Columbine explains: she had no idea her husband could put on so tragical a mask. It is only harmless Harlequin who has been her companion. "The name! The name!! THE NAME!!!" Nedda sees catastrophe approaching and throws her character to the winds. She shrieks out a defiant "No!" and attempts to escape from the mimic stage. Silvio starts up with dagger drawn. The spectators rise in confusion and cry "Stop him!" Canio seizes Nedda and plunges his knife into her: "Take that! And that! With thy dying gasps thou'lt tell me!" Woful intuition! Dying, Nedda calls: "Help, Silvio!" Silvio rushes forward and receives Canio's knife in his heart. "Gesumaria!" shriek the women. Men throw themselves upon Canio. He stands for a moment in a stupor, drops his knife and speaks the words: "The comedy is ended." "Ridi Pagliaccio!" shrieks the orchestra as the curtain falls. "Plaudite, amici," said Beethoven on his death bed, "la commedia finita est!" And there is a tradition that these, too, were the last words of the arch-jester Rabelais. "When 'Pagliacci' was first sung here (in Boston), by the Tavary company," says Mr. Philip Hale, "Tonio pointed to the dead bodies and uttered the sentence in a mocking way. And there is a report that such was Leoncavallo's original intention. As the Tonio began the piece in explanation so he should end it. But the tenor (de Lucia) insisted that he should speak the line. I do not believe the story. (1) As Maurel was the original Tonio and the tenor was comparatively unknown, it is doubtful whether Maurel, of all men, would have allowed of the loss of a fat line. (2) As Canio is chief of the company it is eminently proper that he should make the announcement to the crowd. (3) The ghastly irony is accentuated by the speech when it comes from Canio's mouth." CHAPTER IX "CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA"