In and Around Berlin | Page 9

and light German complexion of the younger ladies. She was in a dress of garnet silk, fitting perfectly her tall and graceful form. The bridesmaids took the six chairs on the right of the altar, facing the audience and before the mass of greenery, which made an effective background for so much youth, beauty, and elegance; and the groomsmen took the corresponding chairs on the left. The mother and uncle parted at the steps below the altar, she taking the first chair on the right, and he on the left, with the central aisle between them. Next came two elderly ladies, in dark silk with long trains, with uncovered and ornamented hair, and white shoulder-shawls of silk or wool, each with a gentleman; and they were seated to the right and left respectively. The bride's eldest married sister came next, in a splendid robe of blue satin, with a long train, looking very young and distingué. She and her husband filed to the right and left, as the others had done. The second married sister of the bride followed, in a similar dress of pink satin; and her very handsome husband, in his full military suit, was a decided addition to the courtly-looking assemblage. These five ladies filled the front row of chairs on one side, as did the gentlemen accompanying them on the other side. Eight other ladies, all in full dress,--one wearing an ermine cape,--followed, each with a gentleman; and these were seated in the second row.
When for a few brief moments I first caught sight of all this elegance, I felt as though I were in a dream; then came a rush of emotion, because I loved the fair young bride, and was touched at the thought of the solemn place in which she stood,--forsaking home and friends and native land to go to what seems to these home-dwelling Germans a far, strange country, all for the sake of a young man whom a year ago she had never seen. I was as sorry for the mother, too, as I could be for one so handsome and so dignified. How fast one feels and thinks in such a time! Before the hush which followed the procession and the temporary change while all were finding their appropriate seats, the feeling of sympathy had given place to one of stimulated imagination, and this dim old soldiers' church, with the majestic music filling all its spaces, seemed merely the setting for some scene at a royal court in the olden time, where beauty and brilliance and grandeur were a matter of course.
The music ceased, all present rose, while Pastor Frommel read a brief service from the book, and said "Amen." Then we sat down again, and the pastor preached the wedding sermon, which we were told is a matter of course at a German marriage. The sermon over, the bride and groom stood up before him, and he looked down with a fatherly glance upon the bride whom he took into his own house to prepare for confirmation only a few short years ago, and whom he is now to send with his marriage benediction across the sea. In a sweet, calm voice he addressed them; then the bride hands her bouquet to her sister bridesmaid sitting near, and removes her own glove; the groom takes from his pocket a ring, and gives it to the minister, who places it on the bride's finger, speaking a few solemn sentences, of which only the last reaches my ears: "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." For the first time in the service, the bride and groom kneel before him who bends over them; then follows a prayer, and it is finished. They rise, and are seated an instant; then rise again as the pastor gives his hand in congratulation to the groom; and when he places his hand with a few words in that of the bride, she bends low over it and kisses it in a pathetic farewell. The pastor goes first. The bride and groom bow in silent devotion before the altar until the time seems a little long, then turn and come down the aisle, followed by their retinue as they went in, but twain no more. The mother wiped away a tear quietly once or twice during the service, the unmarried sister bridesmaid looked as sweet and calm as always she does at home, but the bride, silently taking farewell of friends and native land, was deeply moved. No one had any voice for the printed hymn, and the organ alone supplied its music. The newly married couple went in the first carriage which rolled homewards, the others followed without observing precedence, and a small and quiet home reception closed the day.
In a family