“We spent that evening inside the huge and cold circus tent of the Truzzi brothers… Clowns with flour-white faces and orange hair, wearing huge trousers briskly, like parrots, rushed into the stage and awkwardly fell on the sand: behind them a white horse was running heavily, on its wide back there was a short-legged woman in a pink leotard, with tight thighs under a ballet skirt. Music was hammering out with a carefree prowess: “Ivushka, Ivushka, my green one”, a handsome black-bearded director wearing a tailcoat, boots, and a top hat was standing and turning round in the middle of the stage, he had a long whip, and smacked it evenly and wonderfully, the horse sharply arching its neck, all leaning on one side, galloped heavily along the very edge of the circle, the woman was springing on its back, and suddenly with a short cry, she made a huge leap up and with broke through the paper shield raised in front of her by the stall masters.’ When, after the applause of the audience, the rider was leaving the stage, the music stopped, ‘and the circus froze in sweet horror: the stall masters ran behind the arena, dragging a huge iron cage behind them. And behind the scene suddenly the terrible roar was heard… and then such a powerful royal breath-out followed, that the entire Truzzi circus tent was shaking to its foundations…’