Tables with refreshments have been set up on the village square. Around the tables stand stools with boards on them. On the boards are bedspreads. Everyone is in an elated mood at seeing the bountiful table. Everyone is happy for the young couple. Grandfather Luigi rolls a cigarette, takes it between his two fingers, and inhales. Hardened calluses prevent his fingers from bending. His face looks like pumice. He says he has never seen such a sumptuous wedding. His words come out with the smoke and seem steeped in antiquity.
Dual meaning of sumptuous in-context. He means the wedding is expensive and luxurious, but it also just comes after Francisca's vision of her ancestor's beheading while trying to reach Jerusalem to pray, meaning that the medieval word meaning of something being produced at a great cost is also true. I thought that was clever.
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