Chapter VIII: Part 8

The impressions left upon my mind after this night's reading were painful. I expected some disturbance of the peace through the malice of that woman, who had now become irreconcilably antagonistic. Meeting Sacchi next morning on the Piazza di San Marco, I asked him whether he had noticed the strange conduct of Mme. Ricci on the previous evening. He said that he had certainly been aware of something wrong, but that he could not ascribe it to any cause. Then I communicated my suspicion. "The actress," said I, "means to persuade Signor Gratarol that he is being satirised under the character of Don Adone." "What is her object?" exclaimed Sacchi. "That I will tell you briefly," I replied: "she wants to gain credit with her new friend, to inflict an injury on your troupe, and to cause me annoyance by stirring up a quarrel between me and the gentleman in question." "It is not impossible," said Sacchi, "that she is planning something of the kind. But what are your reasons for thinking so?" "If you had only been attentive to her mutterings and attitudinisings last evening, when the part of Don Adone was being read, you would not put that question," I answered. "I ask you, therefore, as a friend, to withdraw my play until the next season. Lent will soon arrive. The Ricci will go to Paris, and Signor Gratarol to Naples. You can make use of the _Droghe d'Amore_ later on, when its appearance will cause no scandal." After some persuasion, he promised to fulfil my wishes; and next morning he told me that the play had been suspended.

Here the affair would have rested if Signor Gratarol, poisoned by his mistress's report, had not taken a step fatal for his own tranquillity. She returned, as I had imagined, from the reading of my play, and told him that he was going to be exposed upon the stage in the person of Don Adone. He set all his influence at work to prevent the public exhibition of the comedy. The result was that, four days afterwards, Sacchi came to me in great confusion and told me that Signor Francesco Agazi, censor of plays for the Magistrato sopra alla Bestemmia, had sent for the _Droghe d'Amore_. A new revision was necessitated by certain complaints which had been brought against the role of Don Adone.

"So then," said I, "you have given the manuscript to Signor Agazi?" "No," he answered; "I was afraid that I might lose it altogether. I told that gentleman that I had lent it to a certain lady.[60] He smiled and said that when she had done with it he expected to have it in his hands again. In fact, not wishing to be proved a liar in this matter, I took the play to the lady I have mentioned, related the whole story about Gratarol and Ricci, and recommended myself to her protection." Sacchi could not have taken any step more calculated to give importance to this incident. I said as much to him upon the spot; predicted that the lady, who was known to have a grudge against Signor Gratarol, would do her best to circulate the scandal; assured him that the whole town would blaze with rumour, that I should be discredited, and that he might find himself in a very awkward position. "The tribunals of the State," I added, "are not to be trifled with by any of your circumventions."

Signor Gratarol had made a great mistake. Instead of listening to the gossip of an actress, and then setting the machinery of the State in motion by private appeals to persons of importance, he ought to have come at once to me. I should have assured him of the simple truth, and the _Droghe d'Amore_ would have appeared without doing any dishonour to either of us.

His manoeuvring had the effect of putting all Venice upon the _qui vive_, and placing an instrument of retaliation against him in the hands of powerful enemies. The noble lady, Caterina Dolfin Tron, to whom Sacchi took my comedy, read it through, and read it to her friends, and passed it about among a clique of high-born gentlemen and ladies. None of them found any mark of personal satire in the piece. All of them condemned Gratarol for his self-consciousness, and accused him of seeking to deprive the public of a rational diversion, while moving heaven and earth to reverse the decision of the censors of the State.

In two days the town buzzed of nothing but my wretched drama, Gratarol, and me. It was rumoured that I had composed a sanguinary satire. Not only Gratarol, but a crowd of gentlemen and ladies were to be brought upon the scene. A whole theatre, with its pit, boxes, stage, and purlieus could not have contained the multitude of my alleged victims. Everybody knew their exact names and titles. Neighbours laid their heads together, quarrelled, denied, maintained, argued, whispered in each other's ears, waxed hot and angry, told impossible anecdotes, contradicted their own words, and, what was most amusing, everybody drew his information from an infallible source.

One thing they held for certain--that I had made Gratarol the protagonist of my satire. That became a fixed idea, which it only wanted his own imprudence to turn into a fact.

Knowing pretty well where the real point of the mischief lay, I determined to act, if possible, upon the better feelings of Mme. Dolfin Tron.[61] I had enjoyed the privilege of her acquaintance for many years. But my unsociable and unfashionable habits made me negligent of those attentions which are expected from a man of quality. I did not pay her the customary visits; and when we met, she was in the habit of playfully saluting me with the title of _Bear_. My brother Gasparo, on the contrary, saw her every day, and she bestowed on him the tender epithet of _Father_. Such being our respective relations, I thought it best to apply to him.

I asked my brother, then, to do all he could to induce this powerful lady to oppose the production of my comedy for at least the present season. Through the machinations of Signora Ricci, against my will, and much to my discredit, the piece was going to create a public scandal, with serious injury to a gentleman whom I had not meant to satirise. My brother, muttering a curse on meddlesome women in general and actresses in particular, undertook the office. He did not succeed. Mme. Tron replied that I was making far too much fuss about nothing, and that my comedy had passed beyond my control. It had become the property of a _capocomico_, and was at the present moment under the inspection of the State.

