Alessandro Greco to the Author.
Marionette Theatre,
Piazza Nuova, Palermo,
4 June, 1909.
My dear Enrico,
Since I last wrote to you there has been a continual to-do and no time for writing letters. What has been the to-do? Is it possible you have forgotten my telling you that I am studying to be a singer and that I take lessons every day? Now listen to this: Here in Palermo, a new opera was performed recently for the benefit of the victims of the earthquake at Messina. The story was taken from a great German romance and the music was composed by an Italian who is now in America. I was asked to sing as a supplementary tenor. We had a month of rehearsals and in the end the performance was splendidly successful. O my dear friend! If you had seen me on the stage! I was dressed as a warrior with a wig of curly hair and a pair of moustaches. I also received applause, and, when I appeared before the audience to bow my acknowledgments, I thought: “Oh, if only my dear friend were present, how he would be applauding me!” You will understand after that whether I have had any time to write to you; but now that things have calmed down a little and there is less going on I can write to you as much as you like.
As you know, I am always busy in the teatrino; the other evening we repeated Samson, that play which you once saw here. If you will believe me, I was thinking of you the whole time because I remembered that when we gave it two years ago you were present.
Just now in the Story of the Paladins, Orlando is throwing away his arms and running about naked in the woods, mad for love of Angelica; and soon we shall have the burning of Bizerta and the destruction of the Africans. This will finish in July and we shall then begin the Story of Guido Santo.
What have you done with that photograph of myself which I gave you and which you put into your cigarette-case? Is still there, or have you lost it? I have often promised to send you another but have not done so because when you come to Palermo in September I hope we shall be photographed together, you and I. Nevertheless I send you this one now, it was taken by an English lady who came to the teatrino last summer; you see me getting into a rage with a paladin, I am talking seriously to him and swearing at him because he will not let me dress him properly.
I will not prolong this letter, I do not wish to bore you; but I promise you that I will never fail to let you know of my doings and I count on you to tell me of yours.
Costantino, Sansone, Rinaldo, Rosina, Angelica, FerraÙ, Pasquino, Onofrio and all the other marionettes embrace you and send you their kind regards.
I am and always shall be
Your affectionate friend
Alessandro Greco (Buffo).
On arriving at Palermo, I went to the teatrino at about ten at night; not seeing the buffo in his usual place keeping order at the door, I guessed he must be on the stage and, knowing the way, passed through the audience, dived under the proscenium, crept along a short passage, mounted a ladder and appeared among them unannounced. The father, the buffo and his brother, Gildo, were so much astonished that they dropped their marionettes all over the stage and shouted:
“When did you come?” “Why did you not write?” “Why did you not telegraph?”
Thereby spreading their astonishment among the audience, who saw no connection between these ejaculations and the exploits of Guido Santo. They soon recovered themselves, however, picked up their paladins and managed to bring the performance to its conclusion, and we shut the theatre and proceeded upstairs to the house. On the way the buffo took me aside into his workshop to show me two inflammable Turkish pavilions which he was making; Ettorina in her madness was to fire them in a few days, one in the afternoon and the other at the evening repetition, as a conclusion to the spectacle. I inquired:
“Who was Ettorina, and why did she go mad?”
“I will tell you presently,” replied the buffo, “we must first go upstairs.”
As we went up I asked after the singing and he promised to take me to the house of his professor to hear him have a lesson. Papa and Gildo had preceded us and we found them with the young ladies, Carolina and Carmela, and the child, Nina, who is as much a buffa as her brother Alessandro is a buffo. In a moment, the air was thick with compliments.
Papa: And how well you are looking! So much fatter than last year.
Myself (accepting the compliment): That is very kind of you. You are all looking very well also. Let me see, Buffo mio, how old are you now?
Alessandro: Guess.
Myself: Twenty-five.
Aless: Bravo. I completed my twenty-fifth year just three weeks ago. And you?
Myself: I have also completed my twenty-fifth year, but I did it more than three weeks ago.
Aless: I see. You have twenty-five years on one shoulder; and how many more on the other?
Myself: Twenty-five.
Aless: It seems to me you are making a habit of attaining twenty-five. Are you going to do it again?
Myself: I have begun, but I shall put off completing it as long as possible. If you want to know my exact age I will give you the materials for making the calculation. I went to the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Gildo: Tell us about it. I have often seen pictures of it in the illustrated papers, but I have never spoken to anyone who was there. Was it very beautiful? Were there many people? Did you see Queen Victoria?
Myself: I can’t tell you much about it. I was asleep and when I woke up I was so hungry that I cried till my mother took me into a side room and gave me my dinner. Then I went to sleep again until they took me home. I have been to many exhibitions since, but I never enjoyed one so much. You see, this one did not bore me.
Aless: You should not have had your dinner there. I went to the exhibition in Palermo and the food in the restaurant was not wholesome.
Gildo: Yes, but you must remember that Alessandro is very particular about his food. He can only eat the most delicate things and must have plenty of variety.
Myself: I did not have much variety in those days. I took my restaurant with me, the one at which I was having all my meals.
Gildo: Oh well, if one can afford to travel like a prince—
Myself: Gildo! I was not six weeks old and—
Papa: I have now made the calculation and I find you are my senior by six years. I hope that when I have caught you up I shall carry my age as lightly as you carry yours. Do I explain myself?
Aless (to me): I think you look older. I should have said you were a well-preserved man of sixty-four or (stretching a point in my favour) perhaps sixty-five.
Myself (feeling sure that here must be another compliment): Thank you very much.
Buffo: Not at all; it does you great credit.
Gildo: Now me, please. Ask me my age.
Myself: Well, Gildo, and how old are you?
Gildo: A hundred and seventy-four next birthday.
Myself: Santo Diavolo! You don’t look it. You must have been very busy since last autumn when, if I remember right, you were only twenty-one.
Carolina (tapping my right arm to attract my attention): Signor Enrico, Signor Enrico, why do you not ask me my age?
Carmela (tapping my left arm): Signor Enrico, Signor Enrico, you have not asked me my age.
Myself: Because I know how old you are. You are both of you the age that charming young ladies always are, and you do not look a day older.
Nina: I’m fourteen.
Caro and Carm (comparing notes): Did you hear what he said? He said we are charming young ladies.
Nina (insisting): I’m fourteen. Do I look it?
Myself: I can compliment you on looking a little older. Since last year you have grown out of being a child, but you have hardly yet grown into being a young lady like your sisters, though you are quite as charming.
Aless (taking the opportunity to begin): First you must know that Carlo Magno is now dead and the Pope is shut up in Paris and is being—
Caro: Signor Enrico, Signor Enrico, do you drink marsala in London?
Myself: Marsala is known in London, but we do not drink it every day as you do in Palermo.
Gildo: In England people drink tea; everything is so different in England.
Myself: That is quite true, Gildo. In England what is like that (holding my hand out with the palm up) in Sicily is like this (holding it with the palm down: Peppino Pampalone taught me this gesture).
Gildo: And that is why in London the people walk on their feet, whereas in Palermo they walk on their hands, as you have no doubt observed.
