LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSI QJS~^\D LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA <^N /fa QM LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSI QJ/^^Q LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ^C LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSI LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ^ LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF C, e^rz ^ LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ^D LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF C LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF C 9 - P r? ~ ^^J\A /< ! * ^^MM>^X> ^z(f ^ GOLDONI A BIOGRAPHY CARLO GOLDONI. Portrait by Alessandro Longhi Museo Correr GOLDONI A BIOGRAPHY BY H. C. CHATFI ELD-TAYLOR, LITT. D. Author of Moliere: A Biography, etc. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE PAINTINGS OF PIETRO and ALESSANDRO LONGHI NEW YORK DUFFIELD & COMPANY MDCDXIII COPYRIGHT, 1913 BT DUFFIELD & COMPANY TO BRANDER MATTHEWS IN APPRECIATION OF GENEROUS FRIENDSHIP GOLDONI The sonnet written by Robert Browning for the al- bum of the committee of the Goldoni Monument, erected in Venice in 1883. Goldoni good, gay, sunniest of souls, Glassing half Venice in that verse of thine, What though it just reflect the shade and shine Of common life, nor render, as it rolls, Grandeur and gloom? Sufficient for thy shoals Was Carnival; Parini's depths enshrine Secrets unsuited to that opaline Surface of things which laughs along thy scrolls. There throng the people: how they come and go, Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb, see, On Piazza, Calle, under Portico And over Bridge! Dear king of Comedy, Be honoured! thou that didst love Venice so, Venice, and we who love her, all love thee! CONTENTS PREFACE ix I CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 3 II THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 44 III THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 83 IV THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 120 V FROM ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE . . . .152 VI PLAYWRIGHT OF THE SANT' ANGELO THEATRE . 181 VII PLAYWRIGHT OF THE SAN LUCA THEATRE . . 206 VIII COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 230 IX COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 272 X COMEDIES IN THE VENETIAN DIALECT . . . .310 XI EXOTIC COMEDIES 359 XII RIVALS AND CRITICS 389 XIII COMEDIES IN VERSE 427 XIV EXPATRIATION 464 XV DRAMATIC WORK IN FRANCE 499 XVI GOLDONI AND MOLIERE 532 XVII CONCLUSION 561 APPENDICES: A, GOLDONI'S WORKS .... 601 B, CHRONOLOGY 638 C, BIBLIOGRAPHY 646 INDEX 669 ILLUSTRATIONS Portrait of Goldoni Frontispiece FACING PAGE Carnival Maskers 6 The Convent Parlour* 36 Love's Messenger 76 Pantalone and Fellow Masks no Mountebank Jugglery 182 The Ridotto* . . 216 Cicisbei and My Lady* 238 My Lady's Toilet* 259 Goldoni in a Coffee-House 278 The Fortune-Teller 324 Common People 350 Goldoni in Colombani's Book-Shop 416 The Pastry Huckstress 462 The Dancing Lesson 490 The Card Party 574 * Attributed by Signer Aldo Rava, in his Pietro Longhi, to the manner of Longhi, rather than to the Master himself. PREFACE \ Five years ago, the Chevalier Guido Sabetta, then Italian consul in Chicago, urged me to write as a companion volume to Moliere : A Biography, a life of Carlo Goldoni, the "Moliere of Italy." More to gratify the patriotism of my friend than from any predilection for the task, I began to read the com- edies of this Venetian dramatist of the eighteenth cen- tury; my work had not progressed far, however, before I became grateful to Signor Sabetta for hav- ing pressed upon me with Italian fervour the subject of a book, Goldoni being, as I soon discovered, a genius of the stage to whom the English world of letters has paid scant honour. Indeed, that very so- briquet, the "Moliere of Italy," has sorely blinded non-Italian eyes to his originality, his dramatic naturalism being peculiarly his own, and his genius quite distinct from that of Le Grand Comique. Al- though Signor Wolf-Ferrari's pleasing music to Le Donne curiose, or the occasional performance of a comedy, either in the original by Italian players, or in English by some college club or local dramatic troupe, has made Goldoni's name appear now and then on an English or American program, I venture to say that it is still unknown in the English-speaking world, except to the student or traveller. Goldoni's x PREFACE fellow-countrymen, however, have written of him even more generally than the French have of their genius of comedy, while the second centenary of his birth, celebrated in 1907, was made the occasion of a demonstration more truly national than any ever accorded to the memory of either Shakespeare or Moliere. In writing this biography, my intention has been to tell the story of Goldoni's life for English readers, and, at the same time, to trace the main currents of his prolific work for the stage of his day. He wrote nearly three hundred plays and libretti, and his ef- forts covered practically the entire realm of the drama ; yet he is eminent only as a writer of comedy, I have laid particular stress, therefore, upon his comedic work, my aim having been to present Gol- doni not only as a fruitful dramatist, but also as a naturalistic painter of life, whose comedies present a vivid picture of an epoch. His memoirs, begun in his seventy-seventh year and finished when he had reached the ripe age of eighty, are so delightfully ingenuous and frank that I have quoted freely from their pages, it being my conviction that no biographer can portray this merry Venetian more charmingly or more faithfully than he has portrayed himself. In the chapters devoted to the comedies, I have translated all the quoted passages, whether in prose or verse, using English heroic measure for the ex- cerpts from the versified plays. The Italian verse form most commonly employed by Goldoni is the PREFACE XI Martellian rhymed couplet, a form suggestive of the French Alexandrine, and like it opposed to the spirit of our language. It has seemed wise, therefore, to use, as I did for my translations of Moliere's Alexan- drines, the blank verse measure of our own dramatic poetry, rather than attempt to render in English Goldoni's rhymed heptameters. In order that the reader, unacquainted with Ital- ian, may understand their significance, the titles of Goldoni's plays, as well as those by other writers of the period, have been translated. The first time a play is mentioned, or when it becomes the subject of special comment, I have, as in Mo Here: A Biog- raphy, given the foreign titles in parentheses. For the Italian titles of plays and books, the prevailing continental method of capitalization has been used. In order not to mar the appearance of the pages by a too frequent use of italics, Italian words such as scenario or cicisbeo, of which repeated use is made, have, after their first appearance, been printed in Roman type ; while, for a like reason, French words in familiar use have not been italicized. In the footnotes, intended for the student rather than the general reader, only the Italian titles of plays appear, the index being so arranged that the references to any particular play may be found by consulting the title in either English or Italian. The footnotes also give the authorities for important statements, as well as the titles of books or articles from which quotations have been made. The reader xii PREFACE seeking original sources, or wishing to pursue further the study of the dramatist, may find in the bibliogra- phy a comprehensive list of the titles, authors, and dates of publication of the books and articles which deal with Goldoni's life and works, or are valuable as biographical and critical sources. It may be said in this connection that Goldoni has been singularly neglected by Anglo-Saxon writers. Though a few of his comedies have been translated, none of his masterpieces in the Venetian dialect have been brought within the reach of English readers. An incomplete and inadequate translation of his de- lightful memoirs was made by John Black in 1814, an abridged edition of which was published in Boston in 1877, with a biographical introduction by Mr. Howells, in which Goldoni's character is drawn with both benignity and charm. In her Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy, Vernon Lee devotes an excellent, though cursory, chapter to his life and dramatic work; in the introduction to his translation of Carlo Gozzi's memoirs John Addington Symonds presents, albeit grudgingly, Goldoni's merits ; while in an introduction to an inferior translation of four of his comedies, published in 1892, Miss Helen Zim- mern narrates with considerable inaccuracy the prin- cipal events of his life. To this list of English writ- ings may be added Edward Copping's Alfieri and Goldoni: Their Lives and Adventures, published in 1857, and Mr. Lacy Collisorr-Morley's recently pub- lished Modern Italian Literature, which contains PREFACE Xlll a review of the dramatist's work; yet there is no book in English devoted entirely to this master spirit of Italian comedy. With less excuse, it would seem, in view of the fact that he wrote for their own stage, French men of letters have been quite as remiss in regard to Goldoni as our own have been. In his delightful Venise au XVIII e siecle Philippe Monnier devotes a pleasing but brief chapter to the dramatist's life and work. Charles Rabany's Carlo Goldoni: Le theatre et la vie en Italie au XVIII e siecle is comprehensive but not always accurate; while M. Maurice Mignon's chapter on Goldoni in his recently published Etudes de litterature italienne is but a superficial review of the dramatist's career. Probably because of Goethe's praise of him, the Germans have been more assiduous than other for- eigners in studying Goldoni, a goodly number of books and doctors' theses devoted to him having ap- peared in Germany. Among them should be noted J. H. Saal's translation of forty-four of Goldoni's plays, the late Hermann Von Lohner's critical edi- tion of the first volume of Goldoni's Memoires and his studies on Goldoni's life in the Ateneo Veneto, H. A. Luder's Carlo Goldoni in seinem Verhaltnis zu Moliere, J. Merz's Carlo Goldoni in seiner Stel- lung zum franzosischen Lustspiel, Marcus Landau's Carlo Goldoni, J. L. Klein's Geschichte des italien- ischen Dramas, L. Mathar's Carlo Goldoni auf dem Deutschen Theater des XFIII Jahrhunderts, xiv PREFACE and B. Schmidbauer's Das Komische bei Goldoni. To the Italians we must turn, however, when seek- ing accurate information about "Papa Goldoni," as they affectionately style him. While it is impossi- ble to detail here the vast mass of admirable literature concerning him that has been published in Italy, notably in 1907, when the second centenary of his birth was celebrated throughout the Peninsula, atten- tion should be called to the definitive edition of his works now being issued by the Municipality of Venice under the editorship of MM. Edgardo Mad- dalena, Cesare Musatti, Giuseppe Occioni-Bonaf- fons, Federico Pellegrini, Angelo Scrinzi, and Giu- seppe Ortolani, most of whom in previous books and articles have written both ably and copiously upon the dramatist and his works. To the names of these writers and editors should be added those of MM. Guido Mazzoni, Dino Mantovani, Vittorio Mala- mani, Ferdinando Galanti, Luigi Rasi, Alessandro D'Ancona, Ernesto Masi, Carlo Borghi, and Angelo De Gubernatis, some dead, others still living, yet all ardent Goldonists, whose work, invaluable to stu- dents, has enriched the literature of Italy. A feature which should prove of value to the student is the catalogue of Goldoni's plays, libretti, and miscellaneous writings, to be found in Appendix A, (page 60 1 ) . Arranged chronologically, this cata- logue gives the present, as well as the original, titles of the plays, their sources and salient aspects, and is, I believe, the most comprehensive outline of Gol- PREFACE xy doni's works yet published. While preparing the material for this book, I compiled for my own use a card index containing a summary of each of the comedies, together with its dramatis personae, its dis- tinctive characteristics, and the approximate date of its first production. When engaged in this work, I was much hampered by the lack of any trustworthy list of Goldoni's plays. I saw, however, that the fre- quent inaccuracies of his memoirs, as well as the con- flicting evidence of contemporary documents, would make its preparation an onerous undertaking, requir- ing for its accomplishment months or even years of careful research. Not wishing to retard unduly my biographical work, I asked Dr. F. C. L. van Steen- deren, Professor of the Romance languages in Lake Forest College, to prepare such a chronological cata- logue of the plays as my experience had shown me to be sorely needed. The patience, zeal, and scholar- ship displayed by him soon convinced me that he possessed every quality necessary for the fulfilment of this arduous task; therefore I felt warranted in entrusting it plenarily to him. The scholarly cata- logue he has devised is so entirely his own work, that I take sincere pleasure in giving him the fully mer- ited credit for its preparation, as well as for that of the accompanying biographical chronology and bibliography, which have also been prepared by him. I should, in further justice, add that I have profited by Professor van Steenderen's chronological re- searches, and that I have sought his philological ad- xvi PREFACE vice regarding the translation of obscure Italian or dialectic passages I have wished to quote. A word regarding the illustrations. The frontis- piece is the portrait of Goldoni by Alessandro Longhi ; the others are reproductions of paintings by this artist's father, Pietro Longhi, whose pictures, like Goldoni's plays, present faithfully and genially the life of Venice during the years of her decadence. Pietro Longhi has been called the Venetian Ho- garth ; yet his work is less pessimistic than the Eng- lishman's, his aim having been to arouse a smile rather than to point a cynical moral. In the words of Signor Aldo Rava, his biographer: "His genius is daintily exquisite, and indulgent of the human foibles which present it with so many acceptable subjects; though he never lays bare, as does Hogarth both often and harshly, either the sores or the wickedness of contemporary life." It has seemed peculiarly ap- propriate to illustrate this biography with the brush- work of a contemporary who portrayed upon canvas the life of eighteenth-century Venice as minutely and indulgently as Goldoni pictured it upon the stage. For providing me with proof-sheets of the valuable note storiche of the edition of Goldoni's plays being published by the Municipality of Venice, as well as for the continued and kindly interest he has taken in my work, I am greatly beholden to Professor Ed- gardo Maddalena of Vienna. While gathering my material I was graciously aided by the late Dr. Carlo Malagola, State Archivist of Venice, Signor Luigi PREFACE xvn Ferro, his assistant, and Dr. Angelo Scrinzi, Director of the Museo Civico ; during a sojourn in Venice, or since my return to my own country, I have received helpful civilities from His Excellency, Baron Mayor des Planches, formerly Ambassador of Italy to the United States, Count Bolognesi, Italian Consul in Chicago, Professor Giuseppe Ortolani, Dr. Cesare Musatti, Dr. Tomaso Sandonnini, Professor Gil- berto Secretant, Professor Italico Brass, Com- mendatore Ferdinand Ongania, and Mr. George Pea- body Eustis. To my colleagues, Mr. Henry B. Fuller and Mr. Wallace Rice, I am indebted for fraternal assistance in reading the proofs ; and to Mr. Rice for technical suggestions regarding the metrical translations, the versification in one instance (page 463) being his. I wish to take this opportunity to thank these Ital- ian and American gentlemen for their courtesy, and at the same time to express to them my appreciation of the encouragement and help they have extended to me during the writing of this book. H. C. C-T. Lake Forest, Illinois, September first, 1913. GOLD ONI CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN one of the sunlit squares of Venice stands the pleasing statue of a man, dressed in the fashion of the eighteenth century. His right hand grasps the round head of a cane; his left is carelessly folded behind his back; a few sheets of paper, possibly an act of a comedy, protrude from his pocket, and his foot is advanced as if he were taking a leisurely step toward the Rialto hard by. The smile on the round face beaming beneath the periwig and the three-cornered hat of this man of long ago, is so genial that the most casual tourist will tarry to admire, even though the name "Goldoni," on the base of the statue, be meaningless to him. Ob- scured though his reputation may be abroad, in Venice this genius of Italian comedy is "Gran Gol- doni," most beloved of her children ; and it is meet that his statue should adorn one of those little Vene- tian squares whose life he translated so inimitably to the stage. The smile the sculptor has portrayed is typical of this gentle lover of mankind. Born in Venice at the beginning of the eighteenth century, he died in Paris while the drums of the Revolution were beat- 3 4 GOLDONI ing the reveille of freedom; yet, though the pikes of a new order gleamed beneath his humble window and the air of his adopted land was rent by curses on the regime he had served, he died as he had lived a kindly man of "the merry century." It was the century of reason as well as of merri- ment: though when her satiated neighbours forswore enjoyment to prate of human rights, Italy sighed and sang, and when conquerors bled her, to deaden the pain she jingled her merry carnival bells. In that listless land there was, however, one proud city that had never bowed to Guelph or Ghibelline, nor been ravaged by the armies of France and Austria; for in Venice a doge of native blood still ruled. There the three Inquisitors and the Council of Ten still sat in their imposing robes of state; there im- peachments were still dropped stealthily into the Lion's Mouth, while cloaked spies lurked in the shadow of the walls; the manners, laws, and cus- toms of Venice, matured during thirteen centuries of self-government, being still uncontaminated by modern influences. Yet Venice was no longer the lusty city she had been in her prime, the League of Cambrai and Turkish valour having shorn her of her strength, the rust of luxury having stolen in to corrupt. Though the oarsmen of her gilded ship of state, Bucentaur, were still clad in red velvet and gold lace, she was feeble with old age. Yet, because of her independence and her freedom from papal influence, she was unique among Italian states. No- CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 5 where else in the Peninsula was life so animated, no- where else were there so many bright intellects, such refinement and good-fellowship; no other city was so pleasure-loving, not even Paris. Fear, however, as well as revelry, had sapped her strength. Her territories on the mainland had dwindled to a few contiguous towns, and the Turk had finally wrested from her all but the illusion of her colonial great- ness, tinging with irony these haughty words pro- nounced by her Doge when, on Ascension Day, amid the flashing of gilded oars and the fluttering of hand- kerchiefs and fans, he cast her golden wedding-ring into the fickle sea : "Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri perpetui- que dominii" Her corrupt society squandered the nights in dancing and gambling at the Ridotto, 1 and frittered the days away in ladies' boudoirs; her joyous people were ever in the streets, laughing at dull care, for Venice, ruled by Folly in bright rib- bons and bells, was perpetually reeling with joy and mad caprice. Indeed, there was scarcely a day when a saint was not honoured or a hero glorified; scarcely a day when the balconies along the Grand Canal were not hung with cloth of gold and rich tapestries. But the most joyous holiday was the Carnival, when every one, from doge to soubrette, went masked, 1 The Ridotto (assembly room), a public casino and gaming-house, opened in 1638, was run as a government concession in an effort to over- come the abuses of private gambling. Its rooms were closed permanently Nov. 27, 1774, and turned into government offices. 6 GOLDONI humoured and protected by the State in saying and doing anything that might give pleasure the Car- nival, alive during the autumn in spirit, when mask- ing was permitted, and actually lasting from Christ- mas until Lent. Enervated by wealth and a luxury too long enjoyed, Venice in the eighteenth century was indeed a conscienceless city, the casuistry of her Jesuits having shorn vice of compunction; yet she was not a Sodom in a worthy land, since throughout the Peninsula, and the rest of Europe as well, moral delinquencies obtained, sometimes in an even greater degree. Only in the haunts of trade, where the merchants of Venice counted their ducats behind iron-barred windows, was there se^^jpess and worth. These thrifty men lamented ^re departed glory of their city, and shook their grey heads ominously, when the carnival noises echoed from a neighbouring piazzetta. But they were fewer in number and poorer than their ancestors had been in the days when the argosies of Venice brought to her road- stead the wealth of the Orient, when the Honed ban- ner of St. Mark floated over Cyprus and the Morea, Candia and the Cyclades ay, even above the walls of Athens and Byzantium. An age is reflected by its art, and the art of Italy during "this century of incapacity and indolence" was as feeble and flippant as its enervated society; for whenever an effeminate coterie styling itself L'Arcadia lolled in the shade of the Bosco Parrasio CARNIVAL MASKERS Musco Correr CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 7 near Rome or foregathered in some stuffy drawing- room, it made a languorous mockery of literature, almost as flaccid as the emasculation that permitted its men to philander and frame affected verses, while foreign armies tyrannized over their land. Only in free Venice was the art not contemptible, for here a spirit akin to nationality inspired the pens of stern Apostolo Zeno and testy Carlo Gozzi, as well as the brushes of Tiepolo, the dazzling idealist of that age, of La Rosalba, its amorous portraitist, and of Longhi, its minute interpreter. Tiepolo adorned the domes and ceilings of Venice with religious and profane myths, limpid in atmosphere and radiant with light; La Rosalba and Longhi hung on its walls pictures of itself, the brush of the one disclosing the languor of its boudoirs, that of the other, the vivacity of its streets. In the canvases of Pietro Longhi, the care-free life of Venice in the merry eighteenth century is portrayed minutely, scarcely a phase of it, from the Ridotto with its brazen crowd to the humblest tavern, being slighted by his dextrous hand; but while this little Venetian Hogarth delved into every corner of "the city of whims," another and a greater artist strolled through its streets, studying its people and their customs in order that he, too, might por- tray its life. This artist was Carlo Goldoni, the dramatist whose genial statue 2 now adorns the little Venetian square of San Bartolomeo, scarcely a 2 Modelled by Antonio Dal Zatto and unveiled in 1883. 8 GOLDONI stone's throw from the Rialto busy centre of the joyous life he pictured in words. On February 25th, 1707, while the merry din of a waning carnival was echoing through the streets, Goldoni came into the care-free world of Venice, in a "palazzo" of the narrow Calle di Ca Cent' anni, "a large and beautiful house," as he calls it in his guileless memoirs, 3 situated in the Parish of S. Toma, between the bridge of Nomboli that for- merly spanned the quiet canaletto before its door and that of Donna Onesta. The graceful facade of this four-storied palazzo presents to the passer-by of to-day an air of former respectability and com- fort that does not belie the state of Goldoni's parents at the time when he was born. About the middle of the seventeenth century a family flourished at Modena whose surname, Guldoni, as it was formerly spelled, is found in Modenese records as far back as 1401. 4 Its head was Francesco Maria Guldoni, a violinist in the orchestra of the Duke of Parma. He married a girl named Virginia Barilli, three sons and a daughter being born to them, called respectively Carlo Alessandro, Alberto, Luigi, and Antonia, the first of whom was our dramatist's paternal grand- father. 3 Memoir es de M. Goldoni pour servir a I'histoire de sa vie, et a celle de son theatre, from which the quotations in these pages, not otherwise indicated, are made. 4 A. G. Spinelli and E. P. Vicini, in Modena a Carlo Goldoni, trace the dramatist's descent from a certain Francesco Guldoni, who died in 1584, the name Guldoni occurring in records, however, as far back as 1401. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 9 The family of which Carlo Alessandro was a member, had been since the sixteenth century in easy circumstances. His maternal uncle was councillor of state to the Duke of Modena, and Carlo Ales- sandro himself was educated at Parma, in a college which numbered among its pupils many sons of the nobility. His own parents must, therefore, have been well-to-do and respected. Furthermore, when he left Modena to become a resident of Venice, he is said to have been "loved and esteemed not only by everybody, but by the Court as well." His brother, it may be added, became a colonel in the army of the Duke of Modena, and later command- ant at Finale. "Two noble Venetians with whom he had been at school in Parma" had urged Carlo Alessandro Goldoni, so his grandson tells us, to remove to Venice, 5 and there he obtained through their in- fluence "a very honourable and lucrative appoint- ment" in the office of the Five Commercial Sages, a body originally instituted to assist and supervise com- merce, but which, in the seventeenth century, had be- come a tribunal for the adjudication of disputes be- tween oriental residents in Venice. Before he reached Venice, Carlo Alessandro had 5 The year of Carlo Alessandro's removal to Venice is unknown. His son, Giulio, Goldoni's father, who, the dramatist says, was born in Venice, was twenty years old in 1703, which would indicate that Carlo Alessandro had moved to Venice prior to the year 1683, a theory authenticated by the fact that he assisted in receiving the Duke of Modena, Francesco II, when the latter visited Venice during that year. Modena a Carlo Goldoni, and // Padre di Goldoni, by A. Lazzari. io GOLDONI already married (1670) a Paduan lady named Cat- terina Pasini, and their son, Giulio Goldoni, born in Venice about the year 1683, was tne dramatist's father. 6 In his memoirs, Goldoni states that "his grand- father married 'en premieres noces' Mademoiselle Barilli, and that his second wife was a respectable widow with two daughters, belonging to the Salvioni family"; the dramatist's father, Giulio Goldoni, having married the elder of his step-sisters, "a pretty brunette, who limped a little and who was very piquante." Yet Hermann von Lohner 7 points out that there are documents in the archives of the Curia patriarcale to show that Carlo Alessandro married neither a Barilli nor a Salvioni, his first wife being Catterina Pasini, and his second, whom he married in 1699, Marta Cappini of Peschiera, who lived in Venice. Barilli, however, was the maiden name of the dramatist's great-grandmother, and Salvioni that of his mother. It is easier to believe that Goldoni, writing his memoirs at the age of eighty, should have mistaken the maiden name of his great-grandmother for that of his grandmother, than that he should have been guilty of misstating that his father married his step- 6 This is Von Lohner's statement. A. G. Spinelli, however, says that in 1670 he had already lost his second wife. (Modena a Carlo Goldoni.} Since Carlo Alessandro was born in 1645, and was therefore twenty-five years of age in 1670, Von Lohner's statement is probably correct. 7 Memoir es de M. Goldoni, corrected and annotated by Hermann von Lohner. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH u sister. Possibly Salvioni was the name of the first husband of the Marta who was Carlo Alessandro's second wife, and Cappini that of her own family. 8 Yet of far more interest than the correct maiden name of Carlo Alessandro's second wife, is the prodigal and pleasure-loving nature of that good man, the dramatist having inherited many of the traits he thus ascribes to his grandfather: He was a worthy man, but in no wise economical, and being fond of pleasure he readily adapted himself to Venetian gaiety. He had rented a fine country house belonging to the Duke of Massa-Carrara, on the Sile, in the Marca Trevigiana, about six leagues from Venice; and there he led a merry life. The neigh- bouring landowners could not endure having Goldoni invite vil- lagers and strangers to his home, and one of his neighbours took steps to oust him from his house, but my grandfather went to Car- rara and leased all the properties the Duke possessed in the State of Venice. Returning home proud of his victory, he increased his expenditures. He gave comedy and opera at his house, all the best actors and celebrated musicians being at his command, and his guests coming from all quarters. I was born in the midst of this riot and luxury. Was it possible for me to scorn theatrical enter- tainments? Was it possible for me not to love gaiety? According to Goldoni, this merry and typical Venetian spendthrift died in 1712, his second wife soon following him to the grave. Yet Hermann von Lohner and Carlo Borghi, 9 the most assiduous students who have investigated Goldoni's early life, agree in their belief that Carlo Alessandro died about 8 A surmise concurring with that of A. G. Spinelli and E. P. Vicini. (Modena a Carlo Goldoni.} 8 Hermann von Lohner, op. cit., and Carlo Borghi, Memorie sulla vita di Carlo Goldoni. 12 GOLDONI 1703, and that his wife had died previous to that year; therefore the riot and luxury into which the dramatist was born were probably instigated by his father, a surmise according with Goldoni's own statement that "his father's education was not what it ought to have been." "He did not lack intelli- gence," he adds ; "but he had not been properly cared for. He could not retain his father's post, which a clever Greek was able to wrest from him." More- over, he apparently did his best to spoil his son, since he ordered a puppet-show to be built for him when he was but four years old, which he manipulated himself with the assistance of three or four friends. Indeed, both the dramatist's parents were fondly in- dulgent, as Goldoni thus indicates : My mother brought me into the world with little pain, and this increased her love for me ; my first appearance was not, as is usual, announced by cries, and this gentleness seemed an indication of the pacific character which from that day on I have ever preserved. I was the idol of the house; my mother taking charge of my edu- cation, and my father of my amusements. Whether Goldoni's grandfather was alone respon- sible for the dissipation of the family fortune, or whether Giulio Goldoni continued the prodigal life his father, Carlo Alessandro, had inaugurated, until "the freehold property of the family in Modena was sold, and the entailed property mortgaged," is a matter of slight importance in comparison with the cruel fact that, through extravagance and riotous liv- ing, the fortune became so reduced during the dram- CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13 atist's childhood, that "its sole possession was the Venetian property of his mother and aunt." Signer Lazzari 10 insists, in fact, that Goldoni was not born "in the midst of the riot and luxury" of his grand- parents' house, but "in very modest surroundings.' 7 In any event, the family became impoverished, and its burdens were heightened by the birth of another son named Gian Paolo, 11 destined to become a thorn in its side. "Embarrassed by financial losses" and "oppressed by melancholy," Giulio Goldoni, the dramatist's father, left his hearth-side and went to Rome where, on the advice of a Venetian friend named Alessandro Bonicelli, he studied medicine under Giovanni Lancisi, the physician of Pope Cle- ment XL 12 When he had obtained his doctor's de- gree, 13 he settled in Perugia, where he practised medicine. Though he pursued his studies to the worthy end of earning a livelihood, Giulio Goldoni deserted an estimable wife, whom he left in Venice with her two children and her sister, to brave the reverses in the 10 Op. cit. 11 Hermann von Lohner, op. cit., and Carlo Goldoni e le sue memoire, notes that a Gian Paolo Goldoni was born Oct. i, 1709, and baptized in the Parish Church of S. Toma five days later; another Gian Paolo being born Jan. 10, 1712, and baptized on the i6th of that month, also in the church of S. Toma; facts which indicate that the former died in infancy, and that the latter, the brother of whom Goldoni makes frequent mention in his memoirs, was given the same name Gian Paolo or Giampaolo, as it is frequently written. 12 According to Carlo Borghi (op. cit.), he first studied medicine in Modena in 1704, under Francesco Tarti. 13 Arnaldo Delia Torre (Sagglo dl una bibliografia delle opere intorno a Carlo Goldoni) places the conferring of this degree in the year 1718. 14 GOLDONI family fortunes, Margherita Salvioni, the drama- tist's mother, being, as he informs us, "pious, but not bigoted," while on another occasion he speaks of her as "that tender mother who always caressed me, but never complained of me." When her husband went to Rome, she farmed out Gian Paolo, her youngest son, and busied herself solely with the future genius of Italian comedy, who was "gentle, quiet, and obedient," he assures us, and able to read and write at the age of four, when his education was entrusted to a tutor. He was fond of books, and as his mother "gave herself no concern" about his choice of them, he delighted in the comedies he found in his father's library, those of Cicognini being his "preference." At the age of eleven, 14 he had "the presumption" to write a comedy, the following being his account of this precocious commencement of his life-work: My aunt laughed at me, my mother both scolded and caressed me, my tutor affirmed that it contained more wit and common sense than was compatible with my age; but the most singular 14 In his memoirs and in the preface to Vol. I of the Pasquali edition, Goldoni says he was eight years of age, when he wrote this comedy. In the preface to Vol. II of the Pasquali edition, however, he says that he was nine at the time. In the same preface, as well as in the Memoirs, he says that as soon as his father in Perugia became aware of his eldest son's "happy faculties," he sent for him. In the preface to Vol. Ill of the same edition, he says that he was twelve when he acted in a play at Perugia, and that this was in the year he had honours in Latin. Since he arrived in Perugia "in the middle of the course of the stagione" and gained his Latin honours at the end of it, he must have been twelve years old not more than a year after he arrived in Perugia. This would make the age at which he wrote his first comedy eleven, or a trifle less, but cer- tainly not the age of eight, given in the Memoirs, a view in which A. Delia Torre and Guido Mazzoni concur. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 15 thing was that my godfather, a lawyer, richer in money than in knowledge, would not believe that it was my work. He main- tained that it had been revised and corrected by my tutor, who considered this opinion shameful; but luckily, when the dispute was w%xing warm, ... a third person made his appearance, who was able to pacify them, ... a friend of the family, who, having seen me at work on the play, bore witness to my puerilities and flashes of wit. This "childish folly," as Goldoni calls it, after going the rounds of his mother's friends, was read by his father, who was so pleased by his son's precocity, that he insisted upon his joining him in Umbria, a demand to which his wife reluctantly con- ceded, when a worthy priest, who was a friend of the family, consented to take young Carlo with him on a journey he contemplated making to Perugia. On the way to that pleasing hill-town, our ambitious young Venetian rode a horse for the first time, an experience he thus describes: They laid hold of me by the middle, and threw me into the saddle. Bless me! Boots, stirrups, whip and bridle! What was to be done with all these things? I was tossed about like a sack, the reverend father laughed heartily, the servants ridiculed me, and I laughed at myself ; but by degrees I got acquainted with my nag, whom I regaled with bread and fruit until he became my friend, and in six days' time we arrived at Perugia, There, at the age of twelve, he was placed by his father in a Jesuit school where, according to his own story, he passed the first term's examination at the head of the primary class, and was promoted to a higher grade; yet in the records of the institution his 16 GOLDONI name appears among those who were plucked. 15 More patent than his aptitude for study during this sojourn in Perugia is his love for the stage, a taste his indulgent father apparently shared, since during the school vacation Dr. Goldoni obtained the use of a hall in the Palazzo Antinori, where, under his direction, his son and some schoolmates performed a comedy, 16 young Carlo playing a female part, and speaking the prologue so successfully that he was nearly blinded by a "bushel of sugar-plums" with which he was "overwhelmed," that being "the com- mon form of applause in the Papal States." His father thought that he showed "considerable intelli- gence," but was convinced that he would "never make a good actor." "And he was not mistaken," Goldoni remarks laconically. Unable to endure the separation from her eldest son, Margherita Salvioni finally moved to Perugia, but, accustomed as she was to the mild climate of Venice, the bracing air of the Appennines prevented her from enjoying in Umbria "a single day of good health." His Perugian patron having died, and the 15 A. Valeri, Una, bugia di Carlo Goldoni, in La Rassegna inter nazionale, vol. VIII, 1902. 16 La Sorellina di Don Pilone, by Girolamo Gigli, whom Giulio Caprin styles "the only Italian writer of comedy before Goldoni who had a correct intuition of dramatic art." In regard to this performance it should be noted that while in his memoirs Goldoni gives to his father the credit of inaugurating it, saying among other things that it was he who had the stage built, in the preface to Vol. Ill of the Pasquali edition he says: "The work (prologue) was by the master of the house (Antinori) who had the stage built, and who defrayed all the expenses for the sole glory of having the audience enjoy his exquisite style." CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 17 local physicians having begun "to eye him jealously," Dr. Goldoni went with his family to Rimini, where he tarried long enough to place his son in a Dominican school ; then journeyed to Chioggia, where he left his wife in a salubrious climate, while he went to Modena to salvage something from the wreck of the family fortunes. His studies of the humanities and rhetoric having been completed in Perugia, young Carlo, destined, as he informs us, for his father's profession, was ostensibly attending at Rimini meanwhile, the philosophical lectures of a Dominican logician named Candini. A mild case of smallpox gave him a legitimate excuse for neglecting his studies, but when he had recovered from that noisome disease, Candini's dull lectures drove him to seek distraction in the performances of a troupe of strolling players. Perugia being in the Papal States, women were not permitted to act there ; so at Rimini he saw actresses for the first time and found that they "adorned the stage in a more stimulating way" than beardless youths. Indeed, so alluring were those of Rimini that he left the 'pit where he had gone modestly at first, to join the young sparks he saw loitering in the wings. The brazen looks he received in return for his own shy glances so emboldened him that soon he was enjoying caresses as well, for when the ac- tresses learned that he was a Venetian like them- selves, they showered him with attentions, Florindo, their manager, even inviting him to dine. Alas for i8 GOLDONI dry logic ! No sooner did the young rascal learn that his merry friends were bound for Chioggia than a "longing to see his mother" overcame him, so intense that in spite of the remonstrances of the Riminian friends of his family, he stuffed two shirts and a night- cap into his pockets, and hid himself in the bows of the Thespian barque; with the connivance, be it added, of its crew, for when the sails were set and he had emerged from his hiding-place, he was welcomed by laughing lips to the joyous life he thus depicts: My actors were not like those Scarron describes; yet in the aggregate this troupe aboard-ship presented a pleasing sight. A dozen people as many actors as actresses, a prompter, a stage carpenter, a property man, four maids, two wet nurses, children of all ages, dogs, cats, monkeys, parrots, birds, pigeons, and a lamb it was Noah's Ark. The boat was very large and divided into a number of compartments, each woman having her nook hidden by curtains; a bed was provided for me beside the manager, and we were all comfortable. The supercargo, who was cook and steward as well, rang a little bell as the signal for breakfast, whereupon we gathered in a sort of saloon that had been improvised amidships on the top of boxes, trunks, and bales, and there on an oval table were coffee, tea, milk, joints, water, and wine. The leading lady demanded soup. There was none; whereat she flew into a rage and was only paci- fied with all the difficulty in the world, by a cup of chocolate, she being the ugliest and the most exacting. After breakfast some one suggested that we gamble till dinner time. I played tresset tolerably well, it being my mother's favourite game, which she had taught me. We were on the point of start- ing tresset and piquet, but a faro bank that had been opened on the main-deck attracted all hands more a source of amusement than profit, however, as the manager would not have permitted it to be otherwise. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 19 We gambled, laughed, frolicked, and played jokes till the din- ner bell rang; then rushed to the table. Macaroni! We fell upon it and devoured three soup-tureens-full. Beef a la mode, cold mutton, a loin of veal, a dessert, and a first-rate wine, ah, what a good dinner ! There is no cheer like an appetite. We remained four hours at table, playing various instruments and singing a great deal. The soubrette sang divinely; I eyed her attentively and she aroused in me a strange sensation. A mishap, alas, interrupted the pleasure of the company. A cat escaped from its cage. It was the leading lady's pussy, and she called on all hands for help. We chased it, but the cat, being as savage as its mistress, skipped and leapt about and hid itself everywhere; find- ing itself pursued, it clawed up the mast. Madame Clarice fainted, whereupon a sailor went up the rigging to catch the cat; but it jumped into the sea and remained there. In her despair, its mistress wished to kill every animal in sight and even to throw her maid into her pussy's watery grave. We all took the maid's part and when the quarrel became general, the manager appeared, to laugh and joke and pet the offended woman, until at last she began to laugh herself. Thus the cat was forgotten. Enough, I am convinced. To chat longer about these insig- nificant events would be taking an unfair advantage of the reader. The wind was fair; we were at sea three days, enjoying the same amusements, the same pleasures, and the same appetite. On the fourth day we reached Chioggia. Thus at the age of fourteen, Goldoni was initiated into Bohemianism, and thus a lifelong fondness was engendered in his heart, for he confesses that ever afterwards he entertained "a preferential taste for soubrettes." Yet this stage-struck lad was not wholly compunctionless. With Florindo, the manager, as his emissary, he obtained his mother's forgiving em- brace, and when a letter from his father at Modena announced that through the kind offices of a name- 20 GOLDONI sake, the Marquis Goldoni-Vidoni, 17 a scholarship had been obtained for him in the Papal College at Pavia, the young scapegrace was constrained to realize "the imprudence of his escapade"; his con- science, however, was so slightly smitten that, when his mother forbade him the theatre, he visited the soubrette instead. His father soon returned to Chioggia, fondly ex- pectant that certain properties in Modena might yield enough to permit the family to live comfortably; a hope that made him forgive more readily his rascally first-born for decamping from school with a band of strolling players. Dr. Goldoni, moreover, shared Carlo's liking for actresses, and as he had once ad- mired the leading lady of Florindo's troupe, he felt it necessary, when pardoning his recalcitrant son, to thank these Thespians for their hospitable care of him. Dr. Goldoni settled in Chioggia, and soon had a considerable practice among both rich and poor. His incorrigible first-born, meanwhile, was roaming the streets while awaiting the confirmation of his scholarship at Pavia. To keep him out of mischief, and at the same time give him an insight into the ways of his future calling, his father decided to take him with him on his professional visits. Being called to attend a young woman of questionable character, 17 Pietro Goldoni Vidoni Ajmi, Marquese di San Raffaele e Signore di Viliceto, a Milanese Senator and Governor of Pavia, whom Dr. Goldoni met accidentally in the latter city in 1721, and who befriended him because he was a namesake. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 21 whose mother was her go-between, he left young Carlo in an outer room while he treated his patient, the mother making hay, meanwhile, by arranging a rendezvous between the lad and her daughter. By tracking him to their nest before they had had time to pluck him, a family servant saved this conscience- less fledgling from the claws of these vampires, but it was high time that some employment be found for his idle hands. "I was naturally joyous," Goldoni tells us, "yet sub- ject from childhood to hypochondriacal or melan- cholic vapours." Attacked by "this lethargic ill- ness" after the departure of his Thespian friends, he vainly sought amusement in Chioggia, until he be- came "gloomy and thoughtful" and "lost weight per- ceptibly." As he had evinced an aversion for medicine, it was decided at a family council that he should study law while awaiting the time of his matriculation at Pavia; whereupon he was taken to Venice by his mother, and installed in the law office of Gian Paolo In- dric, a prominent barrister and his uncle by mar- riage. There he "discharged his duties with accuracy," and "merited his uncle's praise," but found time, nevertheless, to "avail himself of the pleasures of a residence in Venice," its seven theatres being his especial delight. Throughout the summer of 1722, he remained in the city of the lagoons, and in the au- tumn, accompanied by his father, he set out for Pavia, 22 GOLDONI word having been received that the promised scholar- ship had been awarded him. In Modena the journey was arrested for three days to enable Dr. Goldoni to collect "certain governmen- tal annuities and house rents" that were due him, a lucky provision, since on reaching Milan he was in- formed by his noble benefactor that before his son could enter the Ghislieri College at Pavia, a papal in- stitution, he must be tonsured, as well as provided with certificates of baptism, celibacy, and good moral character. Having had no premonition of these re- quirements, father and son were forced to tarry at Milan, while Madame Goldoni obtained the neces- sary documents in Venice. The three certificates were soon forthcoming, but the patriarch of Venice would not grant permission for Carlo to be tonsured, "with- out the settlement of the patrimony ordained by the canons of the Church." As Dr. Goldoni's property was not situated in the Venetian dominions, and his wife's was entailed, it became necessary to apply to the senate for a dispensation, a bit of ecclesiastical red tape that postponed the matriculation for several months. As the guests of the Marquis Goldoni, Carlo and his father tarried in Milan for a fortnight, then set out for Pavia, "well provided with letters of recommendation." There they lodged in "a good bourgeois house" while awaiting the official docu- ments. An introduction from the Marquis Goldoni to Professor Lauzio enabled Carlo to attend the lec- tures of that jurisconsult in the meantime, and also to CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 23 browse in his library, where he devoured a collection of ancient and modern comedies, whenever he became weary of thumbing musty treatises on Roman law. While ransacking Professor Lauzio's book shelves for plays to read, he made the mortifying discovery that there was an English, a Spanish, and a French drama, but no Italian drama. "Wishing passionately to see his country rise to the level of others," he vowed he would contribute his share to that end. Though he kept this youthful resolution worthily, this lad in his teens could scarcely have foreseen that he was destined to rescue Italian comedy from the obscene mire in which it wallowed, and by cleansing it and imbuing it with nationalism, raise it almost to the superlative level French comedy had attained in the hands of Moliere. While thus conceiving his life-work, he awaited impatiently the documents that would permit him to become a full-fledged collegian. When they finally arrived, he received the tonsure at the hands of the cardinal-archbishop of Pavia (Dec. 25, 1722), and entered the Ghislieri College. He was not quite six- teen when he donned the sovrana or college gown, bearing on a velvet stole attached to the left shoulder the Ghislieri arms embroidered in gold and silver, the pontifical tiara and the keys of St. Peter, a costume, as he confesses, "calculated to give a young man an air of importance and arouse his vanity." At the Ghislieri College, the students "acted pre- 24 GOLDONI cisely as they pleased," he informs us, "there being a great deal of dissipation within, and a great deal of freedom without." He learned fencing, dancing, music, and drawing, as well as "all possible games of commerce and chance," and contrived meanwhile to find his way "into the most charming houses of the town." His Venetian jargon "was agreeable to the ladies," his age and figure "were not displeasing," and his couplets and songs "were by no means ill-rel- ished." "Was it my fault," he laments, "if I em- ployed my time badly? Yes ; for there were a few wise and correct fellows among the forty composing our number, whom I should have imitated." Indeed, many escapades mar young Goldoni's course at the Ghislieri College, he being by his own confession "joyous, weak, and fond of pleasure." His long summer vacations were passed in the bosom of his fond family at Chioggia, that quaint fishing town appearing to him "more dirty than ever" after a sojourn at Pavia. During his first holiday a worthy canon, to whom he appealed for plays to read, inadvertently gave him Machiavelli's obscene mas- terpiece, The Mandrake (La Mandragola}. His father, who knew its character, lectured him severely for reading it; yet the lad saw that it was the "first comedy of character that had ever fallen into his hands," and he was "charmed by it." Still ignorant of French, he resolved to learn that language in or- der that he might study the comedies of Moliere. Meanwhile, he accustomed himself "to consider men CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 25 closely, and never to let an original character elude him." On the way home from one of his vacations, as the guest of a Venetian diplomat's staff, he travelled luxuriously on the river Po in a private burchiello. There were ten in the party, all players of some in- strument except himself, a lack of musical talent he endeavoured to make up for by writing in verse a daily chronicle of the journey. But this was not his only undergraduate manifestation of literary talent, for when he returned to Chioggia for his second sum- mer holiday, he wrote a sermon at the request of a nun who was his mother's friend. The sermon was about a relic that had just been presented to the nun's con- vent of St. Francis, and a young priest delivered it so effectively that the audience was moved to tears, Goldoni being showered with compliments when it became known that he was its author. Our young student was "plenteously endowed with reason for his age," he says, but he "was at the mercy of rash escapades." And he adds, "they did me great harm, as you will perceive, and you will pity me perhaps." Thus, on his first journey back from Chioggia to Pavia, he stopped at Modena, where the maid-servant of his lodging-house wished to elope with him, but he assures us that he was not "enough of a libertine to take advantage of her." Reaching Piacenza, he found himself, like many another student, stoney-broke, and as fate would have it, he discovered a conscience-stricken relative who con- 26 GOLDONI fessed to owing his father six hundred livres tournols, a goodly sum which the young rogue succeeded in collecting as his father's representative, and thus imbursed, he reached Pavia, where he aroused the envy of his fellow-students by making a six days' journey during the Christmas holidays with his patron, the Marquis Goldoni, a "piece of ostenta- tion" that caused two jealous classmates to lock him in a brothel they had enticed him to enter, without his being aware of its character. He escaped by jumping from a window, but the affair reached the ears of the college authorities. To exonerate him- self, he denounced the guilty, but soon reaped the tattler's reward. There was, it appears, so great an animosity in Pavia between town and gown that forty townsmen resolved never to marry any girl who received the visits of students, with the result that mothers of marriageable daughters proscribed all wearers of the sovrana. Finding the doors of "the charming houses" he had been in the habit of frequenting, closed to him, Goldoni considered his honour at stake, and on the advice of classmates who sought his undoing for the affair of the brothel, he armed himself with a brace of pistols; whereupon his trai- torous comrades secretly denounced him to the col- lege authorities for carrying concealed weapons. Though arrested and confined to his room, he wel- comed his punishment, since it gave him sorely needed time to prepare his thesis; but his enemies, CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 27 alas, invaded his privacy and "tickled his self-love" in this wise : "You are a poet," said they, "and consequently you have surer and better arms for your revenge than pistols and guns. A stroke of the pen opportunely discharged is a bomb that crushes the chief offender, its fragments wounding his adherents right and left." "Courage, courage," they cried in chorus; "we shall supply you with curious anecdotes, and you, as well as ourselves, will be re- venged." Thus tempted, he composed, in the form of a Roman Atellana, a satire entitled The Colossus, which, when circulated throughout the town by Goldoni's false friends, so wounded the sensibilities of twelve worthy and respectable families that they cried for vengeance, and sought the author's life. Luckily, he was still under arrest, but fellow-students were insulted, the Papal College was besieged, and so great was the animosity created by "the piquant sallies and shafts of this vis comica" that the budding dramatist was expelled from his Alma Mater despite the appeals made by his patron, the Marquis Goldoni, to the archbishop, the governor, and the patron of the college. Ashamed to face the scorn of his parents, pro- tectors, and friends, Goldoni resolved to go to Rome, he says, in the hope that Gravina, the poet and critic, would befriend him as he had befriended Metastasio. But Gravina had been dead seven years, so that was a purpose he could scarcely have hoped to fulfil. His state of mind must have been desperate, however, and furthermore, he was penniless. The college au- 28 GOLDONI thorities put him aboard a river packet, paid his fare to Chioggia, and advanced him thirty paoli for con- tingencies. At Piacenza he attempted to go ashore, with the intention of footing it to Rome, but found that orders to detain him had been given ; therefore, as he expresses it, he had "no alternative but to go to Chioggia or throw himself into the Po." On the voyage thither, a Dominican fellow- traveller possessed himself of the remorseful lad's thirty paoli, as "an alms to propitiate the wrath of God"; yet, when Chioggia was reached, this hypo- crite "touched the heart of a tender mother" and ad- monished a good-natured father "not to forget the parable of the prodigal son," so successfully that he fairly earned the lad's paoli, as well as the good meals he ate at the Goldoni board. This monk was an arrant impostor, however, who, unwittingly aided by Dr. Goldoni, obtained from the latter's patients, the nuns of St. Francis, a goodly stock of oil and money in exchange for a sham miracle he performed, by passing a piece of the Virgin's lace through fire, the lace being "nothing more or less than iron wire ar- ranged in such a manner as to deceive the eye." When the nuns had been reprimanded by their bishop, and the monk had decamped, Dr. Goldoni, accompanied by his son Carlo, departed for Udine, a city in the Venetian Friuli, where he had been sum- moned professionally. The future dramatist was now in his eighteenth year. He had run away from one school, and had CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 29 been expelled from another, therefore it was time for him to buckle to serious work; yet though he as- sures us that he profited more during the six months he passed at Udine from the lectures of a juriscon- sult named Movelli, than he had during the three years he had passed at Pavia, he confesses that he was still "young, and required agreeable relaxations." On hearing a quadragesimal sermon delivered by a former Augustinian friar, he wrote a sonnet con- taining "the three points of its division, word for word," and so greatly was he elated by "the praise of a gentleman of Udine well versed in belles-let- tres" that he sonnetized thirty-five more of the same preacher's sermons and published them in pamphlet form, thereby eliciting the preacher's thanks, as well as the praise of the town officials, to whom he had tactfully dedicated these youthful efforts. Though "the novelty of this work thrilled him, and the rapidity with which he executed it surprised him," the young man found "agreeable relaxations" of a less worthy nature. Four doors from his lodg- ing dwelt a young lady "as affable, beautiful, and courteous as she was modest," whom he eyed ardently when she sat in her window, and followed longingly when she went to mass. Her maid soon discovered his infatuation and played upon his ardour to her own profit. She gave him fond notes, and at night beneath a balcony, permitted him tenderly to address "a head covered with a night-cap." When his most amorous words were received with peals of laughter, 30 GOLDONI and the window was shut in his face, the wily maid palliated the affront with the promise of a rendezvous with her mistress, but not until Goldoni had bought and given a present consisting of a cross, earrings, necklace, and brooch of coloured Vienna stones. He saw his inamorata at church, "decked out in his trinkets," and he was "as happy as a king/' but at the rendezvous, the maid appeared instead of the young lady, with a cock-and-bull story to tell about having long concealed her own ardent passion for him, because a cruel mistress wished to prey upon his infatuation. Though she was prepared to give him "most convincing proofs" of her love, Goldoni's sus- picions were aroused, and instead of falling into the amorous trap the minx had set for him, he plotted her undoing. Coached in the wiles of her sex by a little milliner with whom, as he confesses, he had al- ready "taken several pleasure trips," at their next rendezvous he confronted the trickish maid with sev- eral witnesses who knew her character, and forced from her brazen lips the confession that her hand had written the fond notes, that her head had been the one in the night-cap, and that his trinkets had been sold, instead of given, to her unsuspecting mistress, still in blissful ignorance of his passion. "To indemnify himself," as he expresses it, "for the time he had lost," he dallied with the daughter of a lemonade-seller, 18 who abetted her mother in surpris- 18 In the preface to Vol. IX of the Pasquali edition, Goldoni states that she was the daughter of a caffettiere; in his memoirs he describes her as the daughter of a limonadier. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 31 ing him during a nocturnal rendezvous and forcing from him a promise of marriage. To escape from the wiles of these women he fled to Gorz, where his father had gone to attend professionally the Count of Lantieri, an official in the service of the Austrian Emperor. Goldoni remained several months in the household of this nobleman, the greater portion of the time being spent in the count's feudal town of Wippach, where the table was "abundantly served," "the wines excel- lent," and toasts were drunk "every moment." To gratify his young guest's passion for the drama, the Count refurbished a disused puppet-booth, in which, "for the amusement of the company," our future dramatist presented The Sneezing of Hercules (Lo Starnuto di Ercole) , a play for marionettes written by Pier Jacopo Martelli, a poet whose fourteen- syllabled measure, known as Martellian verse, Gol- doni was to use frequently in his versified comedies. While Dr. Goldoni was completing his noble patient's cure, his son visited Laibach, Gratz, Trieste, Aquileia, Gradisca, and Wippach, in the company of the count's secretary. On the completion of this pleasure trip, Carlo returned with his father to Chioggia, where he arrived during the autumn of 1726, Dr. Goldoni having been induced to take a road that did not lead through Udine, his scampish son being in dread of a "disagreeable encounter" with the drabs who had ensnared him. The youthful re- probate thus describes his home-coming: 32 GOLDONI On our arrival at Chioggia we were received as a mother re- ceives a dear son, as a wife receives her dear husband, after a long absence. I was delighted to see again that virtuous mother who was so tenderly attached to me; after having been seduced and de- ceived I needed to be loved. The maternal and filial embraces were of short duration, however, a letter having come from a cousin who lived at Modena, in which young Carlo, being urged to study law at the university there, was offered moral guidance, as well as assistance in finding a suit- able lodging-house. This invitation gave rise "to endless reasonings, for and against, between father and mother," but the master of the house carried the day, and soon the wayward lad was journeying to Mo- dena on a river packet, commanded by "an aged and spare" man named Bastia, who was so devout that he exhorted his passengers to say their rosaries and recite the litanies of the Virgin. The laughter of three renegade Jews, who had so far forsworn their own faith as to eat bacon at dinner, rudely interrupted these devotions; but the piety of the packet's com- mander impressed our contrite young passenger so favourably that, on reaching Modena, he decided to lodge in the river-man's "sanctified house," a decision in which his solicitous relative concurred. Although he began the study of legal procedure under a famous lawyer and had the good fortune to meet Muratori, the historian, whose nephew was his chum, his scholastic career was again cut short. At Modena, however, he was undone by religious fer- CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 33 vour, instead of by student pranks or by the wiles of soubrettes, "a frightful scene" which he witnessed a few days after his arrival having affected his impres- sionable nature so forcibly that his mind was "trou- bled" and his "senses were agitated" in this wise: I saw in the midst of a crowd a scaffold erected to a height of five feet, on which a man appeared with his head bared and his hands bound. He was a priest whom I knew, an enlightened lit- erary man, a celebrated poet, well known and highly esteemed in Italy, he being the Abbe J.-B.-V. 19 One friar held a book, an- other questioned the culprit, who answered haughtily. The spec- tators clapped their hands and encouraged him, the upbraiding increased, the disgraced man trembled ; I could endure it no longer. Thoughtful, disturbed, and amazed, I departed, my vapours attack- ing me immediately. I returned home, and shutting myself in my room, plunged into gloomy and humiliating reflections upon hu- manity. The priest, it appears, had been denounced by a woman for uttering indecent language while giving her the sacrament, and this fellow-sinner's degrada- tion caused Goldoni to review his own amorous de- linquencies so abjectly, that he began to say his rosary devoutly and go to mass daily with Bastia, his pious 19 Hermann von Lohner tried to discover the identity of this abbe. He found the initials J.-B.-V. corresponded to those of the poet Gio. Battista Vicini. A. G. Spinelli later discovered a sonnet, in which it is stated that Vicini "Del foco punitor del Santo Uffizio." A note adds that he "was condemned by the Inquisition on account of his many foolish errors and his obscene lewdness," Spinelli's comment being that "Von Lohner's suppo- sition that the initials J.-B.-V. may hide the name of our poet Gio. Battista Vicini, perhaps touches the truth." This probability is strengthened by a letter from Goldoni, dated Dec. 9, 1757, written as Ernesto Mas! suggests to Vicini, and which contains the following: "Have confidence in a man of honour who esteems you, who has, always esteemed you in spite of certain mortifications for which your enemies are to blame." 34 GOLDONI landlord, a devotee who nourished his young lodger with "so much unction," that he resolved to renounce the world and become a Capuchin monk. But Dr. Goldoni, in the words of his son, "was no fool," for when Carlo announced his intention of "enveloping himself in a cowl," instead of being opposed, he was brought to Venice and taken to the theatres of that joyous city, a cure that in fifteen days drove all thoughts of the cloister from his impressionable mind. When "his vapours were dissipated" and he was "restored to reason," he was taken to Chioggia, where he became, so he says, "dearer and more interesting" to his mother "because of the absence of her younger son." Being destined for the army, Goldoni's ne'er-do- well brother, Gian Paolo, then a lad of fifteen, had been taken to Zara, the capital of Dalmatia, by a soldier cousin of his mother, who "took charge of his education and afterward placed him in his regiment." Meanwhile the first-born, now in his twenty-first year, despaired of his future. He had "experienced so many reverses," and "so many singular catastrophes" had happened to him, that the dramatic art, of "which he was still fond" and which he would long since have embraced had he "been master of his own will," seemed his only resource. But his father, though "vexed to see him the sport of fortune," did not allow himself to be cast down. Being acquainted both with the Podesta of Chioggia and also with the criminal chancellor and his coadjutor, Dr. Goldoni obtained CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 35 for his f reward son an appointment as the coadjutor's assistant, a post "without salary," but which enabled the lad to "enjoy the pleasures of society" as well as "a good table, an abundance of plays, concerts, balls, and banquets." "Aware of the necessity of making a reputation for himself," the young official performed his duties so ably that the criminal chancellor soon entrusted him with "thorny commissions" that did not pass through the lazy hands of his assistant. When transferred to the town of Feltre, the chancellor appointed young Goldoni his coadjutor. Yet, howsoever successfully the future master of Italian comedy may have fulfilled his official duties in Chioggia, the lasting work he per- formed in that odd town was to learn the droll ways of its inhabitants ; since, inspired by his experience as assistant to the coadjutor of Chioggia, he wrote in after years his masterpiece, The Chioggian Brawls (Le Baruffe Chiozzotte) , the first comedy of any land to mirror truly and affectionately the common people, without nobles to scorn them or clowns to belie them. While awaiting the time when he was to leave for Feltre, and assimilating the quaint life of Chioggia he was to paint so inimitably one day, he learned much about human nature from the criminal proceedings in the court of which he was a minor official. Mean- while, he praised the podesta in verse and "expatiated at great length on the virtues and personal qualities of his consort," both of whom had been kind to him. He made love, too, on his own account, but in a way 36 GOLDONI more legitimate than had been his previous wont, for though there was a stain upon the birth of the con- vent pupil who enlisted his affections, she was so "beautiful, rich, and amiable," that he wished to marry her. A nun at the convent where his new inamorata was ensconced pretended to abet his suit, but "Mademoi- selle N. . . . ," as he styles her in his memoirs, had an old guardian who suborned the nun to further his own suit for his ward's hand. This false con- fidante sought to propitiate Goldoni with the assur- ance that as "a young wife must shorten the days of an old husband," he might soon wed "a pretty widow, who had been a wife only in name." Refusing to be thus mollified, he bowed himself out of the convent parlour in silence, "never saw nun or pupil again, and happily soon forgot both of them," a result easy to accomplish, it appears, for no sooner had he been installed in his new office at Feltre than he dis- covered that there was a troupe of actors in that mountain town, among whom was his Riminian friend, Florindo, now reduced by old age to playing the roles of kings in tragedy and fathers in comedy. Yet in spite of his proximity to a provincial green- room, Goldoni assures us that for several months he laid aside every idea of pleasure and amusement, in order to apply himself seriously to official work, a chancellorship being his aspiration. But in the ful- filment of his duties as coadjutor, he was again brought within the allurement of bewitching eyes. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 37 Being ordered to conduct an investigation in the country ten leagues from Feltre, he induced several friends of both sexes to accompany him on a "de- licious expedition," during which they "never dined or supped in the same place, and for twelve nights never slept in beds." Frequently, they went on foot "along delightful roads bordered with vines and shaded by fig trees." Sometimes they breakfasted on milk, and sometimes they shared the fare of peasants; but wherever they went "they saw nothing but fetes, rejoicings, and entertainments," and in the evening "there were balls the whole night long in which the ladies, as well as the men, were indefatigable." In this gay party there were two sisters, and his lik- ing for the unmarried one a young lady "as prudent and modest as her married sister was headstrong and foolish" had inspired Goldoni to organize this de- lectable excursion, which gave him the opportunity to fall in love, and find himself acceptable to the ob- ject of his longing. The effects of "these balls the whole night long," however, were so severe that when the party returned to Feltre, Goldoni was indisposed for a month and his "poor Angelica lay ill of a fever for forty days." There was a theatre in the governor's palace at Feltre, and when the merrymakers had recovered from the fatigues of their journey, Goldoni was asked by his friends to manage some private theatricals. The operas of Metastasio were then the fashion, and as they were "given everywhere even without music," 38 GOLDONI the young impresario selected two of them for pre- sentation, and put the arias into recitative. He re- served the worst parts for himself, and "acted wisely,'* he tells us, he being "completely unsuited to tragedy." "Luckily," he continues, "I had composed two small pieces in which I played two character parts and redeemed my reputation." 20 He tried to induce his "beautiful Angelica" to ac- cept a role in one of these performances, but she was timid, and moreover her parents refused their con- sent. She was jealous, too, and suffered much from seeing her lover on such a familiar footing with the actresses of his amateur troupe. Though "the poor little girl loved him tenderly and sincerely," and he "loved her also with his whole soul," Goldoni did not marry pretty Angelica, the termination of this love affair being thus naively told by him : She was the first person, I may say, whom I had ever loved. She aspired to become my wife, and would have been, if certain strange reflections, that were well founded, however, had not de- terred me. Her elder sister had been a remarkable beauty, but after the birth of her first child she became ugly. The younger had the same complexion, and the same characteristics. Hers was one of those delicate beauties the air injures, and the slightest weari- ness or pain impairs. Of this, I had had evident proof, the fatigue of our journey having changed her tremendously. I was young, and should my w T ife lose her bloom in a short time, I foresaw that this would be my despair. This was reasoning too much for a lover; but either from virtue, weakness, or inconstancy, I left Feltre with- out marrying her. Although he confesses that he had some difficulty 20 // Buon padre sometimes called // Buon vecchio, and La Cantatrlce* CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 39 in tearing himself away from this "charming object of his first virtuous love," he acknowledges that "she possessed only beauty, and as it was already wan- ing, his self-love became stronger than his passion." During the autumn of 1730, he left Feltre to join his father at Bagnacavallo, a town near Ravenna, where Dr. Goldoni, who had gone there to accept "an advantageous offer" to practice medicine, lay ill of a mortal disease. On the way thither, young Carlo was cleverly plucked at faro by a card-sharper, he being "not yet cunning enough," he declares, "to foresee the tricks of Messieurs les Escamoteurs" On arriving at Bagnacavallo, he was "consoled for being swindled, by the sight of his dear parents," his father "having been fearful that he would die with- out seeing him." Dr. Goldoni recovered sufficiently, however, to introduce his son into the best society of his new abode, as well as to take him to Faenza, where the pair saw several comedies performed by a strolling company. On returning to Bagnacavallo, the elder Goldoni, whose "illness was of a year's standing," experienced a relapse so serious that he took to his bed, and after a fortnight, "breathed his last while recommending his dear wife to his son's protection." Goldoni "felt keenly the loss of his father," he as- sures us, and he "endeavoured to console his mother, who in turn tried to comfort him," their first care being to return to Venice. During the journey, the widow urged her son to become a lawyer, and at 40 GOLDONI Venice so many friends and relatives joined her in these solicitations, that he was "at last obliged to yield," though he resisted, he tells us, "as long as he could." In order to be admitted to the Venetian bar, it was necessary for him to receive his doctorate from the University of Padua, where a five-years' residence was required of students of Venetian birth, foreigners alone being permitted "to present themselves and de- fend their theses without delay." Both Goldoni and his father were born in Venice, but they were of Modenese descent; a circumstance that enabled our dramatist to avail himself of the protection of the Duke of Modena, and be admitted to the university as a privileged foreigner. He had studied law in a desultory way at Pavia, Udine, and Modena; yet, realizing the need of tutor- ing, he secured the services of Francesco Radi, a young lawyer who had been his friend during child- hood. Radi was "a worthy man," although "his cir- cumstances were entangled because of his love for gaming," a failing that soon became manifest. The examinations at the University of Padua had been heretofore a mere farce, but the Abbe Arrighi, a Corsican professor, in an excess of zeal had just in- stituted reforms which, according to our young candi- date, "would have destroyed the University of Padua had they been long enforced." Instead of being furnished with both questions and answers in advance of the examination, as had been custom- CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 41 ary, he was examined rigidly by Arrighi him- self, before being permitted to hold his thesis before the college of doctors. He passed this preliminary test none too brilliantly, and being in considerable apprehension regarding the public ex- amination on the morrow, he spent the afternoon in cramming assiduously; but when he sat down at his desk after supper with Radi his tutor, prepared to burn the midnight oil, his room was invaded by five young fellows armed with a pack of cards. Radi, being a gambler born, was the first to succumb to their blandishments ; but Goldoni did not long with- stand temptation, and not till broad daylight, when the beadle of the university brought him his aca- demic gown, did he tear himself away from the green board, and "smarting from chagrin at the loss of both his time and his money" hasten before the college of doctors. In spite of the night's dissipation, he held his thesis so successfully that when the votes were taken, the registrar announced that he had been made a licentiate without a dissenting voice, even Arrighi, the Corsican, being "well satisfied." "I was born lucky," he says, "and whenever I have not been so, the fault has been entirely my own," but on this oc- casion luck certainly prevented a fault from undoing him. Borrowing sufficient money to reach Venice, he hastened there, highly elated by his success, and was received in the loving arms of his proud mother and 42 GOLDONI aunt; but before he could begin the practice of law, he was obliged, according to the Venetian regula- tions, to study the forms and practices of the bar in a law office for two years. His uncle Indric, the barrister, obtained a berth for him in the office of "one of the best pleaders in the republic," and again his luck served him; since owing to the careless- ness of the authorities who examined his papers, within eight months he was permitted to be pre- sented in court. After making "so many bows and contortions that his back was almost broken and his wig resembled the mane of a lion," he was finally ad- mitted to the Venetian bar. A briefless barrister, he began to seek clients. One day while he was "building castles in Spain," he was accosted by "a fair, round, and plump woman of about thirty," who, after telling him that she had made the fortune of "a good dozen of the most famous advocates at the bar of Venice," proceeded to tempt him with some shady cases, for the conduct of which he would be well paid. "My good woman," he answered, "I am young, and entering on my career; yet the desire for work and the itch for pleading will never induce me to undertake such evil cases as you propose, for I am a man of honour." Seeing she could not corrupt him, she admonished him to be "always prudent and always honourable," and left him "lost in astonishment" at her sudden change of heart, till he learned that she was a govern- ment spy who had been sent to sound his integrity. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 43 No longer a precocious child, or a prankish stu- dent, he had embraced at the age of twenty-five, the "lucrative and honourable" profession of the law and had withstood its first temptation. Still he ques- tioned whether he had acted wisely, his "stars hav- ing perpetually thwarted his projects." They had led him, too, into many pitfalls, and shown him more of evil ways than a young man of his age ought in all conscience to have seen. Yet his youth, though unseemly, had been an invaluable school of ex- perience for the life-work which he was soon to un- dertake; for though he had acceded to his mother's wishes, "Thalia," to quote his own words, "expected him in her temple and led him to it through many a crooked path, making him endure the thorns and the briers before yielding him any of the flowers." II THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT ALTHOUGH Thalia expected him in her tem- ple, at no time in his long life was Goldoni so indifferent to her allurements as at the mo- ment when he became a Venetian lawyer. With a doting mother dependent upon him, he had acceded to her wishes and was now a member of a profession so honourable that "even a patrician would not hesi- tate to embrace it"; and he hoped that "perseverance and probity would lead him to the temple of fortune," instead of to Thalia's shrine. "I had been admitted to the bar," he says, "and the next thing was to pro- cure clients"; yet no one sought his advice, except "a few curious persons who wished to sound him, or shufflers of a dangerous sort," that being "the lot," as he adds, "of all beginners." "Truth has always been my favourite virtue," he says in the preface to his memoirs, and being forced "to pass many hours alone in his office," he had an abundance of time in which to realize the truth re- garding himself. Although he had held a thesis suc- cessfully after a night of dissipation, he had done little of which he might be truly proud. He had de- camped from one college and had been expelled from 44 THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 45 another; his love affairs had been mostly of a scan- dalous nature, and he had shown a propensity for gambling, while more than once he had returned to the parental roof a prodigal, seeking forgiveness; yet, in spite of faults he shared with the majority of the Venetians of his day, he was both frank and kind, and never "too proud to help a friend." Being "neither lucky enough to call himself virtuous, nor unlucky enough to be carried away by evil conduct," truth was, indeed, his surpassing virtue. The pages of his candid memoirs teem with self-condemnation, as well as with honest vanity, few autobiographers having equalled him in frankness. An easy-going child of an easy-going age, Goldoni possessed what Mr. Howells calls "the vagabondiz- ing instinct" ; 1 yet in the words of that benign writer, "no kindlier creature seems ever to have lived, and he had traits of genuine modesty that made him truly lovable." In youth and early manhood, the vaga- bondizing instinct obsessed him, for although imbued with "the best intentions in the world of devoting himself to the thing that interested him," that thing was the stage, and from the moment he ran away from Rimini with Florindo's troupe, and the sou- brette aroused in him "a strange sensation," Thalia expected him in her temple. Though he frequented the law courts in hope that "his face might prove sympathetic to some one with a cause to plead," that face was far too jovial to in- 1 Memoirs of Carlo Goldoni, translated from the original French by John Black, with an essay by William D. Howells. 46 GOLDONI spire the confidence of serious clients; therefore, as the theatres of Venice were closed for the summer, to make the time that hung heavily on his idle hands less wearisome, he wrote an almanac, 2 the criticisms and pleasantries of which were of a comic nature, he informs us, "while each prognostication might have furnished the subject for a comedy." "Seized with a desire to return to his old project" of writing comedies, he "sketched a few pieces," but, "reflecting that comedy did not harmonize with the dignity of his gown," he became "guilty of a breach of fidelity to Thalia, by enlisting under the standard of Melpomene," for during the days when "his office brought him in nothing," and he was "under the ne- cessity of turning his time to some account," he wrote / Amalasontha (Amalasunta) , a tragedy for music, destined, as will be seen, to meet a tragic fate. i Although he was "well pleased with his labour" and "found people to whom the reading of it ap- peared to give satisfaction," a law case his uncle Indric had obtained for him, caused him to forswear Melpomene, as well as Thalia, for the time being, and appear in a court of law, a barrister in full stand- ing. Though opposed by Carlo Cordellina, "the most learned and eloquent man at the Venetian bar," our young lawyer's "facts were so convincing," he in- forms us, and "his reasoning was so good, his voice so sonorous, and his eloquence so pleasing," that after 2 L'Esperienza del passato, Astrologo dell' avvenire, Almanacco crltico per I'anno 1732, published anonymously at Venice, 1732. THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 47 speaking for two hours and being "bathed in perspira- tion from head to foot," he won his case, and was assured by his lawyer uncle that henceforth he would never lack for clients, "it being apparent to all that he was a man destined to make his mark in the world." Luckily for posterity, however, the career at the bar thus auspiciously begun was cut short by one of those "inanities and absurdities that were ever crossing his path to stop and hinder the best intentions in the world," a farcical love affair being the cause of a sud- den change in his fortune. His mother had become intimate, it appears, with a "Madame St. , and a "Mademoiselle Mar ," two sisters living in separate apartments, yet under the same roof. Though forty, Mademoiselle Mar was still "fresh as a rose, white as snow, and agreeably plump," and as she was rich, Goldoni decided it would be to his advantage to marry her; therefore, he enlisted his mother in his cause, she promising to make the customary parental advances. Though "the lovers understood each other," Madame Goldoni moved very cautiously, and meanwhile an ugly daughter of Madame St. began to use her roguish black eyes on the young lawyer so effec- tively, that Mademoiselle Mar became jealous of her niece, and to show her displeasure began to receive the attentions of a patrician fortune-hunter. "Seeing himself deprived of the place of honour he had occupied," Goldoni, in pique, began to make love to the niece, and became so completely ena- 48 GOLDONI moured of his "ugly mistress," that he drew up "a marriage contract, regular and formal in every re- spect," by the terms of which he was to be endowed with all the young lady's income while her mother's diamonds were to be given to her. Although he thus proved himself an able solici- tor, in both a legal and an amorous sense, he con- tinued to flirt with Mademoiselle Mar , the aunt, whose patrician suitor, meanwhile, had asked for the half of her fortune as a marriage settlement, and the bequeathal of the other half upon her death. These demands appeared modest in comparison with those Goldoni had imposed upon her niece; yet Mademoiselle Mar was seized with such "transports of rage, hatred, and contempt" that she gave her noble suitor the mitten. Although she "al- most died of grief," she recovered sufficiently to en- deavour to bring Goldoni to her feet once more ; the part he then played being "perfidious," in his opin- ion. His perfidy seems trivial, however, in comparison with the dual fortune hunt in which he had engaged, since it consisted in an offence no more heinous than the writing of some love verses which were set to music by a friend and sung by a professional singer before the door of the apartment house in which both lady- loves dwelt. Each thought the serenade a tribute to her own charms, and the upshot was that Goldoni, being forced to declare himself, eschewed the aunt and accepted the niece. But in spite of the advan- THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 49 tageous contract he had drawn, the fortune of his "ugly mistress" did not materialize, since it consisted solely in the expectation of "one of those life annui- ties destined by the republic for a certain number of the daughters of impoverished patricians," of whom Goldoni's fiancee was fourth in the line of succession. Moreover, her mother refused to part with her dia- monds during her own lifetime. Goldoni's law practice yielded him nothing and he had contracted debts, therefore he saw himself "standing on the brink of a precipice" ; but after sustaining "a distress- ing conflict between love and reason, the latter fac- ulty gained at last a complete dominion over his senses." His mother mortgaged her property to pay his debts ; yet, despite the fact that he had just made a successful debut in court "amid the acclamations of the bar," she agreed with him that "in order to avoid ruin, some violent resolution was absolutely neces- sary"; therefore he decided to flee from Venice. Leaving "his country, his relatives, his friends, his love, his hopes, and his profession," he left, too, a letter for the mother of his betrothed, in which he promised to return and wed her daughter, whenever the conditions of the marriage contract should be fulfilled; then taking to the high-road with his "treasure," the turgid manuscript of Amalasontha, he turned vagabond steps toward Lombardy, in the fond hope of selling that lyrical tragedy to the opera at Milan for a hundred sequins. 