THE HISTORY OF THE HARLEQUINADE

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THE HISTORY OF THE HARLEQUINADE

BY MAURICE SAND

VOLUME TWO

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

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First Published 1915

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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VIII PANTALOON

From the Greek comedies down to our own modern vaudevilles, from the old satyr besmeared with grape-juice down to Cassandre besmeared with snuff, at the hands of Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, Macchiavelli, Beolco, Molière and Goldoni, the old man of the comedy, like the old man of the farce, has always been more or less niggardly, credulous, libertine, duped and mocked, afflicted with rheum and coughs, and, above all, unhappy.

Whether he is called Strepsiades, Philacleo or Blephirus, in the comedies of Aristophanes; Theuropides, Euclio, Demipho, Demænetus, Stalino or Nicobulus, in those of Plautus; Messer Andronico, Pasquale, Placido, Cornelio or Tomaso, in those of Beolco; Pantalone, Zanobio, Facanappa, Bernardone, the Doctor, the Baron, Cassandro or the Biscegliese, in the Commedia dell’ Arte; Collofonio, Pandolfo, Diomede, Demetrio, Coccolin, Gerontio or Bartolo, in the Italian commedia sostenuta; Gaultier Garguille, or Jacquemin Jadot, in the French farce; or yet Orgon, Gorgibus, Arpagon or Sganarelle, in the pieces of Molière—fundamentally he is always, under[10] whatever of these names we find him, the Pappus or the Casnar of the Atellanæ.

“Pappus” (says M. Ferdinand Fouque), “whom the Greeks called Πάππος, is sometimes a miserly, libidinous, finicking and astute old man, sometimes a simple old fellow of good faith; and he is always a dupe, be it of a mistress, a rival, a son, a lackey or some other intriguer. He corresponds to the Doctor of the Bolognese and the Pantaloon of the Venetians. A cornaline shows us his bearded mask.... He is dressed in purple. The Osci had another old man called Casnar, who nowise differed from Pappus.”

In the Mostellaria of Plautus the son of Theuropides, an old Athenian merchant, falls madly in love with a musician during the absence of his father; he purchases her and takes her to his father’s house, where in the company of several friends he abandons himself to all manner of orgies. One day, when our gay revellers had drunk à la grecque—that is to say, until they could not stand—old Theuropides arrives. Tranio, a veritable Scapin, the young man’s devoted slave, invents a ruse to keep the old man from the house. He orders the principal door to be closed and bolted, and then concealing himself near at hand he firmly awaits Theuropides.

Theuropides. What is the meaning of this? My house shut up in broad daylight? (He knocks.) Hola! Someone! Open the door!

Tranio (approaching and pretending not to recognise him). Who is this man who comes so close to the house?

Theuropides. No one answers, but it seems to me, unless I have lost my senses, that here comes Tranio, my slave.

Tranio. Oh, my lord Theuropides, my good master, what[11] happiness! Is it possible that it is you? Permit me to salute you and to wish you a good day. Has your health always been good in those far lands, my lord?

Theuropides. I have always been in the health in which you see me now.

Tranio. You could not be in better.

Theuropides. And you others? Have your brains become addled in my absence?

Tranio. But why, pray, should you ask that, my lord?

Theuropides. Why? Because you all leave the house at once and none remains to take care of it. I was on the point of kicking down the door.

Tranio. Oh, oh, sir! Did you really touch the door?

Theuropides. And why should I not touch it? Not only have I touched it, but, as I tell you, I have almost broken it down.

Tranio. You overwhelm me with dismay. Yet again I ask you, have you touched this house?

Theuropides. What now? Do you take me for a liar? Am I not telling you that I not only touched, but that I knocked as loudly as I could?

Tranio. Oh, gods!

Theuropides. What’s the matter?

Tranio. By Hercules, you are wrong.

Theuropides. What are you telling me?

Tranio. It is impossible to tell you all the ill that you have done. It is atrocious, irreparable. You have committed a frightful sacrilege.

Theuropides. How?

Tranio. Oh, sir, withdraw at once, I beg of you, and quit this fatal house. At least come over here. But, in reality, now, did you touch the door?

Theuropides. Of course. Of necessity I must have touched it, since I knocked. It is impossible to do the one without the other.

Tranio. Alack, you are lost, you and yours.

Theuropides. May the gods cause you to perish by your[12] augury, for you are also mine. But whatever do you mean?

