Part 14

While things were dragging on in this way, I got my drama finished. We read it aloud to the whole company at a dinner given in the Wild Man Inn.[51] The enthusiastic applause of the actors made me feel sure of its success. I made them a present of it, and the piece was mounted with the least possible delay. The playbills drew a large audience. Everybody was burning to know what the deuce a Moor with a white body could possibly be; this taught me that the prospect of a new excitement will drive the fear of death out of the heads of my Venetians. During a run of eighteen successive nights, all the other theatres were drained of their spectators, and the opera-houses cursed my _Moro di Corpo Bianco_. The reputation of S. Salvatore was fully re-established, and we heard nothing more about the fabric being a rat-trap to catch human beings.

Teodora Ricci had scored a great success by her brilliant acting. Intoxicated with popular plaudits, she began to grumble, and threatened to break her engagement unless her salary were raised. Under these circumstances, Sacchi came to me one day and begged me to draw up articles between the actress and the troupe, by which she should commit herself to five years of fixed service. He left the settlement of her appointments to me, but stipulated that a fine of 500 ducats should be exacted from whichever of the contracting parties broke the bond. I undertook this negotiation with some reluctance, and concluded it, to my own satisfaction, in the following way. Signora Ricci and her husband were to receive 850 ducats a year, they engaging to serve the company five years, under the above-mentioned penalty of 500 ducats if they cancelled the agreement. The articles were drawn up in writing and signed by Ricci and her husband. I fancied I had done what was right and equitable for both parties, and took the articles with some pride to Sacchi. That brutal old fellow thanked me in the way I shall relate. Putting his spectacles upon his nose, he began to read the document; and when I wished to explain it, he burst into a torrent of oaths, banging the table with his fists as though I had just attempted a surgical operation upon his tenderest parts. I remarked that, if he did not approve of the conditions, he might tear the paper up: it was all the same to me. This line he did not take; but set his signature to the document, grumbling all the while that neither fines nor penalties would bind that woman to her word, and that he reckoned upon my influence to keep her in the straight path. Then I took the contract back to the Signora, who murmured some words between her teeth about the hard condition of her five years' service.

The imposthume, which had so long been forming, was bound to come to a head at last and burst. It is now my business to relate what made the final rupture between me and Teodora Ricci unavoidable.

The actors left Venice for their summer tour, and many letters passed between her and me, which showed that she was still aggrieved with Sacchi, and more than ever puffed up with the flatteries of lovers. I read and pondered her correspondence, and came to the conclusion that before a year was out we must cease to be friends.

When she returned in the autumn, on the occasion of my first visit, she expressed some surprise at the alteration of my manner. It so happened that at this very moment her servant Pavola handed her a letter which had just arrived from Turin. She flared up, and flung herself about, manifesting a strong desire to be able to strike the woman dead for bringing the letter in my presence. "What has the poor girl done amiss?" I asked. "Do not wrong me by supposing that I am inquisitive about your correspondence. If one of the lovers, whom you actresses always leave behind you, has written you a _billet-doux_, I have no right to interfere in such concerns of wholly private interest." "This is no affair of lovers," she replied with heat, opening and casting her eyes over the pages. When she had read the letter, she hesitated a little, and then handed it to me. "I do not want to hide anything from you; read it, and you will see that it has nothing to do with love." I replied that I did not care to read it, being sure from her behaviour to the servant that it contained some secret which she wished to conceal from me. "Well, then," she said, "I must inform you that I made the acquaintance at Turin of a lady called Mme. Rossetti, whose husband lives at Paris. This lady expressed her regret at my being obliged to drag my life out among wretched Italian comedians. She encouraged me to act with spirit in my own interest, and gave me hopes of entering the theatre at Paris through her husband's assistance. The writer of this letter in my hand is a certain Abbe of Turin, who negotiates the matter, and is a very able diplomatist. He informs me that the affair is on the point of being settled to my wishes."

