IV
The voice in the canoe behind me ceased. The rain let up. The slish, slish of the paddle stopped. The canoe swung sideways to the breeze. I heard the rap, rap, rap of a pipe on the gunwale, and the scratch of a match on the under side of the thwart.
"What are you doing, Ferdinand?"
"I go to light the pipe, M'sieu'."
"Is the story finished?"
"But yes—but no—I know not, M'sieu'. As you will."
"But what did old Girard say when his daughter broke her engagement and married a man whose eyes were spoiled?"
"He said that Leclère could see well enough to work with him in the store."
"And what did Vaillantcœur say when he lost his girl?"
"He said it was a cursed shame that one could not fight a blind man."
"And what did 'Toinette say?"
"She said she had chosen the bravest man in Abbéville."
"And Prosper—what did he say?"
"M'sieu', I know not. He spoke only to 'Toinette."
"THE PLAY'S THE THING"
By Albert White Vorse
Illustrated by W. Glackens
Beatrice was making an angel. She had lifted down the Princess Angelica from the hook whence her royal highness had been suspended since her death a few weeks before, had removed the royal crown and the royal legs, and was turning the royal robe into celestial drapery. Beatrice's conception of a heavenly garment was a white morning wrapper gathered at the bottom, so that when the angel soared head downward—as angels do—its clothes could not fall over its face. Beside Beatrice, who was seated on the floor, lay a pair of wings constructed of muslin tacked upon thin sticks; and about her feet writhed long wires designed to support the angel that evening in its visitation to her father's Italian marionette theatre.
It was behind the scenes that I was waiting for her father to come in; and meanwhile I lounged upon the helpers' bench and enjoyed the quaintness of the place.
Lighted by an irresolute gas-jet, the space between the back-drop and the rear wall of the theatre was a chaos of strange objects. Beside me, upon the bench, lay the book of the play—a collection of those legends of Charlemagne's court, descended from the Chansons de gestes, which have been so dear to Italian poets and are still so dear to the Italian people. Each afternoon the manager read over the adventure to be presented in the evening. When the curtain rose he took his stand in the wings and declaimed lines extemporized to fit the situations. The helpers, from their places upon the high bench, leaned over the back-drop, swung the marionettes upon the stage by means of long rods running down through the heads of the figures, and by means of other rods and of strings caused the mock men and women to make gestures and to fight. That was a task which told upon heads as well as hands; for the helpers were bound, not only to make the figures walk—no light labor, for each puppet weighed seventy pounds—but also to make them express the sentiment of every speech as it fell from Pietro's lips. Many times had I tried to handle a marionette and as often had failed; and I looked with respect upon the row of little creatures hung about the walls from a rack. They were dight in the panoply of knighthood. At my left shone the brass armor of the Christianos. The right was brilliant with the party-colored robes and turbans and the glowering faces of dusky infidels. The corners were piled high with heterogeneous properties; bright silks, bits of armor, shields, swords. From the right-hand heap protruded a ghastly leg, lopped from a Christian. The summit of the opposite heap was the grinning head of a dragon which had met death a few nights before in terrible battle with Orlando.
The dragon's body was a comfortable support for Beatrice's back. Of her face, bent over her work, I could see only an obstinate little olive-colored chin, two faintly red cheeks, and two straight black brows. Her hair hung over ears and shoulders and fell in dusky tangles upon a green silk waist. Ordinarily, Italian girls begin early in life to use hairpins.
"How old are you, Beatrice?" I asked.
The girl looked up and opened wide a pair of great tawny eyes.
"How old, Signore?" she repeated, in her low, husky voice. "Fifteen-a. Nex' moont' I s'all be sixteen-a."
"So old!" I commented. "Almost a woman. You'll be having a sweetheart soon; and what will your father do when he wants an angel?"
Again I saw of Beatrice only a veil of hair and a hand rapidly plying to and fro.
"No, Signore," she murmured from behind her screen. "I am not enough old-a. I s'all nevair marry. Who would tak-a me?"
"Anselmo?" I suggested.
I caught a gleam of the tawny eyes through the hair.
"I do not tink of 'im!" she expostulated.
"The other helper, then. What's his name? Giuseppe?"
Beatrice ceased to sew, tossed her hair away from her face, and shook her head slowly. The pink in her cheeks had deepened, but her luminous eyes gazed straight into mine.
"Signore," she said, impressively, "I ask-a to credit me. I do not tink of eit'er of desa men."
I found myself abashed, as if I had been making light of sacred things.
"I beg your pardon, Beatrice," I stammered. "It's not my business, of course. I'm sorry I spoke of it."
Without making reply she bent over her work again. For some moments she sewed, while I chid myself for suggesting romance to a sensible child.
Rapid steps beat upon the stairs outside, and Beatrice's father hurried into the little den.
"Beatrice," he called, sharply, in his own language, "go thou to the ticket-office. It is the hour of admittance for the people. I will finish the angel."
The girl dropped her needle and sped out through the door. The manager slammed it behind her, turned toward me, drew up his shoulders, and raised his eyes toward heaven.
"May the saints aid me to make righteous that child!" he exclaimed. "Both of my helpers came to me to-day to ask her in marriage. She promised herself to both last night."