Tranio. Learn, sir, that some seven months ago we all abandoned that house, and that since then no one has set foot within it.

Theuropides. The reason, quickly!

Tranio. I implore you, sir, look well about you to see that no one is listening.

Theuropides. There is no one; you may speak with confidence.

Tranio. Take the trouble to look yet again.

Theuropides. I tell you there is no one. You may speak your secret without fear.

Tranio. A horrible crime must have been committed in that house.

Theuropides. If you wish me to understand you, speak more clearly.

Tranio. I mean that long ago, in your house, a crime of the blackest must have taken place. We discovered it but lately.

Theuropides. What crime do you mean? Who can have been the author? Speak, wretch! Do not leave me longer in suspense.

Tranio. The ancient proprietor of the house, he who sold it to you, had stabbed a guest with his own hand.

Theuropides. And killed him?

Tranio. Still worse. After robbing him, he buried him in the house itself. One evening when my lord your son had supped abroad, he went to bed upon returning home. We others did the same. Suddenly—I was sleeping profoundly at the time, and I had even forgotten to extinguish the lamp—suddenly, then, I heard my young master crying out. I ran to him and he assured me that the dead man had appeared to him whilst he was sleeping.

Theuropides. But that was a dream, since he slept.

Tranio. You are right. But listen. My young master related that the ghost had told him this——

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Theuropides. Still whilst he was asleep?

Tranio. That is true. The ghost behaved ill. I am astonished to think that a soul which for sixty years had been separated from its body should not have thought of choosing a moment in which your son was awake to pay his visit. I regret to point it out, sir, but you have at times a certain absence of mind which does little honour to your judgment.

Theuropides. I am silent.

Tranio. Here then word for word is what the old spectre said: “I am a stranger from beyond the seas, the guest of Diapontius. This is my dwelling, and this house is in my power. Orcus would have none of me in Acheron. He dismissed me brutally because, although my body has been buried, it received no honours of sepulture. I was tricked by my host, who drew me hither and murdered me for my money. He barely covered me with earth, and I remained hidden in this house. None but myself knows who I am, and I demand of you that you quit this house at once.” These were his words, my lord. The house is accursed, given over to divine vengeance. I dare not speak to you of all the apparitions to be seen there every night. Sh! Sh! Listen, do you hear?

Theuropides (scared). What is it? Oh, my poor Tranio, I implore you, by Hercules, tell me what you heard.

Tranio. The door moved. Nevertheless I am certain that no one pushed it.

Theuropides. I am stricken with fear. There is not a drop of blood left in my body. Who knows but that the dead may come to drag me living into hell?

Tranio (aside, hearing movements in the house). I am lost. They will ruin my comedy of phantoms and spectres by their folly. (To Theuropides.) I am trembling with fear. Go, my lord, go from that door. Flee, in the name of Hercules, flee, I implore you.

Theuropides. Tranio!

Tranio (pretending to mistake his master for a phantom). Sir Spectre, do not call me! I have done nothing! I assure you that it was not I who knocked at the door.

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Theuropides (trembling). What ails you? With whom are you talking?

Tranio. How, sir? Was it you who called me? In truth, I thought that it was the dead man who complained of the noise that you had made. But how do you happen to be still here? Begone, cover your head; go, and on no account look behind you.

Theuropides (fleeing). Great and mighty Hercules, protect me against these rascally phantoms! (Exit.)

Pantaloon and Cassandre are no less credulous and poltroon than their ancestor Theuropides the Athenian.

Angelo Beolco presents two old men in one of his comedies (written circa 1530). One of these is Messer Demetrio, a doctor, who swears by the learned doctors of antiquity, Asclepiades, Hippocrates, Æsculapius and Galen; the other is Ser Cornelio,[1] a Venetian advocate, enamoured, notwithstanding his years and his infirmities, constantly spitting Latin and expressing himself pretentiously when in the society of Messer Demetrio, but employing the common dialect with a certain Prudentia, whose offices he desires with Beatrice, the lady with whom he is in love.

Cornelio (alone). Never since I first drew breath and was cast naked upon this world have I been so truly destitute of ideas, so reduced (as if I had been shut up without eating or drinking, in the cave of some horrid monster, or as if I were taken in some colossal spider-web) as I am ever since I have been here, ita et taliter quotiens. I seem as one abandoned in an empty boat and left alone at the tiller on a storm-swept[15] sea. But if Hope will only open me her window a little, I shall get myself out of this embarrassment, and I shall so contrive, by means of money, presents, and my natural gifts, that I shall win the favour of this beautiful woman, worthy of the chisel of Sansovino. I will go find Prudentia, the world-chart of gallantry.... But here she comes, most opportunely. Good day to you. Where are you going, my charming Prudentia?

