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 Ferrau. 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 lé sue braccia.

Charles obtains complete victory over Marsilio
Flight of the latter and taking of Barcelona
Marfisa finds Bradamante who dies in her arms.

We then went behind the scenes to spend some time among the puppets before the play began. First I inquired whether Ferrau had perished and ascertained that Orlando had duly killed him the night before with la Durlindana. This famous sword was won by Carlo Magno in his youth when he overcame Polinoro, the captain-general of Bramante, King of Africa. Carlo Magno, having another sword of his own and wishing to keep la Durlindana in the family, passed it on to his nephew Orlando. That is Pasquale’s version. Others say that it was given to Orlando by Malagigi the magician. The most usual account is that la Durlindana belonged to Hector. After the fall of Troy it came to AEneas; and from him, through various owners, to Almonte, a giant of a dreadful stature, who slew Orlando’s father. An angel in a dream directed Orlando, when he was about eighteen, to proceed to a river on the bank of which he found Carlo Magno and Almonte fighting. He took his uncle’s part, avenged his father’s death by killing Almonte, threw his gigantic body into the stream and appropriated his enchanted possessions, namely, his horse, Brigliadoro, his horn, his sword and his armour. He had the sword with him when he was defeated at Roncisvalle and threw it from him, about two hundred miles, to Rocamadour in France where it stuck in a rock and any one can see it to this day.

I do not remember that Homer speaks of Hector’s sword as la Durlindana; perhaps he did not know. But every one knows that horses have had names, both in romance and real life, from the days of Pegasus to our own. Mario calls his horses Gaspare, after one of the Three Kings, and Toto, which is a form of Salvatore. They were so called before he bought them, or he would have named them Baiardo and Brigliadoro. Having no sword, he calls his whip la Durlindana. He assured me that the barber whom he employs calls all his razors by the names of the swords of the paladins, and that the shoe-blacks give similar names to their brushes.

If Pasquale’s statements were at variance with other poetical versions of the story, they were, as might be expected, still more so with the prose authorities. In the books, Carlo Magno was born sometimes in the castle of Saltzburg, in Bavaria, and sometimes at Aix-la-Chapelle; which may be good history, but could not well be represented by the marionettes without a double stage, and even then might fail to convince. The Carlo Magno of romance, son of Pipino, King of France, and Berta, his wife, was not born until many years after the wedding; for Berta had enemies at the French Court who spirited her away immediately after the ceremony, substituting her waiting-maid, Elisetta, who was so like her that Pipino did not notice the difference. Elisetta became the mother of the wicked bastards Lanfroi and Olderigi, while Berta lived in retirement in the cottage of a hunter on the banks of the Magno, a river about five leagues from Paris. Pipino lost himself while out hunting one day, took refuge in the cottage, saw Berta, did not recognize his lawful, wedded wife and fell in love with her over again. Carlo Magno was born in due course in the cottage, and his second name was given to him, not for the prosaic reason that it means the Great, but because it is the name of the river. The bastards afterwards murder their father, which is a warning to any bridegroom among the audience to be careful not to mistake another lady for his bride upon the wedding night. And thus Romance becomes the handmaid of Morality.

Carlo Magno is now on the throne. I was presented to him, and found him in mourning for a nephew who had been killed a few evenings before and whose corpse was still hanging on a neighbouring peg, waiting for the slight alteration necessary to turn him into some one else. All the paladins who had recently lost relations were in mourning and wore long pieces of crape trailing from their helmets. Pasquale took me round, told me who they all were and explained their genealogies.

I was in a hades peopled with the ghosts of Handel’s operas. I saw Orlando himself and his cousins “Les quatre fils Aymon,” namely Rinaldo da Montalbano, Guicciardo, Alardo, and Ricciardetto. I saw their father, whose name in Italian is Amone, and their sister Bradamante, the widow of Ruggiero da Risa, and her sister-in-law, the Empress Marfisa, Ruggiero’s sister. These two ladies were in armour, showing their legs, and in all respects like the men warriors, except that they wore their hair long.

“Bradamante will die this evening,” said Pasquale.

I expressed regret, and asked for particulars.

“She will die of grief for the loss of her husband, Ruggiero da Risa, who has been killed by the treachery of Conte Gano.”

Then I saw my fellow-countryman, Astolfo d’Inghilterra; he it was that brought back from the moon the lost wits of Orlando when he became furioso because Angelica would have nothing to say to him and married Medoro. And I saw Astolfo’s father, Ottone d’Inghilterra, and Il Re Desiderio and Gandellino, who seemed undersized; but when I said so, Pasquale replied

“Si, e piccolo, ma e bello stupendo,” and so he was.

