Peppino usually took half an hour off and came about noon to wherever I was sketching to fetch me to lunch. One morning as we walked along nearly every man we met smiled and said to him—
“Buona festa, Peppino,” and he smiled and returned their salutes with the same words. He accounted for it by saying it was his onomastico—the day of the saint whose name he bears.
“What?” said I, “is it S. Peppino and you never told me? I wish you many happy returns of the day. But it cannot be everybody’s onomastico as well, and you say ‘Buona festa, Peppino’ to all who speak to you.”
He replied that it was the 19th of March, the festa of S. Giuseppe, and assured me that he had said “Buona festa, Peppino”to no one who was not a namesake; so that about two-thirds of the men at Castellinaria must have been baptized Giuseppe.
“Then that explains it,” said I. “I was beginning to think that you might have become engaged to be married and they were congratulating you.”
That did not do at all.
“I got no time to be married,” said he, “too much busy. Besides, marriage very bad thing. Look here, I shall tell you, listen to me. Marriage is good for the woman, is bad for the man: every marriage makes to be one woman more in the world, one man less. Did you understand? And they are not happy together. We have a bad example in this town.”
“Surely you don’t mean to tell me that here in Castellinaria, where everything moves so smoothly and so peacefully, you have an unhappy married couple?”
He replied solemnly, slowly and decidedly, “Not one—all.”
He continued in his usual manner, “Did you read the ten commandments for the people who shall be married? If to find, shall be showing you. It says, ‘Nonquarelate la prima volta.’ Did you understand? ‘Don’t begin to quarrel,’ because you will never stop. After the quarrel you make the peace, but it is too late: the man shall forget, perhaps, but the woman shall forget never, never, never, and you have lost.
“I was telling to my friend,” he continued, “‘Please do not be married, because when you would be married you would not love any more that lady.’ And he was telling to me that he would marry, because it would be a good thing for him, good wife, good food, good care and many things like this. And I was telling to him, ‘I would be seeing if you shall be repeating these words when you shall be married one year.’ The year was passed but my friend he don’t be saying nothing to me. Excuse me, I am not so bad man to ask him. I found him many times in the street, but he would not meet me, would not speak. Oh, no! And he is not laughing any more. Not one friend; fifteen friends, all married. Never they are telling they are happy.”
Having disposed of the question of marriage he told me that Carmelo had been to see me and would call again. He hadalready been several times, and I was puzzled to know what he wanted. He could hardly be wanting to propose an excursion, for I had already made him get leave and take me for several. But as, sooner or later, an opportunity must occur for clearing up the mystery, I left it alone for the present and asked Peppino, who always knew everything that was going on in the neighbourhood, what ship it was I had seen coming into the bay and making for the port.
He said she was theSorella di Ninu, returning from Naples, where she had been with a cargo of wine. He knew because she belonged to his cousin Vanni, who was a wine merchant and, if I would give up a morning’s sketching, he would give up a morning’s work, take me down to the port, introduce me to his cousin and show me over the ship.
Accordingly next morning Carmelo got leave from his padrone and drove us down the zig-zags among the flowers while Peppino told me about his cousin. His father had two brothers, one was the father of Vanni and used to keep a small wine shop down in the port and Vanni, who had a voice, studied singing and went on the opera stage.The other brother emigrated to America and never married. Very little was heard of him, except that he was engaged in some speculative business, until at last news came of his death. Had he died six months before, he would have left nothing, but it happened that the markets were favourable and he died rich. After the usual delays, his money came and was divided between his surviving brothers. Vanni’s father enlarged the wine shop, bought vineyards and a ship, took his son away from the stage and sent him to the University. In course of time he enlarged his business and took Vanni into partnership. Peppino’s father gave up being sagrestano, bought vineyards and the Albergo della Madonna (con giardino) and educated his son. The part of Peppino’s education that was most useful to him was his two years in England, and that did not cost his father anything, for he would only take money enough for the journey and all the time he was away he kept himself and saved, so that he not only repaid his father and paid for his journey home but had money in the bank.
By this time we had arrived at the quay and Peppino went off to his uncle’s shopfor information as to approaching theSorella di Ninu, leaving me alone with Carmelo. He seized the opportunity.
“I have been to see you several times because I wanted to tell you that I also have been in prison.”
“Hullo! Carmelo,” I said, “have you been trying to murder your father?”
“No,” he said, “it was not my father. It was a friend. We quarrelled. I drew my knife and stabbed him in the arm. It happened last year.”
I sympathized as well as I could and assured him that it should make no difference in the relations between us.
Why did I say this? Why was I so indulgent towards Carmelo and so implacable to Rosario? It seems as though an Englishman may also be a mass of contradictions. It is true that parricide is perhaps the most repulsive form that murder can take, but I do not think this had anything to do with it, for ordinary murder is sufficiently repulsive. I believe I was influenced by a conversation we had had during our last expedition; Carmelo had told me that he intended soon to leave private service, to marry and go into partnership with Rosario.
“But, Carmelo,” I had objected, “would not that be rather risky? Don’t you remember that Rosario has been to prison for trying to kill your father?”
“Oh, that all happened a long time ago and Rosario has married and settled down since then.”
Evidently Carmelo had thought this over and had felt uncomfortable that I should shun Rosario for being a jail-bird and not shun him who was one also. It seemed to indicate considerable delicacy of feeling on his part and I was pleased with him for taking so much trouble to get the confession off his chest. Whereas Rosario had treated his disgrazia as merely an annoying little accident that might happen to any gentleman.
Peppino returned, stood on the quay and shouted to the ships; presently a small boat containing Vanni and a sailor detached herself from the confusion and rowed to our feet. I was introduced and, amid the usual compliments, we took our seats and glided past theSacro Cuore, theDue Sorelle, theDivina Provvidenza, theMaria Concetta, theStella Maris, theLa Pace, theIndipendente, theNuova Bambinaand many more. Peppino called my attention to the names of the shipsand said how commonplace and dull they were after the romantic names he had seen on the beach at Brighton. He gave, as an instance,Pride of the Ocean, which I remembered having often seen there; it was all very well, but somehow it had never impressed me as hitting the bull’s-eye of romance. During their voyage through time the words of one’s own language become barnacled over with associations so that we cannot see them in their naked purity as we see the words of a foreign tongue. I translatedPride of the OceanintoVanto del Mareand offered it to Peppino; it seemed to me to gain, but he said I had knocked all the poetry out of it. One of the ships was theRiunione dei due Fratelli. I inquired whether the brothers had quarrelled and made it up.
“Yes,” said he, “that is the worst of family quarrels; they do not last.”
“What do you mean, Peppino? Surely it is better for brothers to be friends than to quarrel?”
