絹の靴下
Both Stravinsky and Diaghilev had known in Petersburg the Butter Week fairs which preceded Lent< when temporary wooden theaters, switchbacks and carrousels appeared in the Square of the Winter Palace. They also remembered the Russian equivalent of the English Punch-and -Judy show, in which the adventures of Petrushka would be acted out by puppets. Petrushka was in fact the Russian Punch: he beat his wife, killed people and was finally hauled off to Hell by the Devil. While one man, hidden, worked the puppets, an organ-grinder provided music and dialogue. He would continually warn Petrushka 'Look out! You'll get into hot water', and Ptrushka would merely give a shrieking laugh 'He, he he!' When speaking Petrushka's lines the organ-grinder put into his mouse 'a little contrivance which gave a nasal tone to his voice', and it was the strange sounds thus produced that Diaghilev heard in the new composition.
