“Well, then, your own history, Christian; or at least some parts of it, just as you told it to me.”
“No, M. Goefle, my history is not an amusing one, and it would not inspire me with any brilliant fancies. The only romantic part of it is just that which I am myself ignorant about, and I have often taken this as the basis of my Stentarello’s adventures. Stentarello, you know, is a personage who adapts himself to all characters and all situations. Well, one of my fancies is to attribute to him a mysterious birth, such as mine was; and I often begin my pieces by making him narrate the precise circumstances of that story, whether true or false, which the little Jew told Sophia Goffredi. I have sometimes amused myself by the idea that I should some day hear an exclamation or a cry in the audience that would be the means of directing me to my mother. But that is a mere fancy. As for Stentarello, he is a comic individual, sometimes young and sometimes old, according as I nail a blond or a white wig on his head. Of course, in order to be laughed at, he must be ridiculous. In such a plot as I refer to, and which I propose that we should adopt, he goes about in search of his parents, taking it for granted that he is nothing less than the natural son of a king. Then the action of the piece takes him through a series of absurd adventures, in the course of which he makes various ridiculous blunders, until he ends by discovering that he is the son of a mere country clown; but by that time he has had so many mortifications, that he thinks himself fortunate to find food and shelter with his father.”
“Very good,” said M. Goefle, “we will make him an epicure, and the son of a cook or confectioner.”
“Exactly the thing. That’s the idea. Well, shall we begin?”
“Do you write, if you can do it legibly. My writing can hardly be read. My hand can’t keep up with the flow of my ideas, and I scratch away like a cat. The deuce—what a good hand! But what are you doing?”
“Putting down the dramatis personæ.”
“Yes, I see that; but you have written in the first act: Stentarello in swaddling clothes?”
“That is my idea. I am tired of making my poor Stentarello repeat the story of being let down by a cord out of a window into a boat. If you agree, I will paint that scene instead.”
“Paint it? But how the devil will you do it?”
“I have an old castle amongst my scenery here.”