Her croakings made Ragna uncomfortable, and she avoided Carolina to the serving-maid's intense distress.
Meanwhile time was passing and the wedding day arrived. Egidio and Ragna accompanied by Ferrati and his wife, Agosti, a Neapolitan friend of Egidio's who was to be second witness, and the weeping Carolina bringing up the rear, made up the small cortège. It was a hot morning and the city was deserted. A few idle facchini and women of the people followed them up to the Sala de' matrimoni, where a wheezy clerk read through the marriage contract, and a bored, perspiring official representing the absent Sindaco put the questions to the pair. As Ragna rose from her red velvet armchair to answer, it seemed to her that she must be dreaming. The dry rapid reading, the abrupt, indifferent manner of the official, the darkened musty hall, traversed by a stray beam of sunlight in which dust motes danced—could this be her wedding? Mechanically she answered and when told to do so, signed her name in the registers under Egidio's; Ferrati and Agosti signed also, then the official gave her a copy of the certificate and wished her happiness. As in a trance she descended the stair, on Egidio's arm, and heard him say:
"You are my wife now, Ragna, you have promised to obey me and follow me everywhere—to the world's end—to Hell if I lead the way!"
An oppression stopped her breathing, her head swam, the premonition came over her that not to Hell would she follow the man at her side, but through a daily, living Hell, to the end of her life. She stumbled and would have fallen, but Egidio sustained her, and Ferrati hurrying forward caught her other arm.
"Poor child," he said, "it is the emotion and the heat, she is quite overcome! Let us get her quickly to the carriage!"
So, half supporting, half carrying her, they reached the landau, waiting below in the courtyard. Virginia would have taken the place beside Ragna but Egidio thrust her aside, and himself took the girl's head on his shoulder, and held the smelling salts to her nose.
"See," said Ferrati to his wife, "how fond he is of her!"
Virginia held her peace, but inwardly thought, "All for the gallery!"
In this she was not quite right, as Egidio, for the moment, was thoroughly honest in his anxiety for Ragna. She was his wife, his possession, his chattel; he loved her for the moment because she was fair to look upon, but above all because she was newly his.
Ragna's faintness soon passed off, and crushing down her presentiment as silly weakness, she smiled up into her husband's face. Agosti came forward, hat in hand, wished them happiness and went his ways; Ferrati and Virginia took their places facing the pair, as Egidio still refused to relinquish his post by Ragna's side—a malicious desire to annoy Virginia had something to do with this, perhaps—and they drove to Ferrati's house where luncheon was spread. In spite of all efforts on the part of Ferrati it was but a half-earted affair, and all felt relieved when at the close Virginia carried Ragna off to her room to rest. They were all to dine together at the restaurant of the "Due Terrazze," and then the newly wedded couple were to go to the apartment Egidio had taken in the Via Serragli.