Not many days elapsed before I was summoned to the presence of Francesco Agazi, the censor, as I have before observed, for the Signori sopra la Bestemmia.[62] I found him clothed in his magisterial robes, and he began as follows: "You gave a comedy, entitled _Le Droghe d'Amore_, to the company of Sacchi. I perused it and licensed it for the theatre at S. Salvatore. The comedy has been passed, and must appear. You have no control over it. Pray take no steps to obstruct its exhibition. The magistracy which I serve does not err in judgment." I could not refrain from commenting upon Signor Gratarol's action in this matter, and protesting that I had never meant to satirise the man. He bade me take no heed of persons like Gratarol, whose heads were turned by outlandish fashions. "I made some retrenchments," he added, "in the twelfth scene of the last act of your comedy. They amount, I think, to about ten or twelve verses. These lines expressed sentiments such as are usually maintained by men of Gratarol's sort. You meant them to be understood ironically. But our Venetians will not take them so. What strikes their ear, they retain in its material and literal sense. And they learn much which is mischievous, unknown to them before.--May I parenthetically observe that certain gentlemen want to give orders where they have no right to speak?--I repeat to you that the magistracy which I serve does not err; and I repeat the decree which has been passed." Having spoken these words, Signor Agazi bowed, and left me for his business.

What passed between me and the censor I repeated to friends of mine, who will bear me witness that I found myself estopped in my attempts to suppress the comedy. It had to appear; and Signor Gratarol owed this annoyance to his having powerful enemies.

Unfortunately he did his best to exasperate these enemies. Teodora Ricci, primed by him and parroting his words, went about libelling men and women of the highest rank, whom she had never seen. Phrases of the grossest scurrility were hurled at eminent people by their names. "If Gratarol has committed himself in this way to an actress," said I in my sleeve, "what must he not have let fall to other friends and acquaintances? Such indiscretion marks him out as little fitted for the post of ambassador at Naples or elsewhere."

I have said that I had lost all authority over my wretched drama. I only wanted to see it well hissed on its first appearance, and to bury the annoyances it caused me in a general overthrow. Yet I was obliged to be present at rehearsals. At the first which I attended, I noticed that two of the roles had been changed. I had given Don Adone to an actor called Luigi Benedetti, and the jealous Don Alessandro to Giovanni Vitalba. Sacchi reversed my disposition of these parts, alleging that Benedetti was better fitted to sustain the character of a furious lover than Vitalba, who was somewhat of a stick. This seemed to me not unreasonable; and I was so accustomed to have my plays cut and hacked about by the actors, that I accepted his decision.

At the second rehearsal, Mme. Ricci asked me negligently if I knew why this alteration had been made. I answered that Sacchi had explained it to my satisfaction. She held her tongue, thinking doubtless that I was well acquainted with certain machinations of which she had fuller knowledge than I.

At last the piece appeared--it was the night of January 10, 1777--at the theatre of S. Salvatore. I went there in good time, and found the entrance thronged with a vast multitude. For three hours people had been clamouring for seats, and the whole house was crammed. They told me that the boxes had been sold at fabulous prices. This might have swelled another playwright's heart with pride. I, on the contrary, was extremely dejected by finding my worst anticipations realised. Pushing my way through the press, which encumbered every passage and clung against the walls, I reached the _coulisses_ with much toil.[63] There I saw a swarm of masks begging for places anywhere at any price. "What the deuce is the meaning of this extraordinary concourse?" I exclaimed. The Ricci answered me at once with: "Don't you know? The town has come to see your satire on a certain person." I put her down by saying bluntly that more than a year ago she heard my play, and knew that there was no personal satire in it. It was not my fault if diabolical intrigues and a succession of blunders had given it a false complexion. She dropped her eyes. I turned my back, and took refuge in a box I had upon the third row of the theatre.

Going up the staircase, I caught sight before me of Gratarol's unhappy wife, and heard her chattering to certain gentlemen she met upon the way: "I wanted to see my husband on the stage." These words of the poor deserted woman enlightened me as to the expectation of the public. Yet why was the whole house so intoxicated? why did a wife look forward to the spectacle of her husband's caricature? I can only explain this phenomenon by remembering the corruption of our age. Women seduced and left to shift for themselves, rivals supplanted in their love-affairs, jealous husbands, wives abandoned and heart-broken, form an inflammable audience for such a piece as the _Droghe d'Amore_ under the notorious circumstances of its first appearance.

Sacchi joined me in my box; and casting my eyes over the sea of faces, I soon perceived Signor Gratarol with a handsome woman at his side. He had come to air his philosophy, but I trembled for him. The curtain rose, and the play proceeded with great spirit. All the actors did their best. I was satisfied with their performance, and the audience applauded. At length, toward the close of the first act, Don Adone appeared. Then, and not till then, I understood the reason of the change of parts by which this role had fallen to Vitalba.[64] He was a good fellow, but a poor artist; and unfortunately he resembled Signor Gratarol pretty closely both in figure and colour of hair. The knavery of the comedians had furnished him with clothes cut and trimmed exactly on the pattern of those worn by Gratarol. He had been taught to imitate his mincing walk and other gestures. The caricature was complete; and I had to confess that Signor Gratarol had actually been parodied upon the stage in my comedy of the _Droghe d'Amore_. Innocent as I was of any wish to play the part of Aristophanes in modern Venice, the fact was obvious; and the audience greeted Vitalba with a storm of applause and rounds of clapping which deafened our ears.

