After the ceremony we heard mass and contributed to three distinct offertories.  Considering how much account even two soldi are to these poor people, I was really angry when I heard the copper shower.  Every member of the party had his or her pennies ready, and dropped them into the boxes.  Whether it was the effect of the bad morning, or the ugliness of a very ill-designed barocco building, or the fault of the fat oily priest, I know not.  But the sposalizio struck me as tame and cheerless, the mass as irreverent and vulgarly conducted.  At the same time there is something too impressive in the mass for any perfunctory performance to divest its symbolism of sublimity.  A Protestant Communion Service lends itself more easily to degradation by unworthiness in the minister.

We walked down the church in double file, led by the bride and bridegroom, who had knelt during the ceremony with the best man—­compare, as he is called—­at a narrow prie-dieu before the altar.  The compare is a person of distinction at these weddings.  He has to present the bride with a great pyramid of artificial flowers, which is placed before her at the marriage-feast, a packet of candles, and a box of bonbons.  The comfits, when the box is opened, are found to include two magnificent sugar babies lying in their cradles.  I was told that a compare, who does the thing handsomely, must be prepared to spend about a hundred francs upon these presents, in addition to the wine and cigars with which he treats his friends.  On this occasion the women were agreed that he had done his duty well.  He was a fat, wealthy little man, who lived by letting market-boats for hire on the Rialto.

From the church to the bride’s house was a walk of some three minutes.  On the way we were introduced to the father of the bride—­a very magnificent personage, with points of strong resemblance to Vittorio Emmanuele.  He wore an enormous broad-brimmed hat and emerald-green earrings, and looked considerably younger than his eldest son, Francesco.  Throughout the nozze he took the lead in a grand imperious fashion of his own.  Wherever he went, he seemed to fill the place, and was fully aware of his own importance.  In Florence I think he would have got the nickname of Tacchin, or turkey-cock.  Here at Venice the sons and daughters call their parent briefly Vecchio.  I heard him so addressed with a certain amount of awe, expecting an explosion of bubbly-jock displeasure.  But he took it, as though it was natural, without disturbance.  The other Vecchio, father of the bridegroom, struck me as more sympathetic.  He was a gentle old man, proud of his many prosperous, laborious sons.  They, like the rest of the gentlemen, were gondoliers.  Both the Vecchi, indeed, continue to ply their trade, day and night, at the traghetto.