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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Casanova's Homecoming, by Arthur Schnitzler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Casanova's Homecoming
+
+Author: Arthur Schnitzler
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9310]
+Posting Date: August 4, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASANOVA'S HOMECOMING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CASANOVA'S HOMECOMING
+
+
+By Arthur Schnitzler
+
+
+1922
+
+
+The Translation of this book was made by EDEN AND CEDAR PAUL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+
+Casanova was in his fifty-third year. Though no longer driven by the
+lust of adventure that had spurred him in his youth, he was still hunted
+athwart the world, hunted now by a restlessness due to the approach of
+old age. His yearning for Venice, the city of his birth, grew so intense
+that, like a wounded bird slowly circling downwards in its death flight,
+he began to move in ever-narrowing circles. Again and again, during the
+last ten years of his exile, he had implored the Supreme Council for
+leave to return home. Erstwhile, in the drafting of these petitions--a
+work in which he was a past master--a defiant, wilful spirit seemed to
+have guided his pen; at times even he appeared to take a grim delight in
+his forwardness. But of late his requests had been couched in humble,
+beseeching words which displayed, ever more plainly, the ache of
+homesickness and genuine repentance.
+
+The sins of his earlier years (the most unpardonable to the Venetian
+councillors was his free-thinking, not his dissoluteness, or
+quarrelsomeness, or rather sportive knavery) were by degrees passing
+into oblivion, and so Casanova had a certain amount of confidence that
+he would receive a hearing. The history of his marvellous escape from
+The Leads of Venice, which he had recounted on innumerable occasions at
+the courts of princes, in the palaces of nobles, at the supper tables of
+burghers, and in houses of ill fame, was beginning to make people forget
+any disrepute which had attached to his name. Moreover, in letters to
+Mantua, where he had been staying for two months, persons of influence
+had conveyed hope to the adventurer, whose inward and outward lustre
+were gradually beginning to fade, that ere long there would come a
+favorable turn in his fortunes.
+
+Since his means were now extremely slender, Casanova had decided to
+await the expected pardon in the modest but respectable inn where he had
+stayed in happier years. To make only passing mention of less spiritual
+amusements, with which he could not wholly dispense--he spent most of
+his time in writing a polemic against the slanderer Voltaire, hoping
+that the publication of this document would serve, upon his return to
+Venice, to give him unchallenged position and prestige in the eyes of
+all well-disposed citizens.
+
+One morning he went out for a walk beyond the town limits to excogitate
+the final touches for some sentences that were to annihilate the infidel
+Frenchman. Suddenly he fell prey to a disquiet that almost amounted
+to physical distress. He turned over in his mind the life he had
+been leading for the last three months. It had grown wearisomely
+familiar--the morning walks into the country, the evenings spent in
+gambling for petty stakes with the reputed Baron Perotti and the
+latter's pock-marked mistress. He thought of the affection lavished upon
+himself by his hostess, a woman ardent but no longer young. He thought
+of how he had passed his time over the writings of Voltaire and over the
+composition of an audacious rejoinder which until that moment had seemed
+to him by no means inadequate. Yet now, in the dulcet atmosphere of a
+morning in late summer, all these things appeared stupid and repulsive.
+
+Muttering a curse without really knowing upon whose head he wished it
+to alight, gripping the hilt of his sword, darting angry glances in all
+directions as if invisible scornful eyes were watching him in the
+surrounding solitude, he turned on his heel and retraced his steps
+back to the town, determined to make arrangements that very hour for
+immediate departure. He felt convinced that a more genial mood would
+possess him were he to diminish even by a few miles the distance that
+separated him from the home for which he longed. It was necessary to
+hasten, so that he might be sure of booking a place in the diligence. It
+was to leave at eventide by the eastward road. There was little else
+to do, for he really need not bother to pay a farewell visit to
+Baron Perotti. Half an hour would suffice for the packing of all his
+possessions. He thought of the two suits, the shabbier of which he
+was wearing at that moment; of the much darned, though once elegant,
+underlinen. With two or three snuffboxes, a gold watch and chain, and a
+few books, these comprised his whole worldly wealth. He called to mind
+past splendors, when he had travelled as a man of distinction,
+driving in a fine carriage; when he had been well furnished both with
+necessaries and with superfluities; when he had even had his own
+servingman--who had usually, of course, been a rogue. These memories
+brought impotent anger in their train, and his eyes filled with tears.
+A young woman drove towards him, whip in hand. In her little cart, amid
+sacks and various odds and ends, lay her husband, drunk and snoring.
+Casanova strode by beneath the chestnut trees that lined the highway,
+his face working with wrath, unintelligible phrases hissing from between
+his clenched teeth. The woman glanced at him inquisitively and mockingly
+at first, then, on encountering an angry glare, with some alarm, and
+finally, after she had passed, there was amorous invitation in the look
+she gave him over her shoulder. Casanova, who was well aware that rage
+and hatred can assume the semblance of youth more readily than can
+gentleness and amiability, was prompt to realize that a bold response on
+his part would bring the cart to a standstill, and that the young woman
+would be ready to give him any assignation he pleased. Nevertheless,
+although the recognition of this fact put him in a better humor for the
+nonce, it seemed hardly worth while to waste minutes upon so trivial
+an adventure. He was content, therefore, to allow the peasant woman to
+drive her cart and all its contents unimpeded through the dust of the
+roadway.
+
+The sun was now high in the heavens, and the shade of the trees hardly
+tempered the heat. Casanova was soon compelled to moderate his pace.
+
+Under the thick powder of dust the shabbiness of his garments was no
+longer apparent, so that by his dress and bearing he might easily have
+been taken for a gentleman of station who had been pleased for once in a
+way to walk instead of drive. He had almost reached the arched gateway
+near his inn, when he met a heavy country carriage lumbering along the
+road. In it was seated a stoutish man, well dressed, and still fairly
+young. His hands were clasped across his stomach, his eyelids drooped,
+and he seemed about to doze off, when of a sudden he caught sight
+of Casanova, and a great change took place in him. His whole aspect
+betrayed great excitement. He sprang to his feet, but too quickly, and
+fell back into his seat. Rising again, he gave the driver a punch in the
+back, to make the fellow pull up. But since the carriage did not stop
+instantly, the passenger turned round so as not to lose sight of
+Casanova, signalled with both hands, and finally called to him thrice by
+name, in a thin, clear voice. Not till he heard the voice, did Casanova
+recognize who it was. By now the carriage had stopped, and Casanova
+smilingly seized two hands outstretched towards him, saying:
+
+"Olivo, is it really you?"
+
+"Yes, Signor Casanova, it is I. You recognize me, then?"
+
+"Why not? Since I last saw you, on your wedding day, you've put on
+flesh; but very likely I've changed a good deal, too, in these fifteen
+years, though not perhaps in the same fashion."
+
+"Not a bit of it," exclaimed Olivo. "Why, Signor Casanova, you have
+hardly changed at all! And it is more than fifteen years; the sixteen
+years were up a few days ago. As you can imagine, Amalia and I had a
+good talk about you on the anniversary of our wedding."
+
+"Indeed?" said Casanova cordially. "You both think of me at times?"
+
+The tears came to Olivo's eyes. He was still holding Casanova's hands,
+and he pressed them fondly.
+
+"We have so much to thank you for, Signor Casanova. How could we ever
+forget our benefactor? Should we do so..."
+
+"Don't speak of it," interrupted Casanova. "How is Signora Amalia? Do
+you know, I have been living in Mantua three months, very quietly to
+be sure, but taking plenty of walks as I always have done. How is it,
+Olivo, that I never met you or your wife before?"
+
+"The matter is simple, Signor Casanova. Both Amalia and I detest the
+town, and we gave up living there a long time ago. Would you do me the
+favor to jump in? We shall be at home in an hour."
+
+Casanova tried to excuse himself, but Olivo insisted.
+
+"I will take no denial. How delighted Amalia will be to see you once
+more, and how proud to show you our three children. Yes, we have three,
+Signor Casanova. All girls. Thirteen, ten, and eight--not one of them
+old enough yet--you'll excuse me, won't you--to have her head turned by
+Casanova."
+
+He laughed good-humoredly, and made as if to help Casanova into the
+carriage. The latter shook his head. He had been tempted for a moment
+by natural curiosity to accept Olivo's invitation. Then his impatience
+returned in full force, and he assured his would-be host that
+unfortunately urgent business called him away from Mantua that very
+afternoon.
+
+What could he expect to find in Olivo's house? Sixteen years were a long
+time! Amalia would be no younger and no prettier. At his age, a girl of
+thirteen would not find him interesting. Olivo, too, whom he had known
+in old days as a lean and eager student, was now a portly, countrified
+paterfamilias. The proposed visit did not offer sufficient attractions
+to induce Casanova to abandon a journey that was to bring him thirty or
+forty miles nearer to Venice.
+
+Olivo, however, was disinclined to take no for an answer. Casanova must
+at least accept a lift back to the inn, a kindly suggestion that could
+not decently be refused. It was only a few minutes' drive. The hostess,
+a buxom woman in the middle thirties, welcomed Casanova with a glance
+that did not fail to disclose to Olivo the tender relationship between
+the pair. She shook hands with Olivo as an old acquaintance. She was a
+customer of Signor Olivo's, she explained to Casanova, for an excellent
+medium-dry wine grown on his estate.
+
+Olivo hastened to announce that the Chevalier de Seingalt (the hostess
+had addressed Casanova by this title, and Olivo promptly followed suit)
+was so churlish as to refuse the invitation of an old friend, on the
+ridiculous plea that to-day of all days he had to leave Mantua. The
+woman's look of gloom convinced Olivo that this was the first she had
+heard of Casanova's intended departure, and the latter felt it desirable
+to explain that his mention of the journey had been a mere pretext, lest
+he should incommode his friend's household by an unexpected visit, and
+that he had, in fact, an important piece of writing to finish during the
+next few days, and no place was better suited for the work than the inn,
+where his room was agreeably cool and quiet.
+
+Olivo protested that the Chevalier de Seingalt would do his modest home
+the greatest possible honor by finishing the work in question there. A
+change to the country could not but be helpful in such an undertaking.
+If Casanova should need learned treatises and works of reference, there
+would be no lack of them, for Olivo's niece, the daughter of a deceased
+half-brother, a girl who though young was extremely erudite, had arrived
+a few weeks before with a whole trunkful of books. Should any guests
+drop in at times of an evening, the Chevalier need not put himself
+about--unless, indeed, after the labors of the day, cheerful
+conversation or a game of cards might offer welcome distraction.
+Directly Casanova heard of the niece, he decided he would like to make
+her acquaintance, and after a show of further reluctance he yielded to
+Olivo's solicitation, declaring, however, that on no account would he be
+able to leave Mantua for more than a day or two. He begged the hostess
+to forward promptly by messenger any letters that should arrive during
+his absence, since they might be of the first importance.
+
+Matters having thus been arranged to Olivo's complete satisfaction,
+Casanova went to his room, made ready for the journey, and returned to
+the parlor in a quarter of an hour. Olivo, meanwhile, had been having a
+lively business talk with the hostess. He now rose, drank off his glass
+of wine, and with a significant wink promised to bring the Chevalier
+back, not perhaps to-morrow or the day after, but in any case in good
+order and condition. Casanova, however, had suddenly grown distrait and
+irritable. So cold was his farewell to the fond hostess that, at the
+carriage door, she whispered a parting word in his ear which was
+anything but amiable.
+
+During the drive along the dusty road beneath the glare of the noonday
+sun, Olivo gave a garrulous and somewhat incoherent account of his life
+since the friends' last meeting. Shortly after his marriage he had
+bought a plot of land near the town, and had started in a small way as
+market gardener. Doing well at this trade, he had gradually been able to
+undertake more ambitious farming ventures. At length, under God's favor,
+and thanks to his own and his wife's efficiency, he had been able three
+years earlier to buy from the pecuniarily embarrassed Count Marazzani
+the latter's old and somewhat dilapidated country seat with a vineyard
+attached. He, his wife, and his children were comfortably settled upon
+this patrician estate, though with no pretence to patrician splendor.
+All these successes were ultimately due to the hundred and fifty gold
+pieces that Casanova had presented to Amalia, or rather to her mother.
+But for this magical aid, Olivo's lot would still have been the same.
+He would still have been giving instruction in reading and writing to
+ill-behaved youngsters. Most likely, he would have been an old bachelor
+and Amalia an old maid.
+
+Casanova let him ramble on without paying much heed. The incident was
+one among many of the date to which it belonged. As he turned it over in
+his mind, it seemed to him the most trivial of them all, it had hardly
+even troubled the waters of memory.
+
+He had been travelling from Rome to Turin or Paris--he had forgotten
+which. During a brief stay in Mantua, he caught sight of Amalia in
+church one morning. Pleased with her appearance, with her handsome but
+pale and somewhat woebegone face, he gallantly addressed her a friendly
+question. In those days everyone had been complaisant to Casanova.
+Gladly opening her heart to him, the girl told him that she was not well
+off; that she was in love with an usher who was likewise poor; that his
+father and her own mother were both unwilling to give their consent to
+so inauspicious a union. Casanova promptly declared himself ready
+to help matters on. He sought an introduction to Amalia's mother, a
+good-looking widow of thirty-six who was still quite worthy of being
+courted. Ere long Casanova was on such intimate terms with her that
+his word was law. When her consent to the match had been won, Olivo's
+father, a merchant in reduced circumstances, was no longer adverse,
+being specially influenced by the fact that Casanova (presented to him
+as a distant relative of the bride's mother) undertook to defray the
+expenses of the wedding and to provide part of the dowry. To Amalia, her
+generous patron seemed like a messenger from a higher world. She showed
+her gratitude in the manner prompted by her own heart. When, the evening
+before her wedding, she withdrew with glowing cheeks from Casanova's
+last embrace, she was far from thinking that she had done any wrong
+to her future husband, who after all owed his happiness solely to the
+amiability and open-handedness of this marvellous friend. Casanova had
+never troubled himself as to whether Amalia had confessed to Olivo the
+length to which she had gone in gratitude to her benefactor; whether,
+perchance, Olivo had taken her sacrifice as a matter of course, and had
+not considered it any reason for retrospective jealousy; or whether
+Olivo had always remained in ignorance of the matter. Nor did Casanova
+allow these questions to harass his mind to-day.
+
+The heat continued to increase. The carriage, with bad springs and hard
+cushions, jolted the occupants abominably. Olivo went on chattering in
+his high, thin voice; talking incessantly of the fertility of his land,
+the excellencies of his wife, the good behavior of his children, and
+the innocent pleasures of intercourse with his neighbors--farmers and
+landed gentry. Casanova was bored. He began to ask himself irritably why
+on earth he had accepted an invitation which could bring nothing but
+petty vexations, if not positive disagreeables. He thought longingly of
+the cool parlor in Mantua, where at this very hour he might have been
+working unhindered at his polemic against Voltaire. He had already made
+up his mind to get out at an inn now in sight, hire whatever conveyance
+might be available, and drive back to the town, when Olivo uttered a
+loud "Hullo!" A pony trap suddenly pulled up, and their own carriage
+came to a halt, as if by mutual understanding. Three young girls sprang
+out, moving with such activity that the knife-board on which they had
+been sitting flew into the air and was overturned.
+
+"My daughters," said Olivo, turning to Casanova with a proprietary air.
+
+Casanova promptly moved as if to relinquish his seat in the carriage.
+
+"Stay where you are, my dear Chevalier," said Olivo. "We shall be at
+home in a quarter of an hour, and for that little while we can all make
+shift together. Maria, Nanetta, Teresina, this is the Chevalier de
+Seingalt, an old friend of mine. Shake hands with him. But for him you
+would...."
+
+He broke off, and whispered to Casanova: "I was just going to say
+something foolish."
+
+Amending his phrase, he said: "But for him, things would have been very
+different!"
+
+Like their father, the girls had black hair and dark eyes. All of them
+including Teresina, the eldest, who was still quite the child, looked at
+the stranger with frank rustic curiosity. Casanova did not stand upon
+ceremony; he kissed each of the girls upon either cheek. Olivo said a
+word or two to the lad who was driving the trap in which the children
+had come, and the fellow whipped up the pony and drove along the road
+towards Mantua.
+
+Laughing and joking, the girls took possession of the seat opposite
+Olivo and Casanova. They were closely packed; they all spoke at once;
+and since their father likewise went on talking, Casanova found it far
+from easy at first to follow the conversation. One name caught his ear,
+that of Lieutenant Lorenzi. Teresina explained that the Lieutenant had
+passed them on horseback not long before, had said he intended to call
+in the evening, and had sent his respects to Father. Mother had at first
+meant to come with them to meet Father, but as it was so frightfully
+hot she had thought it better to stay at home with Marcolina. As for
+Marcolina, she was still in bed when they left home. When they came
+along the garden path they had pelted her with hazel nuts through the
+open window, or she would still be asleep.
+
+"That's not Marcolina's way," said Olivo to his guest. "Generally she is
+at work in the garden at six or even earlier, and sits over her books
+till dinner time. Of course we had visitors yesterday, and were up later
+than usual. We had a mild game of cards--not the sort of game you are
+used to, for we are innocent folk and don't want to win money from one
+another. Besides, our good Abbate usually takes a hand, so you can
+imagine, Chevalier, that we don't play for high stakes."
+
+At the mention of the Abbate, the three girls laughed again, had an
+anecdote to tell, and this made them laugh more than ever. Casanova
+nodded amicably, without paying much attention. In imagination he saw
+Marcolina, as yet unknown to him, lying in her white bed, opposite the
+window. She had thrown off the bedclothes; her form was half revealed;
+still heavy with sleep she moved her hands to ward off the hail of nuts.
+His senses flamed. He was as certain that Marcolina and Lieutenant
+Lorenzi were in love with one another as if he had seen them in a
+passionate embrace. He was just as ready to detest the unknown Lorenzi
+as to long for the never seen Marcolina.
+
+Through the shimmering haze of noon, a small, square tower now became
+visible, thrusting upward through the greyish-green foliage. The
+carriage turned into a by-road. To the left were vineyards rising on a
+gentle slope; to the right the crests of ancient trees showed above the
+wall of a garden. The carriage halted at a doorway in the wall. The
+weather-worn door stood wide. The passengers alighted, and at the
+master's nod the coachman drove away to the stable. A broad path led
+through a chestnut avenue to the house, which at first sight had an
+almost neglected appearance. Casanova's attention was especially
+attracted by a broken window in the first story. Nor did it escape his
+notice that the battlements of the squat tower were crumbling in places.
+But the house door was gracefully carved; and directly he entered
+the hall it was plain that the interior was carefully kept, and was
+certainly in far better condition than might have been supposed from the
+outward aspect.
+
+"Amalia," shouted Olivo, so loudly that the vaulted ceiling rang. "Come
+down as quickly as you can! I have brought a friend home with me, an old
+friend whom you'll be delighted to see!"
