The January day in which I had to work was short; and I may parenthetically observe, although{288} the fact is trivial, that I did not allow myself time to eat a mouthful of food.
It was already an hour and a half past sundown when I turned my steps to the palace of that noble lady. I wished to have a witness of our colloquy, and met with no one on the way more proper for the purpose than Luigi Benedetti, the actor, and Sacchi's nephew. We climbed the long staircase and asked if her ladyship were at home. "Yes," said the servant, "she is receiving a company of ladies, senators, and men of letters." I begged to be announced; and shortly afterwards Mme. Dolfin Tron appeared, closing the doors of her reception-room behind her, from whence there came the sound of animated conversation. She saluted me cheerfully with her usual epithet of Bear, bade me take a chair beside her, and motioned to the actor to be seated.[70]
I unfolded the object of my visit in a few sentences, explained how urgently I desired the suppression of my comedy, and described the ineffectual steps which I had taken for securing it. "Now I fling myself upon your powerful assistance, in the earnest hope that you will help me to suspend the performance of the Droghe d'Amore."{289}
"What a request!" she cried: "what has inspired you to make it?" I replied by describing my own bitter annoyance at figuring as the libeller and satirist of private persons. I painted the distress of Gratarol, and the sympathy which I felt for him. "The kindness of your heart is worthy of all honour," she answered; "but if you knew the whole facts, you would not take compassion on that man. He has not merely let himself be bamboozled by an actress, fomented the scandal from which he is now suffering, set himself up against the decrees of the tribunals, calumniated people who deserve respect, pretended that the prima donna's leg was broken, and floundered from stupidity to stupidity until the Government itself is enraged against him. He has not merely committed all these follies. He has done more, of which you are not yet aware."
"I am quite prepared to believe you," I replied; "but in a case like his, any honest man might be excused for losing his head and acting with imprudence. Do not let us think of him. I come to beg you to save me from what I regard as an odious source of humiliation to myself. Signor Gratarol persists in saying that I can and ought to stop the performance of my play." The noble lady looked laughing in my face and said: "Any blind man can see that you have no power over your comedy. You made a gift of it to certain actors. It has been twice revised and licensed by the censors of{290} the State. It belongs to the public, and the public have the right to profit by it. You will only get yourself into a scrape if you insist on championing the cause of that presumptuous, conceited, and unruly man. If I cannot persuade you, there are senators in that room" (pointing to her drawing-room) "who will tell you plainly that you are impotent—your comedy no longer yours, but the property of the public and the magistrates of State." "All this I know quite well," I answered; "and I have repeated it a hundred times. I cannot stir a finger. This is the very reason why I come to you. I know that you can settle matters if you like. Intelligent people will perhaps understand how helpless I am in the whole matter. But the vulgar and the populace are sure to think otherwise, and I shall be prejudiced in the opinion of my countrymen. It is to your feeling heart that I make this last appeal, beseeching you to liberate me from the purgatory I am in of hearing all these scandals daily, and seeing the unfortunate Gratarol exposed to scorn in a base and cruel pillory." At the end of this speech I bent down, and stooped to the, for me, unwonted abasement of kissing a woman's hand five or six times.
All my entreaties, and even this last act of submission, were of no avail. Madame told me in conclusion that, for reasons which I did not know, the official decree was irreversible. The Ricci would be conducted by an officer of the Council of Ten to the{291} theatre next evening. After that, the comedy might cease to run; and my protegé Gratarol ought to be well contented with the result of the whole matter. She rose to rejoin her company, and I took my departure with my witness, Benedetti.
This was not, however, the last act for me of that long trying day. I met my best of friends, Maffei, and reported the ill success of my efforts. He undertook to go at once to Gratarol, and tell him that the performance on the 17th was inevitable. He must try to endure his humiliation in silence. On the 18th, and from that night forward, my comedy should never more be seen upon the stage.
Maffei returned, discouraged and annoyed, to inform me that Gratarol still stood by his "cogent and irrefragable demonstrations." "Count Gozzi," he had said, "can and ought to meet my wishes,"—the wishes of his worship. I replied to my friend that I felt sure Gratarol was about to play some awkward trick. We had both involved ourselves in a nasty job, I by undertaking to use my influence in the man's behalf, and Maffei by rendering himself the protector of a maniac whose churlish character was ill adapted to his candid friendship. "Oh, bad, bad!" murmured Maffei between his teeth, downcast and mortified to an extent which moved my sympathy. "Do you perhaps know any person of authority and good sense," I inquired, "who has influence over this lunatic?" "If there is any one," he replied, "I think{292} we shall discover this person in Gratarol's uncle, Signor Francesco Contarini. This gentleman holds the private affairs of the family, and Gratarol's own disordered fortunes, in his hands. Gratarol can hardly refuse to pay attention to what he says." "I wish I had the good fortune to know Signor Contarini," said I: "that is not my privilege; but if you will introduce me, we may persuade him to open his nephew's eyes to the prudence of accepting the inevitable."
On this suggestion, we repaired at once to Signor Contarini's dwelling at S. Angelo. He received me with politeness, and asked me to explain my errand. I laid the whole matter in its many details before him, and begged him to induce his nephew to accept the only compromise which now was possible. Maffei supported me, corroborated all that I related, and added his own convictions and desires to the same effect.
Signor Contarini acknowledged the cogency of our reasoning, and frankly admitted that I had no power to arrest the performance of my disastrous play. He very courteously offered to go at once to his nephew, and to back us up with his authority, although the hour was late, and it was not his habit to leave the house at night. While preparing himself for the journey, he turned and spoke as follows: "Gentlemen, I am sorry to have to add one observation. We are dealing with a giddy-pated and most obstinate{293} man. I cannot rely on bringing him to reason. My nephew has undoubted talent; but his head is filled with so many outlandish notions, at variance with the social atmosphere and civil institutions of his native country, that he has been forced, as it were, to incur enmities and to lay himself open to mortifications."