I pointed out that, if she intended to accept an engagement at Paris, it was her duty to inform Sacchi, and to pay the penalty of 500 ducats. "No," she replied, "that is precisely what I want to avoid doing." "So then," I retorted, "you mean to transact your business secretly, and to swindle the poor actors to whom you are engaged here! Be open, tell Sacchi the truth, and I will engage to manage matters so that you shall not have to pay the fine." "Sacchi," she rejoined, "must know nothing about the transaction. If he gets wind of these negotiations, he will engage another leading actress; and should my treaty fail, I shall be dismissed and thrown upon the street. What an excellent friend and gossip you are, forsooth, at a pinch like this! We actors and actresses are not accustomed to such niceties and scruples." I told her that she ought to rely on me for carrying her through any difficulties, and that I could only recommend fair dealing in the matter. "However," I added, "if you prefer to take the tortuous path and work by intrigue, I promise to keep the secret which you have disclosed."

Having passed my word, I let her do what she liked in this affair, and asked no further questions. But I was more than ever resolved to withdraw as prudently and quietly as possible from the complicated position in which I found myself placed. I wished to avoid open scandal; but I little reckoned on the people I had to deal with. You cannot disengage yourself so easily from actors.

LIII.

_Candid details regarding the composition and production of my notorious comedy entitled "Le Droghe d'Amore."--More too about the Ricci, and her relations to Signor P. A. Gratarol._

Just about this time I had planned and partly executed a new comedy, which afterwards obtained a _succes de scandale_ under the title of _Le Droghe d'Amore_.[52] The dust stirred up by this innocent piece in three acts obliges me to enter at some length into the circumstances which attended its composition and production.

Everybody is aware that, after the long series of my allegorical fables had run their course upon the stage, I thought fit to change my manner, and adapted several Spanish dramas for our theatre. Sacchi used to bring me bundles of Spanish plays. I turned them over, and selected those which seemed to me best fitted for my purpose. Taking the bare skeleton and ground-plot of these pieces, I worked them up with new characters, fresh dialogue, and an improved conduct of the action, to suit the requirements of the Italian theatre. A whole array of dramas--the _Donna Innamorata_, the _Donna Vendicativa_, the _Donna Elvira_, the _Notti Affannose_, the _Fratelli Nimici_, the _Principessa Filosofa_, the _Pubblico Segreto_, the _Moro di Corpo Bianco_, the _Metafisico_, and the _Bianca di Melfi_, all of which issued from my pen, attest the truth of these remarks.[53] I need say no more about them, because the prefaces with which I sent them to the press have sufficiently informed the public.

In pursuance of this plan, then, I had been working up Tirso da Molina's piece, entitled _Zelos cum Zelos se Curat_, into my own _Droghe d'Amore_. I was but little satisfied, made tardy progress, and had even laid aside the manuscript as worthless--condemning it, like scores of other abortive pieces, to the waste-paper basket. It so happened that after Christmas in this year, 1775, I was laid up with a tedious attack of rheumatism, which threatened to pass over into putrid fever, and which confined me to the house for more than thirty days. Signora Ricci kept up amicable relations with me during this illness; and even after Carnival began, she and her husband used to spend their spare evenings at my house. The society which cheered me through my lingering convalescence included the patrician Paolo Balbi, Doctor Andrea Comparetti, Signor Raffaelle Todeschini, my nephew Francesco, son of Gasparo, Signor Carlo Maffeo, Signor Michele Molinari, and an occasional actor from Sacchi's troupe. Wanting occupation for my hours of solitude, I took up the _Droghe d'Amore_, and went on working at it; always against the grain, however, for the piece seemed to me to drag and to want life. There is so much improbability in the plots of Spanish dramas that all the arts of rhetoric and eloquence have to be employed in order to convey an appearance of reality to the action. This tends to prolixity, and I felt that my unfinished piece was particularly faulty in that respect. It was divided into three acts, and I had brought the dialogue down to the middle of the third. Little as I liked it, the fancy took me to see what impression it would make upon an audience. Accordingly, I read it aloud one evening to Teodora Ricci, my nephew, Doctor Comparetti, and Signor Molinari. They were interested beyond my expectation, and loudly opposed my intention of laying it aside. The _prima donna_, in particular, urged me in the strongest terms to finish what remained of it to do. The gentlemen I have just named can bear witness to the sincerity of my coldness for this play, which afterwards, by a succession of accidents, came to be regarded as a deliberate satire on a single individual.

