The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi; Volume the Second

Doctor Andrea Comparetti, professor of medicine now in the University of Padua, expressed astonishment when he met me pacing the darkest and the most perilous alleys on the night of that famous 18th of January. He lectured me upon my want of prudence, and reminded me of the circumstances in which I was placed. I laughed the matter off, and he had to leave me with a smile. Let no one imagine, however, that I am boasting of the desire which burned my blood, or that I record my nocturnal wanderings as a sign of heroism. I have never been a gasconading braggart. From a man who could pen a letter like Gratarol's I had to expect some stab in the dark. It was only a blind human weakness which prompted this temerity. I know well enough how to distinguish recklessness from courage.

LXI

The sequel to Gratarol's missive of defiance. – My personal relations with him cease

On the morning of the 19th I rose from sleep with a calm mind, and recovered my natural risibility. My ante-chamber was thronged with gentlemen, relatives, and friends, who thought it their duty to pay me respects after the event of yesterday. They were not a little eager to learn how I had been dragged into a mess so much at variance with the well-known tenor of my life. While I was gratifying their excusable curiosity with a candid and humorous account of the whole matter, my brother Gasparo appeared. He brought with him the Senator Paolo Renier, afterwards Doge of Venice,[76] whom I had not hitherto the privilege of knowing.

In compliance with this nobleman's request, I told the whole tale over again. "So then," he said, "make a plain and brief statement in writing of the facts you have described to me. Put it in the form of a memorial to the Supreme Tribunal. Petition to have your honour vindicated. Enclose Gratarol's defamatory letter. Name your witnesses. Add anything you think of use, and bring the whole to me."

I obeyed him blindly; and I do not suppose that any one will be so foolish as to imagine that I departed in one hair's-breadth from the truth while appealing to those awful Three, before the very name of whom the whole town trembles.[77]

The difficulty of narrating a long series of closely connected incidents prevented me from making my memorial as short as I could have wished. Such as it was, I took it, with its appended documents, to Senator Renier. When he had read it through, he said: "I must confess that the tribunal before which this document will appear is not accustomed to peruse compositions of such length. Yet I can find no superfluities which could be omitted. So it will serve its purpose."

What happened to my supplication is utterly unknown to me. I can only say that on the morning of the 23rd of January, while I was still in bed, the same footman who had brought me the letter of the 18th was introduced into my chamber. He handed me a sealed missive, saying: "My master bade me give this note into your own hands." I took it, and read what follows: —

"Sir Count, my most revered friend, – In complete contradiction of the sentiments expressed by me in a letter of some days ago, I beg you to understand by these present, which are in no way different from the sincere esteem and good-will I have entertained for you through many years, that I never meant to offend you; and that, forgetting byegones,[78] I shall continue to profess toward you the same regard and friendship, in the hope of receiving from you a reciprocation of feeling commensurate with the candour of my declaration.

From my house, the 23rd of January 1776/1777,"Your most devoted servant and friend,"Pietro Antonio Gratarol."

Folding the paper, I bade the servant carry my respects to his master.

Visitors arrived, and Gratarol's letter of retractation circulated through the city in a score of copies. There was the usual result of tittle-tattle, especially among the idlest and most numerous members of the community.

I repaired to the senator who had espoused my cause, in order to express my thanks and to report what had occurred. On hearing that I had received the letter, he replied with gravity: "I am well aware of it." "I was thinking," I continued, "of paying that gentleman a visit. He has been twice to my house; and as I harbour no ill-will against him, and can excuse the errors into which his heated temper drove him, I should like to assure him of my cordiality by a friendly embrace." Signor Renier dissuaded me from taking this course. "You have ability and penetration," he observed, "but you do not sufficiently understand the nature of men puffed up with pride. In case you meet Gratarol, and only if he should be the first to raise his hat, you may return the salute with reserved politeness. Do not extend your civility to words or any inconsiderate demonstrations. A man so perversely proud as he is may stir up new mischief and involve you in further embarrassments. I take it that now the actors will continue to perform your comedy." "I do not know," I answered, "but from what I have heard, the piece has been withdrawn." "Wrong, very wrong!" he rejoined; "that arrogant fellow will try to make it be believed that his retractation was given as an equivalent for the suspension of the performance. They ought at least to put your comedy once more upon the boards, letting the public know that people of importance have bespoken it." I could only answer that, so far as I was concerned, the production, repetition, continued presentations, and suspension of the play had taken place without my interference. Comedians, I added, only looked to their own pecuniary interests. The senator proceeded to deliver an eloquent and singularly penetrative discourse upon the corruption of the age, and the ill-regulated ways of thinking which had been introduced and widely diffused amongst us. I have never heard this matter handled with more acumen, learning, precision of judgment, logical clearness, breadth of view, and pungent truth. I am speaking only of an elevated mind and ready tongue. I do not pretend to see into the inmost hearts of men.[79]

