What passed between me and the censor I repeated to friends of mine, who will bear me witness that I found myself estopped in my attempts to suppress the comedy. It had to appear; and Signor Gratarol owed this annoyance to his having powerful enemies.
Unfortunately he did his best to exasperate these enemies. Teodora Ricci, primed by him and parroting his words, went about libelling men and women of the highest rank, whom she had never seen. Phrases of the grossest scurrility were hurled at eminent people by their names. "If Gratarol has committed himself in this way to an actress," said I in my sleeve, "what must he not have let fall to other friends and acquaintances? Such indiscretion marks him out as little fitted for the post of ambassador at Naples or elsewhere."
I have said that I had lost all authority over my wretched drama. I only wanted to see it well hissed on its first appearance, and to bury the annoyances it caused me in a general overthrow. Yet I was obliged to be present at rehearsals. At the first which I attended, I noticed that two of the rôles had been changed. I had given Don Adone to an actor called Luigi Benedetti, and the jealous Don Alessandro to Giovanni Vitalba. Sacchi reversed my disposition{270} of these parts, alleging that Benedetti was better fitted to sustain the character of a furious lover than Vitalba, who was somewhat of a stick. This seemed to me not unreasonable; and I was so accustomed to have my plays cut and hacked about by the actors, that I accepted his decision.
At the second rehearsal, Mme. Ricci asked me negligently if I knew why this alteration had been made. I answered that Sacchi had explained it to my satisfaction. She held her tongue, thinking doubtless that I was well acquainted with certain machinations of which she had fuller knowledge than I.
At last the piece appeared—it was the night of January 10, 1777—at the theatre of S. Salvatore. I went there in good time, and found the entrance thronged with a vast multitude. For three hours people had been clamouring for seats, and the whole house was crammed. They told me that the boxes had been sold at fabulous prices. This might have swelled another playwright's heart with pride. I, on the contrary, was extremely dejected by finding my worst anticipations realised. Pushing my way through the press, which encumbered every passage and clung against the walls, I reached the coulisses with much toil.[63] There I saw a swarm of masks begging for{271} places anywhere at any price. "What the deuce is the meaning of this extraordinary concourse?" I exclaimed. The Ricci answered me at once with: "Don't you know? The town has come to see your satire on a certain person." I put her down by saying bluntly that more than a year ago she heard my play, and knew that there was no personal satire in it. It was not my fault if diabolical intrigues and a succession of blunders had given it a false complexion. She dropped her eyes. I turned my back, and took refuge in a box I had upon the third row of the theatre.
Going up the staircase, I caught sight before me of Gratarol's unhappy wife, and heard her chattering to certain gentlemen she met upon the way: "I wanted to see my husband on the stage." These words of the poor deserted woman enlightened me as to the expectation of the public. Yet why was the whole house so intoxicated? why did a wife look forward to the spectacle of her husband's caricature? I can only explain this phenomenon by remembering the corruption of our age. Women seduced and left to shift for themselves, rivals supplanted in their love-affairs, jealous husbands, wives abandoned and heart-broken, form an inflammable audience for such a piece as the Droghe d'Amore under the notorious circumstances of its first appearance.
Sacchi joined me in my box; and casting my eyes over the sea of faces, I soon perceived Signor Gratarol with a handsome woman at his side. He had come to{272} air his philosophy, but I trembled for him. The curtain rose, and the play proceeded with great spirit. All the actors did their best. I was satisfied with their performance, and the audience applauded. At length, toward the close of the first act, Don Adone appeared. Then, and not till then, I understood the reason of the change of parts by which this rôle had fallen to Vitalba.[64] He was a good fellow, but a poor artist; and unfortunately he resembled Signor Gratarol pretty closely both in figure and colour of hair. The knavery of the comedians had furnished him with clothes cut and trimmed exactly on the pattern of those worn by Gratarol. He had been taught to imitate his mincing walk and other gestures. The caricature was complete; and I had to confess that Signor Gratarol had actually been parodied upon the stage in my comedy of the Droghe d'Amore. Innocent as I was of any wish to play the part of Aristophanes in modern Venice, the fact was obvious; and the audience greeted Vitalba with a storm of applause and rounds of clapping which deafened our ears.
I turned sharply upon Sacchi, and complained bitterly of the liberty he had taken with my unoffending comedy. He only shrugged his shoulders, and said he was afraid that an exhibition which promised so well for his money-box might be suppressed{273} as a public scandal. That was all I could extort from him; and the play advanced to the middle of the third act, accompanied with universal approval. Whenever Don Adone entered and spoke a line or two, he was greeted with thunders of applause. I still hoped for those salutary hisses which might have damned the piece. The audience had been crammed together now for full seven hours; they numbered some two thousand persons, and were largely composed of people from the lower ranks of life. It was no wonder that they began to be restless, fought together, tried to leave the house, and raised a din which drowned the voices of the actors. Don Adone made his last exit, and there was nothing to excite interest but the dregs of an involved and stationary plot. The hubbub rose to a tumult, and my hopes rose with it. The actors gabbled through the last scenes in helpless unintelligible dumb-show. At last the drop-scene fell upon a storm of cat-calls, howls, hisses, and vociferations. I turned to Sacchi and said: "Your vile machinations deserved this retribution. Now you will admit that I prophesied the truth about my play." "Pooh!" he answered, "the play took well enough up to a certain point. It is only necessary to shorten it a little, and we shall not have the same scene another night." Then he left the box all in a heat, without waiting for my reply and without even bidding me good-night.{274}
LVIII.
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.