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 protegé 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. Mosè, 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.
In compliance with this nobleman's request, I told the whole tale over again. "So then," he said, "make a plain and brief statement in writing of the facts you have described to me. Put it in the form of a memorial to the Supreme Tribunal. Petition to have your honour vindicated. Enclose Gratarol's defamatory letter. Name your witnesses. Add anything you think of use, and bring the whole to me."
I obeyed him blindly; and I do not suppose that any one will be so foolish as to imagine that I departed in one hair's-breadth from the truth while appealing to those awful Three, before the very name of whom the whole town trembles.[77]
The difficulty of narrating a long series of closely connected incidents prevented me from making my memorial as short as I could have wished. Such as it was, I took it, with its appended documents, to Senator Renier. When he had read it through, he said: "I must confess that the tribunal before which this document will appear is not accustomed to peruse compositions of such length. Yet I can find no superfluities which could be omitted. So it will serve its purpose."
What happened to my supplication is utterly unknown to me. I can only say that on the morning of the 23rd of January, while I was still in bed, the same footman who had brought me the letter of the 18th was introduced into my chamber. He handed me a sealed missive, saying: "My master bade me give this note into your own hands." I took it, and read what follows: —
"Sir Count, my most revered friend, – In complete contradiction of the sentiments expressed by me in a letter of some days ago, I beg you to understand by these present, which are in no way different from the sincere esteem and good-will I have entertained for you through many years, that I never meant to offend you; and that, forgetting byegones,[78] I shall continue to profess toward you the same regard and friendship, in the hope of receiving from you a reciprocation of feeling commensurate with the candour of my declaration.
From my house, the 23rd of January 1776/1777,"Your most devoted servant and friend,"Pietro Antonio Gratarol."
Folding the paper, I bade the servant carry my respects to his master.
Visitors arrived, and Gratarol's letter of retractation circulated through the city in a score of copies. There was the usual result of tittle-tattle, especially among the idlest and most numerous members of the community.
I repaired to the senator who had espoused my cause, in order to express my thanks and to report what had occurred. On hearing that I had received the letter, he replied with gravity: "I am well aware of it." "I was thinking," I continued, "of paying that gentleman a visit. He has been twice to my house; and as I harbour no ill-will against him, and can excuse the errors into which his heated temper drove him, I should like to assure him of my cordiality by a friendly embrace." Signor Renier dissuaded me from taking this course. "You have ability and penetration," he observed, "but you do not sufficiently understand the nature of men puffed up with pride. In case you meet Gratarol, and only if he should be the first to raise his hat, you may return the salute with reserved politeness. Do not extend your civility to words or any inconsiderate demonstrations. A man so perversely proud as he is may stir up new mischief and involve you in further embarrassments. I take it that now the actors will continue to perform your comedy." "I do not know," I answered, "but from what I have heard, the piece has been withdrawn." "Wrong, very wrong!" he rejoined; "that arrogant fellow will try to make it be believed that his retractation was given as an equivalent for the suspension of the performance. They ought at least to put your comedy once more upon the boards, letting the public know that people of importance have bespoken it." I could only answer that, so far as I was concerned, the production, repetition, continued presentations, and suspension of the play had taken place without my interference. Comedians, I added, only looked to their own pecuniary interests. The senator proceeded to deliver an eloquent and singularly penetrative discourse upon the corruption of the age, and the ill-regulated ways of thinking which had been introduced and widely diffused amongst us. I have never heard this matter handled with more acumen, learning, precision of judgment, logical clearness, breadth of view, and pungent truth. I am speaking only of an elevated mind and ready tongue. I do not pretend to see into the inmost hearts of men.[79]
When I took my leave, I resolved to carry out the recommendations of Signor Renier to the letter. In obedience to this determination, I told Sacchi what he had said about the repetition of my comedy. He replied that he should not have withdrawn it except for the behaviour of Signora Ricci. During the last two evenings she mumbled and gabbled out her part in a way to provoke the audience. Catcalls from the pit and gallery and opprobrious epithets from the boxes were showered upon her; all of which, together with the reproaches of her comrades, she bore with stolid indifference. "Verily," cried I, "Gratarol owes a great deal to that poor woman. For his sake she fell down a staircase, and now she bears the brunt of public outrage! You have done well to stop a comedy which ought to have been damned beyond redemption on the first night."
To wind up the episode of Signor Gratarol, I may say, in conclusion, that I often met him both in Venice and at Padua. To his credit let it be spoken, that he never stooped one inch from the high perch of his incorrigible haughtiness. His hat stuck to that cage of cockchafers he called his head, as though it had been nailed there. Mindful of the advice I had received, and which amounted to a command, I refrained from bowing. I should have liked to be on good terms with him, and felt uncomfortable at the rudeness I was bound to display. Had he drawn his sword upon me, I could have understood that his retractation had been forced. But there was nothing in his stupid inurbanity to justify this supposition. Who could have divined that he was planning a flight to Stockholm, and that he would draw his sword upon me there and stab me with words, while I remained at Venice?