LVI.
Ricci returns to Venice.—Her metamorphosis and my reflections on it.—Sacchi entreats to have the "Droghe d'Amore," and I abandon it to him, in order to save myself from persecution.—The play is read by me before the actors.
Autumn brought the actors back again as usual; and I composed a prologue for the opening of their theatre, which was recited by Mme. Ricci. I used to meet that actress in the rooms behind the scenes, and was much struck by the singular change which had come over her. She continued to do everything she could to annoy me; and I kept wondering how it was that she had managed to conceal her true nature so cleverly during the five years of our friendship. Now she openly bragged about the presents she received; the wax-candles which gave light to her apartment; the exquisite wines, perfect coffee, boxes of bonbons, refined chocolate, and other dainties which furnished her repasts. She even went to the length of inviting that old satyr Sacchi to her house,{256} adding, in order to insult me: "You will find no tiresome moral preachers on the convenances to frighten you away!" While as anxious as ever to lure me back, she piqued herself on letting it be understood that she had given me my dismissal. Indeed, I found it somewhat difficult to treat the woman with that reserved civility which I wished to preserve toward her in public.
The amusement I enjoyed in studying her new ways and manners compensated for these gnat-bites. She had become in six months shameless and affected, as meddlesome and garrulous as a magpie. She pretended to have learned all kinds of important sciences, and gravely informed us that the game rocambol was derived from two English words. She had left off wearing drawers, she said, because it was healthy to ventilate the body, adding details of the most comical indecency. Always dreaming about Paris, Venice had become a kind of sewer in her opinion. The Venetians and Italians in general were a race of stupid mediocrities, unenlightened and insupportable. "I am dying to get to Paris!" she exclaimed; "there the rich financiers fling purses full of louis d'or at actresses with as little regard as one flings a pear in Italy." And then to show how well she had got rid of prejudices: "Ah! blessed power of making love without the checks of a misguided education! To make love through our lifetime is the supreme happiness of mortals!" Not{257} a word or a thought for her husband and two children.
COVIELLO (1550)
Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or Impromptu Comedy
Every evening she filled the theatre with such a potent smell of musk, that people complained and said it gave them the headache. "What a prejudice!" she cried with a grimace in what she thought the French style. "At Paris everything smells of musk, down to the very trees in the Tuilleries gardens, against which ladies may have leant a moment." She was taking French lessons; and her retentive memory made her catch up phrases, which she flung about with volubility. Paris entered into everything she said. She modelled her gait and action and tone of voice upon what she conceived to be the Parisian manner, producing a most laughable caricature which spoiled her acting. I felt really sorry for her, while observing this progressive deterioration in her art. She had been an excellent comedian in the Italian style, and would certainly have been appreciated on the stage at Paris. Now she had become an ape of the French race, surcharged with affectation, and unsuccessful in her travesty. It is impossible, I thought, that the Parisians, who require an Italian actress, and not a mongrel imitation of themselves, will put up with her. This prognostication, to my sincere regret, was verified when she appeared in that metropolis.
We had reached the first days of November in the year 1776, and Sacchi's receipts were languishing.{258} He had been spoiled by getting gratis at my hands two or three pieces annually, which found favour with the public. This made him careless about supplying himself with novelties; while I was so engaged with law business that I had no time to dramatise my Metafisico and Bianca di Melfi. In fact, I had nothing on hand but the Droghe d'Amore. Pestered by perpetual applications for this comedy, in an evil moment I drew it from its sepulchre and tossed it over to the capocomico. I told him that he might take the manuscript as a gift, but that if the play failed before the public, as I thought it would, I should never exercise my pen again on compositions for the stage.
It was impossible to foresee that a chain of untoward circumstances would convert this harmless drama into an indecent personal satire upon Signor Gratarol. Mendacious and vindictive meddling on the part of an infuriated actress, false steps and ill-considered opposition on the part of the man whom she deceived, the pique of great folk who disliked him, and the ingenuity of comedians eager for pecuniary gains, effected the transformation. I was placed in a false light—shown up to public curiosity as the prime agent in a piece of vulgar retaliation, the victim of a weak and jealous fancy. If I could have divined what lay beyond the scope of divination, I swear to God that I should have flung that comedy into the flames rather than let it become the property of a capocomico.{259}
Far be it from me to assert that Gratarol was not brought upon the stage in that very comedy of my creation. He certainly was. But he owed this painful distinction to his own bad management, to the credulity with which he drank the venom of a spiteful woman's tongue, to the steps he took for prohibiting my play which roused the curiosity of the whole city and gave it a succès de scandale, to the enmity of great people whom he had imprudently defamed, and finally to the artifices of an acting company who saw their way to making money out of these conflicting interests. I was victimised, as will appear in the course of my narration, for the truth of which I can refer to a crowd of worthy witnesses. I lost control over my play. I saw it bandied about from hand to hand. Condemned to inactivity by magistrates of the State, I had it turned before my eyes, against my will, into a vile engine for inflicting pain upon a person of whom I had never once thought while composing it. Indeed, the part I played in the affair would furnish forth the subject of another comedy, with me for protagonist.