over. "Who could have thought you had it in you? A part like that, too! Why, the people cried like children—all of them, old and young. What could possess you, eh?"
I laughed foolishly again, I know, for my own throat was husky and my own eyes were dim.
"It is all the fault of a branch of lilac," I muttered to them, laughing off my folly. They must have thought me mad, I suppose: I thought myself so.
My chief came and stared at me curiously, then struck me a kindly blow upon the shoulders.
"Peste, Piccinino!" he swore with a good-humoured oath of wonder, "you will be a tragic actor, after all, I should not be surprised. But another time do not make my whole house cry like women when we advertise a comic entertainment. Our trade is to make folk laugh: do not forget that, my friend, again."
I was silent. I could not offer any explanation of what had so strangely and so unwontedly moved me.
It had all come of a branch of lilac. But then who would believe that? People never will believe what is true.
Well, it appeared later on that, although the impresario of our troupe of jesters had feared the