I turned sharply upon Sacchi, and complained bitterly of the liberty he had taken with my unoffending comedy. He only shrugged his shoulders, and said he was afraid that an exhibition which promised so well for his money-box might be suppressed as a public scandal. That was all I could extort from him; and the play advanced to the middle of the third act, accompanied with universal approval. Whenever Don Adone entered and spoke a line or two, he was greeted with thunders of applause. I still hoped for those salutary hisses which might have damned the piece. The audience had been crammed together now for full seven hours; they numbered some two thousand persons, and were largely composed of people from the lower ranks of life. It was no wonder that they began to be restless, fought together, tried to leave the house, and raised a din which drowned the voices of the actors. Don Adone made his last exit, and there was nothing to excite interest but the dregs of an involved and stationary plot. The hubbub rose to a tumult, and my hopes rose with it. The actors gabbled through the last scenes in helpless unintelligible dumb-show. At last the drop-scene fell upon a storm of cat-calls, howls, hisses, and vociferations. I turned to Sacchi and said: "Your vile machinations deserved this retribution. Now you will admit that I prophesied the truth about my play." "Pooh!" he answered, "the play took well enough up to a certain point. It is only necessary to shorten it a little, and we shall not have the same scene another night." Then he left the box all in a heat, without waiting for my reply and without even bidding me good-night.

LVIII.

_Gratarol tries to stop the performance of the play, which is no longer in my power.--Intervention of Signor Carlo Maffei.--Conference with him and Gratarol at my house.--The worst hour I ever lived through._

Next morning the actors came to me with joy beaming on their faces, and announced that the _Droghe d'Amore_ was going to be performed again. The town insisted on its repetition; and they had brought the manuscript, hoping I would condescend to make some alterations and curtailments.

Much as I disliked the news, I was glad at least to get my composition back. I made the players promise to modify Don Adone's costume, so that the effect of caricature might be reduced, and then sat down to hack away at the comedy. Besides shortening it at the expense of structure, plot, and coherence of parts, I carefully erased all passages which might seem to have some bearing upon Signor Gratarol. In this way, by mutilating my work and changing the costume of Don Adone, I flattered myself that the illusion of the public might be dissipated. Vain hope! The cancer had taken firm hold, and was beyond the reach of any cautery.

The _Droghe d'Amore_ was repeated upon four successive nights to crowded audiences.[65] Don Adone, in spite of my endeavours, still formed the principal attraction. All I could do was to persuade Sacchi to replace it by another piece upon the fifth evening. I kept away from the theatre after the second representation; and on the morning of the fifth it gave me satisfaction, while crossing the Rialto, to read placards announcing an improvised comedy at S. Salvatore. "Sacchi," said I, "has kept his word." But this was not the case. Plenty of people stopped to tell me what had happened at the theatre the night before. Just as the curtain was going up and a full house was calling for the spectacle, a messenger arrived to say that Mme. Ricci had fallen downstairs, hurting her leg so badly that she could not move. An indescribable tumult arose; shrieks, screams, curses, squabbles, hustlings,--all the commotion of an eager audience deprived of its legitimate amusement.

When I reached the piazza, several actors of the troupe confirmed the news in all its details. They added that Ricci's husband had to go before the footlights in order to assure the public of his wife's accident. But nobody believed that this was more than a ruse concocted by Signor Gratarol to stop the play. Surgeons were sent to Mme. Ricci's house, who reported her in perfect health. Signor Vendramini forwarded an account of the disturbance at his theatre to the tribunals of the State, and they decreed that the comedy was to be repeated on the night of the 17th. An officer of the Council of Ten received orders to attend Mme. Ricci to the theatre on that occasion, and see that she performed her duty.

Thus Gratarol's unworthy stratagem made matters infinitely worse for us. I only discovered at a later date that he was seeking to gain time for dark and treacherous machinations against my person.

On the 15th of January I found myself, as usual, at S. Salvatore, expecting one of those old-fashioned improvised comedies which never fail to divert me. My excellent friend, Signor Carlo Maffei, stepped up, and begged for a few moments' serious conversation. I assented; we entered his box; he carefully secured the door, and made the following communication. But before proceeding to relate what passed between us, I must describe a few traits of this worthy gentleman's character. He is the very soul of honour, scrupulously upright in all his dealings, incapable of trickery or meanness, but gifted with such tenderness of heart and sensibility that he sometimes falls into mistakes of judgment about people who are not distinguished by his own sterling qualities. Signor Maffei only erred in admiring me and my writings beyond their merits. Yet he lived a very different life from mine. He was a prominent member of that society which is called _bon ton_ and _the great world_ at Venice. Partaking freely of its amusements, he had formed an intimacy with Signor Gratarol. Indeed, he must have known that gentleman several years before he became my friend. This accounts for the proposal which I shall now report.