“If to be friends inside also, then is it a good thing and much better; but look here, excuse me; the brothers are quarrelling and fighting and are failing to kill each othersand the parents are telling to don’t be quarrelling and the brothers are telling that they would be quarrelling and the parents are telling to don’t be stupid and to embrace and became friends and the brothers are telling, Go away, parents, and to leave alone to be quarrelling in peace. But it is too difficult and many months are passing and the brothers are—please, what is stanchi? Excuse me, it is fatigued, and are embracing to make pleasure to the parents and to make riunione outside and to baptize the ship, but inside it is riunione not at all. It is to kiss with the lips and the heart is hating each others. This is not a good thing.”
The boat with the name that pleased me best was not there. Peppino told me about it: it belonged to him before the money came from America and he used it to ferry tourists across the bay and into the bowels of the promontory through the mouth of a grotto where the reflected lights are lovely on a sunny day; he called it theAnime del Purgatorio.
This would have been just the morning to visit the caves, for there were no clouds. We stood on the deck of theSorella di Ninu,looking up through the brown masts and the rigging into the blue sky, and watching the gulls as they glided and circled above us and turned their white wings to the sun. Vanni did the honours of his ship, showed us his barrels and casks, nearly all empty now, and made us look down into the hold where there was a cask capable of holding, I forget how much, but it was so big that it could never have been got into the ship after it was made, so it had to be built inside. Then we must taste his wine, of which he still had some in one of the casks, and the captain brought tumblers and another queer-shaped glass with a string round its rim in which to fetch the wine up; it was about the size and shape of a fir-cone, the broad upper part being hollow to hold the wine, and the pointed lower part solid. The captain held it by the string and dropped it neatly down through the bung-hole, as one drops a bucket into a well; its heavy point sank through the wine without any of that swishing and swashing which happens with a flat-bottomed, buoyant, wooden bucket, and he drew it up full and gleaming like a jewel. The first lot was used to rinse the tumblers inside and out and then thrown overboard,sparkling and flashing in the sunlight as it fell into the sea. The taster was lowered again and the tumblers filled.
Vanni, seeing I admired the taster, wanted to give it to me, but it was the only one he had and was in constant use when customers came to the ship, so I declined it and he promised to bring one for me next time his ship made a voyage; in the meantime I took one of the tumblers as a ricordo. Then we went into the captain’s cabin and sat round his table listening to his stories and smoking cigarettes. Every now and then a silence came over us, broken occasionally by one of us saying suddenly—
“Ebbene, siamo quà!” (“Well, here we are!”)
This sort of thing formerly used to make me feel nervous; it was as though I had failed to entertain my friends or as though they had given up the hope of entertaining me. After experiencing it several times, however, I came to take a different and more accurate view. There was no occasion to do or say anything. We were enjoying one another’s society.
Vanni told us he was thinking of taking a cargo of Marsala to England and whatwould the English people say to it? Now the Marsala was very good and, according to Vanni, could be put upon the market at a very low price, but I foresaw difficulties. Knowing that he had sung in opera in Naples, Palermo, Malta and many other places, I asked if he liked music. He said he adored it. Music, he declared, was the most precious gift of God to man—more precious even than poetry. He had his box at the opera and always occupied it during the season. And he enjoyed music of all kinds, not only the modern operas of Mascagni, Puccini and so on, but also the old music of Verdi, Donizetti and Bellini. I asked if he did not likeLe Nozze di Figaro. He had never heard of it, nor ofDon Giovanni, nor ofFidelio. He had heard the names of Beethoven and Mozart, but not of Handel, Schubert or Brahms. He had heard also of Wagner, but had never heard any of his music.
I was not surprised he should not have heard of those composers who are not famous for operas, nor by his odd list of so-called old musicians, but I was surprised that he should place music so decidedly above poetry. I said it appeared to me he had practicallyexpressed the opinion that Donizetti was a more precious gift of God to man than Dante. Put like that, he did not hold to what he had said and confessed he had been speaking without due consideration. But Peppino said that in some respects Donizetti was a better man than Dante; he was smoother and better tempered, “and many things like this.” Peppino had been brought up, like every Italian, to worship Dante, but when he went to London and mastered the English language, when he began to read our literature and to think for himself, then he saw that Dante was “un falso idolo.” Every nation gets the poet she deserves and Italy has her faults; but what, asked Peppino, what has Italy done to deserve her dreary Dante? On the other hand, with all his admiration for England, he could hardly believe that we really do deserve our Shakespeare.
I was beginning to feel giddy, as though theSorella di Ninu, instead of being quietly in port, was out on the tumbling ocean in a sudden gale, so very unusual is it to hear such opinions in Italy. But Peppino is full of surprises. To recover my balance I turned the conversation back to the wine, takingmy way through the music and telling them that in England we thought very highly of the Austrian and German composers, and asking Vanni if he would recommend any one to introduce their compositions into Sicily. He replied that if it was pleasing music it might be successful, but that if it was very different from Italian music it would hardly pay to bring it over until the people had been educated. I feared it would be the same with the wine. He must first educate us to forsake our old friends, beer, whisky and tea, before he could create a market on which he could put his Marsala.
Driving back, I told Peppino about the lottery at Castelvetrano and how my numbers had lost. He inquired whether my birthday fell during the week I bought the ticket. It did not.
“Then,” said he, “of course you could not be winning and Angelo very stupid to let you play those numbers.”
It seems that numbers are no good unless they are connected with something that happens to you during the week. This explained why at Selinunte the brigadier had discarded the price of my clothes, which was not his concern but mine and belongedto the week in which I had bought them, and preferred to play the number that fell from the cigarettes, of which he was at the moment actually smoking one.
“If there shall be a railway accident,” continued Peppino, “on Thursday night, then shall there be going plenty much people and shall sleep in the ground to be first on Friday morning, because the office shall shut early to take the papers to Palermo to turn the wheel the Saturday. And if to come out the number, the people shall be gaining many money, but if to don’t come out, shall be gaining no money. This is not a good thing.
“They think it is fortunate the—please, what is sogno? Excuse me, it is the dream. But it must be the dream in the week you play. When the man in the dream shall be coming from the other world and shall be saying, ‘Please you, play this number,’ then they believe you shall certainly win. But if to play the number, very uncertain to win.”
They live in a state of wild hope after buying their tickets until the numbers are declared and, the odds being enormously in favour of the government, the gamblersusually lose. Then they live in a state of miserable despair until the possession of a few soldi, the happening of something remarkable, or merely the recollection of the departed joys of hope compared with present actual depression, urges them to try their luck again. So that the gambler’s life consists of alternations of feverish expectation and maddening dejection. “This is not a good thing”; but it is a worse thing for the gambler who wins. He sees how easy it is and is encouraged to believe he can do it every time; in his exaltation he stakes again and loses all his winnings, instead of only a few soldi. If he does not do this he spends the money in treating his friends and getting into debt over it and has to pawn his watch. So that the Genovese, by way of wishing his enemy ill-luck, while appearing to observe the proprieties, says to him—
“Ti auguro un’ ambo.” (“I hope you may win an ambo.”)