Prudentia. You will do well not to trouble me if your head is full of fantastic notions; I have not the time to be bothered with them. You are but a thief grown fat on the miseries of this poor world, for you would give nothing to a beggar.

Cornelio. Prudentia, I do not wish to boast, but if you knew the alms I give, you would be astonished. Amongst other things I treat all the hospitals of this country to my old discarded clothes, and never a day of Lent passes but that I myself give the poor all my old liards.

Prudentia. In this fashion you won’t deprive yourself of much, and you behave in the same way in your love affairs. To procure assistance, you offer more than you have got, but, when the obstacle is overcome, you look the other way, you refuse to know those who have befriended you, and we find that we have served you for the love of Heaven.

Cornelio. Aid me, Prudentia; you know that I am tender in the stomach and soft in the lungs. Wait! I shall give you full proof of my friendship. If you will promise me your assistance I promise you on my side to give you a pair of red stockings which I have worn only four times, and a quartern of excellent beans; this on condition that you will speak to that young girl, beautiful as a parrot by Aldo,[2] white as linen, light as a rabbit; I think that her name is Beatrice, and her mother’s Sofronia; at least, so I have been told, for I do not know them otherwise, being a stranger.

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Prudentia. I think I know them. I will do what I can to speak to them; and I will tell them so many little nothings about you that I am sure the lady will be yours at your pleasure. But how shall you contrive with all the infirmities that afflict you?

Cornelio. Get along. You are a giraffe! for ever mocking. Do you think I am so deteriorated that I don’t know how to set a horse to a gallop when I wish? Get along, you don’t know me.

Prudentia. No need to glorify yourself. I know your great and venerable stupidity. When you are with her, best not tell her your age. Do you understand?

Cornelio. But for my illnesses, I could tell you some pretty things, and, thin as I am, I could turn twenty somersaults upon one hand, and, fatigued as I am, you should see how swiftly I could race.

Prudentia. Very well, Messer Cornelio, since you are so hot upon this affair, trust me, I will so act that you shall be satisfied. Whilst waiting, I beg you to let me have four bolognini (four halfpence), which I shall be able to repay you only by saying a deal of good of you.

Cornelio. May you sole my shoes if I have more than four quattrini (a halfpenny). My wife refuses to let me carry money because, she says, I sow it in the earth. But I promise you that if you bring me a favourable answer I shall without haggling give you three bolognini in old coin; they have a hole through the middle, so as to string them round the neck of a cat. Now I must go; I have been with you too long. Enough! You understand me. (Exit.)

Prudentia (alone). Go! Go to the devil! you will have no trouble to get there. Now just consider me that old ill-accoutred beast. Admire with me, I implore you, the gallant adventure that has fallen into my hands. I am to serve him for money, this gouty, unclean, catarrhal old thing, who has taken it into his head to fall in love with such a beautiful and virtuous child!

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Further on, Cornelio meets Truffa, and, following ever his amorous idea, he desires to seek the aid of sorcery, and makes offers to her so as to obtain the favours of the girl. “Look,” says he, “if I may have this dove by means of grimoires and incantations without employing that rascally Prudentia, who is for ever hanging about me, I promise to give you my hat; you know the one I mean; the one which you bought from me some time ago, and which I still am wearing to restore its shape.”

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Pantaloon, who gives his name to the breeches made all in one piece, is one of the masks of the Commedia dell’ Arte.

“In Venice” (says M. Paul de Musset), “four improvising masks occurred in every piece: Tartaglia, a jabberer; Truffaldino, a Bergamese caricature; Brighella, representing public orators, and several popular types; and finally, the famous Pantaloon, personifying the Venetian bourgeois in all his absurdity, and bearing a name whose etymology is worthy of a commentary. The word is derived from pianta-leone (plant-the-lion). The old Venetian merchants, in their fury to acquire territory in the name of the Republic, planted the lion banner of St Mark wherever possible on the islands of the Mediterranean; and when they returned to boast of their conquests, the people mocked them by calling them pianta-leoni.”