50 GOLDONI On the way thither, he stopped a few days at Vi- cenza, where he read Amalasontha to Count Trissino of the family of the renaissance poet of that name. Though wisely advised by this scion of a poetic house to be constant to Thalia, he fared on to Verona, with the hope of meeting Scipione Maflei, a dramatist, who was then striving vainly to elevate the Italian stage; but failing to find this patrician author on the banks of the Adige, he took the Brescia road. Meet- ing at Desenzano a friendly priest who was journey- ing to Salo, he accompanied him to that lakeside town, for the purpose of collecting the rents of a house his mother owned there, he being, as he says, "very short of money." As his mother had mort- gaged her property to pay his debts, she must have been short of money, too ; yet he pocketed her rents without compunction. Journeying on to Brescia, he read Amalasontha to the governor's assessor and a party of his friends, who "listened to it attentively and applauded it unanimously" ; yet to this judicious assembly, the young author's style appeared more adapted to tragedy than opera; therefore, he was ad- vised to suppress the lyrics, and make Amalasontha purely a tragedy. Scorning this sage counsel, he started for Milan, confident that its opera would soon vindicate him. At Bergamo, he tarried long enough to borrow ten sequins from the governor of that craggy city and obtain from his wife letters of introduction to per- sons of influence in Milan, their excellencies being THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 51 none other than the Podesta of Chioggia and his con- sort, whose praises Goldoni had sung in verse while holding in that town the office of coadjutor's assistant. Having thus received back the bread he had once cast upon the waters of courtesy, he hastened to Milan, where he alighted at a famous inn, because, as he says, "when you wish to show yourself to advantage, you must appear rich, even when not so." Upon pre- senting to Orazio Bartolini, the Venetian minister resident, the letter of introduction given him by the wife of the governor of Bergamo, he was received by that diplomat in "a most frank and encouraging way." Bartolini laughed heartily at Goldoni's re- cital of the story of the amorous mishap that led him to flee from Venice, and offered to assist him finan- cially; but the young wanderer still possessed a few of the governor of Bergamo's sequins as well as his precious Amalasontha; therefore he declined this generous offer, and went forth hopefully to present his lyrical tragedy to the management of the opera. Both Caffariello, the leading tenor, and Madame Grossatesta, the premiere danseuse, were Venetians with whom he was already acquainted, and through the kind offices of the latter, he met the principal singers of the opera, as well as Count Francesco Prata, one of its directors, who forthwith invited him to read Amalasontha to the company assembled in La Grossatesta's drawing-room. Goldoni's account of this reading paints so vividly the vain ways of stage folk, that the reader familiar with theatrical 52 GOLDONI life should enjoy its description of the ruthless way in which his hopes were crushed : A small table and a candle were brought, round which we seated ourselves, and I began to read. I announced the title as Amalasontha, whereupon Cafrariello sang the word Amalasontha. It was long and to him it seemed ridiculous; everybody laughed, but I did not laugh; the lady of the house scolded; the night- ingale became silent. I read the names of the characters, of whom there were nine, and at this the small voice of an old male soprano who sang in the chorus and mewed like a cat, was heard to say: "Too many, too many, there are at least two char- acters too many." I realized that I was ill at ease, and wished to stop the reading. Silencing this insolent fellow, who had not the talent of Caffariello to excuse him, M. Prata turned to me and said: "It is true, sir, that ordinarily there are but six or seven characters in an opera, but when a work is deserving of it, we gladly incur the expense of two additional actors. Be so kind, if you please, as to continue the reading." I resumed my reading: "Act first, scene first; Clodesile and Arpagon," whereupon M. Caffariello asked me the name of the leading tenor part in my opera. "Sir," said I, "it is Clodesile." "What!" he replied, "you open with the principal artist, you have him enter when everybody is being seated and making a noise! Egad, I am not your man." (What patience!) Here M. Prata interrupted. "Let us see," said he, "if the scene is interesting!" I read the first scene, and while I was reciting my verses, an im- potent weakling drew a manuscript from his pocket and, going to the harpsichord, began to rehearse a song from his part. The hostess made endless excuses; taking me by the hand, M. Prata led me to a boudoir, remote from the main room, and seating him- self beside me, M. le Comte pacified me regarding the ill conduct of a company of giddy brains, and at the same time begged me to read my drama to him alone, in order that he might judge it and tell me his sincere opinion. After the budding author had read his play "from THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 53 the first verse to the last," the Count, who had "lis- tened patiently," pointed out its innumerable defects in a spirit both kindly and wise. Overcome with chagrin by Count Prata's criticism, Goldoni returned, crestfallen, to his lodging, and re- fusing to sup, ordered a fire. "My piece is good," he exclaimed, his "treasure" still in his trembling hand. "I am certain of it; but the theatre is bad; and the actors, actresses, composers, and scene-painters may the devil take them all! And thou, unlucky produc- tion, that hast cost me so much labour and deceived my hopes and expectations, I consign thee to devour- ing flames." Having pronounced this requiem, he threw Ama- lasontha into the fire, and watching it burn with "a sort of cool complacency," stirred the ashes; then or- dering supper, he "ate heartily and drank still more," whereupon he went to bed "and enjoyed a profound sleep." On the morrow, he awoke two hours earlier than usual, and "plucking up courage," paid his re- spects to the Venetian minister, who on hearing the tale of his discomfiture, forthwith attached him to his staff, in the quality of a gentleman of the cham- ber. His official duties being chiefly to "pay com- plimentary calls upon travelling Venetians of noble birth, or to wait upon the Governor and magistrates of Milan in the business of the Republic," Goldoni found himself, as he confesses, "rather a gainer than a loser by the failure which he had sustained." Having considerable time at his disposal in which 54 GOLDONI "to amuse himself or do as he pleased," he met during these idle hours a charlatan named Buonafede Vitali, whose nom de guerre was The Anonymous (IL'A- nonimo). Born of a good family and educated as a Jesuit, "this singular man," as Goldoni styles him, "to whom no science was unknown," was a quack dis- penser of opiates and drugs like L'Orietan and Bary, the famous operateurs whom Moliere saw on the Pont-Neuf during his youth; like them, too, he em- ployed a troupe of buffoons to attract customers. For the purpose of studying his character, Goldoni consulted The Anonymous, but the quack quickly discovered that curiosity and not illness had brought the young Venetian to his booth; therefore, he pre- scribed a cup of chocolate as "the most suitable rem- edy for his disease"; and soon these two wanderers with "the vagabondizing instinct" were cronies. By obtaining, through the influence of the Venetian minister, an engagement at the Milan theatre for the buffoons of The Anonymous, Goldoni did this charlatan a good turn, and as the future dramatist wrote, for performance during this engagement, The Venetian Gondolier (II Gondoliere veneziano), a musical interlude which was "the first of his comedy efforts to appear in public," The Anonymous was the first manager to produce one of his plays, a distinc- tion whereby his name survives his quackery. More- over, an actor in this charlatan's company, named Gaetano Casali, gave Goldoni his first serious com- mission, for when "a detestable piece," called Belts- THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 55 arius (Belisario), was produced at the Milan theatre during the engagement of The Anonymous's troupe, the young playwright analysed its faults so indispu- tably, that Casali, who expected to appear shortly on the Venetian stage, persuaded him to undertake the making of "a good piece out of a bad one." A few days later, Goldoni read to Casali the first act of his own version of Belisarius, that Thespian being delighted with it; but before the aspiring author could finish his tragi-comedy, several events trans- pired to divert his mind into channels remote from the drama. There were rumours of war in Lombardy, and the Venetian minister, upon being called home on private business, charged his young gentleman of the cham- ber with the writing of a daily letter regarding the political situation. The importance of this duty lay so lightly on Goldoni's shoulders, however, that he soon became enmeshed in the toils of an adventuress. While lunching at a suburban inn with a friend named Carrara, he saw a pretty girl in a window and learned from the landlord that she was a Venetian who had come to his hostelry a few days before, ac- companied by a gentleman of "respectable appear- ance," who had since disappeared. Thinking this fair compatriot might be in distress, Goldoni knocked at her door, and on being admitted, listened to a pa- thetic tale, told amid a flood of tears, while Carrara wise man of the world stood in the doorway, laughing. The lady gave her name as Margherita 56 GOLDONI Biondi, though the credulous knight-errant after- wards learned that this was not her real name. She was of good birth, she told him, but having fallen in love with a man of superior station, his family had opposed their marriage so assiduously, that, aided by a maternal uncle who adored her, she had eloped with her patrician lover. She had been pursued ; but though her uncle had been captured and thrown into prison, she had escaped to Milan with her lover, who, alas, had gone out on the morning after their arrival, and had never returned. Goldoni was so affected by "the gushing tears of this languishing beauty," that he forthwith hired a furnished apartment for her, and began to use his diplomatic influence to the end of obtaining her uncle's release from prison. "He could refuse her nothing," he confesses, and he "visited her fre- quently" ; but his good fortune was of short duration, since his servant burst into his room one morning with the exciting news that "fifteen thousand Savoyards, horse and foot, had taken possession of Milan and were drawn up in the cathedral square." "We were at the commencement of the War of 1733," he says, "called the War of Don Carlos, 3 and the King of Sar- 3 During the War of the Polish Succession (1733-1735), the allied French and Sardinian armies, commanded by the veteran Marshal Villars, entered Milan, then an Austrian possession, on the night of Nov. 3, 1733, and after possessing themselves of the town, laid siege to the citadel, which capitulated on Jan. 2, 1734. Don Carlos (afterwards King Charles III of Spain), the prince of whom Goldoni here speaks, was the son of Philip V of Spain by his second wife, Elizabeth Farnese, an Italian, for whom the Duchy of Parma had been created by the Pope. THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 57 dinia, having declared himself for that Prince, had united his forces with those of France and Spain, against the house of Austria." Goldoni's chief thought, however, was not of the politics that had caused the invasion of Milan, but of the safety of Margherita Biondi, for when the Franco-Sardinian army laid siege to the citadel, the street where she dwelt was within the range of shot and shell. "I confided her," he tells us, "to the care of a Genoese merchant, in whose house I could only see her in the midst of a numerous and excessively punctilious fam- ily." When the Venetian Legation was removed shortly thereafter to Crema, a frontier town, the young at- tache was obliged to say farewell to his fair Venetian, "who wept on hearing the news, and seemed quite inconsolable." His first care, on arriv- ing at Crema, was to visit the jail where her supposed uncle a chevalier d' Industrie named Scacciati was confined; but he had already departed, Goldoni's efforts having secured his release. From his friend Carrara, our young Venetian learned that the rogue had joined Margherita in Milan. "In delivering over to him a girl who was a burden to you, and by no means deserving of your care, I have rendered you As her step-son, Don Ferdinand, was still living and therefore heir to the throne of Spain, this ambitious queen desired a crown for Don Carlos, her own son. In 1720, Sicily and Naples had been ceded to Austria, but as an outcome of the War of the Polish Succession, Don Carlos ob- tained through the efforts of his ambitious mother and his own military valour, the crown of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies; hence in Italy this war was known as the War of Don Carlos. 58 GOLDONI a useful service," wrote Carrara; and "at a distance from this enchanting object," says Goldoni, "I owned that my friend had conducted himself with great propriety." Being dissatisfied with the behaviour of his secre- tary, the Venetian minister installed Goldoni in his stead, and for a few months this susceptible young man discharged his official duties satisfactorily. When Pizzighettone, a town in the neighbourhood of Crema, was besieged, he was sent during an armis- tice to the camp of the allies, "in the quality of an honourable spy." The observations he made while there were to be used profitably by him, some twenty- seven years later, as the inspiration of a spirited com- edy. 4 Meanwhile he enjoyed the festivities he thus describes : A bridge thrown over the breach afforded a communication be- tween the besiegers and the besieged ; tables were laid everywhere, and the officers entertained one another. Both without and within, under tents and in bowers, balls, banquets, and concerts were given. All the inhabitants of the neighbourhood flocked there, on foot, on horseback and in carriages; provisions arrived from every quarter; abundance was established instantly, while charlatans and mountebanks did not fail to hurry thither; it was a charming fair, a delightful resort. When Pizzighettone surrendered, the theatre of the war moved farther south, whereupon Goldonrs diplomatic labours were so lightened that he found time to finish his tragi-comedy Belisarius. Then Gian Paolo, his brother, appeared at Crema to af- 4 La Guerra. THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 59 flict him. Upon the death of the soldier who had taken charge of his military education, this ne'er-do- well had resigned from the Venetian service, and having failed in his efforts to obtain a commission in the army of the Duke of Modena, he besought his brother's help ; but no sooner had Goldoni obtained for him his own former post of gentleman of the chamber, than Gian Paolo began to quarrel with the minister. Being promptly dismissed, he took his leave "in a very ill humour," Goldoni says, "and his bad conduct so injured me in the mind of the minis- ter, that he never afterward showed me the same kind- ness and friendship." Yet the young diplomat's own delinquencies were not inconsequential. One day when engaged in copying a state paper, he heard a knock at his door, his visitor being Scacciati, the pseudo-uncle of Mar- gherita Biondi. On learning that this fair quean was at a neighbouring inn, he hurriedly finished his work, then spent the night in revelry. Discovering his ab- sence, his chief accused him of having gone forth to sell the secrets of the document he had copied to a rival diplomat, the fact that he had been carousing instead, being considered no palliation. As young Goldoni was "unwilling to expose himself to more such unpleasant scenes," he resigned his secretary- ship and departed in a humble hired chaise for Mo- dena, where his mother then resided. Once more, his treasure was a tragedy, for he took with him the manuscript of Belisarius. 60 GOLDONI At Parma he witnessed a battle between the Allies and the Austrians (June 29, 1734), which he de- scribes graphically in his memoirs, "the most horri- ble and disgusting spectacle," to his mind, being the field on the following day, where thousands of bodies, stripped by ghouls during the night, "lay naked in heaps." The road to Modena being infested by the stragglers of both armies, he left the Parmesan bat- tle-field for Brescia, accompanied by a young priest who "loved the stage." Author-like, Goldoni "took care to mention Bellsarius" and was reading it aloud to his sacerdotal companion when their chaise was suddenly halted by five armed men in military uni- form, who forthwith proceeded to despoil the bud- ding dramatist of his "purse, watch, and small box," the priest "being treated in like manner." While these military highwaymen were ransack- ing the baggage, the driver whipped up his horses and escaped. Regardless of what might befall the priest, Goldoni meanwhile took to flight as well, happy in the fact that he had "saved Bellsarius from the wreck." Running until he fell exhausted by a stream, its "delicious water" so revived him that he managed to reach some peasants he saw labouring in a field. They proved to be kindly men, who shared their humble evening meal with him, and one of their number conducted him to Casal Pusterlengo, 5 a town in the neighbourhood of Lodi, where he found cheer and a lodging beneath the hospitable roof of the 5 Erroneously called Casal Pasturlengo by Goldoni. THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 61 parish priest. His literary ardour, however, was not dampened by these mishaps, since on the follow- ing evening he read Belisarius to an audience com- posed of priests and villagers who "proved by their applause that his work was suited to every capacity and equally capable of pleasing the learned and the ignorant." Profuse in his compliments, his amiable host lent Goldoni a horse and a servant, but when he reached Brescia he was penniless. In his hour of need, he met Scacciati in the street, who proved himself a grateful rogue, since he loaned him six sequins and refused to take his note of hand. Scacciatiis pseudo- niece was at Brescia, too, and needless to say, she re- ceived Goldoni with open arms. Moreover, she told him the story of her life, which he thus relates: Scacciati was not her uncle, but a knave who had carried her off from her parents and sold her to a rich man, who left her within two months, after having paid the broker more handsomely than the lady. She was tired of living with this drone, who spent profusely what she gained with repugnance. . . . She wished to get rid of him and asked my advice regarding the execution of her project. Had I been rich, I should have freed her from her tyrant; but in my present circumstances I could give her no other advice than to apply to her relatives, and seek to be reconciled with those who had a right to reclaim her. Though unconscionable, these adventurers were kind to Goldoni. Besides loaning him money, they gave him a night's lodging and a meal; but he re- fused their invitation to tarry in Brescia, and on the 62 GOLDONI morrow he set out for Verona. "I saw the lady some years later," he says, "very well married in Venice; but M. Scacciati finished his career by being sen- tenced to the galleys." At Verona, the tide of Goldoni's ill fortunes turned. A theatrical company was playing there on a tem- porary stage erected in the Roman amphitheatre ; and being attracted thither by the play-bills, to his joy he recognized in the actor who addressed the public before the performance, the Casali who had commis- sioned him to write Belisarius. Making his way to the stage, he was warmly greeted by Casali, who in- troduced him to Giuseppe Imer, the manager, "a man of intellect and information who was passion- ately fond of comedy." Imer's company played dur- ing the autumn and winter at the San Samuele thea- tre in Venice, belonging to a patrician family, named Grimani, and at Casali's instigation Goldoni was in- vited to read Belisarius to this metropolitan troupe. 8 "My play was listened to with attention," he tells us, and at the conclusion "the applause was general and complete." "Imer took me by the hand," he continues, "and in a magisterial tone said, 'Bravo P while Casali exclaimed, 'M. Goldoni did me the hon- our to labour for me.' " When the members of this troupe learned that The Singer (La Gantatrice] , 7 a 6 It is interesting to note that Zanetta (Maria Giovanna) Casanova, mother of the arch-adventurer of that name, was a member of Imer's troupe at this time. 7 According to Goldoni, La Cantatrice had been plagiarized by a young Venetian lawyer named Gori, and put forth as his own work. THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 63 musical interlude they had been giving successfully, had been written by Goldoni at Feltre, four years pre- viously, they needed no further proof of his "quali- ties as a dramatic poet." Belisarius was accepted forthwith, and as a mark of the manager's "particular gratitude," its author received a present of six se- quins, which he despatched to Scacciati, in repayment of the loan that rogue had made him. "Such is my system," he says. "I have always en- deavoured to avoid meanness ; yet I have never been proud. I have helped, whenever it lay in my power to do so, those who were in need of my assistance. Moreover, I have received help without embarrass- ment and have even asked for it unblushingly when- ever I needed it." Goldoni reached Verona in the summer (1734), and at the end of September he departed for Venice with Imer and his troupe; meanwhile he had written the libretto of a musical interlude, 8 and before the company left Verona, the parts of Belisarius had been distributed. Indeed, that summer marks the com- mencement of his career as a professional dramatist, The Venetian Gondolier, a pretty trifle he had writ- ten for The Anonymous, being merely its prologue. At Milan he was a dilettante writing for pleasure; whereas at Verona he was a penniless vagabond seek- ing a livelihood. Upon reaching Venice, Goldoni learned that his mother, who was still at Modena, had paid "nearly *LaPupilla. 64 GOLDONI all his debts." He feared, however, that Madame St. and her daughter might still entertain matri- monial designs regarding him, till his aunt assured him that "these high-minded ladies, on learning that he had entered into an engagement with a troupe of actors, had pronounced him unworthy to approach them." His mind being thus relieved, he was able to work untrammelled at his new profession. Meeting Michele Grimani, one of five brothers who owned the San Samuele theatre, he was received by him "with great kindness," and engaged to work for the troupe of which Imer was the head ; whereupon he began the composition of Rosamond (Rosmonda], a tragedy, and The Scamp (La Birba] , an interlude in- spired by the impostors he had seen duping the public in the Piazza San Marco. "The comic traits I made use of in my interludes were so much seed," he says, "sowed by me in my field, in order that I might some day gather ripe and agreeable fruit" ; yet, ere he gar- nered that delightful harvest, his field was parched by dry tragedy and all but laid waste. On the twenty-fourth of November (1734), Bell- sarlus was produced at the San Samuele theatre with such success that "some of the actors wept, while oth- ers laughed, from the same feeling of joy." More- over, when a different play was announced for the following evening, the audience demanded Belisar- ius; yet he who reads this dull tragi-comedy to-day can but wonder at this enthusiasm, so turgid are its THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 65 pompous lines. This play, however, scored phe- nomenally, although Rosamond, its successor, had to be sustained after four performances by the merri- ment of The Scamp. Goldoni had made a distinct impression in the theatrical world of Venice, never- theless, and soon was engaged by Grimani to rewrite the libretto of Griselda, an opera by Zeno and Pari- ati, the music to be written by the Abbe Vivaldi, known as // prete rosso, because of his red hair. When the young dramatist conferred with this priest regarding the changes to be made in Griselda, he found him "surrounded by music and with a brevi- ary in his hand." Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, Vivaldi, making the sign of the cross, resumed his breviary, then walking about, he cited psalms and hymns; yet he became, nevertheless, so impressed by Goldoni's lyrics, that he embraced him when they parted, and vowed he would never collab- orate with any other poet. During the summer of 1735, which he spent trav- elling with Imer's troupe on the mainland, Goldoni made a versified tragedy of Griselda, as a vehicle for an actress known as La Romana, and at Udine wrote The Foundation of Venice (La Fondazione di Vene- zia) which he describes as "perhaps the first opera comique that had ever appeared in the Venetian States." 9 However, as these early dramatic efforts are 9 The first opera comique produced in the Venetian States was Elisa, libretto by Domenico Lalli, music by Giovan Maria Ruggeri (1711), and given at the Sant' Angelo. See Scherillo: La prima commedia musicale a Venezia, in Giorn. stor. della Lett. ital. (1883). 66 GOLDONI considered in an ensuing chapter, they shall give place for the moment to their author's love affairs, of which there were several to harass him during his engage- ment with Imer's troupe, the proximity of pretty ac- tresses making him fall an easy victim to their wiles. The first of these to whom he paid court assidu- ously was Anjonia Ferramonti, whom he styles "a charming actress, very beautiful, very amiable, and very intelligent." He was "not long in discerning her merits," he tells us, and like many another in- iquitous admirer of a wife, he cultivated her hus- band's friendship. On the way to Udine, instead of accepting the invitation of Imer, the manager, to travel with him, he "set out in an excellent carriage with Madame Ferramonti and the good man, her husband," and although he met in that mountain town the lemonade-vender's daughter from whose amorous toils he had fled nine years previously, he had "no desire," he assures us, "to sacrifice for her his new inclination." His affair with La Ferramonti was short-lived, however, for she died at Udine in child- birth (August, 1735), 10 Goldoni being so distracted by grief that he "could no longer remain in that town, or endure the sight of the women who delighted in his affliction" ; therefore he set out for Venice with the avowed purpose of meeting his mother, who had re- turned meanwhile from Modena. From her he learned that his Venetian property was now disen- cumbered and his Modena revenues increased. 10 L. Rasi. I Comlci italiani. THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 67 Moreover, his brother had re-entered the army; the family fortunes were mending. Goldoni's mother wished him to resume the prac- tice of the law, but he assured her that "play-writing was quite as honourable a career." Though she pleaded "with tears in her eyes," she left him free to choose his own profession; so, when Imer's troupe re- turned to Venice toward the end of September, he re- sumed his duties as playwright. But love, alas, soon made sport of him, for in that troupe was a soubrette with whom he had already philandered at Udine, Elisabetta Moreri d'Afflisio by name, whose pseu- donym was La Passalacqua. When Goldoni called on her at Venice, at her ur- gent bidding, she was dressed, he tells us, "like a nymph of Cythera." Being "on his guard," he with- stood her wiles for a while, with "heroic self-denial." "Besides, I did not like her," he adds; "she was too thin, her eyes were too green, and her pale and yel- low complexion was covered with an abundance of paint." By appealing to his vanity, however, instead of to his affection, she played her part cleverly, her reason for wishing to see him having been, so she told him, a desire to secure professional advice from a man of "his talent and intelligence." Yet, when he tried to depart, she seized his arm and led him to her gondola, this being his account of their departure for Cythera : How could I refuse to follow her? Therefore we entered this 68 GOLDONI vehicle, which is as snug as the most charming boudoir. We made for the middle of the vast lagoon that surrounds the City of Venice. There our skilful gondolier drew the small back cur- tain, made a rudder of his oar, and allowed his gondola to drift at the pleasure of the waves. We shall draw the curtain also on that "lover's hour," as it was called by this tactful gondolier, and shift the scene of the comedy to La Passalacqua's boudoir. There Goldoni played the role of injured lover, a handsome actor named Vitalba having been the cause of his jealousy. The dramatist had left "the faithless woman," he avers, "without intending to complain," but "she wrote him a touching and pa- thetic letter," and "whether from curiosity or a wish to give vent to his rage," he decided to see her once more. His own words shall describe the meeting: I found her stretched on a sofa, her head resting on a pillow. I greeted her, but she said nothing; I asked her what she had to tell me, but she did not answer. Fire mounted to my face; anger inflamed and blinded me; I gave free vent to my indignation, and without restraint overwhelmed her with the reproaches she de- served. The actress said not a word, but now and then she dried her eyes, and as I dreaded those insidious tears, I sought to leave. "Go, sir," she told me in a trembling voice, "my mind is made up ; you shall have news of me in a few moments." I did not stop be- cause of these vague words, but made my way to the door. On turning to say farewell, I saw her arm raised and a dagger she held in her hand pointed at her breast. Struck with terror at the sight, I lost my head, and running toward her, I threw myself at her feet. Wresting the dagger from her hand, I dried her tears, forgave everything, promised everything, and remained. We dined together, and . . . we were on our former footing. THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 69 Though Goldoni "seriously loved" La Passalacqua for a while, and was convinced that she loved him, too, he soon learned that she and Vitalba "dined and supped together, and laughed at his simplicity." In revenge for this infidelity, he portrayed her ruthlessly in his first sustained comedy, entitled Don Juan Teno- rio; or, The Debauchee (Don Giovanni Tenorio, o sia II Dissoluto), a piece that soon appeared upon the Venetian boards and ran "without interruption" until Shrove Tuesday (1736), with La Passalacqua re- luctantly playing Elisa, a part in which she had not been slow to recognize a portrait of herself. She had protested that she would not appear in this comedy, unless essential changes were made in her role; yet, actress-like, on being told that she must play it as the author had written it, or leave the company, "she in- stantly resolved to outbrave every other considera- tion" ; therefore, "she learned and recited her part in the most perfect manner." A year afterward both Vitalba and La Passalacqua left the company. Goldoni bore the latter "no ill will," he tells us, yet he "felt better when he did not see her." Meanwhile, he had met romantically on a journey he made to Genoa with Imer's troupe, the girl who became his faithful helpmate during his long and eventful life. In that city, he won a prize of a hundred pistoles in a lottery, "but there a greater piece of good fortune came to me," he says, "since I married a wise, virtuous, and charming young lady, who made up for all the tricks other women had 7 o GOLDONI played me, and reconciled me to the fair sex" with which he had never really been at odds. The name of this exemplary girl was Maria Nico- letta Connio, her father being Agostino Connio, one of the four notaries of an important bank. He was "a respectable man," his son-in-law informs us, "of some fortune, but having a very large family, he was not in as easy circumstances as he should have been." His wife, Angela Benedetta, bore this "most worthy gentleman, this excellent father and dutiful citi- zen," " eight children, the eldest daughter being Maria Nicoletta, or "good Nicoletta," as she is fami- liarly called by Goldoni's Italian biographers. At the time of her future husband's advent in Genoa, Nicoletta was nineteen years of age, Goldoni being then twenty-nine. His words shall tell of their meet- ing: The manager and I lodged in a house adjoining the theatre, and I had noticed opposite my casement a young lady who appeared to me to be quite pretty, and whose acquaintance I was anxious to make. One day when she was alone in her window, I greeted her somewhat tenderly; whereupon she dipped me a courtesy, but disappeared immediately and did not show herself again. His "curiosity was excited" and his "pride piqued," he continues: therefore, he took pains to learn the young lady's name, then borrowed a note Imer had received for the rent of a theatre box, which he presented for payment to Agostino Connio, 11 Preface to Vol. XV of the Pasquali edition ; Hermann von Lohner, Memoires de Goldoni. THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 71 at the bank where he was employed, and by this sub- terfuge managed to scrape an acquaintance with him. Having seen Goldoni's plays performed, Connio hobnobbed with him at coffee-houses, then invited him to his house, where he met the fair Nicoletta, and within a month he had asked her hand in mar- riage, in the manner he thus describes : Having perceived my inclinations, Connio was in no way sur- prised, and he had no apprehension of a refusal on the part of the young lady ; but like a wise and prudent man, he requested a little time ; whereupon he wrote to the Genoese consul at Venice for in- formation regarding my character. The information proved highly satisfactory; there- fore, when he had obtained from his mother the necessary legal documents for a marriage beyond the confines of his native state, as well as her consent, Goldoni was wedded to pretty Nicoletta (Aug. 23, 1736). During the ceremony at the house of the bride, he had felt feverish, and at the service in the church of San Sisto on the following day, he became so faint that he was obliged to retire to the sacristy. That night, which, in his own words, "should have been so joyful," he became ill of the smallpox for the second time, that fell disease having assailed him at Rimini sixteen years before. "I was not dangerously ill," he says, "and I became no uglier than I was be- fore; yet my poor wife shed many a tear over my pillow, she being then, as she has ever been, my chief consolation." Imer's troupe had gone to Florence 72 GOLDONI meanwhile, so when he had recovered, Goldoni set out for Venice with his wife. "Oh, heavens!" he exclaims, "what tears were shed! What a cruel part- ing for my wife! All at once she left her father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts . . . but she went with her husband." At Venice, the young couple "disembarked in the parish of Santa Maria Mater Domini, at a house by the bridge of the same name," and there they dwelt "in perfect accord," with Goldoni's mother and aunt, "all being peace and harmony," and our dramatist "the happiest man in the world." Although he owed these blessings "to his virtuous consort," the house at Santa Maria Mater Domini proved too small for even so amiable a family; therefore he soon rented "one of the new houses of the Degna in the street called La Salizada a San Lio," where he dwelt hap- pily with good Nicoletta. 12 She was a model wife, whose fine character was thoroughly appreciated by her humoursome lord, for in dedicating one of his comedies 13 to her father, after twenty-one years of wedded life, he pays her this fervent tribute : Great is my obligation to you, since you could not have given me a greater treasure than you did in your exemplary daughter, my beloved consort. . . . She has ever been such a good companion that during the many years we have passed together, it has never occurred to me, either on account of domestic differences, or angry 12 Preface to Vol. XV, Pasquali edition. 13 La Donna sola, 1757. THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 73 sentiment, to regret our union. She has known how to bear tranquilly with me the hostile blows of fortune, content with every humble condition, and desirous only of the peace of which she has always been the promoter and discreet custodian. . . . She is very fond of politeness and neatness, and the mortal enemy of pomp and ambition; and combining as she does so thoroughly in her- self both becoming generosity and careful economy, she has, with- out exciting my too easy-going tastes, provided me, day by day, with perceptible comforts. During the first four years of Goldoni's married life (1736-1740), little happened to ruffle its seren- ity. He lived tranquilly in Venice with Nicoletta, wrote several pieces for Imer's troupe, 14 and his do- mestic happiness was undisturbed by the allurements of soubrettes. Yet he began to be inconstant to Mel- pomene, the success of The Man of the World (L'Uomo di mondo] , a comedy he wrote to provide Francesco Collinetti, an admirable comedian of Imer's company, with a part, convincing him that "comedy was his bent, and that good comedy should be his aim." He wrote popular farces, too, to fit the talents of Antonio Sacchi, a harlequin of interna- tional repute, so gradually Thalia enticed him to- ward her shrine during those serene days. The tranquillity of his life came to an end, however, when in December, 1740, through the influence of his wife's family, he was gazetted as ^Rinaldo di Montalbano; Enrico re di Sicilia; Lucrezia romana in Constantinopoli; I'Uomo di mondo, o El Cortesan venezian; Gustavo primo, re di Svezia; II Prodigo; Le Trendadue disgrazie d'Arlecchino; Cento e quattro accidenti in una notta, o la notta critica; Oronte re de' Sciti, and five drammi giocosi per musica. 74 GOLDONI Genoese consul in Venice, an appointment which he accepted "with gratitude and respect," without asking the amount of his salary. This was "an- other of my follies," he 'laments, "for which I paid dearly." After increasing his "establishment, his ta- ble, and his retinue," in accordance with the dignity of his office, he learned that his consulship was un- salaried, though the fees netted him a small income. Moreover, in his official capacity, he became involved in financial difficulties. On behalf of his govern- ment, he had seized, it appears, some valuable goods, found in the possession of a man who had defrauded the Genoese Republic, and although he conducted the affair with "infinite honour" to himself, he entrusted the proceeds of the public sale of these goods to a broker, who pawned them to a Jew, Goldoni's father- in-law being obliged to make good the amount out of the unpaid portion of his daughter's dowry. While dealing with these shady financiers, he wrote The Bankruptcy (La Bancarotta], a comedy that angered the sharpers of the business world; there- fore, when he became implicated in a private financial transaction, he was widely accused of mis- appropriating six hundred ducats, though he had "no difficulty," he asserts, "in proving the contrary." To add to his troubles, war was declared (1742) by France and Spain against Austria, 15 and as the Duke 15 The War of the Austrian Succession, during which Austria and Sar- dinia had become allies. Modena had been invaded in June, 1742, and on the 5th of July, the King of Sardinia, and not the Duke of Modena, as Goldoni states, had sequestered the revenues of the ducal bank. Her- THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 75 of Modena became involved in it, "to support the expenses of his army, he stopped the payment of in- terest on funds in the ducal bank at Modena." The residue of Goldoni's small inheritance being invested in these funds, he was unable to maintain his posi- tion in society; therefore, he resolved to set out for Modena, for "the purpose of obtaining money at all hazard." Being an official, he was forced to wait until the Genoese government would grant him a leave of absence. Meanwhile, Anna Baccherini, a married soubrette, crossed his path, "eager to display her pretty face." To provide this lady with a vehicle suitable to her talents and charms, he wrote The Clever Woman (La Donna di garbo). This play marks a turning-point in his career, but as its dramatic attributes are con- sidered in another chapter, it is only necessary to note here that La Baccherini died before Goldoni could enjoy the pleasure of seeing her in the title-role. "What a blow for me!" he exclaims. "It was not a lover who bewailed his mistress, but an author who mourned for his favourite actress. My wife, who saw me in grief, was sensible enough to share it." He acknowledges, moreover, that he and La Bac- cherini had "need of each other," and that "united mann von Lohner says, however (Memoir es de M. Goldoni) t that "if Goldoni, while giving an inkling of the diplomatic history of his time, distorts some particulars, it may be believed that he did so through a certain prudence in speaking of political matters and princes, which will not surprise anyone familiar with the literary customs of Europe before the French Revolution." 76 GOLDONI in friendship," he "worked for her glory while she dispelled his troubles." Good Nicoletta, therefore, was a sensible wife for a dramatist with the vaga- bondizing instinct, since she could not have been en- tirely blind to this and the many other amours into which her temperamental husband was lured by am- bitious soubrettes. Meanwhile Goldoni's worthless brother, Gian Paolo, shorn once more of military rank, came to abide with him and to introduce beneath his roof a military adventurer who choused our dramatist out of the few livres that remained to him. This rogue, a Ragusan captain "who had more the appearance of a courtier than a soldier," was polite to the ladies, drank his host's wine, and told stories of his own daring. He was raising a regiment, he said, for for- eign service in which Gian Paolo was to have a cap- taincy, and glibly he prevailed upon Goldoni to accept the post of auditor-general. Having found his kindly host thus gullible, he induced him to cash a draft he had forged on some German bankers for six thousand livres, whereupon he decamped. "All the Ragusan's dupes assembled in my house," says his victim, "but in order to avoid the indignation of the government and the ridicule of the public, we were forced to stifle our charges." Financially straitened by this loss, and despairing of ever receiving from the Genoese government the remuneration he had asked for his services, Gol- doni made up his mind to leave Venice, his in- LOVE'S MESSENGER Musco Corrzr THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 77 tention being, he says, to pass through Modena and there provide himself with the means of continuing his journey to Genoa, "in order to obtain in person favour or justice." 16 Moreover, he was being ac- cused, though apparently unjustly, of having appro- priated a sum of money that had passed through his hands, 17 so having received during the month of March permission from the Genoese government to leave Venice, he embarked during the summer of 1743 18 for the mainland with his wife, "sad, thought- ful, and plunged in grief." A vagabond once more, he endeavoured "to dispel regret for the past, by the hope of better fortune for the future," being animated in this time of trouble by the exam- ple and advice of his good wife, who was "more reasonable than he, her only care being to consider him." At Bologna, he tarried long enough to draw roy- alties from the local managers for the use of three of his comedies, and from there he went, on the advice of a Thespian friend, to Rimini, where the Duke of 16 Preface to Vol. XVII, Pasquali edition. There is no record that he reached Genoa, fortuitous events having apparently altered his plans. 17 Fifteen hundred ducats he had received under Imer's power of at- torney from Francesco Maria Berio, the former's kinsman of Naples, and it was believed that Goldoni had left Venice, still owing that sum to Imer. "But," Goldoni adds, "I can give the lie to this shameful indignity with two receipts, one from Messrs. Maruzzi Brothers in the sum of 620 ducats, and the other from Imer himself for the amount in full, less ex- penses." (Pasquali edition, preface, vol. XVII.) 18 Goldoni says 1741, but as Hermann von Lohner points out, he is two rears in error. The date Sept. i8th, given in the Memoirs, is also wrong, :ording to Guido Mazzoni, and should be some time in June or July. 78 GOLDONI Modena had taken refuge with his Spanish allies. He was presented to His Highness, but the moment "he pronounced the words ducal bank and arrears," the Duke coldly terminated the audience. Luckily, there was a company of actors in Rimini, as well as a brigadier in the Spanish service, who was such an ardent lover of the stage, and particularly of Arlec- chino's pranks, that he suggested to Goldoni the sub- ject of a farce 19 in which the local actor of that part might display his talents. There was "a fresh and lively" actress in that com- pany, too, named Angela Bonaldi, who u soon became my companion," Goldoni confesses, "she being the soubrette, and therefore my fate." Spanish auster- ity reigned at Rimini, however, "there being no gaming, no balls or women of suspicious character" ; yet, although this town was "like a convent," he managed to see now and then his "fair friend with the Italian gaiety." His pleasure was marred, however, by the advent of his brother, bent upon raising another regiment. This time, however, Goldoni warily declined the post of auditor. When the Austrians threatened Rimini (October, 1743), and the Spaniards retreated to Pesaro, Gian Paolo, luckily, went with the latter. Although relieved of his brother's presence, Goldoni was in a state of "greater embarrassment than ever," he being a citizen of Modena, as well as a consul of Genoa, both of 'which countries were allies of the 19 Arlequin empereur dans la lune, a French farce adapted by Goldoni. THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 79 Spaniards. Fearful, therefore, that the Austrians might treat him as a spy, he embarked with his wife for Pesaro, but owing to the roughness of the sea, was obliged to proceed from Cattolica by land, his serv- ant being left behind with orders to follow with the baggage. But the Austrians, on entering Cat- tolica, sequestered it; thereupon, Goldoni, accom- panied by good Nicoletta, set forth from Pesaro in a carriage to reclaim it. When they descended by the wayside to stretch their legs, the driver, alas, made off with the carriage and they were left to proceed to Cattolica on foot. Obliged to carry his wife across a rushing torrent on his back, Goldoni accomplished this feat with "inexpressible joy," while saying to himself: "Omnia bona mea mecum porto" When the unlucky pair finally reached Cattolica, they were arrested as suspicious characters by an Aus- trian outpost; but the officer in command proved a friend in need, for he had seen Belisarius and The Man of the World, and upon learning that Goldoni was the author of these plays, he not only passed him and his good wife through the lines, but ordered his baggage to be returned to him, on the condition that he take any road except that to Pesaro, whence he had come. The next morning, he hired betimes a cart in which he and Nicoletta journeyed to Rimini, where they remained until the Austrians evacuated that town. During his sojourn at Rimini, Goldoni wrote a can- tata, in honour of the wedding of Maria Theresa's 8o GOLDONI sister, which was sung on the evening of January 7th, 1744, the music being composed by a Neapoli- tan musician named Francesco (Ciccio) Maggiore. Both author and composer were liberally rewarded by the Austrian commander, but Maggiore, who, Goldoni assures us, "was by no means a fool," sug- gested the hiring of a fine coach in which to make the rounds of the town and its environs for the pur- pose of presenting copies of the cantata to the field officers of the regiments composing the garrison, a device whereby the collaborators collected "a purse full of Venetian sequins, Spanish pistoles, and Port- uguese quadruples, which they divided equally." At Rimini, Goldoni's days passed blithely. "I had money," he tells us, "nothing to do, and I was happy." The Austrians were not austere, like the Spaniards, so there were "balls, concerts, public games, brilliant assemblies, and ladies of gallantry"; moreover, La Bonaldi, the soubrette who had cheered him during the sombre days of the Spanish occupation, was still in Rimini. Though he "loved his wife," he assures us, and "shared his pleasures with her," good Nico- letta refused to accompany him on his visits to La Bonaldi, "that actress being not to her taste," as may readily be imagined. The Austrian officers wished opera during the carnival; therefore, the comedians gave place to sing- ers. Though he lost La Bonaldi by this change, Goldoni benefited materially thereby, for the lieu- tenant-general, who inaugurated this new diversion, THE VAGABONDIZING INSTINCT 81 made him its director, and treated him so generously that he "enjoyed more profits than he had any right to expect." This delectable winter came to an end, however, when the Austrians, on evacuating Rimini (March, 1744), left Goldoni behind them in the happy state he thus describes : I was free, and the master of my inclinations, and having suf- ficient money, I executed a plan I had long cherished. I wished to see Tuscany; I wished to wander through it, and live there for some time, for I needed to familiarize myself with the Florentines and Siennese, who are the living texts of pure Italian. I ap- prised my wife of my plan, and as I pointed out to her that this route brought us nearer to Genoa, she appeared satisfied ; therefore, we decided on a trip to Florence. He had received, meanwhile, a hint from the Gen- oese government that his resignation as consul would be acceptable, so he tendered it gladly; then set forth from Rimini, with good Nicoletta, to traverse the Apennines on horseback. He was thirty-seven years old; his life thus far had been a comedy as merry and varied as any he penned in later years; yet he was destined to pass four unmomentous years in Tus- cany before he became wedded to comedy. He had been groping in tragic darkness, yet before misfor- tune had exiled him from his beloved Venice, he had written two or three comedies through which the true light of his genius shone. When he re- turned, four years later, with the troupe of an actor named Medebac, play-writing became a divine call instead of the mere avocation it had been theretofore. 82 GOLDONI He began, then, the creation of his naturalistic com- edy of Italian manners by attacking the Gommedia dell' arte, an unwritten form of comedy that had reigned merrily in Italy for generations. An acquaintance with the Gommedia delV arte be- ing necessary for a clear understanding of his works, he shall be left for the present, journeying peacefully with his good wife across the Apennines, while that unique dramatic form is considered, as well as the tragedies, comedies, and operas he had written during the years when his life had been a merry comedy, and the vagabondizing instinct strong upon him. Ill THE IMPROVISED COMEDY DURING the Renaissance Italy awoke to il- lumine a world long darkened ; yet the light shed by her poetry and painting, her sculp- ture and music, is so dazzling that we are likely to be blinded to the fact that, while these sister arts arose, the drama did little more than rub her drowsy eyes. Indeed, the artists and scholars of the Renais- sance failed to realize, to quote Moliere, that "the dramatic rule of all rules is to please" ; nor did they understand that what pleases one age is likely to weary another. The drama is the most democratic, the most contemporary of the arts ; its appeal is made directly to living people not to one class, but to all; not to those yet to come, but to those present. In brief, the dramatist who would not see his benches empty must tell his audience a story it can under- stand without the aid of a book of rules. Forgetting that the times had changed since an en- tire tragic trilogy and a satire had been the daily program at the Dionysiac spring festivals of Ath- ens, the men of the Renaissance, in love with the aus- tere beauty of classic tragedy, plunged ardently into the work of tragedy writing, mindful only of the lit- 83 84 GOLDONI erary merits of the task. Nor did they study the Greek masters at first hand. The rigid closet plays of Seneca, rather than the august drama of Sopho- cles, became their model. Moreover, the critics of the day Giraldi, Trissino, Castelvetro, Nores, and Ingegneri in their ardour to revive the past, evolved rules which, when not of their own making, were at best Aristotle misunderstood or Horace mis- read. That a play must have a single action, completed in a single day, and developed in a single place, was the hard and fast dogma* they imposed, not only on themselves, but wherever the new learning took root. The result was a drama turgidly exotic, which throve just so long as the pedants sprinkled it with lore within the palaces of the great, but which withered and died the moment it was exposed to the scorching blast of popular opinion. A reason less apparent than mere pedantry for the failure of the Renaissance to produce a worthy writ- ten drama, lies in its own fawning spirit its tradition of patronage by liberal Ippolitos, sumptuous Leos, magnificent Lorenzos, and the like. Since the thea- tre, as a permanent place of public amusement with entrance receipts and consequent royalties, did not yet exist, the dramatist who would not starve must take his place among the flatterers, knights, pages, fools, poets, and scholars of the antechamber; and when my lord of Ferrara or of Urbino deigned to pass that way and smile, draw a tragedy from beneath THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 85 his well-worn cloak for use on a festal day. When that auspicious moment came, the lucky author's stage was set in the cortlle of his patron's palace. Raphael, even, might paint the curtains that enclosed it, as he once did for the stage of Ariosto or, if not he, then Mantegna, who had a liking for the task. The audience was composed of precious ladies with awe for phrasing, pedants with their ears astrain for error; or jealous courtiers, who were watching for the offensive word that might serve to confine the literary upstart favoured by their lord behind the seven series of iron bars guarding the dungeon below that very courtyard where lutes tinkled sweetly and fountains plashed in an atmosphere of perfumed love- liness. No democratic drama could thrive in such a cradle ; and as the drama is essentially democratic, that of the Renaissance could not reach maturity in these surroundings. When banished from the churches, the sacred drama of the middle ages, gradually secularized in Italy, as in western Europe, succumbed in time to the loud merriment of popular farces and the gloomy fustian of didactic tragedy. However, the chron- icle play did not arise from its embers as the spark of a national drama. An occasional sporadic at- tempt was made in this direction, as in the Orpheus (Orfeo) of Poliziano, a profane play modelled upon the sacred drama, yet with pagan gods instead of the Italian heroes who might have nationalized it. The disunion of the Italian states hindered the formation 86 GOLDONI of such a drama as arose in England and Spain. There was no single capital where the dramatist might win the favour of a genuine monarch, no dra- matic centre where national deeds might be ap- plauded by the patriotic veterans of triumphant wars. Instead of these inspiriting elements there were petty princes, each with a dilettante court, and condottieri whose meretricious arms were at the disposal of the highest bidder. There was need for an Alfieri to preach nationalism on the stage, but he did not step forth. In his place stood Torquato Tasso with his Torrumond (Torrismondo) a weak CEdipus, a fac- titious Tristan, whose character is quite as remote from Italian nationalism as the Greece which inspired him is from Norway, the scene of his promising but unfulfilled story. There were tragedies a-plenty then, as well as pedants to write them: Trissino with his Sophonlsba (Sofonisba), Rucellai with his Rosamond (Ros- munda), and the like; all imitated from the classics and laboriously constructed according to the rules all as thoroughly unnational as their names. There were the pastoral dramas, too ; false and conventional, with Tasso's Aminta as their masterpiece. Only in comedy did the dramatists of the Renaissance sound even the faintest note of nationalism ; yet in this field they were again servile imitators. Plautus and Ter- ence were rewritten by them, just as Menander had . been rewritten by these able Romans themselves, though almost invariably without the felicity of these THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 87 last in adopting foreign characters to home condi- tions. The written comedy of the Renaissance the Commedia erudlta as it is called to distinguish it from the extemporized comedy, or Commedia dell 9 arte brought forth a handful of writers partially en- dowed with the comedy sense Bruno, Aretino, Bib- biena, Ariosto, and Machiavelli only the last of whom fared beyond-the dramatic foot-hills. In The Mandrake (La Mandragola) of Machiavelli the moral corruption of the age is painted vivaciously, truthfully, and artistically, albeit lewdly; yet, a sin- gle obscene comedy, even though it be simple, nat- ural, and truthful, cannot absolve the Renaissance from the charge of having brought forth no written drama, national in spirit or original in character. Two centuries later Goldoni fulfilled that task; until his day, the written comedy of Italy remained in the womb of time. Upon the word "written" particular stress has been laid, because an unheralded, unrecognized national comedy arose during the Renaissance a comedy scorned by the scholars vainly imitating the ancients and framing dramatic rules, yet sufficiently vital to leave its imprint not only upon the drama of Italy, but upon that of the rest of Europe as well the Commedia dell' arte, destined to dethrone the an- cients, and to inspire through its sprightly technic the modern drama. Commedia dell' arte all' improvviso, or profes- sional improvised comedy, is the full name of this 88 GOLDONI dramatic form, the word arte being used in the sense of craft or guild, to indicate that this species of com- edy was acted by professional players. Occasionally, however, as at the Bavarian court in 1568, amateurs attempted the difficult art of improvisation, though they usually confined their halting talents to the more easily sustained written comedy. However, the word arte has by some writers been held to signify "craft," in the sense that the first performances of commedie dell* arte were given upon festal days by troupes com- posed of craftsmen or artisans performances similar to the trials of Pyramus and Thisbe, as interpreted by Bottom the weaver, Snug the joiner, and Quince the carpenter. Other names for this variety of com- edy, each suggestive of its improvisated character, are Commedia improvvisa, Commedia non iscritta, and Corn-media a soggetto, while, owing to the leathern masks worn by its buffoons, it has sometimes been called Commedia a maschera, or Mask Comedy. In order that the reader may not be called upon to mas- ter its Italian terminology, this sort of comedy, so pertinent to Goldoni's work, will be called henceforth the Improvised Comedy, to distinguish it from the Erudite Comedy of the renaissance poets. "We do not know, nor is it easy to ascertain, the time when this comedy was born," says Dr. Michele Scherillo in the preface to his suggestive brochure on the subject; 1 "its most splendid blossoming, how- ever, was in the second half of the sixteenth century, 1 La Commedia dell' arte in Italia. THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 89 in the seventeenth, and in the eighteenth. The man who took upon himself the mission of dethroning it was Carlo Goldoni, who, for the masks, the constant types, the buffooneries, and the intrigues of this thor- oughly national and spontaneous comedy, substituted a truer, though less original comedy of middle-class manners. As champions of the cause of Improvised Comedy a critic and an artist of unquestioned prowess arose: Giuseppe Baretti and Carlo Gozzi attacked Goldoni as the defamer of the country's glory, but in spite of the Frusta and the Fiabe, the Goldonian reform triumphed, and the improvised mask comedy lost ground on all hands, because it was worn out and decrepit." In order to follow the story of Goldoni's theatrical reform and the critical warfare it aroused, the nature of Improvised Comedy must be understood. Like the drama of the Greeks, its beginnings were of the humblest; though it did not bloom until the six- teenth century, its seeds were already sown when the renaissance of art and letters began. The maskers, merry-andrews, and buffoons, against whom the voice of the Church had been thundering through the mid- dle ages, the very mimes whose antics had profaned the sacred drama -and whom the scholars of the Re- naissance looked indulgently down upon, emerged from the terrifying shadow of ecclesiasticism to jin- gle their bells and beat their bladders defiantly, once the strictures of the clergy were relaxed, some to montar In banco, or mount the bench in the market 90 GOLDONI place as mountebanks, others to buff are, or jest, before noble patrons, as buffoons. At the time the Improvised Comedy attained a form distinct from the mere pranks of clowns, society, humanistically mad since Petrarch's day, had begun to acknowledge its failure to make other than a sham Greece of itself; meanwhile, the common people, flocking to the booths at the fairs, gave hearty laugh- ter to the drolleries there broad farces outlined by the cleverest fellow in the troupe and acted by him- self and mates, with dialogues extemporized for the occasion. The livelihood of these mountebanks was found in the coppers of the multitude ; their task was to make the populace laugh. To be so ready of wit that the tongue could not fail when a laugh was de- manded, required a degree of dexterity no gawky am- ateur, "awkward, embarrassed, stiff, without the skill of moving gracefully or standing still," could possi- bly attain ; hence the mountebank became a craftsman skilled in his calling in a word, a professional actor. He wafe a playv#r?ht, too, since he was the builder of his dwn pltyS^ but not a play-writer, beoatfse only the outline of his medium, the scenario, as it was called, was reduced to written words. In this way a popular drama arose at the vintage festivals and in the market places. When it had grown to vigorous youth, it absorbed the classic plots which the scholars of the Renaissance had failed to popularize, and un- folded them with its own Italian characters. Arios- to's The Disguised (I Suppositi), for instance, and THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 91 The Ghost Story (Mostellaria) of Plautus passed to the stage of the Improvised Comedy, while from the novelle of the time many a scenario was drawn. In- deed, to quote Dr. Winifred Smith's scholarly mon- ograph on the subject: 2 In so confused a situation no one reason for the origin of the Commedia dell' arte can be singled out as decisive, though it is per- fectly easy to see that its peculiarities sprang from tenacious and by no means unique folk customs and that under academic super- vision they were pruned and trained by the skilful hands of the professional actors who later spread them broadcast over Europe. In this way the popular comedy of the market place became a specific and strongly marked dra- matic type the Commedia delV arte, or Improvised Comedy a lusty child of Thalia that eventually smothered its puny sister, the Erudite Comedy, to rule supreme in Italy until Goldoni dethroned it with his naturalistic comedies of Venetian life. Throughout the two hundred and fifty years of its vogue, the dialogue of the Improvised Comedy re- mained largely unwritten; only a scenario, or as it was originally called, a soggetto, being given to the actors, a canevas, or canvas, as it was termed in France (in England a plat], on which to embroider spontaneous humour. When a scenario had become popular, however, and the actors had repeated their parts so often that their extemporized lines became fixed in their minds a true survival, in this case, of the fittest the dialogue was partially written in. 2 The Commedia dell' Arte, A Study in Italian Popular Comedy. 92 GOLDONI Among the writers of scenari, Niccolo Secchi and Niccolo Barbieri are notable as having supplied plots to Moliere, while Flaminio Scala's collection of fifty plays in outline, 3 published in 1611, is the most varied and complete collection of scenari that sur- vives, his extravaganzas being the forerunners of Carlo Gozzi's fiabe teatrali both in scenic and fan- tastic appeal. Indeed, the methods of the Impro- vised Comedy were by no means confined to the lighter mediums, but were used in the construction of serious and romantic drama as well, known as royal work (opera reale) , heroic work (opera eroica) , or mixed work (opera mista) , in the last of which the serious and lighter elements commingled. The ex- temporized serious drama was too sentimentally ab- surd, however, too silly a jumble of history and pathos, to entitle it to much consideration; yet occa- sionally a scenario of the kind survives, as in the case of The Guest of Stone (II Convltato di pietra) an extemporized interpretation of Tirso de Molina's Spanish play The Scoffer of Seville (El Burlador de Sevilla). Far more than the Spanish original or even than Moliere's Don Juan has the Italian scenario supplied the story for Mozart's opera of Don Giovanni, its lazzi or buffooneries being almost identical with those made familiar by Leporello. The lazzi form a thoroughly distinctive feature of the Improvised Comedy. This word, meaning 3 // Teatro delle favole rappresentative, overo la ricreatione comica, boscareccia e tragica, etc. (sic.). THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 93 "knots" (lazzi being the Lombardian expression for the Tuscan lacci), is used to denote the scenes wherein the buffoons interrupt the story with irre- levant pranks scenes of a kind which Shakespeare frequently wrote for his clowns, in order to relieve the tensity of his plots, and which in England were called "jigs." "We give the name lazzi/' says Luigi Ric- coboni, 4 "to the sallies or by-play with which the harlequins, or other mask actors, interrupt a scene in progress it may be by expressions of astonishment or terror, or by humorous extravagances foreign to the matter in hand." A lazzo had little or nothing to do with the action of the play and sometimes told a waggish story of its own. The interruptions by the comedians of a modern opera bouffe with drolleries having no possible bearing on the story are lazzi; although, instead of occasionally "gagging" the au- thor's lines for laughs in the manner of the modern funny man, the buffoons of the Improvised Comedy were sent upon the stage with their own spontaneity as the sole peg on which to hang their humour. Another distinctive element of the Improvised Comedy was the doti or dowries, composed of mem- orized passages used to emphasize vital points of the story. Each actor had his zibaldone, too, a medley of phrases subdivided into various classifications, which, if appropriately interpolated, ensured vocifer- ous applause. To be more specific, the lazzi were the extemporized jests of the buffoons; the doti the *Histoire de I'ancien theatre italien. 94 GOLDONI memorized lines necessary for elucidating a particu- lar play; the zibaldone an actor's stock of speeches used in any play as opportunity arose. The buffoons, with their sallies of dialect wit, were adept in the art of extemporizing; whereas the actors playing Tuscan characters, the lovers and serious- minded persons of the play, so called because they did not speak in dialect, had such frequent recourse to their zibaldone, that it eventually became customary to write down the serious scenes, while leaving the lazzi to be extemporized. This latter feature of the Improvised Comedy, therefore, was the last element to survive in improvisation. Originally, however, the task of the playwright was merely to outline the scenes of his play, and indicate the exits and en- trances, together with the length of time that might be allotted a love scene or a lazzo. The actors were enjoined to learn where the scene was laid, so as not to speak of Rome if Naples were intended, and above all, to be sure of the names of the characters in the play, a father naturally being required to know the name of his son, a lover that of his mistress. This being accomplished, the scenario was posted in the wings where all might consult it. To the actor's wit and the ingenuity of the corago, or stage manager, was left the devising of the dialogue and stage busi- ness. Such was a scenario a canvas on which a play was to be embroidered. Dialogue had dominated the religious plays; ac- tion governed the extemporized comedies. They THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 95 were quick in movement and replete in stage busi- ness, words being subordinated to action, as indeed they should be; a dramatic story, if well constructed, being actable in pantomime. Moreover, upon the dexterity of the actor, as much as upon the cleverness of the playwright, rested the success of an improvised comedy. "To a comedian who* depends upon impro- visation," says Riccoboni, "face, memory, voice, and sentiment are not enough. If he would distinguish himself, he must possess a lively and fertile imagina- tion, a great facility in expression; he must master the subtleties of the language, too, and have at his disposal a full knowledge of all that is required for the different situations in which his role places him." 5 Although the buffoons of the Improvised Comedy / were adroit to a degree that would shame a modern ^ funny man, their sprightly wit was far from cleanly and sometimes trespassed too far upon the little de- cency left to their dissolute age; for instance, at Mi- lan, in 1583, the performances of a certain Adriano Valerini were interrupted by the governor's orders, and were allowed to be continued only after the srenari of his plays had been examined by the arch- bishop of Milan and nothing reprehensible found therein; yet, in spite of this censorship, Valerini and his buffoons might interpolate in their lazzi obscenity and even sedition, and if haled before the authorities, show their harmless scenari as proof of their inno- 5 Op. cit. 96 GOLDONI cence. Indeed, the flexibility of the Improvised Comedy made it an efficient patriotic implement dur- ing the centuries when Italy was languishing under foreign tyrants, an actor's extemporized words hav- ing frequently a sting of bitter hate, which was care- fully tempered when officials of a despised alien gov- ernment were present. 6 That this patriotism, alas! was contaminated by many vices is evidenced by authors of that day. Niccolo Barbieri, himself an actor, in his apology for the dramatic profession, reluctantly admits that the sins an actor may commit while acting are "to praise vice, speak with unbounded license, make ges- tures so evil that they excite the spectators to wanton- ness, deride sacred objects, exhibit holy men and women in the story, act during Lent as if by mistake, pronounce blasphemies, introduce noted cases that may dishonour families, make women appear with their bodies partly naked, etc., etc." 7 "It may be said that the comic stage is little else than a shameful school of unchastity and deceit," adds Alessandro Tas- soni, another writer of the period; a charge corrob- orated by the equally condemnatory words of Tommaso Garzoni, to the effect that "the stage of such a generation of men was a school of impurity, excess, cunning, and rascality." Of the histrionic vagabondage of the time the last named writer, a jurisconsult of the sixteenth century 6 During the Roman empire it was the habit of the Atellanae players to satirize the ruling classes, even the Emperor not being exempt. 7 La Supplica, etc. THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 97 with an exceedingly human pen, draws this droll picture: When comedians enter a town, they at once make it known with their drum that my lords the actors have arrived. Dressed as a man and with sword in hand, the leading lady, mustering the peo- ple, bids them welcome at a comedy, a tragedy, or a pastoral to be enacted in the town hall or the Pilgrim's Inn. Adoring novelties, by nature curious, the common herd, shelling out its coppers, hastens to fill the room arranged for the performance. Here is a temporary stage, a scene done in charcoal with scant taste. A pre- liminary concert of asses and rakes is heard, then the charlatan's prologue, a thundering as rough as Fra Stoppino's voice, gestures as hateful as the plague, interludes deserving to be spitted a thou- sand times. The magnifico is not worth a copper; the zany is a goose; the graziano sputters his words; the stupid go-between is tiresome; the lover waves his arms madly with every speech he utters; the Spanish villain offers nothing to the entertainment un- less it be "mi vida" and "ml corazon" ; the pedant shies at Tus- can words continually; the burattino's only gesture is to put on and take off his cap; while the leading lady, stupid above all in her diction, dull in her elocution, drowsy in her gestures, is a per- petual foe of the graces and holds a mortal enmity to beauty. 8 In this sprightly description of the trials and va- garies of an Italian theatrical troupe of the sixteenth century, several features are to be noted as pertinent. The performance, it will be seen, was given upon a stage erected in a room, not on an open-air stage in the market place, of the sort upon which the Improvised Comedy was originally presented. Scenery was used, too, instead of the back curtains seen in early prints of Italian dramatic performances, as well as in Callot's spirited drawings of the characters which 8 La Piazza universale di tutte le profession del mondo. 98 GOLDONI appeared in the Improvised Comedy. Indeed, it is none too generally known that theatres with circular or elliptical auditoriums, rising tiers of seats, aisles and exits, and stages enclosed by painted scenery drawn in perspective, were first built in Italy. The Elizabethan theatre, open to the sky, was but remotely related to the modern playhouse, and like the Span- ish theatre retained the characteristics of an inn-yard. The Hotel de Bourgogne, built in 1548 on the site of the ancient palace of that name, had a flat floor (parterre] without seats, and a stage with stationary scenery (decors simultanes) similar to the mansions used for the religious drama. Richelieu's theatre in the Palais Cardinal, which more nearly approached our modern theatres in equipment and design, was not inaugurated until 1641, over fifty years after the open- ing of Palladio's famous Teatro Olimpico at Vicenza a theatre essentially like modern playhouses in design, and having a proscenium and elaborate painted scenery 9 enclosing the entire stage. More- over, nearly a century before the Teatro Olimpico was built, a theatre was erected in Rome during the pon- tificate of Sixtus IV; and in 1486 Duke Ercole I 9 Though begun by Palladio in 1579, the Teatro Olimpico was not finished until 1584, four years after his death. Previously, in 1565, ac- cording to Pompeo Molmenti (La Storia di Venezia nella vita privata), this great architect had built at Venice "in the vestibule of the monastery of Santa Maria della Carita, a wooden amphitheatre for use as a coli- seum, with possibly the distribution and forms imitated from the Roman models which he adopted in the designs for the Teatro Olimpico at Vicenza." In 1588 Scamozzi built another pseudo-classical theatre at Sabbioneta. Moreover temporary stages were frequently erected in palaces for special performances. THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 99 built "a magnificent theatre" in Ferrara, while in the first decade of the sixteenth century Bramante con- structed in the court of the Vatican a theatre modelled after that of the ancients. 10 The leading lady in her male attire, of whom Gar- zoni speaks, is another notable feature of the Italian stage. On rare occasions women performed as ama- teurs in the mystery and miracle plays, but to the stage of the Improvised Comedy the world owes the introduction of professional actresses to replace young men and boys in the female roles an innova- tion Spain, owing probably to its contact with Italy through conquest, is said to have been the first for- eign country to adopt. Even in Moliere's day old women's parts were still acted in France by men. In England, although Coryat, the traveller, gives hearsay evidence that actresses had appeared in Lon- don in his day (1577-1617), French actresses were pelted with rotten eggs and apples as late as 1629, because their sex was considered an offence to theatri- cal decency. Mrs. Coleman, the first English actress did not appear upon the stage until 1656. The first French actress of whom there is any record, is Marie Fairet, who in 1545, "engaged herself to one L'Espe- ronniere for a year to play in such manner that it will please all who see her"; yet there is evidence that two women appeared in public with Beolco in Italy as early as 1529, at least to sing songs and madrigals. 10 Carlo Borghi, op. cit. ; and Dr. Karl Mantzius, A History of Thea- trical Art, Vol. II. ioo GOLDONI Actresses had become so common in Italy as early as 1562, that a contemporary dubs one of them "a beautiful comedienne who has enamoured many," while the famous Isabella Andreini, born in that year, was able to mount the boards at the age of sixteen without hindrance. Indeed, the stage owes to Italy not only the invention of scenery producing perspec- tive illusion, but the introduction by means of the wandering troupes playing improvised comedies, of professional actors and actresses, and also theatrical make-up all the ingredients which distinguish the modern from the mediaeval drama being found on the stage of the Improvised Comedy. 11 Many writers, it is true, have found in the religious drama of the Middle Ages the source of the modern drama, an error that must have arisen from ignorance of the Improvised Comedy of Italy. Though the Elizabethan drama and the Spanish classical drama are the heirs of the religious drama, they are not mod- ern in the sense that Moliere is modern. In the con- struction of his plays, the great Frenchman adapted the technic of the Improvised Comedy to his pur- poses. His characters, too, are with a few notable exceptions the characters of the Improvised Comedy, naturalized as. Frenchmen. His plays written to be performed in roofed theatres, on stages lighted ar- tificially and adorned with scenery, may be given to- day without the excision of a single line, and are in 11 Dr. Karl Mantzius, Vol. II, op. cit.; Dr. Winified Smith, op. cit. and Italian and Elizabethan Comedy; T. Coryat, Coryat's Crudities; A. D'An- cona, Origini del teatro italiano. THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 101 every essential, except atmosphere, modern plays. Surely this cannot be said of the plays of Shakespeare or any Elizabethan dramatist! Indeed, the construc- tion of the modern drama is derived from the Italian Improvised Comedy far more than from either the classic or Elizabethan drama. Another vital feature of the Improvised Comedy is the characterization, as exemplified by Pantalone, Arlecchino, Colombina, Pulcinella, Scaramuccia, Fracasso, and their merry mates. Bereft of Italian softness, these names have become household words. Pantaloon, Harlequin, and Columbine still frolic, albeit in pantomime or masquerade; Punch, with his hump and paunch, is both puppet and humorist; Scaramouche has become a word in every tongue; Capitaine Fracasse spells vagabond romance. Yet the lean and slippery dolt and the spangled, tumbling sprite, who have delighted so many generations of English schoolboys, differ almost as greatly from their Italian namesakes as does the Punch of the pup- pet booth from roguish Pulcinella, true mirror of the Neapolitan proletariat during its foreign bondage. Made mute in France, these characters of the Im- provised Comedy of Italy crossed to free England, there to dwell unhampered; yet, being sun-loving southerners, they withered and declined in the cold northern air. They bear now but a faint semblance of their former merry selves. 12 12 Some of the Italian buffoons joined the ranks of the French forains and acted in the parades, when their theatre was temporarily closed in 102 GOLDONI They are called masks because the actors playing them habitually concealed their features; yet, these leathern face-coverings were but the outward marks by which Arlecchino was distinguished from Panta- lone, Brighella, and Pulcinella, their natures being radically, ay, racially, distinct. Throughout cen- turies of political strife and humanistic rivalry in learning, each Italian city had retained its local characteristics; when the Improvised Comedy was brewed from the lees of lower-class buffoonery and renaissance refinement, many a city added its own spice to the popular decoction. / The elements which fermented it, however, an unerring sense of humour, a love of pleasure, freedom, and mirth, were common to the Italic races and among their oldest possessions. Wandering from town to town, their ranks recruited in every province, the actors of the Improvised Com- edy learned the distinguishing traits of the inhab- itants of each locality, and evolved humorous mask characters to typify certain cities or provinces, each speaking the dialect of his birthplace. The senti- mental characters, however, were performed by un- masked actors speaking Italian. In the course of time, the masks became separated into two distinct groups, the one Venetian, or representative of the 1697. After the banishment of the Comedie Itallenne from the Hotel de Bourgogne to the Theatre Favart, during the latter part of the eighteenth century, French royal edicts for the protection of the Comedie Frangaise and the Opera forbade the actors at other theatres to speak or sing their lines, thus compelling both the Italians and the foralns to resort to panto- mime. In this way, Pantaloon and Harlequin became pantomime char- acters, and as such were introduced into English pantomime. THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 103 north, the other Neapolitan, or southern; the north- ern masks Pantalone, Brighella, Arlecchino, and II Dottore having a firmer hold upon the affections of the public than any of their southern kin, except Pulcinella. They, too, as will be seen, played an im- portant part in Goldoni's work. Ring up the curtain! Let these masks step forth, each in his traditional garb! First comes the good- hearted Pantalone, the simple, yet shrewd Venetian merchant, in his black mantle and the long, red trou- sers that bear his name. On his head is a skull-cap, red slippers adorn his toes, and though beards are no longer the mode in Venice, to denote his ancient an- tecedents, a pointed beard and long mustachios peep from beneath the half-mask that hides his features. "He is a merchant," Goldoni assures us, "because Venice was in ancient times the state having the rich- est and most extended commerce of any in Italy." His costume is that of a Venetian merchant in An- tonio's day; even in Goldoni's time his black robe and woollen skull-cap were still to be seen upon the Rialto. Pantalone de' Bisognosi is his full name; sometimes he is called Babilonio, sometimes, as in the barn-storming company described by Tommaso Garzoni II Magnifico. His ectypes are Ubaldo, Pandolfo, Oronte, Geronte, Cassandro, etc., several of whom became the old men of Moliere's plays. Pantalone is the first old man of the Improvised Com- edy easy-going, honest, yet canny withal, a bachelor sometimes, more often a widower with an only daugh- 104 GOLDONI ter on whom he dotes: in his prime he is a sensible bourgeois, indulgent to his neighbours and homely of wit; in his decadence the shuffling, senile fool of the Christmas pantomime. To do him full justice, his name should perhaps be written Piantaleone, or Plant the Lion; for he was once a Venetian cittadino of the sterling sort, who, in the days of Venetian glory, planted the lioned banner of Saint Mark wher- ever the Mediterranean breezes blew. 13 Venetian Pantalone having made his bow, let II Dottore, the Bolognese, step before us in academic gown and unstarched linen collar. In his belt is stuck a handkerchief or perchance a curved knife ; on his head is either a turban-like cap or a black felt hat with an enormous brim. A half-mask hides his nose and forehead, his cheek is smudged with red to represent a birth-mark. "His dress," to quote Gol- doni, "preserves the costume of the university and bar of Bologna, which is almost the same to-day, and the singular mask which covers his forehead and nose was inspired by a birth-mark that defaced the features of an early jurisconsult." II Dottore is the second old man. His name is generally Graziano, sometimes it is Baloardo Graziano, Prudentio, Hip- 13 Pantalone is said by Boerio, the compiler of a Venetian dialect glos- sary, to be derived from Piantaleone; others give San Pantaleone as the patron saint of all pantaloons. Yet, "he was quite certainly not chris- tened after this saint," says Dr. Winifred Smith, "nor does he seem to- have been named because he represents a Magnifico who planted the lion of Venice in the Levant." However, as this painstaking writer upholds no other origin of the name, not even "pantos-elemon," a modern deriva- tion from the Greek, there seems to be no valid reason why Boerio's defi- nition should not be accepted. THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 105 pocrasso, or Balanzon Lombardo. Usually a lawyer, occasionally a physician, astrologer, grammarian, or philosopher, he makes a vast parade of learning, yet never speaks without uttering some pompous absur- dity law jargon, macaronic Latin, irrational syl- logisms, or any preposterous pedantry an actor could invent, all uttered in a broad Bolognese dialect. Moliere's doctors are characters suggestive of II Dottore of the Improvised Comedy; while Rossini's opera, The Barber of Seville (II Barbiere dl Sivi- glia), founded on Beaumarchais's comedy, preserves both the first and the second old man of the Impro- vised Comedy for modern audiences, Bartolo being Pantalone unmasked and Don Basilio, II Dottore without his birth-marked cheek. Pantalone and II Dottore, in characteristics the series of Latin comedy, were but half masks, taking part in the story of the play as well as in the lazzl; the full masks, appearing solely in the lazzi, being Arlecchino and Brighella, the two Zanni ^ so called, both hailing from the country-side of Bergamo and both servants; the one gluttonous, credulous, light- hearted, the other a clever, pimping rogue. 