It was called the commedia dell'arte.
I was enchanted. I fell in love with the young girl who played Isabella. I went into the wagon with the players and examined all the costumes and the painted scenery, and when we were drinking again at the tavern, they let me act out Lelio, the young lover to Isabella, and they clapped their hands and said I had the gift. I could make it up the way they did.
I thought this was all flattery at first, but in some very real way, it didn't matter whether or not it was flattery.
The next morning when their wagon pulled out of the village, I was in it. I was hidden in the back with a few coins I'd managed to save and all my clothes tied in a blanket. I was going to be an actor.
Now, Lelio in the old Italian comedy is supposed to be quite handsome; he's t