When I took my leave, I resolved to carry out the recommendations of Signor Renier to the letter. In obedience to this determination, I told Sacchi what he had said about the repetition of my comedy. He replied that he should not have withdrawn it except for the behaviour of Signora Ricci. During the last two evenings she mumbled and gabbled out her part in a way to provoke the audience. Catcalls from the pit and gallery and opprobrious epithets from the boxes were showered upon her; all of which, together with the reproaches of her comrades, she bore with stolid indifference. "Verily," cried I, "Gratarol owes a great deal to that poor woman. For his sake she fell down a staircase, and now she bears the brunt of public outrage! You have done well to stop a comedy which ought to have been damned beyond redemption on the first night."

To wind up the episode of Signor Gratarol, I may say, in conclusion, that I often met him both in Venice and at Padua. To his credit let it be spoken, that he never stooped one inch from the high perch of his incorrigible haughtiness. His hat stuck to that cage of cockchafers he called his head, as though it had been nailed there. Mindful of the advice I had received, and which amounted to a command, I refrained from bowing. I should have liked to be on good terms with him, and felt uncomfortable at the rudeness I was bound to display. Had he drawn his sword upon me, I could have understood that his retractation had been forced. But there was nothing in his stupid inurbanity to justify this supposition. Who could have divined that he was planning a flight to Stockholm, and that he would draw his sword upon me there and stab me with words, while I remained at Venice?

LXII

A tragic accident, with a happy termination

A few months after these occurrences, my brother Gasparo, who had fallen ill of too much study and harassing cares, went to Padua to consult the physicians of that famous university. Though we no longer shared the same home, and had divided our patrimony, I always regarded him as my friend and master. The news I received of his sad state of health, which declined from bad to worse, in spite of the most skilful medical assistance, caused me the gravest uneasiness.

One morning a gondolier in the service of Mme. Dolfin-Tron brought me a letter which she had received from Professor Giovanni Marsili at Padua, together with a note from his mistress. The note urgently begged me to repair to her at once. The letter contained news of far more serious import. From it I learned that my poor brother, whether oppressed by dark and melancholical phantasies, or by the delirium of a burning fever which attacked him, had thrown himself in a fit of exaltation from a window into the Brenta. He had fallen with his chest upon a great stone; and though he had been brought alive out of the river, he was speechless, spat blood continually, and lay insensible, plunged in profound lethargy, and consumed with a mortal fever, which left but little hope of his survival.

In spite of my philosophy, the reading of this letter well-nigh deprived me of my wits, and I ran in a state of distraction to that noble lady. I found her stretched upon a sofa, drowned in tears. No sooner did she cast eyes upon me than she rose, and rushed into my arms upon the point of fainting. "Dear friend," she sobbed out, as soon as she found power to speak, "go to Padua at once; save my father for me, save my father!"[80] Then she fell back upon the sofa and shed a torrent of tears.

What though I needed comfort myself, I strove to comfort her affliction, by promising to go upon the spot to Padua, and by reminding her that my brother's case might not be so desperate as was supposed.

I shall not describe my hurried journey. At Fusina I ran up against Count Carlo di Coloredo, who asked me with much sweetness of manner whether there was anything astir in Venice. I believe that I brutally said "Nothing," as I jumped into a carriage and departed. The gloomy anticipation of finding my poor brother a corpse grew upon me with increasing strength as I approached the walls of Padua, shutting out the sense of water, earth, trees, animals, and men upon that doleful journey.