Peppino does not approve of the lottery, yet he has not made up his mind that it ought to be abolished. It certainly does harm, but so deep is the natural instinct for gambling that innumerable private lotteries would spring up to replace it, and they woulddo far more mischief, because they would be in the hands of rogues, whereas the government manages the affair quite honestly. The government pays no attention to dreams or ladies in white dresses or anything that happens during the week; it bases its calculations on the mathematical theory of chances, and gathers in the soldi week after week, so that it makes an annual profit of about three million sterling. Besides, if people are willing to pay for the pleasure of a week of hope, why should they not be allowed to do so? The uneducated as a class ought to contribute to the expenses of governing their country, and the lottery is a sure and convenient way of collecting their contributions. It is literally what it is often called—La tassa sull’ ignoranza. (The tax upon ignorance.)
Peppino even uses the lottery himself, but in a way of his own. He chooses two numbers every week, according to what occurs to him as though he were going in for an ambo and, instead of buying a ticket, puts four soldi into an earthenware money-box. The numbers he has chosen do not come out and he considers that he has won his four soldi and has put them by. In this way he has accumulated several money-boxesfull, and if ever his numbers come out he intends to break his boxes and distribute the contents among the deserving poor.
As a way of making money Peppino prefers the course of always doing whatever there is to be done in the house and in the vineyard. A few years ago his father’s vines were suffering from disease; he made inquiries, studied the subject, ascertained the best course to pursue and, with his own hands and some little assistance, rooted up all the plants and laid down American vines, with the result that the yield is now more than double what it ever was before. And this he thinks was a great deal better than losing money week after week in the lottery, not only because of the result, but because of the interest he took in the work. In fact, he attends to his own business and finds every moment of the day occupied. He says—
“Always to begin one thing before to finish some other thing, this is the good life.”
Certainly it seems to agree with him. There is not much the matter with Peppino’s health nor with his banking account nor with his conscience, so far as I can judge. Every one in the town is fond of him and he is always happy and ready to do any one a goodturn. Indeed, his popularity is the only thing that causes me any uneasiness about him. There is generally something wrong about a man who has no enemies—but there are exceptions to every rule.
The poor professor, on the other hand, has at least one enemy and that the worst a man can have, namely himself. The evening before he went away he took me into his confidence and consulted me about his future and his prospects. He is married, but his wife is out of her mind, and he has three sons, all doing badly, one of them very badly. He told me he was not at the moment employed as professor, he was living on his patrimony which consisted of a few acres of vines; he was gradually selling his land and spending the proceeds, and he thought this the best plan because the vines were all diseased and did not bring him in enough money to keep himself and his family. Should I recommend him to come to England, learn English and try to keep himself by the exercise of his profession? It was like Vanni’s idea of bringing his wine to England. I could only say I was afraid we already had enough professors. Then he thought he might write and earn a little money that way; he hadread all Sir Walter Scott’s novels in a translation—thirty-two volumes I think he said; he admired them immensely and was thinking of writing a romance; he had in fact an idea for one, and would I be so good as to give him my opinion about it? A young lady is desired by her father to marry a man she does not love, a rich man, much older than herself. She refuses, but, later on, consents to make the sacrifice. After a year of unhappy married life she meets a man of her own age, falls in love with him, and one day her husband surprises them together, in his rage kills them both and commits suicide.
“Now,” said the professor, “what do you think of my theme?”
I said that, so far as I could remember Sir Walter Scott’s novels at the moment, they contained nothing from which any one could say he had taken his plot which, of course, was greatly to his credit on the score of originality, but I begged to be allowed to defer giving any further opinion until he had finished the work; so much depends upon the way in which these things are carried out.
He had also written a poem entitledCompleto, of which he gave me a copy. It was, he said, “un grido dell’ anima.” He hadnot found a publisher for it yet, but if I would translate it into English and get it published in London, I could send him any profits that might accrue. I showed it to Peppino who swore he remembered something very like it in an Italian magazine and that the professor had had nothing to do with it beyond copying it. I translated it without rhymes, the professor not having gone to that expense. I have not offered the result to any English publisher, none of them would receive it as Peppino did when I showed it to him. He said I had performed a miracle, that I had converted a few lines of drivelling nonsense—just the sort of stuff that would attract the professor—into a masterpiece. But I am afraid the prestige of the English language may have blinded Peppino to any little defects, as it made him see more romance than I could find in the names of the English boats. This was my “masterpiece”:
FULL INSIDE.The train is full; Ah me! the load of travellers!The engine whistles; Ah me! the piercing shriek!My heart is burdened; Ah me! the weight of sorrows!My soul exclaims; Ah me! the despairing cry!O Train! have pity upon meFor you are strong and I am weak,Transfer to my heart the load of your passengersAnd take in exchange the weight of my sorrows.
FULL INSIDE.
The train is full; Ah me! the load of travellers!The engine whistles; Ah me! the piercing shriek!My heart is burdened; Ah me! the weight of sorrows!My soul exclaims; Ah me! the despairing cry!
O Train! have pity upon meFor you are strong and I am weak,Transfer to my heart the load of your passengersAnd take in exchange the weight of my sorrows.
Next time I saw the professor he was in charge of a newspaper kiosk in Palermo, looking older and more dilapidated and still waiting for the manna to fall from heaven. He complained of the slackness of trade. He also complained that the work was too hard and was killing him; so that, one way or the other, he intended to shut up the kiosk and look out for something else.
Educated Sicilians have not a high opinion of the marionettes; it is sometimes difficult to induce them to talk on the subject. They say the marionettes are for the lower orders and accuse them of being responsible for many of the quarrels we read about in the newspapers. The people become so fascinated by the glamour of the romance in which they live night after night that they imitate in private life the chivalrous behaviour of the warriors they see fighting in the little theatres, and thus what may begin as a playful reminiscence of something in last night’s performance occasionally leads to a too accurate imitation of one of last night’s combats and perhaps ends in a fatal wound. This being like the accounts in English papers about boys becoming hooligans orrunning off to sea as stowaways in consequence of reading trashy literature, my desire to attend a performance of marionettes was increased, but I did not want to go alone for, in the event of a row, with knives, among the audience it would be better to be accompanied by a native.
