The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi Volume II Part 9

It was then that, having gained a perfect knowledge of her character, I composed my _Principessa Filosofa_,[41] precisely with a view to her.

When I read it to the company, they broke forth into their usual extravagant laudations. But just at this time they were plotting the removal of the Ricci; and the actresses most interested in expelling her from the troupe raised obstacles against the _Principessa_ being put upon the stage. They buzzed about from ear to ear that my drama was languid and tiresome. I had omitted the four masks, and had constructed the piece with the sole object of bolstering up an actress already out of credit and rejected by the public. The Ricci chafed with rage; while I continued to laugh, knowing well that I should find the means of bringing these pa.s.sion-blinded creatures back to reason.

Just then it happened that the patrician of Venice, Francesco Gritti, one of our best and liveliest pens, translated Piron's tragedy of _Gustavus Vasa_ from the French.[42] At my request, he gave this play to Sacchi, a.s.signing the part of Adelaide to Teodora Ricci. New difficulties and new intrigues arose among the jealous actresses. These I put down with a high hand, the play in question being not my own, but my distinguished friend's donation to the company. La Ricci learned her part with diligence and ease. Her chief anxiety was about her costume; for the managers refused to make her any advances on this score, and her rivals, who took subordinate parts in the tragedy, were straining all the resources of their lengthier purse to outshine her by the wardrobe.

I amused myself enormously at their ill-founded expectations. When the night arrived, the play was very decently got up, and the Ricci entered on the scene far better dressed than any of her comrades. _Gustavus Vasa_ had a decided success; and the Ricci, who played Adelaide well, but certainly not better than the three parts which had well-nigh ruined her, was encouraged by a fair amount of applause. I could see how much good this little gleam of sunshine did her.

Meanwhile days flew by without anything being said about my _Principessa Filosofa_. I thereupon determined to try what a little artifice could do. I began by confiding to some of our actors that I could not resist the wish to see this piece upon the stage; and that appreciating Sacchi's reasons for not venturing to take the risk of it, I was thinking of offering my _Principessa_ to the company at S. Angelo.

Signora Manzoni, I added, seemed to be admirably fitted for the leading part. No sooner was it whispered that I intended to follow Derbes to the rival camp, than marvellous alacrity began to be displayed. Sacchi, always violent and excessive, insisted that the _Principessa Filosofa_ should be got up and ready for representation in the course of a few days. In fact, this piece appeared upon the 8th of February 1772. The Ricci, carefully coached by me, sustained the t.i.tle-role with astonishing spirit. She was welcomed with thunders of applause; and a run of eighteen nights to overflowing houses established her reputation as an artist of incomparable energy and spirit. This joint triumph of author and actress made the latter necessary to Sacchi's company. Yet some of her comrades persisted in regarding her with covered rancour.

They never acknowledged her talents, and ascribed her success to the role I had composed for her.

XLVIII.

_A pliant disposition is apt to neglect the dictates of reflection.--I proceed with my narrative regarding the Ricci and myself._

If the company loaded me with grat.i.tude, Teodora Ricci was not behindhand with the same sweet incense. She professed herself wholly and simply indebted to my zeal, good management, and friendship for her victory. She did everything in her power, and laid herself out in every way to secure my daily visits. So long as I frequented her house, she felt safe from her persecutors; and her main ambition was to commit me to an open and deliberate partiality. She did not, however, know the true characters of her comrades, nor yet my fundamental principles and temperament; nor, what was worse, did she know herself.

Had I declared that open partiality which she desired, it is certain that I should have exposed her to still more trying enmities and persecutions. The managers of the troupe, governed exclusively by calculations of interest, would have felt themselves compelled to curry favour with me by indulging her in all her whims, demands, breaches of discipline, and a thousand feminine caprices. Nothing could be more alien to my real character than to make myself the proud and domineering protector of one actress to the injury of her companions. Besides, her views and mine were so fundamentally at variance upon some elementary points of conduct, that I doubted whether a liaison between us could ever be of long duration. Light-headed, vain, and sensitive to flattery, she had no regard for prudence and propriety; nor did she recognise those faults in herself which were always involving her in difficulties.

I knew, moreover, that characters like hers must sooner or later incline to those who caress their foibles and pervert their judgment, while they come to regard their real friends and honest counsellors as tiresome pedants. She had no grounds for believing that I was in love with her.

Yet, such was her self-a.s.surance, that she interpreted my kind offices on her behalf into signs of submission to her charms. Finally, though I was far from believing all she said about her affection for my person, I determined to extend to her a cordial friendship.

There are two cla.s.ses of sinners, whom the world, however dissolute, will always hold in abhorrence--the shameless cynic and the hypocrite.

