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Act II. The scene is the same as that of the preceding act. Tonio with the big drum takes his position at the left angle of the theatre. Beppe places benches for the spectators, who begin to assemble, while Tonio beats the drum. Silvio arrives and nods to friends. Nedda, dressed as Columbine, goes about with a plate and collects money. As she approaches Silvio, she pauses to speak a few words of warning to him, then goes on, and re-enters the theatre with Beppe. The brisk chorus becomes more insistent that the play begin. Most of the women are seated. Others stand with the men on slightly rising ground.
A bell rings loudly. The curtain of the tent theatre on the stage rises. The mimic scene represents a small room with two side doors and a practicable window at the back. Nedda, as Columbine, is walking about expectantly and anxiously. Her husband, Pagliaccio, has gone away till morning. Taddeo is at the market. She awaits her lover, Arlecchino (Harlequin). A dainty minuet forms the musical background.
A guitar is heard outside. Columbine runs to the window with signs of love and impatience. Harlequin, outside, sings his pretty serenade to his Columbine, "O Colombina, il tenero" (O Columbine, unbar to me thy lattice high).
The ditty over, she returns to the front of the mimic stage, seats herself, back to the door, through which Tonio, as Taddeo, a basket on his arm, now enters. He makes exaggerated love to Columbine, who, disgusted with his advances, goes to the window, opens it, and signals. Beppe, as Harlequin, enters by the window. He makes light of Taddeo, whom he takes by the ear and turns out of the room, to the accompaniment of a few kicks. All the while the minuet has tripped its pretty measure and the mimic audience has found plenty to amuse it.
Harlequin has brought a bottle of wine, also a phial with a sleeping-potion, which she is to give her husband, when opportunity offers, so that, while he sleeps, she and Harlequin may fly together. Love appears to prosper, till, suddenly, Taddeo bursts in. Columbine's husband, Pagliaccio, is approaching. He suspects her, and is stamping with anger. "Pour the philtre in his wine, love!" admonishes Harlequin, and hurriedly gets out through the window.
Columbine calls after him, just as Canio, in the character of Pagliaccio, appears in the door, "Tonight, love, and forever, I am thine!"—the same words Canio heard his wife call after her lover a few hours before.
Columbine parries Pagliaccio's questions. He has returned too early. He has been drinking. No one was with her, save the harmless Taddeo, who has become alarmed and has sought safety in the closet. From within, Taddeo expostulates with Pagliaccio. His wife is true, her pious lips would ne'er deceive her husband. The audience laughs.
But now it no longer is Pagliaccio, it is Canio, who calls out threateningly, not to Columbine, but to Nedda, "His name!"
"Pagliaccio! Pagliaccio!" protests Nedda, still trying to keep in the play. "No!" cries out her husband—in a passage dramatically almost as effective as "Ridi, Pagliaccio!"—"I am Pagliaccio no more! I am a man again, with anguish deep and human!" The audience thinks his intensity is wonderful acting—all save Silvio, who shows signs of anxiety.