+
+Amalia had already appeared on the stairs, although to most of those
+who had just come out of the glaring sunlight she was invisible in the
+twilit interior. Casanova, whose keen vision enabled him to see well
+even in the dark, had noted her presence sooner than Olivo. He smiled,
+and was aware that the smile made him look younger. Amalia had not grown
+fat, as he had feared. She was still slim and youthful. She recognized
+him instantly.
+
+"What a pleasant surprise!" she exclaimed without the slightest
+embarrassment, hastening down the stairs, and offering her cheek to
+Casanova. The latter, nothing loath, gave her a friendly hug.
+
+"Am I really to believe," said he, "that Maria, Nanetta, and Teresina
+are your very own daughters, Amalia? No doubt the passage of the years
+makes it possible...."
+
+"And all the other evidence is in keeping," supplemented Olivo. "Rely
+upon that, Chevalier!"
+
+Amalia let her eyes dwell reminiscently upon the guest. "I suppose," she
+said, "it was your meeting with the Chevalier that has made you so late,
+Olivo?"
+
+"Yes, that is why I am late. But I hope there is still something to
+eat?"
+
+"Marcolina and I were frightfully hungry, but of course we have waited
+dinner for you."
+
+"Can you manage to wait a few minutes longer," asked Casanova, "while I
+get rid of the dust of the drive?"
+
+"I will show you your room immediately," answered Olivo. "I do hope,
+Chevalier, you will find it to your taste; almost as much to your
+taste," he winked, and added in a low tone, "as your room in the inn at
+Mantua--though here one or two little things may be lacking."
+
+He led the way upstairs into the gallery surrounding the hall. From one
+of the corners a narrow wooden stairway led into the tower. At the top,
+Olivo opened the door into the turret chamber, and politely invited
+Casanova to enter the modest guest chamber. A maidservant brought up
+the valise. Casanova was then left alone in a medium-sized room, simply
+furnished, but equipped with all necessaries. It had four tall and
+narrow bay-windows, commanding views to the four points of the compass,
+across the sunlit plain with its green vineyards, bright meadows, golden
+fields, white roads, light-colored houses, and dusky gardens. Casanova
+concerned himself little about the view, and hastened to remove the
+stains of travel, being impelled less by hunger than by an eager
+curiosity to see Marcolina face to face. He did not change, for he
+wished to reserve his best suit for evening wear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+
+When Casanova reentered the hall, a panelled chamber on the ground
+floor, there were seated at the well-furnished board, his host and
+hostess, their three daughters, and a young woman. She was wearing
+a simple grey dress of some shimmering material. She had a graceful
+figure. Her gaze rested on him as frankly and indifferently as if he
+were a member of the household, or had been a guest a hundred times
+before. Her face did not light up in the way to which he had grown
+accustomed in earlier years, when he had been a charming youth, or later
+in his handsome prime. But for a good while now Casanova had ceased to
+expect this from a new acquaintance. Nevertheless, even of late the
+mention of his name had usually sufficed to arouse on a woman's face an
+expression of tardy admiration, or at least some trace of regret, which
+was an admission that the hearer would have loved to meet him a few
+years earlier. Yet now, when Olivo introduced him to Marcolina as Signor
+Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, she smiled as she would have smiled at
+some utterly indifferent name that carried with it no aroma of adventure
+and mystery. Even when he took his seat by her side, kissed her hand,
+and allowed his eyes as they dwelt on her to gleam with delight and
+desire, her manner betrayed nothing of the demure gratification that
+might have seemed an appropriate answer to so ardent a wooing.
+
+After a few polite commonplaces, Casanova told his neighbor that he had
+been informed of her intellectual attainments, and asked what was her
+chosen subject of study. Her chief interest, she rejoined, was in the
+higher mathematics, to which she had been introduced by Professor
+Morgagni, the renowned teacher at the university of Bologna. Casanova
+expressed his surprise that so charming a young lady should have an
+interest, certainly exceptional, in a dry and difficult subject.
+Marcolina replied that in her view the higher mathematics was the most
+imaginative of all the sciences; one might even say that its nature made
+it akin to the divine. When Casanova asked for further enlightenment
+upon a view so novel to him, Marcolina modestly declined to continue
+the topic, declaring that the others at table, and above all her uncle,
+would much rather hear some details of a newly recovered friend's
+travels than listen to a philosophical disquisition.
+
+Amalia was prompt to second the proposal; and Casanova, always willing
+to oblige in this matter, said in easy-going fashion that during recent
+years he had been mainly engaged in secret diplomatic missions. To
+mention only places of importance, he had continually been going to and
+fro between Madrid, Paris, London, Amsterdam, and St. Petersburg. He
+gave an account of meetings and conversations, some grave and some gay,
+with men and women of all classes, and did not forget to speak of his
+friendly reception at the court of Catharine of Russia. He jestingly
+related how Frederick the Great had nearly appointed him instructor at a
+cadet school for Pomeranian junkers--a danger from which he had escaped
+by a precipitous flight. Of these and many other things he spoke as
+recent happenings, although in reality they had occurred years or
+decades before. Romancing freely, he was hardly conscious when he was
+lying either on a small scale or on a large, being equally delighted
+with his own conceits and with the pleasure he was giving to his
+auditors. While thus recounting real and imaginary incidents, he could
+almost delude himself into the belief that he was still the bold,
+radiant Casanova, the favorite of fortune and of beautiful women, the
+honored guest of secular and spiritual princes, the man whose spendings
+and gamblings and gifts must be reckoned in thousands. It was possible
+for him to forget that he was a decayed starveling, supported by pitiful
+remittances from former friends in England and Spain---doles which often
+failed to arrive, so that he was reduced to the few and paltry gold
+pieces which he could win from Baron Perotti or from the Baron's guests.
+He could even forget that his highest aim now was to return to his
+natal city where he had been cast into prison and from which, since
+his escape, he had been banned; to return as one of the meanest of its
+citizens, as writer, as beggar, as nonentity; to accept so inglorious a
+close to a once brilliant career.
+
+Marcolina listened attentively like the others, but with the same
+expression as if she had been listening to someone reading aloud from an
+amusing narrative. Her face did not betray the remotest realization of
+the fact that the speaker was Casanova; that she was listening to the
+man who had had all these experiences and many more; that she was
+sitting beside the lover of a thousand women. Very different was the
+fire in Amalia's eyes. To her, Casanova was the same as ever. To her,
+his voice was no less seductive than it had been sixteen years earlier.
+He could not but be aware that at a word or a sign, and as soon as he
+pleased, he could revive this old adventure. But what to him was Amalia
+at this hour, when he longed for Marcolina as he had never longed for
+woman before. Beneath the shimmering folds of her dress he seemed to
+see her naked body; her firm young breasts allured him; once when she
+stooped to pick up her handkerchief, Casanova's inflamed fancy made him
+attach so ardent a significance to her movement that he felt near to
+swooning. Marcolina did not fail to notice the involuntary pause in
+the flow of his conversation; she perceived that his gaze had begun to
+flicker strangely. In her countenance he could read a sudden hostility,
+a protest, a trace of disgust.
+
+Casanova speedily recovered his self-command, and was about to continue
+his reminiscences with renewed vigor, when a portly priest entered.
+Olivo introduced him as Abbate Rossi, and Casanova at once recognized
+him as the man he had met twenty-seven years earlier upon a market boat
+plying between Venice and Chioggia.
+
+"You had one eye bandaged," said Casanova, who rarely missed a chance
+of showing off his excellent memory. "A young peasant-woman wearing a
+yellow kerchief round her head advised you to use a healing unguent
+which an apothecary with an exceedingly hoarse voice happened to have
+with him."
+
+The Abbate nodded, and smiled, well-pleased. Then, with a sly
+expression, he came quite close to Casanova, as if about to tell him a
+secret. But he spoke out loud.
+
+"As for you, Signor Casanova, you were with a wedding party. I don't
+know whether you were one of the ordinary guests or whether you
+were best man, but I remember that the bride looked at you far more
+languishingly than at the bridegroom. The wind rose; there was half a
+gale; you began to read a risky poem."
+
+"No doubt the Chevalier only did so in order to lay the storm," said
+Marcolina.
+
+"I never claim the powers of a wizard," rejoined Casanova. "But I will
+not deny that after I had begun to read, no one bothered about the
+storm." The three girls had encircled the Abbate. For an excellent
+reason. From his capacious pockets he produced quantities of luscious
+sweets, and popped them into the children's mouths with his stumpy
+fingers. Meanwhile Olivo gave the newcomer a circumstantial account of
+the rediscovery of Casanova. Dreamily Amalia continued to gaze at the
+beloved guest's masterful brown forehead.
+
+The children ran out into the garden; Marcolina had risen from the table
+and was watching them through the open window. The Abbate had brought a
+message from the Marchese Celsi, who proposed to call that evening, with
+his wife, upon his dear friend Olivo.
+
+"Excellent," said Olivo. "We shall have a pleasant game of cards in
+honor of the Chevalier. I am expecting the two Ricardis; and Lorenzi is
+also coming--the girls met him out riding this morning."
+
+"Is he still here?" asked the Abbate. "A week ago I was told he had to
+rejoin his regiment."
+
+"I expect the Marchesa got him an extension of leave from the Colonel."
+
+"I am surprised," interjected Casanova, "that any Mantuese officers can
+get leave at present." He went on: "Two friends of mine, one from Mantua
+and the other from Cremona, left last night with their regiments,
+marching towards Milan."
+
+"Has war broken out?" inquired Marcolina from the window. She had turned
+round; her face betrayed nothing, but there was a slight quaver in her
+voice which no one but Casanova noticed.
+
+"It may come to nothing," he said lightly. "But the Spaniards seem
+rather bellicose, and it is necessary to be on the alert."
+
+Olivo looked important and wrinkled his brow. "Does anyone know," he
+asked, "whether we shall side with Spain or with France?"
+
+"I don't think Lieutenant Lorenzi will care a straw about that,"
+suggested the Abbate. "All he wants is a chance to prove his military
+prowess."
+
+"He has done so already," said Amalia. "He was in the battle at Pavia
+three years ago."
+
+Marcolina said not a word.
+
+Casanova knew enough. He went to the window beside Marcolina and looked
+out into the garden. He saw nothing but the wide greensward where the
+children were playing. It was surrounded by a close-set row of stately
+trees within the encompassing wall.
+
+"What lovely grounds," he said, turning to Olivo. "I should so like to
+have a look at them."
+
+"Nothing would please me better, Chevalier," answered Olivo, "than to
+show you my vineyards and the rest of my estate. You need only ask
+Amalia, and she will tell you that during the years since I bought this
+little place I have had no keener desire than to welcome you as guest
+upon my own land and under my own roof. Ten times at least I was on the
+point of writing you an invitation, but was always withheld by the doubt
+whether my letter would reach you. If I did happen to hear from some one
+that he had recently seen you in Lisbon, I could be quite sure that in
+the interval you would have left for Warsaw or Vienna. Now, when as
+if by miracle I have caught you on the point of quitting Mantua, and
+when--I can assure you, Amalia, it was no easy matter--I have succeeded
+in enticing you here, you are so niggard with your time that--would you
+believe it, Signor Abbate, he refuses to spare us more than a couple of
+days!"
+
+"Perhaps the Chevalier will allow himself to be persuaded to prolong his
+visit," said the Abbate, who was contentedly munching a huge mouthful of
+peach. As he spoke, he glanced at Amalia in a way that led Casanova to
+infer that his hostess had told the Abbate more than she had told her
+husband.
+
+"I fear that will be quite impossible," said Casanova with decision.
+"I need not conceal from friends who are so keenly interested in my
+fortunes, that my Venetian fellow-citizens are on the point of atoning
+for the injustice of earlier years. The atonement comes rather late, but
+is all the more honorable. I should seem ungrateful, or even rancorous,
+were I to resist their importunities any longer." With a wave of his
+hand he warded off an eager but respectful enquiry which he saw taking
+shape upon his host's lips, and hastened to remark: "Well, Olivo, I am
+ready. Show me your little kingdom."
+
+"Would it not be wiser," interposed Amalia, "to wait until it is cooler?
+I am sure the Chevalier would prefer to rest for a while, or to stroll
+in the shade." Her eyes sought Casanova's with shy entreaty, as if she
+thought her fate would be decided once again during such a walk in the
+garden.
+
+No one had anything to say against Amalia's suggestion, and they all
+went out of doors. Marcolina, who led the way, ran across the sunlit
+greensward to join the children in their game of battledore and
+shuttlecock. She was hardly taller than the eldest of the three girls;
+and when her hair came loose in the exercise and floated over her
+shoulders she too looked like a child. Olivo and the Abbate seated
+themselves on a stone bench beneath the trees, not far from the house.
+Amalia sauntered on with Casanova. As soon as the two were out of
+hearing, she began to converse with Casanova in a tone which seemed to
+ignore the lapse of years.
+
+"So we meet again, Casanova! How I have longed for this day. I never
+doubted its coming."
+
+"A mere chance has brought me," said Casanova coldly.
+
+Amalia smiled. "Have it your own way," she said. "Anyhow, you are here!
+All these sixteen years I have done nothing but dream of this day!"
+
+"I can't help thinking," countered Casanova, "that throughout the long
+interval you must have dreamed of many other things--and must have done
+more than dream."
+
+Amalia shook her head. "You know better, Casanova. Nor had you forgotten
+me, for were it otherwise, in your eagerness to get to Venice, you would
+never have accepted Olivo's invitation."
+
+"What do you mean, Amalia? Can you imagine I have come here to betray
+your husband?"
+
+"How can you use such a phrase, Casanova? Were I to be yours once again,
+there would be neither betrayal nor sin."
+
+Casanova laughed. "No sin? Wherefore not? Because I'm an old man?"
+
+"You are not old. For me you can never be an old man. In your arms I had
+my first taste of bliss, and I doubt not it is my destiny that my last
+bliss shall be shared with you!"
+
+"Your last?" rejoined Casanova cynically, though he was not altogether
+unmoved. "I think my friend Olivo would have a word to say about that."
+
+"What you speak of," said Amalia reddening, "is duty, and even pleasure;
+but it is not and never has been bliss."
+
+They did not walk to the end of the grass alley. Both seemed to shun the
+neighborhood of the greensward, where Marcolina and the children were
+playing. As if by common consent they retraced their steps, and, silent
+now, approached the house again. One of the ground-floor windows at the
+gable end of the house was open. Through this Casanova glimpsed in the
+dark interior a half-drawn curtain, from behind which the foot of a bed
+projected. Over an adjoining chair was hanging a light, gauzy dress.
+
+"Is that Marcolina's room?" enquired Casanova.
+
+Amalia nodded. "Do you like her?" she said--nonchalantly, as it seemed
+to Casanova.
+
+"Of course, since she is good looking."
+
+"She's a good girl as well."
+
+Casanova shrugged, as if the goodness were no concern of his. Then:
+"Tell me, Amalia, did you think me still handsome when you first saw me
+to-day?"
+
+"I do not know if your looks have changed. To me you seem just the same
+as of old. You are as I have always seen you, as I have seen you in my
+dreams."
+
+"Look well, Amalia. See the wrinkles on my forehead; the loose folds of
+my neck; the crow's-feet round my eyes. And look," he grinned, "I have
+lost one of my eye teeth. Look at these hands, too, Amalia. My fingers
+are like claws; there are yellow spots on the finger-nails; the blue
+veins stand out. They are the hands of an old man."
+
+She clasped both his hands as he held them out for her to see, and
+affectionately kissed them one after the other in the shaded walk.
+"To-night, I will kiss you on the lips," she said, with a mingling of
+humility and tenderness, which roused his gall.
+
+Close by, where the alley opened on to the greensward, Marcolina was
+stretched on the grass, her hands clasped beneath her head, looking
+skyward while the shuttlecocks flew to and fro. Suddenly reaching
+upwards, she seized one of them in mid air, and laughed triumphantly.
+The girls flung themselves upon her as she lay defenceless.
+
+Casanova thrilled. "Neither my lips nor my hands are yours to kiss.
+Your waiting for me and your dreams of me will prove to have been
+vain--unless I should first make Marcolina mine."
+
+"Are you mad, Casanova?" exclaimed Amalia, with distress in her voice.
+
+"If I am, we are both on the same footing," replied Casanova. "You are
+mad because in me, an old man, you think that you can rediscover the
+beloved of your youth; I am mad because I have taken it into my head
+that I wish to possess Marcolina. But perhaps we shall both be
+restored to reason. Marcolina shall restore me to youth--for you. So
+help me to my wishes, Amalia!"
+
+"You are really beside yourself, Casanova. What you ask is impossible.
+She will have nothing to do with any man."
+
+Casanova laughed. "What about Lieutenant Lorenzi?"
+
+"Lorenzi? What do you mean?"
+
+"He is her lover. I am sure of it."
+
+"You are utterly mistaken. He asked for her hand, and she rejected his
+proposal. Yet he is young and handsome. I almost think him handsomer
+than you ever were, Casanova!"
+
+"He was a suitor for her hand?"
+
+"Ask Olivo if you don't believe me."
+
+"Well, what do I care about that? What care I whether she be virgin or
+strumpet, wife or widow--I want to make her mine!"
+
+"I can't give her to you, my friend!" Amalia's voice expressed genuine
+concern.
+
+"You see for yourself," he said, "what a pitiful creature I have become.
+Ten years ago, five years ago, I should have needed neither helper nor
+advocate, even though Marcolina had been the very goddess of virtue. And
+now I am trying to make you play the procuress. If I were only a rich
+man. Had I but ten thousand ducats. But I have not even ten. I am a
+beggar, Amalia."
+
+"Had you a hundred thousand, you could not buy Marcolina. What does she
+care about money? She loves books, the sky, the meadows, butterflies,
+playing with children. She has inherited a small competence which more
+than suffices for her needs."
+
+"Were I but a sovereign prince," cried Casanova, somewhat theatrically,
+as was his wont when strongly moved. "Had I but the power to commit men
+to prison, to send them to the scaffold. But I am nothing. A beggar, and
+a liar into the bargain. I importune the Supreme Council for a post, a
+crust of bread, a home! What a poor thing have I become! Are you not
+sickened by me, Amalia?"
+
+"I love you, Casanova!"
+
+"Then give her to me, Amalia. It rests with you, I am confident. Tell
+her what you please. Say I have threatened you. Say you think I am
+capable of setting fire to the house. Say I am a fool, a dangerous
+lunatic escaped from an asylum, but that the embraces of a virgin will
+restore me to sanity. Yes, tell her that."
+
+"She does not believe in miracles."
+
+"Does not believe in miracles? Then she does not believe in God either.
+So much the better! I have influence with the Archbishop of Milan. Tell
+her so. I can ruin her. I can destroy you all. It is true, Amalia. What
+books does she read? Doubtless some of them are on the Index. Let me see
+them. I will compile a list. A hint from me...."
