It was impossible to credit that these marble forms,
impressed with ideal grace, so still, so sad, so sacred, could be the
little tumblers, who, but half-an-hour before, were disporting on the
coarse boards at his side.
The father always described, before the curtain was withdrawn, with a
sort of savage terseness, the subject of the impending scene. The groups
did not continue long; a pause of half a minute, and the circular stage
revolved, and the curtain again closed. This rapidity of representation
was necessary, lest delay should compromise the indispensable
immovable-ness of the performers.
'Now,' said Baroni, turning his head to the audience, and slightly
touching his violin, 'Christ falls under the weight of the cross.'
And immediately the curtain parted, and Sidonia beheld a group in the
highest style of art, and which though deprived of all the magic of
colour, almost expressed the passion of Correggio.
'It is Alfred,' said Baroni, as Sidonia evinced his admiration. 'He
chiefly arranges all this, under my instructions. In drapery his talent
is remarkable.'
At length, after a series of representations, which were all worthy of
being exhibited in the pavilions of princes, Baroni announced the last
scene.
'What you are going to see now is the Descent from the Cross; it is
after Rubens, one of the greatest masters that ever lived, if you
ever heard of such a person,' he added, in a grumbling voice, and then
turning to Sidonia, he said, 'This crucifixion is the only thing which
these savages seem at all to understand; but I should like you, sir,
as you are an artist, to see the children in some Greek or Roman story:
Pygmalion, or the Death of Agrippina.
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