When we went down, long after dark, to the inn kitchen, I found the actors seated at supper and was kindly received.  Belviso presented me to the principals—­to a pleasant, plump old gentleman, who looked like the canon of a cathedral foundation, and was, in fact, the famous Arlecchino ’Gritti; to the prima donna, a black-browed lady, who, because she came from Sicily, was called La Panormita, her own name being Brigida, and her husband’s Minghelli; to the cheerfulest drunkard I ever met, who played the lovers’ parts, and was that same Minghelli; to the sustainers of Pantaleone, Scaramuccia, Matamorte, Don Basilio, Brighella and the rest of them—­a crew all told of some twenty hands, all males with the exception of La Panormita.  The reason of that was that the company was very poor, and that fine women did not get sufficiently lucrative side-issues, as I may term them, to be tempted to join it.  And again there were several restrictions placed by some States—­such as those of the Church—­upon female performers, only to be overcome by heavy fees to the officials.  If it was inconvenient to them to drop Signora Minghelli in one place and pick her up at another, to have had more women in the same case might well have ruined them.  They therefore had with them half a dozen boys and lads, of whom Belviso was by far their best—­Pamfilo, Narcisso, Adone, Deifobo and the like, wicked, graceless little wretches as they were.  Belviso took the leading woman’s part in La Panormita’s absence, and when she was present he came second.  Notably he was Columbine in the comedy, and, as they said, one of the most excellent.  I found all these people, as I have never failed to find Italians of their sort, simple, good-hearted and careless, sometimes happy, sometimes acutely miserable; but always patient and reasonable, and always expressing themselves unaffectedly, in very strong language.  Of their kindness I cannot say too much; of their moral behaviour I must not.  Their profession, no doubt, which forced them to exhibit themselves in indelicate or monstrous situations for the pleasure of people who were mainly both, had made them callous to much which is offensive to a man of breeding.  Il Nanno was a great exception to their rule.  I never knew him, but once, behave otherwise than as a gentleman.  I never heard him hold unseemly conversation.  Belviso, too, was, as far as I was concerned, honest, decent and self-respecting.  I am inclined to hope, and have some grounds for believing, that he had given himself a worse character than he deserved.  All I shall say about him here is that, had he been my son, I could not have been troubled by anything which he said or did so long as I was in his company.