Athalie hears her mother scream. Well, she generally screams even when she is talking quietly.
"Do see what has happened," says Athalie to her bridegroom.
The captain goes out, and Athalie remains alone with Timéa, the suppressed whispering grows louder. At last even Athalie becomes uneasy.
The bridegroom returns. He remains standing at the open door, and says thence to his bride, "Herr Brazovics is dead."
The bride throws her arms into the air and falls swooning backward. If Timéa had not caught her in her arms, she would have struck her head on the marble table behind her. The lovely, haughty face of the bride is whiter even than Timéa's; and Timéa, while she holds Athalie's head on her breast, thinks, "See how the beautiful wedding-dress lies in the dust!"
The bridegroom stands at the door and looks at Timéa, then turning away suddenly, he leaves the house amid the universal confusion.
He does not even take the trouble to lift his bride from the ground.
"How the beautiful dress lies in the dust!"
Instead of the wedding feast there followed the funeral banquet, and in the place of the embroidered robe came the mourning garments.
Black! The color which makes rich and poor alike.
Athalie and Timéa were dressed alike in black. And if the mourning had consisted only in the wearing of its outward garb! But with the sudden death of Herr Athanas, all the birds of ill omen had collected, as the ravens come and sit in long lines on the roof before a great storm.
The first croak was, that the bridegroom sent back his engagement-ring. He did not appear at the funeral to lend his bride a supporting arm as she followed the coffin half fainting; for in this little town it was the custom that the mourners, whether gentle or simple, should follow their dead on foot and with bare heads to the burial-ground.
There were some who blamed this course of action in Katschuka, and did not consider it an excuse that, as Herr Brazovics had not kept to the condition of handing over the dowry beforehand, the bridegroom was justified in considering himself freed from his obligations. There are a few narrow-minded people who can find no excuse for such a withdrawal. Then came the ravens and sat on the roof. One creditor after another appeared and demanded his money. And then the whole house of cards collapsed.