-Viii- · V

The wedding took place when the papal dispensation arrived, toward the end of August. The indispensable requirements were not lacking: mutual compliments, presents from friends and relatives, boxes of sweets highly decorated for distribution, a good trousseau of household linen, the wedding finery arrived from Madrid in a monstrous packing-case. Two or three days before the ceremony a little packet from Segovia was received, and inside it a case. It contained a very plain gold ring and a card representing a visiting card, which said: ‘To my unforgettable sister Marcelina, from her most loving brother, Gabriel.’ The bride wept a good deal over the gift from her boy, placed it upon the little finger of her left hand, and there it was joined by the other ring with which they wedded her in church.

They were married at dusk, in a solitary parish church. The bride was dressed in rich black grosgrain, with a lace mantilla and a set of diamonds. On their return there were refreshments for the family and intimate friends only: refreshments in the old Spanish style, with syrups, ices, chocolate, generous wine, biscuits, and a great variety of sweets, all served on solid silver salvers and trays, with great etiquette and decorum. No flowers adorned the table, unless it were the cloth roses of the cakes or baskets of almond paste; two candelabra with wax candles, tall as the tapers of a catafalque, lent solemnity to the dining-room; and the guests, still chilled by the awe inspired by the terrible sacrament of matrimony seen close at hand, spoke in low voices, just as at a funeral, taking care to avoid even the clatter of teaspoons against the china of the plates. It looked like the last meal of prisoners condemned to death. True it is that Señor Don Nemesio Angulo, an ecclesiastic exceedingly courteous and affable, an old friend and crony of Don Manuel and the author of the happiness of the couple whom he had just blessed, tried to drop two or three playful remarks in a decorously jovial tone to enliven the assembly somewhat; but his efforts broke against the seriousness of those present. All were—it is the stereotyped phrase—deeply affected, including the young master of Formoseda, who was perhaps thinking, ‘When your neighbor’s beard is on fire...’, and Julián, who, seeing his ardent desires and prayers fulfilled and his candidate triumphant, felt nevertheless a strange weight at his heart, as though some cruel presentiment were crushing it.

Serious and attentive, the bride waited upon and served everyone; two or three times her unsteady pulse caused her to spill the Pajarete wine she was pouring for the good Don Nemesio, placed in the seat of honor on her right. The bridegroom meanwhile conversed with the men, and on rising from table distributed excellent cigars with which his case was crammed. No one alluded to the momentous event, nor ventured to utter the slightest joke that might make the bride blush; but on the guests taking leave, some gentlemen laid malicious emphasis upon their good nights, while matrons and maidens, noisily kissing the bride, squeaked in her ear: ‘Farewell, señora.... Now you are señora, it is no longer possible to call you señorita...’, celebrating so trivial an observation with affected laughter, and looking at Nucha as if to learn her by heart. When all had departed, Don Manuel Pardo approached his daughter and pressed her to his colossal breast, sealing her forehead with very affectionate kisses. The Lord of Lage was really moved: it was the first time he had married off a daughter; he felt paternity overflowing in his soul, and taking Nucha by the hand to lead her to the nuptial chamber, while Misía Rosario lighted their way with a five-branched candelabrum taken from the dining table, he was unable to utter a word, a little moisture appeared at the corners of his dry eyes, and a smile of pride and pleasure parted his lips at the same time. On the threshold he was able to exclaim at last:

“If your mother, who is in glory, could raise her head on such a day as this!”

Two candles were burning upon the dressing-table of the chamber, placed in candlesticks no less tall and majestic than the candelabra of the collation; and as no other light illuminated it, nor had anyone so much as dreamed of the classic porcelain globe which is de rigueur in every voluptuous boudoir of a novel, a religious rather than a nuptial mystery impregnated the bedchamber, its analogy with a chapel or oratory being completed by the shape of the nuptial couch, whose curtains of red damask fringed with gold were exactly like church hangings, and whose snowy sheets, smooth and starched, with insertions and lace, possessed the chaste smoothness of altar cloths. When her father was already withdrawing, murmuring, ‘Farewell, Nuchiña, dear daughter,’ the bride seized his right hand and kissed it humbly, with dry lips burning with fever. She was left alone. She trembled like a leaf upon the tree, and through her twitching nerves ran at every moment the chill of the little death, not from reasoned and conscious fear, but from a certain indefinable and sacred dread. It seemed to her that that room where so imposing a silence reigned, where the lights burned so tall and grave, was the very temple wherein not two hours before she had knelt.... She knelt once more, descrying yonder in the shadow at the head of the bed the ancient crucifix of ebony and ivory, over which the curtains formed a severe canopy. Her lips murmured the customary nightly prayer: ‘An Our Father for the soul of mama...’. Heavy footsteps were heard in the corridor, the creaking of brand-new boots, and the door opened.