‘For Michel,’ said Sidonia, dropping a five-franc piece into the box.
‘A piece of a hundred sous!’ said Michel.
‘And a piece of a hundred sous for yourself and each of your brothers and sisters, Adelaide,’ said Sidonia, giving her a purse.
Michel gave a shout, but Adelaide blushed very much, kissed his hand, and skipped away. When she had got behind the curtain, she jumped on her father’s neck, and burst into tears. Madame Baroni, not knowing what had occurred, and observing that Sidonia could command from his position a view of what was going on in their sanctuary, pulled the curtain, and deprived Sidonia of a scene which interested him.
About ten minutes after this, Baroni again appeared in his rough great-coat, and with his violin. He gave a scrape or two, and the audience became orderly. He played an air, and then turning to Sidonia, looking at him with great scrutiny, he said, ‘Sir, you are a prince.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Sidonia, ‘I am nothing; I am only an artist like yourself.’
‘Ah!’ said Baroni, ‘an artist like myself! I thought so. You have taste. And what is your line? Some great theatre, I suppose, where even if one is ruined, one at least has the command of capital. ‘Tis a position. I have none. But I have no rebels in my company, no traitors. With one mind and heart we get on, and yet sometimes——’ and here a signal near him reminded him that he must be playing another air, and in a moment the curtain separated in the middle, and exhibited a circular stage on which there were various statues representing the sacred story.
There were none of the usual means and materials of illusion at hand; neither space, nor distance, nor cunning lights; it was a confined tavern room with some glaring tapers, and Sidonia himself was almost within arm’s reach of the performers. Yet a representation more complete, more finely conceived, and more perfectly executed, he had never witnessed. It was impossible to credit that these marble forms, impressed with ideal grace, so still, so sad, so sacred, could be the little tumblers, who, but half-an-hour before, were disporting on the coarse boards at his side.
The father always described, before the curtain was withdrawn, with a sort of savage terseness, the subject of the impending scene. The groups did not continue long; a pause of half a minute, and the circular stage revolved, and the curtain again closed. This rapidity of representation was necessary, lest delay should compromise the indispensable immovable-ness of the performers.
‘Now,’ said Baroni, turning his head to the audience, and slightly touching his violin, ‘Christ falls under the weight of the cross.’ And immediately the curtain parted, and Sidonia beheld a group in the highest style of art, and which though deprived of all the magic of colour, almost expressed the passion of Correggio.