Libertines invariably attempt to confound prudent and respectful friends of women with the odious tribe of hypocrites.[43] I delighted in the theatre. I was known, appreciated, and courted by actors and actresses of all sorts, composers, singers, ballet-dancers. They came to me for advice and support on all occasions. I had to write pieces for them, prologues, epilogues, and what not. I was consulted about the arrangement of pantomimic scenes, dances, words for music. If the innumerable actresses with whom I conversed were to give their testimony, it would appear that I never took advantage of these opportunities to play the part of a seducer or a libertine. These Memoirs I am writing, together with the whole tenour of my life through a long course of years, suffice to clear me from the imputation of hypocrisy. Some of my readers will probably suppose that I am making a vain parade of philosophy in order to gain credit for virtues I did not possess. Others will call me a simpleton for not availing myself more freely of my exceptional position among the beauties of the stage. What I am going to relate concerning my friendship for the Ricci will show that I erred upon the side of simplicity and folly. It was my fixed intention to benefit her, and at the same time to benefit the troupe I had taken under my protection, by making her an able artist and verifying my own opinion of her talents in the teeth of jealousy and opposition.

She had spirit, a good voice, a retentive memory, extraordinary rapidity of perception, and a fine figure, which she knew how to set off to the best advantage. On the other hand, she was inattentive to the conduct of a dialogue, deficient in naturalness and in real sensibility for the roles she undertook. These defects, which are fatal to scenical illusion, proceeded from lack of intelligence, want of real heart for her business, and all kinds of feminine distractions. Some literary culture would have been of service to her; but, like all Italian actresses, she was deficient in such culture. According to her own account, she had been the most neglected of five or more sisters. After taking some lessons in dancing, she abandoned that branch of the profession because of a physical weakness in her knee-joints. Her mother, poor, and with a drunken husband, then made her the domestic drudge. Since she showed some talent for acting, however, a certain Pietro Rossi begged this woman to let her enter his company of players.

She made no difficulties; and signing the girl's forehead with a large maternal cross, sent her out into the world with this practical injunction: "Go, and earn your bread; do not come back to be a burden to the family, where there are too many mouths to feed already." Throwing herself with courage and closed eyes into her new career, Teodora won applause by her natural apt.i.tude for acting, and by the charm of her youth. The piece I wrote for her placed her well before the public, and I was not at all doubtful of her future success. Yet I could not but apprehend that her defective moral education, her inflammable and reckless disposition, might make me one day repent of my cordiality and intimacy.

In conversation with this young woman I enjoyed no exchange of wit or sentiment, no perspicacity of intellect, no piquant sallies and discussions. On the other hand, her way of meeting me was always frank and open; she showed much decency and neatness in her poverty; told anecdotes with comic grace; mimicked her comrades, the actresses, with spirit; evinced a real repugnance for immodesty; betrayed the ingenuousness of her nature by a hundred little traits. What above all attracted me towards her was that she could not tell a lie without showing by involuntary blushes how much the effort cost her. Time taught me that I ought to mistrust her apparent ingenuousness. The artless sallies with which she turned old friends and benefactors into ridicule made me reflect that she might come to treat me in like manner. Her blushes, when she told a fib, did not spring from a dislike of lying, but from anger with herself for not being able to distort the truth more cleverly. Yet self-love is a weakness so ingrained in human frailty, that men are always ready to believe that they will fare better than their neighbours, because they think they have deserved better, or fancy themselves preferred by the woman on whose very faults they put an indulgent interpretation. This was my case with the Ricci.

I was never able to induce her to sacrifice even a few hours a day to reading good books or exercising her mind by writing. Arguments, entreaties, reproaches were all thrown away. She excused herself by pleading her domestic duties; and though I was ever anxious to spend our time together in useful studies, as I had done with other actresses, I could not bring her to do more than con the parts she had to play upon the stage. Probably she thought that her native pluck and talent were sufficient to sustain her without troubling her brains by serious work.

The duties which she always pleaded consisted in sitting at her toilet-table before the eternal looking-gla.s.s, arranging laces, changing ribands, altering the folds of veils, matching colours, and such-like frivolities. All these things are useful with a view to stage effect; but exclusive devotion to them distracts the mind from the higher exigencies of dramatic art, leads an actress to court applause by illegitimate means, and brings her in course of time to mere posing and peac.o.c.king upon the boards before the eyes of voluptuaries in the boxes.

The Ricci was only too p.r.o.ne to such faults; and besides, her purse could not stand the expenses of her toilette.

