The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi; Volume the Second

When the opera was over, I attended her home, and standing in the doorway, repeated that this was the last time she would be troubled with my company. "Do you not mean then to visit me any more?" cried she. "You certainly will not be exposed to that disturbance," I replied. "Oh, we shall see you here, we shall see you!" she answered with a cheerful air of security. I could not help laughing at her conceit. "So you persist in looking on me as a hopeless victim of your charms! If I do come to visit you, you will see me, certes!" "But I shall come to you," she added. "I hope that you will never give yourself the trouble," said I; and with these final words I turned my back and walked away.

So ended the open and ingenuous friendship which I had carried on for five years with this woman.

LV

Annoyances to which I was exposed by the Ricci after this act of rupture. – Some little matters concerning Sacchi's company and my protection of them. – A long and tedious illness. – The "Droghe d'Amore" resumed.

I was not destined to escape without further annoyances. A woman wounded in her amour propre becomes the worst of wild beasts. This I soon discovered; for Mme. Ricci, when she saw I was in earnest, made a point of vexing me, as though, forsooth, she could worry me back into good-will!

That Lent the actors stayed at Venice; and we used to meet at Sacchi's house during the evenings. A game of cards, a plate of fritters, a bottle of wine, and a lavish expenditure of wit and merriment, formed the staple of our recreation. The Ricci had never been in the habit of joining these parties. She did so now in order to launch sarcasms at me. Her rudeness became so intolerable, that, after bearing it in silence for three evenings, I stayed at home. This alarmed the actors, by whom I was regarded as their tutelary genius. They came to me and told me that she had been peremptorily forbidden to show her face again at their reunions.

This did not improve her temper; and her next move was an attempt to draw me into correspondence. First came a letter complaining that my man-servant had spoken insultingly about her to her maid. Of course I paid no attention to such nonsense. Then, about the middle of Lent, arrived a huge epistle in a handwriting I did not recognise. It turned out to be from her husband, who rated me soundly for having outraged his wife by withdrawing my protection. He had the impudence to say that my behaviour was unworthy of a gentleman. The remainder of this voluminous rigmarole consisted of arguments to prove the following thesis: – If a husband approves of the male friends his wife receives, her other male friends have no right to inquire into their character. "Farewell, compliant husband!" cried I, folding up the letter, and laying it aside unanswered.

One morning during Holy Week my servant announced Mme. Ricci's husband. I allowed him to enter, asked him to sit beside me on the sofa, and told my man to bring him chocolate. Looking into the poor fellow's eyes, I could see that he had been forced to pay this visit, and that he was doing his very best to pluck up courage. "We are on the point of leaving for Mantua," he began, "and I am come to pay you my respects, to offer you my wife's regards, and to wish you good health." "You have given yourself unnecessary trouble," I replied; "nevertheless, I am obliged, and I wish you a good journey and a prosperous tour." He kept silence for a minute or so. Then he pulled himself together and began again: "By the way, I wrote you a letter some time since, which has not yet been answered." "You did wrong to write that letter," I rejoined, "and I did well to take no notice of it." Thinking that my indifference was a sign of meekness, he presumed so far as to reply with arrogance: "On the contrary, I did well to write it." I judged it best to change my tone and put the fellow down. So, knitting my brows and looking him hard in the face, I spoke as follows: "You did extremely wrong. Remember that you are in my house. Do not presume upon my civility and forbearance. I am astounded that you have the boldness to pursue me into my own sitting-room, and to bolster up the dirty arguments of your epistle."