15 Let these rascals appear ! Spryly Arlecchino makes 14 The Zanni are in character so similar to the low comedy parts of Latin comedy, that this term has been held to be a corruption of Sanniones. A more likely origin of the word, however, is to consider Zanni a Ber- gamask corruption of Giovanni, which becomes our English Zany, a silly- John, the diminutive Zannarello being the French Sganarelle. 15 Truffaldino, Trivellino, Bagattino, Burattino, Mezzettino, and their kind were but the stupid sons of Arlecchino; the rogue Brighella father- ing a score of scamps as well, Pedrolino (Pierrot), Beltramo, Frontino, io6 GOLDONI his entrance, for his nimbleness will turn him in the course of time into a mute ballet dancer. Naively he talks to the audience from beneath his black half- mask, a silly, ingenuous fellow, ever being tricked by Brighella, his roguish colleague, which makes the comedians themselves dub him the second zany, Brighella being the first. Sprightly Arlecchino wears the tight-fitting suit of a country servant, the rags and patches of which have been conven- tionalized into variegated triangles of red, green, and yellow. Whiskers bristle beneath his mask, un- der his arm is a wooden sword, a small bag dangles from his belt, on his head is a soft cap decked with the hare's scut which Goldoni assures us was, even in his day, the distinguishing adornment of a Ber- gamask. Agile, compliant, credulous, yet gay, the personality of this valet changes with that of each actor playing him; and the same may be said of Bri- ghella, Pantalone, II Dottore, and the other masks ; for, just as various actors interpret Hamlet differ- ently, so the buffoons of the Improvised Comedy, while retaining fundamental characteristics, made different dolts or rascals of their roles ; some imitative of actors who had gone before, playing their parts traditionally, others becoming creative artists. But Arlecchino stands alone upon the stage. His knavish mate Brighella awaits his cue. No vari- Gradellino, and Bagolino being his children, or he the offspring of one of them, this picaresque ancestry being somewhat difficult to trace. In Figaro's veins Brighella's blood flows, too, other notable offspring being Mascarille, Sganarelle, and Scapin. THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 107 coloured patches mar the latter's sleekness. He is the servant of some rich young rake and wears livery consisting of a loose white shirt, trimmed with green lace, and wide white trousers. A brown half-mask hides his features, a dagger is in his belt, on his head is a white cap, or bonnet plumed with red feathers, which, in the course of time, becomes conical, just as his tanned mask gives place to the white flour that characterizes his brother Pedrolino's (Pierrot's) face, a degenerate Brighella being our modern clown. Like Arlecchino, his stupid farce-mate, Brighella is a Bergamask, his tawny mask being intended, as Gol- doni tells us, "to indicate the complexion of the in- habitants of those high mountains, burned by the heat of the sun." Roguish, cowardly, yet nimble-witted, Brighella is ever ready to aid his libertine young master or any one else who will tip him in any devilry; in a word, he is the rascally valet who in Spain was called the gracioso; yet who is best known to us through our acquaintance with his offspring, the Mascarille and Scapin of Moliere. ,^ "The four masks of Italian comedy," Goldoni calls these four characters. To have said the "four masks of Venetian comedy" would have been more exact, since at Naples, in the neighbourhood of ancient Atella, the birthplace of buffoonery, other mask char- acters sprang forth, quite as Italian as those of the north. To Goldoni, who first saw these southern masks at Rome when he was past fifty, Venice spelled Italy ; yet in Pulcinella the Neapolitan, quite as much io8 GOLDONI as in Arlecchino or Pantalone, live the characteristics of a people, Francesco Cerlone a poor artisan of Naples being the poet who made him the protago- nist of his race. Without discussing whether or not Pulcinella be descended from Maccus, the fool of Atellan farce, or from Pulcinella dalle Carceri, a grotesque patriot of the thirteenth century, it may be said that his modern debut was made in the six- teenth century in the white shirt and breeches of a countryman of Acerra, his black mask, long nose, hump, paunch, dagger, and truncheon being later ad- ditions. Time, alas! has given him a foolish wife and made him a mere puppet, though little more than a century ago, in Cerlone's clever hand, he mirrored a people and an age. Other masks of the south are Coviello, the Cala- brian, a singing vagabond, once played by Salvator Rosa; the swaggering Spanish Capitano, by name Fracasso or Matamoras, a bully and poltroon, like the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus; Tartaglia, the stam- merer; and Scaramuccia, a black, cowardly boaster, best known to us through the superb art of Tiberio Fiorelli, the great Scaramouche, who was Moliere's reputed master in the art of grimace. The southern colleagues of Pulcinella are almost countless, while Rome and the hill towns, too, had their citizens in burlesque on the stage. In truth, these masks are be- wildering in their multiplicity. Kaleidoscopic Bu- rattino came from everywhere and nowhere, and was both harlequin and clown; Spavento, Coccodrillo, THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 109 Escarabombardon, Rinoceronte, and Spezzaferro were swaggering Spanish bullies of the type of Mata- moras and Fracasso; Trivellino, Fritellino, and Formica (the creation of Salvator Rosa) fiddled or sang like Coviello, while Pasquariello danced; Truf- faldino was a rascally Arlecchino; Bertrame and Meneghino were both Milanese; Stenterello was a Tuscan ; Sendron a Modenese, and so many laugh- ing, tumbling creatures with long noses and slit mouths there were who jested and jibed throughout the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries, that a volume would scarcely suffice for the recital of their names and antics. Colombina, the servetta, or soubrette, with whom both northern Arlecchino and southern Pulcinella had their love-affairs, played a captivating part in the Improvised Comedy as well as in Goldoni's plays. She, too, had many names Rosetta, Marinetta, Cor- allina, Diamantina, Smeraldina, Carmosina, etc. Far more alert than the fairy-like Columbine who pirouettes in the Christmas pantomime, she is ever a saucy, adroit young person the type after which Moliere modelled his pert serving-maids, and Beau- marchais his Suzanne. Colombina's rival is the older Pasquella, generally a widow, of more experience and less virtue, with whom she quarrels and makes peace in turn. Of the lovers' roles in the Improvised Comedy lit- tle need be said. They spoke Tuscan and improvised v little or not at all; together with most of their love i io GOLDONI affairs, they were borrowed from the Erudite Com- edy, their names being pseudo-classical: Flaminia, Giacinta, Ortensia, Beatrice, and Rosaura for the women; Leandro, Lelio, Orazio, Ottavio, and Flo- rindo for the men. Most of them spooned in Gol- doni's comedies, many in Moliere's as well. But the characters with whom the student of Goldoni is most concerned are the four northern masks Pantalone, II Dottore, Arlecchino, and Brighella each of whom became enrolled in his earlier comedies, and helped to mould his naturalistic style. Although the characteristics of the masks are dis- tinctly drawn, their origin is as obscure as the time when the buffoons began to hide their features from the public is uncertain. To Angelo Beolco, an actor and playwright of the early sixteenth century, whom Vernon Lee inspired by Maurice Sand acclaims "the first man who gave the Commedia dell' arte a separate and honourable position," as well as the first "to mourn the misery of Italy," 16 has been given the doubtful honour of introducing masks, he having been said to have devised their use as a means to hide the identity of himself and his well-born comrades as they wandered from hamlet to hamlet, playing his comedies through disinterested love for Thalia. Yet as early as 1518, when Beolco was in his teens, a writer named Pontano 17 describes an al fresco en- tertainment by masked actors. Certainly, during 16 Studies In the Eighteenth Century In Italy. 17 Quoted by Dr. Winifred Smith, op. cit. C/5 THE IMPROVISED COMEDY in Beolco's lifetime the Improvised Comedy flourished in all its essentials, a fact made manifest by a spirited song of Zannis and Magnificos, which was composed before 1559, when it appeared in print. 18 Here, as will be seen by the following translation of three of its stanzas, not only Pantalone, the staid Venetian, is mentioned, but the Bergamask, the zanies, and women, a proof that when this song was written, the masks had been developed and actresses were upon the stage of the Improvised Comedy, which was no longer set up in the market place, but in a stanza or hall. As up and down the land we stroll, We play the staid Venetian s role, The Bergamask } the Zanies' part: For acting farces is our art! We 're great reciters, all of us, Both excellent and glorious. The other worthy player-bards Stay at the hall to act as guards, The lovers, women, hermits, knights. We Ve outlined plays that are delights, So witty, jolly, pretty, bright, You '11 die of laughing on the night ! And then we wish to show to you A lovely scene, well-made and new Where Cantinella's merry voice With all the Zanies will rejoice 18 Canto di Zanni e Magnifichi, by Anton Francesco Grazzini, called II Lasca, in De' tutti Trionfi, earn, mascherite o canti carnascialeschi del tempo di Lorenzo de' Medici a questo anno 1559. ii2 GOLDONI To give you pleasure; if awhile You would unduly laugh and smile, To-morrow come ye, one and all, To see the show and fill the hall ! Rome had its Erudite Comedy fabula palllata and fabula togata the one foreign, the other na- tive; and also its improvised comedy the Mimes from Greece, the Atellanae of the soil. Cer- tain characters, too, of Roman comedy, both writ- ten and extemporized, resemble vaguely the masks of the Renaissance; hence, it is easy to be carried away, like Riccoboni, Maurice Sand, and Ver- non Lee, with the feeling that Improvised Com- edy has "existed in rudiment ever since the earliest days of Latin, Oscan, and Italo-Greek civilization." Dr. Winifred Smith, however, comes to the conclu- sion that "even admitting the unproved hypothesis, that the Atellanae were farces marked by improvisa- tion and masked personages, it would be impossible to establish between them and the Italian extempore plays a connection worthy the name." Giulio Cap- rin, 19 a modern Italian authority, also scouts the idea that the masks of the Renaissance are directly de- scended from the buffoons of Roman comedy, a view with which Symonds accords, 20 when he states that "nothing could be more uncritical than to assume that the Italian masks of the sixteenth century A. D. boasted of an uninterrupted descent from the Roman 19 Carlo Goldoni: la sua vita le sue opere. 20 Introduction to The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi. THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 113 masks of the fifth century B. c.," his assumption being that Out of the same persistent habits emerged the same kind of native drama; and just as the Atellanae of ancient Rome event- ually brought the comedy of the proletariat upon the public stage in cities, so at the close of the sixteenth century the Commedia dell' arte worked up the rudiments of popular farce into a new form which delighted Europe for two hundred years. This being the modern critical view regarding the suggested Roman origin of the Improvised Comedy, it seems unnecessary to present here the fancied re- semblances of Maccus to Pulcinella, Bucco to Ar- lecchino, Pappus to Pantalone, and Dossennus to II Dottore, or to sketch the supposed likeness between the nimble and dull-witted sanniones of Rome and the zanni of the sixteenth century. Nor is there space within the limits of this chapter to discuss the hypoth- esis that the masks of the Improvised Comedy are descended either from the comic personages of the mystery plays, or from a mediaeval profane comedy that may have existed side by side with the sacred representations. Although the origin of the Improvised Comedy is shrouded in uncertainty, there is no doubt that it "delighted Europe for two hundred years." The glory of the Renaissance might be on the wane, yet Italy still taught art and fashion to the rest of Europe when this form of comedy reached its full develop- ment. Young foreigners, seeking culture in Italian 1 1 4 GOLDONI courts, took to their native lands such stories of the ability of the Italian mask actors, that many a northern monarch sent to Italy for a troupe of buf- foons to edify him. In Austria, Bavaria, and France, Italian masks appeared and gave delight with their spontaneous merriment, carrying by storm the ram- parts of the native drama. In Spain and England the local forces, though hard pressed, held their own, the drama of those lands being too thoroughly na- tional to be stunted in its growth by this foreign blast. Troupes of Italians, it is true, played at the court of Spain, and made scenari from Spanish plays, the stage receiving technical impulses from these adepts in dramatic construction; yet the Spaniard of that day was too dire and gloomy to be strongly influenced by Italian merriment; therefore, the cloak-and-sword drama, true vehicle of national expression that it be- came, ran little risk of being influenced by the sprightly Gommedia dell' arte. In England, Italian actors played probably as early as 1572, certainly in 1577, when Drusiano Martinelli was granted a license to appear in London. Thomas Heywood (1612) speaks of "doctors, zawnyes, pan- taloons, and harlakenes." Shakespeare, too, denotes the sixth age of man by "the lean and slipper' d panta- loon." Captain Fracasso is manifestly the inspira- tion of Udall's Ralph Roister Doister, and Ben Jonson's Captain Bobadil, and in the four-scene plats, or scenari, discovered about a century ago among the papers of Henslowe, the manager, and his son-in-law, THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 115 the wealthy actor Alleyn, there is evidence that the professional methods of the Italian mask actors were known to the English stage even before Shakespeare penned his first play; therefore, it is not surprising to find the action of his pieces interrupted by the lazzi of clowns, doltish as Arlecchino or knavish as Brighella. It is unlikely, however, as Dr. Winifred Smith points out, 21 that the English actor ever learned to im- provise from a scenario. Many plots, certain struc- tural features, and also its means of expression prose for comedy and blank verse for tragedy the Elizabethan drama undoubtedly owed to the Italian stage; yet, that was not the entire debt, for it owed as well, to quote Dr. J. W. Cunliffe, 22 "in tragedy re- straint and dignity; in comedy graceful and sprightly satire of contemporary life." In France the debt was far greater. As early as 1548, Italian actors began to invade that land, and when in 1571 the Gelosi made their first pilgrim- age beyond the Alps, the French saw extemporized comedy interpreted by adepts. Henceforth, except during the nineteen years when the Hotel de Bour- gogne was closed by Louis XIV (1697-1716), the 21 Italian and Elizabethan Comedy. 22 The Influence of Italian on Early Elizabethan Drama. 23 A famous troupe of Italian mask actors, which made several trips to France between 1571 and 1604. The personnel changed from time to time, Flaminio Scala being reputed to have been its director for sev- eral years. Among its most noted histrions were wanton Vittoria Piis- simi, its first leading lady, Simone Bolognese and Panzanini Gabriele, the zanni, Francesco Andreini, both innamorato and Capitano, and Isa- bella Andreini, the latter's wife, noted for her talent, beauty, erudition and exemplary conduct. n6 GOLDONI Italian masked buffoons reigned merrily in France, until they were deprived of their theatre during Goldoni's old age ( 1779) , and forced to become mute pantomimists in order that the rights of the Comedie Frangaise and the Opera might be protected. Two hundred years had elapsed since the advent of the Gelosi, and during that time the Improvised Comedy of Italy had taken so strong a hold upon French pop- ular taste that not a single French writer of comedy had been wholly free from its influence. Moliere made liberal use of Italian material, mask buffoonery being his inspiration. By adding his own masterful characterization and atmosphere to plots taken from all lands, he created French comedy, but to Italy he was indebted for his comic characters, for the love intrigues of his witching coquettes and pert sou- brettes, and above all for his spirited stage-craft. Yet, much as the modern drama owes to the Impro- vised Comedy, that unique form of stage merriment had several serious defects. Instead of the old plots used to-day with new characters to carry them, Ital- ian audiences were once regaled with the same charac- ters fitted to stories so manifold that Carlo Gozzi, GoldonPs bitter rival, estimated the number of dra- matic situations used in improvised comedy at be- tween three and four hundred. The characters were not only fixed, but personal as well, an actor once playing Arlecchino, Pantalone, or Pulcinella remain- ing in the same part throughout his life, and often giving such an individualized touch to it, that he be- THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 117 came known solely by its name, as in the case of Tib- erio Fiorelli, the great Scaramouche. Aside from the facility with which an actor might vulgarize an im- provised comedy, the vital defect of this dramatic form lay in the use of masks, and in its tendency to become stereotyped. The masks prevented facial play, and too often the buffoons' lazzi were but repe- titions of jokes already stale, while the love-making of the primo amoroso was wont to be drawn entirely from his zibaldone. So long as the mask actors re- mained idealists, their scenic parody of life was un- equalled in spontaneity; yet during their decadence the Scylla and Charybdis, between which they seldom sailed unscathed, were lewdness and monotony. Goldoni realized these evils thoroughly. In speak- ing of the stage in his day and of the improvement that had come to literature since the preceding cen- tury, he laments the fact that "the last to yield to a better system were the actors." "Being suckled with bad milk," he continues, "they were incapable on their own volition of mending their ways" ; and to his mind there was nothing on the stage but "indecent harlequinades, foul and scandalous intrigues, lewd jests, immodest loves." 24 In The Comic Theatre (II Teatro comico) , a play he wrote to uphold his dra- matic methods against the attacks of his enemies, he makes a character say: "The public is tired of al- ways seeing the same things, of always hearing the same words the moment Arlecchino opens his 24 Prefaces to the Pasquali edition of Goldoni's comedies. n8 GOLDONI mouth, you know what he is going to say." Indeed he was alive not only to the vulgarity and monotony of the Improvised Comedy, but also to the factitious- ness created by the use of masks, an inartistic conven- tion he thus decries : The mask must always be very prejudicial to the action of the performer, either in joy or sorrow; whether he be in love, cross, or good-humoured, the same features are always exhibited; and how- ever he may gesticulate and vary the tone, he can never convey by the countenance, which is the interpreter of the heart, the different passions with which he is inwardly agitated. Though the evils of the Improvised Comedy are many, its virtues are world-wide in their influence. To Moliere, the first distinctly modern dramatist, it taught dramatic technic. To Goldoni it furnished the stage-craft that makes his comedies move so easily and naturally. From its elements the Frenchman created the modern drama, and from them too, the Italian built a new and thoroughly national written comedy with characters drawn from the life of his people the proletariat, as well as the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. Thus Goldoni's inspiration, like Moliere's, was the unwritten, democratic comedy of Italy, spontaneous in dialogue and flexible in con- struction, a comedy shaped by the practical expe- rience of professional actors, unhampered by didactic rules, and therefore so vital that it still influences the drama, the task of the playwright of the present day being to construct his scenario after the manner of the Improvised Comedy, then revivify in dialogue Pan- THE IMPROVISED COMEDY 119 talone, II Dottore, Arlecchino, Brighella, il primo amoroso, la signora, and la servetta. This done, their roles are allotted to the first old man, the second old man, the first low comedian, the second low comedian, the leading man, the leading lady, and the soubrette. II Capitano or Scaramuccia is played by the modern villain, Pasquella by the first old woman, Ottavio or Silvio by the juvenile, and the simpering role of Flaminia, Bettina, Clarice, or Isabella by the mod- ern ingenue. Thus closely is the drama of the pres- ent day related in construction to the Improvised Comedy of Italy, an inexhaustible grab bag from which our playwrights consciously or unconsciously draw their material, just as those of the Renaissance drew from Plautus and Terence, and they from Me- nander the Greek. G IV THE PERIOD OF ESSAY OLDONI'S naturalistic comedy was created from the lewd dust of the Improvised Comedy of his day; yet so slowly did he pur- sue his task that his earlier efforts are simply come- dies of this nature, shorn of lubricity, in which the love scenes only were penned, the improvisation of the lazzi being left to the ingenuity of the buffoons. Don Juan Tenorio; or, The Debauchee, his first lengthy comedy is, it is true, a five-act effort in verse, written in imitation of Moliere. This play, however, is so foreign to Goldoni's genius that, like his trag- edies, it becomes interesting mainly as an evidence of how far afield an artist may wander. Yet Goldoni was ever straying from the path of his genius, his work fairly covering the entire range of the drama, tragedy, tragi-comedy, comedy, farce, extrava- ganza, opera, and opera bouffe. He is eminent only in comedy. Here he has hewn a path quite his own ; for although he has been termed erroneously "the Italian Moliere" his genius is dis- tinct from that of the Frenchman. His ambition was both to reform the Italian stage and "not to spoil na- ture" ; yet, his reform was brought about so gradually 120 THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 121 and he spoiled nature so frequently by straying away from the sunlit streets of Venice, that to follow the development of his art with chronological exactness becomes futile. Not only did he write many kinds of plays but many kinds of comedies as well. In dramatic naturalism lies his fame; for only when he paints the life of his native Venice is he eminent. Speaking roughly, a hundred and fifty comedies, a hundred tragedies, operatic tragedies, and operas bourles form his dramatic product; yet to know the comedies is to know Goldoni, his other work being interesting chiefly as a matter of endeavour. "To classify the vast mass of Carlo Goldoni's the- atrical works is most difficult," says Ernesto Masi; "writers and editors have tried it many times, yet there is not a single one of these attempts that does not open the door to criticism both justifiable and justified." 1 He wrote comedies in Tuscan and com- edies wholly or partly in the Venetian dialect, comedies in prose and comedies in verse; some dealt with the life of Venice, others were exotic in sub- ject; some were comedies of character, others of intrigue; some were serious, others light; some dealt with fashionable life, others with the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. At no time in his long career did he confine his work to any particular style, his choice of subject being determined either by his mood or by theatrical exigencies. To group his work into comedies of character or of intrigue in the manner 1 Scelta di Commedie di Carlo Goldoni. 122 GOLDONI of many writers does scant justice to Goldoni, the painter of nature. He either depicts effectively the Venetian life he knows, or ineffectively a life he does not know the London of Richardson, the Paris of Voltaire and Diderot, the Persia of the Arabian Nights. As in the case of Moliere, prose was the natural medium of his art; verse a form of expression forced upon him by the demands of public taste. About forty of his comedies are in verse ; five of these, and the best by far, being in the Venetian dialect. Al- though scarcely a tenth of the prose comedies are penned in the speech of Venice, those on which his fame most surely rests are written in this idiom; while in nearly twoscore of the remainder the mask characters speak in dialect after the manner of the Improvised Comedy. Indeed in almost every in- stance, the speech of Venice is used either wholly or in part whenever the scene of the play lies on native soil. There are, moreover, three distinct periods in Gol- doni's dramatic work, coetaneous with equally dis- tinct periods of his life. During his earlier years his vagrant spirit led him into many channels and through many adventures. From 1721, when he ran away from school at Rimini and travelled to his home at Chioggia with a band of strolling players, until the autumn of 1748, when he appeared in Venice as the playwright of a troupe managed by an actor named Medebac, he led a fitful life as stu- THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 123 dent, diplomatist, and lawyer, a life at once adven- turous and unsuccessful. From 1734 until 1743 he wrote plays for Imer's troupe; yet during a part of this time he was Genoese consul at Venice; so it cannot be said that he had adopted play-writing as his profession. It was his avocation rather than his vocation; furthermore he abandoned the stage in 1744 to practice law at Pisa. During this first period of his life he wrote some thirty dramatic pieces: tragedies, tragi-comedies, operas, operatic interludes, operas bouffes, written comedies, and improvised comedies. It was a period of essay during which he was groping in dramatic darkness, uncertain whither to direct his steps and still dubious of dramatic writ- ing as a profession. Burning his legal bridges entirely in 1747, by sign- ing a contract with Medebac for a period of one year, he appeared in Venice during the following year as a professional dramatist and, to quote his own words, "abandoned himself without reflection to the comic genius that had lured him." Here begins the second period of his life as well as of his work. Dur- ing fourteen years he wrote professionally for the stage of Venice; his life, except for quarrels with managers, actresses and critics, being joyously lived in the tranquillity of domestic peace. During that happy time he penned fully a hundred comedies, and about half as many operas bouffes. Graced by all his masterpieces save one, 2 this was the most prolific 2 Le Bourru bienfaisant, written in French in 1771. i2 4 GOLDONI period of his life as well as the period of his greatest achievement. When the indifference of the public and the attacks of rivals and critics drove him into exile in Paris in 1762, he began again in France, as the playwright of Les Comediens du roi de la troupe italienne, the re- form of comedy he had accomplished in Italy; yet he fought less valiantly for his ideals. Though he penned some fifty comedies, scenari, and operas bouffes in France, once only did his genius shine with its full splendour, and then in a foreign tongue. These three distinct periods of Goldoni's work have been kept in mind during the writing of this book, the present chapter treating of the first, or period of essay, the chapter entitled "Dramatic Work in France," of the last, or period of exile; while the chapters called "Comedies of the Aristocracy," "Comedies of the Bourgeoisie," "Comedies in the Venetian Dialect," "Exotic Comedies" and "Come- dies in Verse," are all concerned with the great pro- lific period between his return to Venice in 1748 and his departure for Paris in 1762. To these rules of selection an exception has been made in regard to those comedies in which the plots are taken wholly or in part from Moliere, a chapter being devoted to the plays in which Goldoni attempted to imitate the work of his great predecessor. At the time when he began to write for the stage of his day the Improvised Comedy was in its deca- dence. True, there were a few skilled mask actors THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 125 such as Antonio Sacchi, the harlequin, and Cesare D'Arbes, the pantaloon, but they were the exceptions rather than the rule, the Improvised Comedy being then mostly in the hands of lewd jack-puddings. In its prime this stage parody of life, unexcelled in spontaneity and truth to nature, was allied to the fine arts; in its decline it became the base medium of anathematized buffoons forbidden by law to enter decent houses. Even in sybaritic Venice, a state in- quisitor of Goldoni's time lashed the players of Ven- ice in these scathing words: "Remember that you actors are persons odious to our blessed Lord, but tolerated by the prince only as a pasture for those who delight in your iniquities." 3 To this arraign- ment of the Improvised Comedy of his day, Goldoni adds the following testimony: Indeed, the Comic Stage in our Italy had been so corrupt for more than a century that for the transalpine nations it had be- come an abominable object of contempt. There upon the public boards only unseemly harlequinades, foul and scandalous gallant- ries and jests were in vogue. Stories poor in conception and worse in execution, uncivil and ill ordered, which far from cor- recting vice as the first, the ancient and most noble object of comedy, only fomented it, and arousing the laughter of the ignorant plebe- ians, dissolute youths and the most debauched of the population, dis- gusted, then irritated the educated and the well-bred, who if they sometimes frequented so poor a theatre and were there dragged out of boredom, took good care not to take with them their innocent families, lest their hearts might be corrupted. ... Of late, however, many have tried to regulate the theatre and bring good taste back to 3 Nicolo Maria Tiepolo (about 1778), as quoted by P. G. Molmenti in his Carlo Goldoni, Studio critico-biografico. i 2 6 GOLDONI it. Some have attempted to do so by producing upon the stage come- dies translated from the Spanish and from the French, but mere translations could not make a hit in Italy. National tastes differ, as do customs and languages, and for this reason our mercenary actors, feeling in their prejudice the force of this truth, set about altering them, and reciting them in improvisation ; yet they so dis- figured them that they could no longer be recognized as works of such celebrated poets as Lope de Vega and Moliere who beyond the mountains, where better taste flourished, had happily composed them. They have treated with the same cruelty the comedies of Plautus and Terence; nor did they spare any of the other ancient or modern comedies that happened to fall into their hands, or which had been born, or were being born, in Italy itself, especially in that most polished school of Florence. In the meantime the educated chafed, the people wearied ; all exclaimed in accord against bad comedies ; yet most people had no idea of good ones. 4 Such was the lewd comedy which inspired Gol- doni's naturalistic comedy of Venetian life, his earlier farces like those of Moliere, who learned his technic in the same school, being little more than scenari, in which either all or some of the four Venetian masks appear. His earlier comedies, too, are frequently interrupted by lazzi f though they are free from vul- garity. Gradually as his pen became surer in touch, his masks emerged from their buffoonish chrysalids as fully developed characters ; his Pantalone, though still clothed in his red trousers, and often masked, typifying Venice's worth, his Brighella and Arlec- chino, her light-hearted, indolent people, his Dottore, her corrupt bureaucracy and bar. Goldoni has been accused of never escaping from 4 Prefaces to Bettinelli and Paperini editions reprinted in Pasquali edition, Vol. I. THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 127 the influence of the Improvised Comedy; yet when he discards the masks and their lazzl entirely and presents the life of his beloved Venice just as it ap- pears to his artistic eyes, his work is as free from the stereotyped devices of the Improvised Comedy as is Moliere's, as free as Ibsen's, it might almost be said, for here Goldoni appears as a consummate nat- uralist depicting actual life in truthful colours. Yet only a few times in his long dramatic career did he liberate himself wholly from the hackneyed tricks of the native comedy, or the stilted artifice of the French comedy of his day. The method of his re- form was slowly to eliminate the masks by accustom- ing the public to written comedy constructed in the old style with some or all of the stereotyped charac- ters, then to discard this style and these characters entirely, and present to his countrymen a written com- edy along conventional French lines. Yet so little did he appreciate his true genius that his memoirs teem with defence of these artificial comedies, while his naturalistic masterpieces often receive scant men- tion. Nevertheless he seems to have understood that his ability to reproduce the life about him was the source of his immediate success ; for while he scolded his countrymen for their inability to appreciate re- fined comedy, he catered to their taste. He had moreover a definite purpose in view which he ex- pressed in these words : Now there was within me this selfsame spirit, which making me a most attentive observer of the comedies that were being i 2 8 GOLDONI performed in the various theatres of Italy, caused me to recognize and lament their corrupted taste, while comprehending at the same time that the public would derive no little benefit, and he who should succeed, no small praise, if some man of talent inspired by the comic spirit should attempt to uplift the abased Italian Theatre. This hope of glory finally enlisted me in the undertaking. 5 His memoirs, written years after this declaration was penned, show the fidelity with which he upheld the banner of his reform. "I am now," he said of a play produced shortly after he had won his first success in Venice, "perfectly at my ease, and I can give rein to my imagination. Hitherto I have la- boured on old subjects, but now I must create and invent for myself. This," he added, "is perhaps the happy moment to set on foot the reform I have so long meditated. Was I wrong," he continues, "in encouraging myself in this manner? No; for com- edy was my inclination and good comedy should be my aim. Had I entertained the ambition of equalling the masters of the art, I should have been wrong, but I merely aspired to reform the abuses of the stage of my own country, and to accomplish this required no great amount of erudition." Com- edy being concerned with ordinary life is therefore likely to be truer to life than tragedy. "The mis- fortunes of the heroes of tragedy interest us at a distance," Goldoni tells us, "but those of our contem- poraries are likely to affect us more closely. Com- edy, which is an imitation of nature, ought not to reject virtuous and pathetic sentiments, if the essen- 5 Preface to the Pasquali edition, Vol. I. THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 129 tial object be observed of enlivening it with those comic and prominent traits which constitute the very foundation of its existence." Here he has tersely ex- pressed the fundamental principles of his art. "The rule of all rules," as Moliere wisely says, "is to please," a precept Goldoni expounds when main- taining that "a comedy without interest, plot, or sus- pense, in spite of its beauties of detail, cannot be other than a bad play. Yet I could not," he said at another time, "reform the national comedy all at once without shocking its admirers: therefore I awaited a favourable moment for commencing a frontal at- tack upon it with more strength and safety." The moment for that attack came in 1747 when he "abandoned himself without reflection to the comic genius that had lured him." Thereafter, until driven into exile by the neglect of his fellow country- men, he fought valiantly in defence of an art, the theory of which he thus elucidates in The Comic Theatre, a polemic rather than a play, written as a prologue to his dramatic work in Venice: Comedy was invented to correct foibles and ridicule disagree- \ able habits; when the comedy of the ancients was written in this wise, the whole world liked it, for on seeing a facsimile of a char- acter upon the boards, everybody saw the original either in him- self or in some one else. When comedy became merely ridiculous, nobody paid further attention to it, since under the pretext of caus- ing laughter, the most high-sounding absurdities were permitted. Now that we are again fishing comedies out of the Mare magnum of nature, men find themselves again searching their hearts and identifying themselves with the passion or the character which is 130 GOLDONI being represented, for they know how to discern whether a passion is well depicted, whether a character is well sustained: in short, they observe. . . . The French have triumphed in the art of comedy during a whole century; it is now time for Italy to proclaim that in her the seed of good authorship is not dried up, Italian authors having been, after the Greeks and the Romans, the first to enrich and adorn the stage. The French in their comedies, it must be ad- mitted, present fine and well-sustained characters; moreover, they delineate passions well, and their conceptions are acute, witty, and brilliant, but the public of that country is satisfied with a little. One single character is sufficient to maintain a French comedy. Around a single passion well conceived and drawn, a great number of speeches vibrate which by dint of elocution present the air of novelty. We Italians demand much more. We wish the princi- pal character to be strong, original, and well recognized . . . that the plot shall be fertile in incidents and novelties. We demand morals mingled with quips and humour. We insist that the end be unexpected, but plainly derived from the trend of the action. We like to have an infinity of things, too many to relate here, and it is only in the course of time that we can succeed in learning by practice and usage to know them and to obtain success with them. Although he was opposed to "flattering the actors who were so fond of their old ways," Goldoni, never- theless, recognized that the Improvised Comedy permitted them "to distinguish themselves by the promptness of their wits, from players of all other na- tions," 6 and he was too alive to the exigencies of the stage to attempt the sudden undoing of that com- edy. Indeed he was a commercial dramatist in the modern sense, writing to fill a theatre, yet never en- tirely forsaking his ideals. Still, he often failed to realize that his most popular plays were likewise his 6 Preface to Pasquali edition, Vol. III. THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 131 best. Knowing the worth of real comedy, but en- ticed by the literary glitter of contemporary France toward false comedy as a thing to be emulated for its refinement, he returned to real comedy only when spurred on by the man in the box-office. "But it was time to leave this kind of sentimental play," he ex- claims after an unsuccessful attempt to naturalize artificial French comedy, "and return to characters and real comedy, the more so as we were nearing the end of the carnival, when it was necessary to enliven the entertainment and put it within reach of every- one." Whenever he was obliged to do this, he pre- sented one of his naturalistic pictures of Venetian life; as is often the case, while doing his best work he usually wrote at fever heat. "How many come- dies have I precipitated in six or seven days 1" he ex- claims. "How often have I, when harassed by time, given the first act for rehearsal and without seeing it again, written the second, and likewise the third!" This he was able to do through his thorough mastery of stage-craft, which he elucidates as follows: Time, experience, and habit had so familiarized me with the art of comedy, that after inventing the subjects and selecting the char- acters, for me all the rest was mere routine. Formerly I went through four processes before finishing the composition and cor- rection of a play. First process: the plan, with the division into three principal parts, the exposition, the intrigue, and denouement. Second process: the division of the action into acts and scenes. Third : the dialogue of the more interesting scenes. Fourth: the general dialogue of the entire play. I3 2 GOLDONI It frequently happened that during this last process I changed all that I had done in my second and third ; for ideas succeed one an- other; one scene produces another, one chance expression furnishes a new thought. After a while I was able to reduce the four pro- cesses to a single one. Having the plan and three divisions in my head, I would begin at once with Act One, Scene One, and would go straight on to the end, with the maxim always in view, that all the lines ought to terminate in the denouement, which is the princi- pal thing, it seems, and for which all the machinery is arranged. Although he had written a comedy when a child and had at the age of twelve played a female role in a performance given at Perugia, his dramatic educa- tion really began at Rimini in 1720, where, instead of studying logic under the Dominican father Can- dini, he read Plautus, Terence, Aristophanes, and the fragments of Menander. After fleeing from Can- dini's scholastic boredom, he received his first prac- tical knowledge of the stage while journeying by boat to Chioggia in company with Florindo and his strolling players. The inspiration given him by a study of the classic dramatists was crystallized into a distinct ambition in Pavia, when at the age of fif- teen, he made the discovery in the library of Pro- fessor Lauzio that although there was an English, Spanish, and French drama, there was no Italian drama. Seeing with pain that a the nation which was acquainted with dramatic art before every other nation, lacked something essential," he resolved, that day, "to do his share"; yet, he was no deep student of the classics, the books which he "reflected upon most" and which he "never regretted having used" THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 133 being "The World and The Stage." 7 Surely experi- ence is a better training for a dramatist than erudition. Throughout his long life the fire of the ambition lighted at Pavia was never quenched, while that youthful resolution to do his share was fully sus- tained, no other Italian having done so much toward raising his country to the dramatic level of other na- tions. Though he found no collection of plays in Professor Lauzio's library "which could do honour to Italy," at Chioggia during the following summer he was, as has been seen in a preceding chapter, in- advertently given by a worthy canon, Machiavelli's Mandrake, a comedy which he "devoured at the first reading and perused at least ten times thereafter"; though it was not "the wanton style" nor "the scan- dalous intrigue of the piece" which made him ad- mire it, but rather the fact that it was the first comedy of character which had ever fallen into his hands. Cicognini 8 is another Italian author of comedy whom he read and re-read, "a Florentine author very little known," as he says, "in the republic of letters," yet exceedingly interesting withal "because of the art with which he created suspense and pleasingly untied his knots." Thus inspired, Goldoni set himself assiduously to the task of reforming the Italian stage, his object be- 7 Prefaces to the editions of 1750 and 1753, reprinted in Pasquali edition. 8 There were two dramatists named Cicognini, who were father and son: lacopo (1577-1633) and Giacinto Andrea (1606-1660) ; but, as Guido Mazzoni points out, it is manifestly the younger to whom Goldoni refers, he being a writer of many comedies. i 3 4 GOLDONI ing to ennoble the Improvised Comedy by purifying its morality and by creating from its elements a na- tional written comedy. After he began to write for the stage he groped in dramatic darkness for fully twelve years before becoming convinced that comedy was his bent. His studies of Menander, Plautus, Terence, Machiavelli, and Cicognini should have turned his steps thither; yet like Moliere at the outset of his career he was a votary of Melpomene. At the age of twenty-five he bowed, as has been seen, to the influence of Metastasio by writing Amalasontha, a tragedy for music, which was condemned by the director of the opera at Milan, and burnt by Goldoni without a pang of regret. Though an ac- quaintance to whom he had read it before it was committed to the flames told him "to be constant to comedy," he did not accept this advice unreservedly until years of experience had taught him its value. In the meantime his youthful pen brought forth trag- edies, tragi-comedies, and interludes, the first of his efforts to be performed professionally being The Venetian Gondolier (II Gondollere veneziano), the musical interlude penned at Milan during the sum- mer of 1733 f r tne troupe of The Anonymous, and which, although written to be sung, Goldoni calls "the first of his comedy efforts to appear in public and afterward in print." This interlude is a charming little sketch of a lov- ers' quarrel written in quaint dialect stanzas, the two characters that sustain it being thoroughly natural THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 135 persons : moreover they are Venetian and of the peo- ple, while their love is a human passion with none of the artificial delicacy common to the French com- edy of that day. The language, too, though in verse, is the language of the streets ; therefore in this trifle, Goldoni sounded clearly though faintly the first note of his dramatic naturalism. In 1734, his tragi-comedy Belisarius, present- ing as its hero the Emperor Justinian's famous gen- eral, was produced so successfully in Venice that it ran for nearly a month. This play, written in the midst of war's alarums, and saved from the thieving deserters who despoiled its author during the cam- paign, in 1734, is as good as any of Goldoni's trag- edies and tragi-comedies, yet the reader of the pres- ent day who wades through its pomposity will merely yawn, wondering how a genius so true could have penned a work so false. No imagery adorns its tire- some lines; no philosophy, no truth. Goldoni says that its characters were men and not demigods : they are certainly very dull men speaking dull versified prose, and the wonder is that the play was applauded. It was written in the traditional stilted manner of the neo-classics, though perhaps its success was due to its novelty, it being the first play, according to Pro- fessor Ortolani, 10 without masks or without music produced in Italy since Maffei's Merope (1714), a tragedy also written to elevate the stage, MafTei be- ing, like Goldoni, a reformer. MafTei's efforts were 10 Delia Vita e dell' arte di Carlo Goldoni. 136 GOLDONI futile, however, and so were Goldoni's so long as he persisted in writing pompous tragedies and tragi- comedies, the titles of the plays of this character he penned during this period of essay being sufficient to indicate their turgid qualities. 11 Speaking of Belisarius Goldoni says that "it was not worth the price at which it had been valued," and the same may be said of his other lugubrious plays written when he was seeking fame without knowing where her proud* temple stood. To find a young dramatist inspired by neo-classi- cism at a time when Metastasio was in vogue is not surprising. The Racine of Italy, as Goldoni calls this lyric dramatist, knew Horace by heart; yet he is said never to have begun writing without first read- ing a few pages of Guarini's Pastor Fldo; so, al- though he occasionally attained to the Roman's ex- quisite elegance, his style was more often tainted with the tasteless elegance of the later Renaissance, Apostolo Zeno, whom Goldoni likens to Corneille, although the first to dignify melodrama or grand opera, as we now call this dramatic form, the word melodrama having been perverted from the original meaning has been styled a lesser Metastasio. With equal justice Goldoni, the youthful imitator of both these writers, may be called a lesser Zeno as far as concerns his melodramas. To rewrite Griselda, a musical tragi-comedy Zeno had himself written in collaboration with Pietro 11 Rosmonda, Rinaldo dt Montalbano, Enrico di Sicilia, and Griselda. THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 137 Pariati, was his first operatic effort. This was fol- lowed by four melodramas 12 written in the style Zeno and Metastasio had popularized. As in the case of the tragedies, to detail their turgid stories here would merely weary the reader, they, too, being interesting mainly as evidence of how far Goldoni strayed during his earlier years of dramatic writing from the road the Muses intended him to follow. Years after when he had travelled a considerable dis- tance upon that road, he edited a subscription edition of his plays. 13 Realizing how futile had been his youthful attempts to write serious plays, he did not include therein a single classical tragedy, or tragi- comedy. Another style of musical play, to the penning of which he frequently devoted himself throughout his long life, he called "merry plays for music" (drammi giocosi per musica) , these being a versified form of musical comedy akin in both to opera bouffe and to French vaudeville. Of these merry plays he wrote some fifty or more, 14 all mirthful trifles in which his genius for comedy is manifest; The Young Countess (La Contessina), for instance, a youthful 12 La Generosita politica, Gustavo prlmo re di Svezia, Oronte re de* Sciti, and Statira. 13 Pasquali edition, 1761. 14 Dr. Cesare Musatti (/ Drammi musicali di Carlo Goldoni} has col- lected the titles of eighty-six musical plays by Goldoni, including the more serious operas, as well as the musical interludes, such as // Gon- doliere Veneziano. Of the merry plays he gives the titles of more than fifty. Over sixty different musicians, among them Galuppi, Paisiello, Cimarosa, Jomelli, Bach, Haydn, and Mozart, composed music for Gol- doni's libretti. 138 GOLDONI effort of this nature, displaying in its dainty love- story of a bourgeois lad who pretends to be a marquis in order to win a noble lady's hand, more truth to nature than is to be found in any of his sombre trage- dies. Yet to linger over his "merry plays for music" is to wander from the comedy he glorified. Though more replete with art than his tragedies and tragi- comedies, they are, like his interludes to use a com- mercial phrase only "by-products" of his genius, and therefore merely beg the question of his art. Before he turned his lagging steps towards comedy, Zeno told him that his opera, Gustavus I, King of Sweden (Gustavo primo re di Svezia) was "mediocre, though a hundred times better than those merely imitated from the work of others [meaning himself]." When it was produced "the actors were good," Goldoni tells us, "the music excellent, and the ballets very lively, but nothing was said of the play. I was behind the curtain," he adds, "sharing the ap- plause that did not belong to me, and in order to pacify myself, I said that this is not my style, mean- while resolving to have my revenge with my next comedy." Thus was he guided by popular acclaim toward the road he should have been following. His first sustained comedy is Don Juan Tenorlo; or, The Debauchee (1736), an imitated play and therefore, like his efforts in tragedy, opera, and ver- sified comedy, merely a step in the dark. His ca- reer as a painter of the foibles of mankind really began two years later (1738) with The Man of the THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 139 World (L'Uomo dl mondo) ; 15 a play that in the slang of our day would be called "The Man About Town," or better still "The Good Fellow" ; Momolo, its principal character, being, to quote his author, "generous without profusion, gay without rashness; fond of pleasure without ruining himself, and pre- pared to bear a part in everything for the good of society." His family name is Bisognosi; therefore he is a son of Pantalone spending for his pleasure the money his hard-fisted father has amassed in a word, a typical rich man's son. Although "a good fellow," Momolo is no degen- erate like the Venetians who in 1797 paled at the sound of Bonaparte's drums. He loves pleasure and spends his father's hard-earned sequins freely, yet he is a true descendant of his sturdy ancestors. Scorning to wear a sword, he disarms a fop who threatens him with one, and when he meets a pair of bravos who have been paid to beat him, instead of fleeing, he boldly accosts them, and by his genial manners induces them to beat instead the very coward who has bribed them. Momolo is indeed a true son of Venice in her prime, and though the first of Goldoni's sustained characters drawn from the life of his native city, de- serving of a high place among them. Possibly Mr. Bernard Shaw found in this comedy the original of his Man and Superman, there being 15 This comedy was called originally Momolo Cortesan, Momolo, being a diminutive of Girolamo or Jerome, but when Goldoni gave it to the press he changed the name to L'Uomo dl mondo; the subtitle being El Cortesan venezian. i 4 o GOLDONI in it a lady named Eleonora, who pursues Momolo throughout the three acts so diligently that, although he declares he has no intention of relinquishing the blessings of bachelorhood, he is finally entrapped in matrimony by the unblushing assiduity of her decla- rations of love, a result not accomplished, however, until after he has discovered the little laundress, who is the pastime of his idle moments, supping with the poor but ardent admirer on whom she has bestowed her real affections. Smeraldina, this sophisticated laundress, is in- cited to pluck good-natured Momolo by her brother Arlecchino, 16 as shiftless a rogue as ever graced com- edy. A street porter too lazy to work even when the chance offers, Arlecchino gambles away the profits of his sister's charms, and when Momolo agrees to pay for her instruction at the ballet school he sends him the bills for the fine clothes that will enable him to swagger about the coffee-houses and gambling-dens of Venice as the brother of a ballet dancer; while in order that no one shall mistake his new quality, he washes his hands for the first time in a year. Ludro, too, a chevalier d' Industrie, who preys upon the strangers in Venice, is another rogue quite as cosmo- politan in his rascality, his type being met in every large city. A picture of actual life, true in characterization, natural in dialogue, and containing all the germs of 16 Called Truffaldino when the play was printed, because Sacchi, who played the part, was known as Truffaldino. THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 141 its author's greatness, The Man of the World was written because Goldoni's inclinations were at last fixed on comedy, with "good comedy" as his "proper aim." "It was not reduced to dialogue at first," he tells us, "the only part written out" being that of "the principal actor," hence in its first form it was essen- tially an improvised comedy in which three of the masks, Arlecchino, Brighella, and II Dottore took part. There are no lazzi, however, distinct from the plot; moreover, it was a Venetian play in which the Venetian characters speak the dialect of the city of lagoons. In his next comedy, The Prodigal (II Prodigo), which is similar in treatment, Goldoni pictures life on the banks of the Brenta, the Newport of Venice, where "opulence explodes itself and mediocrity is ruined," a young Venetian again named Momolo be- ing the hero. Yet he is not the same Momolo who figures in the preceding comedy, and although the scene is the charmed spot where the spendthrift de- scendants of the sturdy merchants who had glorified Venice built rococo villas and factitious gardens adorned with voluptuous statuary, our dramatist fails to depict the luxurious country life of the idle rich of Venice so well as in the later comedies he was to place upon the Brenta's shaded banks. His second Momolo, moreover, is no such worthy fellow as his namesake the man of the world, but rather a witless spender of an inheritance, tricked by his steward, and i 4 2 GOLDONI twisted around the thumb of the widow he loves, when she comes to his villa attended by her brother and an adoring cousin of her late husband. These two plays in which a Momolo appears are both comedies of Venetian life, showing unmistak- ably, albeit dimly, the first sign of Goldoni's genius. After their production, the mask actors of Imer's troupe became so importunate in demanding old-fash- ioned comedies, in which their talents might shine, that he was forced to write for them two scenari styled respectively, Harlequin's Thirty-Two Misfor- tunes (Le Trentadue disgrazie d'Arlecchino) and A Hundred and Four Mishaps in a Single Night or, the Critical Night (Cento e quattro accidenti in una notte o la notte critica) . These scenari have not been printed, but the first had, Goldoni tells us, "all the success possible for an improvised piece," the admir- ers of the mask comedy finding in his thirty-two mis- fortunes "more discretion and common sense than in former improvised comedies"; while the hundred and four mishaps of the second scenario followed one another in a way so complicated that this play "might have been called the actors' test," so much did its suc- cess depend upon the ability of its interpreters. In order to imagine what the complicated action of these lost scenari was like, it is necessary to examine The Servant of Two Masters (II Servitore di due padroni), the one among Goldoni's extant plays most thoroughly in the spirit of the Improvised Comedy. In this piece, written five years later than the lost THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 143 scenari, Arlecchino 17 appears in his true guise of a blunderhead who complicates the plot by his stupidi- ties. Pantalone, too, is the dotard of the Improvised Comedy rather than the wise Venetian merchant Goldoni presented so frequently at a later day; while II Dottore is merely the blustering spouter of maca- ronic Latin made familiar by generations of mask actors. The lovers, Florindo and Beatrice, love and sigh in the old-fashioned way; the complicated plot, too, with its deft intrigue and rapid movement, is the counterpart of an improvised comedy plot tied to- gether by Arlecchino's droll lazzl. This play, so lacking in the qualities that distin- guish its author, demonstrates more clearly, perhaps, than any of his earlier pieces the noble advance he made in his art when he forswore the hackneyed methods of Improvised Comedy. It shows, be- sides, in its rapid change of scene, his early disregard of the conventional unity of place, a sane freedom of construction he maintained whenever it suited his purpose, and which he thus ably defends in The Comic Theatre, his views being remarkably in ac- cordance with the modern theory of the drama: Aristotle began to write concerning comedy, but he did not finish, and we have from him but a few imperfect fragments re- garding it. In his Poetics he prescribed the unity of place for tragedy; yet he did not mention comedy then. There are those who maintain that his statements about tragedy must be interpreted as referring to comedy also, and that if he had finished his treatise 17 Again called Truffaldino because the part was played by Sacchi, known by that sobriquet. 1 44 GOLDONI on comedy, he would have prescribed the unity of place. But my answer is, that if Aristotle were now alive, he would cancel this obnoxious precept, because a thousand absurdities, a thousand blunders and improprieties are caused by it. I distinguish two kinds of comedy: pure comedies and comedies of intrigue. Pure comedy can be written with the unity of place. Comedy of in- trigue cannot be thus written without crudity and incongruity. The ancients had not, like ourselves, a way to shift scenery, and for that reason they observed the unities. We have always ob- served the unity of place when the action occurs in the same city, and all the more when it remains in the same house. . . . There- fore, I conclude that if comedy with the unity of place can be written without hair-splitting or unseemliness, it should be done; but if on account of the unity of place absurdities have to be intro- duced, it is better to change the scenes and observe the rules of probability. Five years before he wrote The Servant of Two Masters, the play that has led to this digression, Gol- doni took a decided step forward in his art with The Bankruptcy (La Bancarotta) , the comedy that fol- lowed the two scenari of mishaps he had written to placate the mask actors of Imer's troupe. Here he stood on firm ground, for although The Bankruptcy presents the four Venetian masks, and, like The Man of the World, was only partly written at the time of its presentation, it is nevertheless a comedy of charac- ter, inspired by the excellent moral purpose of expos- ing financial trickery. Moreover, there is a certain Balzacian realism in this play, Pantalone its princi- pal character being like Cesar Birotteau, 18 the victim of his own unthriftiness and extravagance. Yet far from passing sleepless nights of repentance, this Ve- 18 Grandeur et decadence de Char Birotteau. THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 145 netian bankrupt bears his financial burdens so lightly that no sooner is he freed from the menaces of his creditors by the efforts of Dr. Lombardi, his friend and legal adviser, than he gives a lavish party for Clarice, an opera singer, and loses his 'last sequin at cards to the bogus nobleman she cherishes. He is a wicked old rake whose financial embarrassment is caused by his own vices quite as much as by an utter lack of business acumen. Selling his merchandise to shady customers on credit, he is also robbed by his clerk Truffaldino, while the cash that finds its way across his counter is squandered upon Clarice and other queans without the slightest remorse for the wrong he thus does his worthy son, his flighty second wife being almost as undeserving of pity as himself. When Pantalone is enmeshed in the toils of the law a second time, Dr. Lombardi forces him to place his affairs in the hands of his son. Bidding farewell to his family with scarcely a tinge of remorse, he goes forth to rustication with no regret for the good times he has had, but glad, rather, of their memory to cheer his unregenerate old heart. Here vice, though pun- ished, is unrepentant, a strange conclusion to a com- edy by one who, "seeking nature everywhere," found it "beautiful only when it furnished him with virtu- ous models." The Bankruptcy is crude in construction and often slovenly in dialogue ; yet it is one of Goldoni's truest comedies, peccable old men such as Pantalone being plucked wherever the ballet flourishes. Moreover the 146 GOLDONI fact that its sermon is not preached didactically makes its effect enduring, Pantalone being a ruthlessly drawn picture of a wreck upon the sands of life, whose weak, old, vice-ridden features haunt the reader long after portraits less cruelly true have been forgotten. Like The Man of the World, this comedy of financial shortcomings contains the germs of Goldoni's great- ness. Though less polished, it is truer to life than The Clever Woman (La Donna di garbo), its suc- cessor, a comedy wherein a girl of the people is placed upon a pedestal so high that we must needs crane our necks to see her likeness to humanity. Though her father is a mere footman and her mother a laundress, Bettina the heroine of this play is the peer of any doctor of Padua in learning. More- over, a girl as astute as she proves herself would not be likely to be seduced by a flighty young student, even though he promised to marry her. Her knowl- edge of law and the humanities was acquired at Pavia, Goldoni tells us, by listening to the learned talk of the students when she delivered her mother's laundry work at their doors, surely a charge upon our credulity. She is a clever minx, however, learned in the ways of the world as well as in book lore, for when she is deserted by Florindo, her student lover, she comes to Bologna and takes service as a lady's maid in the household of his father, a promi- nent lawyer of that town. There she schemes so suc- cessfully to win the regard, not only of her master but of his entire household that when Florindo comes THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 147 home from Pavia, accompanied by a nobleman's daughter disguised as a fellow-student, he finds Bet- tina firmly entrenched in the hearts of his family, his father having even gone so far as to ask her hand to cheer his lonely old age. In a debate held in order that Florindo may de- monstrate the worth of his university training, Bettina bombards him with such a fusillade of Latin phrases that rather than betray his ignorance he admits that a man of honour must keep a promise of marriage no matter how it is made. Thinking Bettina's shaft is directed at his own breast, the father publicly pro- claims his intention of marrying her himself; whereupon, the son, to prevent such a misalliance, acknowledges that Bettina has been the dalliance of his student days. Forced to confess that he had prom- ised to marry her, he is forced also by the general re- gard in which she is held to comply with the words of his public admission that a man of honour should keep such a promise. But Florindo has also promised to marry Isabella, the girl who has eloped with him in male attire. Luckily there is a young snob at hand not averse to marrying a nobleman's daughter howso- ever tarnished, especially when it is pointed out to him that she is an heiress ; so Florindo gives his hand, albeit reluctantly, to Bettina, the adroit girl who has outwitted him, the comedy ending in her triumph. Although The Clever Woman is distinctly inferior in characterization and atmosphere to both The Bankruptcy and The Man of the World, it is their 148 GOLDONI superior in dramatic construction and literary expres- sion. Furthermore, it is the first of Goldoni's orig- inal character comedies 19 in which the dialogue was entirely written; therefore "it marks a notable step in his development as a dramatist." From the elements of the Improvised Comedy he had finally produced a comedy of contemporary manners, in which the comedians, though appearing in their masks and con- ventional garb, spoke written dialogue, their lazzi being, moreover, an element of the plot instead of irrelevant horse-play. This is the form of most of his Venetian comedies in Tuscan prose, only those in dialect lacking all of the familiar masks, who in his deft hands became truthful characters of Venetian life. Their importance, however, he gradually cur- tailed, and in his exotic comedies and his comedies in verse he dispensed with them entirely. Being the first of his character comedies built from the elements of the Improvised Comedy, in which the dialogue was entirely written, as well as the last comedy he wrote for Imer's troupe, The Clever Woman marks the close of the first period of Goldoni's dramatic career. During this period of essay he had learned by experimenting with tragedy, tragi-comedy, opera, opera bouffe, versified comedy, musical interludes, and improvised comedy, that only when he wrote pure comedy were "all the applause, all the hand-claps, all the bravos, for him alone." It was a lesson well learnt. In his efforts to Italianize 19 Don Giovanni Tenorio was merely an adaptation. THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 149 the refined French comedy of his day, he wrote, there- after, many a false and stilted play, yet seldom did he court Melpomene again, Thalia being henceforth chief mistress of his ambition. After writing The Clever Woman, he left Venice without seeing it produced, and finally settled at Pisa, where although a practising lawyer, he did not entirely abandon his connection with the stage, since he wrote while there several comedies for music, and two improvised comedies. The Servant of Two Masters, one of the latter, has already been described; the other was called Harlequin's Son Lost and Found (II Figlio d' Arlecchino perduto e ritrovato). Though its Parisian success many years later caused him to be invited by Les Comediens du roi de la troupe Itallenne, to visit Paris, Goldoni condemns its lack of verisimilitude, it being in his opinion "little better than the work of a schoolboy." 20 Returning to Venice during the summer of 1748 as a professional playwright, he began the remarkable period of his career that ended with his departure for Paris in the spring of 1762. During these fourteen years he wrote his best comedies and won enduring fame. The play with which he made his new bow to his fellow citizens 21 was a failure, while the two that succeeded it were but partial successes. 22 Not 20 According to Giulio Caprin (op. cit.) Desboulmiets'sHistoire anecdo- tique et raisonnee du theatre italien jusqu'b 1769, contains a resume of this scenario. 21 Tonin bella grazia, o il Frappatore. 22 L'Uomo prudente and / Due gemelli venezlanl 150 GOLDONI until carnival time of that first season (1748-1749) did he cast aside the antiquated methods of the past, and present to his delighted fellow-townsmen the two plays that first distinguish him as the creator of a na- tional comedy. In The Artful Widow (La Vedova scaltra), one of these epoch-marking comedies, he paints in Tuscan prose a spirited picture of the cosmo- politan society of Venice; in the other, called The Respectable Girl (La Putta onorata), written in the soft dialect of Venice, he stands forth as the dramatic tribune of her people. Henceforth, whenever he was not enticed away from his native genius by French refinement, he was Venice's Gran Goldoni, true painter of her sons and daughters, true spokesman of her sentiments and passions. To attain this fame he was obliged to tread a stony path. Wearied by the antiquated and obscene lazzi of the Improvised Comedy, the intelligent public of Venice had become wedded to the melodrama of Zeno and Metastasio ; therefore Goldoni was obliged to create a following for the new comedy. Moreover^ his actors were only wretched outcasts beyond the social pale, whose voices, when their efforts failed to please, were drowned by the hisses and catcalls of ribald audiences. No Richelieu or Louis XIV sus- tained him; yet this patient Venetian plunged cour- ageously into the Herculean task of cleansing the filthy comedy of his day. Making his theatre a wholesome resort for his fellow-townsmen, he mir- rored them truly there in the hope that his humorous THE PERIOD OF ESSAY 151 expositions of their vices and foibles might turn them from their degeneracy back to the glory of their ancestors. Since the brilliance of the Rinascimento had waned, artistic truth had lain buried in arti- ficiality and filth. When this pioneer of the Ris- orgimento reached Venice in the autumn of 1748, he had already unearthed the corpse his naturalism was soon to bring to resurrection. V FROM ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE WHEN the story of his wandering was ar- rested, Goldohi was journeying, it will be recalled, on horseback toward Tuscany with the intention of familiarizing himself with the Florentines and Siennese, whom he styled "the living texts of pure Italian." His native speech being a dialect, an acquaintance with the literary language of Italy was necessary for the fulfilment of his ambi- tion to create a written Italian comedy; his pilgrim- age to Tuscany, therefore, was not so aimless as the many roamings his vagabondizing instinct had here- tofore inspired. The years he subsequently passed on the banks of the Arno made him familiar with the euphuism of literary Italy, as well as with its lan- guage; for until he reached Tuscany he had not breathed the scent-laden air of those rococo drawing- rooms in which the femmes savantes of eighteenth century Italy paid languishing court to its Trissotins and Vadiuses. Although the Italian literary coteries of his day were even more vapid and affected than the French societies of alcovistes and precieuses which Moliere had satirized so scathingly during the previous cen- 152 ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 153 tury, Goldoni does not appear to have realized that the Arcadian Academy of Rome and its many colo- nies were merely the lazarets of the epidemic, aptly described by Dr. William Roscoe Thayer as "a Phceban influenza whose victims sneezed in rhythm." 1 On the contrary, in his memoirs he shows the Arcadian Academy considerable deference, and when in one of his comedies 2 he directs his satire against its pretentions, the rep*roof he administers is but a gentle fillip compared to the cruel lashing Mo- liere bestowed upon the euphuists of France. As the reader may never have sauntered into that remote haunt of verbiage and poetastry, the Arcadian Academy, "Papa Goldoni' f as the Venetians still tenderly style him shall for the moment be left journeying across the Apennines with good Nicoletta on a nag beside him, while we turn aside to enter the Parrhasian Grove of the Arcadians for a glimpse of their departed splendour. The period of their literary history following the grand manner (forma splendida) of the cinquecento the Italians call the period of exaggeration (periodo dell' esagerazione) . Chronologically it corresponds to those brilliant years in France when the classical ideal inaugurated by Malherbe was nationalized by Corneille and his great contemporaries; yet in Italy not one notable man of letters appeared to grace it. In the realm of science Galileo Galilei was a genius, and Guido Reni was far from contemptible in paint- 1 The Dawn of Italian Independence. 2 // Poeta fanatico. GOLDONI ing; yet languid Marini, who gave preciosity to France, was the most widely known poet of Italy dur- ing the seventeenth century, while Adriani and Mar- telli were the principal dramatists. The period of exaggeration, therefore, might as fittingly be styled the period of literary death. Indeed, literature be- came so turgid that its feeble heart could no longer give it blood : hence, like a man with dropsy, it per- ished of its own distension and lay dead until Metas- tasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, and Parini breathed between its cold lips the life that brought it to resurrection. Meanwhile, the Arcadian Academy had risen to power, held sway, and in its turn was dying a linger- ing death. This strange institution was founded in Rome dur- ing the last decade of the seventeenth century a time when Spanish tyranny and papal domination had left Italy a prey to brutality and fanaticism. In the words of Giuseppe Finzi, a modern Italian commen- tator : 3 All the highest ideals that are wont to furnish and maintain the right of citizenship were then extinguished; oppressed and bled to the point of exhaustion, the people were stagnating, and the well- to-do and educated class was selfishly and recklessly endeavour- ing to enjoy the present as best it might, hiding beneath a hypo- critical display of formality and manner and an artificial, supersti- tious piety, the corruption that was consuming it, mothlike, from within. Filled with vanity and conceit, the nobles embellished themselves in splendour and arrogance, vied with each other in ex- travagance, pomp, and gallantry, pastured themselves on flattery and base homage, and thus upheld, like their Spanish conquerors, ^Lezioni di storia della letteratura italiana. ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 155 their preeminence over the other social classes. Both idle and lazy, they avoided applying thought and labour to anything serious, useful, or truly noble. It was a time when poets earned their daily bread by writing laudatory odes, no patrician wedding being held, no well-born nun taking the veil, no noble's child being christened, no cardinal chosen from the aristocracy without reams of verse being penned in honour of the event; and when there were no auspici- ous occasions to laud, there were books of vapid rhymes to be dedicated in hyperbole to patronizing noblemen or vainglorious prelates. When this seventeenth century, so lumpish in Italy, so alert in France, was drawing to a close, a group of vain pedants who had been enjoying in Rome the hospitality of ex-Queen Christina of Sweden were forced by the death of their freakish patroness to seek a new asylum. For lack of a patrician abode in which to forgather, they met, fourteen in number, one balmy spring morning of the year 1690 in the mead- ows behind the castle of Sant' Angelo, known as the Prati di Castello. While these apostles of fustian were improvising verses in the shade of sighing elms and vociferously applauding one another, one of them became so enthusiastic over the pastoral nature of the scene that he exclaimed, "It seems to me that to-day we have revived Arcadia." This sentiment caused his comrades to vow that they would keep Arcadia alive ; whereupon the Arcadian Academy (L'Accade- mia dell' Arcadia] was instituted, the first step in its 156 GOLDONI development being the adoption of a name by each member suitable to his state as an Arcadian shepherd ; the next, the election of a Gusto de Generate, or shep- herd of the flock. For this honour Alfesibeo Cario was chosen, that being the Arcadian name of the Abate Crescimbeni, vainest, dullest, yet most persis- tent of the Academicians. The opposing candidate was Gravina, known in Arcadia as Opico Erimanteo. This jurist and critic, who was destined to befriend Metastasio, then unborn, became so chagrined by his defeat that he sulked in his tent, thence to lead an un- successful revolt against the rule of Crescimbeni, a crabbed priest with "a brain half wood and half lead" and a crooked nose, which inspired the nickname of Naslca. Meanwhile, because of its exclusiveness, all literary and social Rome clamoured for admission to the new academy. Arcadia was established as a republic of letters, each sheep being as good as its neighbour. Within its gates parrot-beaked Crescimbeni piped metaphor- ically on the syrinx, the Academy's symbol, whilst the cardinals, priests, jurists, nobles, and plebeian literati who composed his flock gambolled in black broad- cloth smocks and full-bottomed wigs with crook-bear- ing shepherdesses who in real life were portly duch- esses, mayhap. When the untoward exercise made them lose breath, they fell upon their knees to spout languishing verses on the havoc Cupid had wrought. Meanwhile a chef de cuisine would prepare bucolic goodies to be served in a rustic bower. ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 157 Arcadia was serious in purpose, however, its object being "to exterminate bad taste." It had, besides, a weighty code of laws penned by Gravina before his revolt, and, in the person of Crescimbeni, its Custode Generale, an indefatigable chronicler who wrote not only its history voluminously, but also its rules for the composition of every imaginable poetic form, from the maggiolate and the motti to the contradisper- ate and the cobole; yet, earnest though its intentions were, its members, while "pursuing bad taste even in- to fortresses and villas least known and least sus- pected," failed to realize that its real abiding place was Arcadia itself. The official home of the Acad- emy was known as the Mew (Serbatoio), "a very lit- tle thing," as a contemporary remarks, "filled with very little things, in which the only large thing was Crescimbeni's nose." After its members had in- augurated Olympic games in his honour, John V, the profligate King of Portugal, presented them in 1726 with a triangular strip of land on the Janiculum, which, on being laid out in flower beds and terraces, and styled the Parrhasian Grove (Bosco Parrasio), became Arcadia's summer residence. Meanwhile the men of the seventeenth century were dying and those of the eighteenth were taking their places. There was less Spanish stagnation or papal nepotism in Italy then, and more French levity and tolerance, but Arcadia still flattered princes, whilst its pedants gloried in disputes, and its poets, such as Frugoni, whose gorgeous nonsense gave the word 158 GOLDONI frugoneria to the Italian language, dissipated their talents in high-flown trash. But the talent most misapplied of all, at least to the northern mind, was that of the Cavalier Bernardino Perfetti, greatest of the improvvisatori and a man who displayed his undoubted ability in a spectacular way. It is precisely because he could extemporize any given amount of verse on any given subject that his performances were theatrical rather than poetic. He gave so great an impression of genius, however, when he came to Rome in 1725, that the Pope, after a committee of twelve Arcadians had judged him worthy of the honour, awarded him the crown of the Capitol that had once adorned Petrarch's brow. Shortly after this profanation of literary greatness took place amid the blare of trumpets and the firing of a hundred mortars, hook-nosed Crescimbeni died (March 8, 1728). He was succeeded in the post of Custode Generale by his friend and sacerdotal col- league, the Abate Lorenzini. Republican Arcadia had developed under the former's consulship offshoots in other cities, but under Lorenzini it became an empire, charters for colonies galore being granted by him in the Parrhasian Grove, until every Italian town of any ambition whatsoever boasted a branch academy: an extension of Arcadian power made easy by the na- tional aptitude for social organization. Although Ar- cadia thus expanded, it did so at the expense of its original ideals. Ceasing to be an exclusive academy for the cultivation of literature, it became the Italian ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 159 Great World of the day, a membership in it or one of its colonies being a sine qua non to social position. Yet the Academy, by developing social bonds between prominent Italians in different parts of the land, must have been an early factor though doubtless a remote one in the unification of Italy. Such was the state of Arcadia when Goldoni en- tered Tuscany in the spring of 1744, a f ter an unevent- ful journey across the Apennines. In Florence he passed four "truly pleasurable months," enjoying the society of men of science and letters. Hearing that Perfetti was to appear in Sienna on Assumption Day before the Academy of the Stupified (Intronati), he set out with good Nicoletta for the Chianti hills. On reaching Sienna he and his faithful companion were admitted as strangers to seats in the Academy. "Perfetti occupied a sort of pulpit," Goldoni tells us, "where he sang for a quarter of an hour strophes in the style of Pindar." "Nothing could have been more beautiful or more astonishing," our dramatist continues ; "he was by turns a Petrarch, a Milton, and a Rousseau: he was Pindar himself!" Indeed, he had been brought so completely under Perfetti's spell, that he paid him a visit of homage on the day follow- ing the great improvisator's exhibition of his art, their acquaintance "leading to a number of other visits." The Siennese society to which Goldoni was thus in- troduced proved delightful, "every gaming party be- ing preceded by a literary conversation"; but he longed to see Tuscany; therefore he left delectable 160 GOLDONI Sienna and fared to Volterra, where he crawled into catacombs, and "getting out finally, thanks to heaven," promised himself "never to return." He halted next at Pisa, where he says he intended to stay only a few days; yet he remained some years, 4 a chance visit to the local Arcadian colony he thus describes being re- sponsible for this complete alteration of his plans : The first few days after my arrival at Pisa, I amused myself by seeing such curiosities as were worth while . . . but I began to be bored, because I knew nobody. Strolling one day toward the Castle, I saw a large gateway where carriages were waiting and people entering. Glancing within I beheld a vast courtyard with a garden at one end in which a number of people were seated be- neath a sort of bower. I approached nearer and seeing a man in livery who had the air and graces of a functionary of importance, I asked him to whom the house belonged and the reason why so many people were gathered there. This very polite and fairly well-instructed servant was not long in satisfying my curiosity. "The assembly which you see," he said, "is a colony of the Roman Arcadia, called the Alpheusan Colony (Colonia Alfea) after a celebrated Greek river that watered the ancient city of Pisa in Elis." I asked if I might enter. "By all means," said the porter, who accompanied me himself to the garden gate, where he pre- sented me to a servant of the academy, who gave me a seat in the assembly. I listened, heard both good and bad, and applauded all equally. Everybody looked at me, and appeared anxious to know who I was. A wish to satisfy this curiosity took hold of me, so calling the man who had given me my seat and who happened to be near by, I begged him to ask the chairman of the meeting whether a stranger might be permitted to express in verse the satisfaction he had experienced. The chairman announced my desire aloud, whereupon the meeting assented. I had in mind a sonnet I had composed in my youth for a 4 He reached Pisa in September, 1744, and left in April, 1748. ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 161 similar occasion. Quickly changing a few words, I recited my fourteen lines in a tone and with a vocal inflexion that gave zest to both sentiment and rhyme. The sonnet appeared to have been composed on the spot and was heartily applauded. I do not know whether the meeting was to have lasted longer, but everyone got up and they all crowded about me. In th;s agreeable way Goldoni entered Arcadia and there forswore Thalia again, not for the worship of Pan and Artemis, deities of that pastoral land, but to bow once more to Themis, goddess of the law; for when the shepherds of the Alpheusan colony learned that he was a briefless Venetian barrister, they begged him to resume his legal gown, promising him the meanwhile "both clients and books." Any foreign licentiate being able, as he was assured, to practise at the Pisan bar, he was persuaded "to become a civil and criminal advocate," and the Pisans being "as good as their word," he soon had "more causes than he could undertake," most of which he wisely endeav- oured to settle out of court by "demonstrating the folly of litigation." But "the devil," as he declares, "sent a theatrical company to Pisa." "Its actors were too bad" for him to think of entrusting a character comedy to their tender mercies, yet he could not resist the temptation of letting them perform The Hundred and Four Mis- haps in a Single Night, the improvised comedy Imer's comedians had played successfully about five years before. Hearing a Pisan citizen in a coffee-house calling on heaven the next day "to preserve him from i62 GOLDONI the toothache and a hundred and four mishaps," Goldoni became so mortified that he resolved "not to go near the comedians again or think of comedy"; therefore he "redoubled his juridical ardour, and won three lawsuits within the month," from one of which, a criminal case, he "derived infinite honour." This last concerned the fate of a young man of good family who had forced the lock of a neighbour's door and had robbed him. He was an only son, it appears, and his sisters were unmarried, circumstances that in- spired our lawyer to save him from the galleys. After "satisfying the complaining party," he changed the lock on his door so that the key of his client's room would fit it. Thus he made it appear that the defendant, after entering the apartment he had robbed, by mistake instead of deliberately, had been suddenly tempted by money he saw spread out before him; a ruse whereby the court was induced to impose a short term in jail, instead of the dreaded sentence to the galleys. The culprit's family was "very well satisfied" with him, Goldoni assures us, "and the criminal judge com- plimented him." Again he had begun auspiciously the practice of the law. At Pisa there were, however, no rich old maids or bewitching nieces to ensnare him; yet he was enticed from legal paths by his old friend, the comedian Sacchi, who wrote him for a comedy. Working "by day at the bar and by night at his play," he finished The Servant of Two Masters and despatched it to Venice, closing his door the ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 163 meanwhile at nightfall and going no more to the Ar- cadians' coffee-house. When he returned to the pastoral fold, he was "reproached for his neglect of poetry," but given nevertheless by the Custode of the Alpheusan Colony a diploma of full Arcadian mem- bership, issued by the parent academy in Rome. Polisseno Fegeio was the bucolic name bestowed upon him and he was invested with the Phegeian Fields. "We Arcadians," he exclaims, "are rich, as you may perceive, dear reader. We possess lands in Greece: we water them with the sweat of our brows in order that we may gather laurel branches, but the Turks sow them with grain and plant them with vines, and they laugh at both our titles and our songs." Although by his own confession he was "never a good poet," he continued to write "sonnets, odes, and other pieces of lyricism" for the meetings of the academy. In the meantime, Sacchi, who sent him a present which he says he did not expect, de- manded another comedy, and he had no peace of mind until he had despatched to Venice the play 5 the Parisian success of which, seventeen years later, inspired the Italian actors of the French capital to offer him a professional engagement. His intention in all probability was to settle per- manently in Pisa, practising law, making professional trips to Florence or Lucca, and satisfying his natural desires now and then by writing occasional comedies 5 // Figlio d'Arlecchino perduto e ritrovato. 1 64 GOLDONI or sonnets to be read before the meetings of the local Arcadians. He had "causes in every court and clients in every rank of life," he assures us, and he thought "the whole town was for him," until seeking govern- mental preferment, he learned that although he had "become naturalized in the hearts of individuals, in the opinion of the community he was still an alien." In the hope of getting at least some of the "oil, corn, and money they brought," he sought all the sinecures a late Pisan lawyer had enjoyed as the attorney of several religious bodies, but obtained none of them, because, so he says, he had been in Pisa but two years and a half, whereas his competitors had "for four years at least been taking steps to succeed the de- ceased." "Out of twenty posts," he laments, "not one for me!" This was a disappointment that made him look upon his profession as a "casual and precarious manner of obtaining a livelihood." Whilst in this morose mood his chamber was invaded one morning by a stranger whose glib tongue fatefully turned the course of his life into its natural channel and made the obtaining of his livelihood indeed precarious. His own words shall describe this propitious meeting: One day when I was very deep in thought, a stranger who wished to speak to me was announced. I saw crossing the hall a man nearly six feet in height and proportionally large and fat, who had in his hand a cane and a round hat of English shape. He entered my office with measured steps. I arose. Making a picturesque gesture by way of telling me not to disturb myself, ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 165 he approached. I asked him to be seated. This is our conversa- tion: "Sir," he said, "I have not the honour of being known by you, but you probably know my father and uncle in Venice ; I am your very humble servant Darbes (sic)." Q "What ! Monsieur Darbes, son of the postmaster at Friuli, the lad believed to be lost, who was searched for so much, and mourned for so greatly?" "Yes, sir, that prodigal son, who has not yet fallen on his knees before his father." "Why do you postpone giving him that consolation?" "My family, my relatives, or my country will never see me ex- cept crowned with laurels." "What is your calling, sir?" Arising, he patted his rotundity, and in a tone of pride mingled with facetiousness, said: "Sir, I am an actor." "Every talent," said I, "is estimable, provided the possessor is able to distinguish himself." "I am," he answered, "the Pantaloon of a troupe now at Leg- horn. I am not the most inconspicuous of my comrades, and the public is not loath to crowd to the plays in which my character ap- pears. Medebac, our manager, travelled a long way to unearth me; I do not dishonour my relatives, my country, or my pro- fession, and, sir, without boasting (slapping his belly once more), Garelli 7 is dead ; Darbes has taken his place." I intended to compliment him, but he threw himself into a comic attitude that made me burst into laughter, and so prevented me from continuing. "It is not through vainglory," he proceeded, "that I have paraded the advantages I enjoy in my profession. But I am an actor and I make myself known to an author of whom I have need." "You have need of me?" "Yes, sir; I know you by reputation: you are as courteous as you are skilful, and you will not refuse." 6 Cesare D'Arbes, born in Venice about 1710, died in that city in 1778. "The greatest Pantaloon of his time," says Luigi Rasi (op. cit.). 7 A Venetian Pantaloon, known as // Pantalone eloquente, who died in 1740. 1 66 GOLDONI "I have work to do; I can't manage it." "I respect your work; you may write the play at your leisure, when the spirit moves you." Seizing my snuff-box while he was talking, and taking a pinch of snuff, he dropped a few gold ducats into it, and closing it, he threw it on the table with one of those pieces of stage business that seem to hide the very thing you would be glad to have dis- covered. Not wishing to lend myself to such a jest, I opened my snuff-box. "Pray, don't be angry," he said ; "it is merely a payment on ac- count for the paper." I tried to give him back his money, but posturing and bowing, he got up, backed himself toward the door and went out. After asking himself what should be done under the circumstances, Goldoni took what seemed to him "the better," and to us, the more pleasing course in that he informed D'Arbes that he would write the play desired. The Pantaloon replied that "a comedy by Goldoni would be the sword and buckler with which he would challenge all the theatres of the world." He had bet a hundred gold ducats with his manager, he said, that he would obtain a comedy by Goldoni and he concluded a fulsome letter by say- ing that he wished his role to be that of u a young man without a mask drawn in the manner of the principal character of an old art comedy, called Pantaloon, a Fop (Pantalon Paroncin). In accord- ance with this suggestion Goldini penned "within three weeks" Elegant Anthony (Tonin bella grazia), and carried the manuscript to Leghorn himself. 8 8 Saverio Francesco Bartoli, a contemporary Thespian, known as the Actor's Plutarch, published at Padua in 1782 a work entitled Notizie ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 167 There he read it to D'Arbes who "appeared well satisfied, and with many ceremonies, bows, and in- terrupted words" he gave our author the amount of the bet he had won from his manager, whereupon "in order to avoid receiving thanks," he fled under the pretext of showing the new comedy to the latter. While Goldoni was awaiting dinner in his lonely room at an inn, Medebac, 9 the manager, called, ac- companied by D'Arbes and, after "overwhelming him with politeness," invited him to dine. His soup being served, the dramatist declined, but D'Arbes and Medebac dragged him away, and on the man- ager's threshold they were met by Madame Mede- bac, "a young, pretty, and well-built actress," whom Goldoni found "as estimable in manners as in talent." After "a very respectable family dinner served with the utmost order and neatness," he was taken to the theatre, where out of compliment to him Griselda istorlche de' comici italiani, che fiorirono intorno all' anno MDL fino a' giorni presenti, in which is presented a hitherto unpublished sonnet by Goldoni, as well as a letter written by him to Cesare D'Arbes at Leghorn and dated at Pisa, August 13, 1745. In this letter Goldoni says that the new comedy (manifestly Elegant Anthony] "is not yet clear of the meteors that surround it," while he asks to be remembered to Medebac, manager of the troupe in which D'Arbes was playing. As Goldoni states in his Memoirs that he had been in Pisa two years and a half at the time he asked for the sinecures of the dead Pisan advocate (or March, 1747), and as he places D'Arbes's visit to him subsequent to that event, the date of the letter to that actor is manifestly a misprint for 1747. See Vol. II, edition of the Municipality of Venice. 9 Girolamo Medebac (or Medebach, originally Metembach), born at Rome, about 1706, died subsequently to Dec. 1781, when Bartoli recorded that "he was not far from his ninetieth year, and in enviable health." L. Rasi (op. cit.) accords him the distinction of being "the greatest man- ager of the XVIIIth century, a large part, if not all, of his celebrity being due to the artistic bonds that united him to Carlo Goldoni." 1 68 GOLDONI was substituted for the improvised comedy that had been announced. This play "was not entirely his work," he confesses ; nevertheless "his self-love was flattered." He was "better pleased," however, on the following day when The Clever Woman, "hither- to his favourite comedy," was presented. Although he had written this play before his departure from Venice, he had never seen it played. It was "a pleasure," he acknowledges, "to see it so well per- formed," and he complimented Madame Medebac and her husband upon their acting, "the natural sweetness" of the former, "her pathetic voice, her intelligence, and her histrionism" raising her in his estimation "above all the actresses he had ever known." A few days after his vanity had been thus doubly flattered, Medebac, to whom he had confided his "mortifying experiences in Pisa," made him the dramaturgic offer that brought him back to Thalia's shrine, there to remain a constant votary throughout his days. Medebac proposed leasing a theatre in Venice for a term of five or six years, provided that Goldoni would contract to serve as its playwright during a like period. "It required no great effort to turn him toward comedy," says the latter; so a provisional contract was forthwith drawn up. But good Nicoletta had gone to Genoa to visit her family, and though "he knew her docility, Goldoni owed her," he assures us, "both esteem and friendship," wherefore he returned to Pisa to ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 169 await her arrival and approval before sending his signature to Leghorn. 10 This he did in Sep- tember, I747, 11 although he did not join Mede- bac's forces until April of the following year, six months' time having been given him in which to arrange his affairs. His muse and his pen were again at the disposal of an individual. "A French author," he confesses, "would think it a singular en- gagement for a man of letters, who ought to enjoy liberty," but in Italy there were "no court pensions and royal gifts," therefore he was content with his lot, for "his plays were to be accepted without being read, and paid for in advance." Before leaving Tuscany, he revisited Florence, and there, at a seance of the Arcadian colony, known as The Academy of the Apathists, he witnessed an absurd literary rite which consisted in propounding abstruse questions to a child of ten, called a Sibillone, or great Sibyl. As the infant oracle was required to reply by a single word, the answers, as may readily be imagined, were usually devoid of sense; there- fore an academician was appointed to interpret them, a task requiring considerable discursive agility. On the occasion of Goldoni's visit, the question asked was: "Why do women weep more readily than 10 L. T. Belgrano suggests that Goldoni went to Genoa at this time, a supposition founded on Goldoni's statement in his dedication of La Donna sola to Agostino Connio to the effect that he had seen his father- in-law twice. This is merely a guess, however, like the surmise of Von Lohner that Goldoni sent his signature to Venice instead of to Leghorn. 11 In his memoirs Goldoni says 1746, but this is more veneto. 170 GOLDONI men?" and the "great Sibyl's" answer was the mean- ingless word "straws."" Yet a lusty abbe discoursed at length to demonstrate that "nothing could have been more decisive or satisfactory" than the oracle's answer, the trend of his argument being that as straw is the most frail of plant substances, and woman more frail than man, frailty is the cause of woman's tears. To what precious depths had Arcadia sunkl Yet, sane Goldoni was gulled to a considerable de- gree by this hocus-pocus, for he avers that "to dis- play more erudition and precision in a matter that seemed so insusceptible of it, was quite impossible. Luckily his trunks had reached the Florentine cus- tom-house ; therefore he was able to escape from this Arcadian fool-trap before its vapid air had entirely vitiated his inborn common sense. Proceeding to Mantua, he joined Medebac there and with faithful Nicoletta passed a month "com- fortably lodged" in the house of a retired soubrette, who fortunately for his peace of mind had reached the age of eighty- five. The climate of marshy Man- tua, however, did not agree with him, and his time was passed mostly in bed. He managed neverthe- less to finish a couple of comedies "with which Medebac appeared satisfied," whereupon he was "per- mitted to go to Modena," where he passed the sum- mer. "Toward the end of July" Medebac and his troupe arrived in Modena and Goldoni gave him a third comedy. 12 In September in company with 12 Possibly, as Carlo Borghi suggests, La Vedova scaltra. ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 171 an untried aggregation of actors he reached Venice to tempt metropolitan fate in the Teatro Sant' An- gelo, the playhouse Medebac had leased. He had been away from the campielli and the canals of his beloved birthplace for five long years, and he found "a great satisfaction" in returning to "the land that had always been dear to him." His doting mother who, despite his vagabondizing, "had never complained of him," dwelt with her sister in the Court of St. George, near Saint Mark's, 13 and there he and good Nicoletta went to live. While he is in the full enjoyment of this domestic peace, let us take a glimpse of the theatrical world of Ven- ice, to which he had returned a better and more val- iant dramatist than he was when Giuseppe Imer had been his manager and the San Samuele the scene of his prentice endeavours. Whenever an ox-drawn chariot of Thespis lumbered into Mestre or Fusina after its summer tour on terra firma, and the wan actresses huddled beneath its canvas awning saw the campanile of St. Mark's and other graceful towers they loved outlined against the autumn sky, they knew that rest and joy were close at hand, for Venice was the players' paradise; its horizon, in the apt words of Philippe Monnier, "seeming to be bounded by footlights, a sky border, and a prompter's box." 14 Too light-hearted to read, its people made plays their literature, and, after their 13 San Giorgio de' Greci, much nearer to St. Mark's than San Giorgio degli Schiavoni: Guido Mazzoni, Memorie di Carlo Goldoni. 14 Venue au XVllle siecle. 1 72 GOLDONI carnival pranks, their chief diversion. New plays were public events, the merits of rival dramatists a matter for general debate and even altercation; for when, as will be seen, Goldoni and the Abate Chiari became rivals, all Venice, from patrician to gondo- lier, from great lady to handmaid, gestured and shrilled their predilections, whilst critics spoiled more perfectly good paper than was wasted when the pedants of France were yelping at the heels of Moliere. The Venetian stage, as an organized entity, dates from the sixteenth century, at the beginning of which Thalia came to the city of lagoons and drove the re- ligious plays and the tragedies of the pedants from that lightsome town. 15 But there were no permanent playhouses then, trestles for a performance being placed either in the piazza or the palace of some rich Morosini, Trevisan, or Mocenigo. In 1527 Francesco Cherea, a favourite of Pope Leo X, who had escaped from Rome during the sack, produced Latin comedies in Venice, as well as some which he had written himself ; and at about the same time An- gelo Beolco, who was known as // Ruzzante, crossed the lagoons from Padua, his birthplace, with dialect farces which he and his masked comrades performed in patrician halls so excellently that he was styled the new Roscius. 16 15 A decree of the Signoria, Dec. 29, 1509, indicates that comedy had begun to be performed in Venice only a short time previously. D'Ancona: op. cit. 16 Pompeo Molmenti: La Storia di Venezia nella vita 'privata. ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 173 Although Palladio built in 1565 a wooden thea- tre at Venice, fourteen years before he began at Vi- cenza the construction of the Teatro Olimpico, it was only a temporary affair, the first permanent Venetian playhouse not being constructed until this great architect had been dead fully a quarter of a century. 17 During the generations that followed Beolco and Palladio, play-giving and theatre-build- ing flourished so congenially in Venice that when Goldoni reached the city with Medebac's troupe, seven regular playhouses more than obtained in Paris then and more than are to be found in Venice now were in operation. Each was named after the titular saint of the parish in which it was situated, that of San Cassiano being the oldest, although the San Giovanni Crisostomo, where the lyrical tra- gedies of Metastasio and Zeno were given, was the most important of the playhouses named by Gol- doni in his memoirs. 18 Three of these were devoted to comedy and at each of them he was in turn em- ployed, first at the San Samuele when Imer was his manager, then at the Sant' Angelo under Medebac, and finally at the San Luca, the property of two 17 Palladio died in 1580. The San Cassiano, oldest of Venetian theatres, was built early in the seventeenth century and rebuilt in 1637, after its destruction by fire. Pompeo Molmenti: op. cit. 18 Goldoni says: "In Italy the playhouses (salles de spectacles} are called theatres and in Venice there are seven, each bearing the name of the titular saint of its parish." Apparently he refers only to theatres regularly operated throughout the theatrical season by professional com- panies, as there were at that time fully fourteen theatres in Venice of one sort or another, the number in the previous century having totalled eighteen. P. Molmenti: op. cit. i 7 4 GOLDONI brothers named Vendramin, where his Venetian the- atrical career terminated. 19 These Venetian theatres were owned by wealthy pa- tricians, who retained the receipts of the boxes, which, like the opera boxes of to-day, were rented for the season. A ticket to a box did not include admission to the house, a box-holder being required to pay the entrance fee, which, according to Goldoni, "never exceeded the value of a Roman paolo, or ten French sous." 20 "As the daily receipts could not be large," he continues, "they were not worth being run after by a playwright"; yet the Venetian theatres were commodious, the San Luca, for instance, being so vast that in it "natural or delicate movements, the subtleties, the pleasantries, in a word, true comedy, lost greatly." Indeed, in both size and construction these theatres resembled the continental opera-house of the present day, old engravings of the San Gio- vanni Crisostomo and of the San Samuele showing them to have possessed large, deep stages, orchestra pits, and five tiers of encircling boxes, some of which were placed upon the stage, like the avant-scenes at the Paris opera. Beginning early in October, the theatrical season 19 The two remaining playhouses referred to by Goldoni, are the San Benedetto and the San Moise, at the latter of which many of his musical plays were performed. With the former he seems to have had no connection. 20 According to P. Molmenti, "In the beginning the price of a ticket to the theatre was four lire, corresponding to about two lire in our day, and then, in 1647, it went down to a fourth of a ducat, or about 80 cen- tesimi of our day." In Goldoni's day, therefore, the price had gone down still more. ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 175 continued until the novena of Christmas. On December 26 began the Winter or Carnival season, which lasted until Ash Wednesday, when the theatres were closed. During the two weeks of the feast of Ascension the theatres were opened again and there was a short season of plays and operas, but when spring appeared, the theatrical companies betook themselves to terra firma, there to tour until the chill of autumn brought the world of fashion back to Venice after its villeggiatura on the banks of the Brenta. With the apparent intention of permitting play lovers to attend several performances on the same day, the Venetian theatres opened at different hours. These performances, however, were not seemly events, such as we are accustomed to in our modern playhouses. The boxes were the scene of frivolity and amours. Many of their occupants wore masks, and sometimes carnival costumes of indecent scanti- ness ; indeed, in the words of an Italian writer, "al- most every box was a temple of Venus." 21 In them the fashionable world met, or young men of wealth flaunted their mistresses boldly in the public gaze. They belonged to the owners of the theatre and were let by them for the season to fellow-patricians. Be- sides being lovers' trysts, they were the rendezvous of groups of intimate friends, who gossiped and flirted while pelting the hoi-polloi in the pit below with oranges, or even spitting upon them. 21 Vittorio Malamani : // Settecento a Fenezia. I 7 6 GOLDONI As in the case of Moliere's parterre, the denizens of Goldoni's pit were a various rabble, who ap- plauded and hissed at will or rent the fetid air with coarse laughter and catcalls, while the patricians above them giggled, sneezed, and yawned. The benches were of wood, well polished with use, and they were scorned by ladies, though women of the people occupied them. During the entr'actes a ticket-taker with a candle-end in hand passed among them, collecting the modest price of the seats. No places were reserved for civil or military function- aries, no soldiers were on guard, nor policemen either, save an occasional catch-poll (sbirro) in civil attire, who intervened only when force was indispen- sable. At a popular play the gondoliers, who ordi- narily were admitted to the pit, were forced to wait outside the theatre, since long before the performance began, the seats were filled by servants holding them for their masters, or by speculators ready to sell them at a profit. An hour before the performance two wretched candles were lighted. No lights glowed in the auditorium even after the curtain rose, except an occasional candle in the region of the upper boxes or the smudging tallow dips of the musicians. Between the acts girls with baskets on their arms passed between the rows of benches selling oranges, anisette, cakes, fritters, and chestnuts, while in the boxes coffee and ices were served. "At six or seven paces from the entrance to the pit," its classic mis- siles, baked apples and pears, were sold, although the ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 177 actor who won its favour had little to fear from its wrath, since he enjoyed in the affections of the public the same unmerited ascendency over the dramatist that is held by his modern compeer, the matinee idol. Though the authorities proclaimed him to be "a per- son detested of God," the popular actor was received familiarly in patrician households, and when he ap- peared on the stage he was greeted by such affection- ate cries as: "Blessed be thou! Blessed be he who fathered thee!" or "Darling, I throw myself at thy feet!" In his wake swarmed his cronies, all of whom were dead-heads and some of whom "got in his way on the stage, only to speak ill of the play." At the end of the performance, it was the privilege of a popular actor to announce the next play, but if the one that had first been given happened to have pleased the audience, his voice was drowned by cries of "the same, give us the same!" Upon the first and the last night of the season a favourite actress would recite to the audience complimentary verses ; but not until Goldoni had ceased to write for the Venetian stage was it customary for the mere author to appear before the curtain in response to applause. 22 Although Metastasio's music-tragedies had, like our modern opera, become fashionable, improvised comedies occupied the purely histrionic boards to a far greater degree than plays serious in tone, the pranks of Arlecchino being more congenial to the mirth-seeking, laughter-loving Venetian than trag- 22 P. Molmenti: op. cit. 178 GOLDONI edy or tragi-comedy. Indeed, once when a worthy abate had the temerity to present a tragedy 23 replete with scenes of horror and calamity, the audience fled, creating a fiasco that was waggishly parodied in a tragic farce, wherein after all the characters had gone off to battle, the prompter appeared, to tell the ex- pectant audience that it would wait in vain for the play to continue, because all the characters had been killed. But it was a decadent Improvised Comedy that reigned in Venice during the first half of the eigh- teenth century. Novelty was the one essential, and when the vivacious Italian plots were ex- hausted, Greece and Rome, myth and legend, were ransacked, as well as the cloak-and-sword drama of Spain, for novel subjects to exploit. It mattered not that ^Eneas became a Captain Fracasso and Mene- laus a Pantaloon, so long as a plot new to the Vene- tian stage was presented with points sufficient for the actors to hang their lazzl upon. Indeed, the comedy of that day might be likened to a kaleidoscope in which the sword of Fracasso, the guitar of Scara- muccia, the slap-stick of Arlecchino, the spectacles of Tartaglia, the red trousers of Pantalone, the plumed cap of Coviello, and the wine-stains of II Dottore were ever shifting into fatuous combina- tions, whereby the mimes who wore or bore them, might call forth laughter from a laughter-loving peo- ple. In Philippe Monnier's 24 pleasing hyperbole, 23 Ulisse il Giovane, by the Abate Lazzarini. 24 Op. cit. ARCADIA TO THALIA'S SHRINE 179 these nimble adepts in buffoonery were "marvellous artists of laughter, sowers of divine Gaiety's golden seed, servants of the unforeseen, and kings of god- send." Shorn of the exaggeration, they may safely be acclaimed as first-rate actors, skilled in developing their roles from a scribbled scenario that hung in the wings; for with a zibaldone of familiar proverbs, quips, sallies, songs, and cock-and-bull stories to draw upon, they invented dialogue that would keep a play "moving at a hellish rate." Cesare D'Arbes, the buffoon responsible for Gol- doni's return to his calling, was "an admirable come- dian," whose acting of the role of Pantalone was "in- comparable" ; therefore, since Teodora Medebac, an actress "estimable above all others whom he knew," was also a member of the troupe with which he jour- neyed to Venice in the autumn of 1748, he had worthy histrionic material with which to present his comedies. He found the Venetian stage in the condition that has just been outlined. Being "strangers and new- comers," Medebac's troupe "were obliged," he says, "to struggle against experienced rivals," and they "had great difficulty in obtaining protectors and friends." The Teatro Sant' Angelo, however, which the manager had leased, was "a playhouse less fa- tiguing to the actors than more spacious theatres, yet sufficiently large to produce adequate receipts, provided that popular plays held its boards." It is apparent, therefore, that the success of these new- 180 GOLDONI comers depended upon the skill of the dramatist they had brought with them. His apprenticeship with Imer's troupe had laid, so he believed, "the founda- tions for the Italian comedy he intended to build." Homogeneous in design, his structure was to be a true temple to Thalia, without so much as a niche for her tragic sister. He was equipped with ex- perience both in life and in stage-craft, and having, as he declares, "no rivals to contend with," he began at once "the construction of the new edifice," a work at which he was to labour ardently for fourteen years ere the scorn of critics and the success of rivals drove him in chagrin to seek an asylum in a foreign land. VI PLAYWRIGHT OF THE SANT' ANGELO THEATRE FROM the time of his return to Venice in the autumn of 1748 until his departure for Paris in the spring of 1762, Goldoni worked unflag- gingly, during this period writing fully a hundred comedies, several tragedies and tragi-comedies, and nearly fifty merry plays for music. Moreover, his genius attained its zenith at that time, his best plays almost without exception being penned during these fourteen toilsome years. Passionately attached to the stage, he was engrossed in its demands. No longer a dilettante, nor a briefless lawyer, no longer a young vagabond inspired by wanderlust, he was a man past forty, who to earn his bread had articled himself to an exacting manager, his task being to furnish dramatic material of a nature sufficiently popular to make the operation of a theatre profita- ble. A year's run of a new play is not uncommon in our day; yet the presentation of one of his comedies for a month was the greatest success he might ex- pect. Sometimes he was obliged to withdraw after four or five performances a piece that had failed, and rush into rehearsal some unfinished comedy, the 1 82 GOLDONI final acts of which he wrote while shaping the ear- lier ones to fit the idiosyncracies of the actors. Liv- ing in an age when literature was deemed a pleasant avocation, he made it a vocation, and led, mean- while, a valiant crusade against the antiquated and lewd comedy of his native land ; an arduous task in- deed, since his audience was inured to the time-worn lazzi of Arlecchino and Brighella, while the come- dians for whom he wrote, accustomed to the use of masks, were without practice in learning their parts. Moreover, the Sant' Angelo theatre which Medebac had engaged, had as competitors in the field of comedy two playhouses of established reputation. "I do not remember what play was given at the open- ing of the Sant' Angelo," Goldoni says, "but I know well that our newly arrived troupe had to struggle against very skilful rivals." Gasparo and Lucia RafE, the parents of Teodora Medebac, the leading lady, had once managed a troupe of tight-rope dancers who were in the habit of performing in Venice at carnival time. Madame Medebac, so Goldoni assures us, "danced on the rope passably well, but on the ground she danced with extreme grace." It was customary, it appears, for some members of the RafR troupe to perform acro- batically in a booth in the Piazza San Marco by day and histrionically by night in the little San Moise theatre, of which Medebac, who instructed them in the art of comedy, was then manager and leading man. Teodora Raffi became his wife, as well as the MOUNTEBANK JUGGLERY Museo Correr PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT' ANGELO 183 leading lady of his company; her flighty aunt, Mad- dalena Raffi, became the soubrette, and the latter's husband, Giuseppe Marliani, the Brighella; while our old friend, Cesare D'Arbes, the pantaloon, mar- ried Gasparo Raffi's sister-in-law, Rosalina, whose first husband had been a German mountebank. 1 These acrobatic histrions were loved and appre- ciated, Goldoni tells us, 2 "not only for their valour and ability as rope-dancers, but for their decent and discreet way of living under the excellent manage- ment of the most worthy Raffi and the faultless con- duct of the prudent, devoted, and charitable Signora Lucia, his wife." When, after strolling about the mainland for several years under Medebac's direc- tion, they returned to Venice and entered into open competition with the companies of the San Samuele and the San Luca theatres, they were reproached with their humble origin and derided as rope-dan- cers. Madame Medebac's acting in Grlseida soon made a favourable impression, however, and in The Clever Woman she "succeeded in establishing the company's reputation." But Cesare D'Arbes must needs be fitted with a part as well. He had never played without a mask, and fearing odious comparison, he dared not act the Pantaloons Goldoni had created for Francesco Coli- netti of Imer's troupe ; therefore, he decided to make his Venetian debut unmasked in Elegant Anthony (Tonin bella grazia), the piece written for him *L. Rasi: Op. cit. 2 Preface to Vol. XVII, Pasquali edition. 1 84 GOLDONI while its author was still at Pisa. As the latter says : We placed it in rehearsal. The actors laughed uproariously and I laughed too; we believed that the public would do likewise, but that public, which they say has no mind, had a very strong and decided one at the first performance of this play, and I was obliged to withdraw it immediately. Under such circumstances I have never been indignant with the public or the actors, but have always begun coolly to examine myself, and this time I saw that the fault was mine. ... I shall only say in extenuation that when I wrote this comedy I had been without practice for four years. My mind had been filled with professional matters, and I was troubled and in ill-humour, and to make my bad luck complete, my actors thought it was good. We shared in this folly and we paid for it equally. D'Arbes was chagrined by his failure, but in The Prudent Man (L'Uomo prudente), another comedy Goldoni had brought from the provinces, this Panta- loon appeared in his mask so successfully "that he was acclaimed generally as the most accomplished ac- tor then upon the stage." Noting that in real life he displayed the characteristics of both a worldling and a witling, Goldoni, bent on making him "shine with his face unmasked," put forth The Venetian Twins (I Due gemelli veneziani), a comedy of mistaken identity, in which D'Arbes played both a clever and a doltish Dromio "with such incomparable art that he found himself at the summit of his glory and joy." The manager was "no less content at seeing the suc- cess of his enterprise assured," and Goldoni was "a sharer in the general satisfaction," being "welcomed with open arms, and applauded," as he declares, "far PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT ANGELO 185 more than he deserved." This success set the critics yelping, "the troupe of rope-dancers" being more snappishly pursued by jealous rivals than the author; but "their credit increased daily" and when for the carnival season Goldoni drew The Artful Widow from his magic bag, his triumph, as well as theirs, was complete. Since the merits of this comedy are rehearsed in a subsequent chapter, it is only necessary to remind the reader that this spirited stage picture of Venetian society is one of the two plays that first distinguished its author as the creator of a national comedy, the other being its immediate successor, The Respectable Girl, a comedy in which Goldoni first appears as the naturalistic painter of the life of the common peo- ple of Venice. As he says with reference to The Art) 'ul Widow : I had given very lucky plays, but none had been so lucky as this one. It received thirty consecutive performances and has been played everywhere with the same good fortune. The birth of my reform could not have been more auspicious. I still had a play to give for the Carnival: it was necessary that the closing should not belie the first successes of this decisive year, and I found the work which I needed to crown my labours. . . . This play, The Respectable Girl, had all the success I could possibly wish; the, closing could not have been more brilliant. Behold my reform already well under way ! What good luck ! What joy for me ! With the scoring of this triumph for his ambition to reform Italian comedy terminated the provisional contract Goldoni had signed with Medebac in Sep- tember, 1747. So pleased were both manager and 186 GOLDONI playwright with their common success, that a four years' agreement was concluded between them on March 10, 1749, by the terms of which Goldoni, of- ficially called "the Poet of the Medebac troupe," agreed for an annual salary of four hundred and fifty Venetian ducats 3 to write eight comedies and two operas a year, as well as to rewrite old comedies, assist at rehearsals, and follow the troupe during the summer season to the various cities where his plays might be produced. 4 Furthermore, he was forbid- den to write comedies for other theatres in Venice, but might pen libretti for musical pieces. Having so appalling a contract to fulfil, it is not surprising that his life became less venturesome. No man required to write eight comedies a year, could have many idle moments for Satan's employment; soubrettes disturbed him less frequently during those busy years, and the merry hazards of his earlier life gave way to theatrical routine. In a word, genial Goldoni became an untiring dramatist, employed early and late at the work of conceiving, writing, and rehearsing plays. No sooner was a Venetian the- atrical season ended than he was off to terra firma with Medebac's troupe, following it from town to town, writing new comedies the meanwhile, and try- ing many of them out before provincial audiences. He had moreover to quell the jealousies of ac- 3 About $675 the Venetian ducat, according to Larousse, being worth 7.47 francs. 4 Commedie di Goldoni, Paperini (Florence) edition, 1753-55, vol. VII, introduction to La Donna vendicativa. PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT ANGELO 187 tresses and repel the attacks of enemies. After his first great success had been won by The Artful Widow, a host of antagonists arose to confound him, the exultation of the fourteen glorious years he passed in Venice being frequently marred by the attempts of envious rivals to undo him. His literary quar- rels being discussed later, the following plaint shall suffice for indicating that, like every great writer, he was a target for the venomous shafts of less successful men: While I worked on the old foundation of Italian comedy and presented only plays partly written and partly in outline, I was permitted to enjoy in peace the applause of the pit ; but the moment I announced myself as an author, inventor, and poet, bright minds awoke from their lethargy and found me worthy of attention and criticism. His second season in Venice (1749-50) was far less successful than his first. It began with a revival of The Artful Widow? and no sooner had this play reappeared upon the boards of the Sant' Angelo thea- tre than the comedians of the San Samuele put forth a parody of it, written by the Abate Pietro Chiari, 6 his principal rival in the field of comedy. This base attack so nettled Goldoni, that in spite of his avowed principle of never answering critics, he wrote a dia- 5 In his memoirs Goldoni, writing some thirty years later, is inexact in giving the number and sequence of the plays presented during this season. He places the revival of The Artful Widow at carnival time, but Gradenigo, a contemporary, under date of Oct. 13, 1749, records in his Notatori the literary quarrel which resulted from the revival of that play. Vittorio Malamani in Ateneo Veneto, Jan.-Feb., 1907. 6 La Scuola delle vedove. 188 GOLDONI logic reply, which he caused to be printed and circu- lated throughout the coffee-houses and assembly- rooms of Venice. 7 But he was failing in the fulfilment of his con- tract to write eight comedies for each theatrical sea- son. During the autumn and winter he produced but five new plays ; 8 and when the season was waning Medebac began to clamour for the full quota of nov- elties. Goldoni would have preferred finishing the season with revivals of his past successes, but the in- sistence of his manager obliged him to place in re- hearsal The Lucky Heiress (UErede fortunata), a comedy with which he was "not content" and which, as he had foreseen, failed dismally. To add to the embarrassment of both Goldoni and Medebac, "the excellent Pantaloon," Cesare D'Arbes, "who was one of the mainstays of the company," left Venice to en- ter the service of the King of Poland. So popular was this actor, that when the news of his departure became known, the box-holders began to refuse the renewal of their subscriptions for the ensuing sea- son, a state of affairs that called for drastic action, lest the doom of the Sant' Angelo company be sealed. To close the season The Respectable Girl and its sequel 9 were revived, and in the Complimento, or verses with which it was customary for the most 7 Prologo apologetico 'alia commedia la Vedova scaltra. 8 In his memoirs Goldoni mentions only two: La Buona moglie and // Cavaliere e la dama, but L'Awocato veneziano, II Padre di famiglia and La Famiglia dell' antiquario were, according to the most accurate data obtainable, produced during this season. 9 La Buona moglie. PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT ANGELO 189 popular actress to flatter the audience at the conclu- sion of the last performance of the year, Goldoni stepped into the breach that his failures had made in the defences of Medebac's enterprise, in the bold manner he thus describes: Offended on my side by the ill temper of the public, and being blindly confident that I amounted to something, I wrote for the leading actress the Complimento with which the season ended, and made her say in bad verse, but very clearly and very positively, that the author who worked for her and her comrades agreed to present sixteen new comedies during the ensuing year. 10 The troupe on the one hand and the public on the other at once gave me a certain and very flattering proof of their confidence, for the actors did not hesitate to accept an engagement upon my word, and a week later all the boxes were let for the ensuing year. When I made this agreement, I had not a single subject in mind; yet I had to keep my word or die. My friends trembled ; my ene- mies laughed. I comforted the former ; I made game of the latter. ... It was a terrible year for me, which I cannot recall without trembling again. Sixteen comedies in three acts, each requiring for its performance, according to Italian usage, two hours and a half! The theatrical season of 1750-51 was indeed "ter- rible," and the wonder is that Goldoni did not die in the attempt to keep his defiant promise to the Vene- tian public. He had agreed to produce sixteen new comedies, which in addition to the labour of writ- ing, meant the onerous task of rehearsal. In length, including stage-directions, his comedies average 10 The wording in the Complimento is as follows: "He will produce comedies altogether new. And if he be alive and his imagination does not fail him [he will produce] one a week at least." Since the theatri- cal season lasted about sixteen weeks, this is equivalent to promising as many comedies, a promise which was kept. igo GOLDONI about twenty-five thousand words, hence he had con- tracted to write four hundred thousand words, or the equivalent of a newspaper column a day of the most difficult kind of imaginative work. Not only was he called upon to pen the average daily stint of the modern newspaper man, but he must accom- plish it in dialogue that would unfold a dramatic story vivaciously and entertainingly. He had, more- over, to invent the subjects for his sixteen comedies, as well as to construct their plots. The physical task he had set himself was the equivalent of writing five novels of the present day, but in imaginative require- ments it was far greater. When it is borne in mind that a prolific novelist produces no more than two novels a year, and that a popular playwright, such as the late Clyde Fitch, including both original plays and adaptations, placed upon his stage a little more than forty dramatic pieces in a period of twenty years, some idea may be gained of the gigantic nature of Goldoni's undertaking. No sooner had he informed the Venetian public that he would produce a new comedy each week during the ensuing theatrical year, than he went with Mede- bac's troupe on its summer tour to Mantua and Mi- lan. 11 In the former city he "did not lose his time," and there "worked day and night." Play-writing, however, was not his only task. Antonio Matteucci, 11 Goldoni in his memoirs says "Bologna and Mantua," but Messrs. Malamani, Brognoligo, Mazzoni, and Spinelli, all agree in saying that this should be Mantua and Milan, Goldoni's error being attributable to the advanced age at which he wrote. PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT ANGELO 191 an intelligent young pantaloon, known on the stage as // Collalto, had been engaged to replace D'Arbes and as he had appeared only in improvised comedy, to coach him in the new method of acting unmasked became Goldoni's special care. He wrote, too, oc- casional verses for the weddings or funerals of his distinguished friends, and undertook, besides, the editing of his plays, for the publication of which he had arranged before leaving Venice. In a letter he wrote from Mantua to Bettinelli, his publisher, he laments that the work necessitated by the sixteen plays, had prevented him from penning a preface to the first volume, but when he reached Milan, fatigue apparently overcame his will, for in another letter to Bettinelli 12 from this latter city, he complains that the July heat prevented him from working. He had energy, however, for social diver- sions, and accepted the hospitality of Count Giuseppe Antonio Arconati-Visconti, a Lombardian diplomat, through whose patronage Medebac had obtained the use for that summer of the Ducal Theatre at Milan. 13 When Goldoni returned to Venice after that arduous summer on the mainland, he brought with him the manuscript of seven of the sixteen comedies he had promised his public. Three of these had, to use theatrical parlance, been "tried out" at Mantua and four at Milan; therefore, when the season opened at the Sant' Angelo theatre 12 G. M. Urbani de Ghelthof : Letter e di Carlo Goldoni. 13 Adolfo and Alessandro Spinelli: Letter e di Carlo Goldoni e di Gi- rolamo Medebach al conte Giuseppe Antonio Arconati-Visconti. i 9 2 GOLDONI on October ^th, nine of the sixteen comedies were merely on the stocks or still to be conceived. The first of this remarkable series to be pre- sented on the Venetian stage was The Comic Theatre (II Teatro comico), a confession of faith rather than a play, in which Goldoni, after announcing the titles of the sixteen comedies he intended to present 14 took occasion to berate the antiquated methods of the Im- provised Comedy, at the same time preparing the mind of his public for the reform he was about to launch, this play being in reality a bold polemic put forth in his own defence. So flimsy in plot, that dramatically it is the merest skit, The Comic Theatre nevertheless abounds in both atmosphere and characterization. A company of actors are discovered on their stage rehearsing a comedy. They are interrupted by a playwright who tries to dispose of his antiquated wares to a canny manager, and failing in his purpose, decides that rather than starve he will become an actor himself. An opera singer out of employment appears, seeking an engagement to sing intermezzo, and she too de- scends to histrionism as a last resort. In The Father, a Rival of his Son (II Padre rivale del suo figlio], the make-believe piece these actors are re- hearsing, Goldoni presents a spirited little play within a play after the manner of Hamlet. The incidents of The Comic Theatre itself are too atten- 14 Regarding the titles of these sixteen comedies some doubt obtains. All the existing facts may be found in Appendix A. PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT ANGELO 193 uated, however, to constitute more than a slender sketch; yet it pictures life behind the scenes so can- didly and portrays stage folk so ruthlessly, that the wonder is that Medebac's players did not refuse to appear in this exposure of the egotism that distin- guishes their calling. Here are shown all the vaga- bond types that compose a theatrical troupe; the overbearing leading lady and her harassed manager, the pert soubrette, the vain jeune premier, and the coarse comedian hungering for laughs, each as clam- orous for a "fat part" as any modern star; for as one of them says : . . . There are some actors who have the conceit to judge a comedy by their part. If it be short, they say that the comedy is poor. They would all like to play the leading role, since the actor rejoices and is glad when he hears laughter and handclapping. For if the public's hands clap hard, The actor 's worthy of regard. While stripping his actors of their pretensions and exposing their artistic leanness to the public, Gol- doni gives them considerable wise advice. "Don't you see that it is n't right to address the audience?" he makes the manager in this play say to a member of his company. "When he is alone on the stage, an actor should pretend that no one hears or sees him; for this habit of speaking to the audience is an intol- erable fault that should not be permitted on any ground whatever." In the following speech from this skit Goldoni vies with Shakespeare in artistic sanity: See to it that you pronounce clearly the last syllables, so they i 9 4 GOLDONI can be heard. Recite slowly, but not too slowly; and in strong passages speak louder, and accelerate your speech. . . . Guard es- pecially against drawling and against declamation; speak natur- ally, as if you were talking : since comedy is an imitation of nature, everything that is done must be likely and probable. . . . Written in order to prepare his public for the sup- pression of the mask actors' hackneyed tricks, The Comic Theatre was intended by Goldoni to be the prologue to his reform of Italian comedy. He did not know, as Professor De Gubernatis points out, 15 that in the oriental plays of Kalidasa actors and ac- tresses were sometimes made to discuss a new play and predispose the public in its favour; yet he knew clas- sical comedy, and perhaps Moliere's Versailles Im- promptu (L'Impromptu de Versailles) as well. Courageously discarding the monologue of Plautus and the single act of Moliere, he wrote a plotless play that held the interest of his audience throughout three acts merely by pictures of stage life and the discussion of dramatic values a feat impossible of attainment in the present day. Though dramatically The Comic Theatre is but a gossamer, in biographical texture it is so durable that from its lines much insight into Goldoni's literary life is gained; for besides presenting its author's theo- ries of writing and acting, it shows the difficulties that lay in his progress toward fame. For instance, when a hack writer in this play declares that he intends to 15 Carlo Goldoni, Cor so di Lezloni fatte nell' Universita di Roma nell' anno scolastico 1910-1911. PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT' ANGELO 195 write comedies as good as Goldoni's, the manager, speaking ex cathedra, says: Ah, my lad, you must first spend on the stage as many years as he has passed there, and then you may hope to be able to do something. Do you think he became a writer of comedies all at once? He did so little by little, and succeeded in being appre- ciated by the public only after long study, long practice, and a continuous and untiring observation of the stage, manners, and customs, as well as of the genius, of nations. After successfully presenting The Comic Theatre to Venetian playgoers, Goldoni gained time for the completion of his titanic task by staging six comedies he had already produced in Mantua and Milan, 16 hastening the meanwhile to completion those needed to fulfil his boast. When all but one had been fin- ished, he was at a loss for a subject, until strolling one day in the Piazza San Marco, he saw an Arme- nian fruit pedlar, who "sent him home happy," this man's appearance having suggested to him the plot of Women's Tittle-Tattle (I Pettegolezzi delle donne) , the last of the famous sixteen comedies. Pre- sented on Shrove Tuesday (Feb. 23, 1751), it brought this extraordinary season to an end. Goldoni's words shall describe its impressive premiere: On that day the throng was so great that the price of boxes was tripled and quadrupled, and the applause so tumultuous that the passers-by wondered if it resulted from pleasure or a general riot. I was seated tranquilly in my box, surrounded by friends, who were weeping with joy. A crowd of people sought me out, 16 Le Femmine puntigliose, La Bottega del cafie, II Bugiardo, UAdul- atore, II Poeta fanatico, and Pamela nubile. 196 GOLDONI and, forcing me to leave, carried and dragged me in spite of my- self to the Ridotto, where I was paraded from room to room and made to receive the compliments I would have liked to avoid, had I been able to do so. I was too tired to endure such a ceremony ; moreover, not knowing whence came the enthusiasm of the mo- ment, I was provoked to find this play placed above others I liked far better. But little by little, I discerned the real motive for this general acclamation. It was an ovation for the fulfilment of my pledge. In a letter he wrote four days later to Count Ar- conati-Visconti, his Milanese patron, Goldoni says that the crowd at the theatre on that eventful evening was so great that three hundred people were turned away, and although he had the "consolation of being universally appreciated," he declared that he should "never again undertake a burden such as he believed had never before been successfully borne by any one." "My friends trembled," he adds, "lest I might not fulfil this momentous engagement, while my enemies got their whistles ready to blow." Thus terminated a dramatic season that is perhaps the most remarkable in the history of the stage. Not only did Goldoni produce sixteen new plays at the Sant' Angelo during as many weeks, but he was writ- ing the libretti of five comic operas performed that season at the San Cassiano and other theatres, and had, besides, orders for comedies from other cities. "I am glued to my desk day and night," he writes a friend, "and for twelve days I have not been to the play. I have two theatres on my shoulders, and orders, be- sides, for two comedies a year for Dresden and two for PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT ANGELO 197 Florence. 17 In spite of the abnormal amount of work he was doing, there were only two failures among his famous sixteen plays. 18 In literary quality, too, they are far from contemptible, three of their number 19 taking a high, though not a commanding, rank among their author's literary work. In style they vary greatly, among them being comedies of character, in- trigue, adventure, manners, and sentiment. More- over, Goldoni began about this time to write out the parts of the mask characters. "After the first and second year," he says, 20 "I did not leave them at liberty, but whenever I thought they ought to be in- troduced, I gave them written parts ; for I had learned by experience that a mask thinks more of himself than of the comedy in hand, and if he can but get a laugh, he does n't bother to investigate whether or not the thing he says conforms to his part and its circum- stances; thus, without being aware of it, often con- ] fusing the action, and ruining the comedy." It will be seen that Goldoni's reform was thor- oughly launched during this memorable season. In keeping his word to the Venetian public he had ac- complished a task such as Alfieri alone has emulated in modern times ; 21 but by placing the antiquated masks in fetters, he had freed Italian comedy from " Letter to G. A. Arconati-Visconti, Oct. 22, 1751. 18 // Giuocatore and La Donna volubile. 19 Le Femmine puntigliose, La Bottega del caffe, La Dama prudente. 20 Preface to La Famiglia dell' antiquario, Pasquali edition. 21 The fourteen tragedies which Alfieri finished during the two years of his sojourn in Rome, were not all conceived there, some of them be- ing merely finished or retouched at that time. (1782-83). 198 GOLDONI the despotism of centuries. The public, moreover, had given him an ovation : Pantalone and his mates no longer tyrannized over the stage. After this arduous season Goldoni suffered from neurasthenia, a malady to which writers are especially prone. "I had at the age of forty-three," he says, "much inventive and executive facility, but I was a man like any other. My close attention to work had upset my health; I fell ill, and paid the price of my folly." Although overcome with fatigue, he assures us that "vexation played no less a part in his condi- tion," for he had, like many another playwright, quarrelled with his manager, a grasping and ungrate- ful man, it appears, who had not given him so much as "one obol" beyond his salary for the year, in spite of the fact that he had written sixteen comedies in- stead of eight stipulated for in the contract. "I re- ceived many compliments from Medebac," he says, "but no reward of any sort; I was angry, yet I held my tongue." "However," as he continues, "a man cannot live on glory" ; therefore, he turned to the pub- lication of his plays, only to find himself opposed in the enjoyment of "this last resource" by niggardly Medebac, who claimed that in buying stage rights, he had purchased literary rights as well. "Not wishing to be in litigation with people he saw daily," and "loving peace too much to sacrifice it to interest," he compromised the matter by accepting Medebac's permission to publish one volume of plays a year. "I understood his singular permission to mean," he says, PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT' ANGELO 199 "that Medebac believed he had attached me to him- self for life; but I only awaited the end of the fifth year to get rid of him." Feeling, meanwhile, that a change of air and the distractions of travel would benefit his health, he and his wife went in April with Medebac's troupe to Turin, and while there he composed Moliere (II Moliere) , a five-act comedy in verse. The capital of Piedmont he found a delightful city, its inhabitants being thoroughly congenial and cosmopolitan, and he notes with considerable surprise that they spoke of him as an Italian instead of a Venetian, an indication that the seeds of nationalism were already planted in the field in which they eventually ripened to glorious maturity. Leaving Turin before Moliere was produced, he and "good Nicoletta" went to Genoa, where he led "a delectable life of perfect idleness." Refreshed by a summer of complete rest, he returned to Venice when the autumn chill was in the air, and there he found the first volume of his plays already printed and his royalties awaiting him. Having dedicated the four comedies it contained to four patrons, he ac- quired by virtue of this divided compliment a silver chocolate service, a watch, a golden box, and four pairs of lace cufifs, a more substantial reward, cer- tainly, than the four ceremonious letters of thanks a modern writer would receive under similar circum- stances. Further to gladden him, his comedy, Mo- Here, which had been produced in Turin while he 200 GOLDONI was reposing in Genoa, was successfully presented in Venice. During the ensuing dramatic season (1751-52), he penned his quota of comedies, a considerable por- tion of which proved successful; but the tranquillity of his life was disturbed by a soubrette, who unluckily was the aunt of Madame Medebac, the leading lady. Known on the stage as La Corallina, and married to Marliani, the brighella, this lady, Maddalena Raffi by name, had been separated from her husband for three years because of her "youthful flightiness," and when she rejoined him to become the soubrette of Medebac's company, she became a thorn in its side as well. She was "pretty and pleasant," Goldoni con- fesses, and "had a marked talent for comedy." As she played soubrette parts, of course he could not fail "to interest himself in her," he says; therefore "he took her under his wing," and wrote for her several comedies 22 wherein she shone so brilliantly that Madame Medebac, seeing in her aunt a rival for the public's favour, became so jealous that Goldoni was reluctantly obliged to display in another piece 2 * the endowments of the niece. In the meantime, Collalto, the new pantaloon, was clamouring for the centre of the stage, and had to be placated, too, with a play; 24 therefore, it was an altogether vexatious season, the ill-feeling of which Goldoni 22 La Castalda, L'Amante militare, Le Donne gelose, La Serva amorosa, I Puntigli domestici, La Locandiera, Le Donne curwse. 23 La Moglie saggia. 24 / Due pantaloni' later called / Mercanti. PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT ANGELO 201 subtly contrived to intensify by writing for his new- est flame the stellar role of a play with the singularly appropriate title of The Jealous Women (Le Donne gelose). In this piece La Corallina closed the sea- son so dazzlingly, the enamoured dramatist says, that "Madame Medebac, poor woman, again fell into con- vulsions." "Her vapours aroused my own," he con- tinues, "with this difference, that she was ill in mind and I in body." Still feeling the baneful effects of his abnormal labour of the preceding year, he joined Medebac's troupe at Bologna, hopeful that a change of air would benefit his weary nerves. While seated in a coffee- house one day, he overheard a group of Bolognese discussing his arrival. One of them acclaimed him "the author of fine comedies," another denounced him as "the author who had suppressed the masks and ruined comedy." In the midst of this heated dis- cussion of his merits, a physician who knew him en- tered the coffee-house and greeted him warmly, much to the chagrin of his detractor and to the delight of his defender. This little scene amused Goldoni greatly, and after being introduced to the worthy Bolognese who had expressed a good opinion of him, he went, together with his friend, the doctor, and his new acquaintance, to the house of the Marquis Francesco Albergati-Capacelli, a Bolognese senator and patron of the stage, who played so considerable a part in his life that a word concerning him cannot be amiss. 202 GOLDONI Albergati was a rich young nobleman, who em- ployed both his leisure and his fortune in the culti- vation of the dramatic art. At Zola, one of his es- tates near Bologna, he built a theatre in emulation of "le vieux Suisse des Delices/* where he and his friends played translations of Voltaire, as well as com- edies he penned himself, Albergati being so good a histrion that Goldoni declared no professional or amateur in Italy could play the heroes of tragedy or the lovers of comedy so well as this young Maecenas of the stage, whom contemporaries dubbed "the Ital- ian Garrick." "Monsieur d' Albergati always showed me both kindness and friendship," Goldoni says, "and when- ever I went to Bologna I lodged at his house." Moreover, it was Albergati who first revealed his work to Voltaire. The Bolognese had not met the sage of Ferney, but needing some information re- garding the staging of Semiramis, he wrote to Vol- taire himself, and received together with the stage directions he sought, this approval of his passion for the theatre: Blessed be Heaven which inspired you with a love for the most divine pastime that cultivated men and virtuous women can en- joy, when more than two of them are gathered together. The correspondence thus begun, continued, Vol- taire and Albergati exchanging, together with expres- sions of mutual esteem, tragedies and comedies, both original and translated, as well as occasional gifts. PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT ANGELO 203 "I do not know Albergati," the Sage of Ferney told Casanova, when the latter visited him in 1760, "but he has sent me Goldoni's plays, some Bologna sau- sages, and a translation of my Tancrede." 25 The ad- venturer pronounced Goldoni the Moliere of Italy, but dismissed Albergati as "a worthy gentleman with an income of six thousand sequins, who was afflicted with theatromania." From this fell disease he cer- tainly suffered, for besides acting and writing plays, and playing host to playwrights and Thespians, he took for his wife an actress, whom he later murdered in a fit of jealousy. In expiation of his crime he was obliged to flee the country for a while, yet his fervour for the footlights remained unquenched, since at the age of seventy he married for his third wife a ballet dancer, who "made him the most unhappy of men." In 1752, however, Albergati was but twenty-four years old, with the bacillus of theatromania just be- ginning to stir within him; so he welcomed Goldoni at his board, and extended to him the hand of friend- ship, a hospitality the dramatist requited by dedi- cating his next play to this young marquis. 26 But our dramatist was beginning to cross fashion- able thresholds in his native Venice, as well as in Bologna and Milan. Not only did he dine with the distinguished humanist and archaeologist Gian Rin- aldo Carli-Rubbi at the table of Her Excellency, La Signora Procuratessa Sagredo, 27 but he was actually "taken up" by the most exclusive patricians ; for when 25 Memoirs de J. Casanova de Selngalt. 26 L* Sena amorosa. 27 Letter to Carli-Rubbi, Feb. 12, 1752- 204 GOLDONI Giovanni Mocenigo, a scion of a family of which six members had already worn the doge's cap, mar- ried in April, 1752, Caterina Loredan, daughter of the reigning Doge, the bridegroom invited Goldoni to the wedding in this friendly manner: The Most Serene Doge has permitted me to invite some of my friends to the wedding; you are one of the number; I beg you to come. There will be a seat for you at the table. This Giovanni Mocenigo was a worthy member of a notable family whose name had been inscribed in the Golden Book of Venice since its inception and whose descendants of the present day are as gracious and hospitable as he. That he kept his word courte- ously, Goldoni's account of the wedding supper bears witness : In the banquet hall there was a table laid with a hundred cov- ers, and in another room, one of twenty-four, at which the Doge's nephew did the honours. I was seated at the latter, but during the second course we all left our places and went into the large banquet hall, walking around this immense room, stopping now behind one and now behind another, I in particular enjoying the civilities with which an author, who had had the good luck to please, was showered. This courtesy Goldoni repaid by dedicating one of his merry plays for music 28 to the bride "in testimony of his profound homage." He had been given a place at last at the feet of the mighty and it is amus- ing to picture him arriving at the palazzo of some Mocenigo or Querini. In a dingy public gondola 28 1 Portentosi effetti della madre natura. PLAYWRIGHT OF SANT' ANGELO 205 he comes, which is kept rocking against the striped pali, while some trim private craft discharges its scented and powdered freight. The gorgeous door porter and the liveried gondoliers of his host with boat-hook in hand look at him askance as he pays the tariff of his shabby boatman, and begrudgingly help him to alight on the wave-washed steps. When he has ascended the broad marble stairway and entered the rococo salon on the floor above, adorned with frescoes from Tiepolo's magic brush, many a pair of pretty eyes flashes scornfully in the candlelight, and many a smile is hidden behind a point de Venise fan; for who is this round-faced borghese of awk- ward step but Papa Goldoni, the author of comedies, invited as a nine days' wonder by the hostess, before whom he is bowing and scraping with middle-class uneasiness. VII PLAYWRIGHT OF THE SAN LUCA THEATRE WHEN Goldoni returned to Venice from Bologna during the autumn of 1752, there was a matter of greater import than social recognition to demand his attention. He had become dissatisfied with Medebac, and as the period during which he had contracted to serve him was drawing to a close, he notified this manager that "he need not count on him for the following year." Though Me- debac "did his best to induce him to remain in his service," Goldoni entered into negotiations with the proprietors of the San Luca theatre, two patrician brothers, Antonio and Francesco Vendramin, who conducted their playhouse on a profit-sharing basis, the box subscriptions being retained for the rent and the door receipts divided among the actors according to merit and seniority. A few days before his agreement with Medebac expired, Goldoni signed a contract with the Vendra- mins, whereby for a monthly salary of fifty ducats he agreed to write eight comedies annually during a period of ten years. Only during the first two years, however, was he obliged to follow the com- pany on its summer tour at his own expense; and he 206 PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 207 was at liberty to print his comedies, though not until three years after they had appeared on the Venetian stage. 1 While the theatres were closed for the Christmas holidays, he notified Medebac of his in- tended desertion, but he served him faithfully dur- ing the remaining months of the theatrical season. Moreover, at its close he handed him three new come- dies, a parting gift that brought the total of those penned by him during the five years of his engage- ment with the Sant 7 Angelo company to forty-six including // Pantalone imprudente (1749) and // Sensale di matrimoni (before April, 1753), f which only the titles exist or six more than the eight a year he had contracted to write. During the last season at the Sant' Angelo, Gol- doni staged The Mistress of the Inn (La Locan- diera), and was assured that "he had never con- structed so well, nor written so naturally," an evidence, surely, that a good play is good at any time. Without masks and lazzi, or any of the more trans- parent tricks of the Improvised Comedy, this notable play a milestone in its author's career still holds the boards in Italy and has been translated into a dozen languages. At the time of its production, however, it but served to fire the jealousy of Madame ^LDino Mantovani: Carlo Goldoni e il Teatro dl San Luca a Venezia, gives the text of this contract. It was dated Feb. 15, 1752, old Venetian time, therefore 1753 according to the Gregorian calendar. It was executed by Antonio Vendramin, whose brother Francesco signed two succeeding contracts with Goldoni after Antonio's death, which occurred previous to 1756, when Goldoni, in the dedication of // Geloso avaro, speaks of him as being deceased. Francesco's correspondence with Goldoni is published in Signor Mantovani's volume. 208 GOLDONI Medebac, who on being informed that her aunt, La Corallina, was to play the title-role, took to her bed, until the news of her rival's success caused her to leave it hurriedly and force her husband to revive a former success, 2 in which her own talents might shine again. According to Goldoni: Her vapours became more annoying and more ridiculous. She laughed and cried at the same time; she screamed, grimaced, and contorted. Believing she was bewitched, her worthy family sum- moned exorcists; she was loaded down with relics, and she played and sported with these sacred tokens like a child of four. Mere jealousy of a rival's histrionic success in roles quite different from her own, appears an insufficient cause for Madame Medebac's hysteria, unless to it be added jealousy of the heart. May not the man- ager's wife have loved Goldoni with an unrequited passion, intensified by hate of the winsome soubrette who had made him the prey of her charms? Though he is silent on this point, the last comedy he wrote for the Sant' Angelo was "a little shaft of revenge," 3 directed at the latter of these warring ladies, whose efforts to keep him under her thumb had proved so futile that "she vowed eternal hatred." Though he paid La Corallina the compliment of composing for her the comedy that ended his contract with Mede- bac, she refused to play in it. He was glad, never- theless, he assures us, "to reply to the vehemence of her anger with a gentle and suitable pleasantry." Amidst this storm of feminine rancour he left the 2 Pamela nubile. 3 La Donna vendicativa. PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 209 Sant' Angelo theatre in the spring of 1753, and took service at the San Luca, only to kindle a jealous con- flagration there. In the new company there was a leading lady aged fifty, whose husband, Pietro Gan- dini, was the brighella. Though so notable a protean artist that he might be justly dubbed the Frugoli of his day, this actor claims immortality through his husbandhood; for no sooner did the new playwright appear at the San Luca theatre than Gandini began uxorious intrigues to ensure the best roles for his wife. "A charming Florentine" having been en- gaged to play the second roles, Goldoni "ran the risk," he says, "of being forced to give the. heavy parts to the young, and the sentimental to the super- annuated woman," Gandini having assured him that he expected his wife "to shine on the stage for ten years to come." The lady "realized her limitations," it appears ; yet, when a ten years' engagement at her present salary was offered her, and roles promised her by Goldoni "in which she would win applause, provided their choice was left to him," her husband maintained curtly that his wife was the leading-lady, and that he would rather be hanged than see her de- graded, whereupon "he turned his back rather scurv- ily." By creating so sympathetic a second part in a new play 4 that La Gandini was thoroughly eclipsed by the vivacious and passionate acting of Caterina Bres- ciani, the charming young Florentine in question, 4 Hircana, in La Sposa persiana. 210 GOLDONI Goldoni, whose "diabolical art" had sacrificed the leading-lady without her husband having been able to perceive it, so enraged that worthy that he refused to let his wife appear in the next production. Being given but scant courtesy by the Vendramins, Gan- dini vented his anger by throwing his watch as a parting shaft of displeasure through a glass door, "which he broke within every meaning of the pro- verb," whereupon he and his ancient spouse resigned their places in the troupe and took service with the King of Poland. "Ah, what strange beasts actors are to drive," Moliere once exclaimed, Goldoni's troubles with jealous histrions being but those shared by the members of his craft in every age and every land. Although there were quarrelling actresses at the San Luca as well as at the Sant' Angelo, Goldoni's vexations were lessened by the fact that his new man- agers were gentlemen, who in their transactions with him showed themselves a.t once scrupulous and lib- eral. He had articled himself for ten years to write eight comedies annually at a monthly salary of fifty ducats, yet before the half of that period had ex- pired, the number of comedies he was obliged to furnish was reduced to six. He was permitted, moreover, to write eight or, at most, nine a year; therefore, as his emolument was in his second con- tract with the Vendramins changed from a monthly stipend of fifty ducats to the payment of a hundred for each comedy he penned, it will be seen that for PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 211 the eight called for by the original contract, he would receive an increase of two hundred ducats over its terms. Besides, this second contract gave Goldoni a bonus of two hundred ducats, payable in two instal- ments, on condition that he comply strictly with its provisions. 5 Yet the Vendramins, though generous, were pa- tricians, who brooked no undue familiarity on the part of their bourgeois dramatist. In the letters he exchanged with Francesco Vendramin, Goldoni is careful to address him as Eccellenza, whereas the manager dismisses him as "Signor Carlo." Once, when he asked for a hundred ducats, Vendramin, though he sent the money, wrote curtly: "Signor Carlo, I am a gentleman and a Christian, two words of great significance. I who write them, understand them : I hope that you will understand them also after having read and digested them." 6 Although his material condition was bettered at the San Luca theatre, Goldoni had considerable trouble in "infusing its actors with the taste, tone, and nat- ural manner that had distinguished those of the Sam' Angelo" ; moreover, the San Luca was a larger thea- / tre, where the subtleties of comedy were lost. No sooner had he overcome these difficulties, so far as lay in his power, by penning plays more spectacular than those he had staged for Medebac, than he was beset by other troubles ; for when he took to Bettinelli 5 The second contract, dated Oct. 14, 1756, was executed by Francesco Vendramin, after the death of his brother Antonio. 6 Letter, July, 1759. 212 GOLDONI the fourth volume of his plays, 7 to his amazement he was coldly informed by that publisher that he would accept the manuscript only from Medebac, on whose sole account the publication of the comedies would be continued. Furthermore, Medebac was pocketing a larger sum from the publication of the comedies than he had paid the author for writing them. 8 Feeling that "chicanery is the same everywhere," and rather than enter into a lawsuit, Goldoni de- cided to issue his plays elsewhere ; therefore, he went to Florence forthwith and arranged with the publish- ing house of Paperini to bring out a revised author's edition, the emendations and amplifications of which would "confound" Bettinelli and make the latter's edition worthless. But that wily rascal, aided by the publisher's guild, induced the Venetian authorities to forbid the importation of this foreign edition. Boldly aided by his friends, Goldoni resorted to smuggling. He had, he tells us, five hundred Vene- tian subscribers to the new edition, and each time a volume left the press, five hundred copies of it were hidden "on the banks of the Po, at a spot known to a band of noble Venetians," who introduced the con- traband into the capital and distributed it within sight of everybody. The government held aloof, so he says, "from a matter that was more ridiculous than 7 In his Memoirs Goldoni says the third volume, but he is in error. See A. G. Spinelli: Bibliografia goldoniana. 8 Carlo Goldoni ad un suo amico in Venezia, published as a pros- pectus of the Paperini edition, 1753. PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 213 interesting." Nevertheless, the correpondence of a confidential agent of the Venetian censors at this time indicates that the charges against Bettinelli, made by Goldoni in a published letter, were so resented in Venice that efforts were threatened to prevent his return to that place in case he persisted in smuggling copies of the Florentine edition. 9 Goldoni did return to Venice, however, without being proscribed; yet no sooner was he comfortably settled there than his worthless brother arrived, to pester him anew. He had not seen Gian Paolo for fully ten years, but when the scamp reached the end of his resources, he wrote the dramatist, saying he had married in Rome a lawyer's widow who had since died, and that he wished "to introduce to his brother the two Goldoni offspring" to whom she had given birth, a boy of four, or thereabouts, named Antonio Francesco, and Petronilla Margherita, a girl of five. "Becoming interested immediately in these two chil- dren, who might," as he feared, "need his assistance," Goldoni sent his brother funds for the journey, em- braced him fondly when he arrived in Venice, and adopted his progeny, whom he treated as his own, his wife being childless. His mother, who was nearly eighty by this time, was "much thrilled by seeing a son whom she had ceased to count among the living"; while Nicoletta, "whose goodness and sweetness never belied her, received the two children as her own and took charge of their education." 9 P. G. Molmenti: Carlo Goldoni. 214 GOLDONI Still suffering, as he says, from the effects of the hard work he had done for Medebac, and being on the verge of a nervous collapse, Goldoni went "with his entire family" to Modena during the early sum- mer of 1754, and there fell ill of pneumonia. No sooner had he recovered, than he must needs be off to Milan "to join his actors"; for even during his convalescence he wrote his daily stint of dramatic work. When he returned to Venice in the autumn, he lost his mother; though, strangely enough, he gives no account in his memoirs of the death of "one who had ever caressed him and never complained of him." Of the family reunion brought about by his brother's return, he records, however, that "surrounded by all that were dear to him, and content with his work, he was the happiest man in the world." When these words were penned, thirty-odd years had slipped by and his memory had doubtless mel- lowed, since in letters he wrote but a few months be- fore Gian Paolo appeared in Venice, he complains of being "pursued by misfortunes and persecuted by enemies." 10 Indeed, it is difficult to picture this childless sufferer from depleted nerves, whose brother had returned to harass him, and whose mother's life was ebbing, as the happiest of men, even though his plays sold well and "money came to him from all sides." Much nearer the truth it is to state that dur- 10 Letter to Marina Sagredo Pisani, Nov. 4, 1753, and letter to the Marchese Bonifazio Rangoni, of the preceding day. PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 215 ing those laborious years in Venice, he led a life of constant effort, and that, since "money never abided with him long," his meagre salary barely sufficed for the necessities of life. He served the Vendramins faithfully and bril- liantly the meanwhile, nearly all the naturalistic comedies in the Venetian dialect, upon which his fame most surely rests, being written during the nine years he worked for their playhouse; yet he was harassed by the burden of an augmented family and, as a subsequent chapter will show, he was beset by the attacks of jealous rivals and militant critics, and often was at his wit's end to keep the public's fickle heart from wavering. When he entered the Ridotto, for instance, after the failure of a comedy, 11 he heard the loungers exclaim: "Goldoni is finished. Gol- doni has emptied his bag, the portfolio is exhausted." Asking what portfolio was meant, a masker re- plied: "We mean the manuscript from which Gol- doni has taken everything he has yet written." He had "sought critics," he declared, but found only "ignorance and animosity." Undaunted, however, by this charge of plagiarism and these sneers, he passed the night meditating how he might be avenged, and at daybreak began a five-act comedy in verse, 12 which was produced successfully just a fort- night later, the actors rehearsing it act by act as the writing proceeded. "Listen to me, fellow-workers," 11 // Vecchio bizzarro. 12 // Festino. 216 GOLDONI he exclaimed regarding this proof that his bag was not empty ; "the only means we have of being avenged on the public is to force it to applaud us." Since his contract did not oblige him to follow the troupe of the San Luca theatre to the mainland after the first two years of his engagement, he made fewer journeys now than he did when he was employed by Medebac ; yet he passed a summer at Bologna and one at Parma. On his way to the former city he was arrested at a custom-house near Ferrara, because, as he says in his ingenuous way, he "forgot to submit his trunk for examination." Though it contained illegal chocolate, coffee, and candles, the customs officer who ransacked it found several volumes of comedies as well, and being an amateur actor, he was so pleased to meet their author, that instead of con- fiscating the contraband as the law required, he went to Ferrara and pleaded for clemency with his superiors with such success that the would-be smug- gler was permitted to keep his luggage, after paying a nominal duty. The official refused a tip, moreover, and also a gift of chocolate; so, making a note of his name and promising to send him a copy of the next edition of his plays, Goldoni fared on contentedly to Bologna. After passing some months in that city he returned to Venice for a few days, then sought recreation near Padua at the country-house of Count Lodovico Widi- man, an amateur harlequin, infected, like Albergati, with theatromania. For performance in his host's PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 217 theatre he wrote some dramatic sketches, and when forced by the ladies to act the lover in one of them, and getting laughed at for his pains, he penned a piece 14 in which he played four comic roles so suc- cessfully that he considered his histrionic honour avenged. Returning to Venice he passed the winter there, engaged in writing his covenanted batch of come- dies, and in the spring (1756) he went to Parma at the command of its duke, the Infante Don Philip of Spain, to compose libretti for the use of the Italian comic opera company which His Royal Highness was then establishing. So successfully did he accomplish this task that he received the title of "Court Poet" and an annual pension of three thousand Parmesan lire, or about a hundred and fifty dollars, involving, as he says, "no obligation whatever," the plays Don Philip commanded being otherwise requited. 