Part 23

Goldoni himself acknowledges, perhaps not too sincerely, in his Parisian memoirs, the superiority, the mastership, of Moliere. In truth, the great Frenchman stands, with Aristophanes and Shakespeare, upon a lonely height quite unapproached by lesser devotees of Thalia. We must not seek in Goldoni a prober of the human heart, not even a fearless satirist of social conditions. In his rollicking good-humor and content with the world as he finds it, Goldoni is much like Plautus. He is moreover under a censorship hardly less severe. He dares not, for instance, introduce upon his stage any really offensive type of Venetian nobleman. As for religious dictation, the convent must not even be mentioned, though the _aunt_ with whom the young lady is visiting sometimes becomes as transparent an idiom as the "uncle" of a spendthrift cockney! The audience, moreover, demand only diversion, not serious instruction (as Goethe complains, even of his grave Germans, in the 'Prolog im Theater'). It is remarkable, under all these conditions, how healthy, how kindly, how proper, most of Goldoni's work is. Doubtless, like Goldsmith, he could preach the more gracefully, persuasively, and unobservedly, because he never attempted to escape from the very vices or indulgences that he satirizes. But even the most determined seeker for the moral element in art will find little indeed thereof in Goldoni's merry comedies. Incredible as it seems to us Puritans, he really made it his mission to amuse. Thoroughly in love with the rather ignoble, trivial life of his day, he holds the dramatic mirror up to it with lifelong optimism and enjoyment. His wit is not keen, his poetic imagination is slight indeed. Aside from the true dramatist's skill in construction, in plot, his power lies chiefly in the rapid, clear, firm outlines of his character-drawing. These characters are for the most part just about such men and women, such creatures of impulse and whim, such genial mingling of naughtiness and good intentions, as we see about us. He never delineates a saint or a hero; hardly a monster of wickedness. He had never known either, and would not have been interested if he had. The charm of Goldoni is felt chiefly in Venice, or at least in Italy, while listening to his comedy and watching the enjoyment mirrored in the faces of his own audience. It evaporates in translation, and his plays are meant only to be heard, not read. To Mr. Howells's own affectionate testimony we may add his happy citation from Goethe, who is writing from Venice in 1786:

"Yesterday, at the theatre of St. Luke, was performed 'Le Baruffe-Chiozotte,' which I should interpret 'The Frays and Feuds of Chiozza.' The _dramatis personae_ are principally seafaring people, inhabitants of Chiozza, with their wives, sisters, and daughters. The usual noisy demonstrations of such sort of people in their good or ill luck,--their dealings one with another, their vehemence but goodness of heart, commonplace remarks and unaffected manners, their naive wit and humor,--all this was excellently imitated. The piece moreover is Goldoni's, and as I had been only the day before in the place itself, and as the tones and manners of the sailors and people of the seaport still echoed in my ears and floated before my eyes, it delighted me very much; and although I did not understand a single allusion, I was nevertheless, on the whole, able to follow it pretty well.... I never witnessed anything like the noisy delight the people evinced at seeing themselves and their mates represented with such truth of nature. It was one continued laugh and tumultuous shout of exultation from beginning to end.... Great praise is due to the author, who out of nothing has here created the most amusing _divertissement_. However, he never could have done it with any other people than his own merry and light-hearted countrymen."

Of Goldoni's one hundred and sixty comedies, only a scanty handful have been tolerably translated in English. As accessible and agreeable an introduction as any, perhaps, is the version of four notable plays by Miss Helen Zimmern in the series 'Masterpieces of Foreign Authors.' The 'Memoirs' have been fairly rendered by John Black, and this version, considerably abridged, was served up by Mr. Howells in 1877 among his series of 'Choice Autobiographies.' Mr. Howells's introductory essay appeared also in the Atlantic Monthly. It has been drawn upon somewhat in the present sketch.

[Signature: William Cranston Lawton]

FIRST LOVE AND PARTING

From the 'Memoirs of Carlo Goldoni'

I was intrusted some time afterwards with another commission, of a much more agreeable and amusing nature. This was to carry through an investigation, ten leagues from the town, into the circumstances of a dispute where firearms had been made use of and dangerous wounds received. As the country where this happened was flat, and the road lay through charming estates and country-houses, I engaged several of my friends to follow me; we were in all twelve, six males and six females, and four domestics. We all rode on horseback, and we employed twelve days in this delicious expedition....

In this party there were two sisters, one married and the other single. The latter was very much to my liking, and I may say I made the party for her alone. She was as prudent and modest as her sister was headstrong and foolish; the singularity of our journey afforded us an opportunity of coming to an explanation, and we became lovers.

My investigation was concluded in two hours; we selected another road for our return, to vary our pleasure.... The six gentlemen of our party proposed another species of entertainment. In the palace of the governor there was a theatre, which they wished to put to some use; and they did me the honor to tell me that they had conceived the project on my account, and they left me the power of choosing the pieces and distributing the characters. I thanked them, and accepted the proposition; and with the approbation of his Excellency and my chancellor, I put myself at the head of this new entertainment. I could have wished something comic, but I was not fond of buffoonery, and there were no good comedies; I therefore gave the preference to tragedy. As the operas of Metastasio were then represented everywhere, even without music, I put the airs into recitative; I endeavored as well as I could to approximate the style of that charming author; and I made choice of 'Didone' and 'Siroe' for our representation. I distributed the parts according to the characters of my actors, whom I knew, and I reserved the worst for myself. In this I acted wisely, for I was completely unsuited for tragedy. Fortunately, I had composed two small pieces in which I played two parts of character, and redeemed my reputation. The first of these pieces was 'The Good Father,' and the second 'La Cantatrice.' Both were approved of, and my acting was considered passable for an amateur. I saw the last of these pieces some time afterwards at Venice, where a young advocate thought proper to give it out as his own work, and to receive compliments on the subject; but having been imprudent enough to publish it with his name, he experienced the mortification of seeing his plagiarism unmasked.

I did what I could to engage my beautiful Angelica to accept a part in our tragedies, but it was impossible; she was timid, and had she even been willing, her parents would not have given their permission. She visited us; but this pleasure cost her tears, for she was jealous, and suffered much from seeing me on such a familiar footing with my fair companions. The poor little girl loved me with tenderness and sincerity, and I loved her also with my whole soul; I may say she was the first person whom I ever loved. She aspired to become my wife, which she would have been if certain singular reflections, that however were well founded, had not turned me from the design. Her elder sister had been remarkably beautiful, and after her first child she became ugly. The youngest had the same skin and the same features; she was one of those delicate beauties whom the air injures, and whom the smallest fatigue or pain discomposes: of all of which I saw a convincing proof. The fatigue of our journey produced a visible change upon her: I was young, and if my wife were in a short time to have lost her bloom, I foresaw what would have been my despair. This was reasoning curiously for a lover; but whether from virtue, weakness, or inconstancy, I quitted Feltre without marrying her.

THE ORIGIN OF "MASKS" IN THE ITALIAN COMEDY

From the 'Memoirs of Carlo Goldoni'

The amateurs of the old comedy, on seeing the rapid progress of the new, declared everywhere that it was unworthy of an Italian to give a blow to a species of comedy in which Italy had attained great distinction, and which no other nation had ever yet been able to imitate. But what made the greatest impression on the discontented was the suppression of masks, which my system appeared to threaten. It was said that these personages had for two centuries been the amusement of Italy, and that it ought not to be deprived of a species of comic diversion which it had created and so well supported.

Before venturing to give any opinion on this subject, I imagine the reader will have no objection to listen for a few minutes to a short account of the origin, employment, and effects of these four masks. Comedy, which in all ages has been the favorite entertainment of polished nations, shared the fate of the arts and sciences, and was buried under the ruins of the Empire during the decay of letters. The germ of comedy, however, was never altogether extinguished in the fertile bosom of Italy. Those who first endeavored to bring about its revival, not finding in an ignorant age writers of sufficient skill, had the boldness to draw out plans, to distribute them into acts and scenes, and to utter extempore the subjects, thoughts, and witticisms which they had concerted among themselves. Those who could read (and neither the great nor the rich were of the number) found that in the comedies of Plautus and Terence there were always duped fathers, debauched sons, enamored girls, knavish servants, and mercenary maids; and, running over the different districts of Italy, they took the fathers from Venice and Bologna, the servants from Bergamo, and the lovers and waiting-maids from the dominions of Rome and Tuscany. Written proofs are not to be expected of what took place in a time when writing was not in use; but I prove my assertion in this way: Pantaloon has always been a Venetian, the Doctor a Bolognese, and Brighella and Harlequin Bergamasks; and from these places, therefore, the comic personages called the four masks of the Italian comedy were taken by the players. What I say on this subject is not altogether the creature of my imagination; I possess a manuscript of the fifteenth century, in very good preservation and bound in parchment, containing a hundred and twenty subjects or sketches of Italian pieces, called comedies of art, and of which the basis of the comic humor is always Pantaloon, a Venetian merchant; the Doctor, a Bolognese jurisconsult; and Brighella and Harlequin, Bergamask valets,--the first clever and sprightly, and the other a mere dolt. Their antiquity and their long existence indicate their origin.

