“That was me,” a youth at the rear broke into the stillness, seeing himself thus challenged. He was not far from us, a handsome fellow in a woollen shirt, with his coat hanging over one shoulder. He wore his surly, wiry hair in a high, dishevelled mop, the style affected by the youth of the awakened Fatherland; it gave him an African appearance that rather spoiled his looks. “Bè! That was me. It was your business to say it first, but I was trying to be friendly.”
More laughter. The chap had a tongue in his head. “Ha sciolto la scilinguágnolo,” heard near me. After all, the retort was deserved.
“Ah, bravo!” answered Cipolla. “I like you, giovanotto. Trust me, I’ve had my eye on you for some time. People like you are just in my line. I can use them. And you are the pick of the lot, that’s plain to see. You do what you like. Or is it possible you have ever not done what you liked—or even, maybe, what you didn’t like? What somebody else liked, in short? Hark ye, my friend, that might be a pleasant change for you, to divide up the willing and the doing and stop tackling both jobs at once. Division of labour, sistema americano, sa! For instance, suppose you were to show your tongue to this select and honourable audience here—your whole tongue, right down to the roots?”
“No, I won’t,” said the youth, hostilely. “Sticking out your tongue shows a bad bringing-up.”
“Nothing of the sort,” retorted Cipolla. “You would only be doing it. With all due respect to your bringing-up, I suggest that before I count ten, you will perform a right turn and stick out your tongue at the company here further than you knew yourself that you could stick it out.”
He gazed at the youth, and his piercing eyes seemed to sink deeper into their sockets. “Uno!” said he. He had let his riding-whip slide down his arm and made it whistle once through the air. The boy faced about and put out his tongue, so long, so extendedly, that you could see it was the very uttermost in tongue which he had to offer. Then turned back, stony-faced, to his former position.
“That was me,” mocked Cipolla, with a jerk of his head towards the youth. “Bè! That was me.” Leaving the audience to enjoy its sensations, he turned towards the little round table, lifted the bottle, poured out a small glass of what was obviously cognac, and tipped it up with a practised hand.
The children laughed with all their hearts. They had understood practically nothing of what had been said, but it pleased them hugely that something so funny should happen, straightaway, between that queer man up there and somebody out of the audience. They had no preconception of what an “evening” would be like and were quite ready to find this a priceless beginning. As for us, we exchanged a glance and I remember that involuntarily I made with my lips the sound that Cipolla’s whip had made when it cut the air. For the rest, it was plain that people did not know what to make of a preposterous beginning like this to a sleight-of-hand performance. They could not see why the giovanotto, who after all in a way had been their spokesman, should suddenly have turned on them to vent his incivility. They felt that he had behaved like a silly ass and withdrew their countenances from him in favour of the artist, who now came back from his refreshment table and addressed them as follows: “Ladies and gentlemen,” said he, in his wheezing, metallic voice, “you saw just now that I was rather sensitive on the score of the rebuke this hopeful young linguist saw fit to give me”—questo linguista di belle speranze
was what he said, and we all laughed at the pun. “I am a man who sets some store by himself, you may take it from me. And I see no point in being wished a good evening unless it is done courteously and in all seriousness. For anything else there is no occasion. When a man wishes me a good evening he wishes himself one, for the audience will have one only if I do. So this lady-killer of Torre di Venere” (another thrust) “did well to testify that I have one tonight and that I can dispense with any wishes of his in the matter. I can boast of having good evenings almost without exception. One not so good does come my way now and again, but very seldom. My calling is hard and my health not of the best. I have a little physical defect which prevented me from doing my bit in the war for the greater glory of the Fatherland. It is perforce with my mental and spiritual parts that I conquer life—which after all only means conquering oneself. And I flatter myself that my achievements have aroused interest and respect among the educated public. The leading newspapers have lauded me, the Corriere della Sera did me the courtesy of calling me a phenomenon, and in Rome the brother of the Duce honoured me by his presence at one of my evenings. I should not have thought that in a relatively less important place” (laughter here, at the expense of poor little Torre) “I should have to give up the small personal habits which brilliant and elevated audiences had been ready to overlook. Nor did I think I had to stand being heckled by a person who seems to have been rather spoilt by the favours of the fair sex.” All this of course at the expense of the youth whom Cipolla never tired of presenting
