The company missed several damsels, but the report went round that they were engaged in helping dress the bride. It was not long before she made her appearance, in a modest but elegant dark blue woollen dress trimmed with black velvet; she also wore the bridegroom's costly jewels, and a bunch of orange flowers in her bosom.
When she entered the parlor, all the women kissed her, with the exception of her aunt, who, at the sight of the dress she wore, felt the terrible wound that she had received the evening before, open again. Maximina glanced at her timidly three or four times, and went of her own accord to kiss her. But she did not once look in the direction of Miguel, who, on the other hand, devoured her with his eyes, thoroughly understanding the feeling of bashfulness that possessed her in spite of her feigned calmness.
The artistic young girls who had adorned her were far from satisfied with their work. They evidently felt tortured by those keen though insidious doubts that always attack the poet or painter during the last moments of creation. After they were all seated in their places, one would jump up and trip over deftly to set the diamond pin farther back, and another would approach her and give the sprig of orange blossoms "the least bit of a twist"; another would find it necessary slightly to rearrange the hair; and still another would smooth out a wrinkle in the dress, and another adjust it about the neck. In fact, there was a constant coming and going. Maximina allowed them to do as they pleased, and for all their efforts she thanked them with a smile.
"See here, Don Miguel, you have not been to confession yet, have you?" inquired Doña Rosalía.
"No; that is a fact: no one reminded me of it," replied the young man, suddenly rising. "And Maximina?"
"I have already been."
"Then let us be about it, gentlemen!"
As he went out, he again gave Maximina a keen glance, which the girl pretended not to notice.
As yet not even the first gleams of daylight tinged the eastern sky; it is true it had grown cloudy during the night, and the rain was still falling. With umbrella spread, and muffled in their great-coats, Miguel and Don Valentín made their way along the deserted street.
Never had starry and diaphanous night in August seemed more beautiful to our hero: this early morning chill, damp and melancholy, remained graven on his heart as the loveliest of his life. The church offered a still more gloomy and lugubrious spectacle.