When I arrived, I alighted at my friend Innocenzio Massimo's hospitable dwelling, and was received, as always, with open arms. Sadness was written on the faces of all his family. I hardly dared to inquire after my brother; and when I summoned courage to do so, I was told that he was yet alive, but in a state which left too little hope.

I repaired at once to his lodgings in the Prato della Valle. There I found Mme. Jeanne Sarah Cenet, a Frenchwoman of some five-and-fifty years, mere skin and bones, who was attending unremittingly to the invalid, half-mad herself with grief and tears and watching. She gave me a detailed account of my brother's condition. He lay there, a scarcely breathing corpse, afflicted with continuous fever, incapable of speech, taking no nourishment, and barely swallowing a few drops of water. The hæmoptysis had ceased, and the expectoration was only tinged with blood.

I asked what doctor was attending him. She replied that there were four. Without questioning their ability, I was terrified at the number of them. Then she added that a fifth physician, the celebrated Professor della Bona, had been called into one consultation. He had suggested certain remedies, which the other four doctors rejected as frivolities, and none of them had been employed. "Very well!" said I.

At this point they came to tell me that the invalid, on hearing my voice from his bedroom, had opened his eyes and spoken these words very faintly: "My brother Charles!" I went to him and tried to rouse him. Drowned in his lethargy, he made no answer; but I thought I could detect upon his face some spark of relief.

One of the four doctors boasted of having restored my brother to life when he was taken from the river, by using the methods prescribed by the Magistrates of Public Health for the resuscitation of drowned persons. I went to offer this man an honorarium, and found him surrounded by his witnesses, engaged in drawing up a memorial to the Magistrates of Health. It set forth the prodigious energy with which he, the doctor, had successfully employed their methods on the person of Count Gasparo Gozzi, and wound up with an energetic petition for the golden medal awarded in such circumstances to the operator. He was anxious to relate the whole event, to enlarge upon his merits, and to read aloud his eloquent memorial. I begged him to spare me what could only torture an afflicted fancy with fresh images of sorrow. Then I placed some sequins in his hand, and left him to the elaboration of his petition. Afterwards, I heard that he had received the medal, and I bore no grudge against the needy expeditious son of science.

My brother passed some days and nights between life and death, in his deep lethargy and ardent fever, without taking nourishment. Mme. Cenet used to force open his jaws and insinuate little balls of butter between his teeth in a coffee-spoon. This was all the food he had, licking the spoon and swallowing the butter without consciousness. The four doctors came to see him twice a day very kindly, for they had all been urgently besought to do so by Mme. Dolfin Tron. They looked at the water, examined the expectoration, felt the pulse, affirmed that it was a mortal fever, shrugged their shoulders, and went away again.

The anxious thoughts which weighed upon my mind, fatiguing cares for the sick man, errands I had to run, and the great heat of the season, contributed to tax my strength. But, in addition, I had to carry on a voluminous correspondence daily with Venice, writing long letters to Mme. Dolfin Tron, to the secretary of the Riformatori di Padova,[81] and to other persons. My brother held an office under the Riformatori, which brought him in seven or eight hundred ducats a year. One day I received a pressing letter from the noble lady above mentioned, informing me that many applicants were already intriguing and canvassing for this post, in the expectation of my brother's death. Her husband, who presided at the board, and herself were both of opinion that I ought to apply in writing for the office. She guaranteed my unopposed election if I did so.

Instead of relieving my mind, this letter only added to my sadness. I answered that I was grateful for the counsels she had given, and for her generous promises; but she ought to know my temper, and to remember that I had refused to compete for the far more important and lucrative office of Master of the Posts to Vienna, which she had recommended, and for which she had engaged the influence of her powerful consort. I had undertaken heavy charges for the sake of my family, but I did not care to burden my shoulders with affairs which involved public responsibility. I had neither wife nor children, was averse to taking place among the great, disliked the ceremonies and observances which office necessitates, did not want to become rich, and was satisfied with my moderate estate. To see my brother in health again, I would willingly strip myself to my shirt of all that I possessed: but I civilly declined the offer which she generously made.

