“The malignant rascal, upon this, contrived a very mean trick to revenge himself. He dropped two or three of the cheapest of his images on purpose, and then made a terrible outcry, so as to attract the attention of some of the police, who were moving about here and there in the crowd. When he had succeeded in bringing them to the spot, he charged that I had been stirring up the people against him, that they had been shoving him about, and had caused great damage to his frail wares. He was a respectable person, he said, who paid for his license, and was well-known in the neighborhood, while I was a mere vagrant, and very likely something still worse, who could say? perhaps that vile assassin of the cardinal? This was the shape that the story had already assumed, and it was in this character that I was held up to public animadversion, and to the scrutiny of the police. The people, however, took my part; and many witnesses testified to my innocence as well as their own, proving that no one had pushed, or even touched the tray of the figure-merchant. Those who were immediately about me stepped quietly in the way of the officers, and made room for me to pass.
“But although I found good friends among them, there were also plenty of blackguards or cowards, who pointed me out without saying a word, as I rushed precipitately into a crowded by-street. The officers pursued me; I had a good start, but I knew nothing of the locality; and instead of gaining the open country, very soon found myself in another square, where a number of people had gathered attentively about a theatre of marionettes. Scarcely had I had time to join this group, when the officers came up and began looking around with penetrating eyes. I made myself as small as possible, and was pretending to feel a great interest in Punchinello, so as not to excite the curiosity of my neighbors, who were jostling me on every side, when suddenly a luminous idea, suggested by my imminent danger, flashed into my excited brain. While the officers were trying to force an entrance into the compact and motionless crowd, I crept gradually forward until I could touch the canvas of the booth. Then stooping slowly down, I suddenly glided in under it as a fox runs into a hole, and found myself squatting almost between the legs of the operator—that is, of the person who was moving the marionettes and speaking for them.
“Do you know what a theatre of marionettes is, M. Goefle?”
“Certainly! I saw Christian Waldo’s only a little while ago, at Stockholm.”
“Saw it?—From the outside, you mean?”
“That’s all; but I have a very good idea of the inside, though that one seemed to me to be rather complicated.”
“It is a theatre for two operators, or, in other words, for four hands, which means, of course, four actors on the stage, and that is a sufficiently large company of burattini.”
“What are burattini?”
“They are the classical, primitive marionettes; the best. The burattino is not the same as the stiff, wooden fantoccio which, hung to the ceiling by strings, moves about without touching the ground, or else with a noise that is ridiculous and unnatural. The jointed marionette, which is much more scientific and complete, contains some really ingenious mechanism, that enables it to make very natural gestures and to assume graceful attitudes. With further improvements it could undoubtedly be constructed to imitate nature perfectly; but, on investigating the subject, I have asked myself of what use this would be, and what advantage art would derive from a theatre of automata? The larger they were made, the more like human beings, the more disagreeable, and even frightful, the spectacle of such artificial actors would become. Does it not appear to you so?”
“Certainly, it does—but the digression interests me less than the continuation of your narrative.”