_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_,