Aless: Si; e ecco perchÈ in Londra si mangia colla bocca, ma quÌ, in Palermo, si mangia nella maniera che ti farÒ vedere da un diavolo nel teatrino. But I was telling you about the Pope. He is shut up in Paris, where he is guarding the Christians against the—
Caro: Signor Enrico, do you ever see the sun in London?
Gildo: Yes, they see the sun in London, but only on three days of the week; on the other days they send it to be cleaned.
Carm: Then it is not the same sun as ours?
Gildo: It is a different sun. Our sun is made of gold and remains always bright. The sun of London is made of copper and, being constantly exposed to the air, it tarnishes more rapidly even than the breastplate of Carlo Magno, and you know what a lot of cleaning that wants.
Papa: All this is very interesting, but listen to me. I have something to say. When I was a boy at school—are you attending? Very well, then, I may proceed. When I was a boy at school, we had a professor who told us that in consequence of—
Caro: Signor Enrico, Signor Enrico, what is the English for Grazie?
Myself: It means Thank you.
Carm: Signor Enrico, Signor Enrico, what is the English for Buona notte?
Myself: Buona notte in English is Good night.
Aless:—and Paris is being besieged by four Turkish emperors, namely, Rodoferro di Siberia, Balestrazzo di Turgovia, Leofine di Cina and Bracilone d’Africa, and they have two hundred thousand men—
Gildo: Now me, please. Teach me to speak English. What did you say is the English for Grazie?
Myself: Thank you.
Gildo: And Buona notte?
Myself: Good night.
Gildo (tentatively): Thank you. Good night.
Myself: Bravo, very good.
Caro: What does that mean?
Myself: Very good means—
Papa:—and this professor of ours told us that in consequence of certain natural—do I explain myself?—of certain natural causes, it is rare for a human being to live more than one hundred years. It is therefore unlikely that—
Aless:—and Paris is being besieged by—
Myself: Yes, I know, Buffo, by four Turkish emperors and they have two hundred thousand men. I should think it must be rather a serious situation. But I want to hear about Ettorina.
Aless: It is a very serious situation, but do not be alarmed because—
Papa:—it is therefore unlikely that Gildo will ever reach the age of one hundred and seventy-four. Do I explain myself?
Caro: Signor Enrico, Come sta? what does it mean?
Myself: It means How do you do?
Caro (trying her hand): How do you do?
Myself: Brava. Very good.
(Nina did not ask to be taught English. She was following the conversation with sympathetic illustrative gestures not caring two straws whether anyone observed her, just as she did not care whether anyone observed that she was breathing; and, just as she could not stop breathing, so she appeared unable to stop her gestures. She was as incessant and as resourceful as the orchestra in HÄnsel and Gretel.)
Carm: Signor Enrico, Signor Enrico, Io t’amo.
Myself: Oh! but this is so sudden.
Aless:—do not be alarmed, because—
Carm: What does it mean in English?
Myself: Oh, I beg your pardon. It means—
Aless:—do not be alarmed, for it is the will of heaven that—
Papa: I may even go further and say it is unlikely that Gildo—
Caro: Signor Enrico, do you know what Carmela is doing?
Myself: She is making lace on a pillow, no doubt for her wedding trousseau.
Carm (demurely): Not for my wedding. No one will ever want to marry me.
Myself: Oh, come now, you don’t expect me to believe that?
Aless:—it is the will of heaven that they shall all escape—
Myself: Well, if this is not for you, perhaps it is for Carolina’s wedding?
Aless:—that they shall all escape to Montalbano—
Caro (demurely): Not for my wedding. I shall never marry. I shall stay at home and look after my dear papa and my dear brothers.
Nina (recklessly): That’s all very pretty, but I’m going to get married. (She was sitting on the edge of the table swinging her legs.)
Aless:—that they shall all escape to Montalbano through the subterranean road which the devils—
Myself: Why don’t you tell me about Ettorina? Come to Ettorina.
Aless: One moment, if you please—which the devils will make on Wednesday evening—
Carm: You have not yet told me what it is in English.
Myself: What what is in English?
Carm: Io t’amo.
(By the time I had given the information Papa, who had been proposing my health in a speech of which I caught little except an occasional Do I explain myself? had begun perorating towards a close and was about to crown his remarks with a brindisi in verse.)
Papa: Questa tavola—
Gildo (taking the words out of his mouth):
—oggi È assai piÙ bella.
Enrico! Bevo alla salute di tua sorella. [60]
Aless:—which the devils will make on Wednesday evening by command of Argantino the—
Papa (beginning again):
Questa tavola non È sporca ma È netta.
Enrico! mangia, e non dare a loro retta. [61a]
Myself (obediently taking a pear. It was a fine pear with a maggot in it; they wanted me to take another but I knew that those with maggots are usually the best. Not seeing why I should not be a poet also, I put it thus):
Animale
Non fa male. [61b]
Gildo (instantly raising his glass):
Ora che ho mangiato non sono piÙ a dieta;
Bevo alla salute d’Enrico che È poeta. [61c]
Aless:
Anch’io voglio brindar, da povero precoce,
Ad Enrico che sentir vuole la mia voce;
Da un anno non ti vedo, O caro fratello!
Vieni oggi, ti farÒ sentir l’Otello. [61d]
Myself (bowing my acknowledgments): Thank you very much.
Gildo: What did you say? Does that mean Good night? Is that what you said before?
Myself: Very much means Molto, Thank you means Grazie, and Good night means Buona notte.
Gildo: Let me try. Very much thank you good night?
Myself: Bravo, Gildo! You are making progress.
(Nina was not so much preoccupied with her comments as to be unable to take a line of her own when there was nothing particularly inspiring in the conversation and, just now, she had laid her head down in an empty plate and was unostentatiously putting out her tongue and making faces sideways at me.)
Gildo (taking a fig in one hand and raising his glass with the other):
Oggi mi voglio mangiare un fico;
Bevo alla salute del Signor Enrico. [62]
(I had to drink each time, not much—merely to acknowledge the compliment—excusing myself by saying I had not the energy to drink more.)
Myself: My dear Buffo, when you have sufficiently got into the habit of being twenty-five to approach the age Gildo says he is, you will not have so much energy as you have now.
Aless: Yes, I shall.
Myself: No, Buffo mio.
Aless: We will make a bet about it, but you will lose.
Gildo (to Aless): By that time Enrico will not be here to pay if he does lose, so you will not win.
Myself: Bravo, Gildo.
Gildo (bowing his acknowledgments): Thank you very night—Why do you laugh? That is what you say. Why do you laugh?
Papa (taking his revenge about the brindisi): Don’t talk so much, Gildo.
Aless (taking his about the bet): You have been talking all the evening, Gildo. You are as bad as a conjurer in the piazza.
(Gildo proclaimed a general silence and, as a guarantee of good faith, pretended to skewer his lips together with a tooth-pick.)
Aless (whispering to me): Argantino is the Prince of the Devils and has commanded them to make the subterranean road from Paris to Montalbano—
Papa: May I speak one word?
