Explore "A Normandy Joke" by Guy De Maupassant on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The procession came in sight in the hollow road shaded by the tall trees which grew on the slopes of the farm. The newly-married couple came first, then the relations, then the guests, and lastly the poor of the neighbourhood, while the village urchins who hovered about like flies, ran in and out of the ranks, or climbed up the trees to see it better.
The bridegroom was a fine young lad, Jean Patu, the richest farmer in the neighbourhood. Above all things, he was an ardent sportsman who seemed to lose all common sense in order to satisfy that passion, who spent large sums on his dogs, his keepers, his ferrets, and his guns. The bride, Rosalie Roussel, had been courted by all the likely young fellows in the district, as they all thought her prepossessing, and they knew that she would have a good dowry, but she had chosen Patu -- partly, perhaps, because she liked him better than she did the others, but still more, like a careful Normandy girl, because he had more crown pieces.