The adventures of Harlequin

Harlequin waited impatiently for the day when Lelio would visit Columbine, or send him to her with a message; but Lelio, though he really intended to marry the Doctor’s daughter, felt it beneath his dignity to go too often to so humble a house as Pantaloon’s. He saw no cause to press his suit, for, coldly as Columbine always welcomed him, he could not believe that she would refuse a husband of his rank and elegance. He admired her the more for her reserve. In his view, a courtship should be a slow and dignified business. Harlequin’s methods would have deeply shocked him.

About a week after the dancer had entered his service, however, he decided that the time was come for another visit; and he set out for Pantaloon’s house, Harlequin walking behind him with a great bouquet of flowers which Lelio was going to present to Columbine. Harlequin was in high hopes of once more setting eyes on his beloved. He wondered whether she would recognise him under his disguise. Great was his disgust when, on arriving at their destination, Lelio entered the house alone and left him to kick his heels in the street. He did not even get a chance of speaking to Pierrot, to whom he had intended to make himself known. “If this is how things are to be,” he thought, “I might as well have stayed at Burattino’s.”

But Harlequin was not easily defeated. While he waited for Lelio, he set his nimble wits to work; and that evening, as his master sat yawning over his wine, he asked him whether he would like to see him dance.

From any other of his servants, Lelio would have considered such a suggestion a great impertinence, but “Truffaldino” was already high in his favour. Being a true Venetian he liked, above all things, to be amused; and Coviello’s cousin was certainly an amusing fellow.

“Can you dance, Truffaldino?” he asked.

“A little,” said Harlequin modestly.

“Go on, then,” said Lelio. “Let me see what you can do.”

What his new servant could do in the way of dancing amazed him. Since he had jilted Isabella for Columbine, Lelio went very little into the world, and so it chanced that he had never seen the mandoline-player and the dancer whose performances were so popular in fashionable Venice.

“I must confess that you dance very well, Truffaldino,” he said, taking a pinch of snuff. “Where did you learn the art?”

“I was born dancing,” said Harlequin, “and I daresay I shall die dancing.”

“Then I hope it will be with your feet on the ground,” laughed Lelio.

Seeing his master in so good a humour, Harlequin thought that he might venture a little further.

“I wonder if I might take a great liberty, sir,” he said.

“I will tell you that when you have taken it,” replied Lelio. “You do it at your own risk, remember.”

“Well, sir,” said Harlequin, “is it not possible that my dancing might afford some entertainment to the lady whom you visited this morning? Ladies are often very partial to dancing.”

Lelio frowned, and Harlequin feared that he had angered him. But Lelio was not angry: he was only thinking.

“That is not a bad idea,” he said at length. “I noticed that she seemed rather out of spirits this morning. Perhaps your dancing would divert her. Yes, Truffaldino, you shall come with me next time I visit her.”

Harlequin had difficulty in restraining himself from showing his joy. As for Lelio, he also was pleased; for the notion of going courting attended by a dancer—and so good a dancer as “Truffaldino”—struck him as extremely elegant.

Thus it was that Harlequin again saw his beautiful Columbine. He was very much grieved to observe how pale she was and how unhappy she looked; but he could not help being gratified by the listless air with which she accepted Lelio’s well-turned compliments.

It was clear that at first she did not recognise her lover; but when, at Lelio’s command, he began to dance, he saw a puzzled look come into her face—and then she blushed—and then she trembled a little. She knew him!

Harlequin got no chance of speaking to her alone that day. But little by little, as his position with Lelio grew more and more privileged, he managed to contrive means of going without his master to the Doctor’s house. He would suggest, so tactfully that Lelio thought that the idea was his own, that it would be a graceful thing to send a present of sweetmeats or flowers, or even a jewel, to Columbine. And Lelio liked always to act gracefully.

