without exerting herself; she has the happy faculty of understanding and
seizing things _au vol_, instead of studying them. She has a regal future
before her. A second Jenny Lind! Their careers are rather similar. Jenny
Lind was a singer in cafes, and Nilsson played the violin in cafes in
Stockholm. She is clever, too! She has surrounded herself by a wall of
propriety, in the shape of an English _dame de compagnie_, and never moves
unless followed by her. This lady (Miss Richardson) is correctness and
primness personified, and so _comme il faut_ that it is actually
oppressive to be in the same room with her. Nilsson herself is full of fun
and jokes, but at the same time dignified and serious.

Christine Nilsson gave Mrs. Haggerty a box at the Theatre Lyrique, where
she is now playing "Traviata" (I think it was the director's box), and I
was invited to go with her and Clem. The box was behind the curtain and
very small and very dark. But it was intensely amusing to see how things
were done, and how prosaic and matter-of-fact everything was. If ever I
thanked my stars that I was not a star myself it was then.

Everything looked so tawdry and claptrap: the dirty boards, the grossly
painted scenery, the dingy workmen shuffling about grumbling and gruff,
ordered and scolded by a vulgar superior. Of course the stars do not see
all these things, because they only appear when the heavens are ready for
them to shine in.

The overture, so it sounded to us, was a clash of drums, trumpets, and
trombones all jumbled together. After the three knocks of the director,
which started up the dust of ages into our faces until we were almost
suffocated, the curtain rose slowly with great noise and rumbling.

The audience looked formidable as we saw it through the mist of cloudy