The wretch turned pale and sat like a statue. Just at this unlucky minute my servant came in and offered him a cup of chocolate. With trembling hand he took the cup and drank a single mouthful, then put it down upon the salver, saying he did not feel well enough to finish it. When the servant left the room he flung himself upon his knees and begged me to pardon him. "Get up," I said. "I am perfectly aware that you had nothing to do either with that letter or this visit. You are only an emissary, who does not count." Thus encouraged, he entered into a long recital, to which I listened because it gave me some amusement. "I shall tell you the whole truth," he said, "just as if I were kneeling before an altar. Signor Gratarol began to turn my wife's head with his candied orange-peel and Neapolitan bonbons. A box of the latter arrived one day at our house, together with a very flattering billet, expressing the donor's strong desire to be allowed to pay his respects to her. My wife was for sending an answer back by the servant, thanking him for the bonbons, and saying that his visits would be most acceptable. I bade her reflect that this might expose her to slander, and be disagreeable to yourself – the good Count Gozzi, the godfather of our child, our protector and adviser and benefactor for so many years. She called me a fool, and sent the note against my will. You know, Sir Count, that with my wife it is all the same whether I speak or hold my tongue. By all that is sacred, I swear that I have told you the whole truth. Signor Gratarol began and continued his visits both by day and night, without any fault of mine, and without my consent." The opening of this flirtation by the gift of bonbons diverted me; and I sent Ricci's unfortunate husband away with the assurance that I was not angry with him, that Signor Gratarol's visits were of no consequence to me, and that I was firmly resolved not to renew an intimacy with his wife which she had forfeited by her folly.

Two days before Sacchi set out for Mantua, he came to me, and very civilly expressed his disappointment at my having done so little for the troupe with my pen during the past year. I told him that bad health and pressure of business had prevented me from attending to dramatic composition. Then he inquired whether I had not adapted Tirso da Molina's comedy for the Italian theatre. He had heard my Droghe d'Amore highly praised, especially by Mme. Ricci. I replied that it was true; I had nearly finished the piece, but finding it dull and prolix, I had laid it aside among my waste papers. On his insisting, and saying he should like to hear my play, I consented to read it aloud, and promised to see whether I could not bring myself to complete the last act in the course of the summer.

My health remaining weak, I passed the greater part of this summer at a little country-house I had near Stra upon the Brenta. Here I rapidly recovered strength, more by open-air exercise and rational diet than by drinking the Cila waters recommended by my doctor. In the long idle days of this villeggiatura, I set hand once more to the Droghe d'Amore, and finished it with indescribable aversion. Leaving Stra for Padua, I took the play with me, and read it aloud to my friend Massimo, under whose roof I was staying. He listened patiently all through the tedious declamation, praised certain passages of the comedy, and said he thought the chief objection to it was its prodigious length. When I returned to Venice, I made up my mind to put this abortion of my talent on the shelf; but Sacchi would not let it rest. He wrote so urgently upon the subject, that I begged my brother Gasparo to undergo the mortal tedium of hearing and pronouncing judgment on the play. His opinion was that, though it contained some excellent scenes, it too closely resembled my Principessa Filosofa in parts, and that its length would render it ineffective. The comedy was one of character and sentiments, and had no spectacular novelties to enliven it. However, he promised to read it through, and see whether judicious retrenchments could be made. After ten days or so, I received the manuscript again, with my brother's verdict that nothing could be omitted without breaking the warp on which the plot was woven. Accordingly, I wrote to Sacchi, saying that the Droghe d'Amore would really not do, and promising some other piece instead. I had, indeed, already planned my Metafisico and Bianca Contessa di Melfi, but had not had the time to dramatise them.

Meanwhile Sacchi came to Venice in a prodigious bustle. Meeting me upon the piazza, he said that Mme. Ricci was about to break her engagement and to go to Paris. I persuaded him to remit the fine of 500 ducats, provided she continued to serve the company until the end of the next Carnival. This arrangement was finally concluded by the intervention of a Venetian gentlewoman of the Valmarana family. So Sacchi had to look out for another prima donna. His choice had already fallen on a certain Regina, the daughter of an actor, whom he begged me to go and see. I found the girl decidedly ill-favoured. Still I begged her to recite a piece from my Principessa Filosofa. She spoke with an asthmatic voice and the lowest of plebeian accents, made frequent mistakes which spoiled the sense, and was insufferably monotonous in her delivery. I told Sacchi that this young woman would not do for him. But alas! Cupid had played one of his pranks with the octogenarian Don Juan, and Regina was engaged at a salary of 400 ducats, beside special allowances for her outfit. The effects of this girl's introduction into the troupe were disastrous. She proved its evil genius by her bad character and by her ascendancy over the capocomico, playing no small part in that final dissolution of the company which I shall have to relate.

