Jean Dorin obediently stood up and went to get the ladies' coats from my bedroom. I heard Colette ask, "Mama, what happened to your half-sister?"

"She died, my darling. Do you remember, it was seven years ago and your father and I went to a funeral at Coudray, in the Nievre. That was poor Cecile's funeral."

"Was she as mean as her mother?"

"Cecile? Not at all, the poor thing! You couldn't find a sweeter, nicer person. She loved me dearly and I loved her too. She was a real sister to me."

"It's odd that she never came to see us ..."

Helene didn't reply. Colette asked her another question; again, no reply. Colette wouldn't let it go.

"Oh, but it was all so very long ago," her mother said finally, her voice altering to become strangely distant, as if she were speaking through a dream.

Colette 's fiance came back with the coats and we all went outside. I walked my cousins back to their house. They live in a lovely house about four kilometres from here. We took a narrow, muddy road, the boys in front with their father, then Colette and Jean, with Helene and me bringing up the rear. Helene talked about the young couple.

"Jean Dorin seems like a good lad, don't you think? They've known each other for a long time. They have every chance of being happy together. They'll live as Francois and I have, they'll be close, they'll have a dignified, peaceful life ... yes, peaceful ... tranquil and serene ... Is it really so difficult to be happy? I think there's something soothing about the Moulin-Neuf. I've always dreamt of having a house near a river, waking up in the middle of the night, all warm in my bed, listening to the flowing water. Soon, they'll have a child," she continued, dreaming out loud. "My God, if only one could know at twenty how simple life is . . ."

I said goodbye to them at the garden gate; it opened with a squeak and closed again with that heavy, gong-like sound that is as pleasing to the ear as a mature bottle of Burgundy to the palate. The house is covered in thick green vines that quiver in the slightest breeze, but at that time of year only a few dry leaves were left, and the wire trellis glinted in the moonlight. After the Erards had gone inside, I stood next to Jean Dorin for a moment on the road, watching the lights go on, one after the other, in the sitting room and bedrooms; they shed a peaceful glow into the night.

"We're counting on you to come to the wedding. You will come, won't you?" Colette 's fiance asked anxiously.

"But of course! It's been a good ten years since I went to a wedding reception," I said and I could picture all the ones I'd been to, all those great rural feasts: the ruddy cheeks of the men as they drank, the young men borrowed from the neighbouring villages along with the chairs and the wooden dance floor; the Bombe Glacee for dessert and the groom in pain because his shoes are too tight; and, from every nook and cranny of the surrounding countryside, the family, friends and neighbours-people sometimes not seen in years, but who suddenly turn up, like corks bobbing to the surface, each one awakening the memory of quarrels that started back in the mists of time, past loves, former grudges, engagements broken then forgotten, inheritances and law suits .. .

Old Uncle Chapelain who married his cook, the two Montrifaut sisters, who haven't spoken to each other in fourteen years, even though they live in the same street, because one of them once refused to lend the other her special jam-making pan, and the lawyer whose wife is in Paris with a travelling salesman, and . . . My God, a wedding in the provinces is such a gathering of ghosts! In big cities, people either see each other all the time or never, it's simpler. Here .