According to other authors Pantaloon derives his name simply from San Pantaleone, the ancient patron of Venice.

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Pantaloon is sometimes a father, sometimes a husband; sometimes a widower or an old bachelor, still ambitious to please, and consequently very ridiculous; sometimes he is rich, sometimes poor, sometimes miserly and sometimes prodigal. But he is always a man of ripe age. A native of Venice, he ordinarily represents the merchant, the tradesman, the father of two daughters who are extremely difficult to guard. These are Isabella and Rosaura, or Camilla and Smeraldina, and they are in league with their soubrettes, Fiametta, Zerbinetta, Olivetta or Catta, to deceive the impotent vigilance of their senile parent.

In this situation he is always very avaricious, and very mistrustful. One may apply to him what the slave Strobilus says of his master Euclio in the Aulularia of Plautus:

“Pumice is not as dry as this old man. He is so miserly that when he goes to bed he takes the trouble to tie up the mouth of the bellows, so that they may not lose their wind during the night. When he washes himself he weeps the water which he is compelled to use. Some time ago the barber cut his nails. He carefully gathered up the parings and took them with him lest he should be a loser.”

The by-names of starveling, skinflint, niggard, Pantaloon the needy, Pantaloon cagh’ in aqua, fit him perfectly. The Bolognese and the Venetians deride the avarice of Pantaloon and of Doctor Balanzoni.

“They represent him” (says M. Frédéric Mercey) “in the act of embarking upon a debauch, sitting at an empty[19] table, eating hare soup, drinking claret diluted at the fountain in the corner, regaling themselves upon a duck-egg—of which they keep the yolk for themselves and give the white to their wives—and providing watered milk for their children; a meal which, as they assure us, occasions them no gastric overburdenings.”

But Pantaloon is not always quite so mean. Occasionally he confines himself to being ridiculous. Dressed in his red pantaloons and dressing-gown, wearing upon his head his woollen cap, and shod in his Turkish slippers, he fully represents the ancient Venetian merchant running about his business, buying and selling, with a deal of talk, oaths and gestures. He is for ever pledging his honour for the truth of what he says. His ancient probity is well known, and if he hears any dispute arising, he runs to witness it. Should the discussion degenerate into a quarrel, he thrusts himself in, anxious to intervene as a mediator. But Pantaloon was born under an evil star. He so contrives that it is seldom indeed that blows do not result from his pacific intervention, and he stands his chance of receiving most of them.

Whether in Venice or on the mainland he is always unlucky. Having one day hired a horse to go riding, he took with him his lackey Harlequin. The old screw coming abruptly to a halt, Harlequin delivers a shower of blows to urge it onwards. The poor beast, in return, kicks him in the stomach. Harlequin, in a fury, picks up a paving stone to heave it at the horse; but his aim is so bad that the stone heavily strikes Pantaloon, who had retained his saddle. Pantaloon turns and perceives Harlequin holding his stomach and roaring.[20] “What an ill beast they have given us!” says he piteously to his lackey. “Can you believe that at the same time that it hit you in the stomach, it fetched me a kick in the middle of my back?”

Pantaloon is always exploited by someone, and Harlequin’s duty is, as we have seen in the instance cited, to cause him to swallow the most fantastic shams. Harlequin, perceiving him so naïve, disguises himself as a merchant and is taken with the conceit to present him such a memoir as the following:—

“Two dozen chairs of Holland linen; fourteen tables of marzipan; six faïence mattresses full of scrapings of hay-cocks; a semolina bed-cover; six truffled cushions; two pavilions of spider-web trimmed with tassels made from the moustaches of Swiss doorkeepers; a syringe of the tail of a pig, with a handle in pile velvet.”

Each of the articles is quoted at a fabulous price, but Pantaloon consigns the false merchant and his memoir to the devil.

His avarice sometimes gives Pantaloon a certain wit. One day he hears Harlequin speaking to himself, and saying in the course of casting up his accounts and writing down the figures: “You have no tail, but you shall have one!” and thus all the noughts become nines. Pantaloon takes the note, examines it in the presence of his lackey, and says, “You, you have a tail and you shall not have one,” and thus he converts all the nines into noughts, to the great mortification of Harlequin. After that, Harlequin presents him with a more exact memoir: thus:

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Pantaloon has nothing to say to the figures, but he affects to take offence at seeing the various articles so ridiculously associated and in his anger throws the paper in the face of Harlequin instead of paying him.