LVI

Ricci returns to Venice. – Her metamorphosis and my reflections on it. – Sacchi entreats to have the "Droghe d'Amore," and I abandon it to him, in order to save myself from persecution. – The play is read by me before the actors.

Autumn brought the actors back again as usual; and I composed a prologue for the opening of their theatre, which was recited by Mme. Ricci. I used to meet that actress in the rooms behind the scenes, and was much struck by the singular change which had come over her. She continued to do everything she could to annoy me; and I kept wondering how it was that she had managed to conceal her true nature so cleverly during the five years of our friendship. Now she openly bragged about the presents she received; the wax-candles which gave light to her apartment; the exquisite wines, perfect coffee, boxes of bonbons, refined chocolate, and other dainties which furnished her repasts. She even went to the length of inviting that old satyr Sacchi to her house, adding, in order to insult me: "You will find no tiresome moral preachers on the convenances to frighten you away!" While as anxious as ever to lure me back, she piqued herself on letting it be understood that she had given me my dismissal. Indeed, I found it somewhat difficult to treat the woman with that reserved civility which I wished to preserve toward her in public.

The amusement I enjoyed in studying her new ways and manners compensated for these gnat-bites. She had become in six months shameless and affected, as meddlesome and garrulous as a magpie. She pretended to have learned all kinds of important sciences, and gravely informed us that the game rocambol was derived from two English words. She had left off wearing drawers, she said, because it was healthy to ventilate the body, adding details of the most comical indecency. Always dreaming about Paris, Venice had become a kind of sewer in her opinion. The Venetians and Italians in general were a race of stupid mediocrities, unenlightened and insupportable. "I am dying to get to Paris!" she exclaimed; "there the rich financiers fling purses full of louis d'or at actresses with as little regard as one flings a pear in Italy." And then to show how well she had got rid of prejudices: "Ah! blessed power of making love without the checks of a misguided education! To make love through our lifetime is the supreme happiness of mortals!" Not a word or a thought for her husband and two children.

Every evening she filled the theatre with such a potent smell of musk, that people complained and said it gave them the headache. "What a prejudice!" she cried with a grimace in what she thought the French style. "At Paris everything smells of musk, down to the very trees in the Tuilleries gardens, against which ladies may have leant a moment." She was taking French lessons; and her retentive memory made her catch up phrases, which she flung about with volubility. Paris entered into everything she said. She modelled her gait and action and tone of voice upon what she conceived to be the Parisian manner, producing a most laughable caricature which spoiled her acting. I felt really sorry for her, while observing this progressive deterioration in her art. She had been an excellent comedian in the Italian style, and would certainly have been appreciated on the stage at Paris. Now she had become an ape of the French race, surcharged with affectation, and unsuccessful in her travesty. It is impossible, I thought, that the Parisians, who require an Italian actress, and not a mongrel imitation of themselves, will put up with her. This prognostication, to my sincere regret, was verified when she appeared in that metropolis.

We had reached the first days of November in the year 1776, and Sacchi's receipts were languishing. He had been spoiled by getting gratis at my hands two or three pieces annually, which found favour with the public. This made him careless about supplying himself with novelties; while I was so engaged with law business that I had no time to dramatise my Metafisico and Bianca di Melfi. In fact, I had nothing on hand but the Droghe d'Amore. Pestered by perpetual applications for this comedy, in an evil moment I drew it from its sepulchre and tossed it over to the capocomico. I told him that he might take the manuscript as a gift, but that if the play failed before the public, as I thought it would, I should never exercise my pen again on compositions for the stage.

It was impossible to foresee that a chain of untoward circumstances would convert this harmless drama into an indecent personal satire upon Signor Gratarol. Mendacious and vindictive meddling on the part of an infuriated actress, false steps and ill-considered opposition on the part of the man whom she deceived, the pique of great folk who disliked him, and the ingenuity of comedians eager for pecuniary gains, effected the transformation. I was placed in a false light – shown up to public curiosity as the prime agent in a piece of vulgar retaliation, the victim of a weak and jealous fancy. If I could have divined what lay beyond the scope of divination, I swear to God that I should have flung that comedy into the flames rather than let it become the property of a capocomico.