Myself (graciously): Yes, Papa. You may even speak two words.
Papa: I—
Aless and Gildo (shouting): One!
Papa:—have—
Aless and Gildo: Two! There now, shut up. You’ve spoken your two words. Silence.
Caro: Signor Enrico, last year you only stayed in Palermo four days; this year you will, of course, stay at least a month.
Myself: I am sorry, my dear young lady, but it is impossible.
Aless:—and they will all escape and—
Myself: Please, Buffo, how many kilometres is it from Paris to Montalbano?
Aless: I do not remember, but it is a long way.
Caro: Why do you not stay a month?
Carm: Yes, why are you going away?
Myself: My dear young ladies, I must go to Calatafimi.
Caro: But why do you go to Calatafimi?
Carm: Yes, why do you not stay with us?
(Nina did not speak. She merely gazed at me as though she could not mind her wheel, Mother.)
Myself: I have friends at Calatafimi whom I have promised to go and see and I cannot—
Aless:—and arrive in safety at Montalbano.
Myself: I believe you told me once that Montalbano is Rinaldo’s castle in Gascony. Did the devils make a subterranean road right across France? It is a long way, you know.
Aless: The devils must do as Argantino commands them.
Myself: If he is the Prince of the Devils of course they must; but this seems rather a large order. Come to Ettorina. Why don’t you come to Ettorina?
Aless: One moment, if you please; first you must know that—
Caro: Signor Enrico, who are your friends at Calatafimi?
Myself: I know a baritone singer and his father and mother, two or three landed proprietors and the custode of the Temple of Segesta who lives at Calatafimi and is great friend of mine. I also know another—
Carm: It is not true. How many ladies do you know at Calatafimi?
Myself: Well, let me see. I don’t think I can exactly—
Caro: Tell us about the young ladies of Calatafimi, you like them better than you like us.
(Here sobs were heard; Nina’s head and shoulders had fallen over the back of her chair, her hair had come down an she was weeping gently but inconsolably.)
Myself: I shall be back in three days.
(Whereupon Nina recovered herself and fixed her eyes on the ceiling with an expression of beatific joy such as is worn by S. Caterina da Siena when the ring is being put on her finger in the pictures. Nina’s hair had now to be done up and it is magnificent hair, lustrous, black, wavy thick and long—for a girl of fourteen, wonderful. Her two sisters did it up as though it usually came down about this time of the evening and she submitted in the same spirit. It was no concern of ours.)
Papa: It is now one year since you were last in Palermo and it seems like yesterday—do I explain myself?
Gildo (so that everyone could hear): I have kept all your post-cards in a secret place. No one suspects that I have received them.
Aless: You must know that before Malagigi died he—
Caro: Signor Enrico, why do you wear spectacles?
Myself: In order that I may more clearly contemplate your beauty.
Caro: I do not believe you.
Carm: Signor Enrico, why do you wear your hair so short?
Myself: In order that—
Caro: Signor Enrico, why do you wear that little beard, that barbetta?
Carm: Signor Enrico, why do you wear—?
Aless: Why do you wear a coat and waistcoat?
Gildo: Why do you wear boots?
Papa: Why do you—?
Nina: I can tell you why he does all these things. It is to make the young ladies of Calatafimi go mad for love of him as the daughter of Cladinoro went mad for love of Ruggiero Persiano.
Myself: I have never heard of Ruggiero Persiano. Who was he, a paladin?
Nina: Yes; a cavaliere errante.
Myself: Then who was the daughter of Cladinoro?
Nina: Ettorina.
Myself: Do you mean to say that Ettorina went mad for love of Ruggiero Persiano?
Nina: Yes.
Myself (rising to go): Finalmente!
Aless: Yes, but first you must know—
Myself: All right, Buffo, never mind about that; at last I know who Ettorina was and why she went mad and that will do for the present. Thank you very much and good night.
Gildo: That is what I said. Why did you laugh when I said that?
Myself: Say it again, Gildo, and I won’t laugh this time.
Gildo: Thank you very night and good much.
Myself: Bravo. If you go on at this rate you will soon be speaking English like a native.
I took leave of the young ladies, and Papa, Alessandro and Gildo accompanied me to the albergo, where they left me. As I approached my bedroom door I looked up over it half-expecting to see there the words which, years ago, I had seen written over the entrance to a Tuscan monastery:
O beata Solitudo!
O sola Beatitudo!
CHAPTER IV
MALAGIGI
Next morning I called on the buffo in his workshop. His two combustible Turkish pavilions were finished, ready to be fired by Ettorina, and he was full of his devils. I inquired why we were doing Guido Santo so soon; it was only a year since my last visit to Palermo, when I had witnessed his lamented end after a fortnight of starvation in prison, and, at this rate, the story would be over in fourteen months instead of lasting eighteen. The buffo said they had made the experiment of shortening it. If one has to shorten a story, probably the Paladins of France with its continuations would suffer less from the process than many others. At all events it could scarcely grow longer, as a work of art so often does when one tries to shorten it.
The devils were naturally among the dramatis personÆ of the teatrino, but they had to be got ready and repaired and provided with all things necessary for them to make the subterranean road. I said:
“I am not sure that I quite followed all you told me last night.”
“There was perhaps a little confusion?” he inquired apologetically.
“Not at all,” I replied politely; “but I never heard of Argantino before. Did you say he was the son of Malagigi?”
“That is right. He did not happen to be at Roncisvalle, so he was not killed with Orlando and the other paladins. An angel came to him and said, ‘Now the Turks will make much war against the Christians and, since the Christians always want a magician, it is the will of heaven that you shall have the rod of Malagigi, who is no longer here, and that Guido Santo shall have la Durlindana, the sword of Orlando.’ And it was so, and Argantino thereafter appeared as a pilgrim.”
“I remember about Malagigi; he made all Rinaldo’s armour.”
“Excuse me, he made some of his armour; but he did not make his helmet, nor his sword Fusberta, nor his horse Baiardo. First you must know that Rinaldo was one of the four brothers, sons of Amone, and their sister was Bradamante.”
“I saw her die at Trapani. The Empress Marfisa came and found her dying of grief in a grotto for the loss of her husband, Ruggiero da Risa.”
“Precisely. She was Marfisa’s sister-in-law because she married Marfisa’s brother Ruggiero da Risa.”
“Then who was the cavaliere errante, Ruggiero Persiano?”
“He was the son of Marfisa and Guidon Selvaggio, and this Guidon Selvaggio was the son of Rinaldo.”
“Had Bradamante no children?”
“Guido Santo is the son of Bradamante and Ruggiero da Risa.”
“I heard something about Guido Santo at Castellinaria the other day—let me see, what was it? Never mind. I hope he left children.”
“I told you last year that he never married.”
“Oh yes, of course; that is what I was thinking of. One cannot remember everything at once and pedigrees are always confusing at first. Then it is for love of Bradamante’s nephew by marriage, Ruggiero Persiano, that Ettorina has now gone mad?”
“Bravo. And Malagigi was Bradamante’s cousin.”
