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Chapter 21 〇 4 cabbages

Demon Swamp 喬治.桑 5059Words 2023-02-05
They mounted their horses again and hurried back to Burrell.The feast is rich, interspersed with dancing and singing, and eats until midnight.The elderly did not leave the table for fourteen hours.Gravedigger cooks and cooks, and does it brilliantly.He was famous for his cooking, and when the food was served he would leave the stove to join in the dancing and singing.But poor absurd dad has epilepsy!Who would have guessed?He was good-looking, strong, and happy like a young man.One day we found him lying in a ditch just after dark, writhing and half dead.We put him in the car, took him to our house, and nursed him all night.Three days later he was at the wedding, singing like a thrush, hopping like a kid, moving in the old fashion.After leaving the wedding, he dug a grave and nailed a coffin.He was conscientious in his work, and though little could be seen in his good temper, he left a gloomy impression which hastened his relapse.His woman is paralyzed and hasn't left her chair for twenty years.His mother was one hundred and four years old and still alive.But this poor fellow, so jovial, kind, and funny, fell to his death last year from a garret.Needless to say, he had a fit, was fatally attacked, and, as usual, hid in a haystack to keep his family from fear and distress.In this way he ended a life as strange as himself, a mixture of misery and madness in him.Something terrible and a delight; his heart was always kind and his character was always lovable.

We arrived on the third day of the wedding, which was the most interesting day, and the ceremony is still strictly kept to this day.Not to mention the rather rambunctious custom of bringing toast to the couple's bed, which makes the bride blush and possibly the girls present.Besides, I believe that every province has this custom, and there is nothing special about it in our village. Just as the ceremony of giving the dowry is a symbol of possession of the bride's heart and home, so the ceremony of the cabbage is a symbol of procreation after marriage.After breakfast on the day after the wedding, this strange ceremonial performance of Gaul origin began, and after the influence of early Christianity, it gradually evolved into a kind of mystery play, or like a medieval morality play.

Two lads (the liveliest and brightest) disappeared at dinner, went to dress up, and came back surrounded by bands, dogs, children, and gunfire.They posed as a couple of beggars, dressed in unsightly rags.The husband is extraordinarily filthy, and it is vice that has brought him so low; the wife is only wretched and mean by her husband's incapacity. They call themselves gardeners and gardener's wives, ready to guard and cultivate that sacred cabbage.But the husband wears various titles, and each title has a meaning.Some people called him the Scarecrow, because he wore a wig of hay and flax, and wrapped his legs and part of his body in grass to cover his body, which his rags could not cover.He stuffed straw or hay under his smock to pretend he had a potbelly or a hunchback.Some people called him a man of rags because he wore rags.Finally, he was called a heretic, and this was all the more obvious because, from his shamelessness and sensuality, everything that was contrary to all the Christian virtues was gathered in him.

When he came, his face was smeared with soot and wine lees, and sometimes he wore a funny mask.A broken and chipped earthenware cup, or an old wooden shoe, hung by a string from his belt, he used to beg for wine.No one refused him. He pretended to drink it, but sprinkled it on the ground, making a drunken gesture.He stumbled and rolled in the mud; he pretended to be drunk.His poor wife ran after him, helped him up, called for help, pulled out the strands of hempen hair that peeped out from under her dirty hat, wept for her husband's meanness, and rebuked him eloquently. damn it!She turned on him to see where the drinking and drinking got us.Ah!For nothing I spin, work for you, and mend your garments!You keep tearing and soiling your clothes.You eat and drink my wretched fortune, and our six children have nothing; we live in the barn with the cattle; we have to beg.You are so ugly, so repulsive, so contemptible, that it won't be long before people throw bread at us like they would throw it at dogs.well!Good people, have pity on us!have pity on me!I don't deserve to live like this. No woman has a dirtier or more hateful husband than me.Help me get him up, or the wagon will crush him like a broken bottle, and I'll be a widow, and I'll die of grief, though everybody says it's a good thing for me.

This is the role of the gardener's daughter-in-law and her endless whining throughout the play.It is a real free play, improvised in the open air, by the wayside, in the fields, enriched by accidental occurrences, and attended by all, wedding-goers, outsiders, hosts, and passers-by. , for three or four hours, as we'll see right away.The themes are the same, but they can be used endlessly. From here, we can see the imitation instinct, rich gimmicks, eloquence, wit of responding, and even natural eloquence of our rural farmers. The role of the gardener's daughter-in-law is usually assigned to a thin, beardless, ruddy young man. He must be good at acting realistically, and make the audience happy and sad as if they were real people.This kind of skinny and beardless young man is not uncommon in our countryside. The strange thing is that they are often known for their extraordinary physical strength.

