"But — but it wasn't any of that, I just didn't want to be a — !"
"O blind counsels of the guilty! O vice, ever cowardly!" cried the Capitano, still in high dudgeon. "We took the little sapling in as our trusted friend and brother, but it was a viper we found at our bosoms, a copper-hearted two-timing turntail as treacherous as a deathwatch beetle!" He snapped his sword from its sheath and whirled it about menacingly, strutting up and down the cramped stage. "O evil, of evils most evil! There is no worse pestilence than a familiar foe! Such perfidy makes me snuff pepper, and when I'm aroused the seas duck under for cover, mountains shrink into the earth like iced ballocks, the sun is afraid to show its face, and even the mighty gods shit themselves in terror, so look out below! Down with your breaches of faith! Out with your double-jointed hybrid treachery! Avast! Avaunt! Oyez! Attento! The greatest achievement of a general is to smite the foe and chop the whoreson into little specks and slivers, so let me have at him! Don't hold me back! My heart detests him as the gates of hell!"
As Captain Spavento del Vall'Inferno, still brandishing his sword, whirled around and charged in his direction, the professor turned anxiously to the others for help, but they all seemed to be applauding the spectacle, or else grabbing up their musical instruments as though to use them for weapons themselves. Their painted faces and hard wooden smiles alarmed him, and he felt a sudden intense nostalgia for his old library carrel back at the university. "Wait! You don't understand — !" he gasped, but no one was listening. Arlecchino's and Colombina's grips tightened like shackles.
"Hasten with the sword," brayed the Capitano, bearing down upon him in full regalia and waving the others to follow, "bring weapons, climb the walls; the enemy is at hand — IHAH!"
Even as the old scholar ducked, Arlecchino heaved him up as though to ward the blow off himself. The effect, however, was to make everyone fall back, even the startled Captain, who dropped his sword and nearly fell off the stage, scrambling to pick it up again. "Look at him!" Arlecchino cried, holding him up by the scruff of his tattered coat and waggling him about. "Do you think he'd do this on purpose?!"
There was laughter and some rude whistling and murmurs of "It's true! what a calamity!" and "Povera bestia!" and when the Captain, recovering somewhat, started huffing and puffing again about collapsing the Hemispheres, shattering the Poles, sending heads rolling around the world like billiard balls, and, with his flaming sword inherited from Xerxes, Romulus, Caesar, and the Blind Doge, bringing on the final devastation, Lisetta took his sword away from him and swatted him on the behind with it until he cried. "Vergogna!" she scolded, as he crawled about on all fours, boohooing. "Keep your tongue, rotto in culo, and keep your friends, slander slanders itself! Chi pissa contro vento pisses on his own pants!"
"Remember that a wretched man, as a wise compatriot once said," continued Arlecchino solemnly, still dangling him on high like one of the cats of Venice, "is a holy thing, and vice versa, da cima a fondo, and to be without a friend is to be like a body without a soul, that is to say, a turd without a fragrance — nor is friendship to be bought at a fair, at least not at an honest price, except sometimes in a raffle, and even then, as they say, old friends are still the best bargain if they are not so old they are dead and beginning to smell. Pesce, oglio, e amico vecchio, we would all be wise to remember that famous old Venetian recipe, the secret of which is fresh basil, sturgeon eggs, a forgiving palate, and funghi porcini, when in season, as friendship always is of course if you have the liver for it. Yes, compagni, old wood, as they used to say in the old days, days so old they were never new, except on the Feast Day of poor little Saint Agnes, whose martyred maidenhead, preserved in a silver noggin, once rivaled the eyeballs of Santa Lucia as an object of veneration amongst our countrymen and made old days young again — old wood, they used to say, as I say now, burns brightest, old linens wash whitest, old friendships cling tightest, and old arses spread widest, so watch where you sit for it is a difficult thing to replace true friends who have been inadvertently flattened, may they rest in peace, or in pieces, as the case may be."
With this sobering reminder of mortality, the entire company of the Great Puppet Show Punk Rock Band, weeping and laughing all at the same time, crowded around him once more, kissing him and smacking heads and embracing him in their crunching hugs, even Captain Spavento, who swore eternal fealty to his brother Pinocchio, adding that if eternity were not enough, he would personally take Time by the throat and squeeze a whole new set of tenses out of the cowardly stronzo. They pressed him, peeking in his pants, for tales of his travels and transformations, and told him of their own troubles, the banning of the band by the Little Man gang, now running the city and cynically calling themselves "socialists," and the terrible persecution of their brothers and sisters that has followed. The Dottore, he learned, was not the only victim: the lovers Ortensia, Florindo, Lindoro, and Lavinia had been dismembered by the authorities and used for the making of grocers' crates, clothespins, and bird cages, though their heads were rumored to have been stolen by the mask-maker Mangiafoco, bastard descendant of the old fire-eating puppet master. The troupe's instruments had been smashed, their spare parts, props, and costumes confiscated. And poor Frittellino had been burned at the stake, the stake being his own master Tartaglia, or what was left of him: a few bent sticks, blue-rimmed spectacles, and a fading stutter. But Pulcinella did some backflips and headstands to show he was as spry as ever, Corallina tossed her skirts up to display her freshly varnished walnut behind, and Brighella reminded them all that "Hey, Father Goldoni was made to eat shit in this town, why should we expect truffles?"
By now, a fair-sized crowd had gathered at this end of the snowy campo, drawn by the novelty of vegepunk rock, university students mostly by the look of them (he gazed out as upon a lecture hall, suffering a momentary twinge of longing and bittersweet regret, or maybe it was only a heart attack, who knew what he'd lose next, but if she was out there, he couldn't see her), dressed in blue jeans and thick sweaters, heavy boots and seamen's caps, and growing impatient in the biting cold. "We want the music! We want the music!" they chanted, stamping their feet, and the puppets, conscious as always about how they were "coming down the strings," as they liked to put it, snatched up their instruments and began improvising an original number with the old professor himself, in his new role as deputy Dottore, at the keyboard. Though he seemed to recognize the melody he was pounding out, the words, barked in the Venetian dialect, were new to him, something about the world being half for sale, half to be pawned, and all to be laughed at, maybe they were making it up as they went along. The crowd seemed to love it, hooting and whistling and singing along: "Lčzi, scrivi e tiente a mente, chi no sgrifa no ga gnente!" they whooped, jumping up and down. "Read, write, and never doubt it: If you don't steal it, you'll do without it!" It was fun in a hypnotic and irresponsible sort of way, it was like drunkenness, like jumping, over and over, through a ring at the circus, and the old traveler, in spite of himself (for it was also somehow frightening, even his unwonted delight frightened him), found himself, eagerly, without thinking, wishing it could just go on like this: "Now that we're all together, let's stay together!" he cried, meaning it with all his heart, though they probably couldn't hear him, they were making a terrible racket — or, rather, somebody was: the Burattini, he saw now, had dropped their instruments and were staring grimly out upon the campo, he was hammering away all by himself, his hollow unaccompanied notes resoundingly challenged now by what seemed to be a great confluence of marching brass bands, arriving simultaneously from all directions like prancing caravans, beating out tattoos and blowing clamorous fanfares, joining in, as he mistakenly thought at the moment, in the fun.