I was in Palermo where I knew a few students, whose education was of course still incomplete, but they were cold on the subject and said that if they came with me we should probably be turned out for laughing. That was not what I wanted. It ought to have been possible to do something with the waiter or the porter, or even with the barber whom I met on the stairs and in the passages of the hotel when he came in the morning to shave the commercial travellers; but they all made difficulties—either they did not get away from their work till too late, or it was not a place for an Englishman or it was not safe. At home, of course, one does not go to the theatre with the waiter, but when in Sicily, though one does not perhaps do altogether as the Sicilians, one does not do as one does in England. I know a Palermitan barber with whom I should be proud to be seen walkingin the Via Macqueda any day—that is, any day when his Sunday clothes were not in pawn—and there used to be a conduttore at my hotel who took me round to many of the sights in the town and who was a person of such distinguished manners that when with him I felt as though walking with a Knight-Templar in disguise—a disguise that had to be completed by my buying him a straw hat, otherwise he would have given us away by wearing his cap with “Albergo So-and-so” written all round it. These are the people who really know about the marionettes, for whenever they get an evening off they go. It seemed, however, that I had met with a conspiracy of obstruction. Palermo was treating me as a good woman treats her husband when he wants to do something of which she disapproves—there was no explanation or arguing; what I wanted was quietly made impossible. So I replied by treating Palermo as a good man treats his wife under such circumstances—I pretended to like it and waited till I could woo some less difficult city.
Catania provided what I wanted. There I knew a professor interested in folk-lore and kindred subjects to whom I confidedmy troubles. He laughed at me for my failures, assured me there was no danger and offered to take me. It was a Sunday evening. On arriving at the teatrino, he spoke to an attendant who showed us in by a side entrance and gave us the best places in the house, that is, we were near the only open window. The seating arrangements would have been condemned by the County Council; there were rows of benches across the floor and no passages, so that the people had to walk on the seats to get to their places; two galleries ran round the house very close together, an ordinary man could not have stood upright in the lower one, and it was difficult to move in the upper one in which we were, because the arches supporting the roof nearly blocked it in three places on each side. Presently a man came round and collected our money, twenty centimes each, the seats on the ground being fifteen.
There were four boys sitting on the stage, two at each side of the curtain, as they used to sit in Shakespeare’s theatre. Like the rest of the audience, these boys were of the class they call Facchini, that is, porters, coachmen, shop assistants, shoeblacks, water-sellers, and so on. It sometimes happenswhen travelling in Sicily that one has to spend half an hour, half a day, or it may be more, in company with one of these men. He is usually a delightful person, dignified, kind, courteous, full of fun and extremely friendly without being obtrusive. During conversation one may perhaps ask him whether he can read and write; he will probably reply that at school he was taught both. Presently one may ask him to read an advertisement, or to write down an address; he will probably reply that the light is bad, or that he is occupied with the luggage or the horses. The fact is that reading and writing are to him very much what the classics and the higher mathematics are to many an English gentleman—the subjects were included in his youthful studies, but as they have never been of the slightest use to him in earning his bread, he has forgotten all he ever learnt of them, and does not care to say so. The Sicilian, however, no matter how uneducated he may be, has an appetite for romance which must be gratified and, as it would give him some trouble to brush up his early accomplishments and stay at home reading Pulci and Boiardo, Tasso and Ariosto, he prefers tofollow the story of Carlo Magno and his paladins and the wars against the Saracens in the teatrino. Besides, no Sicilian man ever stays at home to do anything except to eat and sleep, and those are things he does out of doors as often as not; the houses are for the women, the men live in the street. It is as though in England the cab-drivers, railway porters and shop-boys were to spend evening after evening, month after month, looking on at a dramatized version of theArcadiaorThe Faerie Queene.
Presently the curtain went up and disclosed two flaring gas-jets, each with a small screen in front of it about halfway down the stage; these were the footlights, and behind them was a back cloth representing a hall with a vista of columns. In the rather confined space between the footlights and the back cloth there came on a knight in armour. He stood motionless, supporting his forehead with his right fist, the back of his hand being outward.
“Is he crying?” I inquired.
“No,” replied the professor, “he is meditating; if he were crying the back of his hand would be against his face.”
He then dropped his fist and delivered asoliloquy, no doubt embodying the result of his meditation, after which he was joined by his twin brother. They conversed at length of battles and the King of Athens, of Adrianopoli and the Grand Turk, of princesses and of journeys by sea and land. The act of speaking induced a curious nervous complaint, useful because it showed which was the speaker; not only did he move his head and his right arm in a very natural and Sicilian manner, but he was constantly on the point of losing his balance, and only saved himself from falling by swinging one leg from the hip forwards or backwards as the case required. The listening knight stood firm till he had to speak, and then he was attacked by the complaint and the other became still.
At first I was puzzled as to the actual size of the figures and, starting with the idea that marionettes are always small, assumed that these were about three feet high; but, as the novelty wore off, I compared them with the audience and especially with the boys sitting in the corners and with various assistants of whom occasional glimpses could be caught at the wings; sometimes the hand of an operator appeared below the scenery and gave a hint, and gradually I came to theconclusion that the puppets could not be much smaller than life, if at all.
The operators must have been standing on a platform behind the back scene; the figures were able to pass one another, but never came forward more than a step or two, the footlights being in the way, and no doubt the operators could not reach further forward than they did. Each figure was worked by two iron rods, one to his head and one to his right hand, and several strings to which after a few minutes I paid no attention; perhaps their very obviousness saved them from notice. Any attempt to conceal them would have been a mistake, for what is the use of announcing a performance by marionettes and then pretending there is no mechanism? Besides, if one cannot accept a few conventions one had better stay away from the theatre altogether.
At the conclusion of the interview the knights followed one another off; and the buoyancy of their walk must be seen to be believed. The students have seen it and believe it so thoroughly that, when they meet one another in the Quattro Canti, they not unfrequently adopt it to the amusement of the bystanders. But the students makethe mistake of slightly overdoing it. The marionettes often take a step or two quite naturally, and this, while adding to the absurdity (which cannot be the intention of the operator), also shows what is possible and makes one think that with a little extra trouble they might be made to walk always as smoothly as they move their heads and arms. It might, however, be necessary for them to have more strings, and this would make them more difficult to manipulate. In Sicily the marionettes who tell the story of the Paladins do not lay themselves out to be of a mechanism so ingenious that they shall appear to be alive; such illusion as they do produce, like the incompetent illustration to Shakespeare which Lamb preferred, is insufficient to cripple the imagination of the audience who are the more intimately touched by the romance of the story and by the voice of the speaker.
The back cloth was raised and we had before us a tranquil sea with two little islands sleeping under a sunset sky. Michele entered; he was a very splendid fellow in golden armour with draperies of purple and scarlet and white, and in his helmet a plume that nearly trailed on the ground. Noplaybill was provided, but none was wanted for Michele, he could not have been taken for anything but an operatic tenor of noble birth about to proceed against the Saracens. He first meditated and then soliloquized as he paced the sandy shore. The Princess of Bizerta in a flowing robe, covered with spangles, though not actually in sight, was not far off, imparting her griefs to the unsympathetic ocean. Spying the paladin, she strolled in his direction and spoke to him, but it was not an assignation; Michele, indeed, was obviously distressed at having his soliloquy interrupted; nevertheless, being a knight and a gentleman, he could but reply politely, and so they got into conversation. She told him who she was, which would not have been necessary if they had ever met before, then she told him of her unhappy plight, namely, that she was in the custody of an Arabian giant, and then she implored his assistance.