"Gratarol's misfortunes," he began, "have made a deep and painful impression on my feelings. He came a little while ago to visit me, and literally drew tears from my eyes. He is in a state bordering on distraction. What he came to ask was whether I could undertake to arrange a conference between you and him apropos of that unfortunate comedy. It is indifferent to him whether we meet at my house or at yours."

When I heard this, I felt sure that some scorpion must be concealed beneath so tardy an attempt at reconciliation. I told Maffei so, and asked why Gratarol had not sought me out at the commencement, when Mme. Ricci was pouring her insidious venom into his ears. Now it was too late to do any good. I had lost the last thread of authority over my play. The Supreme Tribunal had taken cognisance of the affair, and we were both powerless to stir a finger. All the same, at Maffei's request, I was willing to meet Gratarol, although I could not conceive what object he had in ferreting me out.

If I had but known, while my friend was pleading for him, that this horned serpent had just presented an information to the Inquisitors of State, denouncing me in person, and deliberately aiming at my honour and my safety, I should have returned a very different answer.[66]

In the end, after enumerating all that had occurred in the long history of my unlucky drama, I gave my consent, suggesting at the same time that the meeting had better not take place in my house, and expressly begging Signor Maffei to let Gratarol clearly understand beforehand that I was utterly helpless with regard to the _Droghe d'Amore_.

Maffei left the box at once, repaired to Signor Gratarol, and soon returned with the answer that his friend was absolutely determined to come to my house for the interview.

I spent a large part of that night in racking my brains to imagine what Gratarol could possibly hope to gain by this new step of his. Giving the problem up as insoluble, I laid a scheme of my own, the only one which seemed to me at all practicable, and which I resolved to propose to him upon the morning of the 16th. It was as follows. I should write a prologue addressed to the public, saying that my comedy was going to be stopped after the evening of the 17th, at my own request, because it had been turned to bad account and misinterpreted, to the injury of myself and persons whom I esteemed as friends. This prologue could be printed and distributed before the performance of the play. Then Signor Gratarol and I would go together, and take our places amicably side by side in a front box of the theatre. The whole world would see that we were not at enmity, and I should be able to convince him, as the play proceeded, that Don Adone was not intended to be a personal satire on himself.

The plan approved itself to my judgment, and I went to sleep, persuaded that I had found a satisfactory way out of our worst difficulties.

Next morning, the 16th of January, I rose betimes, entered my study, and hurriedly composed a little prologue of twenty-four lines. Hardly had I finished the last verse, when my servant announced Signor Gratarol in a sonorous voice. Yes, there was the raging Cerberus Gratarol, accompanied by the gentle lamb Maffei! And all hopes of concealing this visit from the public had vanished. My servant had their names upon his lips, and Venice would soon be saying that my humiliated enemy had gone to prostrate himself at his persecutor's feet.[67]

Gratarol did not make his entrance like a suitor. He was closely masked, and came swaggering into my tiny workroom with the swaying gait which is called "English style." When he raised his mask, the steam from his face rose to the ceiling, and I could see by his rolling eyes, quivering lips, spasms of pain, and frensied contortions, that the man suffered like the Titan with the vulture preying on his liver.

We all three took seats, and Signor Gratarol opened the conference by saying: "I have come to visit you, not as a suitor, but as a reasoner upon the merits of this case. Pray do not interrupt the thread of my argument, but give me patient hearing to the end." For upwards of an hour he thundered and declaimed like an infuriate Demosthenes against what he chose to call my "vindictive comedy." "Not that the personage of Don Adone has the least resemblance to my character," he added, "but that you meant it to hurt and outrage me." Starting on this note, he proceeded to dilate upon the splendour of his birth and education, his widespread celebrity, the offices of State he had discharged, his election as ambassador at Naples, and the magnificent career which lay before him. "From the height of all this glory," said he, "I have fallen in a moment, and become the public laughing-stock through your comedy!" Then he touched upon his enemies among the great, and alluded significantly to a certain lady who had vowed his ruin. That led up to a moving picture of his present distress: "When I pass along the streets or cross the piazza in my magisterial robes, the very scum and _canaille_ swarm around me, leave their shops, and point me out as the secretary to the Senate who is being turned to ridicule in your _Droghe d'Amore_." He writhed upon his seat and tears fell from his eyes as he spoke these words, never reflecting that it was not _my_ play, but _his own_ bad management which had brought these tragi-comic woes upon him.

Resuming the thread of his discourse, he imprudently let out the fact that during the last few days he had presented a petition--to what tribunal he did not say--for the suppression of my piece. Then, hastily catching himself up, as though he had gone farther than he meant, "In short," he added, "every door has been shut against me!" I was not so stupid as not to guess the awful tribunal to which an ambassador-elect had applied, and by which he had been rejected. Opening my eyes wide, I turned them meaningly on my worthy friend Maffei, as though to ask: "What devil of a visitor have you brought here for my torment?"