+
+"Not a word more, Casanova! Here she comes. Keep yourself well in hand;
+do not let your eyes betray you. Listen, Casanova; I have never known a
+purer-minded girl. Did she suspect what I have heard from you, she would
+feel herself soiled, and for the rest of your stay she would not so much
+as look at you. Talk to her; talk to her. You will soon ask her pardon
+and mine."
+
+Marcolina came up with the girls, who ran on into the house. She paused,
+as if out of courtesy to the guest, standing before him, while Amalia
+deliberately withdrew. Indeed, it actually seemed to Casanova that
+from those pale, half-parted lips, from the smooth brow crowned with
+light-brown hair now restored to order, there emanated an aroma of
+aloofness and purity. Rarely had he had this feeling with regard to any
+woman; nor had he had it in the case of Marcolina when they were within
+four walls. A devotional mood, a spirit of self-sacrifice knowing
+nothing of desire, seemed to take possession of his soul. Discreetly, in
+a respectful tone such as at that day was customary towards persons
+of rank, in a manner which she could not but regard as flattering, he
+enquired whether it was her purpose to resume her studies that evening.
+She answered that in the country her work was somewhat irregular.
+Nevertheless, even during free hours, mathematical problems upon
+which she had recently been pondering, would at times invade her mind
+unawares. This had just happened while she was lying on the greensward
+gazing up into the sky.
+
+Casanova, emboldened by the friendliness of her demeanor, asked
+jestingly what was the nature of this lofty, urgent problem. She
+replied, in much the same tone, that it had nothing whatever to do with
+the Cabala, with which, so rumor ran, the Chevalier de Seingalt worked
+wonders. He would therefore not know what to make of her problem.
+
+Casanova was piqued that she should speak of the Cabala with such
+unconcealed contempt. In his rare hours of heart-searching he was well
+aware that the mystical system of numbers which passed by that name had
+neither sense nor purpose. He knew it had no correspondence with any
+natural reality; that it was no more than an instrument whereby cheats
+and jesters--Casanova assumed these roles by turn, and was a master
+player in both capacities--could lead credulous fools by the nose.
+Nevertheless, in defiance of his own better judgment, he now undertook
+to defend the Cabala as a serious and perfectly valid science. He spoke
+of the divine nature of the number seven, to which there are so many
+references in Holy Writ; of the deep prophetic significance of pyramids
+of figures, for the construction of which he had himself invented a new
+system; and of the frequent fulfilment of the forecasts he had based
+upon this system. In Amsterdam, a few years ago, through the use of
+arithmancy, he had induced Hope the banker to take over the insurance of
+a ship which was already reported lost, whereby the banker had made two
+hundred thousand gold guilders. He held forth so eloquently in defence
+of his preposterous theories that, as often happened, he began to
+believe all the nonsense he was talking. At length he went so far as to
+maintain that the Cabala was not so much a branch of mathematics as the
+metaphysical perfectionment of mathematics.
+
+At this point, Marcolina, who had been listening attentively and
+with apparent seriousness, suddenly assumed a half-commiserating,
+half-mischievous expression, and said:
+
+"You are trying, Signor Casanova"--she seemed deliberately to avoid
+addressing him as Chevalier--"to give me an elaborate proof of your
+renowned talent as entertainer, and I am extremely grateful to you.
+But of course you know as well as I do that the Cabala has not merely
+nothing to do with mathematics, but is in conflict with the very essence
+of mathematics. The Cabala bears to mathematics the same sort of
+relationship that the confused or fallacious chatter of the Sophists
+bore to the serene, lofty doctrines of Plato and of Aristotle."
+
+"Nevertheless, beautiful and learned Marcolina, you will admit,"
+answered Casanova promptly, "that even the Sophists were far from being
+such contemptible, foolish apprentices as your harsh criticism would
+imply. Let me give you a contemporary example. M. Voltaire's whole
+technique of thought and writing entitles us to describe him as an
+Arch-Sophist. Yet no one will refuse the due meed of honor to his
+extraordinary talent. I would not myself refuse it, though I am at this
+moment engaged in composing a polemic against him. Let me add that I am
+not allowing myself to be influenced in his favor by recollection of the
+extreme civility he was good enough to show me when I visited him at
+Ferney ten years ago."
+
+"It is really most considerate of you to be so lenient in your criticism
+of the greatest mind of the century!" Marcolina smilingly retorted.
+
+"A great mind--the greatest of the century!" exclaimed Casanova. "To
+give him such a designation seems to me inadmissible, were it only
+because, for all his genius, he is an ungodly man--nay positively an
+atheist. No atheist can be a man of great mind."
+
+"As I see the matter, there is no such incompatibility. But the first
+thing you have to prove is your title to describe Voltaire as an
+atheist."
+
+Casanova was now in his element. In the opening chapter of his polemic
+he had cited from Voltaire's works, especially from the famous
+_Pucelle_, a number of passages that seemed peculiarly well-fitted to
+justify the charge of atheism. Thanks to his unfailing memory, he
+was able to repeat these citations verbatim, and to marshal his own
+counter-arguments. But in Marcolina he had to cope with an opponent who
+was little inferior to himself in extent of knowledge and mental acumen;
+and who, moreover, excelled him, not perhaps in fluency of speech, but
+at any rate in artistry of presentation and clarity of expression. The
+passages Casanova had selected as demonstrating Voltaire's spirit of
+mockery, his scepticism, and his atheism, were adroitly interpreted by
+Marcolina as testifying to the Frenchman's scientific genius, to his
+skill as an author, and to his indefatigable ardor in the search for
+truth. She boldly contended that doubt, mockery, nay unbelief itself, if
+associated with such a wealth of knowledge, such absolute honesty, and
+such high courage, must be more pleasing to God than the humility of
+the pious, which was apt to be a mask for lack of capacity to think
+logically, and often enough--there were plenty of examples--a mask for
+cowardice and hypocrisy.
+
+Casanova listened with growing astonishment. He felt quite incompetent
+to convert Marcolina to his own way of thinking; all the more as he
+increasingly realized that her counterstrokes were threatening to
+demolish the tottering intellectual edifice which, of late years, he
+had been accustomed to mistake for faith. He took refuge in the trite
+assertion that such views as Marcolina's were a menace, not only to
+the ecclesiastical ordering of society, but to the very foundations of
+social life. This enabled him to make a clever change of front, to pass
+into the field of politics, where he hoped that his wide experience and
+his knowledge of the world would render it possible for him to get the
+better of his adversary. But although she lacked acquaintance with
+the notable personalities of the age; although she was without inside
+knowledge of courtly and diplomatic intrigues; although, therefore, she
+had to renounce any attempt to answer Casanova in detail, even when
+she felt there was good reason to distrust the accuracy of his
+assertions--nevertheless, it was clear to him from the tenor of her
+remarks, that she had little respect for the princes of the earth or
+for the institutions of state; and she made no secret of her conviction
+that, alike in small things and in great, the world was not so much a
+world ruled by selfishness and lust for power, as a world in a condition
+of hopeless confusion. Rarely had Casanova encountered such freedom of
+thought in women; never had he met with anything of the kind in a girl
+who was certainly not yet twenty years old. It was painful to him
+to remember that in earlier and better days his own mind had with
+deliberate, self-complacent boldness moved along the paths whereon
+Marcolina was now advancing--although in her case there did not seem
+to exist any consciousness of exceptional courage. Fascinated by the
+uniqueness of her methods of thought and expression, he almost forgot
+that he was walking beside a young, beautiful, desirable woman, a
+forgetfulness all the more remarkable as the two were alone in the leafy
+alley, and at a considerable distance from the house.
+
+Suddenly, breaking off in the middle of a sentence, Marcolina joyfully
+exclaimed, "Here comes my uncle!"
+
+Casanova, as if he had to rectify an omission, whispered in her ear:
+"What a nuisance. I should have liked to go on talking to you for hours,
+Marcolina." He was aware that his eyes were again lighting up with
+desire.
+
+At this Marcolina, who in the spirited exchange of their recent
+conversation had almost abandoned her defensive attitude, displayed a
+renewed reserve. Her expression manifested the same protest, the same
+repulsion, which had wounded Casanova earlier in the day.
+
+"Am I really so repulsive?" he anxiously asked himself. Then, replying
+in thought to his own question: "No, that is not the reason. Marcolina
+is not really a woman. She is a she-professor, a she-philosopher, one of
+the wonders of the world perhaps--but not a woman."
+
+Yet even as he mused, he knew he was merely attempting to deceive
+himself, console himself, save himself; and all his endeavors were vain.
+
+Olivo, who had now come up, addressed Marcolina. "Have I not done well
+to invite some one here with whom you can converse as learnedly as with
+your professors at Bologna?"
+
+"Indeed, Uncle," answered Marcolina, "there was not one of them who
+would have ventured to challenge Voltaire to a duel!"
+
+"What, Voltaire? The Chevalier has called him out?" cried Olivo,
+misunderstanding the jest.
+
+"Your witty niece, Olivo, refers to the polemic on which I have been at
+work for the last few days, the pastime of leisure hours. I used to have
+weightier occupations."
+
+Marcolina, ignoring this remark, said: "You will find it pleasantly cool
+now for your walk. Goodbye for the present." She nodded a farewell, and
+moved briskly across the greensward to the house.
+
+Casanova, repressing an impulse to follow her with his eyes, enquired:
+"Is Signora Amalia coming with us?"
+
+"No, Chevalier," answered Olivo. "She has a number of things to attend
+to in the house; and besides, this is the girls' lesson time."
+
+"What an excellent housewife and mother! You're a lucky fellow, Olivo!"
+
+"I tell myself the same thing every day," responded Olivo, with tears in
+his eyes.
+
+They passed by the gable end of the house. Marcolina's window was still
+open; the pale, diaphanous gown showed up against the dark background of
+the room. Along the wide chestnut avenue they made their way on to the
+road, now completely in the shade. Leisurely, they walked up the slope
+skirting the garden wall. Where it ended, the vineyard began. Between
+tall poles, from which purple clusters hung, Olivo led his guest to the
+summit. With a complacent air of ownership, he waved towards the house,
+lying at the foot of the hill. Casanova fancied he could detect a female
+figure flitting to and fro in the turret chamber.
+
+The sun was near to setting, but the heat was still considerable. Beads
+of perspiration coursed down Olivo's cheeks, but Casanova's brow showed
+no trace of moisture. Strolling down the farther slope, they reached an
+olive grove. From tree to tree vines were trained trellis-wise, while
+between the rows of olive trees golden ears of corn swayed in the
+breeze.
+
+"In a thousand ways," said Casanova appreciatively, "the sun brings
+increase."
+
+With even greater wealth of detail than before, Olivo recounted how he
+had acquired this fine estate, and how two great vintage years and two
+good harvests had made him a well-to-do, in fact a wealthy, man.
+
+Casanova pursued the train of his own thoughts, attending to Olivo's
+narrative only in so far as was requisite to enable him from time to
+time to interpose a polite question or to make an appropriate comment.
+Nothing claimed his interest until Olivo, after talking of all and
+sundry, came back to the topic of his family, and at length to
+Marcolina. But Casanova learned little that was new. She had lost her
+mother early. Her father, Olivo's half-brother, had been a physician in
+Bologna. Marcolina, while still a child, had astonished everyone by her
+precocious intelligence; but the marvel was soon staled by custom. A few
+years later, her father died. Since then she had been an inmate in the
+household of a distinguished professor at the university of Bologna,
+Morgagni to wit, who hoped that his pupil would become a woman of great
+learning. She always spent the summer with her uncle. There had been
+several proposals for her hand; one from a Bolognese merchant; one from
+a neighboring landowner; and lastly the proposal of Lieutenant Lorenzi.
+She had refused them all, and it seemed to be her design to devote her
+whole life to the service of knowledge. As Olivo rambled on with his
+story, Casanova's desires grew beyond measure, while the recognition
+that these desires were utterly foolish and futile reduced him almost to
+despair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+
+Casanova and Olivo regained the highroad. In a cloud of dust, a carriage
+drove up, and as they drew near the occupants shouted greetings. The
+newcomers were an elderly gentleman in elegant attire and a lady who was
+somewhat younger, of generous proportions, and conspicuously rouged.
+
+"The Marchese," whispered Olivo to his companion.
+
+The carriage halted.
+
+"Good evening, my dear Olivo," said the Marchese. "Will you be so good
+as to introduce me to the Chevalier de Seingalt? I have no doubt that it
+is the Chevalier whom I have the pleasure of seeing."
+
+Casanova bowed, saying: "Yes, I am he."
+
+"I am the Marchese Celsi. Let me present the Marchesa, my spouse." The
+lady offered her finger tips. Casanova touched them with his lips.
+
+The Marchese was two or three inches taller than Casanova, and
+unnaturally lean. He had a narrow face, of a yellow, waxy tint; his
+greenish eyes were piercing; his thick eyebrows were of reddish color,
+and met across the root of the nose. These characteristics gave him a
+somewhat formidable aspect. "My good Olivo," he said, "we are all going
+to the same destination. Since it is little more than half a mile to
+your house, I shall get out and walk with you. You won't mind driving
+the rest of the way alone," he added, turning to the Marchesa, who had
+meanwhile been gazing at Casanova with searching, passionate eyes.
+Without awaiting his wife's answer, the Marchese nodded to the coachman,
+who promptly lashed the horses furiously, as if he had some reason for
+driving his mistress away at top speed. In an instant the carriage
+vanished in a whirl of dust.
+
+"The whole neighborhood," said the Marchese, "is already aware that
+the Chevalier de Seingalt has come to spend a few days with his friend
+Olivo. It must be glorious to bear so renowned a name."
+
+"You flatter me, Signor Marchese," replied Casanova. "I have not yet
+abandoned the hope of winning such a name, but I am still far from
+having done so. It may be that a work on which I am now engaged will
+bring me nearer to the goal."
+
+"We can take a short cut here," said Olivo, turning into a path which
+led straight to the wall of his garden.
+
+"Work?" echoed the Marchese with a doubtful air. "May I enquire to what
+work you refer, Chevalier?"
+
+"If you ask me that question, Signor Marchese, I shall in my turn feel
+impelled to enquire what you meant just now when you referred to my
+renown."
+
+Arrogantly he faced the Marchese's piercing eyes. He knew perfectly well
+that neither his romance _Icosameron_ nor yet his _Confutazione della
+storia del governo veneto d'Amelot de la Houssaie_ had brought him any
+notable reputation as an author. Nevertheless it was his pose to imply
+that for him no other sort of reputation was desirable. He therefore
+deliberately misunderstood the Marchese's tentative observations and
+cautious allusions, which implied that Casanova was a celebrated
+seducer, gamester, man of affairs, political emissary, or what not.
+Celsi made no reference to authorship, for he had never heard of
+either the _Refutation of Amelot_ or the _Icosameron_. At length,
+therefore, in polite embarrassment, he said: "After all, there is
+only one Casanova."
+
+"There, likewise, you are mistaken, Signor Marchese," said Casanova
+coldly. "I have relatives, and a connoisseur like yourself must surely
+be acquainted with the name of one of my brothers, Francesco Casanova,
+the painter."
+
+It seemed that the Marchese had no claim to connoisseurship in this
+field either, and he turned the conversation to acquaintances living in
+Naples, Rome, Milan, or Mantua, persons whom Casanova was not unlikely
+to have met. In this connection he also mentioned the name of Baron
+Perotti, but somewhat contemptuously.
+
+Casanova was constrained to admit that he often played cards at the
+Baron's house. "For distraction," he explained; "for half an hour's
+relaxation before bedtime. In general, I have given up this way of
+wasting my time."
+
+"I am sorry," said the Marchese, "for I must own it has been one of the
+dreams of my life to cross swords with you. Not only, indeed, at the
+card table; for when I was younger I would gladly have been your rival
+in other fields. Would you believe it--I forget how long ago it was--I
+once entered Spa on the very day, at the very hour, when you left the
+place. Our carriages must have passed one another on the road. In
+Ratisbon, too, I had the same piece of ill luck. There I actually
+occupied the room of which your tenancy had just expired."
+
+"It is indeed unfortunate," said Casanova, flattered in spite of
+himself, "that people's paths so often cross too late in life."
+
+"Not yet too late!" exclaimed the Marchese. "There are certain respects
+in which I shall not be loath to avow myself vanquished before the
+fight begins. But as regards games of chance, my dear Chevalier, we are
+perhaps both of us precisely at the age...."
+
+Casanova cut him short. "At the age--very likely. Unfortunately,
+however, I can no longer look forward to the pleasure of measuring
+myself at the card table with a partner of your rank. The reason is
+simple." He spoke in the tone of a dethroned sovereign. "Despite my
+renown, my dear Marchese, I am now practically reduced to the condition
+of a beggar."
+
+The Marchese involuntarily lowered his eyes before Casanova's haughty
+gaze. He shook his head incredulously, as if he had been listening to a
+strange jest. Olivo, who had followed the conversation with the keenest
+attention, and had accompanied the skilful parries of his marvellous
+friend with approving nods, could hardly repress a gesture of alarm.
+They had just reached a narrow wooden door in the garden wall. Olivo
+produced a key, and turned the creaking lock. Giving the Marchese
+precedence into the garden, he arrested Casanova by the arm, whispering:
+
+"You must take back those last words, Chevalier, before you set foot
+in my house again. The money I have been owing you these sixteen years
+awaits you. I was only afraid to speak of it. Amalia will tell you. It
+is counted out and ready. I had proposed to hand it over to you on your
+departure...."
+
+Casanova gently interrupted him. "You owe me nothing, Olivo. You know
+perfectly well that those paltry gold pieces were a wedding present from
+the friend of Amalia's mother. Please drop the subject. What are a few
+ducats to me?" He raised his voice as he spoke, so that the Marchese,
+who had paused at a few paces' distance could hear the concluding words.
+"I stand at a turning-point in my fortunes."
+
+Olivo exchanged glances with Casanova, as if asking permission, and then
+explained to the Marchese: "You must know that the Chevalier has been
+summoned to Venice, and will set out for home in a few days."
+
+"I would rather put it," remarked Casanova as they approached the house,
+"that summonses, growing ever more urgent, have been reaching me for
+a considerable while. But it seems to me that the senators took long
+enough to make up their minds, and may in their turn practise the virtue
+of patience."
+
+"Unquestionably," said the Marchese, "you are entitled to stand upon
+your dignity, Chevalier."
+
+They emerged from the avenue on to the greensward, across which the
+shadow of the house had now lengthened. Close to the dwelling, the rest
+of the little company was awaiting them. All rose and came to meet them.
+The Abbate led the way, with Marcolina and Amalia on either side. They
+were followed by the Marchesa, with whom came a tall, young officer,
+clad in a red uniform trimmed with silver lace, and wearing
+jack-boots--evidently Lorenzi. As he spoke to the Marchesa, he scanned
+her powdered shoulders as if they were well-known samples of other
+beauties with which he was equally familiar. The Marchesa smiled
+up at him beneath half-closed lids. Even a tyro in such matters could
+hardly fail to realize the nature of their relationship, or to perceive
+that they were quite unconcerned at its disclosure. They were conversing
+in animated fashion, but in low tones; and they ceased talking only when
+they caught up with the others.
+
+Olivo introduced Casanova and Lorenzi to one another. They exchanged
+glances with a cold aloofness that seemed to offer mutual assurances of
+dislike; then, with a forced smile, both bowed stiffly without offering
+to shake hands. Lorenzi was handsome, with a narrow visage and features
+sharply cut for his age. At the back of his eyes something difficult
+to grasp seemed to lurk, something likely to suggest caution to one of
+experience. For a moment, Casanova was in doubt as to who it was that
+Lorenzi reminded him of. Then he realized that his own image stood
+before him, the image of himself as he had been thirty years before.
+"Have I been reincarnated in his form?" Casanova asked himself. "But I
+must have died before that could happen." It flashed through his mind:
+"Have I not been dead for a long time? What is there left of the
+Casanova who was young, handsome, and happy?" Amalia broke in upon his
+musings. As if from a distance, though she stood close at hand, she
+asked him how he had enjoyed his walk. Raising his voice so that all
+could hear, he expressed his admiration for the fertile, well-managed
+estate.
+
+Meanwhile upon the greensward the maidservant was laying the table for
+supper. The two elder girls were "helping." With much fuss and giggling,
+they brought out of the house the silver, the wine glasses, and other
+requisites.
+
+Gradually the dusk fell; a cool breeze stirred through the garden.
+Marcolina went to the table, to put the finishing touches to the work of
+the maidservant and the girls. The others wandered about the greensward
+and along the alleys. The Marchesa was extremely polite to Casanova. She
+said that the story of his remarkable escape from The Leads in Venice
+was not unknown to her, but it would be a pleasure to hear it from his
+own lips. With a meaning smile she added that she understood him to
+have had far more dangerous adventures, which he might perhaps be less
+inclined to recount. Casanova rejoined that he had indeed had a number
+of lively experiences, but had never made serious acquaintance with that
+mode of existence whose meaning and very essence were danger. Although,
+many years before, during troublous times, he had for a few months been
+a soldier upon the island of Corfu (was there any profession on earth
+into which the current of fate had not drifted him?), he had never had
+the good fortune to go through a real campaign, such as that which, he
+understood, Lieutenant Lorenzi was about to experience--a piece of luck
+for which he was inclined to envy the Lieutenant.
+
+"Then you know more than I do, Signor Casanova," said Lorenzi in a
+challenging tone. "Indeed, you are better informed than the Colonel
+himself, for he has just given me an indefinite extension of leave."
+
+"Is that so?" exclaimed the Marchese, unable to master his rage. He
+added spitefully: "Do you know, Lorenzi, we, or rather my wife, had
+counted so definitely on your leaving, that we had invited one of our
+friends, Baldi the singer, to stay with us next week."
+
+"No matter," rejoined Lorenzi, unperturbed. "Baldi and I are the best of
+friends. We shall get on famously together. You think so, don't you?"
+he said, turning to the Marchesa with a smile. "You'd better!" said the
+Marchesa, laughing gaily.
+
+As she spoke she seated herself at the table, beside Olivo, with Lorenzi
+on the other hand. Opposite sat Amalia, between the Marchese and
+Casanova. Next to Casanova, at one end of the long, narrow table, was
+Marcolina; next to Olivo, at the other end, sat the Abbate. Supper, like
+dinner, was a simple but tasteful meal. The two elder girls, Teresina
+and Nanetta, waited on the guests, and served the excellent wine grown
+on Olivo's hillsides. Both the Marchese and the Abbate paid their thanks
+to the young waitresses with playful and somewhat equivocal caresses
+which a stricter parent than Olivo would probably have discountenanced.
+Amalia seemed to be unaware of all this. She was pale, dejected, and
+looked like a woman determined to be old, since her own youth had ceased
+to interest her.
+
+"Is this all that remains of my empire?" thought Casanova bitterly,
+contemplating her in profile. Yet perhaps it was the illumination which
+gave so gloomy a cast to Amalia's features. From the interior of the
+house a broad beam of light fell upon the guests. Otherwise the glimmer
+in the sky sufficed them. The dark crests of the trees limited the
+outlook; Casanova was reminded of the eerie garden in which, late one
+evening many years before, he had awaited the coming of his mistress.
+
+"Murano!" he whispered to himself, and trembled. Then he spoke aloud:
+"On an island near Venice there is a convent garden where I last set
+foot several decades ago. At night, there, the scent is just like this."
+
+"Were you ever a monk?" asked the Marchesa, sportively.
+
+"All but," replied Casanova with a smile, explaining, truthfully enough,
+that when he was a lad of fifteen he had been given minor orders by the
+archbishop of Venice, but that before attaining full manhood he had
+decided to lay aside the cassock.
+
+The Abbate mentioned that there was a nunnery close at hand, and
+strongly recommended Casanova to visit the place if he had never seen
+it. Olivo heartily endorsed the recommendation, singing the praises
+of the picturesque old building, the situation, and the diversified
+beauties of the approach.
+
+"The Lady Abbess, Sister Serafina," continued the Abbate, "is an
+extremely learned woman, a duchess by birth. She has told me--by letter,
+of course, for the inmates are under a vow of perpetual silence--that
+she has heard of Marcolina's erudition, and would like to meet her face
+to face."
+
+"I hope, Marcolina," said Lorenzi, speaking to her for the first time,
+"that you will not attempt to imitate the noble abbess in other respects
+as well as learning."
+
+"Why should I?" rejoined Marcolina serenely. "We can maintain our
+freedom without vows. Better without than with, for a vow is a form of
+coercion."
+
+Casanova was sitting next to her. He did not dare to let his foot touch
+hers lightly, or to press his knee against hers. He was certain that
+should she for the third time look at him with that expression of horror
+and loathing, he would be driven to some act of folly. As the meal
+progressed, as the number of emptied glasses grew and the conversation
+waxed livelier and more general, Casanova heard, once more as from afar,
+Amalia's voice.
+
+"I have spoken to Marcolina."
+
+"You have spoken to her?" A mad hope flamed up in him. "Calm yourself,
+Casanova. We did not speak of you, but only of her and her plans for the
+future. I say to you again, she will never give herself to any man."
+
+Olivo, who had been drinking freely, suddenly rose, glass in hand, and
+delivered himself of a few stumbling phrases concerning the great honor
+conferred upon his humble home by the visit of his dear friend, the
+Chevalier de Seingalt.
+
+"But where, my dear Olivo, is the Chevalier de Seingalt of whom you
+speak?" enquired Lorenzi in his clear, insolent voice.
+
+Casanova's first impulse was to throw the contents of his glass in
+Lorenzi's face.
+
+Amalia touched his arm lightly, to restrain him, and said: "Many people
+to-day, Chevalier, still know you best by the old and more widely
+renowned name of Casanova."
+
+"I was not aware," said Lorenzi, with offensive gravity, "that the King
+of France had ennobled Signor Casanova."
+
+"I was able to save the King that trouble," answered Casanova quietly.
+"I trust, Lieutenant Lorenzi, that you will be satisfied with an
+explanation to which the Burgomaster of Nuremberg offered no objection
+when I gave it to him in circumstances with which I need not weary the
+company." There was a moment of silent expectation. Casanova continued:
+"The alphabet is our common heritage. I chose a collocation of letters
+which pleased my taste, and ennobled myself without being indebted to
+any prince, who might perhaps have been disinclined to allow my claim.
+I style myself Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt. I am indeed sorry,
+Lieutenant Lorenzi, if this name fails to meet with your approval."
+
+"Seingalt! It is a splendid name," said the Abbate, repeating it several
+times, as if he were tasting it.
+
+"There is not a man in the world," exclaimed Olivo, "who has a better
+right to name himself Chevalier than my distinguished friend Casanova!"
+
+"As for you, Lorenzi," added the Marchese, "when your reputation has
+reached as far as that of Signor Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, we
+shall be willing enough, should you so desire, to give you also the
+title of Chevalier."
+
+Casanova, somewhat nettled at not being allowed to fight his own battle,
+was about to resume the defence in person, when out of the dusk of the
+garden two elderly gentlemen, soberly habited, put in an appearance
+beside the table. Olivo greeted them with effusive cordiality, being
+delighted to turn the conversation and to put an end to a dispute that
+threatened to destroy the harmony of the evening. The newcomers were
+the brothers Ricardi. As Casanova had learned from Olivo, they were
+old bachelors. At one time members of the great world, they had been
+unfortunate in various undertakings. At length they had returned to
+their birthplace, the neighboring village, to lead a retired life in
+a tiny house they had rented. They were eccentric fellows, but quite
+harmless.
+
+The Ricardis expressed their delight at renewing their acquaintance with
+the Chevalier, whom, they said, they had met in Paris a good many years
+ago.
+
+Casanova could not recall the meeting.
+
+"Perhaps it was in Madrid?" said the Ricardis.
+
+"Maybe," replied Casanova, though he was absolutely certain that he had
+never seen either of them before.
+
+The younger of the two was spokesman. The elder, who looked as if he
+might be ninety at least, accompanied his brother's words with incessant
+nods and grimaces. By now every one had left the table, and before this
+the children had disappeared. Lorenzi and the Marchesa were strolling in
+the dusk across the greensward. Marcolina and Amalia were in the hall,
+setting out the table for cards.
+
+"What is the aim of all this?" said Casanova to himself, as he stood
+alone in the garden. "Do they imagine me to be rich? Are they on the
+lookout for plunder?"
+
+These preparations, the ingratiating manners of the Marchese, the
+sedulous attentions of the Abbate, the appearance of the brothers
+Ricardi on the scene, were arousing his suspicions. Was it not possible
+that Lorenzi might be a party to the intrigue? Or Marcolina? Or even
+Amalia? For a moment it flashed through his mind that his enemies might
+be at work upon some scheme of the eleventh hour to make his return to
+Venice difficult or impossible. But a moment's reflection convinced
+him the notion was absurd--were it only because he no longer had any
+enemies. He was merely an old fellow in reduced circumstances. Who was
+likely to take any trouble to hinder his return to Venice? Glancing
+through the open window, he saw the company assembling round the table,
+where the cards lay ready, and the filled wine-glasses were standing.
+It seemed to him clear beyond all possibility of doubt that there was
+nothing afoot except an ordinary, innocent game of cards, in which the
+coming of a new player is always an agreeable change.
+
+Marcolina passed him, and wished him good luck.
+
+"Aren't you going to take a hand?" he said. "At least you will look on?"
+
+"I have something else to do. Good night, Chevalier."
+
+From the interior, voices called out into the night:
+"Lorenzi."--"Chevalier."--"We are waiting for you."
+
+Casanova, standing in the darkness, could see that the Marchesa was
+leading Lorenzi away from the open greensward into the greater darkness
+under the trees. There she would fain have drawn him into her arms, but
+Lorenzi roughly tore himself away and strode towards the house. Meeting
+Casanova in the entry, he gave him precedence with mock politeness.
+Casanova accepted the precedence without a word of thanks.
+
+The Marchese was the first banker. Olivo, the brothers Ricardi, and the
+Abbate staked such trifling amounts that to Casanova--even to-day when
+his whole worldly wealth consisted of no more than a few ducats--the
+game seemed ludicrous. All the more was this the case since the Marchese
+raked in his winnings and paid out his losses with a ceremonious air, as
+if he were handling enormous sums. Suddenly Lorenzi, who had hitherto
+taken no part in the game, staked a ducat, won, let the doubled stake
+stand; won again and again, and continued to have the same luck with but
+occasional interruptions. The other men, however, went on staking petty
+coins, and the two Ricardis in particular seemed quite annoyed if the
+Marchese failed to give them as much attention as he gave to Lieutenant
+Lorenzi. The two brothers played together upon the same hazard. Beads of
+perspiration formed upon the brow of the elder, who handled the cards.
+The younger, standing behind his brother, talked unceasingly, with the
+air of giving infallible counsel. When the silent brother won, the
+loquacious brother's eyes gleamed; but at a loss, he raised despairing
+eyes heavenward. The Abbate, impassive for the most part, occasionally
+enunciated some scrap of proverbial wisdom. For instance: "Luck and
+women cannot be constrained." Or, "The earth is round, and heaven is far
+away." At times he looked at Casanova with an air of sly encouragement,
+his eyes moving on from Casanova to rest upon Amalia where she sat
+beside her husband. It seemed as if his chief concern must be to bring
+the erstwhile lovers together once again.
+
+As for Casanova, all he could think of was that Marcolina was in her
+room, undressing in leisurely fashion, and that if the window were open
+her white skin must be gleaming into the night. Seized with desire so
+intense as almost to put him beside himself, he moved to rise from his
+place by the Marchese and to leave the room. The Marchese, however,
+interpreting this movement as a resolve to take a hand in the game,
+said:
+
+"At last! We were sure you would not be content to play the part of
+spectator, Chevalier."
+
+The Marchese dealt him a card. Casanova staked all he had on his person,
+about ten ducats, which was nearly the whole of his entire wealth.
+Without counting the amount, he emptied his purse on the table, hoping
+to lose it at a single cast. That would be a sign of luck. He had not
+troubled to think precisely what sort of luck it would signify, whether
+his speedy return to Venice, or the desired sight of Marcolina's nudity.
+Ere he had made up his mind upon this point, the Marchese had lost the
+venture. Like Lorenzi, Casanova let the double stake lie; and just as in
+Lorenzi's case, fortune stood by him. The Marchese no longer troubled
+himself to deal to the others. The silent Ricardi rose somewhat
+mortified; the other Ricardi wrung his hands. Then the two withdrew,
+dumbfounded, to a corner of the room. The Abbate and Olivo took matters
+more phlegmatically. The former ate sweets and repeated his proverbial
+tags. The latter watched the turn of the cards with eager attention.
+
+At length the Marchese had lost five hundred ducats to Casanova and
+Lorenzi. The Marchesa moved to depart, and looked significantly at the
+Lieutenant on her way out of the room. Amalia accompanied her guest. The
+Marchesa waddled in a manner that was extremely distasteful to Casanova.
+Amalia walked along beside her humbly and deprecatingly.
+
+Now that the Marchese had lost all his ready cash, Casanova became
+banker, and, considerably to the Marchese's annoyance, he insisted that
+the others should return to the game. The brothers Ricardi eagerly
+accepted the invitation. The Abbate shook his head, saying he had had
+enough. Olivo played merely because he did not wish to be discourteous
+to his distinguished guest.
+
+Lorenzi's luck held. When he had won four hundred ducats in all, he rose
+from the table, saying: "To-morrow I shall be happy to give you your
+revenge. But now, by your leave, I shall ride home."
+
+"Home!" cried the Marchese with a scornful laugh--he had won back a few
+ducats by this time. "That is a strange way to phrase it!" He turned
+to the others: "The Lieutenant is staying with me. My wife has already
+driven home. I hope you'll have a pleasant time, Lorenzi!"
+
+"You know perfectly well," rejoined Lorenzi imperturbably, "that I shall
+ride straight to Mantua, and not to your place, to which you were so
+good as to invite me yesterday."
+
+"You can ride to bell for all I care!" said the other.
+
+Lorenzi politely took his leave of the rest of the company, and, to
+Casanova's astonishment, departed without making any suitable retort to
+the Marchese.
+
+Casanova went on with the game, still winning, so that the Marchese ere
+long was several hundred ducats in his debt. "What's the use of it all?"
+thought Casanova at first. But by degrees he was once more ensnared by
+the lure of the gaming table. "After all," he mused, "this is a lucky
+turn of fortune. I shall soon be a thousand to the good, perhaps even
+two thousand. The Marchese will not fail to pay his debt. It would be
+pleasant to take a modest competence with me to Venice. But why Venice?
+Who regains wealth, regains youth. Wealth is everything. At any rate,
+I shall now be able to buy her. Whom? The only woman I want.... She
+is standing naked at the window.... I am sure she is waiting there,
+expecting me to come.... She is standing at the window to drive me mad!"
+
+All the same, with unruffled brow he continued dealing the cards, not
+only to the Marchese, but also to Olivo and to the brothers Ricardi. To
+the latter from time to time he pushed over a gold piece to which they
+had no claim, but which they accepted without comment. The noise of a
+trotting horse came from the road. "Lorenzi," thought Casanova. The
+hoofbeats echoed for a time from the garden wall, until sound and echo
+gradually died away.
+
+At length Casanova's luck turned. The Marchese staked more and more
+boldly. By midnight Casanova was as poor as at the beginning; nay,
+poorer, for he had lost the few ducats with which he had made his first
+venture. Pushing the cards away, he stood up with a smile, saying:
+"Thank you, gentlemen, for a pleasant game."
+
+Olivo stretched out both hands towards Casanova. "Dear friend, let us
+go on with the game..... You have a hundred and fifty ducats. Have you
+forgotten them? Not only a hundred and fifty ducats, but all that I
+have, everything, everything." His speech was thick, for he had been
+drinking throughout the evening.
+
+Casanova signified his refusal with an exaggerated but courtly gesture.
+"Luck and women cannot be constrained," he said, bowing towards the
+Abbate, who nodded contentedly and clapped his hands.
+
+"Till to-morrow, then, my dear Chevalier," said the Marchese. "We will
+join forces to win the money back from Lieutenant Lorenzi."
+
+The brothers Ricardi insistently demanded that the game should continue.
+The Marchese, who was in a jovial mood, opened a bank for them. They
+staked the gold pieces which Casanova had allowed them to win. In a
+couple of minutes they had lost them all to the Marchese, who declined
+to go on playing unless they could produce cash. They wrung their hands.
+The elder began to cry like a child. The younger, to comfort his
+brother, kissed him on both cheeks. The Marchese enquired whether the
+carriage had returned, and the Abbate said he had heard it drive up half
+an hour earlier. Thereupon the Marchese offered the Abbate and the two
+Ricardis a lift, promising to set them down at their doors. All four
+left the house together.
+
+When they had gone, Olivo took Casanova by the arm, and assured his
+guest repeatedly, with tears in his voice, that everything in the house
+was at Casanova's absolute disposal. They walked past Marcolina's
+window. Not merely was the window closed, but the iron grating had
+been fastened; within, the window was curtained. There had been times,
+thought Casanova, when all these precautions had been unavailing, or had
+been without significance. They reentered the house. Olivo would not be
+dissuaded from accompanying the guest up the creaking staircase into the
+turret chamber. He embraced Casanova as he bade him good-night.