This called forth an answer, in which the lady treated me as a Quixotic hero of romance. She insisted that I should send in a petition for the office, and repeated that various applicants were moving heaven and earth to secure the reversion of it. In conclusion, she told me that I was in duty bound to accept a post of emolument which would enable me to assist my brother's family.

Here I detected the real motive which urged her to make me assume the part of candidate against my inclination. I was embittered when I remembered how much I had already done for more than thirty years to protect the interests of my kindred, prosecuting their lawsuits, paying off their debts, and fighting their battles with a host of litigious claimants. Now, forsooth, I was to be goaded into dragging the chain of an onerous and troublesome office, for which I felt myself entirely unfit.

I replied that no pricks of conscience with regard to my brother's family impelled me to seek what I neither desired nor deserved. If an application were made in my name (for I well knew that my sister-in-law was capable of taking such a step), I should feel myself obliged to utter a protest. Here I was at Padua, ready to spend my blood for my brother. If he survived, by the favour of God, I hoped that the Riformatori would not deprive him of his post. If he died, to my infinite sorrow, the tribunal would be able to award it to some fitting person, who deserved it more than I did.

I hoped to be delivered from this well-meant tyranny. But such was not the case. Doctor Bartolommeo Bevilacqua, rector of the public schools of Venice, and my good friend, arrived at Padua. He had been sent off post-haste by the lady to persuade me into taking the step which she thought it a folly to refuse. I repeated all that I had previously urged, and declared that my mind was made up to accept no office under any magistracy. I meant to remain a peace-loving madman to the end. Perhaps I shall be condemned for the repugnance I have always felt to becoming the slave of great folk and public interests; but this point in my character is fixed and ineradicable. I may add that the result of these negotiations was to free me from the pertinacious patronage against which I rebelled with my whole nature.

Under these various anxieties and the heat of the season my health gave away. I was seized with a violent fever, which confined me to bed for three days. During that time the news which I received about my brother grew always worse and worse. When I was able to leave my room, I went to Mme. Cenet. She told me that a priest had been summoned to assist him in his passage from this world. Two of the doctors, on examining his expectoration, found that it consisted of pure matter. They concluded that the lungs, bruised by his fall, had begun to gangrene, and that he had only a few hours to live. I asked whether Professor della Bona had repeated his visit. She answered, No. Happening just then to catch sight of that eminent physician passing along the Prato della Valle, I ran out, and besought him to come up and give a look at my poor dying brother. He willingly complied; and on the way I told him what the doctors had discovered.

At this point I am obliged to exchange the tragic tone for comic humour, and shall perhaps appear satirical against my will.

The worthy professor listened attentively a long time to my brother's breathing. Then he said: "The respiration is certainly weak, but unimpeded. There can be no question of gangrene. Where is that purulent expectoration?" We brought him the vessel, which he inspected closely, and laid aside with these words: "There is no pus there; it is only butter." And so it was. The butter which Mme. Cenet administered had been spat up from time to time by the patient. "Our invalid," continued the physician, "is dying of nothing else but an acute fever. Has he drunk the manna-water I recommended, and have you made the injections of quinine?" Mme. Cenet answered that these remedies had not been used, because the other doctors disapproved of them. "Fine!" he replied. "What was the object then of calling me in? I am not accustomed to play the part of Truffaldino." Turning to me, he added: "Your brother's life hangs upon a thread. I cannot answer for it in the state of extreme weakness to which he is reduced. Yet, though the case looks desperate, follow my prescriptions, and repeat them frequently."

I begged him not to abandon the sick man, and superintended the treatment he had ordered. Gradually the fever abated. My brother opened his eyes, and began to utter a few words. He took small quantities of stronger food, and swallowed moderate doses of quinine. Then arrived a terrible crisis. His whole alimentary canal, from the œsophagus to the rectum, was covered with those ulcers which medical men call apthæ. Professor Della Bona regarded this as very serious. But in a few days my brother regained strength, sat up in bed, and joked with the doctor. Then, at the end of another period, he left his couch, ate with appetite, and composed some sonnets. His health, undermined by study, misfortunes, advanced age, and a mortal illness, was now in as good a state as could be expected under the circumstances.

