So, notwithstanding Cissie's efforts at simplicity, the
wedding, after all, was resolved into an affair.
Once, in one of her moments of clairvoyance, Cissie said to Peter:
"Our trouble is, Peter, we are trying to mix what I have learned in
Nashville and what you have learned in Boston with what we both feel in
Hooker's Bend. I--I'm almost ashamed to say it, but I don't really feel
sad and plaintive at all, Peter. I feel glad, gloriously glad. Oh, my
dear, dear Peter!" and she flung her arms around Peter's neck and held
him with all her might against her ripening bosom.
To Cissie her theft, her jail sentence, her pregnancy, were nothing more
than if she had taken a sip of water. However, with the imitativeness of
her race and the histrionic ability of her sex, she appeared pensive and
subdued during the elaborate double-ring ceremony performed by the
Reverend Cleotus Haidus. Nobody in the packed church knew how
tremendously Cissie's heart was beating except Peter, who held her hand.
The ethical engine that Peter had patiently builded in Harvard almost
ceased to function in this weird morality of Niggertown.
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