“How was that?”
“Amone had a brother Buovo, and Malagigi was the son of Buovo. Therefore Malagigi was the cousin of Rinaldo and of Bradamante. And that is all you need know about the pedigree for the present. Malagigi was Emperor of Magic. Other magicians only commanded a devil or two each, but Malagigi dominated all the hosts of the inferno, all the devils, harpies, serpents, gorgons, hydras, furies and also the monster Briareus.”
“Just as the buffo dominates all the marionettes in the teatrino,” I interpolated.
He bowed and proceeded: “Rinaldo’s helmet used to belong to Mambrino.”
“I have read about it in Don Quixote.”
“Ah! but that was not a real helmet; that was only a barber’s basin because Cervantes wanted to laugh at Don Quixote. Rinaldo slew Mambrino and took his helmet, but Mambrino was a giant and his helmet was too large for Rinaldo, so Malagigi took it down into the laboratory of the inferno and altered it to fit.”
“And do the audience see all that done on the stage?”
“Most of it; and what they do not see they imagine. Fusberta, Rinaldo’s sword, formerly belonged to another giant, Atlante. Malagigi always intended it for Rinaldo, but he was a wise magician and knew that people do not value things unless they pay for them, so he would not let him have it till he had earned it by killing Atlante.”
“It’s rather like what you told me last year about Orlando’s dream and his going to the river-bank where Carlo Magno and that other giant, Almonte, were fighting, and his killing Almonte and his taking his sword and horse and armour.”
“I did not say that Orlando had a dream; it was Carlo Magno who had the dream about a young man whom he did not know, and I told you that afterwards, when Orlando came and helped him to fight Almonte, Carlo Magno recognised him as the young man in his dream.”
“Sorry, Buffo; my mistake. But it is rather like it, isn’t it?”
“About his taking the giant’s sword it is rather like it, but that is not a bad thing in the teatrino, the people must not be puzzled by too much variety.”
Then he told me about Baiardo, Rinaldo’s horse, who formerly belonged to Amadigi di Gaula, to whom he was given by Berliante, another magician, who found him in the desert. After the death of Amadigi, Berliante chose but seven devils, put them inside Baiardo and turned him loose in the forest, saying: “This horse can only be dominated by a man as strong as Amadigi.” After this, several things happened, of which I only remember that Baiardo kicked all the sense out of Isolier, a Spanish cavalier who was trying to tame him with his sword, not knowing the right way to do it, and a nameless Englishman was involved in a duel. At last Rinaldo came and, after working hard at Baiardo for an hour, struck him a blow between the eyes with his mailed fist and thus tamed him. Then Rinaldo mounted him and boasted of his triumph, shouting in his humorous way: “Now Baiardo is carrying eight devils.”
“And so you see Rinaldo getting Baiardo is not at all like Orlando getting his horse Vegliantino; besides, Baiardo is red, the colour of fire, and Vegliantino is white all over, without one black hair.”
“Why do you call Orlando’s horse Vegliantino? Last year he was Brigliadoro.”
“One moment, if you please. Almonte called him Brigliadoro because he had a golden bridle; but when Orlando took him he called him Vegliantino because he was so wide-awake—only slept with one eye at a time—always kept the other open. You have good horses also in England. I read in the Giornale di Sicilia that your King Edward has a good horse who won the great race this year, but I do not remember his name. It was not a reasonable name.”
“The name was Minoru. Do you think that a bad name for a good horse?”
“I think Vegliantino is better.”
“Perhaps it is. Let us return to Malagigi. Are you not going to tell me why he is no longer giving the Christians the benefit of his services as magician?”
So he told me about Malagigi, who, it seems, had a quarrel with Carlo Magno, in the course of which Malagigi boasted:
“You are the Emperor of the World, but I am the Emperor of the Inferno.”
Carlo Magno did not quite like this and responded by cursing Malagigi, saying that he would not go to heaven when he died. One would think that Malagigi must have had the substance of this remark addressed to him before by persons who had not troubled to wrap it up in the imperial language employed by Carlo Magno. If so, it had never made any impression on him, but now he began to think there might be something in it. He had been a good man on the whole and a Christian, nevertheless, as a sorcerer he had no doubt diabolised a little too freely. To be on the safe side, he determined to repent and, as these things do not get over the footlights unless they are done in the grand manner, he began by burning his magical books, all except one, and they were the books of Merlin, whose disciple he had been. He next dropped his name of Malagigi, because it had been given him by the devils in council, and called himself Onofrio. He still kept on terms with his confidential private devil, Nacalone, whom he now summoned and to whom he spoke these words:
“Convey me to some peaceful shore where I may repent of my sins and die of grief in a grotto.”
When we came to this—I could not help it, I was full of small complaints that morning—I exclaimed:
“But, my dear Buffo, this makes consecutive fifths with his cousin Bradamante dying of grief in the grotto at Trapani.”
He admitted that it would have been better if one of them had had the originality to die in bed as a Christian or an ordinary man does, or to be killed in mortal combat, but there it was, it was the will of heaven and could not be altered. It seemed rather an invitation to the shortener of the story, but the same people do not come to the theatre every night and those who had missed the death of Bradamante would be pleased to see Malagigi die.
The nearest peaceful shore with a suitable grotto known to Nacalone happened to be in Asia; he put his master on his back and flew off with him apologising for carrying him so far, but there was not really much trouble about it, because his wings were strong and the journey was accomplished in safety.
Malagigi sat repenting in his Asian grotto, like S. Gerolamo in the pictures. He found a stone with a hole in it into which he stuck a cross made of two pieces of wood tied together with dried grass, and to this cross he prayed. In the intervals of prayer and repentance he gathered the herb malva, dried it, powdered it, mixed it with water into paste, formed it into cakes, baked them in the sun and ate them. When his time came, he died, and gradually his corpse became a skeleton, but his spirit still dwelt within because it was so ordained. His dying did not surprise me—to be born is to enter upon the path which even magicians must tread and which leads to the inevitable door—nor was I alarmed about his spirit remaining inside his skeleton—it gave him a touch of originality after all and differentiated his death from that of Bradamante whose soul I had seen extracted by an angel; but I could not help being seriously uneasy about his burning all his books. Each book had a devil chained inside it, and when Malagigi opened a book its devil used to appear for instructions. As long as he was repenting, they might perhaps be trusted to behave themselves; but after his death, in spite of its being somewhat equivocal, I was afraid that all these devils, and Merlin had an extensive library, would escape and be free to do as they chose. The buffo assured me, however, that no harm would come of it, and as he knew what was ordained by the will of heaven I was ready to take his word; besides, there was still the one unburnt book and this was the home of Nacalone, who might be powerful enough to avert disasters. So Malagigi’s body remained in the grotto, dead and yet not dead.
Then a time came when his son Argantino happened to be travelling in Asia with his second cousin Guido Santo. Accompanied by Costanzo, a Turk, whom Argantino had defeated and baptised, the two knights came to the dreadful enchanted grotto and entered it to see whether perhaps it might contain anything good to eat. Costanzo did not enter, they sent him off to collect a quantity of wood to make a fire because it was a chilly evening. When their eyes had become accustomed to the dim light, they discerned a tomb whereon was this inscription:
Guido knelt down to pray, saying: “I perceive here a sepulchre.”
