I hate facts. They're so dull. It was when they became actors they got their new names. Harlequin and Columbine and Clown and Pantaloon. And they travelled from Greece into Italy, where Charon got called Pantaloon because he acted an old gentleman of Venice, and Saint Pantaleone is a patron of Venice, and there were heaps of people called Pantaleone there in the fifteenth.... (Uncle Edward is snapping his fingers and pointing to Ms trousers.) Yes, I know. Even to-day Pantaloon is still wearing the very Venetian clothes of the time when he first played the part. He's got on the first pantaloons ever worn, and his hair is tied in a lovelock. Clown and Pantaloon have got white faces. By this time funny actors, who acted in dumb-show, used to put flour on their faces, like Pierrot you know, because the theatres were so dark and they wanted to show their expressions. Then there's the scene. I do hope you'll like the scene. It's supposed to be Italy, and I think it's beautiful. Anyhow it's the kind of scene we have to have so as not to take up too much room. And it has beehives in it. Columbine keeps two, one for bees and one for butterflies. [It is part of Alice's regret, for which she keeps a nearly secret sigh, that we couldn't have real bees and butterflies. She thinks it would be so jolly to see the bees and butterflies go among the audience and settle on the buttonholes and sprays they wear and bring back the sense of gardens to the people there. Uncle, do you know how Clown told me how to tell the difference? (UNCLE EDWARD: You minx!) Put your hand into the butterfly hive, and if they sting you, you know it's the bees. (UNCLE EDWARD: Did he? Well, go on and tell them the rest.) Yes. Columbine has run away again. The story's always got to be that. Either Columbine runs away from somebody, or somebody runs away with her. That's because the soul is always struggling to be free. This time Cousin Clown and Uncle Pantaloon helped her. She could twist them round her little finger. And she made a great mistake in running away with this very sham-serious young man.

Alice Monologue from The Harlequinade: An Excursion

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