Michele was as unsympathetic as the ocean, his mind being full of Saracens; but before he had time to invent a plausible lie, the giant entered very suddenly. Physically he was not a particularly gigantic giant, being but three or four inches taller than Michele.If he had been much more, his head, which like that of all stage giants was undeveloped at the back, would have been hidden by the clouds that hung from the sky. His inches, however, were enough, for, in romance, height is given to a giant to symbolize power, and provided he is perceptibly taller than the hero, the audience accept him as a giant and a bully and one, moreover, who is, as a rule, nearing the end of his wicked career. Accordingly, when, in a voice of thunder, he demanded of Michele an immediate explanation—wanted to know how he dared address the princess—we all felt that he was putting himself in the wrong and that a catastrophe was imminent. Giants, that is, unscrupulous people in power, are too fond of assuming this attitude of unprovoked hostility and overbearing insolence, but they assume it once too often. Had he remembered Adam and Eve and the apple it might have occurred to him to inquire whether in the present case also the lady had not begun it. Giants, however, are for the most part unintelligent, not to say downright stupid people, and seldom have the sense to know how to use their power wisely—think of the giant inJack and the Beanstalk, think of Polyphemusand Ulysses, think of the Inquisition and Galileo.
And then this giant made the mistake of losing his temper, and the further mistake of showing that he had lost it, and when giants do this, it means that they know they are in the wrong and don’t care. He insulted Michele most grossly, and the knight very properly drew his sword and went for him, and a terrible battle ensued throughout which realism was thrown to the waves. The combatants rose off the ground so high that Michele’s head and the giant’s head and shoulders were frequently lost in the clouds; and they clanked down again upon the sandy shore two or three feet in front of where they had stood—or behind, just as it happened; and their swords banged against their breast-plates and shields, proving that they were real metal and not merely tinsel; and they twirled round and round like beef on a roasting-jack, until at last Michele dealt the inevitable blow and the giant fell dead on the sand with a thud that jolted the coast, shook the islands, rippled across the sunset sky and restored animation to the lifeless form of the princess.
While the battle raged she had beenstanding by, unmoved, blankly glaring at the audience; and yet she must have known as well as we did that it was all about her. The probability is that her operator had temporarily moored her to a convenient peg in the back of the clouds while he worked the giant, and that at the conclusion of the duel he was free to return to her. She first looked round and then swooped hurriedly across the stage, three inches from the ground; before quite touching her protector, however, she swung halfway back again, then a little forwards, and finally, coming to anchor at a suitable distance, raised her two hands and, as though offering him a tray of refreshments, said—
“Grazie.”
He, pursuing his policy of frigid politeness, bowed in acknowledgment and followed her off the stage, leaving the corpse of the giant lying near the sea.
The back cloth was intentionally too long, so that the bottom was crumpled into folds which did well enough for little waves breaking on the shore. These waves now began to be agitated, and gradually rose gustily and advanced until they had covered the dead giant. It was a very good effect andavoided the banality of removing the body in sight of the audience; it looked as though the wind had risen and the depths had swallowed him. And this, as I afterwards was told, is what happens to the giant’s body in the story.
When the back cloth went up for the next scene the corpse was gone, and we were in The House of the Poor Man where Michele came to take refuge—from what I did not clearly understand, but if from the Princess of Bizerta he would have been better advised had he sought some other sanctuary; for no sooner had he performed his usual meditation and soliloquy and got himself to sit down on The Poor Man’s chair, where he instantly fell asleep with his head resting on his hand, than Her Highness entered and, addressing the audience confidentially, said that she loved him and intended to take this opportunity of giving him a kiss. She was, however, on the other side of the stage and had first to get to him, which she did so like a bird with a broken wing that he woke up before she reached him. She evidently did not consider that this added to her difficulties, but something else did.
A dispute had been simmering in the gallery just opposite where we sat, and now began to boil over, and threatened to swamp the play as the waves had submerged the Arabian giant. I thought perhaps we ought to leave, though it would have been impossible to pass out quickly, but the professor again assured me there was no danger; the management are accustomed to disturbances and know how to deal with them. So I sat still, and the proprietor came on the stage and stood in front of the gas-jets. He joined his hands as though in prayer and begged us to be quiet, saying that it was a complicated story and would require all our attention, that Michele would die on Wednesday, and he hoped we should not cause the speaker to die of starvation before that day by preventing him from earning his bread. The appearance of the proprietor among his puppets confirmed me in the conclusion I had arrived at as to their size; he may have been a small man, but he was about the size of the giant. He must have been a strong man, for, with all their armour, the figures must be very heavy.
The proprietor’s appeal went to all our hearts; silence was restored and the princessrepeated to the warrior what we already knew—that she loved him and desired to kiss him. Something of the kind was exactly what poor Michele had been dreading. He turned to her and, almost choking with despair, said, “Misericordia,” not meaning to be hostile, but that the killing of her giant had already delayed him, and if he were to allow himself to yield to her blandishments he would be too late for the Saracens. No doubt he also had a vow. But when a lady has made up her mind on a matter of this kind, to thwart her is to invite disaster—think of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. Not that Michele thought of them, nor would it have influenced him if he had, for he was a paladin and incapable of fear; but he had the instincts of a gentleman, so, in spite of his anxiety to be off to the wars, he rose as well as he could, which was unsteadily, and staggered towards the princess who made every effort to meet him. In time they drew close enough to fall into one another’s arms, and the curtain descended as they were accomplishing not a passionate but a quite creditable embrace.
Then there was a scene between three kings with golden crowns who conversedat length of battles and the King of Athens, of Adrianopoli and the Grand Turk, of princesses and of journeys by sea and land. These were the things they spoke about as they stood together in the hall that had served for the first scene with a vista of columns behind, and when they had done they followed one another off. Then we also followed one another out of the theatre, not because of the Saracens, nor because we had any vow, nor because we feared a repetition of the uproar, nor even because of the coming-on disposition of the Princess of Bizerta, but because one open window was not enough.
My next experience in a marionette theatre was at Trapani. I approached the subject with Mario, a coachman whom I have known since he was a boy. He was quite ready to help me, and told me there were two companies in the town, one of large puppets, about as high as my umbrella, the others, to which he went every evening, being rather smaller. Accordingly, at about a quarter to eight, he called for me, wrapped in his melodramatic cloak, and hurried me through the wet and windy streets to the teatrino. He kept me on his right hand because he was the host and I the guest, and if, owing to obstructions, he found me accidentally on his left he was round in a moment and I was in the place of honour again. Heinsisted on paying for our seats, fifteen centimes each, and we went in.
