Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions Part 16

He looked at me sadly for a moment and then said:

"I thought you were an artist and now you are being practical.

Usefulness is not everything. This piece of lava will be for me an object of eternal beauty, and when I contemplate it I shall think of the happy time we have spent here together."

I said: "O Buffo! don't go on like that or you will make me cry."

In the evening we went to the Teatro Machiavelli and saw a performance by living players. In the first act a good young man introduced Rosina to the cavaliere, who congratulated him on having won the affections of so virtuous and lovely a girl. The cavaliere gave a bad old woman one hundred francs, and in return she promised to procure him an interview with Rosina. The bad old woman persuaded Rosina to enter a house in which we knew the cavaliere was. The good young man asked the bad old woman what she had done with his girl; of course she had done nothing with her, but we heard shrieks. The good young man became suspicious, broke open the door of the house and, on learning the worst, shot the bad old woman dead and was taken by the police.

"This seems as though it were going to be a very interesting play," said the buffo when the curtain had fallen.

"Yes," said I, "what do you think will happen next?"

"You ought to know that," he replied; "it's no use asking me. I never saw a Sicilian play in Rio."

"Of course not; I was forgetting. I should say that the good young man will be acquitted because it was justifiable homicide or that he will return after a short term of imprisonment; in any case I think he will marry Rosina and live happily ever after."

"I see," he replied. "You think it will be a comedy. People who take a gloomy view of life naturally expect something cheerful in the theatre.

But what if it is a tragedy? And how are you going to dispose of the cavaliere? Is he to carry his wickedness through your comedy?"

"You want it to be a tragedy because you are a buffo, I suppose. Now let me think. If you are right--"

Before I could see my way to a tragic plot, the curtain rose on Act II.

The women of the village were going to Ma.s.s, but Rosina, reduced to ragged misery, fell on the steps, not worthy to enter. The cavaliere came by and offered her money, which she indignantly spurned. A good old woman, who happened to be pa.s.sing, scowled at the cavaliere and kindly led Rosina away. An old man returned from America, where he had been for twenty years to escape the consequences of a crime the details of which he ostentatiously suppressed. This was his native village; he began recognising things and commenting on the changes. Rosina came to him begging. He looked at her and pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes as he said:

"My girl, why are you begging at your age--so young, so fair?"

"Ah! Old man, I am in ragged misery because my father committed a crime."

"A crime! What crime?"

So Rosina told him about it and the escape of the criminal to America.

The tears in her voice were so copious that her words were nearly drowned, but that did not signify; we were intelligent enough to have already guessed the relations.h.i.+p between them and we knew that she must be supplying the details which he had suppressed.

He struggled with his surging emotions as he watched her delivering her sad tale and we felt more and more certain that we must be right. There came a pause. She buried her face in her hands. The old man spoke:

"Twenty years, did you say?"

"Twenty years."

"And what was your mother's name?"

"Concetta."

"Dio mio! And your name?"

"Rosina."

"Mia figlia!"

"Mio padre!"

Here they fell into each other's arms and the orchestra let loose a pa.s.sage of wild allegria which it had been holding in reserve. The revelation of the cause of the ragged misery followed and was nearing its conclusion when the cavaliere happened to pa.s.s by. Rosina pointed him out to her father, who first made a speech at him and then shot him dead.

Rosina wept over his body, although she hated him, and the curtain fell.

"That was very beautiful," said the buffo. "Do you still think it will be a comedy? I still believe it will be a tragedy."

"I am not sure," I replied, "but we shall soon know. Did not the old man listen well?"

"Yes. It was like life. Did you observe how he made little calculations for himself while she told him the story?"

"Yes, and one could see it all agreed with what he knew."

"He was like your father reading his friend's letter. The cap fitted him and he put it on."

"Bravo, Buffo!"

"And when he made as though he would stroke her hair and drew back because he was not yet sure--oh, it was beautiful! But there was one thing I did not quite understand. Why did the cavaliere fall dead?"

"Because the father shot him," I replied.

"He aimed in the other direction."

"I also noticed that the old man fired to the right and the cavaliere fell on his left, but that was only because of a little defect of stage management. It does not do to be fastidious. You must not forget that they are doing the play as Snug the joiner did Lion, it has never been written. It will go more smoothly next time."

"Thank you. You see, I am not a regular theatre-goer. There is another thing that puzzled me. You remember the bad old woman in the first act who was shot? Should you think I was being too fastidious if I asked you why she rose from the dead and led Rosina kindly away in the second act?

No doubt it will be explained presently, but, in the meantime, if you--"

"She did not rise from the dead; it was a different woman."

"It was the same woman."

"Anyone could tell you are a Portuguese or an Englishman or whatever you are--a foreigner of some kind; no Sicilian would make such an objection.

It was the same actress, but a different character in the drama. That was either because they have not enough ladies in the company, or because the lady who ought to have taken one part or the other is away on a holiday, or because the lady who acted wanted to show she could do a good old woman and a bad old woman equally well."

"Thank you very much. You can hardly expect--But hus.h.!.+ they are beginning the third act, which will explain everything."

The curtain rose again. The background represented an elegant circular temple built of sponge cake, strawberry ice and spangles; it stood at the end of a perspective of columns constructed of the same materials, and between the columns were green bushes in ornamental flower-pots--all very pretty and gay--"molto bellissimo," as the buffo said. The orchestra struck up a jigging tune in six-eight time in a minor key with a refrain in the tonic major, and a washed-out youth in evening dress with a receding forehead, a long, bony nose, an eye-gla.s.s, prominent upper-teeth, no chin, a hat on the back of his head, a brown greatcoat over his arm, s.h.i.+ny boots, a cigarette and a silver-topped cane, entered.

I whispered:

"Is he dressed well enough for an Englishman?

"Yes," whispered the buffo, "but this is no Englishman. Don't you see who it is and where we are? This is the good young man in paradise. His punishment has been too much for him and he has died in prison."

"But, Buffo mio," I objected, "it's a different person altogether; it's not a bit like him."

"It may be a different actor--I think it is--but it is the same character in the drama. That is either because they have too many men in the company, or because the actor who did the good young man in the first act has gone home to supper and another is finis.h.i.+ng his part for him, or because--I can't think of any other reason just now, and I want to hear what he is saying."

Except for his clothes, the creature on the stage was little more than a limp and a dribble, but there was enough of him to sing a song telling us in the Neapolitan dialect that his notion of happiness was to stroll up and down the Toledo ogling the girls. When he had finished acknowledging the applause he departed and his place was taken by a lady no longer young, in flimsy pale blue muslin, a low neck and sham diamonds. There lingered about her a hungry wistfulness, as though she were still hoping to get a few more drops of enjoyment out of the squeezed orange of her wasted life.