“A rivederci.”
It was an extremely neat suicide and her father concluded the entertainment by weeping over her body.
These marionettes were not nearly so comic in their movements as the life-sized ones in Catania, not because they were better managed, but because they attempted less and because, being so small, their defects were less obvious. A small one may, and generally does, enter like a bird alighting on a molehill, but he has such a short distance to go that he is at rest before one realizes that he has not attempted to walk. Besides it is a mode of progression we are all familiar with, having practised it in dreams since childhood. A life-sized marionette, on a larger stage, has, perhaps, two or three yards to traverse; he tries to take steps and is easily caught tripping, for without strings to his feet his steps can only be done in a haphazard way. There are marionettes with strings to their feet, and though they may do The Story of the Paladins, this is not their usual business, they are more elaborately articulated, and
are intended for operas, ballets and other complicated things.
And then, again, in Catania a glimpse of the hand of an operator or of some one standing in the wings offended at once as a blot on the performance. But looking at the small figures at Trapani one accepted them almost immediately as men and women, and forgot all about absolute size, so that when the hand of an operator appeared and it was larger than the head of a marionette, it seemed to belong to another world, while a real man standing in the wings could not be seen above his knees, and it required a mental effort to connect his boots and trousers in any way with the performance.
The speaker at Catania did well with a good voice; nevertheless one felt that disaster was in the neighbourhood and was being consciously avoided. The idea of failure never crossed the mind of the cobbler from Mount Eryx. His voice was rich and flexible, full of variety and quick to express a thousand emotions. Listening to it was like looking long and long into a piece of Sicilian amber in whose infinite depth, as you turn it about in the sunlight, you see all the colours of the rainbow, from red, through
orange, yellow, green and blue, even to a glowing purple. There was nothing he could not do with it, and he managed it with the quiet dignity and easy grace of a young lion at play.
CHAPTER VII—THE DEATH OF BRADAMANTE
Before the last act, which concluded with the death of Angelica, a dwarf had appeared in front of the curtain (not a human dwarf, but a marionette dwarf) and recited the programme for the following day, stating that the performance would terminate with the death of Ferraù. Unfortunately I was not able to witness his end, but I went to the teatrino the evening after. We arrived early and began by inspecting the programme—
Carlo ottiene piena vittoria contro Marsilio—
Fuga di costui e presa di Barcelona—
Marfisa trova Bradamante che more fra le sue braccia.Charles obtains complete victory over Marsilio—
Flight of the latter and taking of Barcelona—
Marfisa finds Bradamante who dies in her arms.