This teatrino was in every way a much smaller place than that in Catania; it belonged to a private gentleman who had bought the puppets for his own amusement and spent much of his time among them, sometimes working them himself. He has since married and parted with them and the theatre is now (1908) closed. No complaint could be made about the seating arrangements or the ventilation. There were benches on the floor with a passage down the middle, a few rows in front were reserved for boys at ten centimes each and at the other end of the hall was a small gallery for ladies, twenty centimes each. I asked Mario so many questions that he proposed we should go behind the scenes, which was exactly what I wanted. He spoke to one of the authorities, who was politeness itself and, showing us through a door and up three steps, introduced us behind the curtain. Our heads were high above the opening of the proscenium, which was about the size and shape of the opening of the fireplace in a fairly large room. We were in a grove of puppets hanging up against the walls like turkeys in a poulterer’s shopat Christmas—scores and scores of them. There were six or eight men preparing for the performance and a youth, Pasquale, took charge of us and pointed out the principal figures.
“This warrior,” he said, “is Ferraù di Spagna.”
He was in tin armour, carefully made and enriched with brass and copper ornamentation, all as bright as a biscuit-box. I said—
“He looks a very terrible fellow. Why is he so red about the eyes?” for the whites of his eyes were redder than his cheeks.
“Because he is always in a rage. And this lady is Angelica, Empress of Cathay; she wears a crown and will die this evening. This is her husband, Medoro; he is a black man and wears a crown; he will perish to-night by the sword of Ferraù.”
I rapidly constructed by anticipation the familiar plot. The jealous husband would kill his erring wife and would then be killed by her lover; but, being unversed in the habits of Cathaian emperors and their entourage, I had run off the track. Pasquale put me straight.
“Prima Ferraù uccide Medoro.” (Ferraù first kills Medoro.)
“And then kills Angelica?” I inquired.
“No. Angelica si uccide personalmente, so as not to marry Ferraù.”
I was next introduced to Galafrone, the father of Angelica, who also wore a crown, and to two valorous knights, Sacripante, King of the Circassians, and the Duca d’Avilla.
There were more than two hundred marionettes altogether, including Turkish and Spanish soldiers. The knights and ladies were kept in green holland bags to preserve them from the dust, and taken out as they were wanted. They varied in height from twenty-four to thirty-two inches. Ferraù was thirty-one and a half inches from the soles of his feet to the top of his helmet; Angelica was twenty-six and a half inches; ordinary Turks and Spanish soldiers were only twenty-four inches each.
Pasquale was very proud of Ferraù who really was magnificent. He was made of wood with loose joints. An iron rod went through his head, and was hooked into a ring between his collar-bones. Another rod was fastened to his right wrist. There were three strings—one for his left hand, whichheld his shield, one to raise his vizor and one which passed through his right fist and across his body to his sword-hilt so that he could draw his sword. I should have liked to buy him and bring him to London with me; he would be an ornament to any house. But he was not for sale; and, besides, it would not have been right to break up the company. When Don Quixote, carried away by his feelings like a Sicilian facchino, came to the assistance of Don Gayferos by drawing his sword and attacking the Moorish puppets, he broke up Master Peter’s company in a very literal sense, and had to pay four and a half reals for King Marsilio of Saragossa and five and a quarter for the Emperor Carlo Magno; but it is not clear how large or how splendid they were.
Each figure requires one operator who stands between the wings, which are about up to his waist and so solid that he can lean his elbows on them and reach comfortably more than halfway across the stage. There are four openings between the wings, and thus there can be eight puppets on the stage at once, operated by eight manipulators, four on each side. This could not be done with the life-sized marionettes in Catania, whichwere all operated from behind, and never came forward. At Trapani the stage was much deeper in proportion, and the flies from which the scenery descended were high above the heads of the operators, so that the figures could walk about backwards and forwards all over the stage. The footlights were in the usual place in front of the curtain, and during the performance boys got up from their seats in the front row and lighted their cigarettes at them.
I had not nearly completed my investigations; but, fearing we might be in the way, we returned to the front and inquired about play-bills. There was only one in the house, posted up near the box-office; we went and inspected it—
Teatro di Marionette.Per questa sera darà 2 recitela prima alle 5½ la seconda alle 8Pugna fra Sacripante e il Duca d’Avilla—Ferraù uccide Medoro e acquista Angelica—Morte di Sacripante per mani di Ferraù—Morte di Angelica.Marionette Theatre.This evening two performances will be givenThe first at 5.30, the second at 8Fight between Sacripante and the Duke of Avilla—Ferraù kills Medoro and gains possession of Angelica—Death of Sacripante at the hands of Ferraù—Death of Angelica.
Teatro di Marionette.
Per questa sera darà 2 recitela prima alle 5½ la seconda alle 8Pugna fra Sacripante e il Duca d’Avilla—Ferraù uccide Medoro e acquista Angelica—Morte di Sacripante per mani di Ferraù—Morte di Angelica.
Marionette Theatre.
This evening two performances will be givenThe first at 5.30, the second at 8Fight between Sacripante and the Duke of Avilla—Ferraù kills Medoro and gains possession of Angelica—Death of Sacripante at the hands of Ferraù—Death of Angelica.
There was a pleasant-looking, retiring young man in the box-office, who was pointed out to me as “Lui che parla”—the one who speaks. They said he was a native of Mount Eryx and a shoemaker by trade.
We returned to our places and sat talking, smoking, eating American pea-nuts and waiting. The audience, which consisted of men of the class of life to which Mario belonged, all knew one another; most of them met there every evening. A subscription for one month costs three lire and entitles the holder to one performance a day, the performance at 8 being a repetition of that at 5.30.
The play now being performed isThe Paladins of France; it was written by Manzanares in Italian prose and is in three volumes. It does not always agree with the other versions of the same story; but that is only as it should be, for romances have always been re-written to suit the audience they are intended for. It has been going on about four months, that is, since last October, when it began with Pipino, Re di Francia edImperatore di Roma, the father of Carlo Magno, and it will continue day after day till May, like the feuilleton in a journal. During the hot weather there is no performance in this theatre; but the same story will be taken up again next October and is long enough to last through two winters. It could last longer, but they bring it within reasonable limits by removing some of the boredom. It concludes with the defeat and death of Orlando and the paladins at Roncisvalle.
The portion of the story appointed for the evening’s performance was in five acts, divided into a large number of very short scenes, and if I did not always know quite clearly what was going on, that was partly due to the distracting uproar, for nearly every scene contained a fight, and some contained several, the shortest lasting well over a minute. Whoever had been employed to shorten the story would have earned the thanks of one member of the audience if he had acted upon Pococurante’s remarks to Candide about the works of Homer. He ought not to have left in so many combats; they were as like one another and as tedious as those in theIliad, besides being muchnoisier, at least we are not told that the Homeric heroes were accompanied by a muscular pianist, fully armed, and by the incessant stamping of clogged boots. Nevertheless the majority of the audience enjoyed the fights, for no Sicilian objects to noise.
