We had been all day on the road; but what
choice is open to the needy traveller? Footsore, muddy to the eyes,
hungry, thirsty as we were--our clothes of the stage sodden with rain,
our finery like wet weeds, our face-powder like mud and our paints like
soup--we must perforce open our packs, don our chill motley, daub our
weary faces, and caper through some piece of tomfoolery which, if it had
not been so insipid, would have been grotesquely indecent. All I
remember about it now is that it was called La Nuova Lucrezia ossia La
Gatteria del Spropositi, a monstrous travesty of the story of Lucrece.
One of the castrati--Pamfilo by name--played the part of Lisetta, "una
putta di undici anni," and exhibited the most remarkable turn of
satirical observation and humour I have ever seen before or since.
Horrible in a manner as it was, it would have redeemed any performance.
This demon of ingenuity and wit was little more than fourteen years old,
and sang like an angel of Paradise. Another of them was the Lucrezia,
the Roman matron--put into the short skirts, spangles, and mischievous
peering glances of Colombina. Belviso would have sustained it had he
been present. Adone, his understudy, took his place. My own share in the
mummery was humble and confusing. In toga and cothurnus I had to read a
pompous prologue, and did it amid shouts of "Basta! basta!" from the
audience. I don't believe that I was more thankful than they were when I
had done.
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