Marietta's head was aching and she felt as if the hard, hot fingers of
some evil demon were pressing her eyeballs down into their sockets. She
sat in an inner chamber, to which only women were admitted. There she
sat, in a sort of state, a circlet of gold set upon her loosened hair,
her dress all of embroidered white silk, her shoulders covered with a
wide mantle of green and gold brocade that fell in heavy folds to the
floor. She wore many jewels, too, such as she would not have worn in
public before her marriage. They had belonged to her mother, like the
mantle, and were now brought out for the first time. It was very hot,
but the windows were shut lest the sound of the good ladies' voices
should be heard without; for the news that Marietta was to be married
had suddenly gone abroad through Murano, and all the idlers, and the men
from the furnaces, where no work was done on Sunday, as well as all the
poor, were assembled on the footway and the bridge, and in the narrow
alleys round the house. They all pushed and jostled each other to see
Beroviero's friends and relations, as they emerged from beneath the
black 'felse' of their gondolas to enter the house. In the hall the
guests divided, and the men gathered in a large lower chamber, while the
women went upstairs to offer their congratulations to Marietta, with
many set compliments upon her beauty, her clothes and her jewels, and
even with occasional flattering allusions to the vast dowry her husband
was to receive with her.
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