This is what I gathered: Angelica had come from far Cathay with the express intention of sowing discord among the paladins by inducing them to fall in love with her, and at the present moment Sacripante and the Duca d’Avilla were her victims. These two knights met in a wood, raised their vizors and talked matters over; there was to be a fight about it, of course, but the preliminaries were to be conducted in a friendly spirit—like a test case in Chancery. They separated, no doubt to give them an opportunity of going home to make their wills and take leave of their wives and families, if any. In the second scene they met again, lowered their vizors, drew their swords and fought till Angelica supervened. In the next scene the two knights and Angelica were joined by Medoro with whom one of the knights fought. I recognized Medoro when hisvizor was up because he was a black man, but Sacripante and the Duca d’Avilla were so much alike that I did not know which was fighting and which was standing with Angelica looking on; say it was Sacripante that was fighting, being king of the Circassians he was probably entitled to precedence over a mere duke. Angelica, after some time, began to feel qualms of conscience, so she interrupted and mentioned who Medoro really was. Sacripante, in the most chivalrous manner, immediately desisted and apologized—he had failed to recognize his opponent and had no idea he had been fighting with the lady’s husband. The apology was accepted in the spirit in which it was offered, all accusations, expressed or implied, were withdrawn, and friendly relations established. The four then set out together to pass the night in an albergo. Angelica, however, with her quick, womanly instinct, mistrusted the knights and, taking her husband aside, proposed that they two should depart by stealth and escape to Cathay, leaving Sacripante and the Duca d’Avilla asleep. Medoro demurred, saying it was a very good inn and he was quite comfortable where he was. So she told hima few facts which alarmed him to such a degree that he consented and they decamped.
On their way they encountered Ferraù who entered with a stamp of the foot, sforzando, attacked Medoro and killed him dead, thus obtaining possession of Angelica according to the play-bill. But she managed to get free and appeared upon the coast where she met a sea-captain and, telling him she was very rich, made terms with him, bought his vessel and embarked for the Court of her father, Galafrone. She might have made better terms had she not opened negotiations by telling him she was very rich, but it was a matter of life or death and she was reckless, knowing that Ferraù was after her. Sacripante and the Duca d’Avilla were after Ferraù and presently caught him up and attacked him. He fought with them both at once and killed one of them in a minute and a half. With the exception of myself, every one in the theatre knew which he killed, for they knew all the knights as they came on. Let us again give Sacripante the precedence and suppose that he was killed first. Ferraù went on fighting with the Duca d’Avilla and both were hard at work when the curtain fell.
It rose again, very effectively, on the continuation of the fight, and almost at once Ferraù cut off the Duca d’Avilla’s head which rolled about on the stage. Immediately there came three Turks; Ferraù stabbed each as he entered—one, two, three—and their bodies encumbered the ground as the curtain fell.
It rose as soon as the bodies had been removed and disclosed Ferraù stamping about alone. There came three more Turks; he stabbed them each as they entered—one, two, three—and their bodies encumbered the ground. Then there came three knights in armour; Ferraù fought them all three together for a very considerable time and it was deafening. He killed them all and their bodies encumbered the ground with those of the last three Turks. It was a bloody sight that met the eyes of Galafrone who now entered.
The curtain fell, while Galafrone had the corpses cleared away, and rose again on the same scene which was the ante-chamber of Angelica’s bedroom—for somehow we were now in her father’s dominions, and it was she who had sent the knights and the Turks to kill Ferraù before he couldapproach her. Then there was an interview between Ferraù and Galafrone on the subject of Angelica. The knight, having made her a widow, now wished to make her his wife, the king saw no objection and promised to use his influence with his daughter.
The scene changed to Angelica’s bedroom; her bed was at the far end of the stage with a patchwork quilt over it, but there was no other furniture in the room except a sofa near the front. Her father brought her in and I, knowing that she was to kill herself personally and that this must be her last entry, examined her closely and detected a string passing through her right hand and ending in the hilt of a dagger ostentatiously concealed in her bosom. Of course I knew what that meant. Her father, true to his promise, began to urge Ferraù’s suit, saying that he had forgiven him for having killed Medoro. But Angelica had not forgiven him, and moreover she hated Ferraù with his bloodshot eyes and his explosive manners. She made a long speech, admirably delivered by the cobbler and as full of noble sentiments as a poem by Mrs. Browning, then, suddenly drawing her dagger with the string,she stabbed herself and fell dead on the couch, exclaiming—
“A rivederci.”
It was an extremely neat suicide and her father concluded the entertainment by weeping over her body.
These marionettes were not nearly so comic in their movements as the life-sized ones in Catania, not because they were better managed, but because they attempted less and because, being so small, their defects were less obvious. A small one may, and generally does, enter like a bird alighting on a molehill, but he has such a short distance to go that he is at rest before one realizes that he has not attempted to walk. Besides it is a mode of progression we are all familiar with, having practised it in dreams since childhood. A life-sized marionette, on a larger stage, has, perhaps, two or three yards to traverse; he tries to take steps and is easily caught tripping, for without strings to his feet his steps can only be done in a haphazard way. There are marionettes with strings to their feet, and though they may doThe Story of the Paladins, this is not their usual business, they are more elaborately articulated, andare intended for operas, ballets and other complicated things.
And then, again, in Catania a glimpse of the hand of an operator or of some one standing in the wings offended at once as a blot on the performance. But looking at the small figures at Trapani one accepted them almost immediately as men and women, and forgot all about absolute size, so that when the hand of an operator appeared and it was larger than the head of a marionette, it seemed to belong to another world, while a real man standing in the wings could not be seen above his knees, and it required a mental effort to connect his boots and trousers in any way with the performance.
The speaker at Catania did well with a good voice; nevertheless one felt that disaster was in the neighbourhood and was being consciously avoided. The idea of failure never crossed the mind of the cobbler from Mount Eryx. His voice was rich and flexible, full of variety and quick to express a thousand emotions. Listening to it was like looking long and long into a piece of Sicilian amber in whose infinite depth, as you turn it about in the sunlight, you see all the colours of the rainbow, from red, throughorange, yellow, green and blue, even to a glowing purple. There was nothing he could not do with it, and he managed it with the quiet dignity and easy grace of a young lion at play.
Before the last act, which concluded with the death of Angelica, a dwarf had appeared in front of the curtain (not a human dwarf, but a marionette dwarf) and recited the programme for the following day, stating that the performance would terminate with the death of Ferraù. Unfortunately I was not able to witness his end, but I went to the teatrino the evening after. We arrived early and began by inspecting the programme—
Carlo ottiene piena vittoria contro Marsilio—Fuga di costui e presa di Barcelona—Marfisa trova Bradamante che more fra le sue braccia.Charles obtains complete victory over Marsilio—Flight of the latter and taking of Barcelona—Marfisa finds Bradamante who dies in her arms.