With respect to their employment, Pantaloon and the Doctor, called by the Italians the two old men, represent the part of fathers, and the other parts where cloaks are worn. The first is a merchant, because Venice in its ancient times was the richest and most extensively commercial country of Italy. He has always preserved the ancient Venetian costume; the black dress and the woolen bonnet are still worn in Venice; and the red under-waistcoat and breeches, cut out like drawers, with red stockings and slippers, are a most exact representation of the equipment of the first inhabitants of the Adriatic marshes. The beard, which was considered as an ornament in those remote ages, has been caricatured and rendered ridiculous in subsequent periods.

The second old man, called the Doctor, was taken from among the lawyers, for the sake of opposing a learned man to a merchant; and Bologna was selected because in that city there existed a university, which, notwithstanding the ignorance of the times, still preserved the offices and emoluments of the professors. In the dress of the Doctor we observe the ancient costume of the university and bar of Bologna, which is nearly the same at this day; and the idea of the singular mask which covers his face and nose was taken from a wine stain which disfigured the countenance of a jurisconsult in those times. This is a tradition still existing among the amateurs of the comedy of art.

Brighella and Harlequin, called in Italy the two Zani, were taken from Bergamo; because, the former being a very sharp fellow and the other a stupid clown, these two extremes are only to be found among the lower orders of that part of the country. Brighella represents an intriguing, deceitful, and knavish valet. His dress is a species of livery; his swarthy mask is a caricature of the color of the inhabitants of those high mountains, tanned by the heat of the sun. Some comedians, in this character, have taken the name of Fenocchio, Fiqueto, and Scapin; but they have always represented the same valet and the same Bergamask. The harlequins have also assumed other names: they have been sometimes Tracagnins, Truffaldins, Gradelins, and Mezetins; but they have always been stupid Bergamasks. Their dress is an exact representation of that of a poor devil who has picked up pieces of stuffs of different colors to patch his dress; his hat corresponds with his mendicity, and the hare's tail with which it is ornamented is still common in the dress of the peasantry of Bergamo.

I have thus, I trust, sufficiently demonstrated the origin and employment of the four masks of the Italian comedy; it now remains for me to mention the effects resulting from them. The mask must always be very prejudicial to the action of the performer, either in joy or sorrow: whether he be in love, cross, or good-humored, the same features are always exhibited; and however he may gesticulate and vary the tone, he can never convey by the countenance, which is the interpreter of the heart, the different passions with which he is inwardly agitated. The masks of the Greeks and Romans were a sort of speaking-trumpets, invented for the purpose of conveying the sound through the vast extent of their amphitheatres. Passion and sentiment were not in those times carried to the pitch of delicacy now actually necessary. The actor must in our days possess a soul; and the soul under a mask is like a fire under ashes. These were the reasons which induced me to endeavor the reform of the Italian theatre; and to supply the place of farces with comedies. But the complaints became louder and louder: I was disgusted with the two parties, and I endeavored to satisfy both; I undertook to produce a few pieces merely sketched, without ceasing to give comedies of character. I employed the masks in the former, and I displayed a more noble and interesting comic humor in the others: each participated in the species of pleasure with which they were most delighted; with time and patience I brought about a reconciliation between them; and I had the satisfaction at length to see myself authorized in following my own taste, which became in a few years the most general and prevailing in Italy. I willingly pardoned the partisans of the comedians with masks the injuries they laid to my charge; for they were very able amateurs, who had the merit of giving themselves an interest to sketched comedies.

PURISTS AND PEDANTRY

From the 'Memoirs of Carlo Goldoni'

My journey to Parma, and the pension and diploma conferred on me, excited the envy and rage of my adversaries. They had reported at Venice during my absence that I was dead; and there was a monk who had even the temerity to say he had been at my funeral. On arriving home safe and sound, the evil-disposed began to display their irritation at my good fortune. It was not the authors, my antagonists, who tormented me, but the partisans of the different theatres of Venice.

I was defended by literary men, who entertained a favorable opinion of me; and this gave rise to a warfare in which I was very innocently the victim of the irritation which had been excited. My system has always been never to mention the names of my adversaries: but I cannot avoid expressing the honor which I feel in proclaiming those of my advocates. Father Roberti, a Jesuit, at present the Abbe Roberti, one of the most illustrious poets of the suppressed society, published a poem in blank verse, entitled 'Comedy'; and by dwelling on the reformation effected by me, and analyzing several scenes in my pieces, he encouraged his countrymen and mine to follow the example and the system of the Venetian author. Count Verri, a Milanese, followed the Abbe Roberti.... Other patricians of Venice wrote in my favor, on account of the disputes which were every day growing warmer and warmer.... Every day witnessed some new composition for or against me; but I had this advantage,--that those who interested themselves for me, from their manners, their talents, and their reputation, were among the most prudent and distinguished men in Italy.