“Yes,” replied Argantino kneeling by his side; “I wonder who in this peaceful grotto is sleeping his last long sleep.”
Presently the tomb opened by a miracle and a voice disturbed their devotions:
“Malagigi parlerÀ.”
The two cousins trembled with horror as a skeleton rattled up from the sepulchre and spoke thus:
“I am the great magician Malagigi, and in obedience to the command of heaven my spirit has here waited for this day. To you, O my son Argantino! I confide the one book of magic which remains to me. To you, O Guido! I confide the horse Sfrenato.”
Here he delivered the two compliments to the two paladins; but for the moment Sfrenato took the magical book and carried it in his mouth as a cat carries her kitten.
“And now, listen to me. Terrible times are in store for the Christians and it is God’s ordinance that you two shall preserve the faith. Swear to me therefore, O Guido! that you will”—and so forth.
When he had concluded his address, his prophetic spirit was exhausted, as might perhaps have been anticipated, for the speech was of portentous length, and the skeleton clattered down again into the tomb, which closed by another miracle while a ball of fire ran along upon the ground across the stage and back again. Then Guido took his oath and spoke thus to Argantino:
“Let us now depart. And you Turks! all of you, tremble! for Guido shall be your destruction.”
With this he vaulted upon Sfrenato, who curveted and whinnied with joy at recognising his master. And so the two paladins continued their journey; but before leaving the neighbourhood they naturally made arrangements with the local marble-mason to have the tomb closed in a proper and hygienic manner.
“And all this,” said the buffo, “happened only last Friday, and why did you not come in time to see it? It was very emotional.”
CHAPTER V
ARGANTINO
As I had missed the emotional interview at the tomb the buffo generously arranged that there should be a private repetition of the scene specially for the young ladies and me; but it could not be that afternoon because it would take time to prepare and we had the appointment to go to his professor’s house for his singing lesson, and that also would take time. Before singing one does a few exercises, the effect of which is to warm up the throat and awaken the voice, because the warmer the throat, the better the quality of the voice, and this had to be got through before anyone could be allowed to listen. At the proper moment I was taken to the professor’s house and introduced into the studio where the buffo, who had taken off his collar to do the exercises, sang extracts from his repertorio, which includes Otello, Rigoletto, I Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana.
After he had sung one of his pieces, I made him my compliments and congratulated his professor on the result of his teaching, whereupon they made their excuses—I had come on an unfortunate day, the voice was suffering from fatigue and the piano was out of tune. I had not observed the fatigue, but they were right about the piano and I agreed with the maestro, who said it was time to order a new one. Not only was it out of tune enough to curdle the milk, but they had endeavoured to distract attention from its defects by crowding its lid with rubbish till it resembled the parlour chimney-piece in a suburban villa or the altar in a second-rate church.
As some old harridan when bidden to the christening of her great-niece fumbles among such ornaments of her gioventÙ tempestosa as have been refused by the pawnbroker, and choosing the least suitable decks herself out therein, thinking thus to honour the festa—even so on this piano were accumulated artificial flowers, photographs in metal frames, a sprinkling of glass vases in wire cages that jangled, a couple of crockery pigs to bring good luck and a few statuettes and busts.
“Please, Buffo,” I inquired, “who is that silver saint upon the piano?”
“It is not a saint,” he replied, “it is only un musicista qualunque.”
“It looks about the shape of Mozart,” I said, wondering what he was doing in that galley.
“I do not remember his name,” said the buffo, “it is written on him in front; it is not a reasonable name.”
He brought me the bust and I, thinking that, to harmonise with the musical atmosphere of the studio, it should have been Leoncavallo or Mascagni, found that it was even more out of tune than the shameless piano it had been standing on. It was betkoven, with every letter distinctly legible through the thick silver paint with which it was covered.
These foreign names are so puzzling. At an afternoon party in Palermo I once had a conversation with a gentleman who told me that Bellini was the king of opera-writers and the emperor of composers. To pass a few hours with people who consider Bellini to have written the last note in music is as restful and refreshing as to dream away an August afternoon in a peaceful backwater, forgetting that there is a river running to the sea. After Bellini, the gentleman mentioned Beethoven, who, it seems, studied in Italy, and that is why his music is so melodious. The more accessible writers on Beethoven know as little about this studying in Italy as they know about the Palermitan spelling of his name, but it must be right, because how otherwise could he have acquired his astonishing power of producing the true Italian melody? And there is another German musician who is even more melodious and more Italian in style than Beethoven and therefore a greater musician.
“Did he also study in Italy?” I asked. “And what was his name?”
“They all come here to study, and his name was SciupÈ.”
I divined that this German melodist could only be either the Viennese Schubert or the French Pole Chopin, but with my English pronunciation I failed to make the distinction. Then a young lady, who had been sitting near, proposed to clear the matter up by playing a piece composed by SciupÈ, and if I would listen attentively I should understand why he is known as the German Bellini. By this time I had made up my mind that it must be Schubert and was expecting one of the songs transcribed by Liszt, but she played Chopin’s Funeral March and told me that the composer had written besides a number of operas and conducted them at Berlin. I acquiesced in what appeared to be the will of heaven, saying:
“Oh! yes, of course. How stupid of me!”
The buffo has a fine voice and has got far beyond appearing to have learnt his songs diligently and to be delivering them correctly. I suspect, however, that he did not pass that way. He will soon have assimilated all that can be taught about singing, and for the rest he is naturally an actor, one of those few who are born with the strange power of appearing to experience inwardly what they express outwardly, a power that his life among the marionettes has strengthened and perfected. But as to predicting his future, which is what he wanted me to do, I suppose that only an expert, and perhaps not even an expert, can tell from hearing a singer in a small room how he will sound on the stage; and the voice is not everything, there is the appearance and the question of how his personality will affect the public, and the further question of how he will stand the life and amalgamate with his fellows. So, like a good Sicilian, I told him that there never was such a magnificent voice, that I had never heard anyone sing so well and that I was sure he would eclipse all previous tenors, which made everything quite satisfactory.
The next day we had our private performance, and it began with Guido Santo and Argantino at the dreadful enchanted grotto of the great magician Malagigi. I was glad to see Argantino; it was nearly as good as seeing Malagigi in his habit as he lived because, although the son only had one diabolical book, yet in his personal appearance he strikingly resembled the father, being indeed the same marionette and distinguished chiefly by his wings, which he inherited from his mother Sabina who was a witch. Argantino always wore his wings even when he used to wear armour, and on his shield he bore the portrait of a devil so that everyone should know at a glance the kind of man he was. After the angel tells him he is to do the magic for the Christians he appears clothed as a pilgrim with wings, and in this way, although it is the same marionette and both Malagigi and Argantino are magicians, confusion is avoided—at least the buffo said that was the intention.
