Iolanthe's Wedding Part 8

And still laughing he ran out of the room.

I finished my cigar, much depressed. Afterwards, I thought, I would go on a round of inspection through the renovated rooms.

In front of the bedroom door my sister caught me just as she was having her luggage carried away.

"No admission here," she said. "This is to be a surprise to both of you."

Both of us?

Silly!

About eleven o'clock I started dressing. My coat cut into my shoulders.

My boots pinched me on the b.a.l.l.s of my feet. For thirty years I had been suffering from gout--a sequel to the Putz punches. My s.h.i.+rt bosom stiff as a board, necktie too short, everything awful.

About two o'clock I drove to the bride's home, where the wedding was to be celebrated.

And now, gentlemen, comes a dream, or rather a nightmare, with all the sensations of choking, of being strangled, of sinking into a pit.

And yet full of happy moments, when I thought, "Everything will be all right. You have your good heart and your fine intentions. You will spread a carpet for her to tread on. She will walk the earth like a queen and never notice her chains."

While one coach after another came rolling into the courtyard and a gallery of strange faces crowded at the windows, I ran about the garden like one possessed, spattering my new fine patent leathers with mud, and letting the tears run freely down my cheeks.

But that pleasure was cut short. They were calling out for me everywhere.

I went into the house. The old man, beside himself with glee at seeing as his guests all his old adversaries, men he had had tilts with, or had insulted, or cheated, was running from one to the other, pressing everybody's hand and swearing eternal friends.h.i.+p.

I wanted to say "How do you do" to a couple of friends but I was pushed with a great halloo into a room where they said my bride was awaiting me.

There she stood.

In white silk--bridal veil like a lighted cloud around her--myrtle wreath black and spiny on her hair--like a crown of thorns.

I had to shut my eyes for a second, she was so beautiful.

Stretching her hands out toward me she said:

"Are you satisfied?" And she looked at me gently with an expression of self-surrender; and her face with the smile it wore seemed like a marble mask.

Then I was overcome with happiness and a sense of guilt. I felt like dropping down on my knees and begging to be forgiven for having dared to want her for myself. But I was ashamed to. Her mother was standing behind her and her bridesmaids and other stupid things were also there.

I mumbled something that I myself did not understand, and because I did not know what else to say, I walked up and down in front of her and kept b.u.t.toning and unb.u.t.toning my gloves.

My mother-in-law, who herself did not know what to say, smoothed down the folds of Iolanthe's veil and looked at me from the corner of her eye half reproachfully, half encouragingly.

At every turn I ran into a mirror, and--w.i.l.l.y-nilly--I had to see myself--my bald forehead, my lobster-coloured cheeks with the heavy folds running into my chin, and the wart under the left corner of my mouth. I saw my collar, which was much too tight--even the widest girthed collar had not been wide enough--and I saw my grubby red neck bulging over my collar all around like a wreath.

I saw all that, and at each turn I was shaken with a mixed feeling of madness and honesty, that I ought to cry out to her, "Have pity on yourself! There is time yet. Let me go."

You must remember there were no such things as civil weddings at that time yet.

I should never have brought myself to the point of saying it even if I had kept walking to and fro for a thousand years. Nevertheless, when the old man came sidling in, watchful as a weasel, to say, "Come along, the pastor is waiting!" I felt injured, as though some deep-laid plan of mine had been thwarted.

I offered Iolanthe my arm. The folding doors were pulled open.

Faces! Faces! Endless ma.s.ses of faces! As if glued to one another. And all of them leered at me as if to say:

"Hanckel, you are making an a.s.s of yourself."

An avenue formed itself between them, and we walked down the avenue while I kept thinking in the deathlike silence, "Strange that n.o.body bursts out laughing."

So we reached the altar, which the old man had constructed with awful skill of a large packing box covered with red bunting. And quite an exhibition of flowers and candles on it, with a crucifix in the middle, as at a funeral.

The pastor was standing in front of us. He put on his solemn ministerial air and stroked back the wide sleeves of his vestment like a sleight-of-hand man about to begin his tricks.

First a hymn--five stanzas--then the sermon.

I have not the slightest idea what the pastor said, for suddenly a perverse thought entered my brain and became a fixed idea not to be shaken off.

She will say, "No!"

And the nearer we drew to the decisive moment the more the anguish of that thought throttled me. Finally I had not the least doubt in the world that she would say "No."

Gentlemen, she said "Yes."

I heaved a sigh of relief, like a criminal who has just heard the verdict "Not guilty."

And now the strangest thing of all.

Scarcely had the word crossed her lips and the fear of humiliation been lifted from my soul than I began to wish, "Oh, if only she had said 'No'."

After the Amen there were congratulations without end. I shook one hand after another with genuine fervour. "Thank you" here, "Thank you"

there. I was grateful from the bottom of my heart to every fellow there because in antic.i.p.ation of the excellent food and drink to follow he bestowed his polite congratulations upon me.

Only one person was missing--Lothar.

He stood in the back row looking quite sallow, as though he were hungry or felt bored.

"There he is, Iolanthe," I said and caught hold of him. "Lothar Putz--Putz's only son--my own boy. Shake hands with him. Call him Lothar!" She still hesitated, so I placed her hand in his and thought to myself, "Thank G.o.d he is here. He will help us over many a difficult hour."

Please don't smile, gentlemen. You think that in the course of my married life a love relation slowly developed between the two young people. Not a bit of it.

Just a little patience. Something very different is going to come.

Well, to proceed. We went to table.

Everything according to form and in abundance. Flowers, silverware, baumkuchen.

To begin with, a little gla.s.s of sherry to warm up your stomach. The sherry was good but the gla.s.s was small and I could not see any more sherry about.