no better than they should be. Why is she in the arms of the marchese?
Are these perhaps the customs of the world of fashion? Punchinello, the
family servant, suggests that the marchese and contessa may be brother
and sister. "O Dio, no!" cries poor Brighella. "I know what brothers and
sisters do. I love Colombina and she me, but we don't kiss and hug in a
corner. That is what the contessa taught me to do--I thought it very
beautiful. It was our secret, do you see? But she seems to have taught
the marchese--and it is a secret no more, and not beautiful at all." He
begins to wonder to himself, and grows suddenly homesick under
disenchantment. He has many artless, touching things to say concerning
his happiness with his sister in his own country, there far away on the
lonely Adriatic shore.

I was doing my best with the part; Il Nanno, as Punchinello, was at my
side watching and moving every turn of the dialogue; in the back of the
scene were Truffaldino and the Furlana at their kissing. The audience,
quick to feel the pathos, was very quiet, and gave me courage.

"Go to your mistress, Brighella," says Punchinello; "reproach her, pull
her away."

"No, no," say I, "that would not be honourable. That would show that I
doubted her. That would be an insult to her ladyship, and no comfort to
me."

There was a murmur of applause, low but audible, and that stir which I
know is more enheartening to the player than all the bravas in the
world; but just then, as if directed by some inward motion, my eyes
wandered about the auditorium, and (as happens but rarely), I saw faces
there. In a box on the grand tier I saw Aurelia herself in a yellow silk