“Pardon me, pardon me, Monsieur Goefle, the digression is unavoidable. I am just coming to a singular part of my adventurous career, and I must positively prove to you the superiority of the burattino. I want to convince you that the instrument of the comic artist, in this elementary representation, is neither a machine, nor a puppet, nor a doll; it is a living being.”
“Ah! Indeed? A living being?” repeated M. Goefle, looking with astonishment at his companion, and asking himself whether he was not liable to occasional fits of insanity.
“Yes, a living being! I insist upon it,” replied Cristiano, with enthusiasm; “and all the more because it has no body. The burattino has neither wheels, nor strings, nor pulleys. It is a head, and nothing more; a head with expression and intelligence, in which—but wait a moment!”
Cristiano stepped under the staircase, and opening a box, produced a little wooden figure, dressed in rags, which he threw down, picked up, tossed in the air, and caught again in his hand.
“There,” he resumed, “look at that! A rag—a mere chip, the figure scarcely indicated. Now see, I put my hand inside of this little leather bag, my forefinger in the head, which is hollow, my thumb and middle finger into these sleeves, to manage the two little wooden hands. These hands, you see, are short, formless, and not exactly either open or shut. This is intentional; it is to conceal their immovability. Now let me stand at such a distance from you as suits the size of the little thing. There; stay where you are, and look!”
“While he was speaking, Cristiano had mounted the staircase at two bounds, crouched down so as to hide his body behind the balustrade, raised his hand above it, and moved the marionette with extreme address and grace.
“You see, now,” he cried, as gayly as ever, and yet with real earnestness, “you see how perfect the illusion is, even without either theatre or scenery. The face, which is sketched, as it were, in a broad style, and painted in colors of a somewhat dull tone, begins, as it moves, to look as if it were alive. If I were to show you one of the best German marionettes, all varnished and shining, covered with spangles, and moving by wheel-work, you could not help remembering that it is only a doll—a mere piece of machinery; while my burattino here, lithe and obedient to every motion of my fingers, comes and goes, salutes, turns its head, folds its arms, raises them towards heaven, expresses all manner of emotions, strikes a blow, beats upon the wall with joy or despair. And don’t you see that you fancy you perceive all these emotions expressed in the face too? What is it that causes such a wonderful effect? How is it that a head so roughly cut, so ugly when closely examined, should suddenly assume, in the play of the light, such a lifelike expression, that you quite forget its real size. Yes, I insist upon it, that when you see the burattino in the hands of a real artist, upon a theatre where the scenery, the stage, the surroundings are in proper proportion to the actors, you completely forget that you yourself are not upon the same scale; you forget even that the voice that speaks for them is not their own. The association apparently so impossible, of a head no larger than my fist, with a voice as strong as mine, is admitted readily in the state of mysterious intoxication into which I manage gradually to bring you, and the whole miracle is accomplished. Do you see what causes it? The fact that the burattino is not an automaton, but a thing obedient to my caprice, my inspiration, my impulses; because all its motions are the results of ideas which spring up in my mind, of words which I furnish; in short, because it is myself; therefore, a living being and not a doll!”
Having thus argued his case with a great deal of animation, Cristiano came down stairs, laid the marionette on the table, took off his coat, apologizing to M. Goefle on the ground of being too warm, and placed himself astride upon his chair again, so as to resume the thread of his story.
During this odd interruption, M. Goefle’s attitude had been about as amusing as Cristiano’s.
“Wait a moment,” he observed, taking up the burattino. “All that you have said is very true, and well argued. And now I understand the extraordinary pleasure which I took in the representations of Christian Waldo. But what you do not explain, and what I nevertheless perceive very plainly to be the fact, is, that this good little gentleman that I have in my hand, I would like very well to make him move and talk myself—Come, my little friend,” he proceeded, inserting his fingers into the head and sleeves of the burattino, “come; take a look at me. That’s right: yes; you are very good-looking, and I am happy to make so close an acquaintance with you. And now, I declare I remember you! You are Stentarello, that very joyous, satirical and graceful Stentarello who made me laugh so much a fortnight ago at Stockholm! And you, young man,” continued M. Goefle, turning to his guest—“although I have never seen your face before, yet I recognize you perfectly by your voice, your sprightliness, your gayety, and your sensibility as well—you are Christian Waldo, the famous operator of the Neapolitan burattini!”