“Surprised?” said I.  “I would not be surprised at anything you might fancy doing now.  No, I would not dream of being surprised!”

“So much the better,” answered Nino, imperturbably.  He looked sad and weary, though, and as I am a prudent man I put my anger away to cool for a little while, and indulged in a cigar until it should be time to go to the theatre; for of course I went with him, and Mariuccia too, to help him with his dress.  Poor old Mariuccia! she had dressed him when he was a ragged little boy, and she was determined to put the finishing touches to his appearance now that he was about to be a great man, she said.  His dressing-room was a narrow little place, sufficiently ill lighted, and there was barely space to turn round.  Mariuccia, who had brought the cat and had her pocket full of roasted chestnuts, sat outside on a chair until he was ready for her; and I am sure that if she had spent her life in the profession of adorning players she could not have used her fingers more deftly in the arrangement of the collar and sword.  Nino had a fancy to wear a moustache and a pointed beard through the first part of the opera; saying that a courtier always had hair on his face, but that he would naturally shave if he turned monk.  I represented to him that it was needless expense, since he must deposit the value of the false beard with the theatre barber, who lives opposite; and it was twenty-three francs.  Besides, he would look like a different man—­two separate characters.

“I do not care a cabbage for that,” said Nino.  If they cannot recognise me with their ears, they need not trouble themselves to recognise me at all.”

“It is a fact that their ears are quite long enough,” said Mariuccia.

“Hush, Mariuccia!” I said.  “The Roman public is the most intelligent public in the world.”  And at this she grumbled.

But I knew well enough why he wanted to wear the beard.  He had a fancy to put off the evil moment as long as possible, so that Hedwig might not recognise him till the last act,—­a foolish fancy, in truth, for a woman’s eyes are not like a man’s; and though Hedwig had never thought twice about Nino’s personality, she had not sat opposite him three times a week for nearly four months without knowing all his looks and gestures.  It is an absurd idea, too, to attempt to fence with time, when a thing must come in the course of an hour or two.  What is it, after all, the small delay you can produce?  The click of a few more seconds in the clock-work, before the hammer smites its angry warning on the bell, and leaves echoes of pain writhing through the poor bronze, that is Time.  As for Eternity, it is a question of the calculus, and does not enter into a singer’s first appearance, nor into the recognition of a lover.  If it did, I would give you an eloquent dissertation upon it, so that you would yawn and take snuff, and wish me carried off by the diavolo to some place where I might lecture on the infinite without fear of being