_The history of the "Droghe d'Amore."--In spite of my endeavours to the
contrary, Gratarol, by his imprudent conduct, forces it upon the
stage.--It is represented for the first time.--The town talks, and a
scandal is created._
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.