Far be it from me to assert that Gratarol was not brought upon the stage in that very comedy of my creation. He certainly was. But he owed this painful distinction to his own bad management, to the credulity with which he drank the venom of a spiteful woman's tongue, to the steps he took for prohibiting my play which roused the curiosity of the whole city and gave it a succès de scandale, to the enmity of great people whom he had imprudently defamed, and finally to the artifices of an acting company who saw their way to making money out of these conflicting interests. I was victimised, as will appear in the course of my narration, for the truth of which I can refer to a crowd of worthy witnesses. I lost control over my play. I saw it bandied about from hand to hand. Condemned to inactivity by magistrates of the State, I had it turned before my eyes, against my will, into a vile engine for inflicting pain upon a person of whom I had never once thought while composing it. Indeed, the part I played in the affair would furnish forth the subject of another comedy, with me for protagonist.

Well, soon after I had placed the manuscript in Sacchi's hands, he told me that it had passed the official revision and had been licensed for the stage. Only some eight or ten lines were struck out. This happens to every play which is referred to the censors of the State. Nothing occurred which called its character in question, or suggested that it was more than a comedy with traits of satire upon society in general.

Sacchi announced the new play to the public, and its capricious title whetted their interest. I distributed the rôles between the actors of the troupe; but later on, this assignment of parts was altered, without my knowledge or consent, in order to fit the cap which Signor Gratarol constructed for himself upon its fabricator's head. The actors saw their way to pointing a caricature, undesigned by me, by shifting the rôle of Don Adone from one player to another. Looking only to receipts at the door of the theatre, they were dead to every other consideration.

After distributing the rôles, I had to read the comedy aloud. This is necessary; for players are so made among us that, unless they catch the spirit of their parts from the author, they are sure to spoil them by some misconception of their values. The reading took place at Sacchi's lodgings. Mme. Ricci appeared in all her glory, and established herself at my right hand. I shall not enlarge upon the characters and plot of the Droghe d'Amore, because the play will be found among my works in print. Suffice it to say, that when I had toiled onward to the sixteenth scene of the first act, where Don Adone makes his appearance on the stage, Mme. Ricci began to writhe upon her seat. One would have imagined that she had never heard the play before, and that this character took her by surprise. Yet more than a year ago she had been introduced to Don Adone, as I have said above, at my own house.^[59]

I continued my reading. But whenever Don Adone turned up – and his part is merely episodical in the drama – Mme. Ricci marked her agitation by still more extraordinary signs of impatience. She muttered between her teeth and moved about upon her chair, in a way which made me think that she was indisposed. At last I turned to her and said: "Madam, you seem to be more bored than I am by this reading!" The only answer which I got was a shrug of the shoulders, a turn of the body to the side away from me, and an exclamation: "Oh, 'tis nothing, nothing!"

The reading continued. At every word which Don Adone uttered, Mme. Ricci repeated her grimaces and contortions of the body. I bluntly reminded her that she knew all about this personage twelve months and more ago, and that she had urged me to complete the play. Forced to say something, she put on a sour sardonic smile, and murmured: "Well, well! That Don Adone of yours, that Don Adone of yours!"

Like lightning, the truth flashed upon my brain. I saw what she was up to. In spite of having been, as it were, an accomplice in my comedy those many months before, she meant to fix the character of Don Adone upon Signor Gratarol. This was her plan for rousing his resentment against myself, for revenging herself for my indifference, and for stirring up a scandal worse than all the humdrum scenes my flat comedy contained.

I finished my reading, as may be imagined, in a perfunctory manner, flung the manuscript down upon the table, and told the assembled actors that I did not expect the piece to succeed. It was far too feeble and too prolix. All the same, I had given it away to them, and they must do as they liked with it.

Sacchi, on the spot, gave orders for the copying of the several parts, which were to be distributed as I had settled. The party then broke up, and I kept my eyes upon Signora Ricci. She seemed in a great hurry to get away, as though some one were waiting for her, and I saw that she was bent on mischief.