After the woman's misfortune had been played out, the young men at the wedding urged her to leave her drunken husband aside and spend some time with them.They took her arms and dragged her away.Gradually, she forgot her situation, became happy, and now ran with this one, now with that, with a loose gait: this is a new morality play, the husband's immorality causes and brings about the wife's immorality . The pagan was sober at this moment, he opened his eyes and looked for his wife, and with a rope and a stick in his hand, he chased her.People kept him busy, hiding his women, passing them from one hand to another, trying to please her, teasing jealous husbands.His friends tried to get him drunk.Finally he caught up with the unfaithful woman and wanted to beat her.The truest and most insightful thing about this parody of the troubles of conjugal life is that the jealous husband never attacks those who rob him of his woman.He treats them with politeness and caution, and he only wants to blame the guilty woman, who seems unable to resist him.

But when he raised his stick and was about to tie the guilty woman with rope, all the men at the wedding came to mediate and separate the couple.Don't hit her!Never hit your woman!These two sentences are repeated again and again on such occasions, endlessly.The husband is disarmed, forced to forgive and kiss his woman, and after a while he pretends to love her more than before.Arm in arm with her, he sang and danced until again he was drunk and slumped to the ground; good.There is a naive, even vulgar lesson in it, which strongly feels medieval in origin, but which would at least impress, if not impress today's couples who are too affectionate and too sensible to need it. Children and young adults make impressions.The pagan pursued the girls, pretending to hug them and kiss them, so that they, terrified and disgusted, fled with a passion that was not feigned.His filthy face, his thick stick (which was harmless) made the children howl.It's the simplest, yet most touching comedy of manners.

When the farce was in full swing, someone was going to make preparations for moving the cabbages.A stretcher was found, and the heretic was carried on it, and he carried a shovel, a rope, and a large basket.Four strong men hoisted the stretcher onto their shoulders.His woman walked behind, and the elders went in a group with serious expressions and thoughtful thoughts, and then the wedding attendants walked in pairs, marching in step with the beat of the music.The shots rang out again, and the dogs barked more fiercely than before as they saw the filthy heretic being carried in triumph.The children hung up the wooden shoe with a rope and jokingly expressed that they would scent him.

But why cheer such a loathsome figure?The sacred cabbage was to be acquired, a symbol of marriage and fertility; only the befuddled drunk could lay his hands on the symbolic plant.There is no doubt that the story here has its origin in a pre-Christian mystic drama which reminds one of Saturnalia or some ancient Dionysian festival.Perhaps the pagan was both a good gardener and an out-and-out Priap, the god of gardens and wine, who was originally holy and serious, as in the mysteries of procreation. It's just the indulgence of customs and the corruption of thoughts that made him so humble and depraved unconsciously.

[Note] Priap is the son of the god of wine and beauty in Greek legend, and it is also a symbol of male reproduction. At any rate, the triumphant procession came to the bride's house and into the vegetable garden.There the best cabbage was selected, and it did not go very quickly, for the elders had to consult and discuss endlessly, each defending the cabbage which seemed to him the most suitable.After the final vote, the cabbage is selected, and the gardener will tie the rope to the stem of the cabbage and walk to the edge of the vegetable garden.The gardener-in-law looks after, lest the sacred vegetable be damaged when it comes off, the funny folks at the wedding, the hemp-thrower, the grave-digger, the carpenter or the shoemaker (in short, all those who don't till the land and live in other people's homes, considered and actually more intelligent and eloquent than the average agricultural worker), surrounded the cabbages.A man was digging a deep ditch with a shovel, as if about to bring down an oak tree.Another put a wooden or cardboard clip on the bridge of his nose, which served as a pair of glasses: he approached as an engineer, walked away, held up a pattern, stared at the workers, and drew lines , pretending to be erudite, yelling that others are going to screw everything up, calling people to stop and resume work at will, directing work as protractedly and ridiculously as possible.Is this an addition to the encyclopedia of ancient rituals?Intended to ridicule the theoretician in general, whom the customary peasant scorns with extreme contempt; The land becomes the highway, and the old evils cherished by the peasants are undone.In short, this comic character is called the Geometer, and he tries to make him intolerable to those who use pickaxes and shovels.