At length the pith of the oration came to light. Admitting me to be susceptible of justice, humane feeling, religion, honour, magnanimity, and a host of other virtues, Gratarol laid it down as an axiom that "I was able and that I ought to stop the performance of the comedy upon the evening of the 17th, and so long as the world lasted." "_Able_ and _ought_," exclaimed I to myself; "when I have made it clear to Maffei that I cannot stir a finger to prevent the play, and have already been rebuked by a respectable magistrate for attempting to do so!" I perceived that Maffei had omitted to inform Gratarol of my powerlessness. However, I determined to hear his speech to the end in patience. He now proceeded to demonstrate my power by asserting that Sacchi was not in a position to refuse any of my requests;[68] Sacchi had declared he would be governed by me in the matter of the comedy; Sacchi was independent of the patrician Vendramini; it was consequently my duty to put pressure upon Sacchi; all I had to do was to go to Sacchi and forbid the performance. "If you do not do so," he continued, "you will become deservedly an object of hatred to your country; everybody regards you as the author of my misfortunes, and the public is on the point of turning round to take my side against you." I knew that this was unluckily only too probable; but the painful position in which we were both placed had been created, not by my malice, but by his credulity and blundering.

When this oration came to an end, I replied as briefly and as calmly as I could. I began by observing that even if I had the power to stop the play, I should expose myself to the greatest misconceptions. Everybody would believe that it had been suspended by an order from the magistracy in consequence of its libellous character. But that was not the real question at issue. The question was whether I had or had not the power to do this. By a succinct enumeration of all the incidents connected with the revision of the comedy, I proved that neither myself nor Sacchi could interfere with a performance officially commanded and announced for to-morrow evening. Gratarol put in abruptly: "What you are saying is irrelevant and inconsequential. My reasoning has made it certain that you can and ought to stop the play to-morrow and in perpetuity." At this point I begged to remind him that he had recently applied to a supreme tribunal--by his own admission, let drop in the hurry of his cogent reasoning--and that "the door had been shut in his face." It was of little use to argue with Signor Gratarol. To every thing I said he kept exclaiming: "Nonsense, nonsense! You can and must stop the performance."

Wishing to cut matters short, but not without the greatest difficulty, and only by the assistance of Signor Maffei, I got him to listen to the plan I had devised that morning, and read him out my prologue. It was composed in a popular style, and ran as follows:

"_To the Respectable Venetian Public_,

CARLO GOZZI.

"This harmless drama, which hath won the grace
Of your most generous and kind applause,
Large-hearted men of Venice, at the prayers,
Repeated prayers, and not without effect,
Of him who wrote it, now has been withdrawn.
He knows not by what accidents or how,
The various characters, the actors too,
In this plain piece of stage-work, which he took
From an old Spaniard, Tirso da Molina,
Adapting it to our Italian taste,
Have lent themselves to satire, falsely felt,
On living persons whom the author loves.
Scandal, malignant rumours, which abuse
His frank and candid pen, incapable
Of setting snares for names whom all respect,
Have moved him to implore that from to-night
_Le Droghe d'Amore_ shall no longer run:
He meant it for amusement, not offence.
Warm thanks, dictated by his heart, he yields
To you, choice courteous public, who have deigned
To greet so poor a play with your applause;
And promises new works on other themes; and swears
That his sole object is to furnish sport
To you, dear countrymen, and keep your friend."

"Well, well!" cried Gratarol, rising from his chair with a contortion of impatience: "all that is nothing but mere water, water, water! I solemnly reject your prologue and your plan.[69] My cogent reasoning upon the merits of the case has proved that you can and must stop the play." On my replying again and again that I was impotent to do so, his brows darkened, and he muttered with eyes wandering all round the room: "I warn you, sir, that if the play comes on the stage to-morrow evening, I shall not value my own life at a brass farthing. Yes, yes, I mean what I am saying; I shall not care for my existence."

_Original Etching by Ad. Lalauze_]

The excellent Maffei was sitting all this while in a state of the greatest discomfort and distress. Seeing how pale and wretched he was, I rose to my feet, and addressed Gratarol in these words: "Sir, I do not wish you to part from me under the impression that I am not your friend. All I can undertake is to use my influence by prayers and entreaties to prevent the performance of my comedy. This I promise to do. But I cannot engage to succeed, for I am not the master in this matter. You shall have a full and punctual report of my endeavours. Pray kiss me as a sign that we do not part in enmity." The kiss was exchanged; and what I shall have to relate shortly will enable my readers to judge which of us two gave the kiss of Judas.

LIX.

_The several steps I took to meet the wishes of my blind and false antagonist.--History of a long tedious day._

How I spent the rest of the day after this painful scene may be told very briefly. I first sent a letter to the noble gentleman Signor Vendramini, entreating him in courteous but urgent terms to sanction the suspension of the comedy. A polite and distant answer expressing his inability to do so was placed in my hands. Then I hurried to find Sacchi. He was dining at the house of the patrician Giuseppe Lini at S. Samuele. I sent for him into the ante-chamber, and explained my reasons for having the performance stopped. "What can I do?" exclaimed the _capocomico_. "Have you forgotten that the sublime tribunal has given orders for the play, and that Ricci is going to be brought to the theatre by one of its foot-soldiers? You are demanding the impossible--the ruin of myself and all my company." "But did not you yourself declare," said I, "that you would punctually fulfil my wishes in this matter?" "To whom, and when, and where?" he answered in some heat; "who has told these lies? I should like to be confronted with the man. Do you imagine I am such a donkey as to make ridiculous assertions of the kind? Nevertheless, if you can smooth away all obstacles, I am willing to submit to your demand."