Carlo ottiene piena vittoria contro Marsilio—Fuga di costui e presa di Barcelona—Marfisa trova Bradamante che more fra le sue braccia.
Charles obtains complete victory over Marsilio—Flight of the latter and taking of Barcelona—Marfisa finds Bradamante who dies in her arms.
We then went behind the scenes to spend some time among the puppets before the play began. First I inquired whether Ferraù hadperished and ascertained that Orlando had duly killed him the night before with la Durlindana. This famous sword was won by Carlo Magno in his youth when he overcame Polinoro, the captain-general of Bramante, King of Africa. Carlo Magno, having another sword of his own and wishing to keep la Durlindana in the family, passed it on to his nephew Orlando. That is Pasquale’s version. Others say that it was given to Orlando by Malagigi the magician. The most usual account is that la Durlindana belonged to Hector. After the fall of Troy it came to Æneas; and from him, through various owners, to Almonte, a giant of a dreadful stature, who slew Orlando’s father. An angel in a dream directed Orlando, when he was about eighteen, to proceed to a river on the bank of which he found Carlo Magno and Almonte fighting. He took his uncle’s part, avenged his father’s death by killing Almonte, threw his gigantic body into the stream and appropriated his enchanted possessions, namely, his horse, Brigliadoro, his horn, his sword and his armour. He had the sword with him when he was defeated at Roncisvalle and threw it from him, about two hundred miles, to Rocamadour in Francewhere it stuck in a rock and any one can see it to this day.
I do not remember that Homer speaks of Hector’s sword as la Durlindana; perhaps he did not know. But every one knows that horses have had names, both in romance and real life, from the days of Pegasus to our own. Mario calls his horses Gaspare, after one of the Three Kings, and Totò, which is a form of Salvatore. They were so called before he bought them, or he would have named them Baiardo and Brigliadoro. Having no sword, he calls his whip la Durlindana. He assured me that the barber whom he employs calls all his razors by the names of the swords of the paladins, and that the shoe-blacks give similar names to their brushes.
If Pasquale’s statements were at variance with other poetical versions of the story, they were, as might be expected, still more so with the prose authorities. In the books, Carlo Magno was born sometimes in the castle of Saltzburg, in Bavaria, and sometimes at Aix-la-Chapelle; which may be good history, but could not well be represented by the marionettes without a double stage, and even then might fail to convince. The Carlo Magno of romance, son of Pipino,King of France, and Berta, his wife, was not born until many years after the wedding; for Berta had enemies at the French Court who spirited her away immediately after the ceremony, substituting her waiting-maid, Elisetta, who was so like her that Pipino did not notice the difference. Elisetta became the mother of the wicked bastards Lanfroi and Olderigi, while Berta lived in retirement in the cottage of a hunter on the banks of the Magno, a river about five leagues from Paris. Pipino lost himself while out hunting one day, took refuge in the cottage, saw Berta, did not recognize his lawful, wedded wife and fell in love with her over again. Carlo Magno was born in due course in the cottage, and his second name was given to him, not for the prosaic reason that it means the Great, but because it is the name of the river. The bastards afterwards murder their father, which is a warning to any bridegroom among the audience to be careful not to mistake another lady for his bride upon the wedding night. And thus Romance becomes the handmaid of Morality.
Carlo Magno is now on the throne. I was presented to him, and found him in mourning for a nephew who had been killeda few evenings before and whose corpse was still hanging on a neighbouring peg, waiting for the slight alteration necessary to turn him into some one else. All the paladins who had recently lost relations were in mourning and wore long pieces of crape trailing from their helmets. Pasquale took me round, told me who they all were and explained their genealogies.
I was in a hades peopled with the ghosts of Handel’s operas. I saw Orlando himself and his cousins “Les quatre fils Aymon,” namely Rinaldo da Montalbano, Guicciardo, Alardo, and Ricciardetto. I saw their father, whose name in Italian is Amone, and their sister Bradamante, the widow of Ruggiero da Risa, and her sister-in-law, the Empress Marfisa, Ruggiero’s sister. These two ladies were in armour, showing their legs, and in all respects like the men warriors, except that they wore their hair long.
“Bradamante will die this evening,” said Pasquale.
I expressed regret, and asked for particulars.
“She will die of grief for the loss of her husband, Ruggiero da Risa, who has been killed by the treachery of Conte Gano.”
Then I saw my fellow-countryman, Astolfo d’Inghilterra; he it was that brought back from the moon the lost wits of Orlando when he became furioso because Angelica would have nothing to say to him and married Medoro. And I saw Astolfo’s father, Ottone d’Inghilterra, and Il Re Desiderio and Gandellino, who seemed undersized; but when I said so, Pasquale replied—
“Si, è piccolo, ma è bello—stupendo,” and so he was.
I took down one of the knights, stood him on the floor and tried to work him. The number of things I had to hold at once puzzled me a good deal, especially the strings. Pasquale took another knight and gave me a lesson, showing me how to make him weep and meditate, how to raise and lower his vizor, how to draw his sword and fight. It was very difficult to get him to put his sword back into the scabbard. I could not do it at all, though I managed the other things after a fashion.
Then I saw the Marchese Oliviero di Allemagna and Uggiero Danese and Turpino, a priest, but a warrior nevertheless.
“This,” said Pasquale, “is GuidonSelvaggio, and this is his sister Carmida. They are the children of Rinaldo.”
“But spurious,” interrupted another youth.
“Yes,” agreed Pasquale; “they are bastards. Shall I tell you how?”
But I declined to rake up the family scandal and we passed on to Carmida’s husband, Cladinoro, Re di Bizerta, a spurious son of the old Ruggiero da Risa, and so valorous that they speak of La Forza di Cladinoro.
All these knights and ladies were hanging on one side of the stage in two rows, one row against the wall and the other in front. I asked Pasquale how he knew which was which. He concealed his astonishment at such a simple question and replied—
“By the crests on their helmets.”
I then observed that they all wore their proper crests, a lion or an eagle, or a castle, or whatever it might be; Ferraù had no crest, but he had a special kind of helmet, and these boys knew them all in the legitimate way by their armorial bearings, and that was how, on the evening of Angelica’s death, the audience knew all the knights and said their names as they entered.
On the other side of the stage were tworows of pagans who in this hades, where the odium theologicum persists, are not admitted among Christians. Here hung Il Re Marsilio di Spagna, who was to be defeated this evening, and his two brothers, Bulugante and Falserone, his son the Infanta di Spagna, his nephew Ferraù, now dead, and Grandonio. Then I came upon a miscellaneous collection and could look at no more knights or ladies after I had found the devil.