My next experience in a marionette theatre was at Trapani. I approached the subject with Mario, a coachman whom I have known since he was a boy. He was quite ready to help me, and told me there were two companies in the town, one of large puppets, about as high as my umbrella, the others, to which he went every evening, being rather smaller. Accordingly, at about a quarter to eight, he called for me, wrapped in his melodramatic cloak, and hurried me through the wet and windy streets to the teatrino. He kept me on his right hand because he was the host and I the guest, and if, owing to obstructions, he found me accidentally on his left he was round in a moment and I was in the place of honour again. He insisted on paying for our seats, fifteen centimes each, and we went in.

This teatrino was in every way a much smaller place than that in Catania; it belonged to a private gentleman who had bought the puppets for his own amusement and spent much of his time among them, sometimes working them himself. He has since married and parted with them and the theatre is now (1908) closed. No complaint could be made about the seating arrangements or the ventilation. There were benches on the floor with a passage down the middle, a few rows in front were reserved for boys at ten centimes each and at the other end of the hall was a small gallery for ladies, twenty centimes each. I asked Mario so many questions that he proposed we should go behind the scenes, which was exactly what I wanted. He spoke to one of the authorities, who was politeness itself and, showing us through a door and up three steps, introduced us behind the curtain. Our heads were high above the opening of the proscenium, which was about the size and shape of the opening of the fireplace in a fairly large room. We were in a grove of puppets hanging up against the walls like turkeys in a poulterer’s shop at Christmas scores and scores of them. There were six or eight men preparing for the performance and a youth, Pasquale, took charge of us and pointed out the principal figures.

“This warrior,” he said, “is Ferrau di Spagna.”

He was in tin armour, carefully made and enriched with brass and copper ornamentation, all as bright as a biscuit-box. I said

“He looks a very terrible fellow. Why is he so red about the eyes?” for the whites of his eyes were redder than his cheeks.

“Because he is always in a rage. And this lady is Angelica, Empress of Cathay; she wears a crown and will die this evening. This is her husband, Medoro; he is a black man and wears a crown; he will perish to-night by the sword of Ferrau.”

I rapidly constructed by anticipation the familiar plot. The jealous husband would kill his erring wife and would then be killed by her lover; but, being unversed in the habits of Cathaian emperors and their entourage, I had run off the track. Pasquale put me straight.

“Prima Ferrau uccide Medoro.” (Ferrau first kills Medoro.)

“And then kills Angelica?” I inquired.

“No. Angelica si uccide personalmente, so as not to marry Ferrau.”

I was next introduced to Galafrone, the father of Angelica, who also wore a crown, and to two valorous knights, Sacripante, King of the Circassians, and the Duca d’Avilla.

There were more than two hundred marionettes altogether, including Turkish and Spanish soldiers. The knights and ladies were kept in green holland bags to preserve them from the dust, and taken out as they were wanted. They varied in height from twenty-four to thirty-two inches. Ferrau was thirty-one and a half inches from the soles of his feet to the top of his helmet; Angelica was twenty-six and a half inches; ordinary Turks and Spanish soldiers were only twenty-four inches each.

Pasquale was very proud of Ferrau who really was magnificent. He was made of wood with loose joints. An iron rod went through his head, and was hooked into a ring between his collar-bones. Another rod was fastened to his right wrist. There were three strings one for his left hand, which held his shield, one to raise his vizor and one which passed through his right fist and across his body to his sword-hilt so that he could draw his sword. I should have liked to buy him and bring him to London with me; he would be an ornament to any house. But he was not for sale; and, besides, it would not have been right to break up the company. When Don Quixote, carried away by his feelings like a Sicilian facchino, came to the assistance of Don Gayferos by drawing his sword and attacking the Moorish puppets, he broke up Master Peter’s company in a very literal sense, and had to pay four and a half reals for King Marsilio of Saragossa and five and a quarter for the Emperor Carlo Magno; but it is not clear how large or how splendid they were.

Each figure requires one operator who stands between the wings, which are about up to his waist and so solid that he can lean his elbows on them and reach comfortably more than halfway across the stage. There are four openings between the wings, and thus there can be eight puppets on the stage at once, operated by eight manipulators, four on each side. This could not be done with the life-sized marionettes in Catania, which were all operated from behind, and never came forward. At Trapani the stage was much deeper in proportion, and the flies from which the scenery descended were high above the heads of the operators, so that the figures could walk about backwards and forwards all over the stage. The footlights were in the usual place in front of the curtain, and during the performance boys got up from their seats in the front row and lighted their cigarettes at them.

I had not nearly completed my investigations; but, fearing we might be in the way, we returned to the front and inquired about play-bills. There was only one in the house, posted up near the box-office; we went and inspected it

TEATRO DI MARIONETTE.

Per questa sera darà 2 recite
la prima alle 5.5 la seconda alle
Pugna fra Sacripante e il Duca d’Avilla
Ferrau uccide Medoro e acquista Angelica
Morte di Sacripante per mani di Ferrau
Morte di Angelica.

MARIONETTE THEATRE.

This evening two performances will be given
The first at 5.30, the second at
Fight between Sacripante and the Duke of Avilla
Ferrau kills Medoro and gains possession of Angelica
Death of Sacripante at the hands of Ferrau
Death of Angelica.

There was a pleasant-looking, retiring young man in the box-office, who was pointed out to me as “Lui che parla” the one who speaks. They said he was a native of Mount Eryx and a shoemaker by trade.

We returned to our places and sat talking, smoking, eating American pea-nuts and waiting. The audience, which consisted of men of the class of life to which Mario belonged, all knew one another; most of them met there every evening. A subscription for one month costs three lire and entitles the holder to one performance a day, the performance at 8 being a repetition of that at 5.30.

