Attila to harm ‘le mie superbe citta,’ could wake the little boy up.  The night wore on.  It was past one.  Eustace and I had promised to be in the church of the Gesuati at six next morning.  We therefore gave the guests a gentle hint, which they as gently took.  With exquisite, because perfectly unaffected, breeding they sank for a few moments into common conversation, then wrapped the children up, and took their leave.  It was an uncomfortable, warm, wet night of sullen scirocco.

The next day, which was Sunday, Francesco called me at five.  There was no visible sunrise that cheerless damp October morning.  Grey dawn stole somehow imperceptibly between the veil of clouds and leaden waters, as my friend and I, well sheltered by our felze, passed into the Giudecca, and took our station before the church of the Gesuati.  A few women from the neighbouring streets and courts crossed the bridges in draggled petticoats on their way to first mass.  A few men, shouldering their jackets, lounged along the Zattere, opened the great green doors, and entered.  Then suddenly Antonio cried out that the bridal party was on its way, not as we had expected, in boats, but on foot.  We left our gondola, and fell into the ranks, after shaking hands with Francesco, who is the elder brother of the bride.  There was nothing very noticeable in her appearance, except her large dark eyes.  Otherwise both face and figure were of a common type; and her bridal dress of sprigged grey silk, large veil and orange blossoms, reduced her to the level of a bourgeoise.  It was much the same with the bridegroom.  His features, indeed, proved him a true Venetian gondolier; for the skin was strained over the cheekbones, and the muscles of the throat beneath the jaws stood out like cords, and the bright blue eyes were deep-set beneath a spare brown forehead.  But 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.