15 Francesco Vendramin, too, made a second and more favourable contract with him about this time; hence he found himself in easier circumstances than he had ever been since he began to write professionally for the stage. Don Philip's court was passing the summer at Co- lorno, and there Goldoni saw for the first time in his life a troupe of French actors. Kissing was then forbidden on the Italian stage; so, when he perceived a stage lover embracing his mistress, he shouted "bravo" so lustily that the punctilious court was 14 La Flera. 15 Letter to G. A. Arconati-Visconti, Oct. 9, 1756. 218 GOLDONI shocked, till "the Italian author's surprise" received ' the ducal pardon. At Colorno, he learned to speak French and there he kissed the hands of so many ladies, royal and otherwise, and made so many agree- able acquaintances, that he was loath to leave the court. Returning to Venice for the autumn theatri- cal season, he revisited Parma during the winter and worked diligently upon three merry musical plays for his royal patron's opera troupe. 16 When he returned to Venice in the spring of 1757, he found that his enemies had spread abroad the news of his death, a certain monk having even "dared to aver that he had been at his funeral." As Goldoni reappeared not only "safe and sound," but also with a ducal appointment and pension, it is not surprising that "the anger and envy of his rivals were excited." Indeed, their attacks upon him grew so bitter that winter ( 1756-57) , that his literary friends rallied to his colours and defended him in pamphlet and pasquin- ade. Apparently the greatest pleasure of the two dra- matic seasons preceding and following his trips to Parma, was the acquaintance he formed with Ma- dame du Boccage, a poetess "as lovable as she was wise," whom he styled "the Parisian Sappho." No doubt "the agreeable and instructive conversation" of this femme savante, upon whose brow Voltaire had already placed a laurel crown, atoned to Gol- doni in some degree for the rancour of his enemies ; 16 La Buona figliuola, II Festino, I Fiaggiatori ridicoli. PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 219 yet he was harassed by overwork as well as by malice. During the first of these seasons (1756-57) he pre- sented seven new comedies, "his Venetian theatrical affairs being particularly fortunate that year." lg He found time as well to write for the private stage of his friend, the Marquis Albergati. During the season of 1757-58 he was asked by a nephew of the reigning Pope, who dabbled in theatrical ventures, to visit Rome and write comedies for the Tordinona theatre, and never having been in the Eternal City, he accepted the invitation, avidly glad, no doubt, of the chance to escape from the rivals and others who were hectoring him. Promising to furnish the San Luca theatre with novelties during his absence, he set out in the autumn, he and his good wife arriving at Rome in December, after experiencing no mishap more serious than that of being choused at Loretto by a vender of holy images. The dilettante who had engaged Goldoni invited him to dine at his palace and meet the actors of the Tordinona theatre, a troupe, as he discovered, of Neapolitan masks, entirely without experience in written comedy. Moreover, in accordance with Roman custom, they were all men, even the soubrette being of the masculine persuasion. When he saw this motley crew, Goldoni's countenance fell at the thought that his Venetian comedies were to be in- terpreted by Pulcinella in the Neapolitan dialect. He had brought with him for his Roman debut a 18 Letter to G. A. Arconati-Visconti, Dec. 14, 1756. 220 GOLDONI comedy, 19 and while these gawky buffoons, who had never acted written roles, were manfully struggling to master their lines, he sought distraction from his worries in the sights and gaieties of Rome. Being introduced to several persons of quality through the letters he had had the foresight to bring with him from Venice, the doors of Roman society were rapidly opened to him. A cardinal placed a carriage at his disposal; another obtained for him an audience with the Pope. After conversing for nearly an hour with His Holiness about his nephews and nieces, he forgot to kiss his toe when retiring, whereupon the pontiff hemmed and hawed so per- sistently, that he recovered from his absence of mind sufficiently to undo his blunder and receive the bene- diction. Every day he saw cardinals, princes, prin- cesses, and foreign ministers, he tells us, and was all but impoverished by the tips he was obliged, in ac- cordance with the Roman usage, to give their valets. He visited St. Peter's, which beggared his descrip- tion, and he did not fail to examine the other precious monuments of the Holy City. Meanwhile he lodged happily in the Via Condotti, near the Corso, with a married abate, Pietro Poloni by name, the title of abate being at that time only a generic or compli- mentary one. Though Poloni "would not have failed for all the gold in the world" to pray every day in St. Peter's, he was fond of pleasure and good cheer. There was 19 La Vedova spiritosa. PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 221 always a special dish on the table at dinner, cooked by his own hands for "his lodger," who "could not vex him more than by dining out." Indeed, on one occasion when Goldoni absented himself, the worthy abate waxed so warm that he threw a stew-pan and its savoury viand out of the window, vowing that no- body should eat it if not the dramatist. Poloni's pride was so flattered by having a notable man be- neath his roof that when maskers were showering the occupants of carriages with confetti at carnival time, and riderless Barbary steeds were raced through the Corso near by, he hung a sign on his balcony, say- ing it was reserved for the advocate Goldoni. He invited so many of his friends to his house, however, that his illustrious lodger was all but crowded off the balcony reserved for him, his guests being so loath to leave the latter's distinguished presence that when the day's sport was ended, Poloni was forced to send for violins and turn the rout into a ball, "the night being spent brilliantly and everybody going away happy." Yet long before such glory was bestowed upon him by his fawning host, Goldoni was humiliated by the actors of the Tordinona theatre. A barber's boy and a carpenter's apprentice were cast for the female parts in the comedy he had selected for his debut; and at rehearsal the declamation of the entire company was "so extravagant and absurd" that he protested vig- orously against "the utter lack of truth and intelli- gence" displayed by this troupe of Bottoms and 222 GOLDONI Quinces. "Every one has his way, sir," said the Pul- cinella tartly, "and this is ours." In order that there might be less of it to jar his hearing, the despairing dramatist cut the play a good third, and tiresome as was the task, he attended every rehearsal. The Tordinona theatre, he discovered, was "the resort of navvies and sailors," and on the opening night he sat in a box, looking down upon a mere baker's dozen of them; for when it was noised abroad that Pulcinella would not appear, these lovers of im- provised comedy stayed away from their favourite haunt. "The curtain rose; the Neapolitan actors played as disastrously as they had rehearsed; the meagre audience shouted lustily for their beloved Pulcinella; the play went from bad to worse." In despair Goldoni fled to the opera, where his good wife, foreseeing the failure of his comedy, had pre- ceded him in company with the daughter of their Roman host. There he found the singers incurring the anger of the pit, a balm to his own chagrin he thus describes : I entered the box, and though I said not a word, they saw grief written in my face. "Console yourself," said the young woman laughingly; "things are not going any better here; the music is not at all pleasing : not an air, not a recitative, not a ritornello that is making a hit. Buranello is extraordinarily far from being him- self." She was a musician, she could judge, and you could see that everybody was of her opinion. The Roman parterre is terrible: the dbati sit in judgment both vigorously and noisily; there are no guards, no police; cat-calls, shouts, laughter, invectives, resound from all parts of the house. PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 223 . . . What would have become of me, if I had stayed at the Tor- dinona until the end of my play ? I tremble to think of it. Abandoning all hope of shaping his gawky Nea- politans into adept comedians, he decided on the mor- row to introduce musical interludes between the acts of the improvised comedies they were accustomed to play; and finding in the shops of Rome the best of fi his merry plays for music on sale, he revived some of them so successfully, that his dilettante manager was spared a heavy financial loss. For his failure at the Tordinona Goldoni found solace at the Capranica theatre where, it appears, his published comedies had been played successfully during several seasons, Pamela Unmarried (Pamela nubile) being upon its boards at the time of his visit to Rome. Delighted with the acting of the Capranica comedians in this piece, he wrote a sequel for their use which he called Pamela Married (Pamela maritata), but he left Rome before it was produced and was, therefore, spared the mortification of its failure. He had intended to visit Naples before returning to his native city, he says in his memoirs, and adds that he wrote the Parmesan minister in Venice asking him for Neapolitan introductions. As he received no an- swer from this diplomat, he interpreted his silence as an expression of the ill feeling existing between the courts of Parma and Naples and decided, there- fore, to abandon his journey, although assured, so he states, of an opportunity to visit Naples "without it costing him an obol." As the tone of the letters Fran- 224 GOLDONI cesco Vendramin wrote him at this time 20 indicates dissatisfaction, it seems more likely that he abandoned his trip to Naples through fear of managerial dis- pleasure. Vendramin, it appears, was vexed with him not only because of the ill success of some comedies he had written before his departure for Rome, notably The Intrepid Woman (La Donna forte) which could not pass the censor, but also because of his attempt to introduce his copyist into the ranks of the San Luca company in the humble post of terzo amoroso, or third juvenile. This protege was "not a kinsman," Goldoni is careful to point out, "but he had agreed to assist him, and as a Christian and a gentleman, he was obligated," he says, "to give the young man bread." Vendramin, however, had heard unfavourable ac- counts from Rome regarding the aspiring copyist and "did not see what his playwright's obligations had to do with his own theatre" ; therefore he demurred at engaging him. 21 Goldoni did not like his man- ager's attitude in this matter, nor the indifference of the Venetian public toward his most recent comedies. In a letter written to Vendramin at this time, 22 after taking occasion to say that not only one, but two Roman theatres stood ready to produce his works, he thus unburdens his heart regarding his reluctance to return to Venice: 20 Dino Mantovani : op. cit. 21 It is interesting to note that this young man, Giovanni Simone by name, eventually became a successful comedian; thereby proving that Goldoni's confidence was not misplaced. See L. Rasi: op. cit. 22 Rome, March 17, 1759. PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 225 My hesitation does not arise from fickleness, calculation, ill will, nor even from a desire for revenge, and much less from an inade- quate realization of my obligations toward Your Excellency, the company, and the Venetian public, all of whom I esteem, love, and respect; but rather from being morally convinced that Your Excellency would easily be persuaded to release me from my en- gagement. This conviction is based upon the poor success of my comedies during the past year; upon the restlessness and gossip of the actors, and (if you will permit me to say so) upon the readi- ness with which Your Excellency has continually mortified me in the matter of my recommendation of my young protege. All this causes me to believe that I might be quietly left in peace for a year at least, and the absence of a year does not disturb our agreement for ten successive years, should the two parties come to an understanding on this point. But Vendramin did not view favourably a prolong- ing of his playwright's absence; therefore Goldoni parted from his solicitous host, Poloni, in the middle of a noxious Roman summer, and retreating from the field of his artistic defeat, he retired to Bologna, where he remained more than two months preparing material for the Venetian theatrical season, and im- portuning Vendramin by letter to pay for the come- dies he was sending him. First, while still in Rome, he asks for the bonus of a hundred ducats Vendramin had agreed to pay him semi-annually as long as his work was satisfactory, a sum the manager sends re- luctantly; then, from Bologna, he asks for a hundred and fifty more on account of two plays finished and forwarded to Venice, the matter of money having be- come truly "the important point," he says, for he has had to borrow six sequins, and moreover, he must 226 GOLDONI settle the debts his brother has contracted at Modena. In truth, his letters to Vendramin at this time show distrust and weariness. He is convinced the manager is annoyed with him, and he begs once more for the release he will be constrained to take himself after the year is ended. He will not ask again for money, he continues, which is not forthcoming, since God will provide for him. "When I do not write, I am criticized," he laments, "and when I do I am tor- mented. Be charitable with me," he implores Ven- dramin, "and display that sympathy you were wont to show in our conversations." 23 Although depressed by failure and by debt, and ap- parently distrustful of his own genius, Goldoni strove diligently to retrieve his fortunes by means of an elaborate theatrical scheme he presented to Vendra- min at the same time that he was quarrelling about the funds he believed to be his due. He planned to write nine plays, each symbolic of a muse, "and varying," as he says, "in metre and conception," the se- ries to be introduced by a versified prologue, 24 in which Apollo and the Muses were to appear and, as in the case of The Comic Theatre, describe the author's plan to the Venetian public. But Vendramin, per- haps from a desire to keep Goldoni within bounds, was loath to approve of the scheme in its entirety. For fully two months letters were passing between Venice and Bologna, Goldoni enthusiastically up- holding his plan as "something at once extraordinary 23 Dino Mantovani: op. cit. 24 // Monte parnasso. PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 227 and practical," and Vendramin opposing it at first, then acquiescing, albeit reluctantly. Meanwhile, the dramatist was clamouring for money, but not until Vendramin informed him that the final ducats he demanded must be collected by him in person, did he show a willingness to start for his native city. In his memoirs he says that in returning from Rome to Venice he passed through Tuscany, where he re- visited Pisa, Leghorn, and Lucca, and "began to bid adieu to Italy without knowing that he was soon to leave it for ever." As he did not depart from Rome until the first days of July, and had reached Bologna by the seventeenth of that month, his trip through Tuscany, if made on the way to the latter city, was hurried indeed. As he remained in Bologna, accord- ing to his own letters, two months and a half, and had reached Venice prior to October I3th, 25 it seems un- likely that he went two hundred miles or more out of his way at a moment when Vendramin was urging him to hasten back for the opening of the theatrical season. However this may be, he had reached Ven- ice in the beginning of October, 1759, after an absence of nearly a year, and there resumed actively his post as poet of the San Luca theatre. During his absence he had sent the Vendramins several plays, the last being a comedy 2Q inspired by the lovers' quarrels he had witnessed in the family 25 Goldoni's letter of this date in Masi's Lettere dl Carlo Goldoni, and the correspondence between Francesco Vendramin and Goldoni from June 23 to Sept. n, 1759, in Mantovani's collection. 26 Gil Innamorati. 228 GOLDONI of his Roman host. The most notable event, how- ever, of the season following his return from Rome was the presentation toward its close of The Boors (I Rusteghi), a comedy in which his naturalistic gen- ius stands forth pre-eminent; while during the fol- lowing winter he produced The New House (La Casa nova) and The Chioggian Brawls (Le Baruffe Chiozzotte), two other plays in dialect that vie with The Boors in naturalistic mastery. 27 Thus gloriously was Roman defeat retrieved by Venetian victory. When the second season subsequent to his return had been brought to a successful finish, Goldoni was able to announce triumphantly at a Lenten supper of his friends the forthcoming publication of a new sub- scription edition of his plays. 28 As the guests had "eaten every fish from the Adriatic to the Lake of Garda," and "the wine and other liquors had cheered them," the moment was auspicious for the launching of a literary venture ; so, when paper and pens were brought, each of the eighteen gentlemen present sub- scribed for ten copies, the author to quote his own words "catching by one cast of his net a hundred and eighty subscriptions." Yet, in spite of the liber- ality of his friends and the success of his masterly comedies, he was growing weary of struggling in- gloriously with inferior craftsmen for the public's favour; therefore, when he received from Paris the offer of a two years' engagement with Les Comediens 27 In his memoirs Goldoni places the production of / Rusteghi in 1757, but it took place in 1760. See Appendix A. 28 The Pasquali edition, 1761. PLAYWRIGHT OF SAN LUCA 229 du rol de la troupe italienne, he turned a willing ear. But before the story of his long and futile battle with rivals and critics is told, together with his touch- ing farewell to his native land, a detour must be made into the dramatic field where he laboured so diligently during the fourteen years of his service with Mede- bac and the Vendramins. He wrote during those years, it will be recalled, approximately a hundred comedies, several tragedies and tragi-comedies, and over fifty merry plays for music, in all a prodigious literary output. The most brilliant, as well as the most prolific period of his career, it was graced, as has already been pointed out, by all his masterpieces except one. Of the comedies written during these fecund years, about seventy are in prose. As the most ambitious of the thirty-odd pieces in verse written at this time were inspired by literary quarrels still to be narrated, the account of these versified come- dies, as well as the story of the bickerings that in- spired a few of them, will be deferred until the prose comedies of this glorious period shall have been ex- amined. These, it will be remembered, are not grouped structurally in the present work, but in ac- cordance with their social aspects, the four chapters that follow being devoted to their exposition. VIII COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY VENICE, "the Sybaris of Europe," as Ugo Foscolo, the poet and man of letters, called her, was in Goldoni's day an enchanting haunt for the idle and the dissipated. "Free and happy abode of pleasure and beauty," said Algarotti, the Venetian friend of William Pitt, an opinion con- curred in by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and many another globe trotter of that time. Into the councils of Europe Venice no longer entered with her proud head erect. Her diplomacy was all cringing court- esy, her attitude that of an armed nay, rather an un- armed neutrality; for her strength had waned, and the role she played was that of Pantalone in his slip- pered dotage a weak though crafty old republic, ever distrustful of those about her. Cutting this sorry figure abroad, she was so senilely indulgent at home that her children did as they pleased provided they did not meddle with politics or religion. Indeed, she was perpetually en fete, "a lightsome, wanton city of masquerades, serenades, travesties and amusements, whence golden-oared barks departed for Cythera by paper lantern light." 1 1 Philippe Monnier: op. cit. 230 COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 231 With two hundred cafes that never closed their doors ; with five times as many theatres as the Parisians then enjoyed; with a Ridotto, or municipal gaming-house, where both men and women punted at faro; with casini, or gambling clubs; and countless resorts of an even more questionable character, the inhabitants of Venice did not lack the means of turning night into day. Indeed, in the words of a Venetian com- mentator, "There were no nights in Venice; there shone eternal day." 2 Except for a small and morose minority of austere merchants to whom the tradi- tions of the past still clung, the population of this pleasure-loving city was a festival population living in the streets or on the moonlit canals a people seeking pleasure or catering to pleasure, for, in the eighteenth century, Venice vied so successfully with Paris as the pleasure house of Europe that a the Car- nival of Venice" spelled languorous, insidious de- light. And what a carnival it was, of time, as well as of blithesome pleasure! While its merry king reigned, all Venice, from the patrician to the humblest drone, went masked. In the streets, the drawing-rooms, the theatres, convents, palaces, or gaming-houses, all were equal if shielded by a mystic strip of white satin. There was but one personality to be respected Sior Maschera. To quote that consummate rogue, Casa- nova: "The nobility mingled with the people, the 2 Luigi Orteschi: Sulle passioni, i costumi e il modo di vivere de* Veneziani. 232 GOLDONI prince with his subjects, the uncommon with the com- mon, the beautiful with the hideous, there being no longer either magistrates or laws in force." 3 A little mass for the morning, a little game of cards for the afternoon, and a little sweetheart for the even- ing (massetta, bassetta, e donnetta) was the formula of Venetian life. A winter of carnival with Folly continuously shaking her bells, a summer of idle pleasure on the banks of the Brenta, was the Venetian nobleman's calendar an unbridled year of gaiety; for even in Lent, though the theatres were closed, the door of the gaming-house stood open and that of the little sweetheart's boudoir would open to a gentle knock. "The Sybaris of Europe!" Foscolo knew well the frailty of a city wealthy like that Lucanian town to which he compared her, and, like her, enervated by luxury. Goldoni knew, too, that his native Venice was morally corrupt, and, in his kindly way, he preached many a true sermon on the social depravity of his day. In a score or more of his comedies, Vene- tian society is shown, idle, luxurious, incontinent, and prodigal; but, though he paints the vices of his native Venice, he points helpful, optimistic morals too, and not once does he admit that society is hopelessly rotten or incapable of betterment. His plays of this nature are no longer harlequinades, but genuine comedies of manners, in which the society of an age is pictured in vivid colours by the sprightly brush strokes of a 3 Confutazione della storia del governo veneto, d'Amelot de la Houssaye. COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 233 genial painter, familiar from birth with the scenes and people he portrayed. The spirit of carnival permeates The Artful Widow (La Vedova scaltra), a comedy written during Goldoni's first season as the playwright of the Sant' Angelo Theatre, and the first of his plays that may be justly called a comedy of manners. Here is pic- tured the pleasure-loving cosmopolitanism of Venice after her glory had departed Venice, the play- ground of Europe at carnival time; here only a sug- gestion of the Improvised Comedy remains, Panta- lone and II Dottore, except for the former's Venetian speech, being no longer masks but the conventional old men of the modern stage the one, an elderly suitor; the other, the father of marriageable daugh- ters. To be sure, the deliciously funny lazzl of Ar- lecchino hold the play together; but these lazzi, be- sides being written, are necessary to the unfolding of the story, and this particular Arlecchino a doltish waiter at a coffee-house, who is ever bobbing up in a way so muddy-brained that the plot is thickened thereby is so delightful a characterization that he may be called the apotheosis of Arlecchino. The story concerns an attractive widow, for whose hand a stolid Briton, a proud Spaniard, a light- hearted Frenchman, and an ardent Italian, vie. The Briton sends her a jewel; the Frenchman, a portrait of himself; the Spaniard, his family tree; the Italian, naught but words of fervent love. These gifts, Ar- lecchino, the bearer, so confuses that Rosaura, the 234 GOLDONI winsome protagonist, is for a time at a loss to under- stand from whom each present comes. Rosaura is artful, as the name of the play implies, yet possessed of good common sense. Though anxious to remarry in order to be free from bonds imposed by her father and her brother-in-law, she is resolved not to choose a husband from among the international quartette of lovers pursuing her until she is satisfied that her sec- ond husband will prove more satisfactory than the first, her lord and master on that occasion having been a doddering rich man. Her quandary, and the sagacity with which she views it, are best told in her own words : Here am I with four lovers, each of whom has his merits and his eccentricities. The Italian is faithful, yet too jealous; the Englishman, ingenuous but fickle; the Frenchman, gallant but too affected ; the Spaniard, passionate but too sombre. Wishing to be free from family subjection, I see that I must choose one of them, but which I cannot yet discern. I fear, however, that I should prefer the Italian count to all the others, although he sometimes annoys me with his jealous suspicions. He was the first to declare himself, and, moreover, he has the advantage over the others of being a fellow-countryman a decided advantage in every land on earth. In order to satisfy herself regarding their fidelity, she goes forth in mask and domino at carnival time to flirt with her admirers one by one, while feigning J to be the countrywoman of each. Having wrung a token of love from all except the Italian, together with the promise of a rendezvous, she scorns British wealth, French conceit, and Spanish pride for true COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 235 Italian love, the fickleness of her foreign admirers being unmasked by a disclosure of the souvenirs each has given her while believing her to be a charming compatriot on amorous adventure bent. Her hand being awarded the faithful, though jealous, Italian, this spirited picture of patrician Venice at carnival time comes to a happy conclusion. Indeed, this play is a patriotic comedy, in which Venetian upper-class society is depicted gallantly by a loving son of Venice. The licence of the Carnival is used, however, as a dainty pink fan to hide an art- ful widow's efforts to discern which of four admirers loves her most, instead of as a scarlet cloak for the libertinage that made the Venice of that day the Mecca of pleasure-loving foreigners. Not only does patriotism inspire Goldoni's scenes, but a modern- ness as well, far in advance of the times, as when Rosaura exclaims, "Those laws that dispose of wom- en's hearts at the cost of their undoing are, alas! too barbarous." In truth, this charming comedy was a bold step forward, for here Italy had a worthy writ- ten comedy of its own, with both atmosphere and characterization; its patriotic spirit being thus ex- pressed by the artful widow herself : I pride myself on being of a land where good taste reigns as much as anywhere else in the world. Italy to-day frames the rules for good manners: she represents what is best in all coun- tries, leaving to them what is undesirable; a fact that makes her wonderful, and enamours the people of all lands with a sojourn on her shores. Yet in spite of this patriotic utterance, light- 236 GOLDONI hearted Venice was living then, for the joy of living it, a careless life of idleness and gratification. Her streets, her cafes and her gaming-houses were thronged with merrymakers in carnival garb; trou- ble-makers, too, since, under the graceful folds of the carnival domino, ardent hands were often clasped while a rendezvous was being whispered by rouged lips hidden beneath the carnival mask. Away from the crowded Piazza, away from the Ridotto where gamblers with flushed faces punted at faro, many a gondola sped swiftly, the moonlit water of the canal lapping its long, black prow. While dripping oars creaked and nimble gondoliers sang plaintively to the rhythm of their sweeping strokes, many a pair of lovers caressed beneath a dark canopy. At many a sombre water-door, a gondola lay tugging at its moorings, its gondoliers waiting for Cupid's votaries within ; for of that decaying age it may be said truth- fully, Rien ne pese et rlen ne dure least of all mari- tal vows. Love, a naked little urchin of the canals, brimful of mirth, but without a tittle of moral sense, was here, there, and everywhere, darting from heart to heart and whispering tempting words at the Ridotto while the gambler staked his sequins ; in a box at the theatre while dull buffoons repeated their time-worn lazzi, in the crowded Piazza, at the bottega del caffe, the conversazione, and even the convent, where the nuns wore low-cut gowns and frizzed their hair. The tales the tawny gondoliers might have told had COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 237 they willed doubtless would have put those of Casa- nova to shame, but they knew the value of silence. ' 'Voga,' they said, and having spat in the water, they bent to the oar in silence, bearing toward oblivion the wavering mystery of a frail coffin of love." 4 Society not only winked at infidelity, but actually legitimatized it; legitimatized infidelity being no contradiction in terms when applied to the fashiona- ble married life in Venice in the eighteenth century, where every woman of fashion, to keep her social standing, must be attended in public by her cicisbeo, or, as he was also called, her cavalier servente, a spe- cies of lover-footman ever ready to offer her his arm, to carry her gloves, her muff, or even her poodle-dog. At the church door, the cicisbeo proffered his lady holy water daintily from his finger-tips ; kneeling be- side her in the nave, he held her prayer-book open at the lesson of the day; 5 the service ended, he called her gondola, and reclining beside her on the soft cushions, talked fondly of love, while claiming love's abandonments. On the promenade, at the theatre or the gambling-house, he was ever by her side. At my lady's toilette in the morning, he must preside, to offer counsel as to the modish arrangement of her 4 Philippe Monnier: op. cit. 5 The use of places of worship for rendezvous and love-making had become so notorious that the Council of Ten, on March 3, 1797, finally promulgated an order to the effect that "decency in churches must be more severely respected," forbidding women to come to the service im- modestly dressed, and authorizing church authorities "if need be, to proceed with rigour against the guilty connivance of fathers and hus- bands." 238 GOLDONI beribboned scuffia upon the very scented curls he had helped to arrange, ay, even to lace her stays, fasten her garters, or, kneeling with her dainty shoe upon his bended knee, to tie the laces with the tact and grace of a well-bred cavalier, for, if he served my lady not well, it was her privilege to dismiss him per- emptorily and choose a successor. And what of her lord and master meanwhile? Al- though the cicisbeo might enter my lady's boudoir un- announced, her husband must knock, and if by chance he were present at the morning toilette, either nod approvingly or offer expert criticism on the manner of the cicisbeo's service. But the husband seldom bothered his wife at the hour of the morning toilette or at any other hour, for that matter his duty being to serve some other man's wife just as assiduously as some other man served his, this infectious interpreta- tion of the golden rule being the governing law of cicisbeism. Though, in some instances, the cicisbeo was a true serving-knight who did not overstep his privileges, such a social system could lead to naught but a general debauchery of morals ; for, if my lady must be in the fashion, so must the grisette, who, to quote an Italian of the day, would "rather be without bread than without a cavalier servente." Goldoni himself thus summarizes the life of the ladies who were attended by cavalieri serventi in one of his merry plays for music: 6 6 Bertoldo, Bertoldino, e Cacasenno. CICISBEI AND MY LADY Museo Correr COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 239 The practises I'll frankly tell to you Of every city lady fair : Two cicisbei in her retinue, One stationed here, the other there; For aye her head turns, full inclined to try A soft glance here, and there a sigh." Cicisbeism originated in Spain. There, when a husband could not go abroad with his wife, it was the rule that she must be accompanied by a young kins- man whose duty it was to protect her against the im- portunities of gallants. Introduced into Italy, this custom was adopted as a new cry of fashion, but with- out the relationship feature. Planted first at Genoa, this exotic soon flourished at Bologna and Florence. Loath to accept Spanish manners, Venice was slower in sowing its seeds, yet there, too, it finally waxed into a noxious overgrowth. There was need for a patriot with the courage to denounce it, when Goldoni arose in the market place to say that cicisbeism was a disgrace to Venice ; yet he said it in a way so satirically suave that, far from being offended, Venice laughed heartily. Less vig- orous in his strictures upon society than Parini, the first notable poet of modern Italy, he fought with a rapier nay, rather with a buttoned foil, which, touching society's defenceless points, betrayed its weakness without the infliction of painful wounds, his kindness and sanity preventing him from riding full tilt at stone walls or windmills. His people are the every-day people of an every-day world, not majestic world types such as Shakespeare and Moliere created. 24 o GOLDONI Moreover, he was unaware that the moral cracks in his age were a serious menace to its stability; so he lived tranquilly, without fear of the morrow, attack- ing the moral rottenness of cicisbeism in a kindly, de- cent way, because, as he says, "I had long regarded with astonishment those singular beings, called in Italy cicisbei, who are martyrs to gallantry and slaves to the whims of the fair sex." In nearly a score of his comedies of manners, cicis- beism is handled; 7 a subject he was obliged to treat with discretion, the patricians of Venice brooking no criticism of their caste. Whenever it seemed likely that offence might be given, he laid the scene else- where than in Venice ; hence, when cicisbeism became the subject of his satire, cities where hateful Spaniards ruled, were discreetly chosen as the scene. More- over, the nobility he depicts is the lesser nobility the marquises and counts never the princes and dukes. In his Torquato Tasso, for instance, the Duke of Ferrara necessary for the unfolding of the plot is referred to by the various characters but is never shown upon the stage. 8 In his impeachment of the depraved society of his day, his daring does not equal that of Moliere, who lived in an even more despotic 7 II Cavalier e e la dama, La Famiglia dell' antiquario, La Dama prudente, La Moglie saggia, La Villeggiatura, II Festino, La Sposa sagace, La Casa nova, Le Femmine puntigliose, II Cavaliere di buon gusto, II Geloso avaro, L'Adulatore, II Cavaliere di spirito, L'Uomo prudente, I Rusteghi. 8 "The mistrustful Venetian aristocracy would never have tolerated the portrayal and revelation of itself upon the stage in the ignoble sight of the subject multitude." Giuseppe Guerzoni: // Teatro italiano net secolo XVI1L COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 241 age; yet during the eighteenth century, all Italian writers of comedy attacked the follies of society, par- ticularly cicisbeism, with timidity; therefore it seems unjust to charge Goldoni with an undue want of cour- age. Although cicisbeism is depicted strikingly in The Cavalier and the Lady (II Cavaliere e la dama), it is but an atmospheric background for the virtue of Eleonora, a poor but estimable lady, whose husband has been banished, and whom, to quote her own words, "necessity can never teach to forget her duty." Although she lives humbly with a faithful hand- maiden, and endeavours to fill an empty larder with the proceeds of her fancy work, an unscrupulous law- yer, with a case to prosecute for her, empties her purse as rapidly as a generous landlord and a constant lover find surreptitious means of filling it. Don Rodrigo, the latter, foils the lawyer, however, and meanwhile loves Eleonora truly but respectfully throughout three sentimental acts, until her husband, dying an exile, bequeaths her to him. Moreover, he is a moral exponent, his refusal to fight a duel being the source of many a sneer on the part of the patrician box-hold- ers, yet a merited rebuke to a savage custom. And what of cicisbeism? the reader will ask, Don Rodrigo being not a real but an ideal cicisbeo kind, faithful, and discreet. This faultless hero and his immaculate sweetheart, to quote Goldoni, are "two virtuous people who serve as a contrast to the ridicu- lous people" against whom the satire of the play is di- 242 GOLDONI rected, sprightly scenes that expose society's foibles being interspersed with the lachrymose scenes. Though Eleonora and Rodrigo make love in the mawkish way of Richardson and his school, men and women of fashion appear who are drawn to the life Don Flaminio and Donna Claudia, his wife; Don Alonso, the latter's cicisbeo from a sense of duty rather than choice; and Donna Flaminia, the lady whom Claudia's husband serves. Donna Claudia, however, is the arch worlding of them all, une femme detraquee, such as French boudoir novelists delight in depicting. Witness this scene, in which, arising long after the sun has crossed the meridian, she nags her poor footman to distraction : CLAUDIA Balestra. BALESTRA Your ladyship! CLAUDIA Bring me that small table. BALESTRA Does your ladyship wish anything else? CLAUDIA No. (Exit Balestra.) My callers are late this morning. Balestra. BALESTRA (Re-entering.) Your ladyship! CLAUDIA Havre you seen Don Alonso? BALESTRA No, your ladyship. COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 243 CLAUDIA That will do. (Exit Balestra.) My cavalier is becoming ne- glectful. I am afraid he's growing a trifle cold. He no longer comes to take his morning chocolate with me. (Calls.) Balestra. BALESTRA (Re-entering.) Your ladyship! CLAUDIA Bring me a chair. BALESTRA Here, your ladyship. CLAUDIA (Seating herself.) (Aside.) At this hour my husband is surely paying his respects to his lady-love. (To Balestra.) What are you doing, standing there stiff as a poker? BALESTRA Awaiting your ladyship's orders. CLAUDIA When I wish you, I'll call. BALESTRA Yes, your ladyship. (Exit Balestra.) CLAUDIA It bores me to distraction to be alone. Balestra. (Re-enter Balestra.) CLAUDIA Balestra. BALESTRA Here, your ladyship. CLAUDIA Why didn't you answer, you donkey? BALESTRA I thought your ladyship saw me. (Aside.) Pest take her. CLAUDIA What time did your master go out? 244 GOLDONI BALESTRA At eight o'clock, 9 your ladyship. (Starts to leave.) CLAUDIA Wait. Did he leave no word ? BALESTRA None, your ladyship. CLAUDIA You may go. That's all I wish. BALESTRA I go, I go. (Exit.) CLAUDIA If no caller comes, I'll go to see Donna Virginia. Balestra. BALESTRA (Re-entering.) Your ladyship ! CLAUDIA Tell the coachman to harness the horses. BALESTRA Yes, your ladyship. (Exit.) CLAUDIA But to go driving without a cavalier? No, that's something that simply cannot be done. Balestra. BALESTRA (Re-entering.) Your ladyship ! CLAUDIA I wish nothing. BALESTRA Your ladyship wishes nothing? CLAUDIA No. BALESTRA Your ladyship does not wish the carriage? 9 Literally, at thirteen o'clock, in accordance with the Italian system of recording time, the new day beginning at sunset in the eighteenth cen- tury. COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 245 CLAUDIA No, I tell you; plague take you! BALESTRA (Aside.) What a brute, what a brute! (Exit.) CLAUDIA Really, Don Alonso is too rude. If he continues to neglect me, I'll be tempted to let Chevalier Asdrubel attend me. BALESTRA (Re-entering.) Your lady CLAUDIA The deuce take you; I didn't call. BALESTRA A visitor. CLAUDIA Who? BALESTRA Don Alonso, to pay his respects. CLAUDIA You donkey, a cavalier servante does not need to be announced. 10 Redolent Don Alonso enters, to play the equivocal role of a cicisbeo not over-fond of his task; then Donna Virginia, the inamorata of Claudia's husband, drops in to gossip, the conversation turning upon vir- tuous Donna Eleonora, whose character when torn to shreds by the women is defended by Don Alonso, a rather good sort of young man who has been drawn into this maelstrom of worldliness because he has not the strength to stem its noisome current; whereupon Donna Claudia lashes him soundly with her malig- nant tongue for daring to uphold a woman who has 10 Act I, Scene 8. 246 GOLDONI lost caste. At this juncture, Don Flaminio, her hus- band, enters. Goldoni's words shall tell what ensues. FLAMINIO .What's all this noise about? Why all this rumpus? VIRGINIA Your wife has been abusing poor Don Alonso. FLAMINIO Egad, but my wife's an odd one. You don't know her yet. Some day you'll know her and then you'll sympathize with me when I'm impatient. ALONSO My dear fellow, I've not been negligent in my duties. FLAMINIO Then why did you all lose your tempers? VIRGINIA I'll tell you. Don Alonso took it upon himself to defend Donna Eleonora. He won't have it that Don Rodrigo is her cavalier servente, or, to be more exact, her benefactor. We, who know how things are, differed from him. He grew obstinate and politely told us we lied. FLAMINIO Oh, Don Alonso, I beg your pardon, but you're behaving badly. You should make it a rule never to praise one woman in the pre- sence of others. Moreover, don't you know that to contradict a woman is like sailing up stream against the wind? ALONSO I know it perfectly; yet believe me, I can't let a virtuous woman's reputation suffer. FLAMINIO What's that? Does it hurt her reputation to say that Don Rod- rigo serves her? I serve Donna Virginia, you serve my wife, and what harm is there in it? COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 247 ALONSO That's all very well, but they were saying that Don Rodrigo gives her means to live upon, pays her rent, her maid's wages, and all that sort of thing. FLAMINIO My dear fellow, and who would pay them if not he? I like your idea. Her husband's property has been confiscated, she hasn't a penny of dowry. To speak plainly, one can't live on air. ALONSO But she's sold what she had, she's selling still, and she works. CLAUDIA Listen! How well he's informed. VIRGINIA Donna Claudia, what do you say to paying Donna Eleonora a visit this evening? CLAUDIA A visit to Donna Eleonora? That pauper isn't worthy a visit from me. VIRGINIA But we can see how the fine lady behaves in her reduced cir- cumstances. CLAUDIA You'll find her as such ladies usually are, poor but proud. VIRGINIA Who knows but that we'll discover something more! I have an idea that she likes to chat. Don Alonso ought to know. ALONSO So far as I know, Donna Eleonora is a very retiring woman. With the exception of Don Rodrigo, no one goes to her house. FLAMINIO Come, I say, what'll you bet that I don't go there and become her cicisbeo? ALONSO I'll bet a hundred louis that you can't do it. 248 GOLDONI FLAMINIO Make it a gold watch. ALONSO Agreed. I'll not back down. FLAMINIO Donna Virginia, are you willing that I should make the at- tempt and win the watch ? VIRGINIA You are at perfect liberty to please yourself. FLAMINIO I'm pretty certain that, while I'm no longer serving you, there'll be plenty who'll know how to take my place beside you. VIRGINIA Don't worry. I'll take care of that. FLAMINIO And you, my dear wife, what say you? CLAUDIA You have conquered without doubt, say I. FLAMINIO Does it seem to you that I am a captivating cavalier, capable of capturing a woman's heart at the first attack? CLAUDIA Women of her sort are easily conquered. FLAMINIO The w r ager has been laid, therefore let's say no more about it;, let's take a walk in the garden. VIRGINIA Agreed; let's go. FLAMINIO Pray give me your hand. VIRGINIA Here am I. COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 249 FLAMINIO Poor Donna Virginia, how will you manage to do without me for a few days? VIRGINIA Believe me, I shall not suffer. FLAMINIO Cruel one, you are making sport of one who is dying for you. VIRGINIA To-morrow you will be dying for Donna Eleonora, and some day you'll come back to die for me. (Exeunt.) ALONSO Command me, so that I may have the honour of serving you. CLAUDIA My deepest obligations. Go, serve Donna Eleonora. ALONSO Impossible, she'll be plighted to your husband. CLAUDIA Go ; there'll be room for you too. A coquette refuses no one. 11 "To criticize the conduct of others without reflect- ing upon their own is the common vice of most women," exclaims Don Alonso, as Donna Claudia leaves him : then reflecting upon the state of himself and his fellow cicisbei, he continues: "Utter folly is our lot! To dance attendance for the fun of it and be subject to the ridiculous whims of a woman, all for the great honour of being enrolled among the cavalieri serventi." But the real thesis of the play is expressed by Don Rodrigo, its virtuous hero, when he asks why the stealing of a man's wife should be permitted if the stealing of his purse or his watch is forbidden. "Act I, Scene 10. 25 o GOLDONI Unlike the too-good-to-be-true heroine of The Ca- valier and the Lady, Donna Eularia, the heroine of The Discreet Wife (La Dama prudente), is both admirable and human, while Don Roberto, the hero if a jealous husband may be so designated is so naturalistically drawn that as a characterization he bears comparison with modern psychological anal- yses. "In Italy," says Goldoni, in speaking of this play, "there are husbands who willingly tolerate the gallants of their wives, and who even become their confidants, but there are others extremely jealous, who bear the strongest ill-will to those singular beings (the cicisbei) who are the second masters in an ill- regulated family." This state of affairs obtains not alone in Italy, but wherever the menage a trols is a social institution husbands like the husband of Gol- doni's discreet wife, who conform to the customs of a "wicked, contemptuous world" so as not to appear ridiculous, being of cosmopolitan growth. In this husband's own words, they "suffer, fret, and are seared with jealousy while studying how not to show it." Though Don Roberto's cheek grows sallow from the venom that is preying on his vitals, he is such a slave to custom that he permits his wife to be attended by cicisbei, preferring several to one in the hope that they will neutralize one another. She is willing, nay, anxious, to lead a domestic life, yet he forces her into society lest the world, thinking him jealous, should laugh. Whenever a cicisbeo is in the house, he bobs COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 251 in and out upon one pretext or another, and when she goes out to visit a friend, though he will not accom- pany her because of the fear of being laughed at, he forces two cavaliers instead of one into the carriage and runs on ahead to the house to which she is going, a struggle between jealousy and conventionality ever raging in this poor man's heart. Donna Eularia, the discreet wife of this victim of "the ugliest fiend of hell" is by far the most womanly of Goldoni's heroines and a model wife for all time. To her husband, she says, "I have no pleasure save being with you: all the rest of the world means noth- ing to me" ; to the cicisbei who attend her, she is in- different, and when they become importunate, she snubs them deftly by assuring them that, if their as- pirations ever pass the bounds of propriety, she will find the means of "getting rid of them without dis- turbing her husband's peace of mind." "I may lack the talent and wit to shine in society," she adds, "but I do not lack the prudence needed to defend my fam- ily's reputation, and any one who judges me rashly will rue it." This is no idle boast. Donna Eularia does possess the prudence needed to defend her fam- ily's reputation. Never losing her self-control dur- ing Don Roberto's fits of jealousy, she manages her cicisbei with an equal tact, forcing them to become friends after they have quarrelled over her and fought a duel, while keeping, by her cleverness, all knowl- edge of this duel from the public and her husband a triumph of tact which is rewarded by her husband's 252 GOLDONI willing acquiescence in her desire to go to a remote place in the country where cicisbei are unknown. Thus a loving couple, whom worldliness has separ- ated, retires to a desert such as Alceste, the misan- thrope, longed for in vain, Eularia being no heartless coquette like Celimene, but a woman "who, in the midst of so much deceit and domestic indifference, is sincere." 12 Goldoni is thoroughly aware, however, that, in a land where cicisbeism obtains, discreet wives, and husbands whose love is legitimate even though jeal- ous, are the exception rather than the rule, his other fashionable wives and husbands being moulded of a different clay. For instance, in The Flatterer (U Adulator e)^ a comedy with melodramatic tenden- cies, inspired by Le Flatteur of Jean-Bap tiste Rous- seau, the protagonist a parasitic rake and hypocrite flatters the husbands in order that he may corrupt the wives ; while one of the latter is so lost to decency that she borrows money of her cicisbeo without a qualm. Equally shorn of moral sense is Don Flo- rindo, in The Punctilious Ladies (Le Femmine pun- tigliose], a complaisant husband who lets his wife spend his money on her cicisbeo because he is born, as Maria Merlato remarks, to be "led by the nose" ; 13 while a miserly, eavesdropping husband in The Jeal- ous Miser (II Geloso avaro), is so despicable that he appropriates the presents given his wife, accusing her, meantime, of having given illegal cause for their re- 12 Maria Merlato: Mariti e cavalier serventi nelle commedie del Goldoni. 13 Op. cit. COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 253 ceipt. Don Properzio, too, the husband of Donna Giulia, the title character of The Contriving Woman (LaDonna dlmanegglo], is another miserly lord and master, who scrimps and frets till his wife, a meddler in the love affairs of her friends, contrives to get the better of him by acquiescing in his parsimony. Ro- saura, the rich bourgeois girl, married to a nobleman, whose marital unhappiness forms the subject of The Sensible Wife (La Moglle saggla), is a commend- able spouse, however; Pantalone, her father, being the prototype of good Monsieur Poirier; her neglect- ful husband, a Venetian Due de Presles. It is in The House Party (La Villeggiatura) , how- ever, that Goldoni paints his most lifelike picture of fashionable husbands and wives a picture so vivid that the colours have not been dimmed by time. In- deed, this house party might have taken place on the moors of Scotland during the last grouse season, in England when coverts were last drawn, or in France when last the cor de chasse was sounding in the forest, ay, even at Roslyn, or Aiken, so thoroughly cosmo- politan are the characters, so modern the situations of this play. "Villeggiatura" means literally "country life" or "the season spent in the country"; yet "house party" better describes the gathering under the roof of Donna Lavinia that forms the background of a play of domestic infelicity Donnay or Pinero might well have penned yesterday instead of Goldoni a century and a half ago. Being wedded to a bluff country 254 GOLDONI squire, who spends his days in partridge shooting and his nights in snoring, Donna Lavinia has a cicisbeo, Don Paoluccio, to whom she has ever been faithful, though her friends change theirs, as they do their style of dress, every spring and autumn. She would not have this one, did her husband not live entirely for his gross pleasures; for, when the comedy opens, fearful lest her suffering will lead her from the playful hands of cicisbeism into the destructive arms of passion, she warns her husband of Paoluccio's return from a tour of Europe, made with her consent, but the husband's only admonition, regarding a wolf about to enter his fold, is that he be given any bed in the house except his. Donna Lavinia appeals to this soulless creature to live with her as other men live with their wives, yet he scorns her bed and board because she will not con- sent to retire at sunset and arise to chanticleer's call ; in a word, because she will not give up society and be- come a domestic drudge. "I would n't give up shooting for all the money in the world," he says. "Not even for your wife's sake?" she answers scornfully. "For your husband's sake you won't give up society," he retorts ; whereupon she replies, "Well, have your shooting, only let me enjoy society." "Will you go to bed when I do?" he asks; "will you go to bed at ten o'clock?" "Yes, if you will stay in bed until ten o'clock." "The devil!" he pro- tests; "I couldn't stay in bed twelve hours." Nor will he stop bringing peasant girls into the house while his wife and her friends are there. "The COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 255 remedy is easy to find, my dear," he says to her pro- test; "you don't wish them here; I do; therefore go away yourself." This brutal insult is the parting of the ways. "Never will you see me here another year," she answers in righteous indignation. When, happy in the thought that henceforth he will be let alone, he leaves her, she, convinced at last of her right to lead her life in her own way, exclaims, "Amuse yourself with your low-born wenches! You deserve to be loved just as much as I am loved!" Indifferent alike to appeal and threat, this conscienceless husband seeks the society of two peasant girls. By giving his presents and their affections to a pair of younger swains, they un- wittingly avenge a wife who, meanwhile, is being taught her own lesson in love's bad faith. Don Paoluccio, the cicisbeo to whom she has long been loyal, returns like many an American young man who has been abroad with his- head completely turned; a Franco-maniac, liberated, as he believes, from prejudices, yet, in reality, so enthralled by cos- mopolitan vices that he refuses to believe his lady-love has been constant during the two whole years he has been away. "While I was abroad," says he, "I was never constant more than fifteen days at a time." When condescendingly he seeks to return to the good graces of Donna Lavinia, she answers bitterly, "For fifteen days I shall make no other engagement" too subtle an irony for so heartless a rake! Poor Donna Lavinia! Loyal by nature, she is 256 GOLDONI taught, first by a brutal husband, then by a shallow cicisbeo, that loyalty is a drug on love's market. Her friend Donna Florida's plan of having different cicis- bei for town and country, whom for the life of her she cannot recall when they are out of her sight, is a plan far likelier than loyalty to succeed in that decadent society; for even while Donna Lavinia's loving heart is being seared to hardness by Paoluccio's neglect, this nice young man, to whom the words "bounder" and "cad" would be applicable were he of our day, pro- poses to flightly Donna Florida a "liaison a la paris- ienne," which, being secret, shall leave them both free to flirt in public. In order to demonstrate the price he attaches to his liberty, as well as the catholicity of his taste, he proceeds forthwith to make love to his host's peasant girls, in which brazen act he is caught by Donna Lavinia. Her conjugal and sentimental ideals being shattered almost simultaneously, she is too dazed to attempt the laborious task of picking up the pieces and gluing them into some vague sem- blance of the gods she has worshipped. In the words of M. Dejob, a sympathetic French writer, 14 "She is primitively virtuous, yet being the slave of fashion and neglected by her husband, she has not the courage to imprison herself within the walls of her duty." Don Mauro, fickle Donna Florida's discarded cicis- beo, is caught by her on the rebound, these two dis- consolate hearts consoling each other in this play just as discarded hearts so often do in real life; M. Dejob 14 Les Femmes dans la comedie jranqaise et italienne au XVllle siecle. COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 257 remarking cynically that "in real life Donna Lavinia would not take a new cicisbeo but a new lover." It is love, after all, that distinguishes her from the other women in Goldoni's comedies who are served by cicisbei ; for, as Maria Merlato points out, "Donna Lavinia is the only Goldonian woman who does not treat her cavalier servente as a coxcomb, or a buffoon, but as a gentleman whom she both esteems and re- spects." 15 More than that, she is the most real of our dramatist's women, her character being so psycho- logically true that, in the comedy that tells her story, he may be said to have anticipated the modern prob- lem play by nearly a century and a half. If Donna Eularia, the discreet wife, is a lovable woman, Donna Lavinia, this frail wife, is simply a loving woman whose heart is stifled by indifference a woman of Vanity Fair. Yet Goldoni's purpose in writing The House Party was not to vivisect a feminine heart, but rather to ad- monish society for its luxury and prodigality. He had passed the early summer of 1754 at Modena and Milan, and on his way back to Venice, he found the subject for his play in a manner best stated in his own words : I had observed, in my journey, a number of country-houses along the banks of the Brenta, where all the pomp of luxury was displayed. In former times, our ancestors frequented these spots for the sole purpose of collecting their revenue, and their de- scendants go there merely to spend theirs. In the country they 15 Op cit. 258 GOLDONI keep open table, play high, give balls and theatrical entertain- ments, and the Italian cicisbeo system is there indulged without disguise or constraint, and gains more ground than elsewhere. He does not overdraw the picture. If the winter of Venetian society was a carnival, its summer was a fete a la Watteau; for, when it was not gambling or dancing minuets, the powdered and patched so- ciety of that day, to whom the villeggiatura was a social necessity, tripped merrily through cool, shady boskets to the banks of the Brenta, where Love's barge lay moored and fluttering Love himself was whis- pering that, on the magic isle of Cythera, stood his mother's fair temple. Yes, Watteau knew that life, and so did Goldoni, but while the one painted his fetes galantes so entrancingly that we sigh for a visit to the isle where Venus dwells, the other shows us that the open table and high play of those villas, where "all the pomp of luxury was displayed," and the love fetes on the Brenta's bank, were not Les Agrements de I'ete or Les Charmes de la vie, as Watteau calls them, but the road to moral decay and financial ruin. After telling of the circumstances that led to writ- ing The House Party, Goldoni adds: "I gave a view of all these circumstances some time afterward in three related plays." These three plays form a trilogy the principal characters appearing in them all and are called, respectively, The Rage for Coun- try Life (Le Smanie della villeggiatura] , Hazards of Country Life (Le Avventure della villeggiatura)^ MY LADY'S TOILET Museo Correr COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 259 and The Return from the Country (II Rltorno dalla villeggiatura). 19 Though the atmosphere of the comedies in this series is deliciously clear, they are less happy both in story and characterization than The House Party. We see a fashionable coterie pre- paring to leave for the country; we see them at their villas playing faro the auction bridge of that day; we see them eating, drinking, gossiping, and making love ; and we finally see them return to the city after having squandered in a month of lavish entertainment the revenues of an entire year: yet the dramatic ma- terial of the trilogy is barely sufficient for a single comedy. Indeed, the agonized efforts of a social climber to force a ladies' tailor to the finishing of a garment called a manage le dernier crl de Paris in time to vie in stylishness with a rival whom she hates and envies; the gambling, gossiping, eating, drinking, and love-making during a villeggiatura near Leghorn a more discreet place for satirizing Venetian society than the banks of the Brenta; the tittle-tattle of the servants about their masters; the rascality of a pair of waiters at a country inn ; and the antics of a gluttonous snob and sponge named Ferdi- nando are all more diverting than the attenuated story that carries an uninteresting quartette of lovers through three plays that might well be condensed into three acts. 16 7 Malcontenti, a play In which the 'villeggiatura craze of Venetian society is also pictured, may be called a prologue to this trilogy. In it similar characters appear and a similar story is told. A play within a play in this comedy has been held with little verisimilitude to have been inspired by Shakespeare. 2 6o GOLDONI Yet Goldoni admits that the telling of this double love-story was not the object he had in view. "I wished to present in the first play the inordinate passion of Italians for country life, and, by the second, to demonstrate the dangers induced by the liberty that obtains in such a society." The particular object he had in view in writing the last, and by far the least interesting, comedy of the villeggiatura series is not so apparent, since, in the epilogue spoken by a char- acter at the close of Hazards of Country Life, he ad- mits frankly that "the play is finished, though, if something still remains to be unravelled, it will form the subject of a third play on the same topic." Yet commonplace though the story of the villeg- glatura series is, its plays shed a brilliant sidelight upon the society of Venice when on its annual terra firma outing. Lawn parties, water parties, and rid- ing parties, refreshments served in forest glades on lace-trimmed napery, comedies played in gorgeous drawing-rooms, moonlit masquerades upon the river, faro till the dawn a villeggiatura was, as M. Mon- nier says, "a maskless carnival where Folly came with face uncovered" 17 the same Folly who reigns wher- ever the idle born squander their patrimony in social rivalry. Reading Goldoni's dialogue, it is not dif- ficult to fancy oneself at Newport. "Giacinta is a young girl," says her rival Vittoria, "yet she dresses precisely like a married woman. Indeed, to-day, you can't tell the girls from the married women." When 17 Op. cit. COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 261 Ferdinando, the snob, says he has just refused an invi- tation to an old-fashioned house where they sup at nine and go to bed at ten, Vittoria answers : "I wouldn't lead such a life for all the money on earth. If I go to bed before dawn, it is quite impossible for me to sleep" ; whereupon her brother adds : "At our house we play cards or dance till dawn, but we never dine until eight; indeed, after our little game of faro, we usually see the sun rise." "That is living," sighs Vittoria; living the way society lives wherever Satan finds employment for its idle hands. In The Rattlepate (La Donna di testa debole), Goldoni presents a euphuistic widow of noble birth, surrounded by a troop of pedantic flatterers, and so unsparing is its satire of both culture-seeking women and the literary leeches who thrive upon their foibles, that, with a certain justice, it may be termed the Italian Precleuses ridicules. Although this comedy failed dismally at the time of its production, its irony is nevertheless so keen that Professor De Guber- natis 18 places it on a plane of equality with Pail- leron's notable satire of false romanticism. 19 Yet ruthless as is its portrayal of the sort of woman who still pursues culture breathlessly, it is too deficient in truly dramatic situations to fulfil this Italian critic's hope that "it may merit in our day the honours of the stage, and win applause." The Impostor (II Raggiratore] , tells the story of a bogus nobleman's attempt to marry the heiress to the 18 Op cit. 19 Le Monde ou Von s'ennuie. 262 GOLDONI mortgaged estates of Don Eraclio, an impoverished patrician who, asserting descent from the Emperor Heraclius and discovering in an historical dictionary that there are thirty-seven towns called Eraclio, proudly styles himself "Eraclio, lord of thirty-seven towns," even though his wife's jewels are in pawn and his creditors are taking legal measures to possess themselves of his palace. The spurious count, who gives the play its title, schemes with a venal lawyer to antedate a marriage contract between Don Era- clio's daughter and himself, thereby feathering his own nest as well as outwitting his future father-in- law's creditors. Before this is compassed, however, the impostor's peasant father arrives to unmask him, and poor Don Eraclio, bereft of his palace, is forced to seek an asylum in a madhouse, "a place worthy," as he says, "of a poor, presumptuous man, who, seeking to glorify himself with the vanity of the past, is ruined in the present, only to be worse off in the future." Don Eraclio's story is a lesson in vainglory, as true to the life of our day as to that in which it was penned. In The Feudatory (II Feudatario), the seigneurial phase of country life is shown ; a young marquis, on taking possession of his inherited estates, attempting to possess himself of the wives and daughters of his re- tainers as well. He has to deal, however, with pretty Chitta's husband, Cecco, a sturdy deputy, who, hav- ing shot four men, itches to level his carbine at a fifth, a desire from which he is dissuaded by the pro- posal of his comrades that their landlord's castle be COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 263 burned and he treated like the lambs of their flocks. Caught in shepherd's guise making love to Chitta, the marquis is beaten soundly by Cecco, who threatens to shoot him should he repeat the offence, whereupon, marrying, at his tactful mother's suggestion, a ro- mantic orphan of the Mile, de Seigliere type, with a claim to his estates, he ends the danger to his life and a tiresome lawsuit as well. The reader feels, however, that, as soon as the honeymoon has waned, he will go forth again to prey upon his retainers' wives unless awed by Cecco's trusty carbine. As in the case of the villeggiatura trilogy, the bril- liance of The Feudatory lies mainly in the sidelight shed upon society, one scene in particular, where the mother of the young marquis receives a delegation of the wives of her son's retainers being exceedingly human, and, according to Goldoni, taken from life. These good women, flustered in the presence of a grand lady, strive to show that they are accustomed to society, till, assuming equality, they are told abruptly that they belong to "the lower class" (basso ran go] a term they have never before heard. One of their number suggests that it means they are of the lower country, not the mountains, an explanation that makes them acknowledge with pride that they are of the lower class; whereupon, to make conversation, one of them asks the marchioness "how much flax is worth in Naples," only to be hushed by a friend's query as to why she should expect Her Excellency to know about such things. "A marchioness would n't spin 264 GOLDONI like the people of our sort," the friend whispers ; "she would make lace and embroider." Chocolate being brought, these worthy souls do not know what the "black stuff" is. Making wry faces, they smell it, and when it scalds their throats, spit it out without more ado; but their lack of breeding becomes most apparent when the heroine of the play, whom they think their inferior, is treated with more consideration than themselves, for then they flounce out of the marchioness's drawing-room, their common noses in the air. The rich young feudatories tarried in the country no longer than the cicisbei and the dolls of fashion. The hot spell passed, the vlllegglatura ended, they went to town for the opening of the autumn season, the theatres, and the Ridotto. Night amusement for the Venetian there was a-plenty, but his days he must pass in his cicisbea's boudoir, at a gaming-house, or at a tavern. There being no clubs in Venice, the tavern became a sort of public club where congenial spirits gathered to sip their chocolate and to gossip, just as the Parisians gather now at the cafes on the boulevard at the hour of the aperitif. In The Mistress of the Inn (La Locandlera) , Gol- doni paints a delightful picture of such a tavern club. Mirandolina, the landlady, is both comely and sprightly; the customers flirt with her; and having an eye for business, she keeps them on tenter-hooks, for, while they are kept guessing in the matter of her preference, they are buying chocolate or wine COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 265 to her profit; a venal coquetry that served to fire the hearts of a pair of old codgers the one a blue- blooded marquis, the other a parvenu count with a desire to marry her, if only for the comfort of being permanently well cared for. The pot-boy, longing both for his mistress and her profitable business, re- sents these attentions. Meanwhile, the Cavaliere di Ripafratta, a confirmed bachelor, with an aversion to the sex, alighting at this delectable inn, the hostess sets her trim cap for him, just for the sport of teach- ing a woman-hater to respect her sex; while he, in- experienced in coquetry, falls an easy prey to one so skilled and offers her his heart and hand. From this embarrassment of riches, the comely hostess must make a choice. To be the Marchesa di Forlipopoli, with a title as old as the hills and a fortune as bare as they, or the Contessa d'Albafiorita, with a brazen title bought only yesterday? How could a sensible woman sacrifice a profitable business for either horn of this noble dilemma? For the Cavaliere di Ripafratta, the woman hater, to whom she has taught the futility of defying her sex, she has a hankering, yet, being endowed with common sense, she realizes that, though lovely in a tap-room, she might be an eyesore in a drawing-room; hence, rather than to mate above her station, she gives her hand to her faithful pot-boy, and these profitable words to her disconsolate admirers : In changing my estate, I intend to change my habits; there- fore, gentlemen, may you profit by what you have seen, both to the 266 GOLDONI advantage and the well-being of your hearts; and if ever you should find yourselves in the position of wondering whether to yield or fall, think of the cunning you have been taught, and re- member the Mistress of the Inn. This is the story of a comedy in which Goldoni demonstrates his mastery both in stage-craft and char- acterization perhaps more fully than in any single play. In this pretty ado about nothing, Mirando- lina, an eighteenth century Beatrice, brings a surly Benedick to her feet but condemns him to perpetual bachelorhood for having presumed to doubt the al- lurement of her sex. Bold, coy, tender, or indifferent, as suits her, this captivating mistress of an inn where old codgers congregate to woo her, is a mistress, too, of love's ingenuity, the essence of coquetry, the secret of her charm, being best told in her own words : I like the roast, but not the smoke. If I had married all who have asked me, I should have far too many husbands, for all who arrive at my inn fall in love with me and make love to me and most of them propose to me. . . . But the men who run after me soon bore me. Nobility will not do for me ; I esteem wealth and, again, I don't esteem it. My joy consists in being courted, ad- mired, and adored. Indeed, that is my weakness, as it is the weakness of most women. Having no need of any one, I don't worry about marrying; I lead a decent life and I enjoy my lib- erty. I chat with all, yet fall in love with none; for I mean to laugh at all these caricatures of passionate lovers and, moreover, I mean to use all my arts in capturing, felling, and breaking the rude, hard hearts that are opposed to us, the best thing Dame Nature ever brought into the world." The two old codgers who woo her, represent the COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 267 peerage and the "beerage" of that day. "Between you and me there is a difference," says the Marchese di Forlipopoli blue of blood, empty of purse to the Conte d'Albafiorita, his parvenu rival for Miran- dolina's hand. "At this inn, my money is as good as yours," is the sneering retort. "I am the Marchese di Forlipopoli," proudly answers the patrician, whose family tree is the only tree left upon a once fertile estate. "And I am the Conte d'Albafiorita," replies his wealthy rival, in an upstart's attempt to assume an equality he knows in his inmost heart does not exist. "A count!" sneers the marquis, "a purchased countship!" "I bought the countship when you sold the marquisate," is the parvenu's retort; whereupon the patrician, drawing himself up to his full height, exclaims frigidly, "Enough! I am who I am, and you owe me respect." After the parvenu has tipped him, and the patrician given him naught but in- solence, the pot-boy sums up the truth by saying that "funds, not titles, win respect away from home," a perennial, though homely epigram. There are Marquises of Forlipopoli and Counts of Albafiorita still ; there is many a crusty bachelor, too, like the Cavaliere di Ripafratta, who, believing love for a woman "an unbearable weakness in a man," has never been in love and vows he never will be; until some pretty Mirandolina flouts that "may her nose drop off, if she doesn't make him fall in love with her before the morrow." To quote her once more: "Who can resist a woman when a man gives 268 GOLDONI her the time to bring her arts to bear? He who flees, need not fear to be conquered; but he who stays, listens, and enjoys her society, must fall sooner or later in spite of himself." Mirandolina not being a fine lady, the comedy concerning her is perhaps not a society comedy in the narrower sense of the term. Yet she is not a bourgeoise either her mind being broad nor an ignorant, superstitious woman of the people. A winsome cosmopolite, she is a self-made woman, whose conflict with life has taught her to know mankind as well as what is best for herself. Being wooed by titled lovers, her introduction into a chapter devoted to plays of the world of fashion may perhaps be pardonable. 20 Goldoni, a bourgeois himself, viewed society from the antechamber hence he has been said to have lacked an intimate knowledge of the subject, Baretti, a contemporary, even accusing him of making prin- cesses talk like ladies' maids. Yet so true to the life of our time are many of his pictures of society that, if Baretti's charge be just, it may be said that the princesses of to-day talk like the ladies' maids of 20 Goldoni was reproved by Grimm (Correspondance} for not causing Mirandolina to fall in love with the woman-hater, an obviously happy ending any playwright might have conceived. Of the widespread popu- larity of La Locandiera, the great number of translations and adapta- tions is irrefutable evidence. In his article in the Rivista d'ltalia for November, 1907, E. Maddalena mentions thirty-eight adaptations and translations of this comedy, five of which are anonymous. Six are in French, five in English, nine in German, seven in Spanish, two each in Russian, Portuguese, and Hungarian, and one each in Danish, Greek, Polish, Roumanian, Czech, and Croatian. Among the more prominent actresses who have impersonated Mirandolina are Mile. Candeille, Car- lotta Hagn, Teresa Peche, Irene Vanbrugh, and Eleonora Duse. COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 269 Goldoni's time. Only yesterday, however, a French- man said of this genial Venetian's pictures of society: His comedies give but a mediocre idea of brilliant Venice. Save for a few obscure folk the characters are all virtuous and possessed of but slight gaiety. Among them there are no debauchees, Cyprians, or wary senators, only prudent fathers, good mothers, and submissive sons; no adventurers or freebooters, only mer- chants whose souls are honour. 21 Goldoni did paint society both with truth and spirit, even though he did not paint it obscenely enough for this Frenchman's taste. Moreover he had ideals, not only of society, but of all that constitutes life ; witness this passage from The Post Inn (L'Osteria delta posta), a one-act comedy of intrigue that, in its treat- ment recalls the stilted French comedy of that day, though the broad philosophy here quoted is as un- like Marlvaudage as the clear tones of a clarion are unlike the delicate notes of a flute : The study of literature is a diversion for the mind which does not rob the heart of its humanity. Love is a natural passion felt in the midst of the most serious or the most trivial occupations. He who knows only how to love must of necessity grow weary occasionally of his own joy, and what is still worse, weary of the object of his affection. Study, on the contrary, divides the heart equably; it teaches us to love with more delicacy, it makes us realize more thoroughly the merits of the loved one, and the fires of love are more vivid and brilliant after the heart has breathed and the mind has been amused. Let us now consider society unlucky he who spurns it. Society makes a man civil and amiable and strips him of the savage rudeness that is his bane. A 21 Charles Verrier: Goldoni et la reforms du theatre ttalien. La grande Revue, Feb. 25, 1908. 270 GOLDONI misanthrope, a recluse, is a burden to his family, a torment to his wife. A man who does not like society himself will naturally not be disposed to permit his wife to enjoy it. Howsoever great may be their mutual love, it is hardly possible that they may be together from morning till night without a thousand opportunities for losing their tempers; for love is in great danger of soon de- generating into boredom, distaste, and even aversion. Looking at life through the smoked glasses of a realism that were better called biasism, many a modern dramatist sees only life's shadows. Forget- ting that in the country and by the sea mankind breathes good, fresh air, he poisons his lungs with the noxious air of crowded streets ; holding his nose to the ordures of life as he examines them, he for- gets that life's flowers have perfumes that are sweet. Believing that the theatre was the "best, the most use- ful, and the most necessary of relaxations," Goldoni, the kindly naturalist, presented life, not as a cadaver to be dissected at a clinic of the morbid, but as a humorous and truthful picture painted vividly in the sunlight for the delight of his fellow-man, not his undoing. He is an optimist with a helpful smile ever upon his gentle lip. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his pictures of the corrupt society of Venice, though it is unjust to say that his char- acters are all virtuous. There are "debauchees, Cyp- rians, wary senators, adventurers, and freebooters' 7 a-plenty in his plays; yet, side by side with them, to point the moral that the world is not all corrupt, never has been, and never will be, are "prudent fathers, good mothers, submissive sons," and faithful COMEDIES OF THE ARISTOCRACY 271 wives. In the breadth of Goldoni's sane vision and in the cleanliness of his mind, quite as much as in his unfailing humour and gaiety, lie the sources of his glory. I IX COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE N fully a score of Goldoni's comedies, the sturdy life of mercantile Venice is presented; in as many more, the upper bourgeoisie is shown knocking at the doors of patrician society. Like every middle class, that of Venice formed the back- bone of a people, Goldoni's Pantalone being its rep- resentative on the stage. Whenever he appears, the play by his presence is given a middle-class flavour, for he is always the Venetian merchant speaking in the soft Venetian speech. "Pantalone de' Bisognosi, mercante veneziano" is the way his name appears among the dramatis per- sona of some thirty of the comedies ; in several others, a part similar to his is allotted to Anselmo or Pan- crazio, who, like him, are Venetian merchants. Gol- doni's Pantalone, however, differs widely from the buffoonish part which bears his name in the Impro- vised Comedy. Instead of being duped by the other characters, he holds the threads of the play between his ink-stained fingers while voicing the precepts of the author. He it is who typifies the conservatism and moral worth of Venice, proud mistress of the Adriatic, in the days before luxury had sapped her 272 COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 273 strength. He is fond of order, peace, and good living. Although, as he says in The Whimsical Old Man (II Vecchio bizzarro) , he eats "good food," it must be "pure food that he knows will not make him ill." A citizen of free Venice, Pantalone was no vassal of an overlord. On the contrary, he was a merchant of Venice, and his forbears had been merchants, too, proud of their calling. He did not wear a sword, yet he had a sharp tongue, ever ready to defend his rights. As he says in The Swindler (U Impostor e), "Al- though I am old, I am not afraid ; and if I don't know how to use a sword, I have enough of a tongue to give my reasons in the face of no matter whom." In The Cavalier and the Lady, when he is called "a vile merchant and a plebeian" by patrician Don Flaminio, he thus proudly defends his estate: If you knew what it means to be a merchant, you would not speak like that. . . . Commerce is useful to the world, necessary to the life of nations, and he who, like myself, practises it honour- ably should not be called plebeian. More plebeian is he who, hav- ing inherited a title and a little land, spends his days in idleness, believing himself privileged to trample every one under foot and live a life of domination. The vile man is he who does not recog- nize his duty, who foolishly and unjustly vaunts his arrogance, making others realize that, though noble by the accident of birth, he deserves to have been born plebeian. 1 Brave sentiments for such an age! As M. Mon- nier points out, Pantalone "represented in Venice a new condition of things, a new condition of the heart 1 The character who speaks these democratic sentiments, though called Anselmo, has the attributes of Pantalone. 274 GOLDONI the third estate." 2 Yet, outspoken as he is at times, Goldoni's Pantalone is, after all, a bourgeois, conservative to the core a respecter of vested rights, meddling with neither politics nor religion, and be- lieving that what is, should be. Arrayed in the dress of his fathers, he is faithful to a glorious past, ever guarding his traditions as zealously as he guards his home. In The Prudent Man (L'Uomo prudente), for instance, Pantalone is a middle-class husband un- swayed by fashion a man with the tradition of a past century, who, finding a cicisbeo in his house, admin- isters this feudal admonition: You don't deserve ever to leave this place alive, and I ought to have you drawn and quartered. But I am human and I love my neighbour as myself ; I shall therefore content myself by warn- ing you as a brother and a friend. Do not eye my wife or daugh- ter either little or much, and never set foot in my house again; above all, take care that you tell no one of what has happened here this evening. In case you ever dare to approach this house, I tell you in confidence that, beneath one of the steps, there is a trap and that, to precipitate you into a pit filled with nails and razors, all I have to do is to touch a secret spring. In case you try to meet my wife and daughter elsewhere, or if you are so rash as to blab, I have enough sequins in my purse to pay for having you shot in the back without any one suspecting whence the shot comes. I speak to you about this calmly and without anger. Profit by my advice and let your conduct be prudent. This burgher with the sentiments of the Middle Ages even threatens to bury his wife alive; yet he is not without a fine sense of honour, for, when the lady, seeking to put an end to him by placing poison 2 Op. cit. COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 275 in his pottage, is exposed by the death of a dog which had partaken of it and is arrested for her crime, he defends her in open court and obtains her acquittal, "his tenderness," to quote his author, "finally win- ning the hearts of his enemies, his prudence saving the honour of his family." Conservative, middle-class Pantalone is indeed out of sympathy with the new-fangled ways of cicis- beism and a fashionable society which turns night into day. He will not let the women of his family show themselves half dressed to the gallants who lace their stays ; they may not receive actresses in his house, nor give progressive dinners in the latest fash- ion by serving the soup, the roast, and the dessert each on a separate table in a separate room. When his women go abroad, their eyelids are lowered de- murely; water, not pomade, is used to sleek their hair; and when company comes to the house, their toilet consists merely in the removing of their aprons, for, though they have jewels, their pride lies in the possession, not the showing. ^/The Rialto, with its banks, shops, and exchanges, is Pantalone's Venice, and there, amid the hum of traffic, he labours till the bell of the Rialtina strikes the hour when he may go to his hermetically sealed house in a narrow street away from the joys of the Piazza, a house as carefully closed as his heart to the merry sounds of the carnival. There he puts on his red slippers, takes a pinch of snufl from his horn snuff-box, adjusts his spectacles, and settles himself 276 GOLDONI in his favourite chair to pass his evening in a quiet corner of Venice, where the only sound to disturb him is a neighbouring cobbler's song or the groan- ing of the organ at the parish church. Knitting stockings, scratching her head with her needle from time to time, Eufemia, his fat wife, sits beside him: though outwardly demure, Rosaura and Diana, his pretty daughters, stifle in the close atmosphere of that room, "where," to quote M. Monnier once more, "the furniture and the cares are always in the same place." 