One of the articles for which I was most keenly attacked was a violation of the purity of the language. I was a Venetian, and I had had the disadvantage of sucking in with my mother's milk the use of a very agreeable and seductive patois, which however was not Tuscan. I learned by principle, and cultivated by reading, the language of the good Italian authors; but first impressions will return at times, notwithstanding every attention used in avoiding them. I had undertaken a journey into Tuscany, where I remained for four years, with the view of becoming familiar with the language; and I printed the first edition of my works at Florence, under the eyes and the criticism of the learned of that place, that I might purify them from errors of language. All my precautions were insufficient to satisfy the rigorists: I always failed in one thing or other; and I was perpetually reproached with the original sin of Venetianism.

Amidst all this tedious trifling, I recollected one day that Tasso had been worried his whole lifetime by the Academicians della Crusca, who maintained that his 'Jerusalem Delivered' had not passed through the sieve which is the emblem of their society. I was then in my closet, and I turned my eyes towards the twelve quarto volumes of the works of that author, and exclaimed, "Oh heavens! must no one write in the Italian language who has not been born in Tuscany?" I turned up mechanically the five volumes of the Dictionary della Crusca, where I found more than six hundred words, and a number of expressions, approved of by the academy and rejected by the world; I ran over several ancient authors considered as classical, whom it would be impossible to imitate in the present day without censure; and I came to this conclusion--that we must write in good Italian, but write at the same time so as to be understood in every corner of Italy. Tasso was therefore wrong in reforming his poem to please the Academicians della Crusca: his 'Jerusalem Delivered' is read by everybody, while nobody thinks of reading his 'Jerusalem Conquered.'

A POET'S OLD AGE

From the 'Memoirs of Carlo Goldoni'

I return to my regimen,--you will say here also, perhaps, that I ought to omit it: you are in the right; but all this is in my head, and I must be delivered of it by degrees; I cannot spare you a single comma. After dinner I am not fond of either working or walking. Sometimes I go to the theatre, but I am most generally in parties till nine o'clock in the evening. I always return before ten o'clock. I take two or three small cakes with a glass of wine and water, and this is the whole of my supper. I converse with my wife till midnight; I very soon fall asleep, and pass the night tranquilly.

It sometimes happens to me, as well as every other person, to have my head occupied with something capable of retarding my sleep. In this case I have a certain remedy to lull myself asleep, and it is this: I had long projected a vocabulary of the Venetian dialect, and I had even communicated my intention to the public, who are still in expectation of it. While laboring at this tedious and disgusting work, I soon discovered that it threw me asleep. I laid it therefore aside, and I profited by its narcotic faculty. Whenever I feel my mind agitated by any moral cause, I take at random some word of my national language and translate it into Tuscan and French. In the same manner I pass in review all the words which follow in the alphabetical order, and I am sure to fall asleep at the third or fourth version. My recipe has never once failed me. It is not difficult to demonstrate the cause and effect of this phenomenon. A painful idea requires to be replaced by an opposite or indifferent idea; and the agitation of the mind once calmed, the senses become tranquil and are deadened by sleep.

But this remedy, however excellent, might not be useful to every one. A man of too keen and feeling a disposition would not succeed. The temperament must be such as that with which nature has favored me. My moral qualities bear a resemblance to my physical: I dread neither cold nor heat, and I neither allow myself to be inflamed by rage nor intoxicated by joy....

I am now arrived at the year 1787, which is the eightieth of my age, and that to which I have limited the course of my Memoirs. I have completed my eightieth year; my work is also finished. All is over, and I proceed to send my volumes to the press. This last chapter does not therefore touch on the events of the current year; but I have still some duties to discharge. I must begin with returning thanks to those persons who have reposed so much confidence in me as to honor me with their subscriptions.

I do not speak of the kindness and favors of the King and court; this is not the place to mention them. I have named in my work some of my friends and even some of my protectors. I beg pardon of them: if I have done so without their permission, it is not through vanity; the occasion has suggested it; their names have dropped from my pen, the heart has seized on the instant, and the hand has not been unwilling. For example, the following is one of the fortunate occasions I allude to. I was unwell a few days ago; the Count Alfieri did me the honor to call on me; I knew his talents, but his conversation impressed on me the wrong which I should have done in omitting him. He is a very intelligent and learned literary man, who principally excels in the art of Sophocles and Euripides, and after these great models he has framed his tragedies. They have gone through two editions in Italy, and are at present in the press of Didot at Paris. I shall enter into no details respecting them, as they may be seen and judged of by every one.

During my convalescence M. Caccia, a banker in Paris, my friend and countryman, sent me a book addressed to him from Italy for me. It was a collection of French epigrams and madrigals, translated into Italian by the Count Roncali, of the city of Brescia in the Venetian dominions. This charming poet has merely translated the thoughts; he has said the same things in fewer words, and he has fallen upon as brilliant and striking points in his own language as those of his originals.