ABBESS [_turning to Sister Sacristan_]. I will ask the Sisters Grimana Emo and Rosalba Foscarini to examine the puppets.
[_The Sister Sacristan goes out._]
Their learning in theology may not be profound, but they know the world"s judgment, coming as they do of the first families.
[_The Abbe Filosi bows low._]
ABBE FILOSI. I shall be at your service, Reverendissima.
ABBESS. I thank you enough for the poem. Farewell.
[_He bows himself out, at right, as Sister Grimana and Sister Rosalba enter left._]
GRIMANA. You have sent for us, Mother?
ABBESS. In the matter of the Shrove Tuesday play--yes. The puppets will be brought in advance, as usual. These few the show-man has already left.
GRIMANA. You wish them to be looked over, as usual?
ABBESS. Not quite as usual. This year they are to appear in a play or poem which the Father Confessor has written for us--dealing with the story of Judith. Now the good Abbe, though a man of great learning and a graceful poet withal, has not the advantage of family that some of our sisters--
GRIMANA. And some of our guests--
ROSALBA. I remember once, at a fete in the gardens of my uncle, the Doge--
ABBESS. I need instruct you no further. I do not wish anything unG.o.dly or unfit to appear; nor do I wish anything in the play to suggest that there is any impropriety in the ill.u.s.trious audience.
GRIMANA. I understand, Mother. It is chiefly a question of the dressing of the ladies.
ABBESS. Precisely. I shall leave it in your charge. Remembering, Sister Grimana, the laws of Venice and the customs of the house of your father, the most ill.u.s.trious Admiral, and you Sister Rosalba, the fetes in the gardens of your uncle, the Doge--surely it will be properly cared for.
[_Exit the Abbess._]
GRIMANA. All this because we have been given a bourgeois Confessor--
ROSALBA. No matter for that, Sister. I love puppets. We had once a puppet festival, when they played the whole history of the Serene Republic, and there were great ships with puppet sailors--
[_They begin to separate the puppets with their wires and strings.
Enter Sister Benvenuta._]
BENVENUTA. Oh, the joy! Are these for the Shrove Tuesday play? If only we could show them to--
[_She glances toward the Sacristy closet, stops, and goes on._]
Sister Rosalba, can you make them dance?
GRIMANA. Dance, forsooth--to what music, sister?
ROSALBA. You might sing for them, Sister.
GRIMANA. Aye, so I might.--Time was when I knew tunes enough.
BENVENUTA. There is a lute in the cloister--left from the musical ma.s.s.
And my cousin Atalanta can play it--I should like to hear some music here.
[_She glances at the closet._]
I"ll fetch her.
[_She goes off to find Atalanta._]
GRIMANA. What personages have we here? This lady for Judith?
ROSALBA. That can scarcely be, Judith was black haired.
GRIMANA. Nothing of the sort. She had hair of a dark red--a smoldering color.
ROSALBA. Was she not of the tribe?--
GRIMANA. What matters the tribe? In her picture by t.i.tian, in the great hall of my father"s house--
ROSALBA. We had a Judith also--by Jacopo Bellini. He was t.i.tian"s master. Her hair was black.
GRIMANA. You may be right. In our picture by t.i.tian, now I remember it, the head was so covered with a wonderful jeweled crown that we could see little of the hair.
[_Rosalba is somewhat put down by the splendor of Grimana"s t.i.tian. Benvenuta comes back with Atalanta, who carries a lute. As she appears Grimana untangles and holds up another puppet--the Beelzebubb._]
GRIMANA. Here"s a personage of terror.
[_She turns the figure and moves it threateningly toward Benvenuta, who looks at Beelzebubb and is instantly seized with a wild fit of laughter._]
Saint Mark preserve us! You are queerly pleased, Sister. It"s not many that laugh at this figure.
ROSALBA [_reading the figure"s label_]. He"s Beelzebubb Satana.s.so, Prince of all Devils.
BENVENUTA. I pray your pardon. I could not keep from laughing. I can never look at a devil without laughing. He seems so anxious to understand, and so important with the responsibility of being Prince of all Devils.
ROSALBA. You may laugh if you like, but you should remember how ready he is to slip away with the unwary souls of people who laugh at him. How he is always in wait, by day and by night, for a wavering thought or a rift in one"s faith--
GRIMANA. See here the pouch he carries to put your soul in. Truly, Sister, he might pluck you off like a cherry.
ATALANTA [_shuddering_]. Dear Sister Grimana--I beg of you--
GRIMANA. And he comes at the call of the secret thought--that"s what makes him look so anxious--lest he should not be listening when you call him, and the Saints come to your soul first, and warn it--
ATALANTA. Sister Grimana!
BENVENUTA. Still, I can never look at him without laughing. He is droll.