Boots creaked, gowns rustled. The carriages began to clatter through the streets again.
The laughter of young people. Not very loud. Hiding something sweet and indefinably solemn. She was only fourteen. She had nothing but her thin little feelings, which, however, kept her straight and haughty as an Infanta. By leaning over slightly she succeeded in seeing the bride. The bride ... the white word flitted about her like a light ball.... But straightway she saw the bride her eyes fell. The same emotion had surprised her on Sunday at mass when she saw the host rise in a beam of light, and also when she listened to the hand-organ grind out arias. Ecstasy leapt within her and hope sang: "Me too some day...."
The last carriage kept behind; a low coupé with drawn shades. A stiffly wired bouquet shed its fragrance within. As it sped rapidly by, heads turned around for a long look and for the sake of the virginal memory it left behind.
I was in that last speeding carriage. I had obeyed my mother's entreaties, I had agreed to figure in this masquerade.
So as not to rumple my fairy dress I forced myself not to make a movement but to remain impassive and avoid the least little stir. It was my rôle to receive the host of looks converging upon me as if levelled at a target, hard and fast, crowding, curious. I confess that beneath my snowy veil and sanctified air I lent myself to the situation with a bit of vanity.
It takes me a long time to undress. My bridal costume is fastened by a thousand hidden snaps and pins. I have trouble in getting out of it.
My room frightens me. "Take possession of us," say the chairs and tables. "Act, command, try your hand, you are in your own home, it is your life which is arising, we are watching you. What are you going to do?"
The more the furniture goads, the heavier the languor that settles upon me, the less I know, the less I advance. In vain I summon to my aid ideas from without; none takes hold. I repeat, for example, that this is the test of both of us, the beginning of our union. I fancy myself clutching at resolutions, but they fall back at my approach and sink routed into the folds of the curtains. Is it really necessary to struggle? Wouldn't it be better to put my head in my hands and drop into the softness and restfulness of my new armchair?