and which supplied
the librettists, G. Targioni-Tozzetti and G. Menasci, with the plot of
Mascagni's opera. Sententious as the opera seems, it is yet puffed out,
padded, and bedizened with unessential ornament compared with the
story. This has the simplicity and directness of a folk-tale or
folk-song, and much of its characteristic color and strength were lost
in fitting it out for music. The play, which Signora Duse presented to
us with a power which no operatic singer can ever hope to match, was
more to the purpose, quicker and stronger in movement, fiercer in its
onrush of passion, and more pathetic in its silences than the opera
with its music, though the note of pathos sounded by Signor Mascagni is
the most admirable element of the score. With half a dozen homely
touches Verga conjures up the life of a Sicilian village and strikes
out his characters in bold outline. Turiddu Macca, son of Nunzia, is a
bersagliere returned from service. He struts about the village streets
in his uniform, smoking a pipe carved with an image of the king on
horseback, which he lights with a match fired by a scratch on the seat
of his trousers, "lifting his leg as if for a kick." Lola, daughter of
Massaro Angelo, was his sweetheart when he was conscripted, but
meanwhile she has promised to marry Alfio, a teamster from Licodia, who
has four Sortino mules in his stable. Now Turiddu could do nothing
better than sing spiteful songs under her window.

Lola married the teamster, and on Sundays she would sit in the yard
with her hands posed on her hips to show off the thick gold rings which
her husband had given her. Opposite Alfio's house lived Massaro Cola,
who was as rich as a hog, as they said, and who had an only daughter
named Santa. Turiddu, to spite Lola, paid his addresses to Santa and
whispered sweet words into her ear.

"Why don't you go and say these nice things to Lola?" asked Santa one
day.

"Lola is a fine lady now; she has married a crown prince. But you are
worth a thousand Lolas; she isn't worthy of wearing your old shoes. I
could just eat you up with my eyes, Santa"--thus Turiddu.

"You may eat me with your eyes and welcome, for then there will be no
leaving of crumbs."

"If I were rich I would like to have a wife just like you."

"I shall never marry a crown prince, but I shall have a dowry as well
as Lola when the good Lord sends me a lover."

The tassel on his cap had tickled the girl's fancy. Her father
disapprov