_The beginning of dissensions in Sacchi's company.--My attitude of
forbearance and ridiculous heroisms._
Having spent ten years of serene recreation among my professional
friends, the time had come for clouds to gather on the horizon. _Le due
notti affannose_, my last dramatic venture, was the source of much
profit to Sacchi. But the company, while gaining strength from actors
hired to sustain serious parts, began to degenerate in their behaviour.
Though they professed the same severe morality as formerly, I noticed
signs of change and of dissension. Differences between relatives spread
the seeds of future dissolution. The imported actors helped the theatre,
but introduced pernicious ideas into this previously happy family. They
criticised the administration of the property; accused the managers of
injustice, tyranny, even fraud; sympathised with those who thought
themselves oppressed; threw stones, and carefully concealed the hands
which launched them. Pluming themselves upon their sapience, they
contrived to persuade the troupe that the plays I gave for nothing were
not so beneficial as the latter blindly believed. They ascribed the
crowds which filled the theatre to the attraction of stage decorations
and their own spirited performance. Not unlike the fly in AEsop's fable,
they exclaimed: "Look at the dust which we are raising!" By artfully
reckoning the cost of putting my fables on the stage, and by insinuating
calumnies against the managers, they brought some of the sharers into a
state of mutiny, made them depreciate my services, and stirred up anger
and suspicion against Sacchi. Finally, they got them to think it would
be more advantageous to exchange their shares for salaries, and prepared
them for hating one another cordially.
The older and more sagacious comedians still continued to pay me court
and beg for my poetical assistance. I thought it, however, wiser to
suspend my collaboration for a year or two, without showing annoyance,
or letting it be known that I was aware of what was being said against
me. I could not take a better way of bringing them back to reason; and
my private engagements provided me with a good pretext for withdrawing
my assistance.
In the first year after my retirement, the public began to grumble at
the lack of new pieces. In the second, it began to growl. The audiences
thinned, and Sacchi's theatre became a desert. There were not wanting
folk who from the boxes shouted insults at the actors. Their dejection
increased daily; and then they all with one accord broke into
protestations of affection and fervent entreaties for my help.
I had accustomed the public to novel kinds of drama, and the company had
seconded my efforts. I did not think it right to assist them for ten
years and then to drop them. To condescend to take affront at what
comedians say or do is utterly impossible for me. I could, indeed, have
laughed in their faces and turned my back. But I preferred to laugh in
my sleeve while once more coming to their aid with the energy and good
results which I shall presently describe.
The owners of the other theatres in Venice, finding themselves extremely
injured by the plays I gave to Sacchi, kept making me proposals to
write for their houses; and the pretty actresses who worked there
seconded these misplaced endeavours by spreading snares to catch me with
their charms. Though my old proteges would have richly deserved it, I
had the burlesque heroism not to desert them.
Sacchi often complained of having to remain in theatres out of the way
and inconvenient for the people, such as S. Samuele and S. Angelo, where
only striking novelties like mine could draw large houses. He was always
sighing to get the lease of S. Salvadore,[35] a most popular theatre,
since it is situated at the centre of the town, within easy reach of its
densely inhabited quarters. Now it so happened that this theatre was
occupied by a company which performed pieces in the fashion introduced
by Chiari and Goldoni. I have already said that the vogue of such things
had declined; and the proprietor, his Excellency Vendramini, was anxious
to secure me in the interest of his failing house. He sent a priest of
my acquaintance, a certain Don Baldassare, as envoy, offering me his
cordial regards, together with considerable emoluments, if I would pass
from Sacchi's company to that which occupied S. Samuele. I draped myself
in the dignity of Attilius Regulus, and replied that I did not write for
money, but for pastime. As long as Sacchi's troupe kept together and
remained competent, I did not mean to give away my work to any other.
If his Excellency had the fancy to see plays of mine performed at his
theatre, he could indulge it by placing the house at Sacchi's disposal.
Not many months passed before I was chosen by that gentleman as
arbitrator between him and Sacchi. I acted the solicitor, drew up a
lease, and installed my manager in the theatre his heart was set on.
I should have liked to devote myself entirely to my private studies; but
the responsibility I had taken by transferring Sacchi's company to S.
Samuele, together with the informal engagement I felt under to Signor
Vendramini, made me resume my task of writing for the stage. I ought to
add that my old habit of associating with the actors weighed strongly
with me in this circumstance. Therefore a new chapter of some fourteen
years in my life was opened, the principal events of which I mean to
write with all the candour and the piquancy I can.