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I’ve ever gotten. Now, as I watch her bustling among the actors, doing Flaminio’s bidding as radiantly as if it were Jesus Christ Himself who’d visited her in that dream, I choke with envy. If I want my memorial prayers chanted, I’ll have to sing them myself.
    Perhaps I should never have expected more. I should have known better. I was no longer a boy when I joined the troupe. Already I’d worked twenty years as a tailor, and as my mother’s nurse.
    Day after day, I’d stitch until my fingers bled; I’d run straight home to feed her tea with lemon until she fell asleep. And, late at night, as I thought about the miserable life I was leading, I began to realize what sort of man I was.
    A kindlier person would have called me a student of human nature. But I wasn’t so kind to myself, I knew the truth.
    I was the stranger, the observer, the spy, the one who stands outside of life, looking in. I was the sort of man whom others fear; because, watching from such a great distance, I could often see straight to the heart of people, and guess the secrets which they’d rather keep hidden.
    It was true. Sometimes, I could read a customer’s mind so well that I could cut a coat to fit his most secret desires. But sometimes I was wrong.
    I was wrong, for example, about Flaminio Scala. That first time he charged into my store, demanding a length of pink lace for a woman’s stockings, I misread him. I took one look at his broad shoulders, his healthy beard, his ruddy cheeks, and hated him on sight.
    “This one moves right through the middle of life,” I thought. “This one has all the adventures, fights the ladies off his back, catches those showers of gold coins.”
    I hated him so much I wanted to humiliate him, I wanted to rob him blind. And it was only my fear of him which kept me from cheating him more than I did.
    Still, he noticed the slight—shall we say—discrepancy in our transaction. As I watched him counting and recounting his change, the needle trembled in my fingers, and I waited for his big, strong hand to reach out and grab me.
    But I was misreading him again. Much to my surprise, he began to grin. He looked me up and down, gazing at my hooked nose, my pale skin, my stooped, thin body. He stared at the tufts of reddish hair which stuck out from beneath my skullcap like the feathers of a duck.
    “Pantalone!” he cried at last. “My crabby old Jew!”
    I had no idea what he meant. Nevertheless, I took it from him, just as I wound up taking it from all of them.
    “What do you mean?” I asked, in a voice intended to be cold and haughty.
    “I mean you shall travel with my acting troupe and be Pantalone,” explained Flaminio. “You will play the miserly Jew, the cuckold, the betrayed father, the old schemer whom everyone tries to mock and fool. You’ll lead the life of a great artist, my dear fellow. You’ll see the seven wonders of the world. You’ll win untold fortune, fame, glory. Women will throw themselves at your feet. Think it over. Tell me your decision tomorrow; I’ll be back at noon.”
    After he left, my head was spinning. My mother had just died, so I was free to go with him. But I couldn’t make up my mind. On the one hand, my heart was full of doubt. I was afraid to leave my comfortable home, and I knew what abuse I’d be taking in that role, in that insult to myself and my race. On the other hand, I had visions—dreams of changing my life, of breaking through to the center of things, of finding thrilling excitement and wild love. And that seed of vanity which the Captain had planted in my soul had already begun to spread like a cancer.
    So I shook my head: yes. I sold my store, and went with him.
    As always, I should have listened to my doubts. They were the only things which never misled me. I missed my secure position in the shop. I got all the abuse I’d expected, and more. Led by that vicious Brighella, they taunted me constantly, joking about my religion, my appearance, my