The noise we were making in the ante-chamber brought Signor Lini and his guests out of the dining-room. They protested with one voice that it was impossible to withdraw a comedy which was already the property of the public and under the protection of the Government. Gratarol had stirred up all the mischief by fitting the cap on his own head. It was too late to think of the misfortunes he had brought by his own madness on himself.

Furnished with Sacchi's conditional promise, I flew off at once to my friend Maffei. I told him what I had already done, and with what poor success. "Nevertheless," I added, "there is yet another stone which I do not mean to leave unturned. I may find the noble lady Caterina Dolfin Tron at home, if I go to her immediately. She certainly suggested and contrived the travesty which turned Vitalba into a caricature of Gratarol. She has availed herself of the latter's indiscretion and false steps, the excitement of the public, and the dust stirred up about my wretched drama, to wreak her vengeance for what crime against herself I cannot say. Tell Signor Gratarol what I have attempted up to the present moment, and come to meet me under the Procuratie Nuove at three hours after sunset."

The January day in which I had to work was short; and I may parenthetically observe, although the fact is trivial, that I did not allow myself time to eat a mouthful of food.

It was already an hour and a half past sundown when I turned my steps to the palace of that noble lady. I wished to have a witness of our colloquy, and met with no one on the way more proper for the purpose than Luigi Benedetti, the actor, and Sacchi's nephew. We climbed the long staircase and asked if her ladyship were at home. "Yes," said the servant, "she is receiving a company of ladies, senators, and men of letters." I begged to be announced; and shortly afterwards Mme. Dolfin Tron appeared, closing the doors of her reception-room behind her, from whence there came the sound of animated conversation. She saluted me cheerfully with her usual epithet of _Bear_, bade me take a chair beside her, and motioned to the actor to be seated.[70]

I unfolded the object of my visit in a few sentences, explained how urgently I desired the suppression of my comedy, and described the ineffectual steps which I had taken for securing it. "Now I fling myself upon your powerful assistance, in the earnest hope that you will help me to suspend the performance of the _Droghe d'Amore_."

"What a request!" she cried: "what has inspired you to make it?" I replied by describing my own bitter annoyance at figuring as the libeller and satirist of private persons. I painted the distress of Gratarol, and the sympathy which I felt for him. "The kindness of your heart is worthy of all honour," she answered; "but if you knew the whole facts, you would not take compassion on that man. He has not merely let himself be bamboozled by an actress, fomented the scandal from which he is now suffering, set himself up against the decrees of the tribunals, calumniated people who deserve respect, pretended that the prima donna's leg was broken, and floundered from stupidity to stupidity until the Government itself is enraged against him. He has not merely committed all these follies. He has done more, of which you are not yet aware."

"I am quite prepared to believe you," I replied; "but in a case like his, any honest man might be excused for losing his head and acting with imprudence. Do not let us think of him. I come to beg you to save me from what I regard as an odious source of humiliation to myself. Signor Gratarol persists in saying that I can and ought to stop the performance of my play." The noble lady looked laughing in my face and said: "Any blind man can see that you have no power over your comedy. You made a gift of it to certain actors. It has been twice revised and licensed by the censors of the State. It belongs to the public, and the public have the right to profit by it. You will only get yourself into a scrape if you insist on championing the cause of that presumptuous, conceited, and unruly man. If I cannot persuade you, there are senators in that room" (pointing to her drawing-room) "who will tell you plainly that you are impotent--your comedy no longer yours, but the property of the public and the magistrates of State." "All this I know quite well," I answered; "and I have repeated it a hundred times. I cannot stir a finger. This is the very reason why I come to you. I know that you can settle matters if you like. Intelligent people will perhaps understand how helpless I am in the whole matter. But the vulgar and the populace are sure to think otherwise, and I shall be prejudiced in the opinion of my countrymen. It is to your feeling heart that I make this last appeal, beseeching you to liberate me from the purgatory I am in of hearing all these scandals daily, and seeing the unfortunate Gratarol exposed to scorn in a base and cruel pillory." At the end of this speech I bent down, and stooped to the, for me, unwonted abasement of kissing a woman's hand five or six times.

All my entreaties, and even this last act of submission, were of no avail. Madame told me in conclusion that, for reasons which I did not know, the official decree was irreversible. The Ricci would be conducted by an officer of the Council of Ten to the theatre next evening. After that, the comedy might cease to run; and my protege Gratarol ought to be well contented with the result of the whole matter. She rose to rejoin her company, and I took my departure with my witness, Benedetti.

This was not, however, the last act for me of that long trying day. I met my best of friends, Maffei, and reported the ill success of my efforts. He undertook to go at once to Gratarol, and tell him that the performance on the 17th was inevitable. He must try to endure his humiliation in silence. On the 18th, and from that night forward, my comedy should never more be seen upon the stage.