Some days after the reading, Signora Ricci asked me casually if I was acquainted with Signor Piero Antonio Gratarol, secretary to the Senate. I answered that I did not know him, which was the simple truth. I added, however, that he had been pointed out to me on the piazza, and that his outlandish air, gait, and costume struck me as very different from what one would expect in a secretary to the grave Venetian Senate. "Yet I have heard him spoken of as a man of ability and intelligence." "He has a great respect for you," said she. "I am obliged to him for his good opinion," I replied. "I think him a man of breeding," she went on, "and I also think him a man of honour." "So far as I am concerned," I answered, "I know nothing to the contrary, unless it be his unfortunate notoriety for what is now called gallantry." There was no malice in thus alluding to what was universally talked about, and had even come before the judges of the State. I only intended to give a hint to my gossip, which I soon discovered to be too late for any service. Having spoken, I immediately sought to soften what I said by adding: "I do not deny that externals may expose a man to false opinion in such matters; and not being familiar with Signor Gratarol, I neither affirm nor deny what is commonly voiced abroad about him." "He is elected ambassador to Naples," she continued, "and I am anxious to appear upon a theatre in that capital. He may be of the utmost service to me." "Why," said I, "are not you thinking of going to Paris?" "I must try," she replied, "to make my fortune where and how I can." "Do as you like," I answered, and turned the conversation upon other topics.

It was clear to my mind that, during my long illness, the Ricci had struck up a friendship with this Signor Gratarol, and that she was beating about the bush to bring us together at her house. She had not forgotten my determination to cut short my daily visits if she received attentions from a man of fashion and pleasure. I, for my part, should have been delighted to meet Signor Gratarol anywhere but in the dwelling of the actress I had protected and publicly acknowledged for the last five years.

It now became my fixed resolve to procrastinate until the end of the Carnival, avoiding the scandal which would ensue from a sudden abandonment of Teodora Ricci. But when she left Venice for the spring and summer tour, I determined to drop our correspondence by letter, and to meet her afterwards upon the footing of distant civility. Events proved how useless it was to form any such plans with reference to a woman of her character.

Wearying at length of my long imprisonment, I ventured abroad against my doctor's advice, and found myself much the better for a moderate amount of exercise.[54] This encouraged me to seek my accustomed recreation in the small rooms behind the scenes of the theatre. There I was welcomed with loud unanimous delight by all the members of the company. But, much to my surprise, and in spite of Sacchi's usual strictness with regard to visitors, I found Signor Gratarol installed in the green-room. He seemed to be quite at home, flaunting a crimson mantle lined with costly furs, and distributing candied citrons and Neapolitan bonbons[55] right and left. He very politely offered me some of his comfits, as though I had been a pretty girl, on whom such things are well bestowed. I thanked him for the attention, and took good care to utter no remarks upon the novelty of his appearance in that place.

I have already mentioned that Signora Ricci's removal to a lonely quarter of the town had exposed her to much malignant gossip. Her ill-wishers suggested that she was laying herself out for clandestine visits and company which compromised her reputation. I went to see her still, but not every day as formerly, and always at times when I was certain not to meet with Signor Gratarol. He meanwhile continued to be a constant guest behind the scenes of the theatre.

