all hopes of concealing this visit from
the public had vanished. My servant had their names upon his lips, and
Venice would soon be saying that my humiliated enemy had gone to
prostrate himself at his persecutor's feet.[67]

Gratarol did not make his entrance like a suitor. He was closely masked,
and came swaggering into my tiny workroom with the swaying gait which is
called "English style." When he raised his mask, the steam from his face
rose to the ceiling, and I could see by his rolling eyes, quivering
lips, spasms of pain, and frensied contortions, that the man suffered
like the Titan with the vulture preying on his liver.

We all three took seats, and Signor Gratarol opened the conference by
saying: "I have come to visit you, not as a suitor, but as a reasoner
upon the merits of this case. Pray do not interrupt the thread of my
argument, but give me patient hearing to the end." For upwards of an
hour he thundered and declaimed like an infuriate Demosthenes against
what he chose to call my "vindictive comedy." "Not that the personage of
Don Adone has the least resemblance to my character," he added, "but
that you meant it to hurt and outrage me." Starting on this note, he
proceeded to dilate upon the splendour of his birth and education, his
widespread celebrity, the offices of State he had discharged, his
election as ambassador at Naples, and the magnificent career which lay
before him. "From the height of all this glory," said he, "I have fallen
in a moment, and become the public laughing-stock through your comedy!"
Then he touched upon his enemies among the great, and alluded
significantly to a certain lady who had vowed his ruin. That led up to a
moving picture of his present distress: "When I pass along the streets
or cross the piazza in my magisterial robes, the very scum and
_canaille_ swarm around me, leave their shops, and point me out as the
secretary to the Senate who is being turned to ridicule in your _Droghe
d'Amore_." He writhed upon his seat and tears fell from his eyes as he
spoke these words, never reflecting that it was not _my_ play, but _his
own_ bad management which had brought these tragi-comic woes upon him.

Resuming the thread of his discourse, he imprudently let out the fact
that during the last few days he had presented a petition--to what
tribunal he did not say--for the suppression of my piece. Then, hastily
catching himself up, as though he had gone farther than he meant, "In
short