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Three youths passed along the pavement playing upon their mandolines an air from the latest opera at the Arena, laughing at two hatless girls of the people who were drinking coffee at the table next to us, and next moment the al fresco orchestra in the balcony above struck up a waltz. "Faugh!" cried my companion, starting up. "Let's go. This music is intolerable!
We had reached that stage of the banquet when the game was about to be served the invisible choir of boys' voices had just completed an enchanting stornello with an accompaniment of mandolines when a stillness, strange and unaccountable, fell upon the company a pause an ominous hush, as though some person supreme in authority had suddenly entered the room and commanded "Silence!"
She went, and I got into bed, but I could not sleep, and while I lay waiting for Sister Angela I listened to some men who as they crossed the piazza were singing, in tremulous voices, to their mandolines and guitars, what I believed to be love songs, for I had begun to learn Italian. "Oh bella Napoli. Oh suol beato Onde soiridere volta il creato."
But most of them, in delicate compliment to the changed fortunes of Loose End, brought not necessities but luxuries. Jerry's gramophone was still hoarsely valiant; three Italians from Klondyke, manganese miners, brought mandolines; Jerry had recently acquired a mouth-organ with bells. Marcella was always rather depressed about celebrations.
But they seldom reached the last verse of their song; at every sound they stopped short, threw down their triangles and their mandolines, and took flight like scared nightingales. One only had courage enough or passion enough to brave the mockery; this was Bastiano, the most formidable diver of that coast.
Among their number was a private called Cheeseman, a born comedian, who used to get up sing-songs and sketches; the star turn, however, was a selection from his orchestra, which he used to conduct with a broomstick from an inverted bucket. The instruments were two mandolines, one banjo, one mandola, a tin whistle, an accordion, a rattle, a comb, and a lump of iron.
The guitars and mandolines strike the vibrating strings. But the vague Northern reserve has come over the Englishwomen. They dance again, but without the fusion in the dance. They have had enough. The musicians are thanked, they rise and go into the night. The men pass off in pairs. But the wood-cutter, whose name and whose nickname I could never hear, still hovered on the edge of the darkness.
A young Russian used to make up into a delightful girl, who, with a partner, danced a cake-walk, accompanied by the blare of their new brass band. Mandolines were soon in vogue and most rooms could boast of several. As we were mostly beginners the resulting noise is best left to the imagination.
But she was soon drawn to the Watteau, where a rich evening hushes about a beautiful carven colonnade, under which the court is seated; where gallants wear deep crimson and azure cloaks, and the ladies striped gowns of dainty refinement; where all the rows are full of amorous intrigue, and vows are being pleaded, and mandolines are playing; where a fountain sings in the garden and dancers perform their pavane or minuet, the lady holding out her striped skirt, and the gentleman bowing to her with a deference that seems a little mocking.
Among the loveliest motives used in the altar-pieces of this period might be mentioned the boy-angels playing flutes and mandolines beneath Madonna on the steps of her throne. There are usually three of them, seated, or sometimes standing. They hold their instruments of music as though they had just ceased from singing, and were ready to recommence at the pleasure of their mistress.
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