After a quarter of an hour of great difficulty and antics, unable to break the root of the cabbage and break it off without damage, a shovel of earth was thrown at the noses of the onlookers (unfortunate to those who did not stand up quickly) ; even a bishop or a prince has to be baptized with dirt), and finally, the pagan pulls the rope, the pagan woman opens her apron, and the cabbage falls slowly to the cheers of the audience.Someone passed the basket, and the pagan couple carefully planted the cabbage in the basket.They put up fresh earth, and fastened it with sticks and strings, like a flower girl in the city who puts beautiful camellias in pots; and cinnamon sticks, and around the cabbage; all this was adorned with ribbons and little flags.The trophy and the heathen were carried again on the stretcher; the heathen was to keep the basket balanced in case of accidents.Finally, everyone walked out of the vegetable garden in an orderly manner with neat steps. Just as they are about to step out of the gate, as later into the groom's yard, they imagine an obstacle in the way ahead.The stretcher-bearer stumbled, exclaimed loudly, sometimes retreated, and sometimes advanced, as if driven by an irresistible force, he pretended to be overwhelmed and fell to the ground.At this point, the wedding goers shouted, encouraging and comforting the stretcher bearers: hold on!hold back!child!Well, well, take courage!Be careful!Be patient!lower.The door is too low!Squeeze tight, the door is too narrow!Go left a little; go right now, come on, come on, you made it! This was the case in good years, when the ox carts, overloaded with hay or harvest, were too wide or too high for the barn door.This is how one shouts at the mighty beasts, stops them or stirs them up, this is how deftly and powerfully one manages to pass mountains of riches safely and securely through the country's triumphal arch.Especially the last car, called piled into mountains, you have to be extra careful.It is a kind of field festival.The last sheaf of straw lifted from the last ridge was placed on the roof, with ribbons and flowers, as well as ribbons and flowers on the horns of the ox and on the whip.The cabbage is carried into the house with difficulty and finally triumphantly, simulating the prosperity and procreation it represents. Once in the groom's yard, the cabbage is taken out and placed on the top of the house or barn.If there is a chimney, a peaked roof, a dovecot, higher than the tops of other houses, it is necessary, at all peril, to bring this heavy object to the highest point of the dwelling.The heathen sent it there, pinned it down, and poured a jug of wine over it, while a line of gunshots and the joyous writhing of the heathen woman signaled its inauguration. The same ritual immediately began to repeat itself.They uprooted another cabbage in the groom's garden, and with the same ceremony placed it on top of the house the bride had just given up to live with him.These prizes were left out in the wind and rain, ruining the baskets and taking the cabbages with them.They have lasted long enough to confirm what the old men and women salute and prophesy: ​​grow and bloom, pretty cabbage, and let the bride have a pretty little baby within the year; It is a sign of infertility, and you become an unlucky omen on the roof. It's getting late after these things are done.All that remains to be done is to send off the godfather and godmothers of the newlyweds.If these presumed relatives lived far away, the band and all those attending the wedding were escorted to the edge of the parish.There's still dancing on the way there, and kisses at parting.The Pagan and his woman were by this time clean and neatly dressed, if the exhaustion of their roles had not caused them to go to sleep for a while. On the third day of Germain's wedding, they were to dance, sing, eat and drink until midnight at the Burrell farm.It is no wonder that the elderly who participated in the feast could not go back.It will not be until dawn the next day that they can regain their leg strength and spirit.As they staggered home in silence, Germain came out proud and refreshed to pull his cattle, while his young wife slept until sunrise.The skylark twittered and flew into the sky, and he thought it was his heartfelt thanks to God.Glittering with thin frost in the withered bushes, he looked like the white color of April's blooms before the leaves were drawn.With him all things in nature were cheerful and serene, and little Pierre, laughing and dancing yesterday, was too tired to get up and help him drive his cattle; but Germain was glad to be alone.Kneeling in the furrow he was about to plow again, he said his morning prayers emotionally, with two lines of tears streaming down his still sweaty cheeks. In the distance the children of the neighboring parish could be heard singing, as they walked home, repeating in somewhat hoarse voices the cheerful refrain of the previous day.
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