Maffei returned, discouraged and annoyed, to inform me that Gratarol still stood by his "cogent and irrefragable demonstrations." "Count Gozzi," he had said, "can and ought to meet my wishes,"--the wishes of his worship. I replied to my friend that I felt sure Gratarol was about to play some awkward trick. We had both involved ourselves in a nasty job, I by undertaking to use my influence in the man's behalf, and Maffei by rendering himself the protector of a maniac whose churlish character was ill adapted to his candid friendship. "Oh, bad, bad!" murmured Maffei between his teeth, downcast and mortified to an extent which moved my sympathy. "Do you perhaps know any person of authority and good sense," I inquired, "who has influence over this lunatic?" "If there is any one," he replied, "I think we shall discover this person in Gratarol's uncle, Signor Francesco Contarini. This gentleman holds the private affairs of the family, and Gratarol's own disordered fortunes, in his hands. Gratarol can hardly refuse to pay attention to what he says." "I wish I had the good fortune to know Signor Contarini," said I: "that is not my privilege; but if you will introduce me, we may persuade him to open his nephew's eyes to the prudence of accepting the inevitable."

On this suggestion, we repaired at once to Signor Contarini's dwelling at S. Angelo. He received me with politeness, and asked me to explain my errand. I laid the whole matter in its many details before him, and begged him to induce his nephew to accept the only compromise which now was possible. Maffei supported me, corroborated all that I related, and added his own convictions and desires to the same effect.

Signor Contarini acknowledged the cogency of our reasoning, and frankly admitted that I had no power to arrest the performance of my disastrous play. He very courteously offered to go at once to his nephew, and to back us up with his authority, although the hour was late, and it was not his habit to leave the house at night. While preparing himself for the journey, he turned and spoke as follows: "Gentlemen, I am sorry to have to add one observation. We are dealing with a giddy-pated and most obstinate man. I cannot rely on bringing him to reason. My nephew has undoubted talent; but his head is filled with so many outlandish notions, at variance with the social atmosphere and civil institutions of his native country, that he has been forced, as it were, to incur enmities and to lay himself open to mortifications."

My friend Maffei and I adjourned to a coffee-house in the Calle de' Fabbri or alley of the smiths, called Berizzi, and awaited the result of Signor Contarini's embassy.

When he returned, the report was very different from what I had expected. His manner had changed from affability to an austere and imperious haughtiness. The ultimatum, dictated or commanded by his nephew, ran thus: "On the part of my nephew and myself, I have to tell you that you can and ought to prevent the reappearance of your comedy upon the stage."

I will spare my readers the reply which I found myself obliged to give. It consisted of excuses for having exposed him to so much trouble, and of reiterated assertions that I was powerless to move a finger in the matter. Contarini left us, hard as marble, scarcely deigning to salute me with an inclination of the head.

I almost regretted, at the close of this long weary day, that I had promised to suspend my comedy after its official performance on the 17th. Yet I had Sacchi's word, solemnly passed on oath, to the effect that he would find some means for putting an end to further annoyances. How he kept it will be seen in the ensuing chapters.

LX.

_Gratarol's case against me, which had no foundation in fact or verity.--His chivalrous way of meeting the difficulty, which had arisen between us through his own bad management._

On the evening of the 17th of January, the _Droghe d'Amore_ was given again, as strict orders from the Government made necessary. I kept away from the theatre, and passed my time at S. Gio. Grisostomo, where I heard, to my vexation, that S. Salvatore was thronged with spectators. However, I contented myself with thinking that this was the last night of the notorious comedy.

When my servant came to call me next morning, he volunteered this information, much to my astonishment: "Your comedy, sir, is going to be played again to-night at S. Salvatore." "How do you know that?" I asked. "I read the posters just now set up at the Rialto."

While putting on my clothes in haste to see if this had not been some blunder of the bill-stickers, I was interrupted by the visit of two friends, the patrician Paolo Balbi and Signor Raffaelle Todeschini, a young cittadino of the highest probity. They came to congratulate me on the repetition of my play, which had been called for last evening by an overwhelming and irresistible vote of the audience. On hearing this news, which admitted of no doubt, I felt the blood freeze in my veins.

"You do not know," I said to Signor Balbi, "what sort of fish are stewing in my kettle. I gave my word yesterday that the play should not be repeated. How was I to imagine that my blameless reputation would have to suffer by an actor's breach of faith?" My friends tried to comfort me and soothe me down, while I, oblivious of all the laws of politeness, kept fastening my shoe-buckles, washing my hands, and busying myself about my toilet. I was desperately impatient to get out, and do the utmost in my power to remedy the mischief.

This was my one thought, as the above-named gentlemen can bear me witness, when a new turn was given to affairs by a fresh act of Signor Gratarol's imprudence and vindictive rancour. My servant entered and announced that a footman was waiting outside with a letter which he had orders to deliver into my own hands. I left my room, and found the man there at the top of the staircase. He handed me the letter, and stood waiting for my answer. I saw at a glance, before I opened it, from whom it came, broke the seal, and read the following missive:[71]

"SIR COUNT--Pursuant to the arguments I maintained in your house
two mornings ago, the playbill published yesterday entitles me to
say that in the whole course of my life I have never met with
hypocrisy and imposture equal to yours; and the playbill published
this morning proclaims you on the face of it to be no gentleman and
a liar.