In order to cast dust in my eyes, and not to lose the support of my protection, Mme. Ricci took every opportunity of alluding to the good-breeding and excellent behaviour of her new friend. He treated her with the respect due to a queen, she said, and greatly regretted that he was never fortunate enough to find me at her house. I reflected, perhaps unjustly, that Signor Gratarol would indeed have been delighted to meet me there. This would have suited his game; for when the flirtation had advanced to the stage of gallantry, his mistress would still have had her old friend and gossip to rely on. Anyhow, I responded to her suggestions in terms like these: "I am much obliged to the gentleman in question. I believe all you tell me, although nobody else would believe it. You know my principles, and the position I have willingly assumed toward you. I am sorry to see you exposing yourself to fresh calumnies, and to be no longer able to defend you. With Signor Gratarol, much as I differ from him upon certain points, I should be glad to enter into social relations anywhere but under your roof. You must have observed that I treat him with esteem and respect when we come together behind the scenes. It is impossible, however, that he can be ignorant of the open friendship I have professed for you during five whole years. All Venice knows it. I desire nothing more than that he should continue to treat you like a queen, as you say he does. But since I do not seek to oppose your liberty of action, I trust that you will not be so indiscreet as to impose conditions on my freedom."

What report of this conversation she made to Signor Gratarol is known only to her and him. She was exasperated, and I do not think the picture she drew of me can have been very flattering. Probably I was described as weakly jealous:--jealous, however, I had never been of other admirers, who did not compromise me in my intimacy with this actress.

A few weeks were left of the Carnival, when, entering the small rooms of the theatre one evening, I found Signor Gratarol as usual there. He addressed me courteously: "Count, Sacchi here and Fiorelli and Zannoni have been invited to eat a pheasant with me at my casino at S. Mose. I hardly venture to invite you also; yet knowing the kindly feeling you have for these persons, and the pleasure you take in their company, if you were disposed to join our party, I should esteem it an honour." The invitation could not have been more politely given; and as the other guests had been named, I saw no reason to refuse. I added, however, that the state of my health prevented me from counting with certainty upon the pleasure he offered; anyhow, my absence would not be a great loss to his party. After a few compliments, the day was fixed.

On the following morning I met Sacchi upon the piazza. His eyes were starting from their sockets, and he told me he was in urgent need of my advice. What passed between us I will relate in dialogue. Sacchi began:--

"A short time since, I met a gentleman who was dining last night at the house of a patrician, the President of the Supreme Tribunal.[56] He took me aside and said: 'Such and such a nobleman (and you know over what Tribunal he presides) was speaking last night about the theatres; in the course of his remarks he let these words fall:--I do not know how it is that Sacchi, who has the reputation of managing his troupe with strictness, and only allowing a few confidential friends to appear behind the scenes of his theatre, should receive secretaries of the Senate openly and every night in the green-room.--Dear Sacchi,' this gentleman continued, 'do not tell any one that I have reported these words; my only object is to put you on your guard.' You see, sir, that the communication forces me to take some active measures. If I neglect it rashly, I shall find myself in difficulties. I confess that I am puzzled, and come to you for counsel."

"You have chosen an inappropriate adviser in this affair," I answered. "You are the master in your own theatre, and have always been severe upon the point in question. Why did not you civilly put a stop to the irregularity before it assumed so embarrassing an aspect? I was a whole month absent from your stage, owing to my illness. When I returned, I found Signor Gratarol installed, and hail-fellow-well-met with everybody. At any rate, it would not have befitted me to make remarks upon the sort of people you admitted."

"I did not introduce the man," said Sacchi. "I noticed him one evening, and thought his visit might be accidental. When he came again and again, I made inquiries; and the whole troupe assured me with ironical malice that he came in the company of the Ricci, was introduced by her, and only came on her account."

"That makes it still more difficult for me to advise you," I replied. "Yet I think I may tell you that I do not believe Signor Gratarol to be indiscreet. If you inform him privately, or let him know through Mme. Ricci, what has been reported to you, I am certain that he will not show himself behind the scenes again."

"I am aware," rejoined Sacchi, "that my way of talking is brusque, passionate, and awkward. Pray do me the kindness to speak to Ricci."

"Excuse me," said I; "I do not undertake commissions of this kind, and have no wish to be mixed up with what only concerns you."

"Nay, I beseech you to do me this kindness!" exclaimed Sacchi once more. "You need only hint at what I have communicated. I assure you, Count, that if I begin to give that woman a bit of my mind, I shall not be able to refrain from some gross insults."

"Why do you not speak civilly to Signor Gratarol?"

"To tell you the truth, I have not the courage. He is always polite to me. I am afraid that he will take my remarks for an actor's scheming to expel him from the green-room. He might become my enemy, and Ricci in her rage might do me some injury. You know that in our profession we are forced to keep on good terms with everybody."

"Well," said I, "I see that you want me to put my paw into the fire to draw the chestnut out! Never mind! If the opportunity occurs, I will try to do what you request, and set things straight as cautiously as may be."

In the course of one of my coldly ceremonious visits to Mme. Ricci, I dropped these words before rising to take my leave: "I was forgetting to tell you something, which I do not like to say, but which it would be unfriendly to leave unsaid. Sacchi has mentioned this and this to me, and asked me to give you a hint. You can see Signor Gratarol as much as you like in your own house. I hope that you will arrange matters so as not to incur further odium." "Gratarol does not come behind the scenes for me!" cried she, flaming up; "what does it matter to me whether he comes or stays away? Sacchi can tell him to drop his visits." "I have reported to you a fact," said I with perfect calm, "at the request of an old acquaintance. Whether you, or Sacchi, or nobody tells Signor Gratarol, is all the same to me." I left her fuming and chafing in a fury.

I perceived that my customary readiness to make myself of use had got me into a scrape. The viperish temper in which the woman was when I left her, made me feel sure that she would bite me behind my back; and what followed confirmed my apprehension. She saw with rage that my friendship for her was expiring. She wanted to hold her new friend fast. Incapable of acknowledging herself in the wrong, blinded by vanity and folly, she persisted in regarding me as the victim of jealousy. After the conversation I have just related, Signor Gratarol did not show himself again behind the scenes. What his feelings were towards me Heaven only knows.

On the evening before the famous banquet, I was in one of the small rooms of the theatre with Sacchi, Mme. Ricci, a sister of hers named Marianna who danced in the ballet, and several other actresses and actors. Sacchi suddenly burst into the following tirade:--"To-morrow," he began, "we are to dine with Signor Gratarol. I thought that the guests were Count Gozzi, myself, Fiorelli, and Zannoni. Now it reaches my ears that certain actresses of my troupe have been invited, and that the sumptuous and splendid festivity is given solely in honour of Mme. Teodora Ricci. It has never been my habit to act as go-between for the women of my establishment. Deuce take it all--&c., &c.--let him go who likes; I shall not, that is flat." He followed up this flood of eloquence with the foulest invectives.

The Ricci's face burned; she did not know where to look, and fixed her eyes upon the ground. Everybody was staring at her. I confess that I felt sorry to see her pilloried in this way. "Well," said I to myself, "the labour of five years has been cast to the winds by this vain woman's frivolous misconduct. The imbroglio is becoming so serious that I fear I shall not drag on to the end of the Carnival without some tiresome explosion." Meanwhile Sacchi went storming on. I tried to calm him down. "You say you do not want to make enemies, and yet you are ready to affront a gentleman who treats you with politeness. The whole affair may be quite harmless, and I do not see why you should lash yourself into a rage about it. You listen too much to idle or malignant gossip." I succeeded in restoring peace, and Sacchi promised to keep his appointment.

I, for my part, feeling really indisposed, and having a rooted antipathy for banquets, especially when the host is no intimate friend of my own, excused myself next morning on the score of health, and received a letter of profuse compliments and expressions of regret in return.

LIV.

_A visit from Signor Gratarol.--Notes of our conversation.--Mutinous murmurs in the playing company.--My weakly kindness toward the Ricci.--Final rupture._