The play now being performed is The Paladins of France; it was written by Manzanares in Italian prose and is in three volumes. It does not always agree with the other versions of the same story; but that is only as it should be, for romances have always been re-written to suit the audience they are intended for. It has been going on about four months, that is, since last October, when it began with Pipino, Re di Francia ed Imperatore di Roma, the father of Carlo Magno, and it will continue day after day till May, like the feuilleton in a journal. During the hot weather there is no performance in this theatre; but the same story will be taken up again next October and is long enough to last through two winters. It could last longer, but they bring it within reasonable limits by removing some of the boredom. It concludes with the defeat and death of Orlando and the paladins at Roncisvalle.

The portion of the story appointed for the evening’s performance was in five acts, divided into a large number of very short scenes, and if I did not always know quite clearly what was going on, that was partly due to the distracting uproar, for nearly every scene contained a fight, and some contained several, the shortest lasting well over a minute. Whoever had been employed to shorten the story would have earned the thanks of one member of the audience if he had acted upon Pococurante’s remarks to Candide about the works of Homer. He ought not to have left in so many combats; they were as like one another and as tedious as those in the Iliad, besides being much noisier, at least we are not told that the Homeric heroes were accompanied by a muscular pianist, fully armed, and by the incessant stamping of clogged boots. Nevertheless the majority of the audience enjoyed the fights, for no Sicilian objects to noise.

This is what I gathered: Angelica had come from far Cathay with the express intention of sowing discord among the paladins by inducing them to fall in love with her, and at the present moment Sacripante and the Duca d’Avilla were her victims. These two knights met in a wood, raised their vizors and talked matters over; there was to be a fight about it, of course, but the preliminaries were to be conducted in a friendly spirit like a test case in Chancery. They separated, no doubt to give them an opportunity of going home to make their wills and take leave of their wives and families, if any. In the second scene they met again, lowered their vizors, drew their swords and fought till Angelica supervened. In the next scene the two knights and Angelica were joined by Medoro with whom one of the knights fought. I recognized Medoro when his vizor was up because he was a black man, but Sacripante and the Duca d’Avilla were so much alike that I did not know which was fighting and which was standing with Angelica looking on; say it was Sacripante that was fighting, being king of the Circassians he was probably entitled to precedence over a mere duke. Angelica, after some time, began to feel qualms of conscience, so she interrupted and mentioned who Medoro really was. Sacripante, in the most chivalrous manner, immediately desisted and apologized he had failed to recognize his opponent and had no idea he had been fighting with the lady’s husband. The apology was accepted in the spirit in which it was offered, all accusations, expressed or implied, were withdrawn, and friendly relations established. The four then set out together to pass the night in an albergo. Angelica, however, with her quick, womanly instinct, mistrusted the knights and, taking her husband aside, proposed that they two should depart by stealth and escape to Cathay, leaving Sacripante and the Duca d’Avilla asleep. Medoro demurred, saying it was a very good inn and he was quite comfortable where he was. So she told him a few facts which alarmed him to such a degree that he consented and they decamped.

On their way they encountered Ferrau who entered with a stamp of the foot, sforzando, attacked Medoro and killed him dead, thus obtaining possession of Angelica according to the play-bill. But she managed to get free and appeared upon the coast where she met a sea-captain and, telling him she was very rich, made terms with him, bought his vessel and embarked for the Court of her father, Galafrone. She might have made better terms had she not opened negotiations by telling him she was very rich, but it was a matter of life or death and she was reckless, knowing that Ferrau was after her. Sacripante and the Duca d’Avilla were after Ferrau and presently caught him up and attacked him. He fought with them both at once and killed one of them in a minute and a half. With the exception of myself, every one in the theatre knew which he killed, for they knew all the knights as they came on. Let us again give Sacripante the precedence and suppose that he was killed first. Ferrau went on fighting with the Duca d’Avilla and both were hard at work when the curtain fell.

It rose again, very effectively, on the continuation of the fight, and almost at once Ferrau cut off the Duca d’Avilla’s head which rolled about on the stage. Immediately there came three Turks; Ferrau stabbed each as he entered one, two, three and their bodies encumbered the ground as the curtain fell.

It rose as soon as the bodies had been removed and disclosed Ferrau stamping about alone. There came three more Turks; he stabbed them each as they entered one, two, three and their bodies encumbered the ground. Then there came three knights in armour; Ferrau fought them all three together for a very considerable time and it was deafening. He killed them all and their bodies encumbered the ground with those of the last three Turks. It was a bloody sight that met the eyes of Galafrone who now entered.

The curtain fell, while Galafrone had the corpses cleared away, and rose again on the same scene which was the ante-chamber of Angelica’s bedroom for somehow we were now in her father’s dominions, and it was she who had sent the knights and the Turks to kill Ferrau before he could approach her. Then there was an interview between Ferrau and Galafrone on the subject of Angelica. The knight, having made her a widow, now wished to make her his wife, the king saw no objection and promised to use his influence with his daughter.

The scene changed to Angelica’s bedroom; her bed was at the far end of the stage with a patchwork quilt over it, but there was no other furniture in the room except a sofa near the front. Her father brought her in and I, knowing that she was to kill herself personally and that this must be her last entry, examined her closely and detected a string passing through her right hand and ending in the hilt of a dagger ostentatiously concealed in her bosom. Of course I knew what that meant. Her father, true to his promise, began to urge Ferrau’s suit, saying that he had forgiven him for having killed Medoro. But Angelica had not forgiven him, and moreover she hated Ferrau with his bloodshot eyes and his explosive manners. She made a long speech, admirably delivered by the cobbler and as full of noble sentiments as a poem by Mrs. Browning, then, suddenly drawing her dagger with the string, she stabbed herself and fell dead on the couch, exclaiming

“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.