Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/102

90 bride and bridegroom can make trial of each other, and afterwards separate if not satisfied; the probationary period varies from a fortnight to three months. Now the beautiful Nahi-Nava-Naliina,—this was how Vampunivo's daughter was called, had made five such trials, and in every case being disappointed with her husbands, had returned to the paternal roof.

"I saw they had family affairs to talk over, so I withdrew discreetly. Next day Vampunivo came to see me. His daughter had asked him two or three times over who was the European playing draughts with him when she came in, and he wished me to make her acquaintance.

" Nahi-Nava-Nahina, I have said so before, was a superb creature; I had fallen in love with her at first sight, and apparently she had returned the compliment. The Cingalese custom of taking on trial and separating if not found suitable appealed to me strongly from every point of view; at the end of a week we were of one mind, she to make a sixth experiment, and I to venture on a second.

"The marriage ceremony is promptly and easily performed amongst the Cingalese; the dowry is discussed and decided, an astrologer fixes the wedding-day, the relatives of the happy pair assemble, and the company take seats round a table, in the middle of which rises a pyramid of rice set upon cocoanut leaves. Each guest helps himself to a handful of rice and eats it. After this mark of friendship the bride approaches the bridegroom; each of them has made three or four little balls of rice and cocoanut, which they exchange and swallow like pills. The bridegroom presents the bride with a piece of white linen cloth and the ceremony is complete.

"The matter was soon arranged. On my side I gave her father four elephants' tusks and he gave me a bale of cinnamion. An astrologer fixed the day of our marriage. When it arrived we ate our handfuls of rice, after which I swallowed tw^o little balls which the charming Nahi-NavaNahina had prepared for me. I gave her a piece of cloth as white as snow, and we were married.

"'The custom in Ceylon is for the married couple to be conducted separately to the nuptial chamber, the wife first, the husband aftersvards. They are led there in solemn procession to the sound of cymbals, drums and tom-toms, with half the population of the place in attendance.

"I had had the marriage-chamber arranged to the best of my ability. At ten o'clock in the evening the village came for the fair Nahi-Nava-Nahina, who started for my house after throwing me a last look—and what a look!

"I was dying to follow her, but time had to be allowed her girl companions to conduct the bride home and put her to bed. So I perforce remained another half hour at my father-in-law's. He proposed a game of draughts to pass the time—as if I were likely to be in a state of mind for such an amusement!

"At last my turn came. I set out at a pace my comrades had all the difficulty in the world to keep up with. On the threshold I found the village girls dancing and singing, and raising Cain generally. They tried to block my way, but, Lord Almighty! I should have forced a passage through a square of infantry under the circumstances.

"I entered the' room. The lights had been extinguished, but I could hear a soft sound of breathing, gentle as a summer breeze, which guided me to the bed.

"I was just thinking that Nahi-NavaNahina's first five husbands must have been a sort of gentlemen very hard to please, when all of a sudden I heard a voice that sent a shudder through me from head to foot.

"'Ah—h—h!' the voice began, heaving a long-drawn sigh.

"'Eh, what? ' I cried, springing up in bed.

"'Yes, yes! it is I,' continued the same voice.

"'What, you, the Buchold?'

"'Why, certainly.'

"At that very moment, sir, a moonbeam shot through the window and made the room as light as day,

"'My dear,' went on the Buchold, 'I have come to tell you the news, that for two months now you have had a son. I have called him Joachim, after the Saint I who presides over the day he was born.';

"'I have had a son for two months I now?' I cried. 'Why, how can that be? we have only been married nine.'

"'You know very well, dear, there are such things as premature confinements,