When I ventured to express my fears upon these points, she betrayed her real way of thinking by replies to the following effect: "If we do not earn more than our fixed wages, how on earth are we poor actresses to hold out in a profession like ours?" I did not conceal my abhorrence of the principles implied in such remarks; and she professed that she had only spoken in jest. At the same time, her behaviour was so good, she ruled her house with such economy, paid her debts so regularly, and conducted herself with such propriety, that I hoped, by good advice and by getting her salary increased, to save her from the evil influences of a misdirected early training. Vain illusion to flatter oneself that one can ever cure an actress of the faults instilled in her from childhood!

I was perhaps blinded by the partiality I felt for her; and no man, face to face with a woman, can trust the clearness of his insight. Six years of continual a.s.siduity, friendship, benefits, were not worth one straw against the poison she had imbibed. The woman who, with a sound education, might have become a person of true culture and a real friend, gave herself up to flattery and her own perverted inclinations; so that in the end she brought upon me troubles which the world has judged of serious importance and public gravity.[44]

XLIX.

_I publicly avow my friendship for Mme. Ricci.--Efforts made to secure her advancement.--I become G.o.dfather to her child, and indulge in foolish hopes about her future._

Before entering into those open and formal ties of friendship which in Italy carry something of the nature of an obligation, I thought it right to warn Signora Ricci with regard to certain matters.[45] I pointed out that she was a member of a company renowned for its good character, and that she had already been exposed to calumny by her detractors. This ought to make her circ.u.mspect in repelling the advances of men of pleasure who might compromise her reputation. For myself, I meant to be her avowed friend, her daily visitor, and cavalier in public; but she must not think that I wanted to play the part of a lover, far less of a flatterer. My age, which bordered upon fifty, and my temperament were enough to prevent me from making any foolish pretensions to her favours.

Should she find herself in need, through the failure of her monthly salary to meet expenses, she might count upon my purse. If, in spite of my good counsels, she increased her reputation for light conduct, I should be obliged to break with her at once and for ever. On the other hand, if my principles were distasteful to her, she had only to speak the word, and I would leave her absolutely at liberty. So long as I supported her in public and championed her honour as a woman and her fame as an artist, I had the right to expect conduct from her conformable to my avowed philosophy of life.

To these Quixotical discourses she replied by saying that all honest folk congratulated her upon acquiring my favour. They urged her to do all in her power to strengthen our alliance, and to avoid everything which could make me leave her. Nay, more: her spiritual director, in the course of confession, had exhorted her to remain by me, a man whom he regarded as a marvel of our century. This I thought a little exaggerated; it smacked of the stage.

The Ricci's husband was a good sort of fellow, who had been a bookseller, and had acquired a kind of literary fanaticism in that business.[46] All day and night he scribbled volumes, which were sure, he said, to be the source of vast profit to himself and his heirs.

Absorbed in these barren studies, he abandoned the household to his wife, philosophically making no claims on her attention. Shoes in holes and muddy stockings never troubled him. But meanwhile his health was being ruined. He grew as lean as a corpse and spat blood from the lungs, while bending over his beloved desk. His wife vainly scolded him, predicting that he was sure to fall into a consumption, which might infect his family. He pitied her gross ignorance, and continued to immolate himself upon the altar of learning. How this ill-a.s.sorted couple ever came together I cannot imagine. They appeared, however, to like each other, and lived on fairly good terms.

An income of 500 ducats was wholly insufficient for man and wife and child, with an expected confinement, and the expenses of a theatrical wardrobe to be met. I represented the case to Sacchi, who agreed to add a sum of 130 ducats annually, remarking, however, that each year Teodora would be sure to clamour for a further rise in wages. He was right. In proportion as she grew more necessary to the company, she augmented her threats of leaving it and her demands for better appointments.

On the days when she was not on duty at the theatre, I used to accompany her openly to the opera and playhouses and other places of diversion.

She had her cover laid at my house, and she frequently dined there in company with her husband, whom I liked for his modest and civil manners.

I also managed to introduce her into society. Many of the n.o.ble or wealthy families of Venice took pleasure in receiving members of Sacchi's troupe at their houses. At first Teodora Ricci was excluded from such invitations, so cruelly had her character been blackened by female jealousy and malice. I made myself responsible for her good behaviour, and removed the prejudices which placed her at this disadvantage. Under my protection, she went to fashionable dinner-parties and polite a.s.semblies; I also introduced both men and women of good manners to her at her own home. Acting with reckless or stupid good faith, I did not foresee how soon the hidden mines of her perverted inclinations and bad early training would explode and cover me with confusion.