I took down one of the knights, stood him on the floor and tried to work him. The number of things I had to hold at once puzzled me a good deal, especially the strings. Pasquale took another knight and gave me a lesson, showing me how to make him weep and meditate, how to raise and lower his vizor, how to draw his sword and fight. It was very difficult to get him to put his sword back into the scabbard. I could not do it at all, though I managed the other things after a fashion.

Then I saw the Marchese Oliviero di Allemagna and Uggiero Danese and Turpino, a priest, but a warrior nevertheless.

“This,” said Pasquale, “is Guidon Selvaggio, and this is his sister Carmida. They are the children of Rinaldo.”

“But spurious,” interrupted another youth.

“Yes,” agreed Pasquale; “they are bastards. Shall I tell you how?”

But I declined to rake up the family scandal and we passed on to
Carmida’s husband, Cladinoro, Re di Bizerta, a spurious son of the old
Ruggiero da Risa, and so valorous that they speak of La Forza di
Cladinoro.

All these knights and ladies were hanging on one side of the stage in two rows, one row against the wall and the other in front. I asked Pasquale how he knew which was which. He concealed his astonishment at such a simple question and replied

“By the crests on their helmets.”

I then observed that they all wore their proper crests, a lion or an eagle, or a castle, or whatever it might be; Ferrau had no crest, but he had a special kind of helmet, and these boys knew them all in the legitimate way by their armorial bearings, and that was how, on the evening of Angelica’s death, the audience knew all the knights and said their names as they entered.

On the other side of the stage were two rows of pagans who in this hades, where the odium theologicum persists, are not admitted among Christians. Here hung Il Re Marsilio di Spagna, who was to be defeated this evening, and his two brothers, Bulugante and Falserone, his son the Infanta di Spagna, his nephew Ferrau, now dead, and Grandonio. Then I came upon a miscellaneous collection and could look at no more knights or ladies after I had found the devil.

He was not The Devil, he was only “un diavolo qualunque,” but he was fascinating, and he had horns and a tail Pasquale and the other youths showed me his tail very particularly and laughed at him cruelly for having one. But it was not his fault, poor devil, that he had a tail: except for the wear and tear of his tempestuous youth he was as he had left the hands of his maker.

There was also a skeleton; they made him dance for me and said that he is used to appear to any one about to die; but this cannot apply to the warriors, for they fight and die freely, and put whole families into mourning nightly, and if the skeleton appeared to them every time, a new one would be wanted once a month.

And there was “un gigante qualunque” the raw material for a giant, something that could be faked up into this or that special giant when wanted. Similarly there was a lady having her dress and wig altered, they told me she was “una donna qualunque” the very words I had seen a few weeks previously written up in Rome to advertise a performance in Italian of A Woman of no Importance. I suspect there must have been somewhere “un guerriero qualunque” so constructed that his head could be cut off, and that he had been disguised as and substituted for the Duca d’Avilla when Ferrau appeared to kill that warrior, for, without trickery, no sword in the teatrino, not even la Durlindana, could have cut off a head which had an iron rod running through it.

There was a confused heap of Turks and Spanish soldiers lying in a corner, and at the back of the stage, between the farthest scene and the wall of the theatre, was the stable containing seven war horses and one centaur. Pasquale told me that the centaur was “un animale selvaggio” which I knew, but he did not tell me what part he took in the play. One of the horses, of course, was Baiardo, the special horse of Rinaldo. Baiardo is still living in the forest of Ardennes, he formerly belonged to Amadis de Gaul and was found in a grotto by Malagigi when he found Rinaldo’s sword, Fusberta, which used to belong to the King of Cyprus.

It appeared to me time to go to the front, but Pasquale said that this evening I might stay behind during the performance if I liked and I accepted his invitation, for I had a toy theatre of my own once and used to do The Miller and His Men with an explosion at the end; it had to be at the end, not only as a bonne-bouche, but also because my audience, not being composed of Sicilian facchini, were driven out of the room by its effects. Smokeless explosions may be possible now, but we did not then know how to do any better. I would have given much even the explosion if I could have had a teatrino and real marionettes of my own, as one of my Sicilian friends had when he was a boy; he dressed his own dolls and made his own scenery, and used to do the Odyssey a first-rate subject that could easily be made to last two winters.

