“It was the same woman.”
“Anyone could tell you are a Portuguese or an Englishman or whatever you are—a foreigner of some kind; no Sicilian would make such an objection. It was the same actress, but a different character in the drama. That was either because they have not enough ladies in the company, or because the lady who ought to have taken one part or the other is away on a holiday, or because the lady who acted wanted to show she could do a good old woman and a bad old woman equally well.”
“Thank you very much. You can hardly expect—But hush! they are beginning the third act, which will explain everything.”
The curtain rose again. The background represented an elegant circular temple built of sponge cake, strawberry ice and spangles; it stood at the end of a perspective of columns constructed of the same materials, and between the columns were green bushes in ornamental flower-pots—all very pretty and gay—”molto bellissimo,” as the buffo said. The orchestra struck up a jigging tune in
six-eight time in a minor key with a refrain in the tonic major, and a washed-out youth in evening dress with a receding forehead, a long, bony nose, an eye-glass, prominent upper-teeth, no chin, a hat on the back of his head, a brown greatcoat over his arm, shiny boots, a cigarette and a silver-topped cane, entered. I whispered:
“Is he dressed well enough for an Englishman?
“Yes,” whispered the buffo, “but this is no Englishman. Don’t you see who it is and where we are? This is the good young man in paradise. His punishment has been too much for him and he has died in prison.”
“But, Buffo mio,” I objected, “it’s a different person altogether; it’s not a bit like him.”
“It may be a different actor—I think it is—but it is the same character in the drama. That is either because they have too many men in the company, or because the actor who did the good young man in the first act has gone home to supper and another is finishing his part for him, or because—I can’t think of any other reason just now, and I want to hear what he is saying.”
Except for his clothes, the creature on the stage was little more than a limp and a dribble, but there was enough of him to sing a song telling us in the Neapolitan dialect that his notion of happiness was to stroll up and down the Toledo ogling the girls. When he had finished acknowledging the applause he departed and his place was taken by a lady no longer young, in flimsy pale blue muslin, a low neck and sham diamonds. There lingered about her a hungry wistfulness, as though she were still hoping to get a few more drops of enjoyment out of the squeezed orange of her wasted life.