Harlequin insisted on delivering the presents into Columbine’s own hands. He said that it was his master’s desire, and Pantaloon, so churlish with every one else, was all complaisance to Lelio’s lightest whim. It is true that he was usually present at the lovers’ meetings, but one who had the honour to wear Lelio’s livery was, in the Doctor’s eyes, a person worthy to be trusted; and when, as sometimes happened, a patient called while the dancer was in the house, Pantaloon quite happily left “Truffaldino” with his daughter. Pierrot, too, whom Columbine had told who the pretended lackey really was, became quite clever at inventing reasons to get his master out of the way.

So once more Harlequin and Columbine enjoyed some happy moments, and the roses returned to Columbine’s cheeks. But they were very short moments and they did not occur very often; and the lovers, who were both more in love than ever, were far from being satisfied. Nothing, indeed, would content them but that they should run away together—and how were they to do that, when it was impossible to leave the house, to draw the creaking bolts and loosen the clanking chains, without Pantaloon hearing them?

Harlequin, on his way back to the palace, sometimes called at Burattino’s, but though Violetta and Scaramouche were always glad to see him, they had no new suggestions to make.

As Harlequin became better acquainted with his master’s private affairs, however, he got to know certain things which set him thinking. One was that Lelio, though he was as devoted to Columbine as so languid a gentleman was capable of being, was not a little inclined to regret his break with Isabella. A marriage between himself and the great heiress would have been so fitting a match. Their wedding might have been the most splendid ever seen in Venice. He did not propose to have very much ceremony when he married Columbine; for he was afraid that his friends would only come to laugh at him, and he did not at all relish the notion of being laughed at.

Naturally the Lady Isabella’s name was not very often spoken in Lelio’s presence, but when by chance it was, Harlequin noticed that his master was far more interested than he pretended to be, and that when any one was mentioned as paying court to her, he could scarcely conceal his annoyance. Isabella had many suitors, though she gave them but little encouragement.

Another thing which the observant Harlequin discovered was that, although Lelio was acknowledged to be the finest gentleman in Venice, there was a certain Leandro who ran him a close second. There had, indeed, been an ardent rivalry between the two young men as to which of them should be the leader of fashion, and though hitherto the palm had always gone to Lelio, now that he was seen so little Leandro was beginning to usurp his place. Lelio sometimes thought seriously of reasserting himself, but he dare not go much into society for fear of meeting Isabella. When he heard, however, of some new triumph of his rival’s—some particularly delightful entertainment which he had given or some specially exquisite suit which he had worn—he almost wished that he had never seen the fascinating Columbine.

These feelings Harlequin did all he could to foster. From his fellow servants and the servants of the other great houses whom he met in the taverns he heard many stories of what was happening in the fashionable world, and such stories he would repeat to his master while he was dressing him. Nor did they lose in the repetition.

One day, when he thought the time was ripe, Harlequin said to Lelio: “I wonder, sir, whether you have heard the latest news.”

“What is it?” asked Lelio.

“Why, sir,” said Harlequin, in a very innocent voice, “that there is likely soon to be a great wedding in Venice.”

“Indeed,” said Lelio, “between whom?”

“Between the Lord Leandro and the Lady Isabella,” said Harlequin.

Lelio, who was being shaved, started from his chair so violently that he gashed his chin badly on the razor in his servant’s hand. But he was far too excited to notice the fact, though the blood quite ruined his beautiful shirt.

“Nonsense!” he cried. “It is impossible!”

“I only tell you what I have heard, sir,” said Harlequin. “I had it from one of the Lord Leandro’s own servants.”

Lelio was in a fume. If Leandro and Isabella married, and their two great houses were united, his own proud position would be gone for ever.

“You must find out more of this, Truffaldino,” he cried; and then, realising how much beneath his dignity it was to talk in this strain to a mere lackey, he added more calmly: “I have a special and important reason for wishing to have certain knowledge in this matter.”

“I will do my best, sir,” said Harlequin, deftly applying a piece of cotton-wool to his master’s chin.