ut
he had provided a complete suit of black for the occasion, and wore
a shirt of worked cambric, which disguised what is really splendid in
the physique of these oarsmen, at once slender and sinewy. Both bride
and bridegroom looked uncomfortable in their clothes. The light that
fell upon them in the church was dull and leaden. The ceremony, which
was very hurriedly performed by an unctuous priest, did not appear to
impress either of them. Nobody in the bridal party, crowding together
on both sides of the altar, looked as though the service was of the
slightest interest and moment. Indeed, this was hardly to be wondered
at; for the priest, so far as I could understand his gabble, took
the larger portion for read, after muttering the first words of the
rubric. A little carven image of an acolyte--a weird boy who seemed to
move by springs, whose hair had all the semblance of painted wood,
and whose complexion was white and red like a clown's--did not make
matters more intelligible by spasmodically clattering responses.

After the ceremony we heard mass and contributed to three distinct
offertories. Considering how much account even two _soldi_ are to
these poor people, I was really angry when I heard the copper shower.
Every member of the party had his or her pennies ready, and dropped
them into the boxes. Whether it was the effect of the bad morning, or
the ugliness of a very ill-designed _barocco_ building, or the
fault of the fat oily priest, I know not. But the _sposalizio_
struck me as tame and cheerless, the mass as irreverent and vulgarly
conducted. At the same time there is something too impressive in
the mass for any perfunctory performance to divest its symbolism of
sublimity. A Protestant Communion Service lends itself more easily to
degradation by unworthiness in the minister.

We walked down the church in double file, led by the bride and
bridegroom, who had knelt during the ceremony with the best
man--_compare_, as he is called--at a narrow _prie-dieu_ before the
altar. The _compare_ is a person of distinction at these weddings. He
has to present the bride with a great pyramid of artificial flowers,
which is placed before her at the marriage-feast, a packet of candles,
and a box of bonbons. The comfits, when the box is opened, are found
to include two magnificent sugar babies lying in their cradles. I was
told that a _compare_, who does the thing handsomely, must be prepared
to spend about a hundred francs