es. I will accompany you Signor Amadeo, for I fear that you will lose
all command over yourself, and that you will require some one to
restrain you. He might have proved right had not the wedding guests,
and the bridal couple entered the church before we reached it, and the
crowd been so great that they stood pressed together, spreading over
the Piazza far beyond the church portal.

I bitterly reproached the old man for having deceived me with regard to
the hour, but he vehemently asserted his innocence, and his ignorance
of the hour.

So we waited amongst the crowd, and the sound of the bells, which were
ringing loudly, lulled me into my former state of dull torpor. Suddenly
the cry arose: "Here they come!" I should have sunk down had not Fabio
supported me. I kept myself up, so to speak, by fastening my eyes to
the church door, whence she was to issue forth. When she at last
appeared I was surprised that I could bear the sight, that it even
calmed me, although her husband was walking beside her. He was just the
man I had expected to see from Fabio's description. A creature I could
have felled to the ground at one blow. A smile hovered on his worn
features which made my blood boil. He nodded with a triumphant, and
lofty air to the people around him, and stroked the fair moustache on
his thin upper lip.

She passed through the crowd without looking up, the expression of her
face was inscrutable, and her eyes were veiled by her long lashes. A
child offered her a bunch of flowers; she took it into her arms, and
kissed it, and I could even perceive a smile on her lips. Had not the
distance been so great, and Fabio watching me I should have pushed my
way through the crowd, and asked her how she dared to smile on such a
day. But the smile had vanished while I was reflecting on it.

They got into their carriage, and drove off, followed by the parents of
the bride. The old General bending under the weight of his grief, at
the side of his proud young wife. Then came all the dignitaries of the
church who frequented the house.

"The Archbishop performed the ceremony," said an old woman beside me.
"She would not marry him at first, but they say that the holy father
himself urged her to it. Nothing more has been heard about that other
one, the Lutheran."--"Aye, aye," replied another woman; "it seems that
his sister has died, that is the just penalty for refusing to abjure
his heresy."--And so their foolish talk went on around