After the function had begun he glanced two or three times at Vittoria almost questioningly, for according to Italian tradition he had not led her to the altar. As she had no father alive she had been brought by her eldest brother, and at the house he had only exchanged a rapid greeting in the presence of everybody. Marco looked at his bride to read her thoughts and measure her emotions, but Vittoria’s face, in its indefinably white and virginal purity, had the virtue of never, or scarcely ever, revealing the secret which was weighing on the mind. She kept her eyes bent over the pages of her Prayer-book, and, as she repeated the words of the prayers, her delicate and sinuous lips, accustomed to silence and mystery, scarcely seemed to move.
The special moment arrived. Interrupting the Mass, after the first Gospel, before the Elevation, the celebrant turned to the couple and summoned them to him. They rose from their knees, and mounted the two steps of the sanctuary, where they prostrated themselves. Fabrizio Ottobone, the master of the ceremonies, placed himself beside them, a tall, thin old man, with flowing whiskers, and in spite of his age a very good figure. The usual form of marriage rite proceeded very slowly. Vittoria’s right hand was still gloved, and at a word whispered in her ear by Fabrizio Ottobone, she tried to take the glove off quickly. Not succeeding she tore at it and stripped it off her fingers, and at last the little right hand was stretched on that of Marco Fiore’s. The priest pronounced the sacred words which demand the assent of the man and the woman, and when obtained he declared them united in the name of God. The little hand was closed in Marco’s; he felt it tremble like a leaf. He pressed it in vain, as if to give it the strength of a promise and the support of an oath, and yet the little hand trembled incessantly.
Marco looked at his wife intently. On her pure face, in every beautiful line, in the fold of the fine taciturn mouth, and in the limpid and clear eyes he read in a flash such anguish mixed with hope; he read there anxiety, uncertainty, and fear, so that all his man’s heart filled with pity for her loving, suffering, and fearing. An immense pity welled in his heart, and not being able at that moment to speak a single word to her, he bent his head and prayed with all his might to have the power to console the woman who loved him.
Meanwhile, after completing the nuptial union, the priest stepped back to the altar to continue the Mass, and the couple, now bound for life, returned to their places. The organ again played music well known to all feeling souls. After the first chords from the invisible organist had sounded a cantor took his place, also invisible, but whose sonorous voice diffused itself throughout the church, and was listened to with a sigh of satisfaction by those who recognised the sympathetic timbre of a well-known tenor. He sang the aria di chiesa of Alessandro Stradella. It is a prayer offered to a God of clemency and mercy, but it is one of those musical prayers more vibrant in its mortal sadness than the human voice in its emotional notes can pour forth. With the complacency of an artiste, and perhaps with sincerity, the famous singer lent to the lament of Stradella an emphasis more sorrowful and harrowing than ever. The listeners were taken and subdued by it. Some turned anxiously to the organ; several women in particular became pale with emotion, and their eyes were clouded by tears.
Behind her soft veil Vittoria Casalta let her tears fall silently one by one down her cheeks, nor did she make the slightest attempt to dry them, and only Marco could see that silent weeping. He leant towards her a little.
“Vittoria, don’t cry.”
She made no reply, only a slight movement of the hand to ask his silence, to ask him not to bother about her crying. He became silent. But up above the unseen, but not unknown, singer kept on singing passionately the prayer, so singular for a wedding-day, with its peculiar and painful words: “Pietà, Signore, di me dolente.” Again all hearts were touched and all souls secretly struck, for there were in that society, rich and almost scintillating with exterior happiness, and among those exquisitely dressed women covered with jewels, many who had suffered, and all such felt the power of the melody, where the soul cries to her God in waves of agony.
The bride continued to weep silently.
“Vittoria, you must not cry!” murmured Marco Fiore softly, but with virile energy in his low voice. She made a slight nod of obedience; gradually her tears dried, and her face became composed. Stradella’s air was finished, the song gave forth its last sobs, and silence reigned again. But in the silence there was a sigh of bitterness from some breast still oppressed; among the rest almost a feeling of relief and a subdued whispering.
“What a singer, that Varisco!”