Meanwhile her condition improved in other ways. She exchanged the dark, ill-smelling apartment she first occupied for a small but convenient abode. Perhaps I ought to touch upon those material services which she may have from time to time received from me; but if she can forget them, it is easier for me to do so also. I must add that, while I was never blindly enamoured of her, I never found her grasping or rapacious.

The time arrived when my friends the actors were about to leave Venice for the theatres of Bergamo and Milan. Before parting from Teodora, I begged her to remember that she had to some extent my honour in her keeping. She was going into danger, among a crowd of envious persons who would enjoy nothing better than to see her compromise herself and me by levity of conduct. She replied that her wishes and intentions were so firmly bent on abiding by my counsels, that she should like to ratify our alliance by a bond of religion. Would I hold her expected infant at the font? I said that I should be very willing to do so, but that I could not promise to leave Venice to be present at the christening. To this I added jestingly: "Your request is somewhat despotic in the condition it imposes on me. You are thinking more of your own interests than of my affections, which may perchance have been engaged for you.

This bond of religion puts an insuperable barrier to my desires." We laughed the matter over, and agreed upon it amicably.

She begged for letters of recommendation to Bergamo and Milan. Knowing how worse than useless such introductions are, I confined myself to one testimonial, addressed to my good friend Signor Stefano Sciugliaga, Secretary of the University at Milan, and to his wife, an estimable couple, full of kindness and distinguished by their virtues. Furnished with this letter, the Ricci left me, and I felt the loss of her at Venice. She went to Bergamo, where she gave birth to a little girl, for whom Sacchi stood my proxy at the font. I discharged the usual duties to the Church, and did what was proper in the circ.u.mstances by the mother of my G.o.dchild. Teodora pursued her journey to Milan, whence she wrote me a full account of the kindness and courtesy she received from Signor Stefano Sciugliaga and his wife Lucia.

The weariness I feel in writing this chapter makes me measure what my readers must experience in reading it. I therefore cut it short and finish it.

L.

_Fresh pa.s.sages regarding my foolish but persevering friendship for Mme.

Ricci.--Highly comical discoveries which involved me further in the line I had adopted._

Sacchi's troupe had just finished their season at Milan, when I received a letter from my friend Sciugliaga, informing me that my new gossip's husband was seriously ill. A celebrated physician of that city declared him to be in the last stage of consumption. This being the case, the interests of his wife and two young children imperatively demanded a separation. Sacchi had returned before the rest of the company, and I immediately communicated the news to him. We settled that it would be best to induce the Ricci's husband to leave Venice for his native air of Bologna, offering him three francs a day for his expenses there, until his health should be sufficiently restored for him to resume his duties.

My friend's mother, Emilia Ricci, happened to be in Venice at the time; and I thought that the delicate charge of making this communication to the poor fellow might be intrusted to her. I found her very well disposed to undertake it.

When Signora Ricci arrived, I went to visit her, and was received with all her usual demonstrations of cordiality. She looked extremely thin and pale and downcast. On my asking after her health, she replied with a gesture of despair, and, as though she was afraid of being overheard: "I am at my wits' end; my husband goes on spitting blood. Yet I must sleep with him; I am living in hourly dread for myself and my poor children."

I did my best to calm her by describing the plan on which Sacchi and her mother had agreed with me. But days flew by, and her mother, why I know not, never made the necessary communication. Meanwhile the man grew worse, and the poor young wife had at last to take this disagreeable duty on herself. She discharged it with a judgment and a feeling which raised her in my esteem. Her husband took the announcement in a Christian spirit, and set off for Bologna, committing his wife and family to me with streaming eyes. I may incidentally remark that the Milanese physician had mistaken his case. Rest among his relatives restored him to a better state of health, and after some months he was able to return to Venice and resume work at the theatre. But the separation between him and his wife continued from this time forward.

The absence of her husband altered my relations to Signora Ricci, and made her position very delicate. I told her frankly that it would be more prudent if I discontinued my daily visits to her house. We should have plenty of opportunities for meeting in the green-room of the theatre. To this she replied: "So, then! In the midst of my enemies, without a husband, on the eve of being made a widow, with two children, I am to be left alone, abandoned by my friends!" Pale, thin, and out of health, she spoke these words with such an accent of intense sorrow that my resolution was shaken. I promised to alter nothing in my conduct with regard to her, only stipulating that she, on her side, should be careful not to compromise us both by any imprudence of behaviour. How ill-judged this yielding to compa.s.sion and inclination was, will appear too plainly in the sequel.

She was fairly well off, enjoying a salary of 530 ducats, while her husband lived at Bologna at the charges of the company. In fact, her position, compared with that of other leading actresses, was decidedly good; yet she continued to complain and haggle for an increase of wages.