3 Their youthful blood is not yet frozen, therefore each of these pretty girls imagines her- self to be a zentildonna and sighs for a cicisbeo or that latest gown from Paris, a manage. Ashamed of his father's calling, Eugenio, the brother of these bourgeois maidens, is meanwhile swaggering in the Piazza and pretending to be a gentleman, or mayhap losing some of his father's hard-earned sequins at the gaming-tables of that rogue Pandolfo, fleecer of unwary youths. If not there, the young scape- grace is perchance paying his tender respects to Li- saura, the ballet-dancer, who lives next door to Pandolfo; for only when his purse is empty does Pan- talone's son seek the parental hearthside. When Pantalone dies, wayward Eugenio inherits his fortune and business, neglects his young wife, and gambles his patrimony away at the tables of I Pandolfo. Ridolfo, who keeps the coffee-house hard by, was once his father's servant. With com- 3 Op cit. COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 277 mendable attachment for the family he has served, this worthy man laments the bad habits of his former master's son, reproves him, so far as he dares, lends him money without his knowing whence it comes, and "partly by good advice, partly by admonitions, partly by kindness, and partly by generosity," opens the eyes of his master's unruly son and "makes an- other man of him." This is the simple story of The jCoffee-House 4 (La Bottega del caffe] , a naturalistic comedy in Tus- can of the life of bourgeois Venice such as Goldoni wrote more frequently, though seldom more deftly, in the speech of his native city. Although this play is merely a vivacious picture of life in one of those little squares called campielli, where two narrow streets cross in the city of the lagoons, its characters are true, its action real, and its vivacious dialogue so unliterary as to be condemned by Baretti, a critic of Goldoni's day, as barbarous; yet so natural that one need only walk the streets of Venice to hear its like. The plot has been outlined above; there is a sub-plot, however, concerning the quest of a wife in the disguise of a pilgrim for an erring husband who is a gambler and the protector of a pretty ballet girl; and occasionally some strained portion of the attenuated story recalls the fact that this is a comedy contemporaneous with the artificiality of Marivaux and the studied sarcasm of Voltaire. "In the title 4 In the published versions of this comedy there are no masks, al- though when first produced there were, according to its author, several mask characters. 278 GOLDONI of the comedy," says Goldoni, "I do not introduce a story, a passion, or a character, but merely a cof- fee-house, where several actions take place simul- taneously, whither several people are brought by different interests." "The piece," he continues, "should be read in its entirety before being judged, there being as many character studies as there are persons in the play. Among them is a prattling slanderer who is very original and funny a plague of humanity who bores the customers of the coffee- house where the scene is laid." In this ingenuous way, Goldoni refers to Don Marzio, the scandal-monger, one of the most original of his characterizations. An out-at-elbows Nea- politan gentleman stranded in Venice, who passes his time in drinking water at Ridolfo's coffee-house, Don Marzio, at once guileless and artful, is a busy- body whose tongue wags constantly and whose ears are strained for gossip which his vivid southern im- agination invariably distorts. Like the Marchese di Forlipopoli in The Mistress of the Inn, he is an impecunious gentleman trying to keep up appear- ances, and like him, too, unable to realize that the most inefficient of human creatures is a gentleman with an empty pocket-book. But Forlipopoli loves Mirandolina; whereas Don Marzio loves only the sound of his own mischievous voice. Even when his intentions are the best, he can read only ulterior motives into the innocent remarks he chances to over- hear, with the consequence that, whenever his nose is GOLDONI IX A COFFEE-HOUSE Collection of Professor Italico Brass COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 279 poked into other people's business, his wagging tongue creates mischief. This whimsical old med- dler is thus introduced in a conversation with Ri- dolfo, proprietor of the coffee-house: RIDOLFO Here comes one who never stops talking and who always will have it that he is in the right. DON MARZIO Coffee. RIDOLFO You'll be served immediately. DON MARZIO What news is there, Ridolfo? RIDOLFO I hardly know, sir. DON MARZIO Hasn't anybody turned up here yet? RIDOLFO It's still early. DON MARZIO Early? Ten o'clock has struck! 5 RIDOLFO Oh! sir no; it isn't eight yet. DON MARZIO Get out, you fool! RIDOLFO I assure you that eight has not yet struck. DON MARZIO Get out, you donkey! RIDOLFO You abuse me without reason. * Literally, sixteen o'clock, the Venetian day beginning at sunset. 280 GOLDONI DON MARZIO I counted the strokes this very moment, and I tell you it is ten o'clock. Moreover, look at my watch! it's never wrong. (Shows his watch.) RIDOLFO Well, if your watch is never wrong, pray observe that your watch says a quarter to eight. DON MARZIO It isn't possible. (Uses his eye-glass.) RIDOLFO Well, what does your watch say? DON MARZIO My watch is keeping poor time. I heard it strike ten. RIDOLFO Where did you buy your watch? DON MARZIO I had it sent to me from London. RIDOLFO They cheated you. DON MARZIO Cheated me? How? RIDOLFO They sent you a poor watch. DON MARZIO Poor! What do you mean? It's one of the best watches Quare ever made. RIDOLFO If it were good it wouldn't be two hours behind the time. DON MARZIO It always runs well; it's never behind time. RIDOLFO But if it says a quarter to eight, and you say it is ten ? COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 281 DON MARZIO My watch runs well, I tell you. RIDOLFO Therefore it's about eight o'clock, just as I said. DON MARZIO You're an impertinent rascal. My watch runs well, but you talk ill. Take care I don't box your ears. 6 A waiter finally brings Don Marzio his coffee; his busy tongue wags on. "Tell me, Ridolfo," he asks, regarding the dancer who dwells nearby, "what is that ballet girl doing in this neighbourhood?" "In truth, I know nothing about her," Ridolfo an- swers; whereupon Don Marzio declares that he has heard she is under the protection of Count Leandro, a slanderous statement waxing so tremendous in his imagination that, when Ridolfo returns a moment later, the old scandalmonger has woven a tale to the effect that she is protected by Count Leandro, who, "instead of spending his money on her, helps him- self to all the poor creature earns; and perhaps be- cause of him, she is forced to lead a life she would not otherwise lead." "But I have never seen any one except Count Le- andro enter her house," Ridolfo protests. "She has a backdoor, you fool," chuckles the old gossip. "There is always an ebb and flow. She has a backdoor, you fool !" In this way, Don Marzio makes a story out of whole cloth which he retails to any one who will 6 Act I, Scene 3. 282 GOLDONI listen. Throughout the play he is flitting about, catching a word here, a look there, which his evil old tongue rolls into a sweet morsel of slander. Moreover, he is cantankerous, and will .ever have it that his word is law even when he has not a leg to stand his argument upon. Witness this scene with Count Leandro : DON MARZIO Come, let's sit down. What's new in the world's news? LEANDRO I take no interest in the news. DON MARZIO Do you know that the Russian army has gone into winter quar- ters? LEANDRO They did right. The weather forced them to. DON MARZIO No, sir, they did wrong. They should not have abandoned the position they held. LEANDRO True. They should have endured the cold rather than lose their conquests. DON MARZIO No, sir. They did not have to run the risk of being there at all, with the danger of perishing in the ice. LEANDRO Then they should have advanced. DON MARZIO No, sir. Oh, what a fine knowledge of war! Advance in the middle of winter ! LEANDRO Then what should they have done ? COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 283 DON MARZIO Let me look at the map and then I'll tell you exactly where they should have gone. LEANDRO (Aside.) Oh, what a superb fool! DON MARZIO Were you at the opera? LEANDRO Yes, sir. DON MARZIO Did you like it? LEANDRO Well enough. DON MARZIO You have poor taste. LEANDRO Enough ! DON MARZIO Where are you from? LEANDRO Turin. DON MARZIO An ugly town. LEANDRO On the contrary, it passes for one of the finest in Italy. DON MARZIO I am a Neapolitan; see Naples, then die. LEANDRO I should give you the Venetian's answer. 7 DON MARZIO Have you any snuff? 7 The Venetian proverb is Vedi Venezia e poi discorri (See Venice and then talk). 284 GOLDONI LEANDRO Here! (Opens his snuff-box.) DON MARZIO What atrocious snuff! LEANDRO It's good enough for me. DON MARZIO You know nothing about it. Rappee is the genuine snuff. LEANDRO I like Spanish snuff. DON MARZIO Spanish snuff is an abomination. LEANDRO And I say it's the best snuff a man can take. DON MARZIO What! You presume to tell me what snuff is! I make it, I have it made for me. I buy it here, I buy it there. I know what this is. Rappee, rappee, it must be rappee! (Shouts loudly.) LEANDRO (Shouting too). Yes, sir, rappee, rappee, it's true that rappee is the best snuff. DON MARZIO No, sir! Rappee is not always the best snuff; one must dis- criminate. You don't know what you are talking about. 8 Don Marzio not only quarrels with every one who opposes him, but he betrays, as well, the secrets of his friends, ruins the characters of women, and de- livers fugitives into the hands of the police with a mischievousness so ingenuous that he cannot un- derstand why maledictions are showered upon him by his victims. "They complain of my tongue," he laments; "yet I am sure I speak kindly. It is *Act II, Scene 16. COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 285 true I talk occasionally about this one or that one, but believing that I speak the truth, I do not ab- stain from it. I tell readily what I know, but I do it because I have a kind heart." The unconscious protagonist of a play in which his tongue snarls ev- ery knot, this unique portrayal of the evils of gossip is a character worthy a place in the immortal com- pany of Mascarille and Figaro. Translated into English by Mr. Henry B. Fuller, this comedy was presented by The Drama Players, under the auspices of the Chicago Theatre Society, during the dramatic season of 1912, and received with mild curiosity, not to say indifference, by an American audience; yet in extenuation of this ill success, it may be said that the actors, temperamen- tally unsuited to their parts, had been insufficiently rehearsed, and that the play had been hurriedly staged without having received the judicious prun- ing so necessary to a modern revival of old comedy. Although one Chicago critic declared that "The Coffee-House will inspire no emotion save that of ennui," while another dismissed it as "artistic fluff," the charm of this quaintly naturalistic comedy was keenly felt by that intrepid champion of dramatic excellence, Mr. James O'Donnell Bennett, of the Record-Herald, his critique being so intuitively just to this droll portrayal of the life of Venice in her decadence that it shall be quoted here as a vicarious expression of the present writer's views regarding it: 286 GOLDONI That quaint fabric of naivete and sapiency, "The Coffee- House," was enacted, probably for the first time on the English- speaking stage, at the Lyric Theatre last evening before an assem- blage that at first seemed to be rubbing its eyes to adjust its vision to a composition that, when you have adjusted yourself to it, is very engaging. When the audience had put itself back into Venice of the mid-eighteenth century, and when it began to sense the kindliness, the homely wisdom, the sweet trustfulness and the soft drollery that distinguish everything the good Carlo Goldoni wrote then it enjoyed itself. Until then it seemed dissatisfied wondering perhaps with what relic the Chicago Theatre Society was trying to fool it. But you cannot long resist "Dr. Goldoni, a Venetian lawyer," as they called him in the early days of his memorable career. . . . He is one of the loves of literature, and it was a genuine pleasure to this reviewer to sit with him last evening and observe him in his kindly, busy, deft, officious, sometimes artless and sometimes very shrewd way, manoeuvring the people he knew so thoroughly in that trivial, impetuous, genial Venice of his. Here came the male babbler, preening and mincing in lace and silk, sipping his coffee in the open, lying in wait for a bit of gossip like a cat for a mouse, putting two and two together and making what he liked out of it, symbolizing in a different way but just as wonderfully the "motiveless malignity" of lago, and epito- mizing mischief and malevolence. . . . The character is drawn full length perfect in every puttering detail, an officious, gloat- ing, eavesdropping babbler who wins for himself in the denoue- ment the word of terrifying import in the Venice of 1760 ''spy," and who thinks himself so little deserving of that word that he whimpers as the curtain falls: "I have a good heart, but but I talk too much!" He is an unforgivable, unforgettable old man, and he was as alive last night as he was one hundred and fifty-two years ago. Here is that Signor Eugenio, who "pursues women and gam- bles like a madman"; here the old servant of the father of Eu- genio, who has saved his money and opened a coffee-house and de- clares with honest pride that his is a calling which, when pursued COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 287 aright, serves alike the pleasure and the comfort of the town ; here the gambler and his gulls ; here neglected wives voicing their griefs with the gorgeous virulence characteristic of their race; here the impudent servants who know too much. They are all alive. Babbler, crook, spendthrift, benevolent old man, the acquisitive and the inquisitive they go busily their ways. Innuendo, pro- test, impeachment, denial fly through the air. The old servant reconciles the contentious, heartens up the grieving, assists the pen- niless, tries to implant good sense and right feeling in the soul of even the crooked gambler, reunites estranged husbands and wives, brings everything to a happy issue for everybody, except the mean scandalmonger. Him the sunny Carlo cannot forgive, and at the end he sends him trailing across a deserted stage, the hateful word "spy" informer would perhaps convey the meaning better ring- ing in his ears. The mechanism of it has occasionally been so obvious that in these knowing days a child could run it. Sometimes the move- ment has been forced and tame. But the human nature of it is valid. We know that these people existed, that they hurried and idled and gossiped and quarrelled in yonder sunlit square, irascible, volatile, weak, venomous, distracted. They rejoiced. They suf- fered. They lived. The satire of The Coffee-House was not directed solely against scandal, the evils of gambling being also brought under its stinging lash. Eugenio, the young merchant, losing his patrimony at cards and pawning his wife's jewels, is a powerful sermon against this vice, while Pandolfo, the gambler, is a faithfully drawn character, who meets his moral de- serts by his delivery into the hands of justice through the blabbing of Don Marzio. The arrest of a gam- bler would have been an anomaly in Venice a few years previously, yet a moral revulsion had swept over that pleasure-loving town one of those 288 GOLDONI sporadic crusades against vice such as obtain in American cities. Games of chance had been de- clared illegal, the gambling tables of the Ridotto had been suppressed; to quote Goldoni: "Even the members of the Great Council who were fond of gambling had voted in favour of the new law," the powers that were in Venice being apparently not so oligarchically entrenched that they might scorn vote- winning politics. It was an opportune moment for a play directed against the evils of gaming, so op- portune, in fact, that, with a practical dramatist's eye ever upon the public taste, Goldoni launched a few months later another dramatic missile against the card-sharpers of Venice; but The Gambler (II Gluocatore) , as this new play was called, in the words of its author, "failed hopelessly," because the epi- sodic gamester of The Coffee-House surpassed the one who was the subject of a play another evidenqe of the futility of literary repetition. 9 / Although the clement protagonist of The Father of a Family (II Padre di famiglia) called Pancra- zio, wears small clothes instead of long, red trousers, and a periwig in lieu of a mask, he is, however, a merchant of Venice, and therefore Pantalone's ectype. In spite of his paternal affection, he is still somewhat of a prig, and less human by far than Beatrice, his second wife, or Ottavio, the dissipated tutor who leads the younger of his charges into vile ways, and bullies the elder, Pancrazio's child by his 9 The evils of gaming are also set forth in La Buona moglle. COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 289 first wife. "I had seen in society complacent moth- ers," says Goldoni, "unjust step-mothers, spoiled children, and dangerous teachers, so I assembled these different objects in a single picture, portraying in a sprightly way, by means of a wise and prudent father, the correction of vice and the example of virtue." In valuing his plays "according to his own feelings," he would, he adds, "say much in favour of The Father of a Family" The adverse decision of the public forced him, however, to place it in the second rank an unconscious tribute to the public's acumen, for, although this play has been translated into several languages, including English, and has been included in more than one selected edition of the comedies, its smugness and its lachrymose plot should keep it confined to the rank in which the Venetian public placed it. In The Obedient Daughter (La Figlia obbedi- ente), Pantalone plays the role of an obdurate father, who forces his daughter to bend to his will. But her lover is not so supine. Threatening to kill the rich old count whom Pantalone has chosen for her hus- band, he so thoroughly frightens him that he jilts her, while consoling himself with a ballet-dancer. Olivetta, this lady of the coulisses, Brighella, her complaisant father, and Count Ottavio, her rich ad- mirer, are three characters whose drolleries form a sprightly sub-comedy, although, as the author says, "the principal story is not very interesting because lacking in suspense." 290 GOLDONI To find in the minor characters of Goldoni's duller comedies bright flashes of his genius is no uncom- mon thing; yet in none are they more ludicrously true to life than in The Obedient Daughter, Brighella, the ex-valet, who acclaims the presents made his daugh- ter as tributes to her art, and who forces his former fellow-servant, Arlecchino, to address him as Ex- cellency, being a character as droll as Captain Cos- tigan or Monsieur Cardinal, both of whom he re- sembles. Ostensibly blind to his daughter's lapses, he vaunts her terpsichorean triumphs, while selling for his own benefit the sweetmeats she does not con- sume and accepting tips from English lords and Ger- man princes. When she washes her hands in an or- dinary bowl, he begs her to repeat the ablution in a silver basin, while in her interviews with titled men he assists her with all the self-importance he can assume; yet all the while he is unable to dis- guise the fact that before she became a "star" he was an upper-servant. This humorous sidelight shed on theatrical life in an otherwise bourgeois comedy tempts one to wan- der for a moment away from Pantalone's strait- laced household to the green-room itself, for in The Manager from Smyrna (L 'Impresario delle Smirne), Goldoni presents a more complete and even more satirical picture of stage folk. The manager in question is a Turkish merchant who, coming to Venice on business, is so delighted with the opera that he resolves to take a troupe back to Smyrna, his COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 291 native town, the poor Turk, whose knowledge of women is confined to the odalisques of his harem, being soon pestered to distraction by prime donne seeking engagements, each as pretentious and self- centred as the most pampered of modern stage di- vinities. Although each is accompanied by a retinue of old women, brothers, kinsfolk, birds in cages, dogs, poll-parrots, and doddering admirers, these ar- tists of little merit have such a meagre repertory that a poetaster, armed with the complete works of Metastasio and Zeno, is obliged to give assurance that, with the aid of a rhyming dictionary, he can write new words to fit the hackneyed tunes which have cracked their voices. Indeed, so insufferable do the trials of the amateur manager become that he flees in desperation from the tempers of the prime donne to the peace of his harem at Smyrna; after having entrusted an agent with the task of giving the artists a quarter of their promised salary, "instead of the insults they merit." But mention of The Manager from Smyrna here is a distinct digression, bourgeois Pantalone being no habitue des coulisses. On the contrary, as the staid father of a respectable family, he was often at his wits' end in keeping in leash some badly be- haved son, such as Lelio, whose escapades give sub- ject to The Liar (II Bugiardo] , a play founded, as the author frankly confesses, on Corneille's comedy of similar name (Le Menteur). Here Goldoni follows in the footsteps not only of the author of The 292 GOLDONI Cld but of Alarcon as well; still the sprightly adven- tures into which a young liar's glib tongue leads him are told with certain novel touches which Voltaire thus describes : 10 There are in Goldoni two very amusing elements; the first is a rival of the liar, who, in repeating as the truth all the false- hoods the liar has told him, is himself taken for a liar; while the second is a valet, who, wishing to emulate his master, plunges into ridiculous lies from which he cannot extricate himself. Voltaire adds, however, that Goldoni's liar is less noble than Corneille's, although, as a matter of fact, he is a far more consistent person than his French prototype, Goldoni's fidelity to nature being appar- ent even in this borrowed comedy. Lelio may be odious as indeed a liar ought to be yet he is con- sistently a bourgeois. Even when masquerading as a nobleman, he would never have convinced a man to the manner born that he was of noble birth, whereas Corneille's Dorante, though a bourgeois too, neither talks nor acts like one at any time; a nicety of characterization on Goldoni's part which Voltaire overlooked. The Merchants (I Mercantl) is still another play in which Pantalone has a wayward son who dissi- pates his father's wealth, but in this instance the prodigal's reclamation is brought about by the tact and patience of his sweetheart, Giannina, a girl Gol- doni rightly calls "very well educated and very sen- 10 Commentalre sur Corneille. COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 293 sible." n But if Pantalone often had trouble with his sons, the rearing of his children of the weaker sex was sometimes a problem as well, especially if they happened to be two marriageable daughters, one a capricious miss never twice of the same mind, and the other an ingenuous little fool. This is his predicament in The Fickle Woman (La Donna volubile), a play written to satirize an actress in Medebac's company, who, according to the author, was "the most capricious woman in the world." 12 This weathercock in petticoats is pun- ished in a manner befitting her flightiness, since, when she has finally made up her mind to marry, none of her admirers will have her. Her father, Pantalone, is wealthy, and his wealth has turned the fickle lady's head. Had her mother been alive, and she obliged to help in the work of the household in- stead of being attended by two maids whom she browbeats, inconstant Rosaura would have been bet- ter behaved and better mannered, money being de- cidedly at the root of her evil disposition. A far more tractable daughter of Pantalone is to be met in The Misadventure; or The Imprudent 11 / Mercanti, written to give Collalto a dual role, was originally called / Due pantaloni, the two Pantaloons being father and son and both of them merchants. Owing to the difficulty of finding an actor capable of playing both roles successfully, Goldoni rewrote the play and entitled it / Mercanti, Pantalone's name being changed to Pancrazio, his son's to Giacinto. 12 La Donna vendicativa, a comedy of bald intrigue in which the wiles of a scheming maid servant are set forth, was also written to satirize an actress, Corallina, the lady in question "having vowed eternal hatred" against Goldoni when he forswore her charms. 294 GOLDONI Babbler (II Contrattempo, o sla II Chiacchierone imprudente), a comedy concerning the misfortunes of a well-intentioned young man with a wagging tongue. Yet the daughter in question, who plays with a doll and knows not the meaning of the word husband, is incredibly guileless for a young woman of eighteen even if convent bred, though doubtless she was designed as a model for the young girls of Venice to emulate. The most sprightly of Goldoni's comedies of the Venetian bourgeoisie is The Inquisitive Women (Le Donne curiose) the scene of which was ascribed to Bologna because it satirized freemasonry, an alien in- stitution, condemned by the Jesuits and anathema- tized by the Pope; yet, to its author's liberal mind, harmless alike to religion and morality. Two Eng- lishmen, whom he knew, had instituted a masonic lodge in Venice, of which he was perhaps a member, although it seems more likely that he merely saw in the outcry against freemasonry a subject for a spir- ited comedy of popular appeal. At all events, The Inquisitive Women, although noteworthy as the only play in which he has the temerity to make dramatic use of a political question, is so delightfully inno- cent in its satire that even the tyrannical Council of Ten could with difficulty have discerned in it a men- ace to either the Church or the State. "Under a well hidden, well disguised title," says Goldoni, "this play represents a lodge of freema- sons, Pantalone, a Venetian merchant, being at the COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 295 head of a society of persons of his own state which meets in a small rented house to dine, sup, talk busi- ness, or discuss the news of the day." In other words this masonic lodge is merely a club, frequented, like modern clubs, by men of congenial tastes in search of relaxation, its only secret ordinance being the ex- clusion of women from a share in its innocent pleas- ures. Yet the fact that they are denied admission to this club so whets the feminine curiosity of the wives and sweethearts of its members that they plot a way to penetrate its sacred precincts, in order to discover whether their lords and lovers spend their time there in gambling, in searching for the philoso- pher's stone, or in entertaining women of question- able character. Possessing themselves by trickery of the keys of the club-house, these inquisitive women, abetted by Corallina, a maid, succeed in bribing Pan- talone's servant, Brighella, to hide them in a closet while the club is in session, only to learn that "Friend- ship" is its watchword, and its sole secret rite the en- joyment of a delicious supper. Because of the inabil- ity of these prying women to hold their tongues while in their hiding place, their eavesdropping is discov- ered; whereupon Brighella, in extenuation of his treachery, declares that he admitted them to the club for the commendable purpose of convincing them of its harmlessness, the result being, so says Goldoni, "that the men are not angry to find their wives unde- ceived and themselves in a position to enjoy their in- nocent pleasures." 296 GOLDONI The dramatic texture of The Inquisitive Women is flimsy, yet so deftly is it draped upon its slender framework of a single idea that this comedy is en- titled to far higher rank than many for which its au- thor built a more elaborate scaffolding. So much does its interest depend upon its mirthful dialogue, however, that it is easy to agree with Mr. Richard Aldrich, the distinguished musical critic of the New York Times, in believing that this lively comedy does not cry aloud for musical illustration. Yet, as this writer declares, "Wolf-Ferrari has made it into a lyric drama with a skill and originality, with a com- mand of the comic expressions of music, that are rare to-day." 13 Human nature is a better basis, however, than an artificial plot whether for an opera or for a play, a fact that explains the undoubted charm of The Inquisitive Women, the entire argument of which is constructed upon the desire of a few over-curious wives and sweethearts to find out what their hus- bands and lovers are doing behind closed doors. Yet feminine as is their curiosity, these women of Gol- doni's day absolutely represent, to quote Signor Ern- esto Masi, 14 "society endeavouring to divine in a thousand ways the mystery of those masonic meet- ings, which Pope Corsini with the bull In eminenti of April 28th, 1738, had solemnly condemned." 13 Le Donne curiose, an opera founded on Goldoni's comedy of the same name (music by Ermanno Wolf -Ferrari, text by Luigi Sugana), produced in Munich 1903 and at the Metropolitan Opera-House, New York, 1912. 14 Scelta di commedie di Carlo Goldoni. COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 297 Freemasonry having long ceased to be a menace to society at least in Anglo-Saxon countries the in- terest in this play now lies in its sprightly plot and faithful characterization, as well as in the homely sayings of Ottavio, a phlegmatic, easy-going philoso- pher, who, as Signor Masi hints, may have been Gol- doni himself translated to the stage. Although the sapient words of this character are many, there is space here only for this single speech, uttered when Flaminio, a young lover, complains of the fickleness of Ottavio's daughter: My dear friend, my daughter is only a woman like the rest. She will have good moments and bad moments. Treat her like the weather. Enjoy the calm, fly from the thunder, and when a storm comes, retire and wait until the sun comes out. Another passage worthy of translation is the con- stitution of Goldoni's pseudo-Masonic lodge, which is read to a candidate seeking admission, while the inquisitive women listen in their hiding place, a doc- ument so commendable that it shall be given in full, in the hope that some club of the present day may adopt it: Article i. No one shall be admitted to membership who is not upright, civil, and well-mannered. Article 2. Each member may amuse himself as he will in ways lawful, honest, virtuous, and of worthy example. Article 3. Members shall dine and sup together, but soberly and moderately, and any one drinking to excess or becoming in- toxicated, will for the first offence be condemned to pay for the dinner or supper given on that occasion, and for the second ex- pelled from membership. 298 GOLDONI Article 4. Each member shall contribute one scudo toward the maintenance of necessary things, such as furniture, lights, service, books, paper, etc. Article 5. The admission of women is forever forbidden, in order that scandals, dissensions, jealousies, and similar matters shall not arise. Article 6. Surplus money not used for expenses shall be de- posited in a coffer for the relief of some worthy poor man. Article 7. Should any member suffer misfortune, without loss of honour, he shall be assisted by the others and defended with fra- ternal love. Article 8. A member committing any crime or unworthy act shall be expelled. Article 9. In order that all ceremonies, compliments, and af- fectations may be banished, any one wishing to leave may go, any one wishing to remain may stay, and there shall be no other salu- tation or compliment than "Friendship, friendship." Although Pantalone figures in The Inquisitive Women, his part is slight. Still, one of his apothegms bears repetition: "It is not birth," he says, "that makes a gentleman, but good deeds." This shrewd merchant is manifestly out of place in a masonic lodge, yet nowhere does he seem so ill at ease as in The Unknown (IJ Incognita], a play of which the scene is laid near Naples. Far from his native Venice, he appears awkwardly here as the father of a lovesick son, enamoured of a persecuted maiden whose adventures entail a plot so complicated and unreal that it is difficult to believe Goldoni is its author. In The Lovers (Gli Innamorati] , Pantalone plays no part, the family to which we are here introduced being of the haute bourgeoisie and no longer in trade. COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 299 The story unfolded in this comedy is one of endear- ments, suspicions, quarrels, and reconciliations, told according to the conventional formula : the lovers in this instance were drawn from life, however, their originals being Maddalena Poloni, the daughter of Goldoni's Roman landlord, and Bartolommeo Pinto, her betrothed, in whose wavering love-affair our dramatist had assisted as confidant during his resi- dence in Rome. Whether or not Fabrizio, the head of the bourgeois household here presented, is a por- trait of his worthy Roman host, Pietro Poloni, Gol- doni does not inform us, yet he is a lifelike por- trayal of a tuft-hunting parvenu, who, to impress his guests with his social importance, talks of the grand people he knows. To curry favour with im- portant people this wealthy upstart offers to lend them his cook, his atlas, and even his collection of old masters ; yet although the latter are spurious, he is no such credulous gull as the unwitting collector of false antiques who gives name to The Antiqua- rian's Family (La Famiglia dell' antiquario). Impoverished by his passion for antiques, Count Anselmo, the protagonist of this latter comedy, is just the sort of dupe to whom the modern picture sharp sells his Corots, the cheat in this case being his own servant, Brighella, a rogue who induces his fel- low-townsman Arlecchino to play the role of an Ar- menian archaeologist and palm off on his master an old kitchen lamp as "an eternal light from the tomb of Bartholomew," and a leaf from a book of modern 300 GOLDONI Greek love-songs as "a treaty of peace between Athens and Sparta penned by Demosthenes' own hand." The whims of this would-be antiquarian, whom even an expert's opinion that his collection is rubbish cannot cure of his mania, form, however, only the atmospheric background for a comedy on the perennial mother-in-law problem, Goldoni's Sub-title The Mother-ln-Law and the Daughter-ln- Law (La Suocera e la nuora) describing the action more accurately than The Antiquarian s Family, this particular antiquarian's household being dominated by his wife until Doralice, his son's wife, takes the domestic bit in her mouth. When Count Anselmo has spent the last paolo of her dowry on spurious relics, Doralice, rebelling against the snubs inflicted upon her by her mother- in-law because of her plebeian birth, robs the latter of one of her truculent cicisbei and insults her into the bargain; whereupon Pantalone, this trouble- maker's father, and a wholly sensible man of af- fairs as well, quietly gathers the domestic reins into his own hands. Inducing Count Anselmo to make him the assignee of his bankrupt estate, Pantalone holds the purse-strings and is able thereby to force the warring women to hold their tongues. Making the antiquarian an allowance of one hundred scudl per annum to squander on false antiques, he dis- misses a talebearing housemaid, consigns the elder termagant to the upper and the younger to the lower floor of the house, and remarks as the curtain falls COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 301 that "if they do not see each other or talk to each other, quiet may perhaps obtain, this being the only way a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law can live together in harmony." Yet, as Goldoni says, in commenting upon the complete reconciliation made to take place between them by a French adapter of this play, there can be "no assurance that on the morrow the disputes of these two vixens will not break forth anew." Quarrelsome little Doralice is wholly unlike gen- tle Rosaura of The Sensible Wife, another daughter of Pantalone wedded to a nobleman's son ; yet she is no more vixenish or vulgar than her mother-in-law, who, despite her superior birth, is quite as ill-bred as this daughter-in-law whose ignoble birth has tar- nished a proud name. Indeed, although Count An- selmo is nobly born, the behaviour of his family is essentially bourgeois, and the same may be said of the noble family in Domestic Bickerings (I Puntigll domestici) the theme of which is the servant ques- tion : a topic apparently as rife in Goldoni's day as in our own, since, in speaking of this play, he says it was inspired by several families he had seen to be "the dupes of their attachment for their servants." In both The Antiquarian's Family and Domestic Bicker- ings, two families, living under the same roof, quarrel and listen to the tales their servants bear; in both the titles of count and countess are borne by certain char- acters, and in each, it may be added, the truth of Ba- retti's aspersion is manifest, Goldoni's princesses talk* 302 GOLDONI ing like ladies' maids. Hence these families, though noble in name, are bourgeois in manner. Another comedy of the upper bourgeoisie is The Fanatic Poet (II Poeta fanatlco), a play in which our dramatist ridicules the poetic arrogance of a wealthy burgher he had known, while satirizing mildly as well the euphuistic pretensions of the Ar- cadian Academies. Every one in the household of Ottavio, the fanatic in question, even to Brighella, his servant, is encouraged to spout verse, Beatrice, his second wife, alone being free from this besetting folly; yet The Fanatic Poet is a skit rather than a play, and is, as its author declares frankly, "one of his most feeble comedies." Furthermore, honest Pantalone plays no part therein, therefore it does not truly typify his Venice. Accustomed, as he was, to haggling in the marts of trade, this worthy citizen could hardly abstain from recourse to the law; hence he was often either plain- tiff or defendant. Moreover, Goldoni was himself a lawyer, so that the law naturally plays a part in many of his comedies. Unlike Moliere, who had studied law but had not practised it, Goldoni treated the profession seriously; often portraying wicked law- yers, as in The Cavalier and the Lady, where a thiev- ing solicitor despoils a poor woman for his own ben- efit, and in Domestic Bickerings, where another conscienceless man of law thrives on the difficulties of a warring family. Again, in The Impostor, there is an attorney, who shows a client how he may outwit COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 303 his creditors ; while in The Lucky Heiress, a singular will leaves another lawyer heir to his brother's es- tate in case the latter's daughter does not marry his former partner. Yet unscrupulous as are the in- trigues of this Tartuffe of the robe, he is outwitted by a valet and loses the inheritance. In The Prudent Man, Pantalone appears as his own lawyer to defend his wife against the charge of having attempted to poison him, a case Goldoni declares to have come un- der his own observation when practising law at Pisa; while in The Clever Woman, Rosaura the heroine, in order to make her lover fulfil his promise of mar- riage, pleads her own cause in legal phrases worthy a doctor of Padua. Yet howsoever severely he may have scored the evil practices of his profession in these plays, Gol- doni makes full atonement in The Venetian Advo- cate (L'Avvocato veneziano), an apotheosis of the law in which the hero, a Venetian lawyer, falls in love with his client's opponent, yet remains true to his professional honour. By winning the lawsuit, he re- duces his sweetheart to penury, but gallantly amends the wrong by offering her his hand and fortune. When Florindo, his friend and client, discovering his passion, offers to pay his fee and permit him to with- draw from the case, Alberto, this lawyer, thus indig- nantly answers him : Sior Florindo, I have let you talk. I have let you fulminate without defending myself. Now that you have finished, I shall speak briefly. That humanity is frail I do not deny; that a wise 304 GOLDONI and prudent man may fall in love, I grant; but for a man of honour to permit himself to be carried away by a blind passion to the prejudice of his dignity and self-esteem is harder than you be- lieve, and if in the matter at hand there are bad examples, Alberto is not capable of following them. The doubt you demonstrate regarding my honesty and faith is to me a grave offence, but I am not in a position to show resentment, because my resentment might in that instance substantiate your words. I am here to defend your case, I am here to conduct it. I shall conduct it because my honour is involved, not for the vile advantage you have brutally and unreasonably had the audacity to offer me. You will see with what ardour, heart, and spirit I shall defend you. You will know then who I am; you will repent of having offended me with un- worthy suspicions, and you will learn to think better of honest men and honourable advocates. Although this Venetian barrister opposes the pe- dantic written pleadings of a Bolognese doctor with arguments elegantly and easily extemporized in his mellifluent native speech, he is not a lawyer, but rather a mouthpiece for his author, who declares with his habitual naivete that his professional brethren, "accustomed to seeing the robe made ridiculous in the old improvised comedies," were satisfied with "the honourable manner in which he had presented it." "Yet evil persons were not lacking to envenom his intentions," he adds bitterly, there being one among them "who cried aloud that it was in reality a criticism of the lawyers," and that he had presented an in- corruptible lawyer "in order to heighten by contrast the weakness and avidity of a host of others." If, in The Venetian Advocate, Goldoni portrayed a lawyer such as he would have liked to be, in The COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 305 Honest Adventurer (UAvventurlere onorato) , he de- picted, as he openly avowed, a hero with many of his own characteristics, the rolling stone who gave name to this play having been like his author a lawyer, a doctor, a court official, secretary, consul, and dramatic poet. Here the likeness ceases, for, although Gol- doni had had a few honourless love-affairs, he was certainly a better fellow than this adventurer, whose "honesty" consisted in telling a girl who loved him that, although he preferred another, he would marry her a promise kept only until a rich widow had paid for the breach of it. Still the escapades of this adventurer of doubtful honesty are more entertaining by far than the bour- geois sermons Goldoni was in the habit of preaching from time to time. The Good Family (La Buona famlglla), for instance, he calls "a moral play, useful to society," which was "applauded by sensible per- sons, worthy couples, wise fathers, and prudent moth- ers"; yet it proved to be so tiresome that, to quote its author once more, "it had no luck upon the stage." The Fond Mother (La Madre amoroso) , too, a piece in which a mother sacrifices herself for her daughter's happiness, though suggestive in theme of Maurice Donnay's admirable modern play, L'Autre danger, is but another fustian sermon best passed in silence. Indeed, Goldoni's tragedies bourgeoises, as his French contemporaries styled plays of this stilted na- ture, when without Pantalone's honest personality, are but lachrymose comedies savouring of Diderot, come- 3 o6 GOLDONI dies more magniloquent than human, in the penning of which our dramatist forswore his genius. To return to Pantalone's strait-laced household is indeed a relief. Here, at least, likable human be- ings are met with, though often they are over-senti- mentalized, as in The Devoted Servant (La Serva amorosa), a play wherein the son of a merchant of Venice is driven from the parental hearth by a step- mother's intrigues on behalf of her own offspring, 15 the crucial situation, in which Corallina, the house- maid, disguised as a notary's clerk, induces the mer- chant to feign death and learn that his second wife has married him only through self-interest, being taken bodily from Moliere. In The Clever Lady's Maid (La Cameriera brillante], a more traditional sou- brette is the protagonist. Here Pantalone appears as a close-fisted old widower who forbids his house to the admirers of his daughters, Argentina, the vivacious, resourceful, yet unscrupulous soubrette of French classical comedy, who gives this play its name, being the real mistress of his household since, through her wiles, the old merchant suffers not only the loss of his daughters, but of their dowries as well. In The Housekeeper (La Castalda), the hand and fortune of Pantalone, again a rich widower, is the prize for the attainment of which an intriguing menial sharpens her wits. In this play Pantalone's daughters are married, and with his niece Rosaura to cheer him with her pretty presence, he would have 15 A situation almost identical with this occurs in // Padre dl fa- miglia. COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 307 passed his remaining days in comfort at his luxurious villa on the Brenta, had the minx not been bent upon winning a dowry, as well as her rich uncle's permis- sion to wed handsome Florindo, the lover of her choice. Rosaura, however, is not alone in her designs upon Pantalone's wealth. Beatrice, a widow of the neigh- bourhood, comes to his fine house attended by Lelio, a fop, the one with a cap set for the uncle, the other avowedly to wed the niece. But these fortune-hunt- ers meet their match in Corallina, the housekeeper, an artful female, who having fully made up her mind to wed Pantalone herself, will brook no interference in her plans. To be sure, she is loved by honest Fran- giotto, Pantalone's maitre d' hot el, and has a liking for the lad, but she is no Mirandolina, content to wed in her station. Indeed, she is not even an honest housekeeper, since she feeds Arlecchino and his im- poverished master on the fat of her employer's table and gives them his best wine to drink. Having no real liking for his villa, or the fash- ionable friends of his niece, poor Pantalone fain would pass his evenings dozing in his armchair with his comfortable red slippers on his weary old feet. Longing for the days when his fat wife Eufemia sat beside him, he pictures himself once more in a quiet corner of his beloved Venice, while in his dreams a good wife still knits at his elbow. As his dear Eu- femia is dead, why not another, and who can cheer his declining years better, he asks himself, than Co- 308 GOLDONI rallina, his housekeeper, who knows his whims and is devotedly attached to him? Without more ado he asks her to marry him, but Corallina is a clever hussy. Knowing the widow Beatrice also has designs upon her master and that his niece must be propitiated, Corallina keeps the old dotard on tenter-hooks while manoeuvring to make her triumph more complete. In the meantime she thus soliloquizes : So he is willing to marry me! If that is so, I will see that he does it perfectly, and if I am to become the mistress of the house, I will hereafter mend my ways. No longer will I deal generously with everybody. In this house swindlers shall have no further luck. This threat is fulfilled, for, when hungry Arlec- chino and his out-at-elbows master come again to whiff the succulent odours of her kitchen, Corallina slams the door in their faces. By making Pantalone believe she is necessary to his comfort and by threat- ening to leave his house if he marries any one else, she forces him to declare his readiness to marry her, with the artful widow Beatrice as a witness; while into niece Rosaura's good graces she worms herself by assisting her in a scheme to obtain her uncle's re- luctant consent to her marriage with Florindo. 16 Thus all obstacles to Corallina's own designs are swept away. Having been, as she says, a a faithful servant," she will perhaps make Pantalone "a dis- creet wife" whom "he will not repent of having hon- 16 A scene wherein Rosaura and Corallina change places, the mis- tress playing the housekeeper and the housekeeper the mistress, in a manner suggestive of Marivaux's Le Jeu de I' amour et du hazard. COMEDIES OF THE BOURGEOISIE 309 cured with his hand" ; still it is hard not to pity the old fellow, once a power in the marts of Venice, now the prey of a designing hussy. Wearing the black skull-cap and flowing robe, the long trousers and pointed slippers of his forefathers, and guarding his ducats as sedulously as they, Panta- lone ever follows devotedly in their footsteps, though his children blush for his antecedents. Fain would he plant the lioned banner of St. Mark wherever the Turk, the Hungarian, the Greek, or the Genoese has the temerity to oppose his beloved Venice, but, like her, he is decrepit. His son is a spendthrift, his daughters are perfumed zentildonne with cicisbei at their beck and call. It is perhaps better that he should pass his old age in his villa on the Brenta, with Corallina his housekeeper-wife to nurse him and safe- guard his strong box, than that the new-fangled ways of his children should break his conservative old heart. X COMEDIES IN THE VENETIAN DIALECT "A I "\HERE is a considerable number of Vene- tian Plays in my Collection," says Goldoni in his memoirs, "and perhaps it is these that do me the greatest honour." In this terse sen- tence he summarizes his dramatic work. These Venetian Plays not only do him the greatest honour, but they distinguish him as the pioneer naturalist in the drama of the world ; the pioneer poet of a peo- ple, too, no previous dramatist having painted the life of the streets in colours so truthful nor voiced plebeian sentiments upon the stage by faithfully drawn characters of the proletariat, neither clownish nor obscene. Moliere was the first dramatic realist, and his char- acters were in a large degree taken from life, but the few peasants in his plays are clowns, and even his mid- dle-class characters are not actually translated from life to the stage, like many of Goldoni's. Moreover, their sentiments are sometimes so tempered by their author's avowed purpose to paint "ridiculous like- nesses" of the vices of his times, that occasionally they become thematic. Having no thesis to hold, and no purpose to fulfil except "not to spoil nature," Gol- 310 COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 311 doni presented life as it appeared to him. He spoiled nature, however, whenever he transplanted some ex- otic story to his native soil, or sought to emulate Moliere. Only when he painted the life of Venice did he become Venice's Gran Goldoni, in whose heart throbbed the sentiments of her people. Many of his comedies written in Tuscan present Venetian life, and in a majority of these, Pantalone speaks the Vene- tian dialect; yet when he discards the Tuscan lan- guage and the conventional characters of the Impro- vised Comedy entirely for the soft speech of Venice, and the characters he met daily in the tortuous maze of her busy streets, he becomes more truly the poet of her people. Although, at the time when he was the dramatist of Imer's troupe, he wrote a few scenari in which the characters spoke Venetian, the first of his Vene- tian plays that truly does him honour is The Respecta- ble Girl (La Putta onorata), a comedy .with a daugh- ter of the people as its heroine, produced during his first season in Venice as Medebac's playwright. "I had seen at the San Luca Theatre," he says, "a piece called The Girls of the Castle Quarter (Le Putte di Castello), a popular comedy, the principal character of which was a Venetian girl without talents, morals, or address, and I gave one in the same style, but decent and instructive, which I called The Respectable Girl!' "In some of the scenes of this comedy," he continues, "I painted the Venetian gondoliers from nature in a manner exceedingly entertaining to those 3 i2 GOLDONI acquainted with the language and customs of my country," and as the gondoliers of Venice were al- lowed places in the theatre when the pit was not crowded, "they were delighted," he adds, "to see themselves put upon the stage, and I became their friend." In The Clever Woman he had presented a girl of the people as his heroine ; but she does not talk the lan- guage of the people, while her conventional actions are lachrymose. Bettina, his "respectable girl," however, is truly of the streets of Venice, a natural character, who, to quote her author, is "new, agree- able, and national," a little laundress, who, knowing the pitfalls of a wicked city, knits prudently upon her balcony, rather than risk her virtue in the enticing street below. When she goes to the parish church to be shriven, her shawl is drawn discreetly over her glossy hair; though little white-stockinged feet gleam coquettishly above her sandals, the ardency of her dark eyes is hidden in the demureness of her down- ward glance. Even Pasqualino, the gondolier's son whom she loves, may not attend her abroad, nor pay his court to her unaccompanied. "When people are in love," she tells him, "they should not expose them- selves to the temptation of being alone. It is true that a girl may repair her fault by marriage, but she will be pointed at none the less. There,' they will say, 4s the one who eloped with a lover.' ' Though her southern blood flows warmly, Bettina knows well the perils that surround her, for when Pasqualino's fa- COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 313 ther, good Menego Cainello, the gondolier, re- proaches her for being engaged to his son without his knowledge, she answers him in these sophisticated words : We poor girls try to marry honestly. If a young man seeks our company and wants us for his wife, we are not obliged to ask him first if his father will be pleased. Congratulate yourself, Master Menego, that you have to deal with a respectable girl, for another in my place might have favoured you with a grandson before you had a daughter-in-law. When the Marchese di Ripa Verde, a married rake, is introduced surreptitiously into her chamber by her trickish sister, Bettina spurns him in these pa- triotic words : And you have a wife, and you come into the house of an hon- est girl! Who do you think I am? Some light-o'-love? We are in Venice, I'd have you know. In Venice there is pleasure for all who seek it; but to find it, you must go to the haunts by the Piazza; you must go where the shutters are, and the cushions are on the balconies, or straight to the houses of those who stand in their doorways ; but in decent Venetian homes you cannot knock at girls' doors so easily. When you foreigners, away from Venice, talk about her women, you make one nosegay of them all; but by the blood of Our Lady you are wrong. The girls of respecta- ble families in this land have good sense, and they live in a stricter way, perhaps, than is to be found in any other place. Venetian girls are charming; but as to their virtues I agree with the one who says: Girls of Venice are a treasure, Difficult to win indeed: True as gold in fullest measure; None their hearts will e'er mislead. Rome vaunts the glory of Lucretia: Yet virtue's found in our Venetia. 3H GOLDONI Bettina's story is conventional. A band of ruffians bribed by the Marchese di Ripa Verde carry her off by force to his house, where his pleasure-loving wife is so touched by her sincerity that she helps her to evade her wicked lord's clutches by exchanging clothes with her, an artifice that enables Bettina, once safe of the marchese's house, to escape in the carnival crowd ; the rake's wife being caught by him and car- ried to his chamber under the impression that she is his inamorata. Bettina has a protector in the person of Pantalone, a rich merchant who reveres her, and would like to marry her, a desire in which he is balked, however, by Pasqualino. This listless young spark, beloved by Bettina, turns out to be Pantalone's own child: the wife of Menego, the gondolier, in or- der that her own son may inherit Pantalone's ducats, having in the manner of Gilbert's dear little Butter- cup, "mixed two babies up." Although her story is trite, Bettina is no prude, but rather a tender, simple girl of the people, whose vir- tue is inspired by a worldly wisdom acquired in the rough school of experience. Knowing the world, and not ashamed of her knowledge; preferring the simple betrothal ring of her Pasqualino to the diamonds of the scented rake she scorns, this sturdy blond girl of the streets is a child of nature, grown to fine woman- hood in the free air of Venice; in short, the heroine of a people, and not of an aristocracy or of a bour- geoisie, such as all stage heroines before her had been. Moreover, throughout this play a note of patriotism COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 315 sounds lustily, as in these stirring words uttered by Menego, the gondolier, to Pasqualino, his supposed son, who being of bourgeois blood, proves the immu- tability of inheritance by preferring scrivening to the oar: Glad would I be to see thee at work, could I see thee stand- ing on a gondola's poop; could I see thee at a regular ferry, or in the service of some good master, following the calling of thy father, thy grandfather, and thy entire family. What! dost thou think, thou chit of a coxcomb, that the calling of a gondolier is not honourable and respectable? Thou young donkey! In this country we boatmen constitute a body of men, the like of which is not to be found elsewhere in the world. We serve, it is true, but ours is a noble service that does not soil the hands. We are the most confidential secretaries of our masters, and no danger is there of secrets leaking from our lips. We are better paid than others, we maintain our families respectably; we have credit with the tradesfolk; we are models of fidelity; we are famous for our quips, and the readiness of our wit; above all, we are so loyal and so warmly attached to our country that we would shed our blood for her, and fight the entire world, if we heard our Venice slandered, for she is the queen of the sea. The Respectable Girl is an epic of the streets. The wonder is that Goldoni should have written it at a time when the nobles in his theatre spat at will from their boxes upon the plebeians in the pit below; when the people were only a herd of hewers of wood and drawers of water, "on their feet when their betters sat, at work when their betters slept," a common herd of lackeys, porters, serving-maids, fishermen, weavers, artisans, butchers, bakers, candlestick-mak- ers, or what not, who were the butts of comedy till he 3 i6 GOLDONI made them its heroes and heroines. Yet this indus- trious, gracious, spontaneous, humour-loving, pleas- ure-loving herd were all sons and daughters of free Venice, proud of her traditions and still believing in her indomitable strength. Their excellence is apo- theosized in the person of golden-haired Bettina, their inflammable, ironical nature is revealed in the fol- lowing scene where, two gondolas having collided in a narrow canal, their gondoliers thus revile each other : NANE Back water, so that I may go ahead. MENEGO I be going ahead, too; back water a couple of strokes, thus may we all pass. NANE I back water! Back water thyself; thou are headed down stream. MENEGO I have a load aboard, brother; I cannot do it. NANE I'll not budge either. I have three passengers aboard. MENEGO If thou hast three, I have five. NANE Five or six, it is your place to make way for me. MENEGO Who says it is my place to move ? Thy skull is cracked. Canst thou not see that should I back I'll have fifty boats beneath my stern; and I must get through to the canal. Thou hast but three boats to avoid. Clear the way. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 317 NANE Come, Master Menego, make not a fool of thyself. MENEGO Wouldst thou teach me? me, who have been rowing in the re- gattas these twenty years? NANE Even though thou dost row in the regattas, I know my calling, and I be telling thee it is thy place to back water. MENEGO Out of the way; shut thy mouth! NANE If thou wert not an older man than I, I'd shut thy mouth with my oar. MENEGO With that face? NANE Ay, with that face. MENEGO Out of my way, go row a lighter. NANE Out of my way, go row a slave-galley. MENEGO Art thou from Caverzere or Pelestrina? Oh, thou goose! NANE I'll bet that I'll throw thy cap in the water. MENEGO Look here, I must be cautious, because I have the master aboard. NANE I have the master aboard as well, and I wish to pass. MENEGO Dost thou think I know thee not? Thou art but a public ferryman. 3 i8 GOLDONI NANE What of it! Whosoever spends his money is the master. MENEGO Pray, art thou going to let me pass ? NANE Nay, I be going to bide here till the morrow. MENEGO Neither shall I budge. NANE I'll sink ere I back water. MENEGO I'll go to pieces ere I back water. NANE Back, thou low son of the lowest deuce in the pack. MENEGO Back thyself, thou son of a snail ! NANE I be nailed fast, thou canst see for thyself. MENEGO And I drive my oar in to remain. (Sticks his oar into the bottom of the canal.) NANE What sayest thou? That I must back? Not for ten sequins. (He leans over to speak with the persons in his gondola.) If you wish to go ashore, then go ashore, but here I bide. MENEGO (Also speaking to those he has in the gondola.) Ay, but your Excellency, my reputation be at stake; I wish not the rogue in that old hulk to get the better of me. NANE What meanest thou by that old hulk, thou numskull? MENEGO What wilt thou wager I throw not thy rowlock overboard? COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 319 NANE (To his passengers.) As I said, should you wish to go ashore, you may go ashore, since I care not a fig. I be going to hold my own with that regatta racer. MENEGO (To his passengers.) Ay, your excellency, it be better for you to land. I be not going to back even though by it I lose my bread and butter. NANE See now! 'Cause of thee my travellers be going ashore. Thou'lt pay me for it. MENEGO I be the lad to give thee satisfaction. NANE It's as easy to chuck thee in the Canal as to laugh. MENEGO I be not scared of thee; nay, nor of ten like thee. NANE Oh! Oh! MENEGO Oh, thou donkey! NANE Oh, thou swine! MENEGO Oh, thou bullock! 1 This is not buffoonery, but naturalism, for when- ever two gondolas collide in a canaletto, the gondo- liers of Venice still shower just such abuse upon each other. Indeed, there is no buffoonery in The Re- spectable Girl. True, the conventional masks, Panta- lone, Arlecchino, and Brighella are among its dra- matis persona, yet they indulge in no lazzl or other 1 Act II, Scene 21. 320 GOLDONI tomfoolery, this play being an earnest effort with a moral purpose to maintain. As Ferdinando Galanti points out, "It is a model of serious popular comedy, whose very title hints of virtue." 2 Finally, it is the first true flight of Goldoni's genius. "I proposed a model to my spectators for their imi- tation," he says of it, and so delighted was he with Bettina, this "virtuous model," and the "traits of her moral conduct," that! he presented the trials of her wedded life in The Good Wife (La Buona moglie), a comedy in which the same characters reappear. Left to rock her baby alone, while her weak husband, led astray by his wild foster-brother, squanders in riotous living the thousand ducats Pantalone, his father, has given him, Bettina, the good wife, is still a girl of the people, unused to fine ways and servants. Simple and tender, she is content to bide the hour when Pasqualino wvll leave his mistresses and return to her loving arms, an event that happens when he is brought to his senses by seeing his foster-brother killed in a tavern brawl. When the Marchese di Ripa Verde, who sought her ruin, is arrested for debt, Bettina offers his wife an asylum in her house. Though she conserves her character in The Good Wife, this play takes her from the lively streets of Venice to a staid bourgeois parlour where she is ill at ease; furthermore, it is a sequel, and like most sequels lacking in the spontaneity of its original. In Women's Tittle-Tattle (I Pettegolezzi delle 2 Carlo Goldoni e Venezia nel Secolo XVIII. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 321 donne) , Goldoni again turns for his inspiration to the streets of Venice, the evils of the talebearing being his topic. At the end of the arduous season when he had boasted that he would write sixteen plays, he was at a loss for a subject for the last comedy. "We were at the last Sunday of the Carnival," he says, "and I had not written a line of the last piece nor even im- agined the subject for it." Only ten days remained in which to accomplish the task he had set himself. His own words shall tell the characteristic manner of its fulfilment: I left my house that day, and, seeking distraction, went to the Square of Saint Mark. I looked about to see if any of the masks or jugglers might furnish me with the subject of a comedy, or some sort of spectacle for Shrovetide. I met, un- der the arcade of the clock, a man with whom I was instantly struck, and who provided me with the subject of which I was in quest. This was an old Armenian, ill-dressed, very dirty, and with a long beard, who went about the streets of Venice selling the dried fruits of his country, which he called Abagigi. This man, who was to be seen everywhere, and whom I had myself frequently met, was so well known and so much de- spised, that when any one wished to tease a girl seeking a hus- band, he proposed to her Abagigi. Nothing more was neces- sary to send me home satisfied. I entered my house, shut myself up in my closet, and began a popular comedy, which I called / Pettegolezzi. Although written in dialect, Women's Tittle-Tattle does not picture the streets of Venice so truly as The Respectable Girl; moreover, the story it relates of a lover who breaks his troth because a spiteful woman sets evil tongues a-wagging, is a theatric story more 322 GOLDONI fitting the Improvised Comedy Goldoni was seeking to supplant than the National Comedy he was en- deavouring to create. Its humour, however, is at moments delicious, the scenes in which gossip flies from lip to lip being as sparkling as any Goldoni has written ; yet he makes no more than what he terms "the knot of the piece" of Abagigi the Armenian ped- lar. Nevertheless it contains naturalistic sketches, quite worthy its author, such as the following por- trayal of Merlino, a street-Arab from Naples, whom Gate, a laundress, tries to induce to carry her basket: GATE Come, lad, bear these clothes. Prithee make haste. MERLINO Oh, how I hate this work! GATE In this land if thou wouldst eat thou must work. MERLINO Rather would I live by my wits, or beg. GATE In truth, if thou shouldst ask charity, all will chase thee away. Go to work, they'll say, thou rascal, go to work. MERLINO Oh, I know my calling. Prithee. Alms for a poor man who is maimed. (Acts the one-armed man.) Be charitable to a poor cripple. (Acts the cripple.) Charity for a poor blind man. (Acts the blind man.) Have pity on a poor labourer, who fell from a scaffold, and can work no more. (Moves about on his hind-quarters and his hands.) GATE I say, but thou art a flower of virtue. From what land art thou? COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 323 MERLINO I be a most unworthy Neapolitan beggar. GATE (Aside.) Oh, I be n't going to let that lad carry my bas- ket. He be a little rogue who may rob me. (To Merlino.) Here's a penny. Now go about thy business. MERLINO Dost wish me no longer? GATE Nay, I be wishing nothing more. MERLINO Cursed be she who mothered thee; mayest thou grow as many ulcers as there be stitches in the clothes of this basket! Cursed be thy father, thy mother, and all thy generation! GATE Say what thou wilt. It's all right, since I don't understand thy dialect. 3 MERLINO Look, now, look now, someone's wishing thee. GATE What? MERLINO Mayst thou fall dead at once. Someone's called thee. GATE Who's called me? MERLINO A lady. Yonder, yonder, a lady. GATE Where? I see her not. Be that she? (She turns around, and Merlino steals a shirt.) MERLINO Creature of misery! 3 Merlino speaks Neapolitan in the original. 324 GOLDONI GATE What the devil sayest thou, thou accursed little parrot? MERLINO Mayst thou be killed! GATE What didst thou say? MERLINO Didst thou not understand me? CATE Nay, I did not understand. MERLINO If thou didst not understand, then art thou Daughter of a cuckold's mate. Heaven send thee with its hate Boils a thousand as thy fate! (Exit singing and dancing.) 4 In The Jealous Women (Le Donne gelose) Gol- doni mounts the social ladder a rung or two, the lower bourgeoisie, a grade of society prosperous, yet still of the people, being here portrayed. He depicts, too, the Latin idolatry of the Goddess of Chance, Siora Lucrezia, a confectioner's widow, who is the principal character of this comedy, being a profes- sional sibyl who pretends to foretell the lucky num- bers of the draw by omens and dreams. She is shrewd, however, for she is a professional usurer, as well, who lends money to her unlucky clients, and rents the garments they leave in pawn to her as cos- tumes for the Carnival, a multiplicity of vocations that entangles her with the jealous women who give *Act I, Scene 5. THE FORTUNE-TELLER National Gallery, London COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 325 the play its name, the clothes being recognized, and the husbands who patronize her being tracked to her house by their wives. Taunted by these jealous women with being the drab who has debauched their lords, Lucrezia draws a stiletto. "If I carry it," she says, as her enemies recoil, "I do not carry it to do harm to any one ; but neither you nor any one shall trample on me, and by Heaven, if you be not careful, I will show you who I am." Yet she is not forced to commit murder in defence of her honour; since on winning the first prize in the lottery, she renounces her multifarious calling, her male clients returning to the bosoms of their respective families. Its dra- matic material being of so diaphanous a texture, The Jealous Women cannot be numbered among Gol- doni's best comedies ; yet in characterization it is not deficient, Lucrezia, the heroine, being a naturalistic study of a woman of the people, shrewd, supersti- tious, and impetuous, yet so tenacious of her fair name as to be ready to shed blood for its sake. Another Venetian comedy in which Goldoni de- picts the lower bourgeoisie is The Good Mother (La Buona madre] , a play in which he is even less dra- matic, because too insistently moral, it being, as he acknowledges, "a decent play that failed decently." As Signor Galanti says pithily, "Once more the public gave the author to understand that ethics on the stage is a diet that pleases little." 5 Although Goldoni failed in The Jealous Women 5 Op. cit. 326 GOLDONI and The Good Mother to depict tradesfolk and their families with unerring skill, he made full amends in The Boors (I Rusteghi) a masterpiece in which he portrays the intolerance of the Venetian middle class, a hide-bound order, puritanical, almost, in its tradi- tions. The Domestic Tyrants, however, is a more fitting title than the one he has chosen for this consummate piece of stage naturalism, his boors being intractable family autocrats, whose words spell law in their re- spective households. Three of these tyrants of the hearth Lunardo, Simon, and Canciano have wives, Maurizio, the fourth, being a widower with an only son whom he has agreed to marry to Lu- nardo's daughter by a former bed. Lunardo, the most boorish of them, rules his family with a hand so high that no guests, except of his choosing, cross his threshold. To his wife he denies even the single day of carnival gaiety commonly allowed to women of her order, and when he barters his daughter's hand, he refuses to disclose the name of the husband he has chosen for her, much less grant her a sight of him. His masculine selfishness is admirably characterized when he thus expresses his contempt for "women- folk" to his crony Maurizio, after the marriage of their children has been arranged by them. LUNARDO They say we know not how to enjoy ourselves. MAURIZIO Poor creatures! Are they able to see into our hearts? Da COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 327 they suppose there is no other society but theirs? Ah, my friend, it is a real joy to be able to say I have enough ; that I want for nothing, and that if needs be I can lay my hands on a hun- dred sequins. LUNARDO Ay, sir, and live well, on fat capon, tender chickens, and a fine loin of veal. MAURIZIO And all good and cheap because you pay as you go. LUNARDO And all in your own house without squabble or vexation. MAURIZIO And without any one to peck at you. LUNARDO And without any one knowing your affairs. MAURIZIO And our own masters. LUNARDO And not ruled by our wives. MAURIZIO And our children behaving like children! LUNARDO That is the way my daughter is reared. MAURIZIO My son is a jewel, too; no danger of his wasting a farthing. LUNARDO My daughter knows how to do everything. At home she has had to do everything, even to washing the dishes. MAURIZIO And because I do not wish my son to spoon with the house- maids, I have brought him up to darn his socks and patch his own breeches. LUNARDO Good! (Laughing.) 328 GOLDONI MAURIZIO Yes, indeed. LUNARDO Come, we'll arrange this marriage quickly. MAURIZIO Whenever you wish, my friend. LUNARDO I expect you to sup with me to-night. You know I told you so. Four sweetbreads. We'll prove their merits! Ah, but how fat they are ! MAURIZIO We'll eat them. LUNARDO And have a merry time. MAURIZIO And be happy. LUNARDO And then they'll call us brutes. MAURIZIO Pooh! LUNARDO The hussies. 6 These selfish old codgers are the bone and sinew of commercial Venice. Their faces are well known on the Rialto; their merchantmen ply between the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, ay, even as far as Sinope and Trebizond ; yet their hearts are hard and cold as the ducats in their strong boxes, their minds as narrow as the streets they tread. Witness this scene between Lunardo and Simon, another of these domestic tyrants Goldoni has painted with a surpass- ing touch : 6 Act I, Scene 5. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 329 SIMON You are right, my old friend, there are no young men now such as there were in our day. You remember that we did no more and no less than our fathers wished. LUNARDO I had two married sisters. I don't believe I saw them ten times in my whole life. SIMON I hardly ever spoke even to mother. LUNARDO Even to this day I scarcely know what an opera or a comedy is like. SIMON They took me to the opera by force, one evening, and I dozed throughout it. LUNARDO When I was a stripling, my father said unto me: "Wouldst thou rather see the magic-lantern, or have twopence?" I chose the twopence. SIMON And I ! To save my tips was my habit ; and from the farthings I filched, I acquired a hundred ducats which I invested at four per cent. Thus I have four ducats more of interest, and when I draw those four ducats it gives me a joy so great that I can- not describe it; not because I am greedy for those four ducats, but because I may say to myself, all this I earned when I was a lad. LUNARDO Show me to-day one who would do thus; they throw money away, so to speak, by shovelfuls. SIMON I would not mind the money they throw away, but they throw themselves away in a hundred ways. LUNARDO And the cause of it all is liberty. 330 GOLDONI SIMON Ay, sir: so soon as they know how to put on their breeches they begin to stray. LUNARDO And know you who teaches them? Their mothers! SIMON Say no more. I have heard things that make my hair stand on end. LUNARDO Ay, sir, and this is what they say: "Poor little lad, let him regale himself. Poor little thing! Would you have him in the dumps?" If visitors come they call to him, "Come here, my child. His complexion, Madam Lucrezia, does it not make you wish to kiss him? If you but knew how astute he is. Sing thy little song, dear; recite thy piece of Trufaldino's. I should not say it, yet can he do anything dance, play at cards, and write sonnets. Do you know, he is in love. He says he wishes to get married. He is somewhat pert. Yet all in good time, he is but a child, some day he will sensible be. Darling, come here, joy of my life ! Give Madam Lucrezia a kiss." Bah ! a shame, a disgrace ! The senseless women ! 7 This boor of Venice is thoroughly respected in the marts of trade, but by his own hearthstone he is the hectoring tyrant who thus admonishes Margarita, his wife, and Lucietta, his daughter, when he catches them decked out in finery : LUNARDO (To Margarita.') What means this, madam? Are you going to the ball? MARGARITA There now, just look at him. I dress myself up once in the year, and he grumbles. Are you afraid that you are coming to ruin? 7 Act II, Scene 5. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 331 LUNARDO It matters not to me, let me tell you, if you should wear out even one frock a week. Thank Heaven, I am not a man who counts pennies. So much as a hundred ducats may I spend; yet not on such tomfoolery. What would you have these gentlemen who are coming to my house say? That you are a dressed-up manikin. No laughing-stock do I wish to be. LUCIETTA (Aside.) Really glad am I that he scolds her. MARGARITA What think you the other women will wear? One shoe and one slipper? LUNARDO They may wear what pleases them. Such mincing airs have not been seen in my house, and you shall not begin them now, and you shall not make me a butt for ridicule. Do you understand ? 8 This tyrant meets his match, however, in a clever woman, for Canciano, one of his bosom-friends, has a wife, by name Felice, who not only manages to lead her own grumbling husband by the nose, but Lu- nardo also, she being endowed with common sense as well as with a will that knows its way. Getting wind of the proposed marriage between Maurizio's son and Lunardo's daughter, Felice dresses the young man up in a woman's domino, and with Count Ric- cardo, her own cicisbeo, as his escort, introduces him within the austere precincts of Lunardo's dwelling, where he falls in love with Lucietta, his betrothed, whom hitherto he had neither seen nor known. Be- ing caught in their clandestine love-making by their respective fathers, Filipeto is ordered home, and Lu- 8 Act II, Scene 3. 332 GOLDONI cietta locked in her room; whereupon Lunardo and his cronies express their views of the scandal in this despotic, albeit masculine way: LUNARDO It is a question of honour ; it is a question, to come to the point, of my family's reputation. A man of my standing! What will you say of me ? What will you say of Lunardo Crozzola ? SIMON Calm yourself, my dear man. It is not your fault. The women are to blame. Punish them, and all the world will ap- plaud you. CANCIANO Ay, verily, we must make an example of them. We must humble the pride of those arrogant women, and teach men how to punish them. SIMON Let them call us boors. CANCIANO Let them call us savages. LUNARDO My spouse is at the bottom of it all. SIMON Punish her. LUNARDO It is that rattlepate who tags after her. CANCIANO Humble her. LUNARDO (To Canciano.) And your spouse is a good third. CANCIANO I will punish her. LUNARDO (To Simon.) And yours is also in the pack. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 333 SIMON She, too, shall pay for it. LUNARDO My dear friends, let us talk it over; let us consult together. The way things are now, what shall we do with them? As for the girl, that is easy; I have thought about her, and have made up my mind. In the first place, no more question of matrimony. She shall talk no more about getting married. I will send her to be locked up in some place, far from the world, between four walls, and that's the end of her. 9 But how are we to chastise our wives? Tell me your opinion. CANCIANO To confess the truth, I am in considerable doubt. SIMON We might clap them, too, into a retreat between four walls, and thus get out of the difficulty! LUNARDO That, let me tell you, would be a punishment for us rather than for them. We should be compelled to expend money, pay their keep, send them frocks that are at least neat, and howsoever much of a retreat it might be, there would always be more diver- sion and more liberty there than in our homes. Do I present it distinctly ? SIMON You could not present it more distinctly, especially as regards you and me who do not give them a loose rein, as does my friend Canciano. CANCIANO What would you have me say? That you are right? We might keep them in the house locked up in a room ; take them with us now and then to some entertainment ; then lock them up again, and not let them see any one, or talk to any one. 9 Goldoni was forbidden by the laws of Venice to use the word convent. 334 GOLDONI SIMON Lock the women up without letting them talk to any one ! That is a punishment that would kill them in less than three days. CANCIANO So much the better. LUNARDO But who is the man that wishes to play the jailer? And more- over, if her kinsfolk should discover it, there would be the devil to pay. They would have half the world after you. They would make you release her, and furthermore, they would call you a bear, a ruffian, a dog. SIMON And when you have yielded either through love or duty, they would get the upper hand, and you would no longer be able to lift your voice. CANCIANO Precisely what my spouse has done with me. LUNARDO The right method, to tell the truth, would be to use a stick. SIMON Ay, upon my word; and let the world talk. CANCIANO But if they rebel against us? SIMON That might happen, you know. CANCIANO I know whereof I speak. LUNARDO In that case we should be in a pretty bad pickle. SIMON Besides, don't you know there are men who beat their wives. But do you imagine that they can subdue them in that way? Zounds! They are worse than ever; they act out of spite. Un- less you kill them, there is no remedy. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 335 LUNARDO Kill them! That's going too far. CANCIANO You are right ; since after all, do what you will, you cannot do without women. SIMON Yet would it not be a joy to have a good, quiet, obedient spouse? Would it not be a comfort? LUNARDO Once I knew what it was like. My first, poor dear, was*a lamb. My present is a basilisk. CANCIANO And mine! She must have everything her own way. SIMON And I protest, raise a tumult, and accomplish naught. LUNARDO All that is vexing; but still it may be borne. But in my pre- sent predicament, to tell the truth, much is at stake. I would like to decide, yet do not know what should be done. SIMON Despatch her to her kinsfolk. LUNARDO Ay, and get myself laughed at! CANCIANO Send her away; force her to remain in the country. LUNARDO Still worse! She would squander my income in less than a week. SIMON Have her reasoned with; find somebody who can bring her to her senses. LUNARDO Bah! She will listen to no one. 336 GOLDONI CANCIANO Try putting her wardrobe, her jewels, under lock and key; keep her down; humiliate her. LUNARDO That I have tried; yet she acts worse than ever. SIMON I understand; this is the way to do, my friend. LUNARDO How? SIMON Enjoy her as she is. CANCIANO I, too, have thought that to be the only remedy. LUNARDO Yes, I saw that some time ago. I saw, too, that, being what she is, it's the only way. I had made up my mind to stom- ach her, yet what she had done to me now is too much. Ruin a daughter in such a manner. Permit a lover to enter the house! True, I had destined him to be her lord, yet, to tell the truth, what knew she of my intentions? Some inkling did I give her regarding the disposal of her hand, yet was it not possible that I should change my mind ? Was it not possible that we might not come to an agreement? Might it not have been deferred for months, ay, even years? And now she introduces him into my house! masked! clandestinely! Arranges for them to see each other! converse together! A daughter of mine! an unsoiled dove! I cannot control myself. I shall humble her, I tell you. I should punish her, even if I felt certain it meant sudden ruin. SIMON Mistress Felice is at the bottom of it. LUNARDO (To Canciano.) Ay, that daft wife of yours is at the bottom of it. CANCIANO You are right. My wife shall pay for it. 10 10 Act III, Scene i. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 337 While these surly husbands are thus giving vent to their intolerant sentiments they are confronted by Felice, who confounds them with outspoken truth about their contumacy. So pitilessly does she lash them with her woman's tongue that Lunardo, brought to a realization of his churlishness, consents to the marriage of his daughter to Filipeto. The following shaft aimed by Felice at Lunardo and his cronies bears a moral which Goldoni says "is not extremely needed, there being scarcely any adorers of the an- cient simplicity," yet this is manifestly a sop to the feelings of the boors his satire had flayed, their type being perennial : Don't you see? This boorishness, this uncouthness that sur- rounds you, is the cause of all the turbulance this day has brought forth, and it is going to make you all three of you do you hear? I am speaking to all three of you ! it is going to make you rabid, hateful, discontented, and universally ridiculed. Be a little more civil, tractable, humane. Examine the actions of your wives, and so long as they are honest, yield a little, endure a little. ... As for the finery, so long as they do not run after every fashion, so long as the family is not brought to ruin, neatness is both fitting and becoming. In brief, if you wish to live quietly, if you wish to be on good terms with your wives, act like men, not like sav- ages; rule, but do not tyrannize, and love if you would be loved. "In The Boors there is nothing false," as Signer Molmenti so aptly puts it; n for, slight though it is in dramatic texture, it is a masterpiece of naturalism wherein is depicted supremely well the strait- laced burgher of Venice with a mind as hermetically 11 Carlo Goldoni. 338 GOLDONI closed to the outside world as the house in which he immures his wife and daughter, a heart as unyield- ing as the hand with which he drives his hard bar- gains. The only things he cares a whit to know are the prices current upon the Rialto, or the rates of exchange. His name is not inscribed in the Golden Book of Patricians ; yet in his strong-box no mean proportion of the gold of Venice is locked against the hapless day when he, being dead and gone, his daughter, wedded to the son of his crony, will spend a hundred thousand lire of his parings for some diamond shoe-buckles with which to dazzle a scented cicisbeo. He is a burgher of the old school, a mer- chant whose sharpness and cupidity have helped to amass the wealth of Venice and make her the envied and hated of the world, and Goldoni has portrayed him with a touch at once ruthless and sure. Following the production of The Boors, Gas- paro Gozzi, the brother of Goldoni's bitter rival, Carlo Gozzi, published in the Gazzetta Veneta 12 an appreciative yet critical review of this, perhaps the most naturalistic of all Goldoni's plays : "All the in- cidents in this comedy are arranged," he says, "with so exquisite a sense of proportion, and all are brought to view and set in motion so artistically, that we may say: "Here men erect or bent, men quick or slow, In views dissolving, pass beneath our gaze. Of bodies long or short, we see each phase Move 'neath the ray, whose penetrating glow 12 Number V. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 339 Illuminates, betimes, the shadowy cloak Men craftily unto their aid invoke. "Precisely as a sunbeam," adds Gozzi, "penetrating through a window chink that seemed both void and empty, displays to you a lengthening streak of mi- nute particles in perpetual motion, so does the genius of the author illumine and make visible a thousand minute circumstances which you could not have im- agined, much less have seen." Turning from this poetical effusiveness to discriminating prose, this con- temporary critic declares that "the situations bud and bloom readily of their own accord," in this comedy, and that "wit and homely speech sparkle continually." Yet Gozzi's criticism, so generous for a contempo- rary, overlooked one penetrating element of Gol- doni's comedy that we of to-day may appreciate more readily than he: namely, the conflict between the old, conservative traditions of Venice, and the modern luxury that was corrupting her a presage as it were of her downfall. Gozzi failed, also, in doing jus- tice to the admirable characterization of Lunardo, Goldoni's four boors being not as he declared "di- vers aspects of the same character," but rather di- verse characters made outwardly similar by the same traditions. Among them, Lunardo, the most ob- stinate, stands forth as a portrayal rivalled in modern comedy only by a few of Moliere's immortal charac- ters. 13 13 / Quattro rusteghi, an opera taken from Goldoni's play (book by Giuseppe Pizzolato, music by Ermanno Wolf -Ferrari), was produced at Munich in 1906. 340 GOLDONI Another dialect comedy in which Goldoni treats domestic tyranny is Master Theodore the Grumbler; or, The Disagreeable Old Man (Sior Todero Bron- talon o II vecchio fastidioso), a play whose cantan- kerous protagonist is a boor without the humanity of Lunardo, a bear without the beneficence of Ge- ronte ; 14 for although he is drawn from life, as Gol- doni declares, Master Theodore is a very theatrical personage, who storms and growls, and even locks up the coffee and sugar to keep them out of the reach of his daughter-in-law. In brief, he is a person quite too theatrically disagreeable to be of lasting interest. "There was once an old man in Venice called Theodore," Goldoni tells us, "the most rude, ill-na- tured and unpleasant man in the world, and he left behind him so consummate a reputation that every grumbler in Venice is called Theodore the Grum- bler." "I knew one of those ill-natured old men," he goes on to say, "and I wished to avenge his daugh- ter-in-law, a worthy woman whom I saw frequently; so I drew in the same picture the portraits of her husband and her father-in-law." The lady was in the secret, and when the play was given, the irascible father and his meek son were both recognized, so they left the theatre, "the one furious, the other hu- miliated." And the play proved such a success that its run continued until the close of the season. In spite of the fact that the qualities which are the charm of Goldoni seem almost entirely lacking in this play, 14 The title role of Le Bourru bienfalsant. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 341 "it is among the most popular of our poet's come- dies," Signor Galanti assures us, though why he draws this conclusion it is difficult to divine. Indeed, it is easier to share with Signor Molmenti a "certain re- pugnance" he feels for Sior Todero. 15 The merits of The New House (La Casa nova) need excite, however, no such difference of opinion, this comedy presenting as natural a picture of life as any Goldoni has drawn. Indeed, were it not lacking in character studies as humorous as Lunardo and his cronies, it would take rank as Goldoni's Venetian masterpiece, its plot, being more deftly woven than that of The Boors, and the lesson it teaches farther reaching. In The Boors the author pictures fathers as stern as those of New England in the days of its most rigorous puritanism, and makes it reasonable to expect that when these austere conservatives are dead and gone the ducats in their strong-boxes will be scattered far and wide by children too narrowly reared to withstand the temptation of a city so cosmo- politan as Venice. In The New House Goldoni por- trays the weak son of just such a Puritan as Lunardo, squandering his moderate inheritance to satisfy the caprices of the domineering little upstart he has mar- ried. Being a poor girl of common breeding, Ce- cilia, the wife, has had her head turned completely by what she believes is a rich marriage, Anzoletto, her husband, in order to win her love, having made an ostentatious show of wealth he does not possess. 15 Carlo Goldoni. 342 GOLDONI The New House, which gives the comedy its name, is a sumptuous dwelling Anzoletto has leased to re- ceive his bride, though he is without the means to pay either the rent or the artisans he has employed to renovate it. When the curtain rises a group of upholsterers, painters, and carpenters, working as inertly as modern trades-unionists, grumble about their unpaid wages; meanwhile Lucietta, a gossipy housemaid, tears to shreds for their benefit the char- acter of her new mistress, "an overweening snob," as she calls her, who having wasted a fortune upon "household goods, wages, and new furniture," is "still dissatisfied." With a sister to marry and a for- tune squandered, her uxorious young master is "re- duced to extremities," she avers, the rent of the new house being unpaid, as well as the six months' wages due herself. This state of affairs causes the spokes- man of the workers to threaten a strike, until Anzo- letto, the master of the house, cajoles him into wait- ing till the morrow for the money without which, in this artisan's words, "even the blind will not sing." Menechina, the unmarried sister, whose dowry Anzoletto has dissipated to gratify his wife's whims, is enamoured of Lorenzino, the young cousin of Checca, a married woman who dwells on the floor above, the word casa of this comedy's title signifying "apartment" rather than "house" in the literal sense. Having lost her heart to Lorenzino while watching him pace back and forth beneath her window, Me- nechina's ill will toward her new sister-in-law is en- COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 343 hanced tenfold when she is forced by Anzoletto, her brother, to move to a court-yard room in order that his wife may have the sun in hers. When Cecilia, though a bride of only fifteen days' standing, comes attended by a cicisbeo to view the new house, her common little nose turns haughtily up- ward at everything she finds there, even to Lucietta, the housemaid, whom she discharges. Lucietta ap- peals to Menechina, who upholds her, whereupon a pretty kettle of feminine fish is set a-stewing which Anzoletto strives to cool. His creditors press their claims meanwhile, forcing him to the humiliating ex- tremity of appealing in vain to his wife's cicisbeo for a loan. In the midst of this family imbroglio, Checca, the occupant of the floor above, comes with Rosina, her sister, to call upon the new tenants, only to be refused the door because she tactlessly asks to see both the warring ladies of the house, each of whom feels that the honour of this visit should have been paid to her alone. Humiliated by this affront, Checca and Rosina rake the arrogant bride over the coals of their anger, and tarnish the character of the girl their cousin Lo- renzino loves, in this thoroughly feminine way: CHECCA Either they are boors, or they are stuck-up. ROSINA Whatever they are, they do not appear to me to be boors, since it is evident that they go about. 344 GOLDONI CHECCA Why, the bride has been married only a fortnight, and already she has her cavalier to serve her. ROSINA And the girl, hasn't she coquetted all her life? CHECCA According to our cousin Lorenzino, when out of doors she wears her veil down to her waist, but in the house or on the bal- cony she has no scruples about being seen. ROSINA Do not folks say that they spooned together all day and all night? CHECCA La! what girls they are! Listen, sister, do not follow the ex- ample of these flighty creatures. I can say that my husband was the first admirer who ever addressed me. Remember that our mother reared us and that now you are living with me. ROSINA Sister, dear, no need is there for you to preach me such a ser- mon. You know the sort of girl I am. CHECCA Why do you think those miserable hussies refused to receive us? ROSINA I will tell you. It may be because they have just moved into their new house; that it is not set to rights, that it is not fur- nished yet, and on that account they did not wish anybody around. CHECCA Truly, I believe you are right. It must needs be that they're stuck-up for a good reason. In fact, to confess the truth, we have been too hasty in calling; better had we waited until to-morrow; yet I had such a curiosity to see this bride near by that I could not restrain myself. 16 In spite of her resentfulness for the snub admin- 16 Act II, Scene i. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 345 istered to her, Checca, a kind-hearted soul, grants Menechina and Lorenzino a tryst in her apartment. In the midst of their love-making, Cecilia, the bride, comes to make amends for her rudeness, the lover meanwhile hiding in an adjoining closet. First quarrelling shrewishly with Menechina, her sister- in-law, Cecilia then lords it over her hostess in this way, so characteristic of the newly rich of our own, as well as of Goldoni's day: CECILIA How do you amuse yourselves? Do you go to the play? Do you go in society? CHECCA I scarcely know what to say. When my husband is in Venice we go once or twice in the week to the opera, or to the play, but now that he is absent we remain at home. CECILIA If you wish you may have the keys to any of my boxes. I have them at all the theatres, you know. My gondola, too, is at your disposal, if you wish it. CHECCA Many thanks. To confess the truth, when my husband is not at home I go nowhere. CECILIA And when your husband is at home, do you wish him to be al- ways with you? CHECCA If he so choose. CECILIA And you put him to that amount of trouble, to that amount of bondage ? Poor man, you should take pity on your husband. In- duce him to attend to his own affairs. Permit him to go where he pleases. May you not go to the play without your husband? 346 GOLDONI CHECCA Oh, I do not mind. When my husband cannot go I remain at home. CECILIA (Aside.) Oh, what a fool! And what, pray, do you do at home? Do you play cards? CHECCA Sometimes we amuse ourselves. CECILIA And what do you play? CHECCA Tresette, cotecchio, mercante in fiera. ir CECILIA La! I have no use for such games. I like faro, but for low stakes, mind you, a bank of eight or ten sequins, no more. 18 You should attend one of our routs. Only persons a la mode, I do not mind saying. Never are we less than fourteen or sixteen, and almost every evening we eat something, either a brace or two of woodcock, a smoked tongue, some truffles, or some delicious fish or other; moreover, there is our wine cellar, of which no one need be ashamed ; it is something exquisite. 19 Evicted from her new house when doting Anzo- letto is unable to borrow from false friends, Cecilia, the bride who utters this vulgar cock-a-hoop, becomes a contrite and loving wife, her husband's surly uncle, whose heart has a tender spot in it, being the deus ex machina to whom she humbly appeals in her ad- versity. Kind-hearted Checca, too, wins this uncle's promise of a dowry for Menechina; so the story ends 17 The first was a four-handed round game; in the second, the one who lost most points, won, making it somewhat like "hearts." The third was played with two packs of cards and by an indefinite number of players. 18 A Venetian sequin was worth about $2.50. 19 Act II, Scene 9. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 347 happily, Cecilia's too sudden metamorphosis from an ill-bred snob to an abject penitent being the one dis- cordant note in an otherwise masterly comedy. Once more Goldoni had painted life from the life about him. "I had changed my lodgings," he says, "and as I was always looking for subjects of comedy, I found one in the embarrassments of my removal. I did not, however, derive the subject from my own predicament, but the circumstances suggested the title, and my imagination did the rest." In the pref- ace he boasts that if he had written but this single comedy, it would have been sufficient to secure for him the reputation he had acquired through so many others. Moreover, he returns to the subject eleven years later, Cristofolo, the benevolent though surly uncle who unties the knots of the plot with his mag- nanimity, being, as his author confesses, "the germ of Geronte," the testy yet tender-hearted old codger who gives The Beneficent Bear (Le Bourru bienfaisant] its title. Although lacking in the intensely human characterization of The Boors, "the skill with which The New House is constructed," to quote Gasparo Gozzi, "makes it interesting from top to bottom." Goldoni had treated prodigality before, 20 but no- where so vitally as in this Venetian comedy. More- over, the subject is perennial, and of such enduring interest that Sardou could not fail to see its worth. From the materials used by Goldoni, this master- 20 In // Prodigo, La Bancarotta, La Buona moglie, La Famiglia dell' antiquano, I Malcontenti, and La Villeggiatura. 348 GOLDONI builder of plays constructed his Maison neuve, a comedy almost as far from the truth of life as Gol- doni's play is close to it. A few leagues south of Venice on the sandy shore of the lagoon stood the fishing town of Chioggia, with a speech and manners of its own. There Gol- doni had passed, as we have seen, many days of his youth, and in early manhood had held the post of coadjutor to the criminal chancellor. Inspired by his experiences there, he wrote in the dialect of that quaint place The Chioggian Brawls (Le Baruffe chiozzotte), a play of the common people, that shares with The Boors the distinction of doing him "the greatest honour." 21 On October loth, 1786, Goethe wrote from Venice: At last I can say I have seen a comedy: They played to-day at the San Luca Theatre Le Baruffe chiozzotte, which I should interpret, "The Brawls and Shouting of Chioggia." The char- acters are all seafaring men, inhabitants of Chioggia, and their wives, sisters, and daughters. The usual babble of such people in good and evil their dealings with one another, their vehemence, but kindness of heart, commonplace remarks, and spontaneous man- ners, their naive wit and humour all this was skilfully imitated. The piece is by Goldoni, and as I had been only the day before in the place itself, and as the voices and behaviour of the sailors and people of the seaport still echoed in my ears and floated before my eyes, it was a great joy to me ; and although I did not under- stand many a feature, I was nevertheless, on the whole, able to follow it pretty well. Continuing, Goethe expounded what appeared to 21 Although the dialect in which The Chioggian Brawls is written is not precisely Venetian, the differences that mark it are slight, Chioggia being a dependency of Venice. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 349 him to be the story of the play; yet when the plot waxed too hot for his comprehension, he dismissed it as "an endless din of scolding, railing, and scream- ing." Its spirit was not lost upon him, however, for in conclusion he says: I never saw anything like the noisy delight the people evinced at seeing themselves and their mates represented with such truth to nature. It was one continued laugh and tumultuous shout of exultation from beginning to end. . . . Great praise is due the author, who out of nothing had here created a most amusing en- tertainment. At the time Goethe wrote, Goldoni, though a feeble octogenarian, was as light-hearted and generous to- wards his fellow-men as when, at the age of fifty-four, he had first put upon the stage of that same San Luca Theatre the vivacious picture of Chioggian life which so charmed his great contemporary. To have witnessed the "noisy delight" of those people of Ven- ice would have warmed the cockles of his honest old heart, yet he, an exile at a moribund court, could only recall the former night of triumph while thus writing in his memoirs : I composed a Venetian piece, entitled The Chioggian Brawls, a low comedy that produced an admirable effect. ... I had been coadjutor of the criminal chancellor at Chioggia in my youth. . . . My position brought me in contact with that numerous and tumultuous population of fishermen, sailors, and women of the people, whose only place of meeting was the open street. I knew their manners, their singular language, their gaiety, and their spite; I was enabled to paint them accurately; and the capital, which is only eight leagues distant from the town, was perfectly well acquainted with my originals. 350 GOLDONI That the exceedingly human plot of this play should have been to Goethe a "demon of confusion," is not surprising; a court official in the play itself the sole Venetian character being unable to under- stand the dialect of Padron Fortunate, a stuttering fisherman, described by Goethe as "an old sailor who, from the hardships he has been exposed to from his childhood, trembles and falters in all his limbs, and even in his very organs of speech." When the curtain rises, this stammering sea-dog is aboard the fishing-smack (tartana) of Padron Toni, whose wife, Pasqua, and sister, Lucietta, are seen making lace before the door of their house. Libera, wife of the "trembling, faltering Fortunato," together with her sisters Orsetta and Checca, sits in the street too, stitching and gossiping. Aboard the smack are Titta-Nane, Lucietta's betrothed, and Beppo, her brother, plighted to Orsetta. At large in the streets of Chioggia is Toffolo, nicknamed "Mar- motino" (little fool), a youthful boatman and the town jack-a-dandy. When this young fellow, stroll- ing down the street, sees pretty Lucietta lace-making, he buys her a slice of roast pumpkin from a passing street vender, and one for Orsetta too, the betrothed of Beppo, but when he offers to treat Checca, she, in pique at being invited last, refuses to accept. "But Lucietta did," Toffolo says ingenuously. "She is capable of anything," answers Checca, with a pert toss of her head, an aspersion that starts the fiery ball of Italian temper rolling. COMMON PEOPLE Museo Correr COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 351 Before the Chioggian brawls that give the play its name burst fully forth, Padron Toni's smack is shown at her moorings, her yellow sail with the winged lion of St. Mark flapping lazily in the breeze, her nets drying on her briny quarters. The catch is unloaded; the women flock to the port to greet their husbands and lovers ; then Lucietta cattishly whispers to her brother Beppo to beware of TofTolo's atten- tions to Orsetta, while Checca, with vindictiveness equally feline, informs Titta-Nane that Toffolo has brazenly presented Lucietta with "roast pumpkin" a wagging of tongues that sends both Beppo and Titta-Nane in murderous search of him. Beppo meets him; abuse pours volubly from his angry lips; Toffolo throws stones, Beppo draws his knife, his father intervenes; Titta-Nane appears armed with a pistol. Chairs and lace-cushions are upset; wives and sweethearts shriek abuse; fathers, brothers, and lovers curse and pommel one another just because a town dandy, in love with one pretty girl, has given another a slice of roast pumpkin ; yet although knives are drawn and pistols pointed, the first act is brought to a close without the actual spilling of blood or any one's knowing exactly why he has been drawn into these Chioggian brawls. In the second act Toffolo lodges a complaint with the coadjutor against the unwarranted attack made upon him, and a bailiff is sent to hale every one con- nected with the rumpus into court; but before this official executes his warrants, the following touching 352 GOLDONI lovers' quarrel ensues, jealous Titta-Nane stumbling upon temperate Pasqua while she is imploring Lu- cietta to realize that her lover's anger is merely an- other proof of his love: 22 TITTA-NANE (Seeing Lucietta.) I wish to cast her off, but have not the heart. PASQUA (To Lucietta.) Look at him. LUCIETTA (To Pasqua.) Oh, I have my lace to look to. I have that to look to. PASQUA (Aside.) I'd like to smash her head on that lace-cushion. TITTA-NANE She does not look at me at all. She does not think of me at all. PASQUA Good day to thee, Titta-Nane. TITTA-NANE Good day to thee. PASQUA (Te Lucietta.) Greet him. LUCIETTA (To Pasqua.) Dost fancy I will be the first? TITTA-NANE What a haste to work! PASQUA What sayest thou? Are we not respectable women, lad? TITTA-NANE Yes, yes, you do well to make haste while you may; when young lads come nosing around there will be no time to work. 22 To convey the lisping charm of this dialect scene, as well as its Italian volubility, in bluff English is manifestly an impossibility. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 353 LUCIETTA (Coughs mockingly.) PASQUA (To Lucietta.) Relent. LUCIETTA Never. Lucietta goes off, and Pasqua tries to assuage Titta- Nane by telling him that when he is at sea and the wind "blows up fresh," Lucietta gets up in the middle of the night to go out on her balcony and watch the clouds; for "she can see with no eyes but thine" she assures him. But Titta-Nane is obdurate. "Get her to confess all and ask pardon," he says. Lucietta re- turns bearing his gifts. LUCIETTA Take, sir, thy slippers and ribbons and the keepsakes thou gav- est me. (She flings them on the ground.) PASQUA Oh, dear me! Art thou daft? (She picks up the gifts and places them on a chair.) TITTA-NANE And this indignity to me? LUCIETTA Didst thou not cast me off? Take thy trinkets. Do with them what thou wilt. TITTA-NANE If ever thou shouldst speak to "Marmotino," I will kill him. LUCIETTA Merciful heavens! Thou hast cast me off; wouldst thou lord it over me as well? 354 GOLDONI TITTA-NANE I cast thee off because of him I cast thee off. PASQUA Fie on thee, lad, for thinking that Lucietta would stoop to such a vagabond. LUCIETTA Ill-favoured may I be, a hapless wretch may I be, or anything thou likest; yet never will I be enamoured of a ferryman. TITTA-NANE Why didst thou let him loiter around thee? Why didst thou let him buy thee roast pumpkin? LUCIETTA Well, well, what a crime! PASQUA Mercy, what an ado about nothing! TITTA-NANE When I make love, I wish no one to be able to gossip. I will have it thus, I will. By Heaven, no man has wronged Titta- Nane! No man shall wrong him. LUCIETTA How thin-skinned thou art! (Wipes her eyes.) TITTA-NANE I am a man, dost hear ! I am a man. I am no boy, dost hear ! LUCIETTA (Weeps ', showing that she is making an effort not to weep.) PASQUA (To Lucietta.) What ails thee? LUCIETTA Nothing. (Weeping, she nudges Pasqua.) PASQUA Art thou weeping? LUCIETTA With anger, with anger; well could I flay him with my own hands. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 355 TITTA-NANE Now, then, what means this sobbing? {Approaching Luci- etta.) LUCIETTA Go to perdition! TITTA-NANE Dost thou hear, siora? (To Pasqua.) PASQUA Ay, isn't she right, when thou art worse than a dog? TITTA-NANE Wilt wager that I throw myself in the canal? PASQUA Fie upon thee, fool! LUCIETTA Let him go; let him go. PASQUA Fie upon thee, hussy! TITTA-NANE I loved her dearly, I loved her dearly. (Showing tenderness.) PASQUA (To Titta-Nane.) And now thou lovest her no more? TITTA-NANE How can I, if she loves me no more? PASQUA What sayest thou to that, Lucietta? LUCIETTA Let me alone, let me alone! PASQUA (To Lucietta.) Here, take thy shoes, thy ribbons, and thy trinkets. LUCIETTA I wish nothing, I wish nothing. PASQUA (To Lucietta.) Come here; hearken to me. 356 GOLDONI LUCIETTA Let me alone. PASQUA Say one word. LUCIETTA No. PASQUA (To Titta-Nane.) Come here, Titta-Nane. TITTA-NANE Never. PASQUA Get thee gone. TITTA-NANE Nay, I will not. PASQUA I should send both of you to be drawn and quartered. 23 "This is no longer comedy," says Professor Orto- lani, "but the lacerations of the human heart the blood of the people." 24 Indeed, this play could not have called forth "one continued laugh and tumultu- ous shout of exultation," as Goethe relates ; for when Titta-Nane quarrelled with Lucietta there must have been a moment of silence tempered by sympathetic tears. Yet there is food for laughter enough when all the Chioggian brawlers being haled before the coadjutor, Padron Fortunato's stammering causes that official to close his court in sheer desperation. In the final act the coadjutor steps from the ma- chine, a god to quell these Chioggian brawls by his good offices, ardent Titta-Nane being united to his adored Lucietta, fiery Beppo to Orsetta, and Toffolo, 23 Act II, Scene 3. 24 Op. cit. COMEDIES IN VENETIAN DIALECT 357 the mischief-maker, to tattling Checca. This accom- plished, the benevolent coadjutor orders wine, pump- kins, and other goodies, and calling for fiddles, bids the reconciled Chioggians regale themselves. In the words of Vernon Lee: Have we seen the ship come in, and fish in the basket? Have we seen the women at their lace-cushions? Have we heard that storm of cries, and shrieks, and clatter, and scuffling feet? Have we really witnessed this incident of fishing life on the Adriatic? No; we have only laid down a little musty volume, at the place marked Le Baruffe chiozzotte, 25 Among all Goldoni's comedies, there is none so pulsating with life as The Ghioggian Brawls. It fairly teems with colour and evidences of fidelity of touch ; it is a play, in fact, such as perhaps never had been written in the world before ; at least the present writer can recall in the previous range of the drama no such actual picture of lower-class humanity, no play dealing solely with the proletariat, where every character, every situation is true to the life of the common people. It is true that farces of street life are as old as Menander: indeed it was the Venetian custom to present dialect farces at carnival time; but where is there a comedy written before Goldoni's day and dealing solely with the lower class, that possesses its good-humoured sincerity, its humanity, its fidelity to the life of the common people their emotions, as well as their vagaries? Beneath the broad merriment of this play there 25 Op. cit. 358 GOLDONI are undertones of human passion that raise it from what its author modestly calls "low comedy" to the level of drama. Here was a painting of actual life; yet artificial Marivaux had just danced in France his dramatic minuet. To quote Professor Ortolani once more, "Marivaux is a bit of lace a zephyr will tear, Goldoni a piece of good sound cloth time will not wear out." The one is the poet of a condition, the other the poet of a race. Unlike his French con- temporary, the Venetian wrote from the depths of his own experience and observation. His dialect characters are not pretty mechanical dolls dressed in lace, but pulsating human beings, clad in homespun. Keen critics, such as Goethe, must ever give "great praise" to his truthful pictures of Venetian life, painted in colours so vivid that they will endure long after the delicate hues of Marivaudage shall have faded completely. XI EXOTIC COMEDIES WHENEVER Goldoni lays the scene of a comedy in a land where he has not dwelt, the light of his peculiar genius is usually obscured by a nescient mist which even his brilliant stage-craft fails to dissipate entirely. This is par- ticularly true of his exotic comedies in verse, such as The Persian Bride (LaSposa persiana) and The Fair Savage (La Bella selvaggia), whose jejune lines are befogged by outlandish atmosphere. On the other hand, cheering sunlight permeates the artifi- ciality of the exotic comedies in prose whenever their studied refinement is disturbed by an outburst of mirth, which Goldoni's spontaneous nature could never wholly restrain. Though the path their author here treads is strange, his steps are not retarded by any fettering measure; while in the scenes of these come- dies he does not wander so far afield England and Holland being nearer his native land than the Orient or America, and certainly more akin to it in custom and sentiment. There are only four of these exotic comedies in prose by far the smallest number in any single category of his work; yet, few though they are, they reflect, more truly than any which came from his 359 360 GOLDONI prolific pen, the literary influences of the eighteenth century: an age like our own, as Mr. Charles Leon- ard Moore aptly puts it, 1 "of smugness and snug- ness," and like it, too, an age of literary common sense unadorned by poetry and undisturbed by hero- ism and profundities, since, to quote Mr. Moore again : In thought, we have substituted the idea of evolution for ra- tionalism; in form we have put the novel in place of satire or didactic form. But for absolute poetry the poetry of imagina- tion and beauty we have the same disinclination as our fore- fathers had then. Tragedy is again abhorrent to us and we wreak our souls on humour and social comedy. Moreover, our own age, like the eighteenth cen- tury, is one of social upheaval and discontent, in which the third estate is again arrayed against the church and the privileged classes. We have our phi- losophers, too, our preachers of the rights of man, therefore there is more than literary common sense to make us akin to the eighteenth century. Kindly Goldoni's spontaneous naturalism was ill at ease when arrayed in didactic sentiment; yet when, as in Pamela Unmarried (Pamela nubile), the first of his exotic comedies in prose, he wanders meta- phorically away from impulsive Venice to compla- cent London by way of restless Paris, he is brought under the influence of both the didacticism and dis- content of his age. Its unquestioned wit and humor went with him; therefore in viewing his Pamela, a 1 The Eighteenth Century Come Again, The Dial, September 18, 1911. EXOTIC COMEDIES 361 comedy founded upon Samuel Richardson's epoch- marking novel of that name, the thing to be consid- ered in addition to its exoticism is the part English smugness and French unrest played in moulding it; for, though its sentimentality is as wearisomely nice as that of the novel from which it is taken, there is a presage of Rousseau in it. Although Richardson disputes with Defoe, Pre- vost, Marivaux, and in an even greater degree with Madame de la Fayette, for the honour of having writ- ten the first modern novel, no one denies that his Pamela possesses the essential elements of fiction; concisely summed up by a modern critic as "plot, motive, character portrayal, emotional excitement, background, and style." 2 Moreover, if Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded be not the first novel, it is certainly the first "best seller"; this work of a prosperous, vain, timid, and fat little English printer having created for its "lambkin" of a heroine a veritable furore, not only in England, but on the continent as well, where it was translated into several tongues and read as widely as in the land of its birth. Goldoni, however, was not the first playwright to realize the dramatic value of its heroine's native innocence and purity, virtue being an appealing dramatic subject, possibly because of its contrast to the reality of eighteenth century life. In 1749, the year before Goldoni's Pamela saw the boards, Voltaire had presented to a Parisian audience his Nanine, also a play based on 2 Charles F. Home, The Technique of the Novel. 362 GOLDONI Richardson's novel; yet six years before (1743) La Chaussee had put forth his Pamela, a five-act comedy in verse; while about the same time another stage version of this story appeared from the pen of Louis de Boissy, a lesser light. 3 La Chaussee, the author of one of these stage Pame- las, holds a position in the drama not unlike that oc- cupied in fiction by Richardson; for, while the En- glishman was crystallizing into a popular form the various elements that compose the modern novel, the Frenchman was inventing lachrymose comedy (comedie larmoyante), or bourgeois tragedy (trage- die bourgeoise) as it is sometimes called a dramatic form now termed drama, or comedy drama, accord- ing to the intensity of the plot. Intended to call forth tears as well as laughter, it is the form that vies with farce in holding the attention of modern audi- ences ; for seldom now are we regaled by pure com- edy, such as Moliere's, or pure tragedy, such as that of the Greeks, or of Racine. Until La Chaussee's day tragedy and comedy were not blended in plays of contemporaneous manners, the nearest previous ap- proach to lachrymose comedy being the tragi-com- edy, or play of serious emotions with a happy ending. As this latter form was not used to treat of everyday life, La Chaussee sounded a new dramatic note. To quote one of his contemporaries : 4 He has invented a new style of comedy. It had represented 3 Pamela en Trance; ou la vertu mleux eprouvee. 4 L. Riccobini, Lettera al signor dottor Muratorl, May 30, 1737. Quoted in the Nouvelle Biographic Generate, Vol. XXVIII. EXOTIC COMEDIES 363 heretofore the domestic life of burghers and well-to-do folk, and sometimes even of artisans: the ancient stage, Greek as well as Latin, furnishes us no longer with models except those of the na- ture which the moderns have imitated. There is, however, in society a class of people excluded from a comic plot; gentlemen and lords of noble birth being held to be too exalted to enter into the domestic situations which have always been the inheritance of comedy. On the other hand, they cannot function in tragedy, since they are not great enough to wear the buskin, worthy only of princes and heroic deeds. It is these same persons, occupying, if one may use the term, a sort of isolated niche, a middle state as it were, between the high order of tragedy and the rank and file of comedy, whom M. de la Chaussee has conceived as taking part in a plot that may sometimes have the interest of tragedy, and sometimes present situations in polite life between people of quality, and which thus preserves the character of comedy. One of La Chaussee's lachrymose comedies pic- turing stiltedly the manners of a bygone day will not hold the attention of a modern audience, nor will Richardson's artless heroine do aught but make the modern novel reader yawn, unless he be a very young person sentimentally inclined, no adult modern reader being able to derive pleasure from four vol- umes treating, as Richardson expressed it, "of virtue rewarded in a series of familiar letters from a beau- tiful young damsel to her parents, published in order to cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the minds of the youth of both sexes." The day of Pamela is passed. We are no longer interested in the trials of this child of fifteen, half servant, half adopted daughter of an old lady, who on the death of her mistress is exposed to the amorous importuni- ties and persecutions of Mr. B , her young mas- 364 GOLDONI ter. Though she loves Mr. B secretly in spite of his persecutions, and continues humble and de- voted, even when her virtue is rewarded by his hand and heart, she will not awaken our jaded interest except perhaps when venal Mrs. Jewkes introduces her importunate master in female disguise into her virginal bed. Equally are we bored by the didactic picture of the dismal consequences of blind and doting maternal love La Chaussee presents in The School for Mothers (L'Ecole des meres), although La Harpe called it "one of the best comedies of the eighteenth century." 5 Yet, stilted as are the novels of the one and the come- dies of the other, Richardson and La Chaussee played leading and similar roles in literature, Richardson being the first novelist to tell a consistent story of the life about him in a popular way, and La Chaussee, the first dramatist to unify the elements of tragedy and comedy in plays dealing with persons and events of his own times, a form that is essentially the drama of our day as distinguished from pure comedy and boisterous farce. Whenever a play of to-day makes us both laugh and weep, or only weep, if its charac- ters and scenes are familiar, it is a comedie larmoy- ante, or drame, as the French soon began to style La Chaussee's dramatic form. 6 Still there is danger in 5 Cours de litterature. 6 Goldoni says that his Pamela is "a drame according to the French definition of the term"; Beaumarchais states that "the drame holds a place between heroic tragedy and merry comedy," from which it appears that this term soon supplanted both comedie larmoyante and tragedie bourgeoise in describing this stage form. EXOTIC COMEDIES 365 giving entire credit to La Chaussee for the concep- tion of lachrymose comedy. His contemporaries proclaimed him the inventor of this form and he has been so considered by succeeding generations; yet Gustave Larroumet 7 disputes this honour for Marivaux, whom he declares to be the author .of "an excellent bourgeois drama, without the exaggerations or shortcomings of either La Chaussee or Diderot." 8 This digression has been necessary for a clearer understanding of Goldoni's Pamela Unmarried, the plot of which was taken from the earlier scenes of Richardson's first novel ; for, in dramatizing this pa- thetic story of love and persecution, the characters of which vary in social degree from the well born hero to the low born heroine, he was compelled by the very subject he had chosen to write a comedie larmoyante, or drame, such as La Chaussee had but a little while before put upon the Parisian stage. Moreover, Richardson's text brought him under the didactically sentimental influence of northern Europe, thereby making him forswear his own naturalism, his Pamela being so unlike his spontaneous and true pictures of Venetian life that it is difficult to recognize it as trie work of this painter of nature, so untrue are its char- acters, so artificial is its language. Goldoni's account of Pamela and of the causes that induced him to write it, presents so clearly 7 Mari'vaux, sa ainter who copies Titian. After this critical di- ;ression the allegory of the race is thus continued: Let us turn to the boats as they were left: Chiari now pulls on with speedier strokes; Goldoni's, fewer, longer, easier, And, equalling his foe's, as forceful are. The judge's stand is reached ; yet neither leads. On both the red flag falls; and I am bound To say, the race is drawn, for both have won ! When at the height of his rivalry with his noted contemporary, Chiari made a triumphant visit to Modena in 1754, where he had formerly been a schoolmaster, and there he was acclaimed the re- former of the Italian stage. Though his grandfather was a Modenese, and though, broken in health from his arduous work for the public, Goldoni had just passed several weeks in Modena with his entire fam- ily, that ungrateful town forswore him to honour a vagrant in a stolen coat, for surely those lines written by the Abate Vicini, court poet of Modena, fit Gol- doni alone: New ground to cultured Europe you exposed, A comic world, Chiari, you disclosed. 8 8 In Delia vera poesla teatrale, etc. Vicini, it will be recalled, was probably the Abate J.-B.-V., whose chastisement caused Goldoni to wish 400 GOLDONI The Brescian was praised in Modena, moreover, for "banishing troublesome truth from the stage." Hailed as a former citizen, he was given an ovation in the Rangoni theatre, the title of court poet being bestowed upon him by the reigning duke two years before Goldoni was similarly honoured by the ruler of Parma. "Such indifference to Goldoni's comedies in so short a time," exclaims a Modenese contemporary, 9 "when it seemed that the entire world had become a band of fanatics in that great man's cause 1" This writer, moreover, thus thrusts him aside as a man who had served his purpose: Certainly, no one will ever be able to take from Goldoni the boast and the merit of having been the first to promote in our day so great a good with such a will; but he has truly been too much in haste. Desiring to give so many comedies each year is going too far, and the wish to do too much has misled him. He has chosen in some of his comedies characters that are not proper either on the stage or in society; therefore, to present them, a par- ticular kind of audience is necessary if modesty is not to be of- fended. Although lovers of fustian were unable to see that the elegance they admired in Chiari was mere stilted- ness, and the impropriety they condemned in Goldoni the very naturalism that makes him live, Goldoni to become a monk. While Goldoni was ill at Modena, Vicini assisted him affectionately, but together with other Modenese poets and critics took Chiari's side, when this dramatist was patriotically glorified. Nevertheless, Goldoni bore Vicini no ill will, and dedicated La Villeg- glatura to him. 9 Abate Francesco Fanti in a letter of Aug. 8, 1754, published in Modena a Carlo Goldoni. RIVALS AND CRITICS 401 himself understood Chiari's weakness. In The Dis- contented (I Malcontenti), a comedy he wrote while this rivalry still flourished, he cleverly satirized the Brescian in these words, spoken by Grisologo, one of its characters : My style, which shall make me world-famous, consists in the ability to say things in a vibrating, high-falutin, sonorous way, full of metaphors and similes, by which means I rise now to the starry skies, now skim the low-lying earth. ... I bind the tragic and the comic together, and whenever I write in verse, I abandon myself wholly to poetic passion, without heeding nature, which is wont to be obeyed by others with excessive scruple. ... I apply all my industry to the easy flow of metre, to the vibration of rhyme, and you shall see with what workmanship I have woven together the first verses in order to heighten the effect of the second. But Goldoni was not left to fight his battles alone; he, too, had ardent partisans, whom he is at pains to name in his memoirs, even while silent regarding his traducers. During his sojourn at Parma, his enemies at home, it will be remembered, published the news of his death, but when he returned safe and sound to Venice, bearing a ducal appointment and possessing a pension, which "excited the envy and anger of his foes," there were men of letters who, as he says, "had some consideration for him" and undertook his de- fence. "Thus a war was declared," he exclaims, "in which I became quite innocently the victim of angry minds." The friends Goldoni names as his defenders are the Jesuit father Giambatista Roberti, a Bassanese poet and philosopher; the Abate Sciugliaga, a Dalma- 402 GOLDONI tian, who not only defended him with his pen, but who, years later, loaned him money as well; Count Pietro Verri, a Milanese soldier, administrator, and man of letters, who with his brother and some literary intimates founded a coffee-house club in Milan with a journal // Caff}, modelled upon Addison's Spec- tator, as its mouthpiece; Nicolo Beregan, a patrician poet, and Count Gasparo Gozzi, brother of the man with whom he was soon to become embroiled in a warfare of greater moment than that with Chiari. Roberti and Beregan lauded Goldoni in stilted verse, while Verri had the acumen to say in discriminating prose that: Goldoni's comedies rest in the first place on a basis of true vir- tue, humanity, kindness, and love of duty which warms our hearts with the pure flame that spreads wherever it finds fuel, and distinguishes any one who calls himself a man of honour from a vagabond. Though friends rallied to his defence, and their pamphlets and verses flooded Venice, Goldoni's name would remain as unknown to-day as that of his paltry rival, had not the victory been won by his own genius. Chiari returned in triumph from Modena only to lose the fight, for the dramatist who in the end pleased the Venetians most, pleases posterity as well. During the years that followed, Goldoni put forth his best work, while failure after failure crowned his rival's plagiaristic methods, until, as Goldoni confesses, "poor Medebac was reduced to much fasting," he still being Chiari's manager. 10 10 Letter to Arconati-Visconti, Oct. 30, 1756. RIVALS AND CRITICS 403 But a storm was gathering to deluge both of these warring dramatists, since in Carlo Gozzi they met a foe so redoubtable that they were forced to become allies, his venomous literary shafts being aimed at Goldoni and Chiari alike. Indeed, in all literary history there are few more rancorous attacks than that delivered by Gozzi against these erstwhile ene- mies. This singular man, born in Venice in 1720, was a bachelor and a poet, of so morose a nature that he was greeted as the Bear, and known as the Solitary. Hav- ing led a roving military life in Dalmatia during his youth, he had returned to Venice, and there, in the midst of lawsuits, had endeavoured unsuccessfully to re-establish the family fortunes. Though he bore the title of count and belonged to an honourable Venetian family, he was not a patrician with the right of vot- ing in the Grand Council. Like Gasparo Gozzi, his weaker but more agreeable brother, whom he truly loved even while reproving his faults, he plied his pen assiduously ; yet he sneered at that brother for sell- ing his writings. He was, however, no such castle- builder as he is painted by Paul de Musset and Ver- non Lee. On the contrary, to quote John Addington Symonds : " He was no dramatic dreamer and abstract visionary, but a keen, hardheaded man of business, caustic in speech and stubborn in act, adhering tenaciously to his opinions and his rights, acidly and sar- donically humorous, eccentric, but fully aware of his eccentricities, and apt to use them as the material of burlesque humour. 11 Op. cit. 404 GOLDONI It may be added that he was an implacable enemy. His dramatic pieces, satirical poems, and prose com- positions were mainly polemical; while two malig- nant controversies have made his name survive his writings. The first of these was the bitter war he waged against Goldoni and Chiari ; the other a three- cornered quarrel with Pier Antonio Gratarol over an actress, which was complicated by a breach of lover's faith on Gratarol's part against Caterina Dolfin Tron, an influential though venomous patri- cian woman. With this latter quarrel the present work is not concerned; it was, however, the direct cause for the writing of GozzPs memoirs, and shows his partiality for actresses, whom it was his wont to advise, direct, abuse, and teach, "while they danced in rings around his leanness, encircling his silence with whispers and his melancholy with peals of laughter." 12 Carlo Gozzi delighted in quarrels, bile being the very substance of his nature. Being incurably melan- cholic, when not warring with some enemy he sought lonely places for his halting steps, and in vain tried to be cheerful by tickling himself in order that he might laugh. At the age of seventy-seven he pub- lished his autobiography, to which he gave the singu- lar title: Useless Memoirs of the Life of Carlo Gozzi, Written by Himself and Published from Mo- tives of Humility (Memorie inutili dell a vita di Carlo Gozzi scritte da lui medesimo e pubblicate per 12 Philippe Monnier: op. cit. RIVALS AND CRITICS 405 umllta] . The object he had in mind in writing these memoirs was to vindicate himself from the slurs Gra- tarol had cast upon his character at the time of their quarrel, but he tells as well the story of his dispute with Goldoni and Chiari ; and since he enjoyed rare facilities for the study of Venetian life, the scope of his Useless Memoirs is far wider than the mere de- tailing of personal and literary squabbles. Their pages teem with descriptions of their author's private life, and of his dealings with lawyers, brokers, Jews, and all sorts of odd persons, while the more varied pictures they present of literary, social, and stage life make them a richer document for the study of Vene- tian customs in the eighteenth century than Goldoni's more restricted memoirs. Moreover, Gozzi reveals his character in all its aspects, the particulars of his love-affairs being frankly told, yet without the ab- normality in this respect displayed by Casanova. Such, in brief, was the character of the man with whom Goldoni, after triumphing over Chiari, was forced to cross swords for the sovereignty of the Vene- tian stage. The war between these two writers so opposite in character, was incited by their antipodal convictions, Gozzi being an unyielding conservative in both politics and thought, and therefore opposed by nature to Gol'doni, the reformer, who was seeking to dethrone the national Improvised Comedy with plays constructed according to foreign principles. A considerable number of Venetians had already been carried away with the deism of Voltaire and 406 GOLDONI the Encyclopaedists, while French fashions were dis- tinctly the vogue. Indeed, there were men like An- gelo Querini bold enough to preach political reform in the very shadow of the terrifying Inquisition of State. In the drawing-rooms, coffee-houses, and casini, French literature was discussed and French fashions were aped; for in Venice, as elsewhere in Europe, the foundations of the old order of things were beginning to crumble under the weight of revo- lutionary sentiment, French philosophy having in- spired even in the hearts of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat the hope that a new era was dawning. Meanwhile, conservatives clung to their precon- ceptions, the word prejudice being used freely by the radicals in condemnation of every restraining influ- ence in politics and morals, even the society of de- crepit Venice being in the state of unrest that pre- vailed throughout Europe, but more particularly in France. Together with the old order of things, the Improvised Comedy had become infirm, and together with the inroad of French ideas and isms, a comedy hitherto unknown to the Italians came into being un- der the adept hand of Goldoni. Moreover, he had satirized the nobles on the stage. So long as he con- fined his reforms to the writing of a style of comedy that heretofore had been extemporized, the conserva- tives saw in him no great menace to the national stage, but when, as in the case of Pamela and The Scotch Girl he entered the lachrymose field of La Chaussee and garnered foreign plots as well, he became in their RIVALS AND CRITICS 407 eyes a radical innovator, and when Chiari followed suit, he too inspired conservative hate. This Toryism found expression in a conserva- tive academy, organized in 1747, under the ribald name of Accademla Granellesca, of which Carlo Gozzi was the inspiring genius. A witless little priest with a tiny voice, named Giuseppe Secchellari, was chosen as Arcigranellone^ or arch-big-simple- ton, of this academy, and with mock reverence its members placed a garland of plums upon his brow, he being enthroned on a huge chair, which he fondly believed to be the seat of the renowned Cardinal Bembo of classic memory, while he was derided in mock odes and flummery which he thought were pane- gyrics. In the heat of summer, whilst the acade- micians sipped cooling drinks, hot tea was given him as a mark of superiority; and in winter, whilst they drank coffee, he was served ice water, the miserable arch-simpleton being forced to sweat or shiver ac- cording to the season. When they tired of frolicking at his expense, the academicians left him to drivel in the chair of Bembo, while they discussed serious mat- ters, the objects of the academy being to promote the study of the best Italian authors, the simplicity and harmony of refined style, and above all the purity of the Italian language. In the pursuance of these wor- thy purposes the Granelleschi fell foul of Goldoni, who far from being a purist was considered by them a radical, guilty of undermining the Italian drama. 13 Granello is a synonym of cogliono and both have the secondary mean- ing of simpleton. 408 GOLDONI Besides Carlo Gozzi and his brother, Gasparo, this academy counted among its members Giuseppe Bar- etti the critic, Forcellini the litterateur, Lastenio the polygraph, and many a lesser light, as well as a sprinkling of dilettante patricians; but of all these only Carlo Gozzi and Baretti attacked Goldoni viciously. Indeed, Gasparo Gozzi was so well dis- posed toward him that he not only criticized his work favourably in the columns of the Gazzetta Veneta, but also saw the Pasquali edition of his plays through the press, after Goldoni had departed for France. Carlo Gozzi, however, was an implacable host in himself, to whose sour, conservative mind the Im- provised Comedy was "the particular distinction of the Italian nation." To this purist Goldoni appeared to possess "poverty and meanness of intrigue," and as a writer of Italian he seemed "not unworthy to be placed among the dullest, basest, and least accurate authors who have used our idiom." Chiari he con- sidered "the most turgid, the most inflated writer of the century," and though he acknowledged "the in- finite superiority of Goldoni as a comic playwright," he looked upon the "mania" created by these drama- tists as "a fungus growth upon opinion, at best worthy of laughter." In the year 1756 14 while the rumour of GoldonFs death was being spread abroad by his Venetian en- emies, Carlo Gozzi wrote a sort of comic almanac 14 In his Memorle inutili Gozzi gives the date as 1757, but the first edition of the Tartana, issued in Paris at the expense of Daniele Farsetti, the patrician to whom it was dedicated, bears the date 1756. RIVALS AND CRITICS 409 verse, entitled The Tartan of Influxes for Leap Year 1756 (La Tartana degl' influssi per I'anno bi- sestile 1756), in which he set forth in octaves the various impending woes of Venice, written, as he avers, "in strictly literary Tuscan, in a style inspired by that of the ancient Tuscan authors." Modelled on an annual almanac for country-folk issued at Treviso, The Tartan was supposed to bear to Venice its monthly influx of troubles. February dealt with comedies, November with Martellian verses, and for December the speedy return from Por- tugal of Antonio Sacchi, the harlequin, and his com- rades was invoked a desire soon fulfilled owing to the great earthquake at Lisbon. In a sonnet that ended The Tartan, Goldoni and Chiari were men- ioned by name, the author declaring himself the inex- orable enemy of their new-fangled plays and the intrepid friend of the Improvised Comedy. Goaded by this attack, Goldoni so far departed from his usual discretion as to reply in some occasional verses writ- ten to welcome a friend upon his return from a rec- torship in the provinces, wherein, to quote Gozzi's aspersion, "he vented this commonplace rigmarole" : In print I've seen a Tartan drag A load of verses, sour and dull Enough to terrify a hag; With plagiarism sauced and full Of acrid salt and arrogance. In one whose luck is on the wane, Such license to forgive, perchance, Is just, when fickle fortune fain 4 io GOLDONI Would turn on him. Yet he who speaks With evil argument and fails In boastful words, with pride atune, To prove the insolence he rails, Acts like a dog who bays the moon. Upon the appearance of this justifiable answer to The Tartan, a battle of pamphlets, sonnets, and squibs ensued in which Gozzi, "whose heart," as Sig- nor Caprin says, 15 "was partly quixotic and partly ruffian," descended to obscenity and ribald personali- ties, whereupon Goldoni pungently and, it may be added, truthfully dubbed him : A Lombard acting in a Cruscan's part, Smiles on his lip, and venom in his heart. 16 The part Gozzi is here accused of assuming, is that of a member of the Accademia della Grusca, which in Florence during the sixteenth century attacked Tasso for the impurity of his Italian. Crusca means bran or chaff, and the symbol of this academy was a sieve, in which the chaff remained after the good flour, or worthy literary products, had passed through. An- swering meekly the accusation made by Gozzi and the Granelleschi, that he was neither a poet nor a scholar, Goldoni thus alludes to the sieve through which Tas- so's writings had been maliciously sifted : I know too well I'm not an able scribe And that from worthy founts I ne'er imbibe: 15 Op. cit. 16 In La Tavola rotonda, verses written on the occasion of the wedding of Pietro Contarini and Maria Venier. In Delll Componimenti diversi, Pasquali ed., Vol. II. RIVALS AND CRITICS 411 As reason and my style dictate, I write; And pleasure, by good luck, I oft incite. Alas, if critics through trie Tuscan sieve Should strain my humble works, they could not live. To this Gozzi replied with a sonnet, in which he stated that he was preparing "a commentary that ld prove both the assumption and the argument/' and soon he circulated throughout Venice a satirical composition entitled The Comic Theatre at the Pil- grim 's Inn, handled by the Granelleschian A cad- emicians (II Teatro comic o all' Osteria del Pelle- grino tra le mani degli accademici granelleschi}. Conceived in an Aristophanic vein, this satire repre- sents the Granelleschi dining during the carnival at the Pilgrim's Inn in the Piazza San Marco, where their pleasures are interrupted by the entrance of a monstrous creature wearing a mask of four strongly marked and dissimilar faces, "each typical of a style of comedy written by Goldoni" his earlier harle- quinades inspired by the Improvised Comedy, his lachrymose comedies in the style of La Chaussee, his oriental melodramas, and his Venetian naturalistic comedies. In the monster's belly there is a fifth mouth, which utters Goldoni's views, as Gozzi meanly interprets them, and in the dialogue that ensues, this choleric foe endeavours to prove that Goldoni "had striven to gain popularity rather by changing the as- pect of his wares than by any merit they really pos- sessed." He argued unjustly that although Goldoni displayed talent in composing Venetian dialogue, he 4 i2 GOLDONI nevertheless incited vice "while praising virtue with the dulness of a tiresome sermon," his plays being "a hundred times more lascivious, more indecent, and more injurious to morals" than the time-honoured mask comedies they sought to supplant. The out- come Gozzi thus describes : The monstrous mask defended itself but poorly, and at last fell to abusing me personally with all its four mouths at once. This did not serve it ; and when I had argued it down and exposed it to the contempt of the Granelleschi, it lifted up its clothes in front and exhibited a fifth mouth, which it carried in the middle of its stomach. This fifth allegorical mouth raised up its voice and wept, declaring itself beaten, and begging for mercy. 17 The proof of Gozzi's bias lies in the charge of obscenity and immorality which he brings against wholesome Goldoni, perhaps the most moral drama- tist of all time. Gozzi's cause was "the purity of literature," yet when he began to write for the stage himself, he displayed more obscenity in his first play than is to be found in all his rival's comedies ; while in the pasquinades he directed against his foe, he de- scends to a baseness and indecency wholly foreign to Goldoni's finer nature. The Comic Theatre at the Pilgrim's Inn was deemed so ribald that its author was urged to withdraw it from circulation, a request in which he acquiesced reluctantly, while continuing to bombard both Goldoni and Chiari with shorter diatribes. Chiari challenged Gozzi and the Gran- elleschi to produce a play. Hunger drove Goldoni 17 Memorle inutili, translated by J. A. Symonds. RIVALS AND CRITICS 413 and Chiari to the writing of comedies, Gozzi re- torted, and since the Granelleschi were not hungry, it was not necessary for them to become playwrights ; whereupon Chiari, making common cause with Gol- doni, addressed him as "most worthy bard of comedy and poet-friend," a compliment Goldoni repaid in kind, though not without a tinge of irony, in these verses : You are the eagle proud, The ant am I : E'en to the highest cloud With ease you fly; My muse ill bears the strain, The cardinal points to gain. Chiari, whose star was waning, was eager to league himself with Goldoni; and in the Gazzetta Veneta, of which he had become the editor, 18 he averred that he and his rival "might be seen walking together in the public piazza and sitting in the most frequented coffee-houses." Although Goldoni and he had "ap- parently been foes," he contended that "even in the councils of Apollo politics were known"; hence, "what appeared to be opposition and enmity was merely laudable rivalry," planned by Goldoni and himself for the purpose of getting "more followers for their respective flags, more money in their theatres, and more applause from the world." "Who will deny," he continues, "that their enmity was a fine piece of politics?" This subtle explanation of a quarrel that had lasted 18 Achilla Neri in the Ateneo veneto, Jan.-Feb., 1907. 4 i4 GOLDONI ten years coincides with Symonds's suggestion that "the alliance these dramatists had struck took off con- siderably from their vogue." In the dramatic race, however, Chiari had been distanced ; therefore, by be- coming the victor's ally, he was able to advertise himself again ; for in spite of Gozzi's attacks, the play- goers still flocked to see Goldoni's comedies. More- over, the latter's fame had spread not only through- out Italy, but abroad as well, Voltaire having already enlisted in his cause. A finer and a fairer critic than Gozzi, this great Frenchman had divined Goldoni's naturalistic genius, for while the Venetian war of diatribes was at its height, he had indited these verses in a letter to the Marquis Albergati-Capacelli (June 19, 1760), which this admirer of Goldoni permitted to be published in the Gazzetta Veneta: On baiting noted men of parts They plume themselves in cultured lands. Goldoni sees abusive darts Aimed at his friends by critics' hands. They know not by what gauge to test The value of his works; in fact In this procedure they request Dame Nature as the judge to act. Thus Nature ably judged the cause 'Twixt critics who could not agree: Though every author has his flaws, This man Goldoni pictured me." When Goldoni thus became an international figure, Gozzi whetted his knife anew. It behoved him to RIVALS AND CRITICS 415 act with more aggressiveness; therefore, he boldly planned to attack his enemy upon his own ground, the stage. "The dropping fire that had been ex- changed between their partisans," says Gozzi, "kept the names and fames of Goldoni and Chiari before the public." As both "professed themselves cham- pions of theatrical reform," and as their aim, as he states it, was to "cut the throat of the innocent Corn- media delT arte" Gozzi felt that he "could not casti- gate the arrogance of these self-styled Menanders bet- ter than by taking his old friends Truffaldino, Tartaglia, Brighella, Pantalone, and Smeraldina un- der his protection." The headquarters of the Granelleschi were in the bookshop of Paolo Colombani, where every month they issued under the title of Atti granelleschi a series of critical and satirical papers, which "drew crowds of purchasers round Colombani's counter." There Gozzi opened fire, so he says, "with a dithyrambic poem, praising the extempore comedians, and com- paring their gay farces favourably with the dull and heavy pieces of the reformers." One day, accord- ing to Baretti, 19 Goldoni and Gozzi "met in a book- shop," which probably was Colombani's, "the oc- casion being propitious for the venting of satirical bile." Both Baretti and Gozzi accuse Goldoni of boastful arrogance during the verbal affray that ensued; yet, both being his enemies, it seems likely that their evidence is considerably col- 19 An Account of the Manners and Customs of Italy. 4i6 GOLDONI oured by their spleen. 20 "Goldoni called me a ver- bose word-monger," Gozzi avers, "and kept asserting that the enormous crowds that flocked to the enjoy- ment of his plays constituted a convincing proof of their essential merit, it being one thing to compose verbal criticisms, and quite another to write plays which will fill theatres with enthusiastic audiences." "Vexed by this appeal to popular judgment," says Gozzi, "I uttered the deliberate opinion that crowded theatres proved nothing with regard to the goodness or badness of the plays which people came to see ; and I further staked my reputation on drawing more folk together than he could do with all his scenic tricks, by simply putting the old wives' fairy-story of the Love of the Three Oranges upon the boards." 21 Undaunted by the incredulous laughter that greeted his quixotic challenge, Gozzi, "to vindicate the hon- our of the Granelleschi," wrote a fantastic piece around the old wives' tale in question, which with his vaunted disregard for royalties, he presented to Sacchi who, since his return from Portugal, had been giving mask comedies in Venice with ill success. This actor produced it during the Carnival of 1761, at the San Samuele theatre, where it created, accord- ing to its author, "such a sudden and noisy revolution of taste, that Chiari and Goldoni saw in it the sentence of their doom." 20 Baretti being in England at the time, writes from hearsay knowl- edge, while Gozzi's account was penned years after the event. 21 Memorie inutili, translated by J. A. Symonds, whose admirable Eng- lish renderings of Gozzi have been used throughout this chapter. GOLDONI IN COLOMBANI'S BOOK SHOP Collection of Professor Italic o Brass RIVALS AND CRITICS 417 The Love of the Three Oranges (L'Amore delle ire melarancie), as Gozzi styled his play, was a Nea- politan fairy tale, translated to the stage in the man- ner made familiar to English audiences by Christmas pantomimes, except that the masks, instead of ap- pearing in a mute harlequinade after the story has been told, are characters in the play itself, Pantalone being a king's adviser; Brighella, or the modern clown, a prince's servant; Truffaldino, or Harlequin, a jester; and Smeraldina, or Columbine, an intriguing Moorish maid. Another of the characters of the Im- provised Comedy, Tartaglia, the stammerer, is a mel- ancholy prince whose father, Silvio, King of Dia- monds, rules an imaginary realm, his minister being Lelio, the Knave of Diamonds, a villain who plots Prince Tartaglia's death in order that he may marry Princess Clarice, the king's niece, and inherit the throne. The people of Venice who, on a carnival night were attracted to the San Samuele theatre by the strange announcement that a familiar nursery tale was to be staged, were taken, as Philippe Monnier says, 22 "to the land where everything happens, where the Blue Bird nests." When the curtain rose, the King of Diamonds, dressed as they had seen him on their playing-cards, was discovered in consultation with time-honoured Pantalone about a mysterious malady that prevented Prince Tartaglia from laughing and was slowly encompassing his death. The prince had 22 Op. cit. 418 GOLDONI been poisoned, said Pantalone, by Lelio's agent, Fata Morgana, the sorceress, with charms in Martellian Ver se, a hit at Chiari and Goldoni, whose Martellian verses "bored every one to death," Gozzi said, "by their monotonous rhyme." As an antidote to the morbid influences of Martellian verse, Fata Mor- gana's enemy, the wizard Celio, sends to King Silvio's court the jester, Truffaldino, the mere sight of whom was sure to provoke laughter. Fata Morgana, the sorceress, and Celio, the wizard, were caricatures of Chiari and Goldoni respectively, and their hostility symbolizes the warfare that had waged for so many years between the two dramatists. When Truffal- dino tried unsuccessfully to make the prince laugh, to quote GozzPs own vulgarity in evidence of his mal- ice: He smelt the prince's breath, and swore that it stank of a sur- feit of undigested Martellian verses. The prince coughed and asked to be allowed to spit. Truffaldino brought him a vessel, examined the expectoration and found it a mass of rancid, rotten rhymes. All through this extravaganza, or theatrical fable (fiaba teatrale), as Gozzi styled his dramatic form, there were coarse thrusts at Goldoni and Chiari ; but the audience, even if it cared little for its rancour, delighted in its whimsicalities, its medley of harle- quinades, satire, and nursery tales, for side by side with Gozzi's attack upon his enemies a tale of en- chantment was unfolded. Melancholy Prince Tar- taglia, shod with a pair of magic iron shoes, sets forth RIVALS AND CRITICS 419 with Truffaldino in search of the three oranges which, as he had heard his grandmother say, were two thou- sand miles away, in the power of Creonta, a gigantic witch. Tartaglia and Truffaldino are wafted by a mighty wind to her domain; where after a series of strange adventures Truffaldino succeeds in plucking the three oranges, which he had been charged by Celio, the wizard, not to open, except within reach of water. When he cuts the first, a beautiful maiden is born, who withers and dies for lack of a drink, and in his anxiety to slake her thirst, he cuts the sec- ond orange and liberates another maiden, who like- wise breathes her last. Just when Truffaldino is on the point of cutting the third orange in the hope that its juice will revive the two maidens who have perished, Prince Tartaglia wrenches it from his grasp, carries it to the shore of a lake, opens it with the point of his sword, and quenches the thirst of the enchanted princess appear- ing from its rind, with water borne to her rosy lips in one of his magic shoes. He marries her, it is need- less to add, after outwitting all his enemies, Truffal- dino being charged by Celio, the wizard, "to keep Martellian verses, those inventions of the devil, out of all dishes served at the royal board." Then, to quote the petulant author of this fantasy: The play wound up with that marriage festival which all chil- dren know by heart the banquet of preserved radishes, skinned mice, stewed cats, and so forth. And inasmuch as the journalists were wont in those days to blow their trumpets of applause over 420 GOLDONI every new work which appeared from Signor Goldoni's pen, we concluded with an epilogue, in which the spectators were besought to use all their influence with these journalists, in order that a crumb of eulogy might be bestowed upon our rigmarole of mystical absurdities. The fight between Gozzi and Goldoni, which cul- minated in the production of The Love of the Three Oranges, was really a preliminary skirmish in the long war that soon waged throughout Europe be- tween classicism and romanticism, for although Gozzi was inspired by a conservative love of the old Impro- vised Comedy, the fiabesque drama by which he expressed it was superlatively romantic; whereas Goldoni's naturalistic comedies were classic in their simplicity and truth. Though his admiration for linguistic purity was pedantic, Gozzi taxed his inven- tiveness in order to appear formless, the supernatural being his element, poetry his passion, and pure enter- tainment his object. Goldoni on the other hand, though in nowise a bookish man, conformed more closely to classicism. Being an observer who loved human nature, he served the truth and sought at the same time to further morality by teaching wholesome lessons, differing thereby mainly in sublimity of sub- ject and loftiness of expression from the dramatists of ancient Greece. Gozzi, however, did not declare himself the purely romantic poet he has been ac- claimed to be by romantic enthusiasts in Germany and France, his romanticism being the unconscious outcome of his spleen, as well as of his satirical sense RIVALS AND CRITICS 421 of humour; since in the avidity with which he pur- sued Goldoni and Chiari his Euripides and Aga- thon he was, as Symonds has pointed out, 23 "a Vene- tian Aristophanes whose crusade against the stage of his day was not set on foot to further the cause of romantic beauty, but rather to assuage his own milW tant sarcasm." Those who saw for the first time The Love of the Three Oranges, found in it a novelty as appealing to their mystic sense as the symbolized moral plati- tudes of Maeterlinck's Blue Bird are to modern au- diences; yet Scala's extravaganzas had satisfied in the previous century a similar fondness for elaborate stage effects and fairy mysticism, a proof that nothing under the theatrical sun is really new. The incon- stant Venetians, so Baretti testifies, forgot the eager- ness with which they had once acclaimed Goldoni and Chiari "in order to mock them while loudly applaud- ing The Three Oranges"; and nightly the San Samu- ele theatre was packed to its doors, while Goldoni's former associates, Antonio Sacchi and Cesare D'Arbes, made light of him. For several years Gozzi continued to delight his countrymen with his whimsicalities, The Love of the Three Oranges being followed by nine other theatri- cal fables from his fanciful pen. 24 Meanwhile, Giu- 23 Op. cit. 24 // Corvo, 1761; // Re cervo, Turandot, La Donna serpente (original of Wagner's Die Feen), all of 1762; Zobeide, 1763; I Pitocchi fortunati and // Mostro turchino, of 1764; UAngellino belverde, and Zeim, re de* genii, of 1765. 422 GOLDONI seppe Baretti, the friend of Johnson and Garrick, re- turned to his native land and established in Venice a short-lived, venomous review, to which he gave the testy name of Literary Scourge (Frusta letterana). An apostle of romanticism and the panegyrist of Shakespeare, this "Italian Lessing" divined in the half real, half fantastic theatrical fables of his fellow Granelleschian a certain affinity with Shakespeare's fanciful comedies, such as The Tempest, which made their author appear to his biased mind the greatest dramatic poet of Italy. Meanwhile he lashed Gol- doni, the naturalist, whom Voltaire, his foe, had ex- alted: "the most vulgar of Italian writers, seeking to play the philosopher and moralist without having studied either philosophy or morals," "a poisoner of the public," "a parrot who repeats what he does not understand," being part of the opprobrium Baretti applied to the author of The Boors and The Chiog- glan Brawls. Goldoni's art was too simple and nat- ural to be understood by the critics of that artificial century. Only a few broad-minded men, such as Vol- taire and Cesarotti, a Paduan poet and man of letters, were able to view it justly. But the pacific man, to whom the long literary war- fare he had been forced against his will to wage was a bitter torment, had fled to France before Baretti began to lash him in his Literary Scourge. 2 * About the time Carlo Gozzi's theatrical fables began to wean 25 Baretti did not begin publishing The Scourge until the autumn of 1762, and in the spring of that year Goldoni had already left Venice. RIVALS AND CRITICS 423 his countrymen from their love for him, Goldoni was offered a two years' engagement as playwright by Les Comedlens du roi de la troupe italienne, who since Moliere's day had been playing in Paris at the Hotel de Bourgogne. This invitation, which was transmitted to him officially by the French ambassa- dor in Venice, gave him an opportunity to retreat with honour from the field where his arch-enemy had triumphed. He foresaw that to expatriate himself, even for so short a period as two years, would make it hard for him ever to compete again for the favour of the Venetian public ; yet, after delighting his coun- trymen with fully a hundred comedies during the fourteen arduous years he had served them, he saw them desert en masse to his enemy's camp the moment the banner of novelty was unfolded there. As Gol- doni himself says, his position was precarious. He tried in vain to secure a legal preferment, and like- wise a pension from the Venetian republic, to support him during "the sad days of old age" ; all he could obtain was a suspension for "the period of his stay in France" of a ten years' contract he had signed with Vendramin in 1756 ; whereupon, having received per- mission of his patron, the Duke of Parma, to leave Italy, he accepted the French engagement, and pre- pared to set out for Paris. Soon the rumour spread throughout the coffee- houses and casini that "papa Goldoni" was about to leave Venice. When he heard this welcome news, Carlo Gozzi was probably not obliged to tickle him- 424 GOLDONI self in order to smile; but the valiant man he had vanquished did not retire from the field of his defeat in a spirit of rancour. Loving his inconstant fellow- countrymen too dearly to bear them any ill will, Gol- doni wrote as his farewell to them one of those natur- alistic plays in the Venetian dialect, that are peculiar to his genius. Though he called it One of the Last Evenings of the Carnival (Una delle ultime sere dl carnovale), this simple picture of Venetian life belies its name, since, instead of carnival joy, a spirit of sadness pervades it. This dramatic trifle is not a play, but rather an allegory, in which the author symbolizes his depar- ture from the land of his birth. The story is con- cerned with the fortunes of Anzoletto, a designer of patterns for silk fabrics, who receives the offer of a remunerative engagement abroad, which he reluc- tantly accepts. With a heavy heart he bids farewell to the weavers for whose looms he has so long de- signed the patterns; and to the Venetians who at- tended its first performance the allegory that lies in this simple picture of Venetian life was evident. The weavers symbolized the actors of the San Luca theatre, and the designer of patterns, the dramatist himself, now called to labour in a foreign land. When the actor playing Anzoletto turned to his com- rades upon the stage and lisped these lines, tears must have welled in the eyes of many a zentlldonna who had belittled Goldoni to her circle of friends, and RIVALS AND CRITICS 425 many a pamphleteer must have blushed for the abuse he had heaped upon his devoted head: Forget this country, this my beloved native land ? Forget my pa- trons, my dear friends ? This is not the first time that I have gone away, and wherever I have been, I have always carried the name of Venice engraven on my heart. I have always remembered the fa- vours, the kindnesses I have received ; I have ever longed to return, and when I have returned, it has always been a consolation. Every comparison I have had occasion to draw has made my country seem more beautiful, more splendid, and more worthy of respect. Each time I returned I discovered new beauties, and so it will be this time, if Heaven permits me to return. I swear upon my honour that I leave with a tortured heart; that no attraction, no good fortune I may meet, will compensate for being far from those who wish me well. Preserve your love for me, dear friends, and may heaven bless you. I say so from the heart. Touched by the fervour of this farewell speech, friend and foe alike arose as one man on that Shrove Tuesday evening of the year 1762, to shout: "Good- bye, Goldoni ! A lucky journey to you ! Remember your promise! Don't fail to come back!" The weary dramatist to whom these Venetians, ere they mingled in mask and domino with the carnival throng outside, shouted a fond farewell, burst into tears as he stood listening in the wings to their friendly shouts. "Come back, Goldoni! Don't fail to come back!" cried the laggards, as the crowd filed out of the San Luca theatre; but the disheartened man of fifty- five, who stood alone upon the stage, though he wept while the lean candle-snuffers put out the lights, and fondly prayed that he might return, never saw his 426 GOLDONI beloved Venice again. One of the Last Evenings of the Carnival was the name he had chosen for the touching allegory with which he bade farewell to the city of his love. "Shunless destiny" made it the last he was to enjoy in his native land. But before the story of the thirty years he passed in France is told, an account must be given of the plays he wrote in verse during the fourteen years he served Medebac and the Vendramins ; for in some of these he rebuked the rivals and critics whose bitterness had driven him into exile. XIII COMEDIES IN VERSE IF the authorship of two thousand or more plays was not attributed to Lope de Vega, and to Alex- andre Hardy that of fully six hundred, Goldoni, in the language of the day, would hold the world's record in dramaturgy. Although his output of two hundred and fifty or more dramatic pieces is dwarfed by the work of these progenitors of the Spanish and French drama, themselves contemporaneous, his fecundity is astonishing, ay, even appalling, to the reader of the present day, accustomed to regard Shakespeare and Moliere as prolific dramatists. In- deed his comedies in verse, which form the subject of the present chapter, fairly vie in number with all the plays of the one, and equal those of the other. In this count, moreover, his tragedies, operas, inter- ludes, and merry plays for music, all of which are metrical, are not included, while his occasional verse alone exceeds in quantity the work of many a modern poet. The object of poetry being to create intellectual pleasure by means of either imagery or passionate language, Goldoni's verse may seldom be called poetry. It is simple and natural, yet so scantily 427 428 GOLDONI adorned with imagery that its prosaic nakedness is ill concealed. Passion such as Moliere voiced in Alceste, his misanthrope, is foreign to Goldoni's merry soul; therefore it seems futile to regard this genial Venetian in the light of a true poet. Indeed, he is merely a nimble versifier, who wrote plays in metrical form whenever theatrical exigencies de- manded them, or whenever he felt called upon to imi- tate French refinement. His occasional verse, more- over, was written to repay obligations, rather than to express the feelings of a heart overflowing with sentiment. Like the verse of his comedies it was penned, as if to order, whenever there was a marriage in the family of some friend or patron, or whenever the daughter of such a family took the veil. Although the stanzas of these occasional verses teem with trite praise of benefactors, Goldoni's nat- uralism now and then appears; in The Gondola (La Gondola], for instance, a humorous dialogue be- tween a Florentine coachman and a Venetian gondo- lier concerning the marriage of one of GoldonPs pa- trons, and in The Padua Packet (II Burchiello di Padova) written in honour of the wedding of an- other. In the latter the author, taking passage on a boat that plies upon the placid Brenta, describes his fellow-voyagers so truly and converses with them so ingenuously, that the reader feels himself to be aboard that Padua packet, pulled by the swarthy oarsmen of the remurchio, or towboat, along "the tranquil and serene lagoon." Yet the reader must COMEDIES IN VERSE 429 turn many a commonplace page of this occasional verse before his weary attention is rested by such de- lights as this; turn, too, many pages of affected verse delivered before the Arcadian academies of Rome, Pisa, and Bologna. Here Goldoni joined "Arcadia itself, its legion of poets, its bevies of shepherdesses, semi-nymphs, semi-nuns its naiads, fauns, and pythian priestesses," and with them "faded into the inane from which like a vapour they had emerged." 1 In justice it must be said that apparently he did not take these occasional poems seriously. In the pref- ace to the volume in which they appear, he says that they are merely "pleasantries in verse, improperly termed poems; for Divine Poetry should be treated differently, and I love and venerate her too much to misuse her name and charming attributes." This may be only becoming modesty; yet his own estimates of his plays are so frankly made in the pages of his memoirs, that it seems unfair to suspect him of a sneaking regard for efforts one is glad to join him in dismissing as "merely pleasantries in verse." His comedies in verse may be taken more seriously, for here he stands upon more solid ground. True, he never rises to poetic heights, even in these plays ; yet unadorned as his dramatic verses are with ima- gery and passion, they are neatly turned at times and frequently disclose the naturalistic qualities on which his fame most surely rests. Like his comedies in prose, they were written at fever-heat, therefore their 1 William Roscoe Thayer: op. cit. 430 GOLDONI lines are often slovenly and in the main are little more than rhymed prose ; nevertheless a few of his comedies in verse, notably those penned in the Venetian dia- lect, vie in spontaneity and truth to nature with his best prose comedies. As in the case of his dramatic work in prose, he is at his highest when painting the life of Venice, and at his lowest when trying to imi- tate Moliere, or the French refinement of his own day. His comedies in verse fall naturally, too, into the categories into which the prose comedies have been divided in the present work Exotic Comedies, Comedies of the Aristocracy, Comedies of the Bour- geoisie, and Comedies in the Venetian Dialect Three of the comedies in verse, however, stand apart from any of the prose comedies in that they treat of the lives of classic poets. Called respect- ively Moliere (II Moliere), Terence (II Terenzio), and Torquato Tasso (II Torquato Tasso), these three comedies, by far the most ambitious of all Goldoni penned, show more conclusively than any, that, how- ever fluent as a versifier, he was not a poet in the true sense. Having chosen such exalted subjects he should have soared to the empyrean; yet though he laboured painfully to rise, the very weight of his task kept him hovering near the prosy earth he had not the ability to leave entirely. Though in subject chronologically the last, Mo- liere was the first of these biographical comedies to be penned. Being considered fully in a later chapter, the plot and poetical attributes of this play COMEDIES IN VERSE 431 about the foremost of French dramatists may be dis- regarded here. A word, however, concerning its metrical form is not amiss, particularly as the Mar- tellian measure adopted by Goldoni on this occasion was subsequently used by him many times, it being the Italian form most closely resembling the Alex- andrine measure of the French classical comedy he sought to emulate. This measure takes its name from Pier lacopo Martelli, an Italian poet who at the time of Goldoni's birth occupied the chair of belles-lettres at the uni- versity of Bologna. A glib writer in several forms of literature, he came under French influence so com- pletely during a visit to Paris in 1713, that he was reproached with Gallicism by his fellow-countrymen for introducing into his tragedies the measure that now bears his name. The Martellian metre, how- ever, though it resembles the Alexandrine in its har- monious rhythm, has one more foot than its French prototype. As it consists of fourteen syllables, it sug- gests the English ballad measure, though the metrical value of the syllable is so different in the two lan- guages that the resemblance is numerical rather than quantitative. Although Martelli defended himself against the charge of Gallicism by maintaining that the measure he had adopted was the invention of Ciullo d'Alcamo, a Sicilian poet of the thirteenth century, he was nevertheless belittled by his contemporaries, who re- fused to accept the new measure as an Italian form 432 GOLDONI Twenty-four years after Martelli's death, 2 Goldoni, in casting about for a form in which to express the sor- rowful love-story of the French Master, chose the Martellian metre as best suggesting French atmos- phere. "The Martellian verse had been forgotten," he says. "The monotony of the caesura, and of the too frequent and always coupled rhymes had already disgusted Italian ears, even during the author's life- time; hence every one was prejudiced against me, for presuming to revivify verses that had already been proscribed. But the effect overcame the prejudice. My verses gave as much pleasure as the play, and Moliere was placed by public opinion beside Pamela." If this be true, the public was as much in error as Goldoni, both Moliere and Pamela being plays in which our Venetian's genius is little manifest. Rather does one agree with the late Giosue Carducci, Italy's foremost modern poet, in his following estimates both of the Martellian measure and of Goldoni's prosaic use of it: With a style at once colourful, strong, and passionate, such as Martelli's is occasionally, the Alexandrine succeeds admirably; when it serves a slovenly, careless style, it becomes valueless and insufferable; therefore it acquired a bad name among us, particu- larly on account of the wretched versification and language of cer- tain comedies by Goldoni and Chiari. 3 2 Goldoni says in his memoirs that "he amused himself in making these verses succeed fifty years after their author's death, but Martelli died in 1727, -whereas Moliere was written in 1751. 3 Note alle nuove poesie di Giosue Carducci, as quoted by P. G. Mol- menti in Carlo Goldoni. COMEDIES IN VERSE 433 "Wretched" is perhaps too strong a term to de- scribe Goldoni's Martellian verse; yet it would be equally wrong to use a word of superlative approba- tion, mediocre being the just adjective with which to qualify it. Luckily, three-fourths of his comedies are in prose. Moreover, though he wrote occasion- ally in verse to satisfy the taste of his more cultivated auditors, he apparently realized that prose is the nat- ural medium of comedy; since in The Comic Thea- tre, he thus pricks a false bubble of tradition: Comedy should be entirely probable, and for the characters to talk in verse is contrary to probability. You will say that comic verses are disguised so as to make them resemble prose. Then why not write simply in prose? Although he held this sane belief, classic tradition often forced him to the use of verse, particularly in the trio of ambitious comedies Moliere, Terence, and Tasso. Indeed a modern continental author writing comedies upon similar subjects would pro- bably resort to verse, so thoroughly rooted is the classical tradition. Alas, in only too many instances verse merely stultifies a play otherwise worthy. In the case of GoldonPs comedies this is peculiarly true, his naturalistic genius strutting awkwardly in poeti- cal attire. In Terence, for instance, the second com- edy of the classical trio, there is scarcely a ray of poetical sunlight to illumine the laboured verses of its five prosaic acts; even in dramatic construction it is inferior to both Moliere and Tasso, there being 434 GOLDONI less unity of action, less truth to nature than in either of these comedies. Though the idol of the public, the Terence of Gol- doni's play is still the slave of Lucanus, a Roman senator. He loves Creusa, a Greek slave girl, who returns his affection ardently, and he is loved by Livia, the adopted daughter of his master, a haughty Roman maid who conceals her passion because of the chains Terence wears, yet plots to circumvent her Greek rival. Indeed, there is considerable plotting and counter-plotting on the part not only of jealous Livia, but of a slave named Damon, as well, envious of his fellow-bondsman's success. Damon is aided by Lisca, a parasite who seeks to balk the worthy pur- pose Lucanus has of manumitting Terence as a re- ward for the fine comedies with which he has adorned the Roman stage. As in both Moliere and Tasso, Goldoni unburdened his artistic heart in this play, particularly in the scene in which parasitic Lisca tells jealous Damon that if he will roast him a brace of pheasants he will teach him how to write a comedy that will undo Terence in the public's favour. Plautus is to be the subject, and the parallel to the discredit of Terence which the latter's enemies will draw is to be both Damon's vindication and his glory. "That is all very well," Damon replies, "and the pheasants are yours, Lisca; yet should I be asked who Plautus was, I know not whether he was a man or some strange beast." Lisca's following an- swer is manifestly the expression of Goldoni's feelings COMEDIES IN VERSE 435 regarding both his own art and its critics, and there- fore autobiographical: I'll give thee light enough on that. Plautus Was born in Umbria, and there had failed In merchantry. Miserably he pined For months, until his lot became so hard That he was forced to grind a mill. The wretch Conceived his comedies, they say, in hours Of rest and tears; when they had reached a score, They wrought such marvels, that good fortune smiled On him. So pure a style had he, that even The Muses, would they speak, must utter words Like his. All wise men do him justice, now; His simple themes are praised, the art, besides, With which he paints men's ways; for, knowing well The world, his insight was derived from it. His life, scant subject for a comedy Doth yield; yet if we romance 't will succeed, 'Twill answer if our parallel doth leave Critical judgment in suspense; then will The crowd applaud. But three or four suffice To slur this slave and leave the public shouting, "O bravo, Damon, bravo!" To bring the story of this dull play to an end it is sufficient to say that the illustrious Terence gains his freedom, and by an expedient not unlike the tricks of Plautus's Phormion Scapin's prototype he gains as well the hand of the Greek girl whom he loves. When, all is said, "Terence," to quote Professor Ortolani, 4 "would not be worthy of remembrance had it not inaugurated at Venice a series of Greco- Latin comedies brief in fortune, yet contemptible." During this period of false art, Socrates, Democritus, 4 Op. cit. 436 GOLDONI Diogenes, yEsop, and Plautus were brought to painful resurrection by dramatic dabblers, among whom Chiari alone is remembered because Carlo Gozzi coupled his name with Goldoni's. Tasso, the third comedy of the classical trio, was also brought to light during this neo-classical orgy Terence had ushered in; yet in Tasso there is a bio- graphical interest at least, it being primarily a po- lemic launched, as Goldoni thus says, against the pedants who had taken him to task for the impurity of his Italian: I was a Venetian; moreover I had the ill luck of having im- bibed with my mother's milk the habit of a very agreeable, very seductive patois, which, alas, was not Tuscan. I learned by rule and I cultivated by reading, the language of good Italian authors, but first impressions reappear in spite of one's intention to avoid them. I had taken a journey to Tuscany, where I had remained four years familiarizing myself with the language; and to purge them of linguistical defects, my plays had been first published in Florence under the eyes and the censorship of the learned men of that country ; yet all my precautions had not sufficed in contenting the rigorists. I had always lacked something. I was ever re- proached with the original sin of Venetianism. Tasso had been persecuted throughout his life by the academicians of La Crusca. His Jerusalem De- livered had not passed, they maintained, through the sieve symbolizing their society. From Tasso's life Goldoni drew the sources of a play in his own de- fence. "One should write in good Italian," he declared ; "but one should write in a way to be under- stood in all the sections of Italy. Tasso was wrong in revising his poem to please the academicians of COMEDIES IN VERSE 437 La Crusca: his Jerusalem Delivered is read by every one; no one reads his Jerusalem Conquered" Thus Goldoni's comedy became a thesis, and his Tasso a spectre of himself fighting his enemies, rather than the great poet whose wrongs at the hands of Duke Alfonso of Ferrara presented so rare an op- portunity to picture truly the crafty, cruel, rose- flecked, thorn-strewn life of a renaissance court, with its temples of love and dungeons of misery, its pol- ished cortegiani and flattering villains with poison vials or daggers concealed beneath their graceful cloaks. Melancholy Tasso gave him the opportunity of creating an Italian Hamlet or an Alceste. In his desire to confound his enemies, he has presented only an atrabilious poet in small clothes and a periwig a Bernardino Perfetti, with too diminutive a head for his majestic laurel crown. The atmosphere is of the eighteenth, not the sixteenth century, the Ferrara of this play being in reality Parma, where Goldoni had basked in the sunshine of a ducal pension. Instead of Maddalo, a villain of the Renaissance who in real life plotted the trusting Tasso's downfall with friendship on his lips, we have prying, gossiping Don Ghe- rardo flitting through this comedy with a quizzing- glass and a snuff-box and minding everybody's busi- ness but his own a villain whose most crafty machination is to steal the manuscript of a poem in which Tasso had sung his unrequited love for Eleo- nora. There are three Eleonoras at this court of Ferrara 438 GOLDONI or rather Parma: Don Gherardo's wife, the duke's mistress, and a waiting maid, and it is on the identity of the Eleonora of Tasso's passion that the intrigue of the comedy hinges. Throughout five acts, Don Gherardo is tripping in and out trying to discover if the Eleonora of the poem is his wife or another, while each of the three namesakes is endeav- ouring to make it apparent that she is the poet's in- amorata, for the distinction of having it said that her charms have been sung by him. The love Tasso dares not declare is for the duke's mistress, and when he is not repining, he is complain- ing of his vapours or ranting against the critics who condemn him. Meanwhile a character called the Cavalier del Fiocco (Knight of the Tuft) taunts him with the impurity of his Italian and makes him long to flee where critics carp not, this fellow being a satire upon the Granelleschi, while the pithy answers of Signor Tomio, a Venetian Philistine, are intended to confound them. Tomio has come to Ferrara to bid Tasso seek an asylum in Venice; there is an amusing Neapolitan, too, who invites him to Naples; and a Roman proffering a laurel crown, which Tasso, after a night in a madhouse (instead of the seven years of reality) accepts, while presaging his own death. In verses without imagery and with an apocryphal story, this is the sort of Tasso Goldoni has portrayed; yet it must be admitted that this portrayal represents a phase of the true Tasso, the dramatist having dwelt faithfully upon the neurasthenic symptoms that gave COMEDIES IN VERSE 439 to the poet's melancholy nature the appearance of madness and left him, victim of his own distrust, a prisoner in a bedlam throughout seven distressing years. It is not with the psychology of Goldoni's Tasso that the quarrel lies, nor with the historical lib- erties taken in condensing into a single day the events of a lifetime, since Shakespeare and Calderon dis- torted history quite as casually. The quarrel is rather with the atmosphere in which the hypochondriacal poet is placed, the characters surrounding him, the flippancy with which a subject fraught with majesty is handled. Goldoni has dressed his hero in small- clothes. About him, in a stuffy apartment, flit sel- fish ducal mistresses, vain wives, coquettish soubrettes, and carping pedants, loading the atmosphere with their scents and snuffs. The air should have been the rose-perfumed air of a moonlit balcony, tempered by the music of a lute in a true lover's hand. No prying gossip or cackling poetaster should have been the villain, but a crafty flatterer hiding his venom beneath the folds of his cloak; while Tasso himself should have been no mere neurasthenic, but rather a poet haunted by the bewildering fancies of a weary mind, a genius of "moping melancholy and moon- struck madness." Moreover, instead of Princess Eleonora D'Este, with her noble qualities of mind, her spiritual beauty, we have a vain and powdered marquise with another cognomen lest her princely rank and name offend a family still regnant. This sop to the stage exigencies 440 GOLDONI of the day may be pardoned, but not Goldoni's failure to create the atmosphere of the Renaissance and a Tasso worthy to breathe it. Yet the very limitations of this play betray his peculiar genius. He could not rise to the height his subject demanded, nor could he fail in portraying the men and women of his time. His Tasso is a phantom of his own vapours, his Eleonora the vain mistress of a petty duke, his villain a prying courtier, his pedant a caricature of Carlo Gozzi to confound him all Italians of his day, just as the classic or historical heroes of Calderon were courtly Castilians true to the audience before which they appeared. Yet Goethe in his Tasso committed the same grave error of depicting in the struggles of the Italian poet his own sufferings from princely patronage. To Eckermann he declared that "the court, the situation, the love passages were at Weimar as at Ferrara." Goethe's scenery, a garden adorned with the busts of epic poets, is more suggestive of the Renaissance than Goldoni's; he follows more closely, too, the events of the poet's life, and gives to his characters their real names ; yet his Tasso is a play of still life so far as action is concerned. Though superior to Goldoni as a poet, in stage-craft Goethe shows inferiority; while in spite of Madame de StaeTs declaration that "in Tasso he is the Racine of Germany," he depicts with scarcely more sublimity than our Venetian the suffer- ings of the half-mad poet during the distressing years he passed at Ferrara. COMEDIES IN VERSE 441 Still more deserving of oblivion than this trio of plays about classical poets are the exotic comedies in verse in which Goldoni plunged blindly into bar- baric lands he knew only from the pages of the Italian translation of Thomas Salmon's Modern History; or, Present State of All Nations; a work more legen- dary than accurate, in which this sailor-author re- counts the stories told him by the marines. Judging by the fantastic Persia, Morocco, Peru, and Guiana Goldoni presents in The Persian Bride (La Sposa perslana) and its two sequels as well as in The Little Dalmatian (La Dalmatlna), The Peruvian Girl (La Peruvlana) , and The Fair Savage (La Bella selvag- gia), as an authority Salmon was akin to Gulliver. Since The Fair Savage was inspired by TAbbe Prevost, 5 and The Peruvian Girl by Madame de Graffigny, 6 it is perhaps unfair to hold the inexact Salmon entirely responsible for the discovery of the apocryphal lands into which Goldoni blindly led his Venetian admirers, particularly as Zelia, his Peru- vian, finds her way to a village in the neighbourhood of Paris. Yet, whatever may be the truth regarding the ori- gin of the various barbaric ladies of Goldoni's im- agination, little need be said about them beyond the fact that they are as romantic as they are unreal. They satisfied a temporary dramatic craze for ad- venturous plots and fantastic scenery, and the curtain may be quickly drawn upon all of them except The 5 Histoire generate des voyages. 6 Lettres d'une Peruvienne. 442 GOLDONI Persian Bride. Here Goldoni appeals to his audi- tors with oriental magnificence and resorts to the melodramatic claptrap of subterranean passages, dag- gers, and sudden escapes; yet this play presents an interesting contrast between European and oriental morals, best elucidated by its author's following words : The subject of The Persian Bride is not heroic: a rich financier of Ispahan, of the name of Machmout, engages and forces Thamas, his son, to marry against his will Fatima, the daughter of Osman, an officer of rank in the Sefavean army. This is what we see every day in our pieces; a young lady betrothed to a young man whose heart is already pre-occupied. . . . But what removed this Asiatic still farther from a level with our ordinary comedies was, that in the house of Machmout, there was a seraglio for himself and another for his son; an arrangement very different from our European custom, where the father and son may have more mis- tresses than they have in Persia, but no seraglio. Thamas had in his a Circassian slave named Hircana, to whom he was tenderly attached, and who, notwithstanding her servitude, proudly refused to allow her lover and master to divide his favour with other women, not even with the one his father destined for his spouse. This is also something new for our climate; for in France, as well as in Italy, a mistress would make no opposition to her friend's forming a respectable and proper connection, provided he continued to see her, or secured her an income by way of consola- tion in her affliction. This contrast between the morals of Europe and the East is cleverly expressed in the play itself, when Thamas, the hero, thus voices his envy of the liberties enjoyed by Europeans : COMEDIES IN VERSE 443 Since no Mohammedan may look upon A woman not his wife, we do not share The joys that are to Europeans given. Italians, Spaniards, Englishmen, and Greeks, Frenchmen, and Germans, too, may not, forsooth, Like us have wives a score; yet in the street, Uncovered by the hundred, they may gaze At them and amorous looks, at least, bestow On them at will. Yet Europe numbers still Amongst her peoples not a few who envy A sad hareem as if the slavery That burdens them were not increased for us. When The Persian Bride was produced the public liked Hircana, the Circassian slave, better than Fa- tima, the protagonist, a popularity that led to the writing of Hircana at Julfa (Ircana in Julfa) and Hircana at Ispahan (Ircana in Ispaan), two plays in which her romantic adventures are continued. Goldoni thought so highly of this Persian trilogy that he devotes two chapters of his memoirs to praise of it; yet silence is to-day the kindest treatment for these oriental plays, foreign both to nature and to GoldonPs genius. An exotic comedy in verse of quite a different na- ture is The English Philosopher (II Filosofo inglese) a play inspired by the ladies of Venice, who, having made a fad of reading Addison's Spectator in a trans- lation then current, believed themselves to be philoso- phers, or rather femmes savantes such as Moliere satirized. Although there is a slight similarity in theme between The English Philosopher and Mo- 444 GOLDONI Here's master-piece, in plot there is none whatever, Goldoni's comedy the scene of which is laid in Lon- don, where he had never set foot being concerned with the secret love of a rich English blue-stocking for a priggish philosopher whose rival is a scion of English nobility. The story of this play is without interest and its principal characters are convention- ally dull; yet some of the minor character-bits are drawn in Goldoni's best vein. Particularly is this true of Panich, the cobbler, whose communistic views are not unworthy our modern disciples of discontent. Indeed, the satire in the following scene is too de- lightful to be passed by, even though the play in which it occurs inadequately represents its author's talent. Here a pot-boy, having seized a pair of Panich the cobbler's shoes as security for a score he has refused to pay, thus appeals to the English phi- losopher who is passing at the time : THE POT-BOY (to the Philosopher} His score he will not pay. Justice, good sir! THE COBBLER (to the Philosopher} 'Tis not through malice, sir, I trow. You pay Too dear refreshment at this inn. A draught Of boiling water scarce a farthing's worth With sugar, lemon, and some rum. Besides No cash have I. Ne'er do I carry it. THE PHILOSOPHER So, master, so! Worthy Philosopher, At inns you drink without the cash to pay? THE COBBLER And you, good sir, who in philosophy Are somewhat learned, such an exorbitance COMEDIES IN VERSE 445 Do you approve? Equal all men are born; Ours are the goods this world contains. This thing Is mine, we should not say ; nor that is yours. If man of fellow-man has need, and by Him is assuaged, to proffer payment is A shame, I trow. Though penniless, I've drunk With him. Whene'er his shoes are worn, I'll fit Him with a pair ; then are we quits indeed. THE POT-BOY (to the Cobbler) Plague take thy shoes ! A shilling is my due. Base cobbler, I will pay thee out! THE COBBLER Pay me ? THE PHILOSOPHER (to the Cobbler) Enough's been said. He's right and Right's A mistress to adore. (To the Pot-boy.) 'Twixt men of worth All chattels are exchanged, not paid. A pair Of shoes I need. Friend Panich here will give Me them for nothing soon. THE COBBLER Slowly, my friend. If I these shoes should give what wilt thou Give me in exchange? THE PHILOSOPHER Nothing: I possess No trade. THE COBBLER But if you have no trade, I have; And for an idle hand I'll not exchange Good shoes. THE PHILOSOPHER And on a like account, with you, A fortune for a shilling's worth, this lad Would not exchange. You know not what you say. 446 GOLDONI THE COBBLER I'd have my shoes. THE POT-BOY Then pay. THE COBBLER Base tyranny! Wouldst make a fellow pay who has no cash Or, 'gainst all nature, let him die of thirst! THE PHILOSOPHER 'Tis true that to assuage your thirst is right. Yet, if you cannot pay, cold water you Should drink. THE COBBLER You know not what you say. My shoes I'd have at once, dost understand, my shoes? (to the Pot-boy) THE PHILOSOPHER (to the Pot-boy) Here is the shilling ; take it ; give the shoes. THE POT-BOY (to the Cobbler) Here are thy shoes. Thy whistle ne'er again I'll wet; a fountain seek, or else a well. (Exit) THE COBBLER (to the Philosopher) I thank thee not; if thou hast paid for me 'Tis but a neighbour's duty to assist his kind. Unto this act of nature wast thou forced : To thee I hold myself no way obliged. Another exotic comedy in verse in which Goldoni leads us to a civilized land instead of to Barbary is The Dutch Doctor (II Medico olandese) a play made interesting by its subjectivity, the rational treat- ment of that intangible malady neurasthenia or, as it was then called, the vapours having been its in- spiration. Though optimistic by nature and genial COMEDIES IN VERSE 447 in temperament, Goldoni, like most writers, was nevertheless a chronic sufferer from nerves. At the close of the strenuous theatrical year when he wrote sixteen plays, he "paid the price of his folly," he tells us, "by falling ill." "Subject as I was," he adds, "to the black vapours that attack at the same time both body and mind, I felt them revive within me more violently then ever." In recalling the needed rest he took at Genoa during the following summer he exclaims : "Ah, but it is sweet, above all when one has worked much, to pass a few days without any- thing to do!" A few years later, after the wife of his worthless brother had died, and the peace of his happy Venetian home was destroyed by the advent of that military adventurer and his two children, Goldoni's nerves were unstrung, as many another man's have been, by a deluge of relations. His own words shall describe his neurasthenia on this occa- sion: I was still suffering from the intense fatigue which I had under- gone for the theatre of Sant' Angelo; and the verses to which I had unfortunately accustomed the public cost me infinitely more trouble than prose. My spleen began to attack me with more than usual violence. The new family, which I maintained in my house, rendered my health more than ever necessary to me, and the dread of losing it augmented my complaint. My attacks were as much of a physical as of a moral nature. Sometimes my imagination was heated by the effervescence of the bodily fluids, and sometimes the animal economy was deranged by apprehen- sion. Our mind is so intimately connected with our body, that if it were not for reason, which belongs to the immortal soul, we should be mere machines. 448 GOLDONI A short time after this attack of neurasthenia, Gol- doni was attending a performance at Milan, when an actor named Angelini who, like himself, was sub- ject to "the vapours," dropped dead upon the stage. The shock to his nerves was so great that crying aloud, "Angelini, my companion in spleen, is dead," he ran home in terror and there was seized with a "real illness," his mind being as he says, "more diffi- cult to cure than his body." The suggestive treat- ment administered on this occasion is remarkable in that day of empiricism: "Considering your dis- ease," his doctor told him, "in the light of a child who comes forward to attack you with a drawn sword if you be on your guard, he cannot hurt you, but if you lay open your breast to him, the child will kill you." "This apologue restored me to health," Goldoni says, "and I have never forgotten it." Be- ing useful "in every stage of life," it proved service- able in the composition of The Dutch Doctor, a com- edy inspired while he was sojourning at Colorno with the court of Parma, during the summer of 1756. A few months later he wrote for his ducal patron the libretti of several musical pieces for one of which, 7 Egidio Domualdo Duni, a musician of Neapolitan birth, who shares with Philador, Monsigny, and Gre- try the distinction of having created opera comique, composed the music. A chronic sufferer from nerves, Duni had once been treated effectively at Leyden by the famous Herman Boerhaave, perhaps the great- 7 La Buona figliuola, the plot of which was taken from Pamela. COMEDIES IN VERSE 449 est physician of the day. With nerves as their bond of sympathy, Goldoni and Duni became intimate during the summer they passed at Colorno. Taking frequent walks together, their conversation turned generally on their real or imaginary evils, and during one of these walks The Dutch Doctor was inspired in the manner Goldoni here relates : M. Duni told me one day that he had been at Leyden in Hol- land, for the purpose of consulting the celebrated Boerhaave on the symptoms of his malady, . . . the only prescription he gave the hypochondriacal musician being to ride, amuse himself, live in his ordinary manner, and avoid all kinds of medicines. . . . Duni, who had seen him for several months, gave me a detailed description of his manners and way of living, and he mentioned Miss Boerhaave, too, who was young, rich, beautiful, and still unmarried. ... I listened attentively to him, and formed in my head the seeds of a comedy which soon shot upwards, with the assistance of a little reflection and moral philosophy. I concealed the name of Boerhaave 8 in my piece under that of Bainer, a Dutch physician and philosopher, and introduced a Pole afflicted with the same disease as that of Duni. Bainer treated him in the same manner; but at the end of the play the Pole married the daughter of the physician. Although the comedy thus inspired, like A Curious Mishap, the scene of which is also laid in Holland, tells a trite story of the winning of a rich Dutchman's daughter by a young foreigner, Dr. Bainer, its pro- tagonist becomes truly interesting because of the fol- lowing advice he gives his hypochondriacal patient, so enlightened for that day of purges and leeches that it is indeed remarkable : 8 Boerhaave died in 1738, eighteen years before Goldoni's musical play was written. 450 GOLDONI Listen I pray: By the neighbouring stream Within the suburbs, choose a shady nook; In gardens fair seek joyful fellowship, And with good friends dine at the common board; Game for amusement, not till ruin comes; For pleasure, try a good horse, now and then; Likewise an honest love which you will find I trow; one nail, the poets say, drives out Another from the plank. Your remedy Behold! If you have faith in my advice No other recompense shall I demand. 9 To find a more truthful atmosphere in GoldonPs versified comedies of the aristocratic and bourgeois life of Venice, than in those depicting an apocryphal orient, or London and The Hague viewed through the pages of translated books and the stories told by travellers, is a reasonable expectation. Although partially realized, the reader of these comedies is still doomed to considerable disappointment, verse being an unnatural medium for the small talk of society, and Goldoni ill at ease in its use. Indeed the best that may be said for these comedies is that they are better than the exotic comedies in verse, not because they fulfil more exactly the requirements of the poetic drama, but because their atmosphere and character- ization are truer to life. A rapid review of the plays in this category will suffice, however, to acquaint the reader with their characteristics. Though it ends happily, The Intrepid Woman (La 9 Goldoni presents a similar exposition of the value of mental treat- ment in Act II, scene 7, of // Ritorno dalla villeggiatura. COMEDIES IN VERSE 451 Donna forte), resembles Shakespeare's Othello, Don Fernando being an lago who poisons the heart of the Marchese di Monte Rosso against his virtuous wife because she has spurned his own amorous attentions. The Harassed Man of Wealth (II Ricco insidlato) tells the story of an heir to an uncle's fortune, who, besieged by the blandishments of sycophants, resolves to unmask them by publishing a false will depriving him of his inheritance; though his fair-weather friends desert him, the heroine remains constant and is rewarded by his hand and fortune. The plot of The Witty Widow (La Vedova spiritosa) is taken from a story by Marmontel; but like The Upper Servant (La Donna di governo) 10 it is not distinguished by elements either striking or praiseworthy. The Spirit of Contradiction (Lo Spirito di contraddizione) is another comedy in verse that may be passed by in silence. 11 The Artful Bride-Elect (La Sposa sa- gace), however, sheds a side-light upon cicisbeism, for here a young officer is both a girl's betrothed and her step-mother's cavalier servente. The Lone Woman (La Donna sola) contains but a single fe- male part, that of a clever widow, who, instead of marrying one of her numerous suitors, converts them all into loyal citizens of a Platonic republic ruled by her charms, she being the opposite of the pro- 10 Goldoni translates the title of this comedy as La Gouvernante, used not in the sense of governess, but of a housekeeper or principal servant. 11 Although Charles Riviere Dufresny had previously written a one- act comedy entitled L'Esprit de contradiction, Goldoni denies having seen it before writing his play of the same name. 452 GOLDONI tagonist of The Capricious Woman (La Donna stra- vagante), a heroine so perverse that when she ap- peared on the stage, Goldoni was forced by his femi- nine auditors to announce that she was a character of pure invention and not taken from life. A wilful, jealous creature, who persecutes her sister and leads a long suffering lover a merry dance, this wayward lady, Donna Livia by name, seemed to La Bresciani, the capricious actress who played the part, so true a portrait of herself that she did her best to ruin the suc- cess of the play. To enliven the plot of The Father through Love (II Padre per amore) which he took from Madame de Graffigny's Cenie, Goldoni intro- duced a pair of monstrous noses, 12 yet even these fail to make it a notable play. The Lover of Himself (L'Amante di se medesimo) gave him, in egotism, a subject for a profound character study such as Mo- liere presents in Le Misanthrope] yet he was too genial by nature to handle it forcibly, therefore this play occupies an unimportant place even among his comedies in verse. The Dancing School (La Scuola di hallo) should have afforded him a more congenial topic, but this piece is not even mentioned by Goldoni in his memoirs. The Ward (La Pupilla] 13 is a 12 Had the lawyers who defended M. Edmond Rostand against the charge of plagiarism brought a few years since been aware of the ex- istence of this play and also of Calderon's L'Alcalde de Zalamea, in which one character makes love on behalf of another beneath a bal- cony, a United States Court might have been spared the ignominy of a decision that made the American judiciary the laughing-stock of the civilized world. 13 This comedy is different in plot and treatment from the musical interlude of the same name written in 1734. COMEDIES IN VERSE 453 comedy written in versi sdruccioli, a measure with the accent of each verse on the antepenultimate syllable. Interesting solely as an attempt on Goldoni's part to imitate Ariosto, it is, as Charles Rabany says, "an extra task Goldoni imposed upon himself which it is useless to impose upon the reader as well." 14 Three society comedies in verse 15 of slightly dif- ferent nature from the foregoing are those penned for performance in the private theatre of his friend and patron the Marquis Albergati-Capacelli. Be- ing intended for amateur production they are shorter than those written for the professional boards, have fewer characters, and are less noteworthy too, even though the leading role in The Witty Cavalier (II Cavalier di spirito], the most interesting of the three, portrays, as its author tells us, the qualities of his witty and genial young host, who himself played the part. Yet, truly as these society and bourgeois comedies in verse paint the Venetian manners of their author's day, they are wholly inferior to his best prose come- dies. Indeed, only occasionally is their awkward verse illumined by a graceful side-light, such as the following lines from one of the dullest of them 16 shed upon Venetian manners. Here a lady versed in gallantry instructs an unruly gentleman in the laws governing cicisbeism, in a spirit truly of the eight- eenth century: 14 Carlo Goldoni; Le Theatre et la vie en Italie au XVIIle siecle. 15 II Cavalier di spirito, La Donna bizzarra, and L'Apatista. 10 // Cavalier giocondo. 454 GOLDONI Go, straightway learn how to behave with ladies! He who enlists in gallantry should do His duty at all costs; though suffering, he Should prove his worthiness to serve; rebuke And rudeness both accept in all good part; Pay dearly for his pleasantries and wiles; Shun all occasion to displease and all That might displease learn to foresee; his friends ' Forsake and in the fair one's company Immure himself; and whether she be sad Or gay, unto her mood he must conform; Nor should he vaunt the thing that pleases him, But by her pleasure regulate his taste. Even as my lady bids he should respond; By night watch over her, and sigh by day; Endure a rival ay, turn pale or blush With jealousy, yet never have the boldness To tell the things he may have seen, in hope Thus to regain the trifle he has lost. His lady's hand ofttimes to strangers he Must yield, yet never babble of revenge, Nor take on airs. When she speaks he should answer, And when she's silent, hold his tongue ; he should Perceive when speech, when silence, pleases her; Impertinence or insult patiently Endure, even at the risk of being thought A simpleton. Let him who knows not how, Refrain thus must he do who would succeed. The most noteworthy of Goldoni's society comedies in verse is The Ball (II Festino), a play conceived and hurried to completion after the failure of The Whimsical Old Man had made the loungers in the Ridotto exclaim, "Goldoni is finished, Goldoni has emptied his bag." Indeed this five-act play in verse, written and produced within fifteen days and given COMEDIES IN VERSE 455 to the copyist act by act, as a tour de force, is made still more remarkable by the fact that it presents a spirited picture of fashionable Venetian life, and is by no means a bad play. It drags, to be sure, par- ticularly in the third and fourth acts, where its action should quicken; yet its characterization is peculiarly true, Doralice, the cicisbea, for whose capricious smiles the Count of Belpoggio neglects a loving wife and squanders a fortune, being as exacting a mon- daine as ever flounced a train, while her fashionable friends may still be met in the palaces of Venice or wherever worldlings congregate. Its title is derived from the ball the Count of Belpoggio gives in honour of Doralice, his flame; yet its interest lies less in its story than in its truthful satire upon fashionable life. It has a biographical interest also, as Goldoni thus re- lates : I contrived to have in a salon adjoining the ball-room an as- sembly of weary dancers. I turned the conversation to The Whimsical Old Man. I repeated all the ridiculous things which I had heard in the Ridotto, keeping up a dispute for and against the piece and the author, and my defence met with the approbation and applause of the public. Thus I proved that my bag was not empty and that my portfolio was not exhausted. In this scene in the room adjoining the ball-room, as well as in two others, 17 Goldoni criticizes himself after the method of Moliere, 18 one character being made to attack and another to defend his work. He 17 Act I, Scene 5, and Act II, Scene 13. 18 La Critique de I'ecole des femmes. 456 GOLDONI hoped, thereby, to confound his critics ; yet the best refutation of the slurs that had been cast upon him was the play itself. A man who could in fifteen days pen so true a comedy, even had prose instead of verse been the medium, was in nowise "finished," nor was his bag of dramatic tricks empty. Indeed, among his prose comedies there is perhaps no more ruthless picture of the vices of the idle rich of Venice than The Ball presents, the Count of Belpoggio, both amorous dallier and spendthrift, being the type of luxurious patrician who was leading proud Venice to her ruin. In the words of the play: When table guests and dancers have withdrawn, Vile creditors his salon crowd at dawn. By night he blithely toes the glistening floor, By day he locks in shame his chamber door. Naturalistic as is the picture Goldoni draws of so- ciety in The Ball, like his other rhymed plays in Tus- can it shows conclusively that prose, not verse, was the true form of his artistic expression. Nor does he ap- pear in his comedies in Venetian verse in the light of a true poet, but rather as "the dear son and painter of nature" Voltaire once acclaimed him. Here, quite as truly as in the prose comedies he penned in the dia- lect of Venice, does he depict her sons and daughters ; for, in spite of their rhymes, the versified comedies he wrote in the soft speech of Venice are prosaical both in conception and language. That verse, even though written in dialect, cannot truly express the feelings of housewives, cooks, roy- COMEDIES IN VERSE 457 sterers, and peasants should have been apparent to even so indifferent a poet; yet this is the medium he used for five comedies of the life of his native city, 19 that are as naturalistic as any he penned in Venetian prose not excepting The Boors and The Chiogglan Brawls. Although there is scarcely a poetic thought in any of the five, they have a certain rhythmic charm, lacking in the "halting and ponderous Martellian verse, which deluged the merry city of the sea" 20 a charm due, no doubt, to the fact that he was writing in his mother tongue. Yet, naturalistic as these five comedies are, they lack fine characterizations such as Lunardo, Don Marzio, and Mirandolina; therefore they cannot be ranked with his best prose comedies, although two of them, The Maids-of- All-Work (Le Massere} and The Public Square (II Campiello), equal any of these in atmosphere and truth to nature. The former, a comedy of life below-stairs, was the first of the five comedies in Venetian verse to be penned; 21 several maids-of-all-work employed in neighbouring households giving the play its title. The picture Goldoni here draws of life both above and below stairs shows that the relations between mis- 19 Le Massere; Le Donne di casa soa; / Morbinosi; Le Morbinose, and // Campiello. 20 Giuseppe Ortolani: op. cit. 21 In his memoirs Goldoni translates Le Massere, the title of this play, as Les Cuisinieres; yet as Italian equivalents of the Venetian word Massera, Boerio's dictionary of the Venetian dialect gives fante, fantesca serva, and casiera, all of which signify servant rather than cook. As the servants from which the play takes its name are employed singly in small establishments, The Maids-of -all- Work is manifestly the correct translation. 458 GOLDONI tress and maid were quite as difficult in his day as they are now. Let us hope, however, that our modern servants are not so deficient in admirable qualities as these faithless Venetian maids-of-all-work who rob their masters and hoodwink them too, who intro- duce lovers into their mistresses's boudoirs and sell the gifts they have been tipped to deliver, and then go forth in mask and domino for the carnival holi- day Goldoni tells us it was customary to accord them, there to frolic among their betters and play amorous tricks upon them. Indeed, the servants he presents not only in this play but in The Sensible Wife, where they tipple their employer's wine; in Hazards of Country Life, where they discuss their mistresses' love-affairs and drink the morning chocolate pre- pared for them; and in The Upper Servant, where one of them leads a household by the nose, are cer- tainly as impertinent and thieving a crew as ever vexed the mistress of a house in any age. Still, Corallina in The Devoted Servant is an incorruptible housemaid, while Lucietta of The New House is a worthy member of her calling even though her tongue wags; hence his pictures of servants are not all drawn mercilessly. Moreover in this parting in- junction to his maids-of-all-work, he shows such an appreciation of the qualities a good servant should possess, that apparently such were not unknown in Venice : Poor drudges, try to act with decency. Since to your hands we trust ourselves, good maids COMEDIES IN VERSE 459 Are worth far more than any golden treasure. Would you betray those who give you your bread, And irritate through wantonness your masters? If you be scurvy, good maids may be had: Dishonest servants we will send afar, And to the good extend a willing hand. Although Goldoni considered The Maids-of- All- Work the most thoroughly Venetian of his plays, like The Housewives (Le Donne di casa soa] , its successor, and a play written, as he tells us, "to encourage good housewives and discourage bad ones," it may be dis- missed as an excellent picture of manners written in rhyme that should have been prose, verse being a poor medium with which to detail either the admira- ble qualities of housewives or the rascalities of serv- ants. Although true in atmosphere and natural in dialogue, these two comedies are both slender and obvious in plot, and undistinguished by any notable character study; a criticism that applies also to The Jovial Men (I Morbinosi] , a play inspired by an out- ing on an island opposite Venice once enjoyed by a hundred and twenty jovial men of the city, of whom Goldoni was one. His words shall tell of the play's conception: This piece was founded on fact: a merrily disposed individual proposed a picnic in a garden of the island called la Giudecca, a short distance from Venice. He gathered together a company of a hundred and twenty, and I was of the number. We all sat at the same table, which was comfortably served, and everything was conducted with the most admirable order and astonishing pre- cision. He had no women at dinner, but a number arrived be- tween the dessert and coffee. We had a charming ball, and we 460 GOLDONI passed the night very agreeably. The subject of this piece was only a fete; and it became necessary to enliven it by interesting anecdotes and comic characters. All these I found in our society; and, without offending any one, I endeavoured to avail myself of them. The Jovial Men is a merry trifle held together by a slender thread of story concerning a jealous wife who tracks her lord to his jovial lair, and a shady opera singer, weary of stage life, who torments a pair of sparks with her charms, while intriguing for a hus- band. Its fascination lies, however, in its spirit of good fellowship: its hilarious merrymaking with wine-cup, music, and dance, and in such sprightly out- bursts as the following lines, wherein Goldoni voices the charms of the fair fisher maidens who dwell upon the isle where his convivial spirits are gathered : Dost think Venetian girls alone are true And virtuous? Though we Giudeccans Are not nobly born, yet have we character. Let those who seek attractive girls, seek us In taste and mien, Giudecca's maids are ne'er Excelled; a flower or ribbon in their hair, And I am sure men must admit their hearts Are stolen. In dancing la forlana Girls of Venice teach them naught. Of myself I speak not; I'm not one of them, but on The banks of this canal they shine like stars; Pretty faces, slender waists, little feet Entrancing: Ah, if you might see them here! Alas, they will not all step forth, I fear. Having extolled his boon companions in The Jo- vial Men, Goldoni "paid court" during the follow- COMEDIES IN VERSE 461 ing year, so he tells us, "to the women of his land" in The Jovial Women (Le Morbinose), a comedy of carnival time in which a merry band of girls and married women play pranks upon a stiff and formal Tuscan until they imbue him with the blithesome spirit of their town, and love for one of their number too. Yet, full of innocent devilries as these ladies are, one cannot help pitying poor Zanetto, prototype of many a modern husband, whose wife "gads all day" ; for when 2anetto's wife goes merrily forth to the piazza in mask and domino she takes with her the family purse and the keys of the pantry, too, thus forcing him to beg a surreptitious meal from the ser- vant of one of her gay friends. By far the most significant, as well as the most charming, of Goldoni's comedies in Venetian verse is The Public Square (II Campiello) a play of the com- mon people in which is depicted the life of one of those little open spaces called campielli, where two tortuous Venetian streets cross each other and a whole neighbourhood works and plays. Here in the sun- light, artisans hammer and pedlars shout, urchins prattle and women altercate; for here, away from the sluggish canals, the splash of the gondola's oar is not heard, nor my lady's laugh beneath her scented mask. The campiello which is the scene of this play, Goldoni tells us, "is surrounded by little houses in- habited by the lower orders, where gaming, dancing, and a hubbub take place" ; yet the gaming is so super- stitious, the dancing so spontaneous, and the hubbub 462 GOLDONI so voluble that only in a Latin land could they ob- tain, while only in Venice is the soft speech of this play lisped by her impetuous and light-hearted chil- dren. So slight is the plot that it can scarcely be called a play. Rather is it a rapidly moving picture of the jealousies and joys of the simple folk who dwell in the "little houses" of this campiello. From the moment Zorzetto appears with his basket of crock- ery prizes, to collect the copper bezzi of the house- wives for la venturing his lottery game, until pretty Gasparina, who uses z instead of s to show her plebe- ian neighbours she is a zentildonna, goes proudly off to wed an impoverished Neapolitan cavalier and re- pair his fortunes with the sequins her crabbed uncle has saved for her dowry, there is a succession of spir- ited scenes depicted in Goldoni's truest vein. We see the life of Venice and hear the gabble of her streets : the young make love, and both old and young eat, drink, gamble, dance, and speak ill of their neigh- bours, in a way so true to nature that we forget this softly rhymed picture couched in verses of varying measure is a play and not a little piece of life snatched bodily from the streets of Venice. Indeed it is in his untranslatable, unconventional plays of the people, such as The Public Square, that Goldoni, the true poet of a people, is unique among the word's great dramatists. What matters it that this bit of dramatic gossamer is held together by the merest thread of a plot? Old Pasqua, the busy-body, and old Gate, the babbler, who squabble and tell each THE PASTRY HUCKSTRESS Museo Correr COMEDIES IN VERSE 463 other plain truths, are not characters in a play, but rather two flesh-and-blood gossips who step into this campiello from their respective doorways, the one to sweep it clear of refuse with her meddlesome broom, the other to prattle its small talk. Moreover, their daughters, Lucietta and Gnese, are a pair of warm-blooded girls of Venice as ready to love as to dance. Anzoletto and Zorzetto, who drag the whole neighbourhood into lovers' quarrels as meaningless as those of Chioggia, are warm-hearted lads of Ven- ice, too, as quick to embrace as to fight, when once a cavalier from Naples has offered to regale the neigh- bourhood if they will stop their quarrel. Yes, this campiello to which Goldoni leads us, across arched bridges and through a maze of ill-smelling streets, does not seem like the scene of a play; and when with pretty Gasparina we leave it and the fair city of which it is a homely part, well may we exclaim with her: Alas, my Venice, oh, my dear, How deep my grief now parting's near! Before I leave, I hail thee, then O dearest Venice, fare thee well, O Venice mine, ah, fare thee well, My good Venetians: gentlemen! O Campiello dear, farewell; Or plain or fair I cannot tell If plain it brings my heart unease, Yet fair's not fair unless it please. XIV EXPATRIATION AFTER Carlo Gozzi's triumph, Goldoni ac- cepted, it will be remembered, an engage- ment for two years as playwright of Les Comediens du rol de la troupe itallenne and bade farewell to the inconstant public he had served faith- fully and brilliantly during fourteen laborious years. "He was stripped of his theatrical honours," says Baretti; while Chiari, his erstwhile rival, now en- tirely forgotten, retired to a country-house in the environs of Brescia. 1 Although his fickle country- men worshipped at a false god's shrine, Goldoni's fame was still sufficient to insure him a livelihood abroad. The first gentlemen of the King's bedchamber had instructed Francesco Antonio Zanuzzi, an actor of the Comedie Italienne, who knew the dramatist, to bid him come to Paris, the invitation being offi- cially delivered to him by the French ambassador in Venice. Goldoni's Parisian engagement therefore was an official appointment; yet his salary seems to have been paid in part by private subscription. In a letter to a friend in Vienna, Favart, the father of 1 An Account of the Manners and Customs of Italy. 464 EXPATRIATION 465 French opera comique, who became Goldoni's Pari- sian crony, says that he was to be paid seven thousand francs a year, 2 and that several lovers of Italian had promised to contribute a portion of that sum, one ardent man of letters who did not understand that language being willing to subscribe twenty-five louis "for the actors' gestures." France was in the throes of the Seven Years' War and her finances were in a hopeless muddle; yet there was money enough both in her public treasury and in the purses of her citizens to hire a gifted foreigner whose praises had been sung by her foremost man of letters. With Voltaire's approval to give him courage, and the promise of a more bountiful salary than he had ever enjoyed in Venice, Goldoni made leisurely preparations for his journey. His aunt went to live with relatives, and his niece, Petronilla Margherita, was placed in a convent, the supervision of her education and welfare being confided to Jean Cornet, a Frenchman engaged in business in Venice with his elder brother Gabriel, the agent of the Elector of Bavaria. To his worthless brother Gian Paolo, Goldoni magnanimously consigned the in- come of such property as had escaped the wreck of the family fortune, and, after entrusting Count Gasparo Gozzi with the proof-reading of the sub- scription edition of his works which Pasquali was publishing, he left Venice during the month of April, 2 In a letter to Albergati-Capacelli (Jan. loth, 1764) Goldoni states that his salary was six thousand francs. 466 GOLDONI 1762, accompanied by patient Nicoletta, his wife, and Antonio Francesco Goldoni, his nephew, then a lad of twelve or thereabouts. Journeying by way of Padua and Ferrara to Bologna, he there visited the Marchese Albergati- Capacelli, and wrote for his host, though suffering from rheumatic fever, a merry play for music. 3 Being bled by candlelight, he had the great pleasure "of seeing his blood, black as mulberries, yet unin- flamed, strong, and vigorous, gush forth as from a fountain." 4 After his recovery he enjoyed for a time the atten- tions of both Albergati and the latter's cicisbea, the Contessa Orsi, then fared on to Parma to present the first two volumes of the Pasquali edition to his ducal patron Don Philip, spending on the way thither a day at Reggio in the congenial company of Paradisi, a poet engaged in translating Voltaire's tragedies. 5 At Parma he brushed up his French, obtained a re- newal of his pension, was presented to the ladies of the ducal family, and made peace with Frugoni, then in his seventieth year, who was attached to the Par- mesan court. This aged poet, whose name was paraphrased by Baretti to signify affected language, had, it appears, paid metrical court some years previously to Aurisbe Tarsense, a lady who in un-Arcadian fields was the widow of a Venetian patrician of scant fortune, 3 La Bella verita. 4 Letter to Albergati-Capacelli, July 2, 1762. s Ibid. EXPATRIATION 467 named Giannantonio Gritti. Chiari, too, had sung her praises as the Eurilla of his pastoral verse, but Goldoni enjoyed her "passionate adoration." When in 1759 our dramatist addressed to her some verses in which Frugoni was satirized, the old bard's jealous anger burst its bounds and he did not make peace with him until he visited Parma on the way to France. 6 "This new Petrarch had his Laura in Venice," Goldoni says. "He sang from afar the graces and talents of charming Aurisbe Tarsense, a shepherdess of Arcadia, while I saw her every day. Frugoni was jealous of me and was glad to see me take my departure." Having some volumes of his plays to present to Princess Henrietta of Modena, Goldoni went to her country seat when he left Parma and there passed three days "delightfully"; journeying thence to Piacenza, he and his family were entertained in that city by the Marquis Casati, a subscriber to the Pas- quali edition, and from beneath his hospitable roof they travelled to Genoa, where, amid "the tears and sobs" of good Nicoletta's relations, they embarked in a felucca for Antibes. After nearly foundering while doubling the Cape of Noli, the felucca luckily reached the roadstead of that town and remained at anchor there until the sea subsided sufficiently for her to proceed to Nice, where our travellers were glad to disembark and go by carriage to Antibes. "I set out from Nice the 6 Giuseppe Ortolani: op. cit. ; Achille Neri: Aneddote goldoniane. 4 68 GOLDONI next day/' says Goldoni, "and crossed the Var, which separates France from Italy. I bade farewell anew to my country and invoked the shade of Moliere to guide me in his." At the frontier he "caught a first glimpse of French politeness" ; for his trunks, which had been ransacked by Italian customs-officers, were not dis- turbed, while at Antibes the commandant refused to examine his passport, and told him "to leave quickly because Paris awaited him impatiently." Heedless of this admonition, he journeyed slowly by way of Marseilles, Aix, and Avignon, to Lyons, where, receiving a curt letter from Zanuzzi urging haste, he learned that the forces of the Comedie Italienne had been united since his departure from Venice with those of the Opera Comique, the receipts of the Italians having sunk too low to warrant their sole use of the Hotel de Bourgogne. Though his talents had been engaged to buoy up the sinking fortunes of his countrymen, though he confesses that Zanuzzi's letter ought to have made him leave Lyons immediately, he tarried in that city nearly a fortnight in order to see its sights and be dined and wined by its rich manufacturers. Con- tinuing his journey when it suited his convenience, he enjoyed the beauties of the fertile land through which he passed, and reached Villejuif, in the environs of Paris, on August 26th, 1762, more than four months after his departure from Venice. There he was met by Zanuzzi and Elena Savi, the leading lady of the EXPATRIATION 469 troupe he had come to serve. Escorting him to the capital in their own carriage, they lodged and supped him in their apartment in the Faubourg St. Denis, and when he opened his eyes on the morrow his .awakening was as pleasant as his dreams, for he was ^'in Paris and happy." Hastening forth on foot with Zanuzzi, he paid his respects to the Due d'Aumont, the officiating gen- tleman of the king's bedchamber, catching, mean- while, a sight of the great city he was "dying to see." In the evening he dined with Camilla Veronese, the soubrette of the Italian troupe, who was a daughter of a provincial pantaloon he had known at Feltre when he was coadjutor to the criminal chancellor of that town. After "a very dainty dinner," shared with an entertaining company, he went to the Hotel de Bourgogne and listened to a French opera comique which he found to be "a strange mixture of prose and tunes." But he had not come to Paris merely to enjoy its sights and pleasures; therefore he rented an apart- ment near the Comedie Italienne and began to study the characteristics of the actors for whom he was to write comedies, a task in which he was materially aided by his neighbour Madame Francesco Ricco- boni, 7 an actress who had recently retired from the 7 Marie Jeanne de Heurles de Laboras de Mezieres (1714-1792), trans- lator of Fielding's Amelia and author of Miss Jenny, a novel Goldoni translated into Italian during the last years of his life. Her husband, the ^on of Luigi Riccoboni, was an actor and playwright, as well as the author of L'Art du theatre. 47 o GOLDONI stage to devote herself to literature, and who knew the Italian players so thoroughly that her account of their talents proved to be "very just" and worthy of her "honesty and sincerity." The plays he wrote while in France form the topic of the succeeding chapter; hence it is only necessary to record here that during the two years of his en- gagement with the Comedie Italienne he worked faithfully in the fulfilment of his contract, some thirty scenari and comedies being penned by him. The Italian players he served, being inexperienced in act- ing written plays and their public used to seeing them in extemporized farces, he was compelled to turn backward in his art and begin again the reform of comedy for which he had striven so valiantly in his native land. Meanwhile he learned to love Paris and her people. His modest temporary lodgings three rooms and a study, for which he paid a monthly rental of sixty- four francs were in the Rue Comtesse d'Artois ; 8 near by stood the Hotel de Bourgogne, where the Italians played, and scarcely a stone's throw away were the Louvre and the Palais Royal. Living in its very heart he fell a victim to the allurement of the bright city he thus describes : Paris is a world in itself. Everything there is on a large scale ; there is much that is good and much that is bad. Whether you go to the theatres, the promenades, or the pleasure resorts, every place is full even to the churches, and everywhere there is a crowd. In a city of eight hundred thousand souls there must 8 Letter to Gabriel Cornet, Sept. 6, 1762. EXPATRIATION 471 necessarily be more good and bad people than anywhere else . . . The rake will easily find the means to satisfy his passions. A good man will be encouraged in the exercise of his virtues. . . . The further I went the more I became absorbed in the ranks, the classes, the ways of living and the different modes of thinking. . . . But in the course of time I looked with another eye upon that immense city, its people, its amusements, and its dangers. I had had time for reflection and I had learned that the confusion I had experienced was not a physical or moral defect of the land; hence I decided in all good faith that curiosity and impatience had been the cause of my bewilderment, and that it was possible to enjoy Paris and be amused there, without growing weary, and without sacrificing one's time and tranquillity. Before beginning his work at the Comedie Ital- ienne, he obtained from its actors a furlough of four months for the purpose of studying their character- istics and requirements. While enjoying the leisure thus acquired he went to Fontainebleau, during the autumn of 1762, and witnessed there a command per- formance of his scenario, Harlequin's Son Lost and Found. But so many quips from Moliere's Ima- ginary Cuckold (Le Cocu imaginaire) were inter- polated, he says, that "the court was displeased and the play a failure." This bungling of his scenario by comedians greedy for laughs showed him that he did not have to do with such actors as he had left behind him in Italy, and that he was no longer the master he had been at home. He saw the royal fam- ily, however, the ministers and diplomats, and viewed at close range the glitter of a profligate court, "the Dauphin being gracious enough to speak to him twice." 9 9 Letter to Gabriel Cornet, Oct. 24th, 1762. 472 GOLDONI Upon returning to Paris he moved from his modest rooms in the rue Comtesse d'Artois to more preten- tious quarters overlooking the gardens of the Palais Royal, which he furnished tastefully at an expense of four thousand francs "in the hope that the Muses would descend more willingly upon the verdure sur- rounding his study and the allurement of the light o' loves who strolled beneath his windows. 10 From his study he could see petits maitres ogling pretty women, ardent lovers lolling with their mistresses beneath the trees, and a novel sight certainly to one who came from the land of cicisbeism hus- bands promenading contentedly with their wives. Opposite his window stood the famous Cracow tree, under the spreading branches of which newsmongers discussed the affairs of the nation ; on the footway be- fore the neighbouring Cafe de Foy light-hearted merrymakers breakfasted in the open air. Such relaxations were helpful to him at times, he says, "since they rested his mind agreeably and he was able to return to his work with more vigour and cheerfulness." He had need, alas, of both these qual- ities, for when the Italian actors produced the first comedy he wrote for their stage, 11 it failed so dis- mally that it was withdrawn after its fourth per- formance. Yet the time for a successful play was propitious. War had drained the resources of the nation during seven ignoble years, and peace was being signed in Paris at that very moment. 10 Letter to Albergati, Jan. 24, 1763. ^L'Amore paterno. EXPATRIATION 473 Although the French public was attuned to merri- ment, Goldoni had not yet learned its taste, and the chagrin he experienced was so great that he was on the point of leaving Paris. Pride and the charm of that fair city kept him at his task, however, until he had fulfilled his contract; but after his first failure the Italian actors lost faith in him. "They won't learn comedies that are written," he complained, "and they don't know how to improvise them." When the first year of his engagement drew to a close he vowed that if the second had no better fortune he would leave Paris. "Man does not live by bread alone," he confessed to his friend Albergati, 12 "for reputation is the food of upright men, and that will make me return to Italy sooner." But instead of forsaking the country of his adoption, he acceded to the actors' demands for improvised comedies. Early in the second year of his engagement one of the scenari he penned 13 proved so successful that he was able to announce to Albergati the establishment of his Parisian reputation; a triumph fully attested by his contemporaries, since Grimm saw in this pros- titution of his dramatic talents to the exigencies of the theatre, enough material for three or four come- dies; while Favart declared that it forced all the French actors to admit there had been no such genius since Moliere. Moreover, Desboulmiers, a lesser light, exclaimed that "it would be necessary to be 12 Letter of Aug. isth, 1763. 13 Gli Amori di Arlecchino e dl Camilla, produced Sept. 27th, 1763. 474 GOLDONI Moliere in order to be able to praise its author worth- ily." 14 The gall of previous failure was tempered by this success; yet to win it Goldoni resorted to the tricks of the improvised comedy he had fought so valiantly to banish from the Italian stage. "Any sacrifice, however, was sweet," he declares, "any trouble bear- able for the pleasure of remaining two years in Paris"; his love for that engaging city being en- hanced, no doubt, by the many friends he acquired as a stranger within its hospitable gates, and the re- spect paid to his talents by its actors and playwrights. As a distinguished foreigner he had the entree to the Comedie Franchise, and on the occasion of his first visit to that classic playhouse, when he saw Mo- liere's Misanthrope performed by "incomparable actors," he longed to see one of his own pieces played by "such fellows," a satisfaction the Fates, as will be seen, had in store for him. It is not strange that he >hould have been impressed by the acting of Les Gomediens du roi de la troupe franqaise, since in their ranks at that time were Mme. Champmesle, Mile. Clairon, Lekain, Preville, and Mole a his- trionic galaxy that perhaps has never been eclipsed. To the art of the Comedie Franchise Goldoni pays this still merited tribute: Jftere is the school of declamation where nothing is forced, either in gesture or expression; the steps, the movements of the arms, the glances, the dumb scenes are studied; yet art hides the study under the semblance of nature. 14 E. Maddalena: Goldoni e Favart; Giulio Caprin: op. cit. ; etc. EXPATRIATION 475 Though the plays he saw at the House of Moliere were surpassingly acted, one of them, Diderot's Father of a Family (Pere de famille) involved him in a contretemps with its distinguished author. When the production of this didactic comedy was an- nounced, Freron, the journalist whom Voltaire had satirized upon the stage, maliciously said in print that, as Diderot had filched scenes from Goldoni's True Friend (II Vero amico) to embellish his Nat- ural Son (Le Fils naturel), it was reasonable to suppose that since the Venetian had already given birth to a Father of a Family, chance might again make the comedies of these actors coincide. "God gave Diderot every quality," says Arsene Houssaye; 15 and in the generous distribution resent- ment was apparently included, for the great ency- clopaedist was so nettled by this largely unmerited charge of plagiarism that he took occasion to dis- miss the dramatist he was accused of imitating as "Charles Goldoni, who has written some sixty farces." 16 Moreover, when his Venetian rival, ac- companied by Duni, the composer, paid him a cere- monious visit in the hope of convincing him that his indignation was unmerited, Diderot resented so warmly the wound Goldoni had inadvertently dealt his pride that Duni, to mollify him, was obliged to quote these lines of Tasso : 'T is time all bitter memories were effaced, And bygone things by amnesty embraced. ^Histoire du XLme Fauteull. 16 De la Poesie dramatique. 476 GOLDONI Diderot "appeared to subscribe to these senti- ments," says Goldoni, and after reciprocal compli- ments had passed between the encyclopaedist and him- self, he took his leave, feeling that he had gained the esteem of a man who had been sadly prejudiced against him and that he might count that a triumphal day. It proved at least a convivial day, since he dined that evening with a coterie of nine literary in- timates who, because they broke bread together every Sunday, styled themselves the Dominicaux, their weekly meetings for good fellowship and cheer being termed Dominicales. Favart, the librettist, whose romantic love-story still awaits a novelist's pen, was a member of this club, and he probably introduced his Italian colleague to its select precincts. Even before the latter's ad- vent in France, Favart had acclaimed him "our dear Goldoni"; moreover, three or four days after his arrival, the transalpine dramatist praised Favart in verse, "his house being one of the first, if not the first, he frequented in Paris." 17 To the end of his life Favart remained Goldoni's friend, and so did Pierre Antoine de la Place, the journalist another of these Dominicaux; the other members of the coterie being De la Garde, the critic who was La Pompadour's secretary; Saurin, the Academician; Antoine Louis, secretary of the Royal Academy of Surgery; Jouen, a fameless adherent; the younger Crebillon, and the Abbe de la Porte, a 17 E. Maddalena: Goldoni e Favart. EXPATRIATION 477 gazetteer whose aim was to discredit all that scur- rilous Freron praised. Had not Goldoni penned The Inquisitive Women before he came to France, this play might have been inspired by the Dominicaux, for the only law gov- erning their festivities, he tells us, "was to exclude women." Yet brazen Sophie Arnould, of angelic voice and racy tongue, invaded a dominicale held at La Pompadour's hotel with De la Garde as the host, and so captivated the misogynic revellers with her beauty and wit that they proclaimed her their "sole dominical sister." 18 Having no role that day, the diva bade them attend the opera with her, but the songs Goldoni had heard in drawing-rooms made him loath to subject his Ital- ian tympani to the strain of French screeching on a larger scale. To convince him that he misjudged the native music, fair Sophie sang him a song with her own charming voice. "Kiss me," she cried, as the last notes died away, "and come to the opera," a dual invitation a man addicted to soubrettes could not well withstand. At the opera he found that "everything was beautiful and magnificent, except the music," and shocked his French friends by de- claring when the curtain fell that "it had been heaven for the eyes but hell for the ears," a verdict according with Rousseau's dictum that "there is neither measure nor melody in France." Thus in the agreeable society of literary men and 18 Dedication to Favart of Un Curioso accidente. 478 GOLDONI stage-folk, Goldoni passed the leisure moments of the years he served the Comedie Italienne, and though he had turned life's half-way mark, his eyes were not too dim, it would seem, to blink at the sight of a pretty face. Regarding the wiles of Parisian soubrettes he is singularly silent; yet he says it would be impossible "to be more blithe and pleasing" than Camilla Veronese, the soubrette of the Italian troupe; so perhaps his susceptible heart was victim- ized by her charms. At all events, like the Panta- lone of his Whimsical Old Man, he was "a well pre- served winter pear with plenty of pulp, juice, and substance," since during the second year of his en- gagement with the Comedie Italienne he was haled before a French tribunal by a certain Catherine Lefebvre and charged with being her betrayer. The lady bore an alias, however, and the case was settled out of court; therefore, it is to be hoped that good Papa Goldoni, instead of being guilty at his ripe age of such an iniquity, had merely been unwary enough to be entrapped by a wily blackmailer on the outlook for guileless foreigners. 19 Although biographical candour prevents the gloss- ing over of this shady incident, it is a relief, never- theless, to turn from it to an honourable intercourse. Goldoni had known in Venice, it will be remembered, Madame du Boccage, whom he had called "the Parisian Sappho," and in her "agreeable and instruc- 19 E. Campardon : Les Comediens du roi de la troupe Italienne. V. Carrera: Di un nuovo documento intorno alba vita di C. G. EXPATRIATION 479 tive conversation" had whiled away many a plea- surable hour. When he set out for Paris, Count Al- garotti, a cosmopolitan literary globe-trotter of con- siderable notoriety and little merit, charged him, on behalf of Farsetti, a poet, with the delivery to her of a book. Goldoni mislaid it and several months passed before he could find it, and meanwhile he dared not pay his respects to his talented friend, the poetess. When he finally found Farsetti's book he presented it, together with profuse apologies for his dereliction, to Madame du Boccage, who forthwith invited him to dine. "Goldoni loves Paris madly," she wrote Algarotti after the dramatist had been her guest. 20 "Even the hubbub of the streets pleases him, and save for the opera and the high cost of pro- visions, he is enchanted with everything." In the salon of Madame du Boccage notable peo- ple of all nationalities gathered, "every foreigner dis- tinguished for his good qualities or his talents being eager upon arriving in Paris to pay court to her." Her genial Venetian guest was persona grata also in the drawing-rooms of the Countess Bianchetti, a charming fellow-countrywoman, and Madame Po- thovin d'Huillet, the widow of a Parisian legal light, who spoke Italian fluently. He so bored Madame du Deffand, however, when he read her one of his best comedies, that to Horace Walpole she pro- nounced it "the coldest and flattest play of the day." 21 20 Letter to Algarotti, March 24th, 1763. 21 Letter to Walpole, Oct. 9th, 1771. The play was Le Bourru bien- jaisant. 480 GOLDONI Yet all Frenchwomen of intelligence did not thus decry Goldoni's talent. Jeanne Franchise Floncel, the wife of a noted bibliophile, translated two acts of his Venetian Advocate into French, while "a charming lady," whom he fails to name, not only introduced him to a Parisian dandy as "the Moliere of Italy," but so encouraged him by praising some scenari 22 he had outlined for the Comedie Italienne that he made from them a pleasing trilogy of written comedies for the stage of his native city. At the Venetian embassy he was ever a welcome guest, and to the Chevalier Tiepolo, the ambassador, he dedicated the first comedy he penned in France. 23 Though Tiepolo soon retired from the service, his successors, Andrea Gradenigo and Sebastiano and Giovanni Mocenigo, continued the ambassadorial courtesy, the last named being the patrician whose wedding to a doge's daughter Goldoni had attended in 1752. At the table of Voltaire's friend, Count d'Argental, the Parmesan plenipotentiary, as well as in his private theatre, there was always a seat for our dramatist, and under this hospitable roof he met many a congenial literary amateur. The Dutch ambassa- dor, too, honoured him with his protection, while with his excellency's colleagues of the diplomatic corps, he "passed agreeably," he says, "a considerable portion of his time." Only his failure to satisfy his dramatic ambitions 22 Gli Amori di Arlecchino e dl Camilla; La Gelosia di Arlecchino; Le Inquietudini di Camilla. 23 L'Amore paterno. EXPATRIATION 481 marred the pleasure of his life in Paris> for he was treated with distinction by society, whilst among the Dominicaux he found the good companions "that do converse and waste the time together." The two most notable Frenchmen in his own profession he does not confess to knowing; but Marivaux, whose talents were only begrudgingly recognized by his con- temporaries, was dying almost in obscurity, whilst the star of Beaumarchais's genius has not yet risen. Voltaire, whose sponsorship had given Goldoni an international reputation, was in Switzerland, and Rousseau he did not know until a later date ; but Mar- montel "honoured him with his friendship" and praised his work in the Mercure de France. When the glory of the Dominicaux had waned, Goldoni assisted Favart and De la Place in the for- mation of a new club he styles a pique-nique, which met once a week at L'Epee de Bois, an inn near the Louvre. At this convivial board he became intimate with a coterie of minor literary and dramatic lights, among whom the poets Laujon and Colardeau are perhaps the least obscure. But the pique-nique club was disrupted by the introduction of an uncongenial pamphleteer who had criticized one of its members adversely; therefore "it ended," Goldoni says, "like the Dominical 'e." Thus in dining and wining, in dalliance and agree- able converse, he passed the idle moments of his two years' engagement with the Comedie Italienne, his dutiful wife being immured, meanwhile, like the 482 GOLDONI wife of one of his inimitable boors. "She amused herself little in Paris," he assured Albergati, "be- cause she could not understand or make herself un- derstood"; whilst he, on the contrary, "spoke and un- derstood either well or badly and enjoyed himself." In truth he found Paris "a fine region for a man who liked good society," and although all of its people were not sincere, none were displeasing, courtesy be- ing, as he says, "the national characteristic." 24 When in the spring of 1764 his engagement with the Comedie Italienne came to an end, the moderate success his plays had enjoyed made the Italian actors loath to renew their contract with him, 25 whilst he was unwilling to continue his humiliating efforts to please the French public with scenari instead of writ- ten comedies. Moreover, "six thousand francs were not enough for a well-bred man to live upon in Paris," he complained, and he could not endure see- ing "incapable actors earn fifteen thousand," 26 an unjust disparity that still obtains between the play- wright's royalties and the .actor's salary, for without plays that please the million, even the most brilliant of stars will bring ruin to his manager. Being in a quandary, Goldoni thought of returning to Venice, whence Vendramin was importuning him 24 Letter to Albergati-Capacelli, Oct. 25, 1762. 25 According to A. G. Spinelli, Fogli Sparsi, on March 9, 1764 Goldoni was no longer playwright of the Comedie Italienne, but the gentlemen of the King's Chamber retained Goldoni in Paris. He continued to write occasionally for the Comedie Italienne until Easter, 1765. See also Goldoni's letter of April 16, 1764, in Masi, Letter e. 26 Letter to Albergati-Capacelli, Jan. loth, 1764. EXPATRIATION 483 for comedies; but there his arch-enemy's theatrical fables were still the vogue, and there Baretti was accusing him of having "debauched the minds and hearts of his countrymen." "Good, bad, or indiffer- ent though I may be," he complained bitterly, 27 "Ba- retti can neither add anything to me nor subtract any- thing from me" ; yet he did not subject himself to the immediate sting of this critic's literary scourge. From Lisbon, Vienna and London he received tempt- ing offers, but he loved Paris, and "Dame Fortune," he said, "wished him to be there." 28 "A lucky star came to his aid," he declares, "in the person of Mademoiselle Sylvestre, reader to the Dauphiness, Marie Josephe de Saxe, mother of Louis XVI." That lady, the daughter of a Saxon painter, received from her compatriot the Dauphiness "all the credit that her talents and demeanour merited." Besides, she understood Italian and had read Gol- doni's comedies, so when she learned of his reluctance to leave Paris, she suggested his name to her royal mistress as an aspirant for the post of court instructor in Italian. As the outcome of this friendly inter- cession, he was engaged to teach the fourth born of Louis XV's ten legitimate children, Madame Ade- laide, whose deceased sister, Princess Louise Elisa- beth, or Madame L'Infante, as she was called, had been the wife of his patron, the Duke of Parma. When he presented himself at the door of the Dauph- 27 Letter to Albergati-Capacelli, April 16, 1764. 28 Letter to Albergati-Capacelli, March 18, 1765. 484 GOLDONI iness in the palace at Versailles, his friend Favart 29 says he mistook the smiling woman who greeted him at the threshold for a lady-in-waiting. "Welcome, Monsieur Goldoni," she said; "I hear that you like France." "Yes, madame," he answered. "Very well, then, we wish you to remain, since it gives you pleasure. Would you like to teach Ma- dame Adelaide Italian?" "Ah, madame," he exclaimed; "it is too ... too "Follow me," said the lady, relieving his embar- rassment; "I will take you to her," and when she saw his hesitation she said : "I believe you don't know me." "No, madame," he answered, "I have not that hon- our." "It 's an acquaintance to make," she laughed, "and I hope it will be a good acquaintance for both you and me." Leading him to Madame Adelaide's apartment, she said with "bourgeois familiarity": "Sister, let me introduce your teacher" ; whereupon the amazed dramatist realized for the first time that the supposed lady-in-waiting was the Dauphiness her- self. Madame Adelaide proved equally gracious. "Are you sure you wish me for a pupil ?" she asked ; 29 Letter to Count Giacomo Durazzo, March 5, 1765. EXPATRIATION 485 and when she saw he was too embarrassed to do more than bow, she continued: "These are the arrangements I propose. Except on fete days and Sundays, we will take an hour's lesson every day in the morning. No, not every day, for you may have matters to attend to in Paris. I don't wish to disturb you; therefore we will work only three days a week; but without bothering you, for if you have something important on hand you will be at liberty to tell me. But you mustn't trouble yourself about anything. We will get lodgings for you here. You will live with us, for we are simple folk." The hapless Dauphin, who died within the year, strolled into the room, and, treating Goldoni with equal kindness, showed him some Italian songs. Nothing being said regarding emoluments, the new tutor retired when it suited the royal pleasure, glory- ing in so honourable an employment, and "sure of the bounty of his august pupils"; "Providence," as he wrote his friend Cornet, 30 "having betokened its bless- ings, and God having freed him from the actors," who, as he remarks in his memoirs, "were perhaps not vexed at getting rid of him." His post, however, was not the sinecure Favart's account of his audience with the royal family would indicate, for instead of giving Madame Adelaide an hour's lesson three times a week, in a letter to Al- 30 Feb. 24, 1765. 4 86 GOLDONI bergati, 31 written soon after he began his new duties, Goldoni says that he taught her five times a week, the lessons lasting from two and a half to three hours, with the time divided into four equal parts, devoted respectively to reading Muratori's annals, to a philo- logical discussion of the Italian and French lan- guages, to the reading and translation of the tutor's own comedies, and to speaking, writing, and arguing in Italian. A rigorous morning's work it Would seem; yet his royal pupil was no pampered princess, Mesdames de France, despite their father's moral laxity, having been strenuously reared. Lodgings in the Chateau de Versailles were as- signed Goldoni 32 within a few weeks after his duties as royal tutor began. Meanwhile Madame Ade- laide sent a post-chaise every day to fetch him from Paris, and on one of these journeys, while reading Rousseau's Lettres de la montagne, he suddenly lost the use of his eyes. The book fell from his hand, he says, and he could not see sufficiently to pick it up. He could distinguish light, however, and when he reached the chateau, managed to grope his way to Madame Adelaide's apartment and take his ac- customed seat on a footstool. The princess noted his agitation, but he was too proud to confess the cause. Believing he could fulfil his duties, he opened the book they had been reading on the previous day, but 31 March 18, 1765. 32 In a letter to Albergati-Capacelli, May 3, 1765, he says that his apartment in the Chateau was situated au second escalier attenant a La Galerie des Princes au fond du corridor N. 107. EXPATRIATION 487 he could not see the print and was obliged to ac- knowledge his disability. "It is impossible/' he says, "to depict the kindness, the tenderness, the com- passion of that great princess," for it was not the salutary eye-washes she brought him with her own hand or the attentions of her physician that made him recover his sight, but her "kindness." His re- covery was not complete, however, since he lost en- tirely the use of his left eye. Although the blindness of an eye was to his com- placent mind "but a trifling inconvenience," at night he was obliged to have a light beside him, a vexation when playing cards, for when he moved his seat he was forced to carry a candle, much to the annoyance of the ladies with whom he gamed. He was a crafty player, however, and one night at Versailles he waited until Louis XV, who had the reputation of being lucky, held the bank at lansquenet; then risked upon it successfully six louis of his moderate means. He was a discreet player, too, at least in his old age, one who "preferred winning six francs to losing them"; but like his associates at court, he played habitually, since he could not pass an evening, he confesses, "without doing anything, and after the news of the day had been told, and one's neighbours, and even one's friends, had been criticized, to game was absolutely necessary." His post in the household of Madame Adelaide, or Madame Troisieme, as she was jokingly styled until the successive deaths of her twin elder sisters 4 88 GOLDONI gave her the quality of first-born, 33 brought Goldoni into intimate contact with court life. Although his royal pupil told him that she and her family were simple folk, she was nevertheless jealous of her rank and a stickler in matters of etiquette. Moreover, when her nephew married Marie Antoinette and mounted the throne, she became the most meddle- some of Mesdames tantes, as Louis XV's surviving daughters were then called. 34 She showed none but her good qualities to Goldoni, however, or else he was a more accomplished courtier than he is willing to acknowledge, he being ever warm in his praise of her. Though she neglected for a considerable time to recompense his services in the bountiful way he had expected, she was gracious enough to chat with his wife for half an hour on a certain occasion, 35 and she permitted that worthy helpmate to accompany her lord during the summer of 1765 when the King and court went en villeglature to Marly and Com- piegne. While at the latter place, Goldoni received news of the death of his benefactor, the Spanish Infant, Don Philip, Duke of Parma, and mourned his loss so deeply that the melancholia of his younger days began to affect him once more. But his spirits were soon brightened by the renewal of the Parmesan pension he had enjoyed for nine years, his friend Count d'Argental, the Parmesan plenipotentiary, 33 Louise-Marie, the third child of Louis XV, died in infancy. 34 Casirair Stryienski : Mesdames de France. 35 Letter to Gabriel Cornet, May 13, 1765. EXPATRIATION 489 being the kind functionary who brought this lucky event to pass. With his grief thus substantially as- suaged, he was able to take a pleasure trip to Chan- tilly before returning to his duties at Versailles. While following Louis XV and his court on the grands or petits voyages, or while fulfilling his peda- gogic duties in the palace at Versailles, he was able to view court life familiarly and enjoy occasions of intimacy with the royal family, such as he thus de- scribes : I wrote an Italian cantata which I had set to music by an Italian composer, and I presented it to the Dauphiness, who, in accepting it, graciously commanded me to come to hear it played in her rooms after supper. On this occasion I learned a point of etiquette of which until then I had been ignorant. I entered the royal apartment at 10 o'clock in the evening and presented myself at the door of the cabinet des nobles. The usher did not prevent me from entering: Monseigneur le Dauphin and Madame la Dauphine being at table, I stepped aside to watch them sup. A lady-in-waiting came toward me and asked if I had the entree in the evening. "I do not know, madame," I answered, "the dif- ference between the entree in the daytime and the entree in the evening. The Princess herself commanded me to come to her room after supper. I came too soon perhaps, but I did not know the etiquette." "Monsieur," answered the lady, "there is none for you; you may remain." I own that my self-esteem was not a little gratified on this occasion. I remained, and when the Prince and Princess retired to their apartments, I was summoned and my cantata performed. The Dauphiness played the harpsichord ; Madame Adelaide accompanied her on the violin, and Mademoiselle Hardy (afterwards Madame de la Brusse) sang. The music gave pleasure and compliments were paid the author of the words, which I accepted modestly. I wished to take my leave, but Monsieur le Dauphin had the good- ness to detain me. He sang and I had the good fortune to hear 490 GOLDONI him; but what did he sing? a pathetic oratorio called The Pil- grim at the Sepulchre. Like the great Frenchman to whom he has been injudiciously compared, Goldoni filled a minor post at court, content, ay, even proud to be in the royal service. But Moliere became a courtier to further his art and outwit his enemies, and the Italian to keep the wolf from his door; therefore the fawning of these geniuses of comedy is certainly more venial than venal. Goldoni, however, confessed himself a poor syco- phant. "If I did not profit by the royal favour," he avers, "it was my own fault, for I did not know how to beg. I was at court, yet I was not a courtier." But he was not entirely devoid of parasitical quali- ties, since he acknowledges that when he found him- self one day in the presence of the Dauphin, the Dauphiness, and Mesdames de France, he seized the opportunity "to present and recommend his nephew." 36 Moreover, when offered an engage- ment in London (1770), he again belied his declara- tion that he was not a courtier, for although he was anxious to see a city "that alone could dispute the supremacy with Paris," the time of the royal mar- riages was approaching and he wished to be present at these festivities. "Furthermore it was not the / King of England who invited me," he exclaims, /; "but the managers of the opera, who wished to at- ;