In a village, particularly, two people who robbed the community of its perquisites in this respect would be looked upon as "enemies of the people," and their joint life would begin under a social ban which it would cost much subsequent hospitality to remove.The dramatic instinct to which the life of towns is necessarily unfavourable, is kept alive in the country by the smallness of the stage and the fewness of the actors.A village is an organism, conscious of its several parts, as a town is not.
In a village everybody is a public man.The great events of his life are of public as well as private significance, appropriately, therefore, invested with public ceremonial.Thus used to living in the public eye, the actors carry off their parts at weddings and other dramatic ceremonials, with more spirit than is easy to a townsman, who is naturally made self-conscious by being suddenly called upon to fill for a day a public position for which he has had no training.That no doubt is the real reason for the growth of quiet marriages; and the desire for them, I suspect, comes first from the man, for there are few women who at heart do not prefer the old histrionic display.
However, the village wedding at which I suddenly found myself a spectator was, for a village, a singularly quiet one.There was no bell-ringing, and there were no bridesmaids.The bride drove up quietly with her father, and there was a subdued note even in the murmur of recognition which ran along the villagers as they stood in groups near the church porch.There was an absence of the usual hilarity which struck me.One might almost have said that there was a quite ominous silence.
Seating myself in a corner of the transept where I could see all and be little seen, I with the rest awaited the coming of the overdue bridegroom.Meanwhile the usual buzzing and bobbing of heads went on amongst the usual little group near the foot of the altar.Now and then one caught a glisten of tears through a widow's veil, and the little bride, dressed quietly in grey, talked with the usual nervous gaiety to her girl friends, and made the usual whispered confidences about her trousseau.The father, in occasional conversation with one and another, appeared to be avoiding the subject with the usual self-conscious solemnity, and occasionally he looked, somewhat anxiously, Ithought, towards the church door.The bridegroom did not keep us waiting long,--I noticed that he had a rather delicate sad face,--and presently the service began.
I don't know myself what getting married must feel like, but it cannot be much more exciting than watching other people getting married.Probably the spectators are more conscious of the impressive meaning of it all than the brave young people themselves.I say brave, for I am always struck by the courage of the two who thus gaily leap into the gulf of the unknown together, thus join hands over the inevitable, and put their signatures to the irrevocable.Indeed, I always get something like a palpitation of the heart just before the priest utters those final fateful words, "I declare you man and-- wife."Half a second before you were still free, half a second after you are bound for the term of your natural life.Half a second before you had only to dash the book from the priest's hands, and put your hand over his mouth, and though thus giddily swinging on the brink of the precipice, you are saved.Half a second after Not all the king's horses and all the king's men Can make you a bachelor ever again.
It is the knife-edge moment 'twixt time and eternity.
And, curiously enough, while my thoughts were thus running on towards the rapids of that swirling moment, the very thing happened which I had often imagined might happen to myself.
Suddenly, with a sob, the bridegroom covered his face with his hands, and crying, "I cannot! I cannot!" hurriedly left the church, tears streaming down his cheeks, to the complete dismay of the sad little group at the altar, and the consternation of all present.
"Poor young man! I thought he would never go through with it,"said an old woman half to herself, who was sitting near me.Iinvoluntarily looked my desire of explanation.
"Well, you see," she said, "he had been married before.His first wife died four years ago, and he loved her beyond all heaven and earth."That evening, I afterwards heard, the young bridegroom's body was found by some boys as they went to bathe in the river.As Irecalled once more that sad yearning face, and heard again that terrible "I cannot! I cannot!" I thought of Heine's son of Asra, who loved the Sultan's daughter.
"What is thy name, slave?" asked the princess, "and what thy race and birthplace?""My name," the young slave answered, "is Mahomet.I come from Yemen.My race is that of Asra, and when we love, we die."And likewise a voice kept saying in my heart, "If ever you find your Golden Bride, be sure she will die."
