I must recall it! I had forgotten. What I saw their bravest and their

fairest do last night, the lowest multitude that could be scraped up out

of the purlieus of Christendom would blush to do, I think. They

assembled by hundreds, and even thousands, in the great Theatre of San

Carlo, to do--what? Why, simply, to make fun of an old woman--to deride,

to hiss, to jeer at an actress they once worshipped, but whose beauty is

faded now and whose voice has lost its former richness. Every body spoke

of the rare sport there was to be. They said the theatre would be

crammed, because Frezzolini was going to sing. It was said she could not

sing well, now, but then the people liked to see her, anyhow. And so we

went. And every time the woman sang they hissed and laughed--the whole

magnificent house--and as soon as she left the stage they called her on

again with applause. Once or twice she was encored five and six times in

succession, and received with hisses when she appeared, and discharged

with hisses and laughter when she had finished--then instantly encored

and insulted again! And how the high-born knaves enjoyed it!

White-kidded gentlemen and ladies laughed till the tears came, and

clapped their hands in very ecstacy when that unhappy old woman would

come meekly out for the sixth time, with uncomplaining patience, to meet

a storm of hisses! It was the cruelest exhibition--the most wanton, the

most unfeeling. The singer would have conquered an audience of American

rowdies by her brave, unflinching tranquillity (for she answered encore

after encore, and smiled and bowed pleasantly, and sang the best she

possibly could, and went bowing off, through all the jeers and hisses,

without ever losing countenance or temper:) and surely in any other land

than Italy her sex and her helplessness must have been an ample

354

The Innocents Abroad