There was another thing I should have been sorry to miss. I had hitherto supposed the dictionaries to be right in defining a miracle as an event contrary to the established course of nature, but the buffo took me behind the scenes to study the miracle by which the tomb opened. There were three or four strings so arranged that if anyone pulled them the tomb could not remain closed. The buffo pulled them and the tomb opened. Nothing less contrary to the ordinary course of nature could be imagined. It would be interesting to know whether other miracles would similarly falsify their definition if one could have a buffo to take one behind and disclose the secret of how they are performed.
The second scene was a Ballo Fantastico, which was given to take the taste of the tomb and the skeleton out of our mouths. It was done by a heavy Turk who danced cumbrously; presently his arms detached themselves and became transformed into devils who danced separately; then his legs followed their example; then his head descended from his trunk and, on reaching the stage, became transformed into a dancing wizard carrying a rod of magic and beating time to the music; then, while the body was dancing by itself, various devils came out of it followed by several serpents that floated among the devils; after which it developed a head, a neck, wings and a tail, so that it became transformed into a complete dragon, and the wizard mounted upon its back and rode about wizarding all the other creatures. Altogether the original Turk became transformed into sixteen different marionettes.
After this we had a funambolo or rope-dancer. The curtain rose disclosing his rope ready for him, he entered and, after bowing profusely, leapt up and sat first on the rope, then on a seat at the back. Here he played with his pole, holding it first with one hand then with the other, then balancing it on his head and doing tricks with it. Then he walked along the rope forwards and backwards and danced, doing his steps with great care and precision. After which he sat down to recover his breath. Then he rope-walked again, doing impossible things—that is, they would have been impossible if he had not been sustained by many invisible strings, which the buffo manipulated with wonderful skill. I liked the funambolo even better than the wizard, he was extraordinarily lifelike.
In the evening I became transformed into an ordinary member of the public and saw the devils make the subterranean road. The performance contained a great deal besides about Periglio, a Turkish paladin, who, having been accused by the son of the Emperor of China of helping the Christians, was condemned to be beheaded. The father of his accuser with the other three Emperors came to see him die; they stood at corners relentlessly smoothing their beards and curling their moustaches with their right fists and crying “A Morire!” Periglio in chains was led on, blindfolded. The solemn headsman followed, carrying his axe, and, as the boy left off turning the handle of the mechanical piano, the cornet blasted a broken-hearted minor ninth over the last chord of the funeral march and prolonged it till—well, after all it was a mistake; Periglio had not really helped the Christians; his brother proved that, on the contrary, he had done them as much damage as any Turk among the allied armies of 200,000 men. So he was pardoned, and one of his friends gaily kicked the executioner off the stage. The brothers embraced and then, with their hands on their breasts, bowed to the audience to acknowledge the applause; but they did not know they were brothers, they had not yet recognised each other; that was to be another emotional moment to come later on.
The kicking the executioner off the stage and the embracing and bowing of the brothers were so absurdly natural that I inquired about them, and it seemed that Gildo had thought of these effects and carried them out.
“But then,” said the buffo, “Gildo is an artist. You should see him with Truffaldino.”
“What is Truffaldino? Another cavaliere errante?”
“He is the paladin who is a buffo. You should see him toss his crown from one side of his head to the other and put both his hands on his heart when he makes love to Angelica. He only plays the fool a little the first night, and more and more as the drama proceeds, until he dies by being pulled to pieces by four horses. It is all done by Gildo, and the audience laugh every night that Truffaldino appears.”
Then we were taken to Vienna, where Guido Santo and Argantino had arrived, but we only saw Argantino.
“Where is Guido?” I asked. “I want to see him.”
“Yes, well, you won’t see him this evening,” replied the buffo. “He’s only in the next room, but he’s much too busy to come.”
“What is he doing?”
“Baptising Christians—those who couldn’t make up their minds before whether they would be converted or not.”
“Very well, we won’t interrupt him.”
So I had to be content with Argantino, who came with his book, his rod of magic and his wings. After flying about for some time in a hall with columns, he settled down, and someone entered and told him the disquieting news about Pope Gregorio III being shut up in Paris. But, knowing that it was the will of heaven that the inhabitants should not perish, he summoned his confidential family devil Nacalone by opening the book, just as a rich man of to-day liberates infernal power by opening his cheque-book. Nacalone was as comic as the mask Pasquino, and tumbled to show his willingness to obey. He had a string to his back so that he could be turned upside down and made to stand on his head. He received his instructions and flew off to execute them.
The Viennese columns disappeared and the devils, plenty of them, all with wings and tails and horns, were shown, as in a vision, working at the subterranean road. Two were sawing a block of stone; some flew up to use their hammers and do work in the upper parts of the tunnel; one, who was perhaps nervous or perhaps more of an artist and wanted to look the part of a modern Palermitan workman, used his legs to climb a ladder to reach his work; others were digging up the ground and knocking down the walls; a devil wheeled an empty Sicilian cart, painted with paladins, rapidly across the stage and after a moment wheeled it back slowly because it was now heavily laden with tools and cement; another kept coming with a basket of stones on his shoulder and emptying them down in heaps. It was a busy scene and much applauded, especially the cart. The Viennese columns hid it from view.
The buffo was very proud of this scene, and no wonder.
“There is nothing like it in Dante. But then,” he continued, “there would not be likely to be. What is Dante? As versification, as language, his poem is fine, splendid, supreme, above all other poetry books; but as sense, what is it? And then again, why should Dante go about to make me believe in devils? Me! the ruler of all the devils in the teatrino! As though I did not know more about devils than anyone. Dante is the Emperor of Words, but the buffo is the Emperor of Deeds. And then his obscurity! As a theme for discussion Dante is as obscure as religion. One says: ‘It is so.’ While another says: ‘It is not so.’ As men discuss a melon and one says: ‘Inside it is red.’ While another says: ‘Inside it is white.’ Who can bear testimony to the truth of Dante’s words? We cannot cut his poem open and see his inner meaning. Whereas I have cut my inferno open for you. I have shown you what it is like inside, and you can bear testimony to the truth of the subterranean road.”
The buffo told me that the Christians in Paris were not armed, but they all got safely away to Montalbano. During the siege, the Pope directed the defence, and the people, following his commands, threw their furniture over the walls with the intention of damaging the enemy; but the Turkish Emperors had made a study of the art of war and taught their men how to hold their shields over their heads, and thus they warded off the chairs and tables and were able to creep along under cover, approach the city, climb up the walls and descend into the piazza. The first who entered went round to open the gates and let the rest in. As soon as they had recovered from their surprise at finding that the inhabitants had all escaped, they began to commit sacrileges. Balestrazzo, Emperor of Turgovia, occupied the principal church of Paris as a stable for his horses. Rainello, a nephew of the traitor Gano di Magonza, wishing to do a bravery, went into a church and cried with a loud voice:
“Take down that crucifix; it is only wood; if it had been a god I should not have denied the faith. Take it away. There is only one God and Mahomet is his prophet.”