I did all in my power to interest the other members of the troupe in her behalf, and brought Sacchi to her house. In this way an intimacy sprang up between her and the director of the company which led in a short while to his augmenting her appointments by more than a hundred ducats.

He told his partners that this addition was made in order that she might improve her stage wardrobe. I always laugh when I remember that excuse for generosity. My readers will soon know why.

The Ricci, left without her husband, stood in need of some domestic counsellor and friend, who would a.s.sist her not only in Venice, but during the six months of her theatrical tours. She chose for this purpose a young Bolognese actor called Coralli, of more education than his comrades, but somewhat of a humbug. I liked the fellow for his polished manners and dramatic talent, and saw no reason to resent this intimacy. Nor did I object to the male visitors whom I met at her house.

They were actors, men of business, letter-carriers from Florence, Bologna, and Modena, and persons of the same sort. But I warned her frequently and seriously against admitting men of the town and pleasure, who would certainly compromise her reputation and bring discredit on my friendship. I could see that she rebelled in secret against the severity of my principles. I repeated that, if she broke into revolt, I should immediately carry out my threat of leaving her to her fate. In taking this line, I confess that I acted very foolishly. I could not change her nature or subst.i.tute sound views of life for the corrupt traditions of her calling. She imagined that I was nothing more than a jealous lover, and only sought my society for the protection it afforded her, and for the benefits I was able to confer upon her by my writings. She also hoped to make me a screen for carrying on intrigues in accordance with her vitiated principles. I ought indeed to have withdrawn from her at this point. But my good-nature and the task I had undertaken of pushing her in the profession kept me at her side.

Very soon new motives for taking the decisive step of a rupture with Signora Ricci appeared. Sacchi, whom I had introduced to her house, was seized with a blind and brutal pa.s.sion for the young woman. Who would have imagined that an old fellow of eighty, gouty, with swollen legs and frozen veins, could have been inflamed by such desires? Sometimes, when I happened to pay visits at unwonted hours, I saw him running as fast as he could to hide himself from my sight. I pretended not to notice this, but I felt sure that a conspiracy of some sort was being hatched between them.

One morning I found my gossip engaged in unrolling a piece of white satin, some thirty ells in length. She hung lost in admiration over the beautiful stuff. "So," said I, "you have been making purchases?" "Yes,"

she answered, "I wanted a new gown of white satin, and have been to buy it." "You are always complaining that your salary is insufficient, but I am glad to see that you can afford yourself this indulgence." "Sacchi was with me this morning; he gave the merchant security; I have got the stuff on credit, and three sequins a month are to be deducted from my salary to pay for it." Now I have said that Teodora Ricci could not tell a lie without betraying some confusion. I noticed a blush overspread her face, and quietly resumed the conversation: "Well, you have not behaved well by me. I know how punctual you are in paying debts, and have before now given the same security for you on more than one occasion. Why did you resort to Sacchi for this little service? You are not dealing frankly with me." She blushed still deeper, and exclaimed with irritation: "I suppose I must tell you the truth! That old man is madly in love with me. He wants to give me the dress, and expects from me what he will never get." I saw at a glance why the _capocomico_ had been hiding from me, and began to address the following remarks to the young actress: "Dear gossip, it is impossible that an old man of eighty can have gone so far without encouragement from you. I have often noticed that he ran away and hid himself on my approach. What reason had he for doing this? You are sowing the seeds of dissension between me and an a.s.sociate of more than twenty years standing. You are painting me in false colours to that man; and this is your return for a thousand kindnesses. I have stood by you in your profession, and declared myself the champion of your honour. Now, for a satin gown, you are going to destroy the work of years. That white dress upon your shoulders will be the filthiest, the most besmirched, the most shameful of your wardrobe.

It will be a robe of infamy, and work your ruin. Pray reflect that old Sacchi has a viper for his wife, with two daughters, who hate and vilify and slander you. Do you imagine that you will conceal your intrigues from their curious eyes? No indeed. They will a.s.sail you with their tongues, and having caught you in so vile an act, will spare nothing to cast the truth in your teeth, as previously they spread abroad their lies behind your back. I am speaking far more for you than for myself. I can always save my honour by quitting you without an open scandal. I know quite well that you fancy I am in love with you and jealous of your decrepit adorer. That is not the case. I am only jealous for your honour and for mine. I shall certainly do what I have often threatened, and shall do it without breaking my heart, although 'tis true I have a warm affection for you. What right have I to lay the law down and to preach to you? None. But you have no right to imagine that a man like me, your gossip and your friend, will play the part of screen to your disgraceful traffic. My remedy is to leave you absolute mistress of yourself by withdrawing from your intimacy."