+
+"To-morrow," he said, "you shall see the nunnery. But sleep as late as
+you please. We are not early risers here; anyhow we shall adapt the
+hours to your convenience. Good-night!" He closed the door quietly, but
+his heavy tread resounded through the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+
+The room in which Casanova was now left to his own devices was dimly
+lighted by two candles. His gaze roamed successively to the four
+windows, looking to the four quarters of heaven. The prospect was much
+the same from them all. The landscape had a bluish sheen. He saw broad
+plains with no more than trifling elevations, except to the northward
+where the mountains were faintly visible. A few isolated houses, farms,
+and larger buildings, could be made out. Among these latter was one
+which stood higher than the rest. Here there was still a light in one of
+the windows, and Casanova imagined it must be the Marchese's mansion.
+
+The furniture of the room was simple. The double bed stood straight out
+into the room. The two candles were on a long table. There were a few
+chairs, and a chest of drawers bearing a gilt-framed mirror. Everything
+was in perfect order, and the valise had been unpacked. On the table,
+locked, lay the shabby portfolio containing Casanova's papers. There
+were also some books which he was using in his work; writing materials
+had been provided.
+
+He did not feel sleepy. Taking his manuscript out of the portfolio, he
+reread what he had last written. Since he had broken off in the middle
+of a sentence, it was easy for him to continue. He took up the pen,
+wrote a phrase or two, then paused.
+
+"To what purpose?" he demanded of himself, as if in a cruel flash of
+inner illumination. "Even if I knew that what I am writing, what I am
+going to write, would be considered incomparably fine; even if I could
+really succeed in annihilating Voltaire, and in making my renown greater
+than his--would I not gladly commit these papers to the flames could I
+but have Marcolina in my arms? For that boon, should I not be willing to
+vow never to set foot in Venice again, even though the Venetians should
+wish to escort me back to the city in triumph?"
+
+"Venice!"..... He breathed the word once more. Its splendor captivated
+his imagination, and in a moment its old power over him had been
+restored. The city of his youth rose before his eyes, enshrined in all
+the charms of memory. His heart ached with yearning more intense than
+any that he could recall. To renounce the idea of returning home seemed
+to him the most incredible of the sacrifices which his destiny might
+demand. How could he go on living in this poor and faded world without
+the hope, without the certainty, that he was one day to see the beloved
+city again? After the years and decades of wanderings and adventures,
+after all the happiness and unhappiness he had experienced, after
+all the honor and all the shame, after so many triumphs and so many
+discomfitures--he must at length find a resting place, must at length
+find a home.
+
+Was there any other home for him than Venice? Was there any good fortune
+reserved for him other than this, that he should have a home once
+more? It was long since in foreign regions he had been able to command
+enduring happiness. He could still at times grasp happiness, but for
+a moment only; he could no longer hold it fast. His power over his
+fellows, over women no less than over men, had vanished. Only where he
+evoked memories could his words, his voice, his glance, still conjure;
+apart from this, his presence was void of interest. His day was done!
+
+He was willing to admit what he had hitherto been sedulous to conceal
+from himself, that even his literary labors, including the polemic
+against Voltaire upon which his last hopes reposed, would never secure
+any notable success. Here, likewise, he was too late. Had he in youth
+but had leisure and patience to devote himself seriously to the work of
+the pen, he was confident he could have ranked with the leading members
+of the profession of authorship, with the greatest imaginative writers
+and philosophers. He was as sure of this as he was sure that, granted
+more perseverance and foresight than he actually possessed, he could
+have risen to supreme eminence as financier or as diplomat.
+
+But what availed his patience and his foresight, what became of all his
+plans in life, when the lure of a new love adventure summoned? Women,
+always women. For them he had again and again cast everything to the
+winds; sometimes for women who were refined, sometimes for women who
+were vulgar; for passionate women and for frigid women; for maidens
+and for harlots. All the honors and all the joys in the world had ever
+seemed cheap to him in comparison with a successful night upon a new
+love quest.
+
+Did he regret what he had lost through his perpetual seeking and
+never or ever finding, through this earthly and superearthly flitting
+from craving to pleasure and from pleasure back to craving once more?
+No, he had no regrets. He had lived such a life as none other before
+him; and could he not still live it after his own fashion? Everywhere
+there remained women upon his path, even though they might no longer be
+quite so crazy about him as of old.
+
+Amalia? He could have her for the asking, at this very hour, in her
+drunken husband's bed. The hostess in Mantua; was she not in love with
+him, fired with affection and jealousy as if he were a handsome lad?
+Perotti's mistress, pockmarked, but a woman with a fine figure? The
+very name of Casanova had intoxicated her with its aroma of a thousand
+conquests. Had she not implored him to grant her but a single night of
+love; and had he not spurned her as one who could still choose where he
+pleased?
+
+But Marcolina--such as Marcolina were no longer at his disposal. Had
+such as Marcolina ever been at his disposal? Doubtless there were women
+of that kind. Perchance he had met more than one such woman before.
+Always, however, some more willing than she had been available, and he
+had never been the man to waste a day in vain sighing. Since not even
+Lorenzi had succeeded with Marcolina, since she had rejected the hand of
+this comely officer who was as handsome and as bold as he, Casanova, had
+been in youth, Marcolina might well prove to be that wonder of the world
+in the existence of which he had hitherto disbelieved--the virtuous
+woman.
+
+At this juncture he laughed, so that the walls reechoed. "The
+bungler, the greenhorn!" he exclaimed out loud, as so often in such
+self-communings. "He did not know how to make a good use of his
+opportunities. Or the Marchesa was hanging round his neck all the time.
+Or perhaps he took her as a next-best, when Marcolina, the philosopher,
+the woman of learning, proved unattainable!"
+
+Suddenly a thought struck him. "To-morrow I will read her my polemic
+against Voltaire. I can think of no one else who would be a competent
+critic. I shall convince her. She will admire me. She will say:
+'Excellent, Signor Casanova. Your style is that of a most brilliant old
+gentleman!' God!.... 'You have positively annihilated Voltaire, you
+brilliant senior!'"
+
+He paced the chamber like a beast in a cage, hissing out the words in
+his anger. A terrible wrath possessed him, against Marcolina, against
+Voltaire, against himself, against the whole world. It was all he could
+do to restrain himself from roaring aloud in his rage. At length he
+threw himself upon the bed without undressing, and lay with eyes wide
+open, looking up at the joists among which spiders' webs were visible,
+glistening in the candlelight. Then, as often happened to him after
+playing cards late at night, pictures of cards chased one another
+swiftly through his brain, until he sank into a dreamless sleep.
+
+His slumber was brief. When he awakened it was to a mysterious silence.
+The southern and the eastern windows of the turret chamber were open.
+Through them from the garden and the fields entered a complex of sweet
+odors. Gradually the silence was broken by the vague noises from near
+and from far which usually herald the dawn. Casanova could no longer lie
+quiet; a vigorous impulse towards movement gripped him, and lured him
+into the open. The song of the birds called to him; the cool breeze of
+early morning played upon his brow. Softly he opened the door and moved
+cautiously down the stairs. Cunning, from long experience, he was able
+to avoid making the old staircase creak. The lower flight, leading to
+the ground floor, was of stone. Through the hall, where half-emptied
+glasses were still standing on the table, he made his way into the
+garden. Since it was impossible to walk silently on the gravel, he
+promptly stepped on to the greensward, which now, in the early twilight,
+seemed an area of vast proportions. He slipped into the side alley,
+from which he could see Marcolina's window. It was closed, barred, and
+curtained, just as it had been overnight. Barely fifty paces from the
+house, Casanova seated himself upon a stone bench. He heard a cart roll
+by on the other side of the wall, and then everything was quiet again. A
+fine grey haze was floating over the greensward, giving it the aspect of
+a pond with fugitive outlines. Once again Casanova thought of that night
+long ago in the convent garden at Murano; he thought of another garden
+on another night; he hardly knew what memories he was recalling;
+perchance it was a composite reminiscence of a hundred nights, just as
+at times a hundred women whom he had loved would fuse in memory into one
+figure that loomed enigmatically before his questioning senses. After
+all, was not one night just like another? Was not one woman just like
+another? Especially when the affair was past and gone? The phrase,
+"past and gone," continued to hammer upon his temples, as if destined
+henceforth to become the pulse of his forlorn existence.
+
+It seemed to him that something was rattling behind him along the wall.
+Or was it only an echo that he heard? Yes, the noise had really come
+from the house. Marcolina's window had suddenly been opened, the iron
+grating had been pushed back, the curtain drawn. A shadowy form
+was visible against the dark interior. Marcolina, clad in a white
+nightdress, was standing at the window, as if to breathe the fragrance
+of morning. In an instant, Casanova slipped behind the bench. Peeping
+over the top of it, through the foliage in the avenue, he watched
+Marcolina as if spellbound. She stood unthinking, it seemed, her gaze
+vaguely piercing the twilight. Not until several seconds had elapsed did
+she appear to collect herself, to grow fully awake and aware, directing
+her eyes slowly, now to right and now to left. Then she leaned forward,
+as if seeking for something on the gravel, and next she turned her head,
+from which her hair was hanging loosely, and looked up towards the
+windows in the upper story. Thereafter, she stood motionless for a
+while, supporting herself with a hand on either side of the window-frame
+as though she were fastened to an invisible cross. Now at length,
+suddenly illumined as it were from within, her features grew plain to
+Casanova's vision. A smile flitted across her face. Her arms fell to her
+sides; her lips moved strangely, as if whispering a prayer; once
+more she looked searchingly across the garden, then nodded almost
+imperceptibly, and at the instant someone who must hitherto have been
+crouching at her feet swung across the sill into the open. It was
+Lorenzi. He flew rather than walked across the gravel into the alley,
+which he crossed barely ten yards from Casanova, who held his breath
+as he lay behind the bench. Lorenzi, hastening on, made his way down a
+narrow strip of grass running along the wall, and disappeared from view.
+Casanova heard a door groan on its hinges--the very door doubtless
+through which he, Olivo, and the Marchese had reentered the garden
+on the previous day--and then all was still. Marcolina had remained
+motionless. As soon as she knew that Lorenzi was safely away, she drew a
+deep breath, and closed grating and window. The curtain fell back into
+its place, and all was as it had been. Except for one thing; for now, as
+if there were no longer any reason for delay, day dawned over house and
+garden.
+
+Casanova was still lying behind the bench, his arms outstretched before
+him. After a while he crept on all fours to the middle of the alley, and
+thence onward till he reached a place where he could not be seen from
+Marcolina's window or from any of the others. Rising to his feet with an
+aching back, he stretched body and limbs, and felt himself restored to
+his senses, as though re-transformed from a whipped hound into a human
+being--doomed to feel the chastisement, not as bodily pain, but as
+profound humiliation.
+
+"Why," he asked himself, "did I not go to the window while it was still
+open? Why did I not leap over the sill? Could she have offered any
+resistance; would she have dared to do so; hypocrite, liar, strumpet?"
+
+He continued to rail at her as though he had a right to do so, as though
+he had been her lover to whom she had plighted troth and whom she had
+betrayed. He swore to question her face to face; to denounce her before
+Olivo, Amalia, the Marchese, the Abbate, the servants, as nothing better
+than a lustful little whore. As if for practice, he recounted to himself
+in detail what he had just witnessed, delighting in the invention of
+incidents which would degrade her yet further. He would say that she had
+stood naked at the window; that she had permitted the unchaste caresses
+of her lover while the morning wind played upon them both.
+
+After thus allaying the first vehemence of his anger, he turned
+to consider whether he might not make a better use of his present
+knowledge. Was she not in his power? Could he not now exact by threats
+the favors which she had not been willing to grant him for love? But
+this infamous design was speedily abandoned; not so much because
+Casanova realized its infamy, as because, even while the plan crossed
+his mind, he was aware of its futility. Why should Marcolina,
+accountable to no one but herself, be concerned at his threats? In the
+last resort she was astute enough, if needs must, to have him driven
+from the house as a slanderer and blackmailer. Even if, for one reason
+or another, she were willing to give herself to him in order to preserve
+the secret of her amours with Lorenzi (he was aware that he was
+speculating on something beyond the bounds of possibility), a pleasure
+thus extorted would become for him a nameless torment. Casanova
+knew himself to be one whose rapture in a love relationship was a
+thousandfold greater when conferring pleasure than when receiving it.
+Such a victory as he was contemplating would drive him to frenzy and
+despair.
+
+Suddenly he found himself at the door in the garden wall. It was locked.
+Then Lorenzi had a master-key! But who, it now occurred to him to ask,
+had ridden the horse he had heard trotting away after Lorenzi had left
+the card table? A servant in waiting for the purpose, obviously.
+
+Involuntarily Casanova smiled his approval. They were worthy of one
+another, these two, Marcolina and Lorenzi, the woman philosopher and the
+officer. A splendid career lay before them.
+
+"Who will be Marcolina's next lover?" he thought questioningly. "The
+professor in Bologna in whose house she lives? Fool, fool! That is
+doubtless an old story. Who next? Olivo? The Abbate? Wherefore not? Or
+the serving-lad who stood gaping at the door yesterday when we drove up?
+She has given herself to all of them. I am sure of it. But Lorenzi does
+not know. I have stolen a march on him there."
+
+Yet all the while he was inwardly convinced that Lorenzi was Marcolina's
+first lover. Nay, he even suspected that the previous night was the
+first on which she had given herself to Lorenzi. Nevertheless, as he
+made the circuit in the garden within the wall, he continued to indulge
+these spiteful, lascivious fantasies.
+
+At length he reached the hall door, which he had left open. He must
+regain the turret chamber unseen and unheard. With all possible caution
+he crept upstairs, and sank into the armchair which stood in front
+of the table. The loose leaves of the manuscript seemed to have been
+awaiting his return. Involuntarily his eyes fell upon the sentence in
+the middle of which he had broken off. He read: "Voltaire will doubtless
+prove immortal. But this immortality will have been purchased at the
+price of his immortal part. Wit has consumed his heart just as doubt has
+consumed his soul, and therefore....."
+
+At this moment the morning sun flooded the chamber with red light, so
+that the page in his hand glowed. As if vanquished, he laid it on the
+table beside the others. Suddenly aware that his lips were dry, he
+poured himself a glass of water from the carafe on the table; the drink
+was lukewarm and sweetish to the taste. Nauseated, he turned his head
+away from the glass, and found himself facing his image in the mirror
+upon the chest of drawers. A wan, aging countenance with dishevelled
+hair stared back at him. In a self-tormenting mood he allowed the
+corners of his mouth to droop as if he were playing the part of
+pantaloon on the stage; disarranged his hair yet more wildly; put out
+his tongue at his own image in the mirror; croaked a string of inane
+invectives against himself; and finally, like a naughty child, blew the
+leaves of his manuscript from the table on to the floor.
+
+Then he began to rail against Marcolina again. He loaded her with
+obscene epithets. "Do you imagine," he hissed between his teeth, "that
+your pleasure will last? You will become fat and wrinkled and old just
+like the other women who were young when you were young. You will be an
+old woman with flaccid breasts; your hair will be dry and grizzled; you
+will be toothless, you will have a bad smell. Last of all you will die.
+Perhaps you will die while you are still quite young. You will become a
+mass of corruption, food for worms."
+
+To wreak final vengeance upon her, he endeavored to picture her as dead.
+He saw her lying in an open coffin, wrapped in a white shroud. But he
+was unable to attach to her image any sign of decay, and her unearthly
+beauty aroused him to renewed frenzy. Through his closed eyelids he saw
+the coffin transform itself into a nuptial bed. Marcolina lay laughing
+there with lambent eyes. As if in mockery, with her small, white hands
+she unveiled her firm little breasts. But as he stretched forth his
+arms towards her, in the moment when he was about to clasp her in his
+passionate embrace, the vision faded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+
+Someone was knocking at the door. Casanova awoke from a heavy sleep to
+find Olivo standing before him.
+
+"At your writing so early?"
+
+Casanova promptly collected his wits. "It is my custom," he said, "to
+work the first thing in the morning. What time is it?"
+
+"Eight o'clock," answered Olivo. "Breakfast is ready in the garden.
+We will start on our drive to the nunnery as early as you please,
+Chevalier. How the wind has blown your papers about!"
+
+He stooped to pick up the fallen leaves. Casanova did not interfere. He
+had moved to the window, and was looking down upon the breakfast table
+which had been set on the greensward in the shade of the house. Amalia,
+Marcolina, and the three young girls, dressed in white, were at
+breakfast. They called up a good-morning. He had no eyes for anyone but
+Marcolina, who smiled at him frankly and in the friendliest fashion.
+In her lap was a plateful of early-ripe grapes, which she was eating
+deliberately.
+
+Contempt, anger, and hatred vanished from Casanova's heart. All he knew
+was that he loved her. Made drunken by the very sight of her, he turned
+away from the window to find Olivo on hands and knees still assembling
+the scattered pages of manuscript from under the table and chest of
+drawers. "Don't trouble any further," he said to his host. "Leave me to
+myself for a moment while I get ready for the drive."
+
+"No hurry," answered Olivo, rising, and brushing the dust from his
+knees. "We shall easily be home in time for dinner. We want to get back
+early, anyhow, for the Marchese would like us to begin cards soon after
+our meal. I suppose he wants to leave before sunset."
+
+"It doesn't matter to me what time you begin cards," said Casanova, as
+he arranged his manuscript in the portfolio. "Whatever happens, I shall
+not take a hand in the game."
+
+"Yes you will," explained Olivo with a decision foreign to his usual
+manner. Laying a roll of gold pieces on the table, he continued: "Thus
+do I pay my debt, Chevalier. A belated settlement, but it comes from a
+grateful heart." Casanova made a gesture of refusal.
+
+"I insist," said Olivo. "If you do not take the money, you will wound
+us deeply. Besides, last night Amalia had a dream which will certainly
+induce you--but I will let her tell the story herself." He turned and
+left the room precipitately.
+
+Casanova counted the money. Yes, there were one hundred and fifty gold
+pieces, the very sum that fifteen years earlier he had presented to the
+bridegroom, the bride, or the bride's mother--he had forgotten which.
+
+"The best thing I could do," he mused, "would be to pack up the money,
+say farewell to Olivo and Amalia, and leave the place at once, if
+possible without seeing Marcolina again. Yet when was I ever guided by
+reason?--I wonder if news has reached Mantua from Venice? But my good
+hostess promised to forward without fail anything that might arrive."
+
+The maid meanwhile had brought a large earthenware pitcher filled with
+water freshly drawn from the spring. Casanova sponged himself all over.
+Greatly refreshed, he dressed in his best suit, the one he had intended
+to wear the previous evening had there been time to change. Now,
+however, he was delighted that he would be able to appear before
+Marcolina better clad than on the previous day, to present himself in a
+new form as it were.
