind of verbal confrontation.Since both opponents were local singers, their program seemed endless, possibly going on all night, especially since the mackerel had tricked the other into singing certain ten, twenty, or thirty verses. elegy, he kept silent and feigned defeat.So the bridegroom was triumphant, and sang loudly, thinking that this time the other party couldn't get it right; but halfway through the last stanza, they heard the last few verses roar out in the rough voice of the old thrasher, as if he had a cold; When it was over, he cried out: Children, you don't need to sing such a long song!We know it like back to back! But once or twice the hempman grimaced, frowned, and turned despondently to the married women who were listening attentively, and the gravedigger sang a very old song, which his adversary could not remember, Or he never knew how to sing; but then the aunts and aunts hummed the triumphant refrain in a shriek like a seagull, and the gravedigger had to throw in the towel and try something else. It was too long to wait until which side the victory belonged to.The bride's side declares that as long as the bride is given a matching gift, there will be no further embarrassment. Then the dowry song was sung, with a tune as solemn as a church hymn. The men outside sang in a bass chorus: open the door, open, Mary, how lovely you are, I have a great gift. well!Let's come in, honey. The woman in the room replied in a mournful falsetto: My father is troubled and my mother is sad, I, the king of gold, The door cannot be opened at this time. The men sang the first stanza again, and the fourth line was changed to this: I have a beautiful handkerchief as a gift. But the women, in the name of the bride, answered the same as the first time. The men sing it at least twenty times, counting all the betrothal gifts, and the last line always mentions a new object: a beautiful apron, a beautiful ribbon, a cloth dress, lace, a gold cross, all the way to a hundred brooches, In this way, the simple bride price for the bride is complete.But the aunts and aunts kept refusing; at last the boys told of a handsome husband, and they both spoke to the bride and sang with the men: open the door, open, Mary, how lovely you are, It is the beautiful husband who comes to you, Quick, dear, let them in.
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