They sat interminably, evidently having no idea how otherwise to
pass the evening. In the matter of public amusements Catanzaro is
not progressive; I only once saw an announcement of a theatrical
performance, and it did not smack of modern enterprise. On the
dining-room table one evening lay a little printed bill, which made
known that a dramatic company was then in the town. Their
entertainment consisted of two parts, the first entitled: "The Death
of Agolante and the Madness of Count Orlando"; the second: "A
Delightful Comedy, the Devil's Castle with Pulcinella as the
Timorous Soldier." In addition were promised "new duets and
Neapolitan songs." The theatre would comfortably seat three hundred
persons, and the performance would be given twice, at half-past
eighteen and half-past twenty-one o'clock. It was unpardonable in me
that I did not seek out the Teatro delle Varieta; I might easily
have been in my seat (with thirty, more likely than three hundred,
other spectators) by half-past twenty-one. But the night was
forbidding; a cold rain fell heavily.
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