"Go on, I pray. Satiate your vengeance--vengeance begotten by an
amorous passion, in part concealed from the public gaze, possibly
not credited by some folk, and which is known to only me in all its
real extent. Continue, I say, to rear your masked forehead in the
front rank of all those foes who envy, calumniate, persecute, and
hate me. To-day it is your turn to laugh. Perhaps this will not
always be so. Perhaps the vicissitudes of human life will one day
reverse your unworthy triumph and my unmerited oppression.

"From my house, the 18th of January 1776/1777,

"PIETRO ANTONIO GRATAROL."

Having perused this fine flower of Pietro Antonio Gratarol, nobleman of Padua, his eloquence, I folded up the paper, and told the footman, with a smile which concealed my boiling indignation, and saved him from being kicked down the staircase at the risk of his neck, that he might go back to his master and say that I fully understood the contents of his note.

Returning to the room where I had left Balbi and Todeschini, I put Gratarol's letter into the hands of the former, and said: "Your Excellency will learn from this to what annoyances I am exposed by the recall of my comedy." He turned pale, and so did Todeschini, when they gathered the contents of the cowardly, disgusting document.

Balbi asked me what I meant to do. I replied, putting the last touches to my toilet, that the right thing for me to do would be to compel Sacchi at once to play my comedy every night until the end of the Carnival. "Gratarol's letter has certainly been spread broadcast before now over Venice. I do not mean to give him an answer. What I propose would be the best means of punishing Sacchi for his want of faith--since the theatre will certainly be empty--and Gratarol for his delirious importunity. But, if your Excellency permits me, I shall walk abroad. I should like to let a certain lady, who bolstered up my comedy against my will, and who protected a reckless avaricious comedian--I should like her to see and read in this letter to what she has condemned my peaceable nature, incapable of injuring a fly, by her wrong-headed, whimsical, unbecoming pique against a madman."

While I spoke thus to my friend Balbi, the blood was boiling in my veins. Concealed from him, I had quite other plans in preparation. They were not consistent with philosophy; they were not in agreement with the Gospel. Some time later, but not till many days had passed and these heats had cooled, I recognised and condemned them as wrong and reckless, begotten by the blindness of the natural man deprived of reason for the moment.[72]

Signor Balbi offered to accompany me to the noble lady, Signora Caterina Dolfin Tron; and I was rejoiced to have so excellent a witness of our interview. On presenting ourselves, and being received with her customary gaiety, I contented myself with these few words: "Your Excellencies have been amusing yourselves with the _Droghe d'Amore_, and its recall to the stage. The amusements which fall to my poor share are these." I handed her the letter.

She cast her eyes over the page, and I could read upon her countenance and by the trembling of her hands, how deeply she was moved. It is right for me to add that, strongly as I condemned the revengeful caprice against Signor Gratarol which caused this lady to involve me in a series of revolting annoyances, I felt a thrill of gratitude for the cordial emotions expressed at that moment by her every gesture. I saw that she felt for me. I saw that, although her judgment had been spoiled by a course of unwholesome reading, and by conversation with the vaunted _esprits forts_ of our "unprejudiced" age, her heart remained in the right place and uncontaminated.[73]

When she had finished reading, she only said: "Leave this paper in my hands." I obeyed, and took my departure.

It is needless to add that innumerable copies of the precious letter flew about the city. There was not a house, a shop, in which Signor Gratarol's chivalrous proclamation of his rights and wrongs did not form the theme of conversation.

Perhaps I ought to have used circumspection while taking my walks alone about the city, according to my wont. I ought perhaps to have reflected that my antagonist was a man who showed his prowess mainly in ambuscades.[74] But it was never in my nature to know what fear is; and the perils to which I exposed myself while serving in Dalmatia had inured me to ignore it. Therefore, returning to what I hinted some few pages back, I confess that my one burning desire, concealed from every friend, was to find myself face to face with the author of that brutal cartel.[75] Day and night, alone and unattended, I prowled around his casino at S. Mose, nursing this condemnable desire within my breast. Of a truth, I should have been forced to set fire to the house before I drew him from its shelter. That I shall prove; but I was not an incendiary.

Doctor Andrea Comparetti, professor of medicine now in the University of Padua, expressed astonishment when he met me pacing the darkest and the most perilous alleys on the night of that famous 18th of January. He lectured me upon my want of prudence, and reminded me of the circumstances in which I was placed. I laughed the matter off, and he had to leave me with a smile. Let no one imagine, however, that I am boasting of the desire which burned my blood, or that I record my nocturnal wanderings as a sign of heroism. I have never been a gasconading braggart. From a man who could pen a letter like Gratarol's I had to expect some stab in the dark. It was only a blind human weakness which prompted this temerity. I know well enough how to distinguish recklessness from courage.

LXI.

_The sequel to Gratarol's missive of defiance.--My personal relations with him cease._

On the morning of the 19th I rose from sleep with a calm mind, and recovered my natural risibility. My ante-chamber was thronged with gentlemen, relatives, and friends, who thought it their duty to pay me respects after the event of yesterday. They were not a little eager to learn how I had been dragged into a mess so much at variance with the well-known tenor of my life. While I was gratifying their excusable curiosity with a candid and humorous account of the whole matter, my brother Gasparo appeared. He brought with him the Senator Paolo Renier, afterwards Doge of Venice,[76] whom I had not hitherto the privilege of knowing.