+
+So he sauntered into the garden wearing a coat of grey satin richly
+embroidered and trimmed with Spanish lace; a yellow waistcoat; and
+knee-breeches of cherry-colored silk. His aspect was that of a man who
+was distinguished without being proud. An amiable smile played about his
+lips, and his eyes sparkled with the fire of inextinguishable youth. To
+his disappointment, he found no one but Olivo, who bade him be seated,
+and invited him to fall to upon the modest fare. Casanova's breakfast
+consisted of bread, butter, milk, and eggs, followed by peaches and
+grapes, which seemed to him the finest he had ever eaten. Now the three
+girls came running across the lawn. Casanova kissed them in turn,
+bestowing on the thirteen-year-old Teresina such caresses as the Abbate
+had been free with on the previous day. Her eyes gleamed in a way with
+which Casanova was familiar. He was convinced this meant something more
+to her than childish amusement.
+
+Olivo was delighted to see how well the Chevalier got on with the girls.
+"Must you really leave us to-morrow morning?" he enquired tentatively.
+"This very evening," rejoined Casanova jovially. "You know, my dear
+Olivo, I must consider the wishes of the Venetian senators...."
+
+"How have they earned the right to any such consideration from you?"
+broke in Olivo. "Let them wait. Stay here for another two days at least;
+or, better still, for a week."
+
+Casanova slowly shook his head. He had seized Teresina's hands, and held
+her prisoner between his knees. She drew herself gently away, with a
+smile no longer that of a child. At this moment Amalia and Marcolina
+emerged from the house. Olivo besought them to second his invitation.
+But when neither found a word to say on the matter, Casanova's voice and
+expression assumed an unduly severe emphasis as he answered: "Quite out
+of the question."
+
+On the way through the chestnut avenue to the road, Marcolina asked
+Casanova whether he had made satisfactory progress with the polemic.
+Olivo had told her that his guest had been at the writing-table since
+early morning.
+
+Casanova was half inclined to make an answer that would have been
+malicious in its ambiguity, and would have startled his auditor without
+betraying himself. Reflecting, however, that premature advances could
+do his cause nothing but harm, he held his wit in leash, and civilly
+rejoined that he had been content to make a few emendations, the fruit
+of his conversation with her yesterday.
+
+Now they all seated themselves in the lumbering carriage. Casanova sat
+opposite Marcolina, Olivo opposite Amalia. The vehicle was so roomy
+that, notwithstanding the inevitable joltings, the inmates were not
+unduly jostled one against the other. Casanova begged Amalia to tell him
+her dream. She smiled cordially, almost brightly, no longer displaying
+any trace of mortification or resentment.
+
+"In my dream, Casanova, I saw you driving past a white building in a
+splendid carriage drawn by six chestnut horses. Or rather, the carriage
+pulled up in front of this building, and at first I did not know who was
+seated inside. Then you got out. You were wearing a magnificent white
+court dress embroidered with gold, so that your appearance was almost
+more resplendent than it is to-day." Her tone conveyed a spice of gentle
+mockery. "You were wearing, I am sure of it, the thin gold chain you are
+wearing to-day, and yet I had never seen it until this morning!" This
+chain, with the gold watch and gold snuff-box set with garnets (Casanova
+was fingering it as she spoke), were the only trinkets of value still
+left to him. "An old man, looking like a beggar, opened the carriage
+door. It was Lorenzi. As for you, Casanova, you were young, quite young,
+younger even than you seemed to me in those days." She said "in those
+days" quite unconcernedly, regardless of the fact that in the train of
+these words all her memories came attendant, winging their way like a
+flight of birds. "You bowed right and left, although there was not a
+soul within sight; then you entered the house. The door slammed to
+behind you. I did not know whether the storm had slammed it, or Lorenzi.
+So startling was the noise that the horses took fright and galloped away
+with the carriage. Then came a clamor from neighboring streets, as if
+people were trying to save themselves from being run over; but soon all
+was quiet again. Next I saw you at one of the windows. Now I knew it was
+a gaming-house. Once more you bowed in all directions, though the whole
+time there was no one to be seen. You looked over your shoulder, as if
+someone were standing behind you in the room; but I knew that no one was
+there. Now, of a sudden, I saw you at another window, in a higher story,
+where the same gestures were repeated. Then higher still, and higher,
+and yet higher, as if the building were piled story upon story,
+interminably. From each window in succession, you bowed towards the
+street, and then turned to speak to persons behind you--who were not
+really there at all. Lorenzi, meanwhile, kept on running up the stairs,
+flight after flight, but was never able to overtake you. He wanted you
+because you had forgotten to give him a gratuity....."
+
+"What next?" enquired Casanova, when Amalia paused.
+
+"There was a great deal more, but I have forgotten," said Amalia.
+
+Casanova was disappointed. In such cases, whether he was relating a
+dream or giving an account of real incidents, it was his way to
+round off the narrative, attempting to convey a meaning. He remarked
+discontentedly: "How strangely everything is distorted in dreams. Fancy,
+that I should be wealthy; and that Lorenzi should be a beggar, and old!"
+
+"As far as Lorenzi is concerned," interjected Olivo, "there is not much
+wealth about him. His father is fairly well off, but no one can say that
+of the son."
+
+Casanova had no need to ask questions. He was speedily informed that
+it was through the Marchese that they had made the Lieutenant's
+acquaintance. The Marchese had brought Lorenzi to the house only a few
+weeks before. A man of the Chevalier's wide experience would hardly
+need prompting to enlighten him as to the nature of the young officer's
+relationship to the Marchesa. After all, if the husband had no
+objection, the affair was nobody else's business.
+
+"I think, Olivo," said Casanova, "that you have allowed yourself to be
+convinced of the Marchese's complaisance too easily. Did you not notice
+his manner towards the young man, the mingling of contempt and ferocity?
+I should not like to wager that all will end well."
+
+Marcolina remained impassive. She seemed to pay no attention to this
+talk about Lorenzi, but sat with unruffled countenance, and to all
+appearance quietly delighting in the landscape. The road led upwards by
+a gentle ascent zigzagging through groves of olives and holly trees.
+Now they reached a place where the horses had to go more slowly, and
+Casanova alighted to stroll beside the carriage. Marcolina talked of
+the lovely scenery round Bologna, and of the evening walks she was
+in the habit of taking with Professor Morgagni's daughter. She also
+mentioned that she was planning a journey to France next year, in
+order to make the personal acquaintance of Saugrenue, the celebrated
+mathematician at the university of Paris, with whom she had
+corresponded. "Perhaps," she said with a smile, "I may look in at Ferney
+on the way, in order to learn from Voltaire's own lips how he has
+been affected by the polemic of the Chevalier de Seingalt, his most
+formidable adversary."
+
+Casanova was walking with a hand on the side of the carriage, close to
+Marcolina's arm. Her loose sleeve was touching his fingers. He answered
+quietly: "It matters less what M. Voltaire thinks about the matter
+than what posterity thinks. A final decision upon the merits of the
+controversy must be left to the next generation."
+
+"Do you really think," said Marcolina earnestly, "that final decisions
+can be reached in questions of this character?"
+
+"I am surprised that you should ask such a thing, Marcolina. Though your
+philosophic views, and (if the term be appropriate) your religious
+views, seem to me by no means irrefutable, at least they must be firmly
+established in your soul--if you believe that there is a soul."
+
+Marcolina, ignoring the personal animus in Casanova's words, sat looking
+skyward over the tree-crests, and tranquilly rejoined: "Ofttimes, and
+especially on a day like this"--to Casanova, knowing what he knew, the
+words conveyed the thrill of reverence in the newly awakened heart of a
+woman--"I feel as if all that people speak of as philosophy and religion
+were no more than playing with words. A sport nobler perhaps than
+others, nevertheless more unmeaning than them all. Infinity and eternity
+will never be within the grasp of our understanding. Our path leads from
+birth to death. What else is left for us than to live a life accordant
+with the law that each of us bears within--or a life of rebellion
+against that law? For rebellion and submissiveness both issue from God."
+
+Olivo looked at his niece with timid admiration, then turned to
+contemplate Casanova with some anxiety. Casanova was in search of a
+rejoinder which should convince Marcolina that she was in one breath
+affirming and denying God, or should prove to her that she was
+proclaiming God and the Devil to be the same. He realized, however, that
+he had nothing but empty words to set against her feelings, and to-day
+words did not come to him readily. His expression showed him to be
+somewhat at a loss, and apparently reminded Amalia of the confused
+menaces he had uttered on the previous day. So she hastened to remark:
+"Marcolina is deeply religious all the same, I can assure you,
+Chevalier."
+
+Marcolina smiled.
+
+"We are all religious in our several ways," said Casanova civilly.
+
+Now came a turn in the road, and the nunnery was in sight. The slender
+tops of cypresses showed above the encircling wall. At the sound of the
+approaching carriage, the great doors had swung open. The porter, an old
+man with a flowing white beard, bowed gravely and gave them admittance.
+Through the cloisters, between the columns of which they caught glimpses
+of an overgrown garden, they advanced towards the main building, from
+whose unadorned, grey, and prison-like exterior an unpleasantly cool
+air was wafted. Olivo pulled the bellrope; the answering sound was
+high-pitched, and died away in a moment. A veiled nun silently appeared,
+and ushered the guests into the spacious parlor. It contained merely
+a few plain wooden chairs, and the back was cut off by a heavy iron
+grating, beyond which nothing could be seen but a vague darkness.
+
+With bitterness in his heart, Casanova recalled the adventure which
+still seemed to him the most wonderful of all his experiences. It had
+begun in just such surroundings as the present. Before his eyes loomed
+the forms of the two inmates of the Murano convent who had been friends
+in their love for him. In conjunction they had bestowed upon him hours
+of incomparable sweetness. When Olivo, in a whisper, began to speak
+of the strict discipline imposed upon this sisterhood--once they were
+professed, the nuns must never appear unveiled before a man, and they
+were vowed to perpetual silence--a smile flitted across Casanova's face.
+
+The Abbess suddenly emerged from the gloom, and was standing in their
+midst. In silence she saluted her guests, and with an exaggerated
+reverence of her veiled head acknowledged Casanova's expressions of
+gratitude for the admission of himself, a stranger. But when Marcolina
+wished to kiss her hand, the Abbess gathered the girl in her arms. Then,
+with a wave of the hand inviting them to follow, she led the way through
+a small room into a cloister surrounding a quadrangular flower-garden.
+In contrast to the outer garden, which had run wild, this inner garden
+was tended with especial care. The flower-beds, brilliant in the
+sunshine, showed a wonderful play of variegated colors. The warm odors
+were almost intoxicating. One, intermingled with the rest, aroused no
+responsive echo in Casanova's memory. Puzzled, he was about to say a
+word on the subject to Marcolina, when he perceived that the enigmatic,
+stimulating fragrance emanated from herself. She had removed her shawl
+from her shoulders and was carrying it over her arm. From the opening of
+her gown came a perfume at once kindred to that of the thousand flowers
+of the garden, and yet unique.
+
+The Abbess, still without a word, conducted the visitors between the
+flower-beds upon narrow, winding paths which traversed the garden like
+a lovely labyrinth. The graceful ease of her gait showed that she was
+enjoying the chance of showing others the motley splendors of her
+garden. As if she had determined to make her guests giddy, she moved on
+faster and ever faster like the leader of a lively folk-dance. Then,
+quite suddenly, so that Casanova seemed to awaken from a confusing
+dream, they all found themselves in the parlor once more. On the other
+side of the grating, dim figures were moving. It was impossible to
+distinguish whether, behind the thick bars, three or five or twenty
+veiled women were flitting to and fro like startled ghosts. Indeed, none
+but Casanova, with eyes preternaturally acute to pierce the darkness,
+could discern that they were human outlines at all.
+
+The Abbess attended her guests to the door, mutely gave them a sign
+of farewell, and vanished before they had found time to express their
+thanks for her courtesy.
+
+Suddenly, just as they were about to leave the parlor, a woman's voice
+near the grating breathed the word "Casanova." Nothing but his name, in
+a tone that seemed to him quite unfamiliar. From whom came this breach
+of a sacred vow? Was it a woman he had once loved, or a woman he had
+never seen before? Did the syllables convey the ecstasy of an unexpected
+reencounter, or the pain of something irrecoverably lost; or did it
+convey the lamentation that an ardent wish of earlier days had been so
+late and so fruitlessly fulfilled? Casanova could not tell. All that he
+knew was that his name, which had so often voiced the whispers of tender
+affection, the stammerings of passion, the acclamations of happiness,
+had to-day for the first time pierced his heart with the full resonance
+of love. But, for this very reason, to probe the matter curiously would
+have seemed to him ignoble and foolish. The door closed behind the
+party, shutting in a secret which he was never to unriddle. Were it not
+that the expression on each face had shown timidly and fugitively that
+the call to Casanova had reached the ears of all, each might have
+fancied himself or herself a prey to illusion. No one uttered a word as
+they walked through the cloisters to the great doors. Casanova brought
+up the rear, with bowed head, as if on the occasion of some profoundly
+affecting farewell.
+
+The porter was waiting. He received his alms. The visitors stepped into
+the carriage, and started on the homeward road. Olivo seemed perplexed;
+Amalia was distrait. Marcolina, however, was quite unmoved. Too
+pointedly, in Casanova's estimation, she attempted to engage Amalia in a
+discussion of household affairs, a topic upon which Olivo was compelled
+to come to his wife's assistance. Casanova soon joined in the
+discussion, which turned upon matters relating to kitchen and cellar. An
+expert on these topics, he saw no reason why he should hide his light
+under a bushel, and he seized the opportunity of giving a fresh proof
+of versatility. Thereupon, Amalia roused herself from her brown study.
+After their recent experience--at once incredible and haunting--to all,
+and especially to Casanova, there was a certain comfort derivable from
+an extremely commonplace atmosphere of mundane life. When the carriage
+reached home, where an inviting odor of roast meat and cooking
+vegetables assailed their nostrils, Casanova was in the midst of an
+appetizing description of a Polish pasty, a description to which even
+Marcolina attended with a flattering air of domesticity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+
+In a strangely tranquillized, almost happy mood, which was a surprise
+to himself, Casanova sat at table with the others, and paid court to
+Marcolina in the sportive manner which might seem appropriate from a
+distinguished elderly gentleman towards a well-bred young woman of the
+burgher class. She accepted his attentions gracefully, in the spirit in
+which they appeared to be offered. He found it difficult to believe that
+his demure neighbor was the same Marcolina from whose bedroom window he
+had seen a young officer emerge, a man who had obviously held her in
+his arms but a few moments earlier. It was equally difficult for him to
+realize how this tender girl, who was fond of romping on the grass with
+other children, could conduct a learned correspondence with Saugrenue,
+the renowned mathematician of Paris. Yet simultaneously he derided
+himself for the inertness of his imagination. Had he not learned a
+thousand times that in the souls of all persons who are truly alive,
+discrepant elements, nay, apparently hostile elements, may coexist in
+perfect harmony? He himself, who shortly before had been so profoundly
+moved, had been desperate, had been ready for evil deeds, was now so
+gentle, so kindly, in so merry a mood, that Olivo's little daughters
+were shaking their sides with laughter. Nevertheless, as was usual with
+him after strong excitement, his appetite was positively ferocious, and
+this served to warn him that order was not yet fully restored in his
+soul.
+
+With the last course, the maid brought in a despatch which had just
+arrived for the Chevalier by special messenger from Mantua. Olivo
+noticed that Casanova grew pale. He told the servant to provide the
+messenger with refreshment, then turned to his guest.
+
+"Pray don't stand upon ceremony, Chevalier. Read your letter."
+
+"If you will excuse me," answered Casanova. He went to the window and
+opened the missive with simulated indifference. It was from Signor
+Bragadino, an old friend of the family and a confirmed bachelor, over
+eighty years of age, and for the last decade a member of the Supreme
+Council. He had shown more interest than other patrons in pressing
+Casanova's suit. The letter was beautifully written, although the
+characters were a little shaky. It was as follows:
+
+"My dear Casanova:
+
+"I am delighted, at length, to be able to send you news which will, I
+hope, be substantially accordant with your wishes. The Supreme Council,
+at its last sitting, which took place yesterday evening, did not merely
+express its willingness to permit your return to Venice. It went
+further. The Council desires that your advent should be as speedy as
+possible, since there is an intention to turn to immediate account the
+active gratitude which you have foreshadowed in so many of your letters.
+
+"Since Venice has been deprived for so long of the advantage of your
+presence, you may perhaps be unaware, my dear Casanova, that quite
+recently the internal affairs of our beloved native city have taken a
+rather unfavorable trend both politically and morally. Secret societies
+have come into existence, directed against the constitution of the
+Venetian state, and even, it would seem, aiming at its forcible
+overthrow. As might be expected, the members of these societies, persons
+whom it would not be too harsh to denominate conspirators, are chiefly
+drawn from certain free-thinking, irreligious, and lawless circles. Not
+to speak of what goes on in private, we learn that in the public squares
+and in coffee houses, the most outrageous, the most treasonable
+conversations, take place. But only in exceptional instances has it been
+possible to catch the guilty in the act, or to secure definite proof
+against the offenders. A few admissions have been enforced by the rack,
+but these confessions have proved so untrustworthy that several members
+of the Council are of opinion that for the future it would be better to
+abstain from methods of investigation which are not only cruel but are
+apt to lead us astray. Of course there is no lack of individuals
+well-affected towards public order and devoted to the welfare of the
+state, individuals who would be delighted to place their services at the
+disposal of the government; but most of them are so well known as
+stalwart supporters of the existing constitution that when they are
+present people are chary in their utterances and are most unlikely to
+give vent to treasonable expressions.
+
+"At yesterday's sitting, one of the senators, whom I will not name,
+expressed the opinion that a man who had the reputation of being without
+moral principle and who was furthermore regarded as a freethinker--in
+short, Casanova, such a man as yourself--if recalled to Venice would not
+fail to secure prompt and sympathetic welcome in the very circles which
+the government regards with such well-grounded suspicion. If he played
+his cards well, such a man would soon inspire the most absolute
+confidence.
+
+"In my opinion, irresistibly, and as if by the force of a law of nature,
+there would gravitate around your person the very elements which the
+Supreme Council, in its indefatigable zeal for the state, is most eager
+to render harmless and to punish in an exemplary manner. For your
+part, my dear Casanova, you would give us an acceptable proof of your
+patriotic zeal, and would furnish in addition an infallible sign of your
+complete conversion from all those tendencies for which, during your
+imprisonment in The Leads, you had to atone by punishment which, though
+severe, was not, as you now see for yourself (if we are to believe your
+epistolary assurances), altogether unmerited. I mean, should you be
+prepared, immediately on your return home, to act in the way previously
+suggested, to seek acquaintance with the elements sufficiently specified
+above, to introduce yourself to them in the friendliest fashion as
+one who cherishes the same tendencies, and to furnish the Senate
+with accurate and full reports of everything which might seem to you
+suspicious or worthy of note.
+
+"For these services the authorities would offer you, to begin with,
+a salary of two hundred and fifty lire per month, apart from special
+payments in cases of exceptional importance. I need hardly say that you
+would receive in addition, without too close a scrutiny of the items, an
+allowance for such expenses as you might incur in the discharge of your
+duties (I refer, for instance, to the treating of this individual or of
+that, little gifts made to women, and so on).
+
+"I do not attempt to conceal from myself that you may have to fight down
+certain scruples before you will feel inclined to fulfil our wishes.
+Permit me, however, as your old and sincere friend (who was himself
+young once), to remind you that it can never be regarded as dishonorable
+for a man to perform any services that may be essential for the safety
+of his beloved fatherland--even if, to a shallow-minded and unpatriotic
+citizen, such services might seem to be of an unworthy character.
+Let me add, Casanova, that your knowledge of human nature will certainly
+enable you to draw a distinction between levity and criminality, to
+differentiate the jester from the heretic. Thus it will be within your
+power, in appropriate cases, to temper justice with mercy, and to
+deliver up to punishment those only who, in your honest opinion, may
+deserve it.
+
+"Above all I would ask you to consider that, should you reject the
+gracious proposal of the Supreme Council, the fulfilment of your dearest
+wish--your return to Venice--is likely to be postponed for a long and I
+fear for an indefinite period; and that I myself, if I may allude to the
+matter, as an old man of eighty-one, should be compelled in all human
+probability to renounce the pleasing prospect of ever seeing you again
+in this life.
+
+"Since, for obvious reasons, your appointment will be of a confidential
+and not of a public nature, I beg you to address to me personally your
+reply, for which I make myself responsible, and which I wish to present
+to the Council at its next sitting a week hence. Act with all convenient
+speed, for, as I have previously explained, we are daily receiving
+offers from thoroughly trustworthy persons who, from patriotic
+motives, voluntarily place themselves at the disposal of the Supreme
+Council. Nevertheless, there is hardly one among them who can compare
+with you, my dear Casanova, in respect of experience or intelligence.
+If, in addition to all the arguments I have adduced, you take my
+personal feelings into account, I find it difficult to doubt that you
+will gladly respond to the call which now reaches you from so exalted
+and so friendly a source.
+
+"Till then, receive the assurances of my undying friendship.
+
+"BRAGADINO."
+
+"Postscript. Immediately upon receipt of your acceptance, it will be a
+pleasure to me to send you a remittance of two hundred lire through the
+banking firm of Valori in Mantua. The sum is to defray the cost of your
+journey.
+
+"B."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long after Casanova had finished reading the letter, he stood holding
+the paper so as to conceal the deathly pallor of his countenance. From
+the dining-table came a continuous noise, the rattle of plates and the
+clinking of glasses; but conversation had entirely ceased. At length
+Amalia ventured to say: "The food is getting cold, Chevalier; won't
+you go on with your meal?"
+
+"You must excuse me," replied Casanova, letting his face be seen once
+more, for by now, owing to his extraordinary self-control, he had
+regained outward composure. "I have just received the best possible news
+from Venice, and I must reply instantly. With your leave, I will go to
+my room."
+
+"Suit yourself, Chevalier," said Olivo. "But do not forget that our card
+party begins in an hour."
+
+In the turret chamber Casanova sank into a chair. A chill sweat broke
+out over his body; he shivered as if in the cold stage of a fever; he
+was seized with such nausea that he felt as if he were about to choke.
+For a time he was unable to think clearly, and he could do no more than
+devote his energies to the task of self-restraint without quite knowing
+why he did so. But there was no one in the house upon whom he could vent
+his fury; and he could not fail to realize the utter absurdity of a
+half-formed idea that Marcolina must be in some way contributory to the
+intolerable shame which had been put upon him.
+
+As soon as he was in some degree once more master of himself, his first
+thought was to take revenge upon the scoundrels who had believed that he
+could be hired as a police spy. He would return to Venice in disguise,
+and would exert all his cunning to compass the death of these
+wretches--or at least of whomever it was that had conceived the
+despicable design.
+
+Was Bragadino the prime culprit? Why not? An old man so lost to all
+sense of shame that he had dared to write such a letter to Casanova; a
+dotard who could actually believe that Casanova, whom he had personally
+known, would set his hand to this ignominious task. He no longer knew
+Casanova! Nor did anyone know him, in Venice or elsewhere. But people
+should learn to know him once more.
+
+It was true that he was no longer young enough or handsome enough to
+seduce an honest girl. Nor did he now possess the skill and the agility
+requisite for an escape from prison, or for gymnastic feats upon the
+roof-tops. But in spite of his age, he was cleverer than anyone else!
+Once back in Venice, he could do anything he pleased. The first step,
+the essential step, was to get back. Perhaps it would not be necessary
+to kill anyone. There were other kinds of revenge, grimmer, more
+devilish, than a commonplace murder. If he were to feign acceptance of
+the Council's proposal, it would be the easiest thing in the world to
+compass the destruction of those whom he wished to destroy, instead of
+bringing about the ruin of those whom the authorities had in mind, and
+who were doubtless the finest fellows among all the inhabitants of
+Venice! Monstrous! Because they were the enemies of this infamous
+government, because they were reputed heretics, were they to languish in
+The Leads where he had languished twenty-five years ago, or were they to
+perish under the executioner's axe? He detested the government a hundred
+times more than they did, and with better reason. He had been a lifelong
+heretic; was a heretic to-day, upon sincerer conviction than them all.
+What a queer comedy he had been playing of late years--simply from
+tedium and disgust. He to believe in God? What sort of a God was it who
+was gracious only to the young, and left the old in the lurch? A God
+who, when the fancy took him, became a devil; who transformed wealth
+into poverty, fortune into misfortune, happiness into despair. "You play
+with us--and we are to worship you? To doubt your existence is the only
+resource left open to us if we are not to blaspheme you! You do not
+exist; for if you did exist, I should curse you!"
+
+Shaking his clenched fists heavenward, he rose to his feet.
+Involuntarily, a detested name rose to his lips. Voltaire! Yes, now he
+was in the right mood to finish his polemic against the sage of Ferney.
+To finish it? No, now was the time to begin it. A new one! A different
+one! One in which the ridiculous old fool should be shown up as he
+deserved: for his pusillanimity, his half-heartedness, his subservience.
+He an unbeliever? A man of whom the latest news was that he was on
+excellent terms with the priests, that he visited church, and on feast
+days actually went to confession! He a heretic? He was a chatterbox, a
+boastful coward, nothing more! But the day of reckoning was at hand,
+and soon there would be nothing left of the great philosopher but a
+quill-driving buffoon.
+
+What airs he had given himself, this worthy M. Voltaire! "My dear M.
+Casanova, I am really vexed with you. What concern have I with the works
+of Merlin? It is your fault that I have wasted four hours over such
+nonsense."
+
+All a matter of taste, excellent M. Voltaire! People will continue to
+read Merlin long after _La Pucelle_ has been forgotten. Possibly they
+will continue to prize my sonnets, the sonnets you returned to me with
+a shameless smile, and without saying a word about them. But these
+are trifles. Do not let us spoil a great opportunity because of our
+sensitiveness as authors. We are concerned with philosophy--with God! We
+shall cross swords, M. Voltaire, unless you die before I have a chance
+to deal with you.
+
+He was already in the mind to begin his new polemic, when it occurred to
+him that the messenger was waiting for an answer. He hastily indited
+a letter to the old duffer Bragadino, a letter full of hypocritical
+humility and simulated delight. With joy and gratitude he accepted the
+pardon of the Council. He would expect the remittance by return of post,
+so that with all possible speed he might present himself before his
+patrons, and above all before the honored old family friend, Bragadino.
+
+When he was in the act of sealing the letter, someone knocked gently at
+the door. At the word, Olivo's eldest daughter, the thirteen-year-old
+Teresina, entered, to tell him that the whole company was assembled
+below, and that the Chevalier was impatiently awaited at the card
+table. Her eyes gleamed strangely; her cheeks were flushed; her thick,
+black hair lay loose upon her temples; her little mouth was half open.
+
+"Have you been drinking wine, Teresina?" asked Casanova striding towards
+her.
+
+"Yes. How did you know?" She blushed deeper, and in her embarrassment
+she moistened her lips with her tongue.
+
+Casanova seized her by the shoulders, and, breathing in her face, drew
+her to the bed. She looked at him with great helpless eyes in which
+the light was now extinguished. But when she opened her mouth as if to
+scream, Casanova's aspect was so menacing that she was almost paralyzed
+with fear, and let him do whatever he pleased.
+
+He kissed her with a tender fierceness, whispering: "You must not tell
+the Abbate anything about this, Teresina, not even in confession. Some
+day, when you have a lover or a husband, there is no reason why he
+should know anything about it. You should always keep your own counsel.
+Never tell the truth to your father, your mother, or your sisters, that
+it may be well with you on earth. Mark my words." As he spoke thus
+blasphemously, Teresina seemed to regard his utterance as a pious
+admonition, for she seized his hand and kissed it reverently as if it
+had been a priest's.
+
+He laughed. "Come," he said, "come, little wife, we will walk arm in arm
+into the room downstairs!"
+
+She seemed a little coy at first, but smiled with genuine gratification.
+
+It was high time for them to go down, for they met Olivo coming up. He
+was flushed and wore a frown, so that Casanova promptly inferred that
+the Marchese or the Abbate had roused his suspicions by some coarse jest
+concerning Teresina's prolonged absence. His brow cleared when he beheld
+Casanova on the threshold, standing arm in arm with the girl as if in
+sport.
+
+"I'm sorry to have kept you all waiting, Olivo," said Casanova. "I had
+to finish my letter." He held the missive out to Olivo in proof of his
+words.
+
+"Take it," said Olivo to Teresina, smoothing her rumpled hair. "Hand it
+to the messenger."
+
+"Here are two gold pieces for the man," added Casanova. "He must bestir
+himself, so that the letter may leave Mantua for Venice to-day. And ask
+him to tell my hostess at the inn that I shall return this evening."
+
+"This evening?" exclaimed Olivo. "Impossible!"
+
+"Oh, well, we'll see," observed Casanova affably. "Here, Teresina, take
+this, a gold piece for yourself." When Olivo demurred, Casanova added:
+"Put it in your moneybox, Teresina. That letter is worth any amount of
+gold pieces!"
+
+Teresina tripped away, and Casanova nodded to himself contentedly. In
+days gone by he had possessed the girl's mother and grandmother also,
+and he thought it a particularly good joke that he was paying the little
+wench for her favors under the very eyes of her father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+
+When Casanova entered the hall with Olivo, cards had already begun. He
+acknowledged with serene dignity the effusive greeting of the company,
+and took his place opposite the Marchese, who was banker. The windows
+into the garden were open. Casanova heard voices outside; Marcolina
+and Amalia strolled by, glanced into the room for a moment, and then
+disappeared.
+
+While the Marchese was dealing, Lorenzi turned to Casanova with
+ceremonious politeness, saying: "My compliments, Chevalier. You were
+better informed than I. My regiment is under orders to march tomorrow
+afternoon."
+
+The Marchese looked surprised. "Why did you not tell us sooner,
+Lorenzi?"
+
+"The matter did not seem of such supreme importance."
+
+"It is of no great importance to me," said the Marchese. "But don't
+you think it is of considerable importance to my wife?" He laughed
+raucously. "As a matter of fact, I have some interest in the matter
+myself. You won four hundred ducats from me yesterday, and there is not
+much time left in which to win them back."
+
+"The Lieutenant won money from us too," said the younger Ricardi. The
+elder, silent as usual, looked over his shoulder at his brother, who
+stood behind the elder's chair as on the previous day.
+
+"Luck and women....." began the Abbate.
+
+The Marchese finished the sentence for him: ".....cannot be
+constrained."
+
+Lorenzi carelessly scattered his gold on the table. "There you are. I
+will stake it all upon a single card, if you like, Marchese, so that you
+need not wait for your money."
+
+Casanova suddenly became aware of a feeling of compassion for Lorenzi,
+a feeling he was puzzled to account for. But he believed himself to be
+endowed with second-sight, and he had a premonition that the Lieutenant
+would fall in his first encounter.
+
+The Marchese did not accept the suggestion of high stakes, nor did
+Lorenzi insist. They resumed the game, therefore, much as on the
+previous night, everyone taking a hand at first, and only moderate sums
+being ventured. A quarter of an hour later, however, the stakes began
+to rise, and ere long Lorenzi had lost his four hundred ducats to the
+Marchese.
+
+Casanova had no constancy either in luck or ill-luck. He won, lost, and
+won again, in an almost ludicrously regular alternation.
+
+Lorenzi drew a breath of relief when his last gold piece had gone
+the way of the others. Rising from the table, he said: "I thank you,
+gentlemen. This," he hesitated for a moment, "this will prove to have
+been my last game for a long time in your hospitable house. If you will
+allow me, Signor Olivo, I will take leave of the ladies before
+riding into town. I must reach Mantua ere nightfall in order to make
+preparations for to-morrow."
+
+"Shameless liar," thought Casanova. "You will return here to-night, to
+Marcolina's arms!" Rage flamed up in him anew.
+
+"What!" exclaimed the Marchese maliciously. "The evening will not come
+for hours. Is the game to stop so early? If you like, Lorenzi, my
+coachman shall drive home with a message to the Marchesa to let her know
+that you will be late."
+
+"I am going to ride to Mantua," rejoined Lorenzi impatiently. The
+Marchese, ignoring this statement, went on: "There is still plenty of
+time. Put up some of your own money, if it be but a single gold piece."
+He dealt Lorenzi a card.
+
+"I have not a single gold piece left," said Lorenzi wearily.
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Not one," asserted Lorenzi, as if tired of the whole matter.
+
+"Never mind," said the Marchese, with a sudden assumption of amiability
+which was far from congenial. "I will trust you as far as ten ducats
+goes, or even for a larger sum if needs must."
+
+"All right, a ducat, then," said Lorenzi, taking up the card dealt to
+him.
+
+The Marchese won. Lorenzi went on with the game, as if this were now a
+matter of course, and was soon in the Marchese's debt to the amount of
+one hundred ducats.
+
+At this stage Casanova became banker, and had even better luck than the
+Marchese. There remained only three players. To-day the brothers
+Ricardi stood aside without complaint. Olivo and the Abbate were merely
+interested onlookers.
+
+No one uttered a syllable. Only the cards spoke, and they spoke in
+unmistakable terms. By the hazard of fortune all the cash found its way
+to Casanova. In an hour he had won two thousand ducats; he had won them
+from Lorenzi, though they came out of the pockets of the Marchese, who
+at length sat there without a soldo.
+
+Casanova offered him whatever gold pieces he might need. The Marchese
+shook his head. "Thanks," he said, "I have had enough. The game is over
+as far as I am concerned."
+
+From the garden came the laughing voices of the girls. Casanova heard
+Teresina's voice in particular, but he was sitting with his back to
+the window and did not turn round. He tried once more to persuade the
+Marchese to resume the game--for the sake of Lorenzi, though he hardly
+knew what moved him. The Marchese refused with a yet more decisive
+headshake.
+
+Lorenzi rose, saying: "I shall have the honor, Signor Marchese, of
+handing the amount I owe you to you personally, before noon to-morrow."
+
+The Marchese laughed drily. "I am curious to know how you will manage
+that, Lieutenant Lorenzi. There is not a soul, in Mantua or elsewhere,
+who would lend you as much as ten ducats, not to speak of two thousand,
+especially to-day. For to-morrow you will be on the march, and who can
+tell whether you will ever return?"
+
+"I give you my word of honor, Signor Marchese, that you shall have the
+money at eight o'clock to-morrow morning."
+
+"Your word of honor," said the Marchese, "is not worth a single ducat to
+me, let alone two thousand."
+
+The others held their breath. Lorenzi, apparently unmoved, merely
+answered: "You will give me satisfaction, Signor Marchese."
+
+"With pleasure, Signor Lieutenant," rejoined the Marchese, "as soon as
+you have paid your debt."
+
+Olivo, who was profoundly distressed, here intervened, stammering
+slightly: "I stand surety for the amount, Signor Marchese. Unfortunately
+I have not sufficient ready money on the spot; but there is the house,
+the estate....." He closed the sentence with an awkward wave of the
+hand.
+
+"I refuse to accept your surety, for your own sake," said the Marchese.
+"You would lose your money."
+
+Casanova saw that all eyes were turned towards the gold that lay on
+the table before him. "What if I were to stand surety for Lorenzi," he
+thought. "What if I were to pay the debt for him? The Marchese could not
+refuse my offer. I almost think I ought to do it. It was the Marchese's
+money."
+
+But he said not a word. He felt that a plan was taking shape hi his
+mind, and that above all he needed time in which he might become clear
+as to its details.
+
+"You shall have the money this evening, before nightfall," said Lorenzi.
+"I shall be in Mantua in an hour."
+
+"Your horse may break its neck," replied the Marchese. "You too;
+intentionally, perhaps."
+
+"Anyhow," said the Abbate indignantly, "the Lieutenant cannot get the
+money here by magic."
+
+The two Ricardis laughed; but instantly restrained their mirth.
+
+Olivo once more addressed the Marchese. "It is plain that you must grant
+Lieutenant Lorenzi leave to depart."
+
+"Yes, if he gives me a pledge," exclaimed the Marchese with flashing
+eyes, as if this idea gave him peculiar delight.
+
+"That seems rather a good plan," said Casanova, a little
+absent-mindedly, for his scheme was ripening.
+
+Lorenzi drew a ring from his finger and flicked it across the table.
+
+The Marchese took it up, saying: "That is good for a thousand."
+
+"What about this one?" Lorenzi threw down another ring in front of the
+Marchese.
+
+The latter nodded, saying: "That is good for the same amount."
+
+"Are you satisfied now, Signor Marchese?" enquired Lorenzi, moving as if
+to go.
+
+"I am satisfied," answered the Marchese, with an evil chuckle; "all the
+more, seeing that the rings are stolen."
+
+Lorenzi turned sharply, clenching his fist as if about to strike the
+Marchese. Olivo and the Abbate seized Lorenzi's arm.
+
+"I know both the stones, though they have been reset," said the Marchese
+without moving from his place. "Look, gentlemen, the emerald is slightly
+flawed, or it would be worth ten times the amount. The ruby is flawless,
+but it is not a large one. Both the stones come from a set of jewels
+which I once gave my wife. And, since it is quite impossible for me
+to suppose that the Marchesa had them reset in rings for Lieutenant
+Lorenzi, it is obvious that they have been stolen--that the whole set
+has been stolen. Well, well, the pledge suffices, Signor Lieutenant, for
+the nonce."
+
+"Lorenzi!" cried Olivo, "we all give you our word that no one shall ever
+hear a syllable from us about what has just happened."
+
+"And whatever Signor Lorenzi may have done," said Casanova, "you, Signor
+Marchese, are the greater rascal of the two."