With this he leapt on the altar, drew his sword, and was about to hew the crucifix into pieces when a thunderbolt struck him. As he was the first to lay hands upon the sacred images, so he was the first to be struck. But he recovered; he did not die of the thunderbolt; it was the will of heaven that he should live to be killed by Guido Santo.
It was a pity that I had to go to Calatafimi and could not stay for all this, but before I went I had the satisfaction of seeing Ettorina go mad. At first she was hardly more than slightly unhinged, yet she was mad enough to enter the enemy’s camp by night. The sentinel had just been awakened by the corporal, but she paid no more attention to them than they to her. Nor did she shrink from making consecutive fifths, or downright octaves, with Costanzo as she crossed the stage, going away to fetch a quantity of wood to light a fire because it was a chilly evening; but, as the buffo pointed out, she had a sufficient dramatic reason to justify the licence. Presently, like the laden Sicilian cart, she staggered back with her faggots and disappeared. In a few moments we saw the fitful glare from the conflagration she had kindled dancing on the combustible pavilion which took up all the back of the scene. Various Turkish soldiers entered to investigate the cause of the unwonted light, but they did not return to report, she killed them all, one after the other; and this gave time which the buffo utilised by applying a match from below, and, while the pavilion blazed and the audience applauded, Ettorina in her burnished armour went as mad as Tilburina in her white satin till the curtain fell.
CHAPTER VI
THE ESCAPE FROM PARIS
Although I had to miss a great deal that it would have been interesting to see on the stage, I spent a couple of mornings with the buffo in his workshop helping to make the scene of the people escaping, which was perhaps even better than being among the audience later. I think he is most happy when he is holding up the mirror to nature and reproducing modern Palermitan life as it appears to him. He enjoyed the devils and the subterranean road, but the inhabitants of Paris in modern costume, each saving his most precious object and escaping with the Pope through the subterranean road to Montalbano, was a larger canvas and gave him more opportunities. As a creative artist he is in the fortunate position of being up to a certain point his own impresario, stage-manager and performer. Nevertheless he has to rely on the co-operation of his father and Gildo, and there is always the public to be considered, therefore it is possible that some of the things we made and contemplated in the workshop did not get so far as to be presented on the stage.
There was a sluggard carrying a mattress under each arm; and a drunkard carrying a bottle of wine, a real glass bottle that would catch the light and make an effect. Another man had on his back a table and was carrying a plate, a knife, fork, spoon and napkin; he was a glutton. The masks Pasquino and Onofrio were making a comic escape and talking in dialect; Pasquino was carrying his wife Rosina on his shoulder and a pillow in his hand, and Onofrio was saving an article of crockery made at Caltagirone. And because the buffo was studying to become a singer he had made a musician:
“But I cannot show his voice,” he complained.
“He might be practising a solfeggio,” I suggested, “which you could sing for him.” But this was not treating the buffo’s voice with proper respect. “Or put a piece of music-paper in his hand and make him a composer.”
“Bravo! But what is written on the music-paper?”
I said: “Stornelli Montagnoli.”
He began to hum meditatively:
Music in the Play
“No,” he said, “that won’t do. In the first place it is not yet known in Palermo, and when it is, it will be so popular that no one in particular will think of saving it.”
“Very well then,” I replied, “make it that he has just discovered an entirely new resolution of the dominant seventh and has written it down before he forgets it.”
“All right. And this is the painter; he has his easel and a picture which he has only just begun; that is more precious to him than all the pictures he has finished because it is so full of hope.”
“Bravo, Buffo. And where is the miser?”
“Oh Caspita!” he exclaimed. “How clever you are! Of course there must be a miser. We will make him at once.”
So we selected an old man marionette who happened to have nothing particular to do at the moment, and got a piece of sacking out of which we made a bag and filled it—not with gold—
“No,” said the buffo, “that must be one of the things the people do not see, they must imagine the gold.” Then we loaded the miser with his bag and added him to the crowd of fugitives.
And he had made a woman saving a mouse-trap; she was a suffragette. That was because he had read in the Giornale di Sicilia that in England a meeting of suffragettes had been dispersed by letting mice in among them. The buffo’s suffragette had argued thus:
“In all the world there are mice; Montalbano will be no exception. How do I know what sort of house I shall have there? It will probably be over-run with mice. If I take this trap with me, at least I shall be able to catch some of them.”
It turned out that she had to sleep on the floor in someone else’s house like a fugitive from Messina, and the mouse-trap came in very handy.
And he had made a chemist who was saving a medicine chest and a few instruments. The chemist had argued thus:
“In Montalbano there will be no order. Here in Paris the restaurants are well-managed and the food is good. How can I tell what sort of food they will give us there? Very likely we shall have to depend a great deal upon chance. I will take these instruments and medicine and earn money by curing those who will be sure to be upset by the badness of the food.”
And a man came weeping; his father had died the day before and there had not been time to bury the body, but it had been put into a coffin and the undertaker’s men were laughing because the son was rich and had promised to pay them extra for carrying the body to Montalbano and burying it there; but the son did not see they were laughing, he was in front to show them the way.
Two boys came along, each saving a marionette, one had Orlando, the other Rinaldo; they forgot that they were escaping and stopped to make the paladins fight; a third boy came and said they were his marionettes and the others had stolen them, and the boys left Orlando and Rinaldo lying on the stage and began to fight among themselves till their three mothers followed.
“Be quick, be quick, you silly boys, be quick,” shouted the mothers, hustling everything before them—boys, marionettes and all—as an autumn hurricane sweeps away the fallen leaves.
“What is that man doing?” I inquired.
“Which man?”
“The one standing in the corner there—he seems to have a camera.”
“Yes, that’s right. He has been sent by the Cinematograph Company to reproduce the scene for their show.”
“Oh! I see. That’s a capital idea; the people will like that.”
“Yes, won’t they?”
And two men were dragging a heavy bundle along on the ground between them, and I asked:
“What’s in the bundle?”
“Clothes,” he replied.
And there was a woman carrying a hen in a basket, and the hen escaped from the basket, laid an egg in the middle of the stage and cackled back into Paris; but the woman saved the egg and said: “Better an egg to-day than a hen to-morrow.”
Another woman was carrying her baby on one arm and leading a child by the hand, and the child was crying because it had to walk too fast and was tired.
“This is the astronomer,” said the buffo.
“Is that his umbrella under his arm? It seems too long and too bright.”
“No; that is Halley’s comet which he has predicted for next spring. He does not want to leave it behind, the Turks might destroy it and he would lose his reputation.”
There was the boy from the barber’s shop opposite; he had been playing with a black kitten when the alarm came and he joined the fugitives just as he was, in his white tunic with the kitten in his arms and a comb stuck in his bushy hair. And there came a troop of old women, chattering and shuffling along and understanding no more about it all than I should have understood if I had not had my buffo, my programme raisonnÉ, to explain it.
Then I said: “Buffo mio, we have had a musician and a painter, where is the poet?”
“Here he comes.” And there came a pale, Alfred de Musset youth with long hair, a roll of paper and a quill pen. “Do you know what he is saying? He is saying: ‘Better to embrace and be betrayed than to suffer and die in ignorance.’“
“Is that the philosophy of the buffo?” I inquired.
