Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
However, so that the audience would clearly understand the play, Vitalis explained the various situations, as the piece progressed. For instance, striking up a warlike air, he announced the entrance of General Pretty-Heart, who had won his high rank in various battles in India.
The veins in his forehead stood out, the tears ran from his eyes, and his pretense at choking, in the end, turned to a dreadful attack over which he had no control. I had to stay at the inn with Pretty-Heart while my master went out alone. One morning upon his return he told me that the landlady had demanded the sum that we owed her.
It was evident that we should have a great deal of trouble to convince him that he must give up all idea of playing that night. I thought it would be better not to let him know when we started. When Vitalis returned, he told me to get my harp ready and all the things we required for the entertainment. Pretty-Heart, who knew what this meant, turned to his master and commenced his entreaties again.
"We must get forty francs at once," he said. "Pretty-Heart must be looked after. We must have a fire in the room, and medicine, and the landlady must be paid. If we pay her what we owe her, she will give us another credit." Forty francs in this village! in the cold, and with such poor resources at our command!
"Muzzle Capi, Zerbino, and Dulcie," cried Vitalis, addressing himself more to the audience than to the officer; "how can the great physician, Capi, known throughout the universe, prescribe a cure for Mr. Pretty-Heart, if the said physician wears a muzzle on the end of his nose?" The children and parents began to laugh.
I dressed the dogs, and combed Dulcie's hair; stuck a plaster over Capi's eye when he was playing the part of an old grouchy man, and forced Pretty-Heart into his General's uniform. That was the most difficult thing I had to do, for the monkey, who knew well enough that this was a prelude to work for him, invented the oddest tricks to prevent me from dressing him.
While I stayed at home with Pretty-Heart, Vitalis found a hall in the public market, for an out-of-door performance was out of the question. He wrote the announcements and stuck them up all over the village. With a few planks of wood he arranged a stage, and bravely spent his last fifty sous to buy some candles, which he cut in half so as to double the lights.
Up to that day General Pretty-Heart had only had Capi for a servant, but he now wished to have a human being as his means allowed him this luxury. For a long time animals had been the slaves of men, but it was time that such was changed! While waiting for the servant to arrive, the General walked up and down, smoking his cigar. You should see the way he blew the smoke into the onlookers' faces!
The time passed, playing with the dogs and chasing Pretty-Heart; when we returned the horses were harnessed and the barge in readiness to start.
The snow came down faster and thicker. We tramped in silence. My master lifted his sheepskin now and again for Pretty-Heart to breathe more easily. From time to time we had to turn our heads to one side, so that we also could breathe. The dogs no longer raced ahead; they walked at our heels asking for the shelter that we were unable to give them.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking