In course of time I saw all these young women married, thanks to the fame they acquired through my efforts on their behalf. Some of them found husbands in the theatre, and some outside it. Without withdrawing my assistance from married actresses, I took care, from the moment of their nuptials, to cause no shadow of disturbance in their home. This I did by persistently refusing to visit them, which made them know me in my true principles apart from pleasantry. My conduct astounded them, and they affected notable displeasure at my withdrawal from their intimacy.
With regard to the chief men in this commonwealth of comedians, they were always most attentive lest I should receive annoyances. Above all things, they begged me not to take notice of any indiscretions prompted by levity, professional jealousy, touchiness on points of honour, pretensions to leading parts in my forthcoming plays, which might issue from the steaming brains of their women. I used to reply that, so long as the company maintained its{153} good reputation, and so long as such quarrels and idle chatterings were confined to the women, I should never deign to be annoyed or to withdraw my aid and friendship from their troupe; but that if the men took to the same follies and dissensions as the women, I should have to think otherwise.
It was a comfort to me to pass my hours of leisure among those lively-witted, humorous, civil, merry people. It gratified me to observe that the men were eagerly sought after and invited to the tables of the quality and honest folk, while the women received similar attentions from gentlefolk of their own sex, a thing almost unheard of with respect to others of their calling. Finally, I was pleased to see them thriving in their business and making profits by their theatre, which I had revived and continued to sustain by a long series of new and successful dramatic pieces. If prejudice or malignity were to cast it in my teeth that I had evil motives in this choice of my companions through so many years, I might easily turn the satire back against what is commonly called the respectable society of casini, assemblies, and caffès. In order not to incur hatred by describing inconvenient facts, I will, however, confine myself to begging my critics to reflect and to be indulgent for differences of taste.
Returning to my comic protegés, I have yet to say that the insinuation of so-called culture into our theatres gradually corrupted the customs of this well-{154}regulated family of actors, much in the same way as the advance of culture into private families corrupted domestic manners. Outsiders, hired at wages to swell the ranks and to take serious parts in tragedies or comedies, introduced a new freedom of thinking and behaving. The old habits of the troupe, which may perchance have only worn a feigned appearance of respectability, altered for the worse. The time has not arrived for describing this change, which I shall have to do in its proper place, since it was closely connected with important occurrences in my own life.
Some weaknesses are so entwined with our instincts as to be incurable. Such, in my case, are good faith and compliance, which often degenerated into silliness. During the whole course of my life, as my writings prove, and as is well known to my friends and acquaintances, I have always scourged hypocrisy. I cannot, however, deny the fact that the apparent honesty, piety, and good behaviour, in which my protegés persevered for so long a period, was convenient to their friends and extremely profitable to their pockets; whereas the freedom of thinking and acting introduced among them by the science of this depraved century and by so-called culture, brought them to the condition of the builders of the Tower of Babel.
I have seen them pass from ease to indigence, forget that they were relatives and friends—all at{155} war together, all suspicious, each man of his neighbour—all irreconcilable and hostile—in spite of frequently renewed attempts on my part to bring them into harmony again; so that, at the last, I had to withdraw from their society, as will be stated in the sequel of these Memoirs.
XLII.
The end of the rage for Goldoni and Chiari.—I go on amusing my fellow-citizens with plays.—Make reflections, and perhaps catch crabs.
We had arrived at the year 1766, when it became evident that my band of comedians, by this time well established in their theatre, and supported by the public, who flocked eagerly to see the pieces I provided for them, were about to win a decisive victory over our adversaries. Chiari's works stood revealed in all their native nakedness; the glamour of enchantment had departed. Those of Goldoni, in spite of their real merit, did not make the same effect as in the past. People noticed that he repeated himself; they discovered poverty of ideas, flaccidity, and faults of construction in his later pieces. They said that he was played out.
The truth is that a rage so vehement and fanatical as that created by Chiari and Goldoni was bound{156} to die away. They had been so much spoken and quarrelled about that their very names began to pall upon the ear. In Italy, moreover, there is no well-founded and intelligent respect for authors. Dramatists in particular are merely regarded as purveyors of ephemeral amusement. Perhaps Venice exceeds every other capital in this way of thinking. A Venetian citizen, to take a single instance, was congratulating Goldoni on the success of one of his comedies; then, as though ashamed of condescending to so trivial a theme, he added: "It is true that works of this sort are trifles, which do not deserve our serious attention; and yet I can imagine that you may have been gratified by the reception of your play."