“It is the philosophy of the poet,” he replied.
“Isn’t it rather beyond the public? Will they understand?”
“The public won’t hear that; it is only for you and me. There are many things we do not tell the public because they are the public; but we understand because we are artists.”
“Very well. And then if we have a poet we must have a critic—won’t this one do? he has a book; perhaps he is going to review it, or perhaps it is his encyclopÆdia to save him from making mistakes.”
“If you like, he shall be the critic; only then you ought to tell me what he is saying.”
“He is saying: ‘I despise everything because it is not something else.’“
“Bravo, bravo! That is better than what the poet said.”
“O my dear Buffo, I am not going to admit that. Besides, it is not true of all critics.”
“What I said is not true of all poets.”
“Well, if we don’t like what we have made them say, let us have someone to follow and show them where they are both wrong.”
“All right. Let me see. That will be when they have had time to think it over. That will be the Cold Dawn of the following morning. We will now make the Aurora.”
So we found a disengaged lady marionette and began to dress her in a piece of cobwebby grey muslin from which the last few spangles had not yet dropped. I said:
“I’m not at all sure that this is not going too far. Do you think we can really show the Cold Dawn of the following morning escaping out of Paris by the underground road?”
“She must go; she will be wanted at Montalbano to show some of the people that they have saved the wrong things.”
“Very true. Yes. That is what people so often do when they travel, they leave behind them the things they want most and take a lot of other things that are useless. Now, that resolution of the dominant seventh was hardly worth saving—at least it was not really new.”
“Where did you get it from?”
“I stole it out of the works of the musician whose bust was on your maestro’s piano the other day, the one with the Dutch name who lived in Vienna.”
“I hope you invented what the critic said?”
“Not exactly. Your poet reminded me of something in Walt Whitman and I twisted it round and gave it to the critic.”
“What’s Walt Whitman? Is he another Dutchman?”
“He was an American poet, but his mother had a Dutch name.”
“Did he come to the teatrino?”
“He never came to Europe. I wish he had been to the teatrino. He would have liked your Escape from Paris, but perhaps he would not have cared so much for the paladins. He wrote something about them.”
“What did he say?”
“If he had seen the end of the story, when the angel takes Guido Santo’s soul out of his mouth, I believe he would have said that instead of flying up to heaven he flew across the Atlantic with it and installed it ‘amid the kitchenware’ to animate all the machinery and things in one of the Exhibitions held by the American Institute in New York.”
“Is that what he said?”
“No. What he said was that all that world of romance was dead:
Passed to its charnel vault—laid on the shelf—coffin’d with crown and armour on,
Blazon’d with Shakespeare’s purple page,
And dirged by Tennyson’s sweet sad rhyme.
“Well, it is not true. But of course if he never came to the teatrino he could not know. Americans do come to the teatrino. I never know which are Americans and which are English; for the English come too. They come in the winter and the spring, and when they are pleased with some stage trick—”
“I suppose you mean with some miracle?”
“Of course,” he replied; “it is the same thing. When they are pleased with some stage miracle, they clap their hands and applaud.”
“That is nice and sympathetic of them.”
“Yes, and they shout out loud and cry: ‘Bravo, very good night.’“
“No, Buffo! Is that really what they say?”
“Yes, they shout: ‘Bravo, very good night,’ and it is a pleasure to hear them.”
“I should think so. I must come in the winter next time and hear them say that.”
“They all ask me some questions. I know what they mean, but I cannot speak to them, and, if you please, will you write down for me in English what I shall tell you, so that I can show them the paper?”
“Certainly, my dear Buffo, any little thing of that kind. If any of them come to see the Escape from Paris, I should think they will have a good many questions to ask. For instance, there is the Aurora”—He was finishing her off by putting a silver fillet round her hair and a shining star upon her forehead—”I cannot help it, but I still feel unhappy about her. She does not explain herself.”
“That will not signify. We must leave room for the imagination to play—not too much, but it is a mistake to be too exact. There must be some mystery which the public can take in any way they choose. It is like the nuts on the bicycle, they must not be left loose, but they must not be screwed too tight.”
I gave way, saying: “I suspect you are right. It flatters the spectators to feel that they are helping the performance by using their imagination. And if they don’t understand—well, they can think they do and that flatters them again. And there is another reason why we must not tell the public everything—it would take too long.”
“Ah yes! We must not bore the public or they will not come again to the teatrino, and then where would the money come from to pay for my singing lessons?”
So we let the Cold Dawn follow among the rest. There were half a dozen rollicking blue-jackets off the warship in the port, they had been spending the evening with their girls and were escaping with them. When I objected that Paris was a sea-port town only in a Bohemian sense, he replied that that was enough for him; and when I said that if the sailors really had a ship anywhere near, they would have done better to escape by sea, he complained that I was being fastidious.
There were soldiers arm-in-arm and singing, they had been interrupted while drinking in a wine-shop in a side street off the Via Macqueda and were saving the marsala which they had not finished.
After them came the maresciallo dei carabinieri in the uniform he wears for a festa, with a plume in his three-cornered hat. He was a broad, beefy fellow, taller than the soldiers, being made of a marionette who is usually a giant. He came swinging along, all so big and so burly, followed by a lady, showily dressed, who walked mincingly and was saving a pair of pink satin shoes and a powder-puff. She kept calling to him to stop, she wanted to speak to him. But he would not listen, he was not going to pay any attention to her—not in his gala uniform, it would not have been proper. Besides, there were people looking.
A blind musician with a broken nose and a falsetto voice was led by his mate who carried a ‘cello. An interrupted wedding party followed, and school-children with their professors, sick people out of the hospital with doctors and nurses to help them, and a rabble of water-sellers, shoe-blacks, pedlars and men pushing carts.
Then followed the paladinessa Ettorina still mad, so mad that they were dragging her along and forcing her to escape while she struggled to get free and did not want to go, because a mad person does not understand danger. And paladins and warriors came—Amantebrava, Lungobello, Ottonetto and many more whose names I do not remember.
Last of all came Pope Gregorio III. He was not one to leave the city till the last of his flock had been saved. He wore his tiara and was in white robes with a red cross front and back; he carried his crosier in his left hand and on his right thumb was a diamond ring which sparkled as he blessed the people. So he passed with his Secretary of State, his cardinals, his bishops, his monsignori, his acolytes, his chamberlains, his Guardia Nobile and his Swiss Guard; some carried lighted candles, some carried banners and others crosses; some were swinging incense and others were intoning the psalm In Exitu Israel. The solemn pomp of the procession disappeared into the opening of the subterranean road and the sound of the singing could no longer be heard. They were all safely gone. The stage was empty. Yet the curtain did not fall.
Then came a poor mad boy, a sordo-muto, who had been overlooked. He was in a great hurry, making frightful inarticulate noises and running this way and that, being too much alarmed to go straight. Before he had found the mouth of the tunnel the curtain fell and we did not see what became of him. He may have been left behind after all.