Seeing him thus re-established, I was able to leave Padua. But I ought to add, that when I went to express my heartfelt thanks to Professor Della Bona, and to press a fee upon him, that generous and benevolent man refused to accept anything. He was paid enough, he said, by the recovery of one whom he prized as a friend; not to speak of the obligations which he owed to the great lady who had recommended my brother to his care.

LXIII

Once more about the "Droghe d'Amore." – I leave my readers to decide upon the truth of my narration. – Final dissolution of Sacchi's company. – Sacchi leaves Venice for ever.

In this chapter I shall wind up the history of my comedy Le Droghe d'Amore, and relate the termination of my long connection with Sacchi's company of actors.

Sacchi, who had proceeded on his summer tour to Milan, thought fit to exhibit the notorious play in that city. Although it could not win the succès de scandale which made it so profitable to his pocket at Venice, the performance gave rise to fresh prepossessions against Signor Gratarol.

News reached Venice that the actor Giovanni Vitalba, who played the too famous part of Don Adone, had been assaulted by a ruffian one night, going to or returning from the theatre. The fellow flung a huge bottle of ink full in his face, with the object of spoiling his beauty. Fortunately for Vitalba, the bottle, which was hurled with force enough to smash his skull, hit him on the thickly-wadded collar of his coat. To this circumstance he owed his escape from injury or death, designed by the abominable malice of some unknown ill-wisher.

The peaceable character of this poor comedian, who lived retired and economically, earning his bread upon the stage, and implicitly obeying Sacchi's orders, was so well known that no one suspected the hand of a private enemy. Suspicion fell not unnaturally upon Gratarol. For myself, I may say with candour that I did not lend my mind to the gossip which disturbed the town; but it is certain that this act of violence inflamed Gratarol's political adversaries, and made them remorseless when he applied for the ratification of his appointment to the embassy at Naples.[82]

On my brother's return to Venice, I begged him to speak as warmly as he could in Gratarol's behalf to the Procuratore Tron and his all-powerful lady. Everybody knew that Gratarol was expecting a decree of the Senate granting him some thousands of ducats for the expenses of his outfit; it was also asserted that, having received the usual allowance for an embassy to Turin, which he had not been able to employ upon that mission, his enemies intended to make this a reason for cancelling his appointment to Naples. I thought it therefore worth while to engage Gasparo's influence with that noble couple for the benefit of my would-be foe and rival in his present difficulty. What Gratarol may think about my intervention, it is impossible for me to imagine. Not improbably he will stigmatise it as an act of officious hypocrisy. Yet I am certain that it was sincerely and cordially meant to serve him.

My brother punctually discharged his mission, and returned with a verbal answer from the Procuratessa and her husband, to the effect that "insuperable obstacles lay in the way of sending the Secretary to the Court of Naples; Pietro Antonio Gratarol cannot and will not go; the best course for him to take is to send in his resignation." That was the ostensible pith of their reply; but the gist, if gist it was, lurked from sight in a cloud of political and economical considerations, anecdotes about Gratarol's ways of life and fortune, personalities, piques, private spites, and evidences of an unbecoming and vulgar will to trample on him. I do not intend to expose myself to the charge of evil intentions by setting down Mme. Dolfin Tron's malicious ultimatum in full here. I wrote it out, however, and have kept the memorandum among the papers locked up in my desk, whence I hope that no one will have the wish to drag it forth and read it.

Gratarol, at the close of these transactions, finding himself disfavoured by the Senate, did not take the prudent course of sending in his resignation and lying by for a better turn of affairs, such as is always to be looked for in a government like ours of Venice. On the contrary, he flung out with all the violence of his headstrong and indomitable temper. He left the country in a rage, exposing himself and his relatives to the thunderbolts which were hurled upon him, partly by the mechanical operation of our laws, but also by the force of a rapacious and inhuman tyranny.