r white and floral-fragrant retinue. And the anthem
scatters its notes as with handfuls of silver lilies before her feet;
her solemn advent arouses an emotion that quivers through all that whirl
of splendour, through the whole cathedral. Now, at last, appears the
fourth procession: the cardinal-archbishop, Primate of Liparia, with his
bishops and canons and chaplains; the high ecclesiastics take their
seats in the tall carved choir-stalls; the rite begins....

The sun seems to have waited till this moment to come shooting down,
through the tall, party-coloured, pointed windows, in which the life of
St. Ladislas glitters with its small, square, gem-like pictures,
shooting down in a slanting sheaf of rays upon the choir, upon the
priests, upon the canopies under which the majesties are sitting,
upon the bride-groom and bride.... And all the colours--the old
gold of the altar, the new gold of the uniforms, the brocades, the
crown-jewels--flame up as though the sun were setting them ablaze: one
fire of changing sparks which, together with the numberless candles on
the altar, suddenly irradiates the church. The diadems of the princesses
are like crowns of flame, the orders of the princes like a firmament of
stars. The acolytes swing incense which is wafted misty blue, delicate,
transparent in the sunshine; the sunshine filters through the blonde
lace veil of the kneeling bride, lights a glowing fire over her
white-and-silver train, illuminates her as with an apotheosis of light
that reflects a maidenly pallor upon her. Her bridegroom kneels beside
her, wholly enfolded in his blue robe, with on his arm the sheen of the
white cross. Both now hold long tapers in their hands. And the primate,
with his jewelled mitre and his stiff gold dalmatic covered with
jewelled scrolls, raises his eyes, spreads his hands on high and
stretches them in benediction above the bent imperial heads....

The chant swells high again: the _Te Deum laudamus_, as though the waves
of the voices were rising upon the waves of the organ, higher and
higher, up through the cathedral to the sky in one ecstasy of sacred
music. The old, granite, giant fabric seems to quiver with emotion, as
though the music became its soul, and sends forth over Altara from all
its bells a swelling sea of sound, bronze in the depths and molten out
of every metal into gold of crystal purity in the highest height of
audible sound....

An hour later. On the closed Cathedral Square