I was so much interested that I may have paid less attention this evening to the story than to the working of the puppets. The rods that pass through their heads have wooden handles and end in hooks; across the stage, pretty high up, were laid two horizontal laths with six or seven chains hanging from them; when the paladins appeared, marching in one after another and taking up their positions in two rows, as they frequently did, what really happened was that an operator on one side reached across and handed them over one by one to an operator on the other side, who hooked them up into the chains, choosing the link according to the height of the particular puppet in such a way that, if possible, its feet just rested upon the stage. After three or four had been hooked up, the first operator could hang up the rest, and as soon as the two rows were in their places Carlo Magno entered in front and addressed them in a majestic voice. During the pauses of his speech and at its conclusion the paladins all murmured in agreement or shouted “Evviva” which was done by us who were behind and, as there were thirteen of us, it ought to have sounded fairly imposing. Three of the thirteen were regular operators, pretty constantly employed, who took off their coats, waistcoats and shirts, and found it very hot work; of the remainder some were authorized assistants, some were friends and one was the reader “Lui che parla.”

The siege of Marsilio’s city was managed in this way. First a scene was let down as far back as possible on the stage. This, Pasquale said, represented “una città qualunque.” The collection of little wooden houses on Captain Shandy’s bowling-green was not a more perfect Proteus of a town than Pasquale’s back cloth. This evening it was Barcelona. In front of it, about halfway to the footlights, was a low wall of fortifications. Just behind the fortifications the Spaniards were hooked up into rather high links of the chains, so that, from the front, they appeared to be looking over the wall and defending the city. Carlo Magno and his paladins brought ladders, scaled the wall, fought the Spaniards and effected an entrance. The fights were mostly duels. At one time there were three duels; that is, six knights were all fighting at once, three on each side. The places on the stage occupied by the front pair were worn into hollows by their feet. The damage sustained by the figures in the fury of the combats is very great; their armour gets broken, their draperies torn, their joints and the hinges of their vizors are put out of order and there is much to be done to them before they can appear again.

For the conclusion we came to the front and took our places as the curtain drew up on a wood. The Empress Marfisa entered in all her bravery, riding cross-legged on her charger and looking round, first this way, then that. She was searching the wood for Bradamante who had retired from the world to “una grotta oscura” to die of grief. The empress looked about and rode here and there but could see Bradamante nowhere, so she rode away to search another part of the wood and the scene changed. We were now in the obscure grotto and here came Marfisa, riding on her charger and looking about; she could see her sister-in-law nowhere and was overcome with anxiety. Presently, in the dim light, she spied something on the ground; she dismounted, went far into the cave, and could it be? yes, it was the unconscious form of Bradamante. She knelt down by her, embraced her and called her by her name, but there was no reply. She kissed her and called “Bradamante,” still there was no reply. She fondled her, and called her her “dolce cognata,” her sweet sister-in-law and at length Bradamante raised herself with an effort, recognized Marfisa and saying, “Farewell, sister, I am dying,” fell back and expired. An angel fluttered down, received her soul from her lips and carried it up to heaven, while Marfisa wept over her body.

Then the dwarf came on and recited the programme for the next evening. This was, as usual, followed by the last scene. The paladins all marched in that is to say, they were handed over and hooked up in two rows, the audience recognizing each, and saying his name as he took his place, and Carlo Magna came and addressed them in a magnificent speech beginning

“Paladini! noi siamo stanchi.”

Their fatigue was caused by their exertions at the siege of Barcelona and their Emperor went on to promise them some repose before proceeding against Madrid.

This epilogue struck me as out of place; nothing ought to have followed the death of Bradamante, which was as affecting a scene as I have ever witnessed. The only hitch occurred when Marfisa dismounted; her left foot came to the ground capitally, but her right would not come over her saddle for some time; she got it free at last, however, and stood upright on both feet. I thought again of Master Peter’s puppet-show and of how the petticoat of the peerless Lady Melisendra caught in one of the iron rails as she was letting herself down from the balcony, so that she hung dangling in midair, and Don Gayferos had to bring her to the ground by main force.

The rest of the scene in the grotto could not have gone better and the audience were enthralled by it. Yet what was it after all? Nothing but a couple of loosely jointed wooden dolls, fantastically dressed up in tin armour, being pulled about on a toy stage. Yet there was something more; there was the voice of the reader the voice of “Lui che parla.” In the earlier part of the evening he had been giving us fine declamation, which was all that had been required. The meeting between the two princesses brought him his opportunity and he attacked the scene and carried it through in a spirit of simple conviction, his voice throbbing with emotion as he made for himself a triumph.

Art abounds in miracles, and not the least is this, that a man can take a few watery commonplaces and by the magic of his voice transmute them into the golden wine of romance. The audience drank in the glowing drops that poured from his lips, and were stilled to a silence that broke in a great sob as the curtain fell. What did they know of loosely jointed wooden dolls or of toy stages? They were no longer in the theatre. They had wandered the woods with Marfisa, they had sought Bradamante in the leafy glades, they had found her dying in the grotto, they had received her last breath and the world would never be the same to them again. A voice that can do this is rare and, like the power of a giant, rarely found in the possession of one who knows how to use it worthily.