+
+"I hope so," replied the Marchese. "When anyone is as old as we
+are, Chevalier de Seingalt, assuredly he should not need lessons in
+rascality. Good-evening, gentlemen."
+
+He rose to his feet. No one responded to his farewell, and he went out.
+
+For a space the silence was so intense, that once again the girls'
+laughter was heard from the garden, now seeming unduly loud.
+
+Who would have ventured to utter the word that was searing Lorenzi's
+soul, as he stood at the table with his arm still raised? Casanova, the
+only one of the company who had remained seated, derived an involuntary
+artistic pleasure from the contemplation of this fine, threatening
+gesture, meaningless now, but seemingly petrified, as if the young man
+had been transformed into a statue.
+
+At length Olivo turned to him with a soothing air; the Ricardis, too,
+drew near; and the Abbate appeared to be working himself up for a
+speech. But a sort of shiver passed over Lorenzi's frame. Automatically
+but insistently he silently indicated his rejection of any offers at
+intervention. Then, with a polite inclination of the head, he quietly
+left the room.
+
+Casanova, who had meanwhile wrapped up the money in a silken kerchief,
+instantly followed. Without looking at the others' faces, he could feel
+that they were convinced it was his instant intention to do what they
+had all the while been expecting, namely, to place his winnings at
+Lorenzi's disposal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+
+Casanova overtook Lorenzi in the chestnut avenue. Speaking lightly,
+he said: "May I have the pleasure of accompanying you on your walk,
+Lieutenant Lorenzi?"
+
+Lorenzi, without looking at him, answered in an arrogant tone which
+seemed hardly in keeping with his situation: "As you please, Chevalier;
+but I am afraid you will not find me an amusing companion."
+
+"Perhaps, Lieutenant, you will on the other hand find me an entertaining
+companion. If you have no objection, let us take the path through the
+vineyard, where our conversation will be undisturbed."
+
+They turned aside from the high-road into the narrow footway running
+beside the garden wall, along which Casanova had walked with Olivo on
+the previous day.
+
+"You are right in supposing," began Casanova, "that I have it in mind to
+offer you the sum of money which you owe to the Marchese. Not as a loan.
+That, if you will excuse my saying so, seems to me rather too risky a
+venture. I could let you have it as a slight return for a service which
+I think you may be able to do me."
+
+"Go on," said Lorenzi coldly.
+
+"Before I say any more," answered Casanova, in a similar tone, "I must
+make a condition upon your acceptance of which the continuance of this
+conversation depends."
+
+"Name your condition."
+
+"Give me your word of honor that you will listen to me without
+interruption, even though what I have to say may arouse your displeasure
+or your wrath. When you have heard me to the end, it will rest entirely
+with yourself whether you accept a proposal which, I am well aware,
+is of an extremely unusual nature. But I want you to answer it with
+a simple Yes or No. Whatever the issue, no one is to hear a word
+concerning what passes at this interview between two men of honor, who
+are perhaps no better than they should be."
+
+"I am ready to listen to your proposal."
+
+"You accept my condition?"
+
+"I will not interrupt you."
+
+"And you will answer nothing beyond Yes or No?"
+
+"Nothing beyond Yes or No."
+
+"Very well," said Casanova. They walked slowly up the hill, between the
+vine stocks, in the sultry heat of the late afternoon. Casanova began to
+speak: "We shall perhaps understand one another best if we discuss the
+matter logically. It is obvious that you have absolutely no chance of
+obtaining the money you owe the Marchese within the prescribed time.
+There can be no doubt that he has made up his mind to ruin you should
+you fail to pay. Since he knows more of you than he actually disclosed
+to us to-day"--Casanova was venturing beyond the limits of his own
+knowledge, but he loved to take these little risks when following up a
+path decided on in advance--"you are absolutely in the power of the old
+ruffian, and your fate as an officer and a gentleman would be sealed.
+There you have one side of the question. On the other hand, you will be
+saved as soon as you have paid your debt, and as soon as you get back
+those rings--however you may have come by them. This will mean the
+recovery of an existence which is otherwise practically closed. Since
+you are young, handsome, and bold, it will mean the recovery of an
+existence which offers splendor, happiness, and renown. This appears
+to me a most attractive prospect; especially seeing that the only
+alternative is an inglorious, nay, a shameful ruin; for such a prospect,
+I should be willing to sacrifice a prejudice which I had never really
+possessed. I am well aware, Lorenzi," he added quickly, as if expecting
+contradiction and desiring to forestall it, "I am well aware, that you
+have no more prejudices than I have or ever had. What I am going to ask
+of you is merely what I should in your place under like circumstances
+be willing to do, without a moment's hesitation. Indeed, I have never
+hesitated, at the call of destiny or as the outcome of caprice, to
+commit a rascality, or rather, that to which fools give such a name.
+Like you, Lorenzi, I have ever been ready to hazard my life for less
+than nothing, and to call it quits. I am ready to do so now, if my
+proposal prove inacceptable. We are made of the same stuff, you and I;
+we are brothers in spirit; we may therefore disclose our souls to one
+another without false shame, proud in our nakedness. Here are my two
+thousand ducats. Call them yours, if you enable me to spend to-night
+in your place with Marcolina.--Let us not stand still, if you please,
+Lorenzi. Let us continue our walk." They walked through the fields,
+beneath the fruit trees, between which the vines, heavy with
+grape-clusters, were trellised. Casanova went on without a pause: "Don't
+answer me yet, Lorenzi, for I have not finished. My request would
+naturally be, if not monstrous, at least preposterous, if it were your
+intention to make Marcolina your wife, or if Marcolina's own hopes or
+wishes turned in this direction. But just as last night was your first
+night spent in love together"--he uttered this guess as if he had
+absolute knowledge of the fact--"so also was the ensuing night
+predestined, according to all human calculation, according to your own
+expectations and Marcolina's, to be your last night together for a long
+period and probably for ever. I am absolutely convinced that Marcolina
+herself, in order to save her lover from certain destruction, and simply
+upon his wish, would be perfectly willing to give this one night to his
+savior. For she, too, is a philosopher, and is therefore just as free
+from prejudices as we are. Nevertheless, certain as I am that she would
+meet the test, I am far from intending that it should be imposed upon
+her. To possess a woman outwardly passive but inwardly resistant, would
+be far from satisfying my desires, least of all in the present case. I
+wish, not merely as a lover, but also as one beloved, to taste a rapture
+which I should be prepared to pay for with my life. Understand this
+clearly, Lorenzi. For the reason I have explained, Marcolina must not
+for an instant suspect that I am the man whom she is clasping to her
+sweet bosom; she must be firmly convinced that you are in her arms. It
+is your part to pave the way for this deception; mine to maintain it.
+You will not have much difficulty in making her understand that you will
+have to leave her before dawn. Nor need you be at a loss for a pretext
+as to the necessity for perfectly mute caresses when you return at
+night, as you will promise to return. To avert all danger of discovery
+at the last moment, I shall, when the time comes for me to leave, act as
+if I heard a suspicious noise outside the window. Seizing my cloak,--or
+rather yours, which you must of course lend me for the occasion--I shall
+vanish through the window, never to return. For, of course, I shall take
+my leave this evening. But half-way back to Mantua, telling the coachman
+that I have forgotten some important papers, I shall return here on
+foot. Entering the garden by the side door (you must give me the
+master-key), I shall creep to Marcolina's window, which must be
+opened for me at midnight. I shall have taken off my clothes in the
+carriage, even to my shoes and stockings, and shall wear only your
+cloak, so that when I take to flight nothing will be left to betray
+either you or me. The cloak and the two thousand ducats will be at your
+disposal at five o'clock to-morrow morning in the inn at Mantua, so that
+you may deliver over the money to the Marchese even before the appointed
+hour. I pledge my solemn oath to fulfil my side of the bargain. I have
+finished."
+
+Suddenly he stood still. The sun was near to setting. A gentle breeze
+made the yellow ears rustle; the tower of Olivo's house glowed red in
+the evening light. Lorenzi, too, halted. His pale face was motionless,
+as he gazed into vacancy over Casanova's shoulder. His arms hung limp by
+his sides, whereas Casanova's hand, ready for any emergency, rested as
+if by chance upon the hilt of his sword. A few seconds elapsed, and
+Lorenzi was still silent. He seemed immersed in tranquil thought, but
+Casanova remained on the alert, holding the kerchief with the ducats in
+his left hand, but keeping the right upon his sword-hilt. He spoke once
+more.
+
+"You have honorably fulfilled my conditions. I know that it has not been
+easy. For even though we may be free from prejudices, the atmosphere
+in which we live is so full of them that we cannot wholly escape their
+influence. And just as you, Lorenzi, during the last quarter of an hour,
+have more than once been on the point of seizing me by the throat; so I,
+I must confess, played for a time with the idea of giving you the
+two thousand ducats as to my friend. Rarely, Lorenzi, have I been so
+strangely drawn to anyone as I was to you from the first. But had
+I yielded to this generous impulse, the next moment I should have
+regretted it bitterly. In like manner you, Lorenzi, hi the moment before
+you blow your brains out, would desperately regret having been such a
+fool as to throw away a thousand nights of love with new and ever new
+women for one single night of love which neither night nor day was to
+follow."
+
+Lorenzi remained mute. His silence continued for many minutes, until
+Casanova began to ask himself how long his patience was to be tried.
+He was on the point of departing with a curt salutation, and of thus
+indicating that he understood his proposition to have been rejected,
+when Lorenzi, without a word slowly moved his right hand backwards into
+the tail-pocket of his coat. Casanova, ever on his guard, instantly
+stepped back a pace, and was ready to duck. Lorenzi handed him the key
+of the garden door.
+
+Casanova's movement, which had certainly betokened fear, brought to
+Lorenzi's lips the flicker of a contemptuous smile. Casanova was able to
+repress all sign of his rising anger, for he knew that had he given way
+to it he might have ruined his design. Taking the key with a nod, he
+merely said: "No doubt that means Yes. In an hour from now--an hour will
+suffice for your understanding with Marcolina--I shall expect you in
+the turret chamber. There, in exchange for your cloak, I shall have the
+pleasure of handing you the two thousand gold pieces without further
+delay. First of all, as a token of confidence; and secondly because I
+really do not know what I should do with the money during the night."
+
+They parted without further formality. Lorenzi returned to the house by
+the path along which they had both come. Casanova made his way to the
+village by a different route. At the inn there, by paying a considerable
+sum as earnest money, he was able to arrange for a carriage to await
+him at ten o'clock that evening for the drive from Olivo's house into
+Mantua.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+
+Returning to the house, Casanova disposed of his gold in a safe corner
+of the turret chamber. Thence he descended to the garden, where a
+spectacle awaited him, not in itself remarkable, but one which touched
+him strangely in his present mood. Upon a bench at the edge of the
+greensward Olivo was sitting beside Amalia, his arm round her waist.
+Reclining at their feet were the three girls, tired out by the
+afternoon's play. Maria, the youngest, had her head in her mother's lap,
+and seemed to be asleep; Nanetta lay at full length on the grass with
+her head pillowed on her arm; Teresina was leaning against her father's
+knee, and he was stroking her hair. As Casanova drew near, Teresina
+greeted him, not with the look of lascivious understanding which he had
+involuntarily expected, but with a frank smile of childlike confidence,
+as if what had passed between them only a few hours before had been
+nothing more than some trivial pastime. Olivo's face lighted up in
+friendly fashion, and Amalia nodded a cordial greeting. It was plain to
+Casanova that they were receiving him as one who had just performed a
+generous deed, but who would prefer, from a sense of refinement, that no
+allusion should be made to the matter.
+
+"Are you really determined to leave us tomorrow, Chevalier?" enquired
+Olivo.
+
+"Not to-morrow," answered Casanova, "but, as I told you, this very
+evening."
+
+Olivo would fain have renewed his protests, but Casanova shrugged,
+saying in a tone of regret: "Unfortunately, my letter from Venice leaves
+me no option. The summons sent to me is so honorable in every respect
+that to delay my return home would be an unpardonable affront to my
+distinguished patrons." He asked his host and hostess to excuse him for
+a brief space. He would go to his room, make all ready for departure,
+and would then be able to enjoy the last hours of his stay undisturbed
+in his dear friends' company.
+
+Disregarding further entreaties, he went to the turret chamber, and
+first of all changed his attire, since the simpler suit must suffice
+for the journey. He then packed his valise, and listened for Lorenzi's
+footsteps with an interest which grew keener from moment to moment.
+Before the time was up, Lorenzi, knocking once at the door, entered,
+wearing a dark blue riding-cloak. Without a word, he slipped the cloak
+from his shoulders and let it fall to the floor, where it lay between
+the two men, a shapeless mass of cloth. Casanova withdrew his kerchief
+filled with the gold pieces from beneath the bolster, and emptied the
+money on the table. He counted the coins under Lorenzi's eyes--a process
+which was soon over, for many of the gold pieces were worth several
+ducats each. Putting the stipulated sum into two purses, he handed
+these to Lorenzi. This left about a hundred ducats for himself. Lorenzi
+stuffed the purses into his tail-pockets, and was about to leave, still
+silent.
+
+"Wait a moment, Lorenzi," said Casanova. "Our paths in life may cross
+once again. If so let us meet as friends. We have made a bargain like
+many another bargain; let us cry quits."
+
+Casanova held out his hand. Lorenzi would not take it. He spoke for the
+first time. "I cannot recall that anything was said about this in our
+agreement." Turning on his heel he left the room. "Do we stand so
+strictly upon the letter, my friend?" thought Casanova. "It behooves me
+all the more to see to it that I am not duped in the end." In truth, he
+had given no serious thought to this possibility. He knew from personal
+experience that such men as Lorenzi have their own peculiar code of
+honor, a code which cannot be written in formal propositions, but which
+they can be relied upon to observe.
+
+He packed Lorenzi's cloak in the top of the valise. Having stowed away
+upon his person the remaining gold pieces, he took a final glance round
+the room which he was never likely to revisit. Then with sword and hat,
+ready for the journey, he made his way to the hall, where he found
+Olivo, Amalia, and the children already seated at table. At the same
+instant, Marcolina entered by the garden door. The coincidence was
+interpreted by Casanova as a propitious sign. She answered his
+salutation with a frank inclination of the head.
+
+Supper was now served. The conversation dragged a little at first, as if
+all were oppressed by the thought of the imminent leave-taking. Amalia
+seemed busied with her girls, concerned to see that they were not helped
+to too much or too little. Olivo, somewhat irrelevantly, began to speak
+of a trifling lawsuit he had just won against a neighboring landowner.
+Next he referred to a business journey to Mantua and Cremona, which he
+would shortly have to undertake. Casanova expressed the hope that ere
+long he would be able to entertain his friend in Venice, a city which,
+by a strange chance, Olivo had never visited. Amalia had seen the place
+of wonder as a child. She could not recall the journey thither, but
+could only remember having seen an old man wrapped in a scarlet cloak,
+disembarking from a long black boat. He had stumbled and had fallen
+prone.
+
+"Have you never been to Venice either?" asked Casanova of Marcolina, who
+was seated facing him, so that she could see over his shoulder into the
+deep gloom of the garden. She shook her head. Casanova mused: "If I
+could but show you the city in which I passed my youth! Had you but been
+young with me!" Another thought, as foolish as both of these, crossed
+his mind: "Even now, if I could but take you there with me."
+
+While thus thinking, at the same time, with the ease of manner peculiar
+to him in moments of great excitement, he began to speak of his native
+city. At first his language was cool; he used an artist's touch, as if
+painting a picture. Warming up by degrees, he entered into details of
+personal history, so that of a sudden his own figure appeared in the
+centre of the canvas, filling it with life. He spoke of his mother,
+the celebrated actress, for whom her admirer Goldoni had written his
+admirable comedy, _La Pupilla_. Next he recounted the unhappy days spent
+in Dr. Gozzi's boarding school. Then he spoke of his childish passion
+for the gardener's little daughter, who had subsequently run away with a
+lackey; of his first sermon as a young abbate, after which he found in
+the offertory bag, in addition to the usual collection, a number of love
+letters; of his doings as a fiddler in the orchestra of the San Samueli
+Theatre; of the pranks which he and his companions had played in the
+alleys, taverns, dancing halls, and gaming-houses of Venice--sometimes
+masked and sometimes unmasked. In telling the story of these riotous
+escapades, he was careful to avoid the use of any offensive epithet. He
+phrased his narrative in choice imaginative language, as if paying due
+regard to the presence of the young girls, who, like their elders,
+including Marcolina, listened with rapt attention. The hour grew late,
+and Amalia sent her daughters to bed. They all kissed Casanova a tender
+good-night, Teresina behaving exactly like her sisters. He made them
+promise that they would soon come with their father and mother to visit
+him in Venice. When they had gone, he spoke with less restraint, but
+continued to avoid any unsuitable innuendo or display of vanity. His
+audience might have imagined themselves listening to the story of a
+Parsifal rather than to that of a Casanova, the dangerous seducer and
+half-savage adventurer.
+
+He told them of the fair Unknown who had travelled with him for weeks
+disguised as a man in officer's uniform, and one morning had suddenly
+disappeared from his side; of the daughter of the gentleman cobbler in
+Madrid who, in the intervals between their embraces, had studiously
+endeavored to make a good Catholic of him; of Lia, the lovely Jewess of
+Turin, who had a better seat on horseback than any princess; of Manon
+Balletti, sweet and innocent, the only woman he had almost married; of
+the singer whom he had hissed in Warsaw because of her bad performance,
+whereupon he had had to fight a duel with her lover, General Branitzky,
+and had been compelled to flee the city; of the wicked woman Charpillon,
+who had made such an abject fool of him in London; of the night when he
+crossed the lagoons to Murano on the way to his adored nun, the night
+when he nearly lost his life in a storm; of Croce the gamester, who,
+after losing a fortune at Spa, had taken a tearful farewell of Casanova
+upon the high-road, and had set off on his way to St. Petersburg, just
+as he was, wearing silk stockings and a coat of apple-green satin, and
+carrying nothing but a walking cane.
+
+He told of actresses, singers, dressmakers, countesses, dancers,
+chambermaids; of gamblers, officers, princes, envoys, financiers,
+musicians, and adventurers. So carried away was he by the rediscovered
+charm of his own past, so completely did the triumph of these splendid
+though irrecoverable experiences eclipse the consciousness of the
+shadows that encompassed his present, that he was on the point of
+telling the story of a pale but pretty girl who in a twilit church at
+Mantua had confided her love troubles to him--absolutely forgetting that
+this same girl, sixteen years older, now sat at the table before him
+as the wife of his friend Olivo--when the maid came in to say that the
+carriage was waiting. Instantly, with his incomparable talent for doing
+the right thing, Casanova rose to bid adieu. He again pressed Olivo, who
+was too much affected to speak, to bring wife and children to visit him
+in Venice. Having embraced his friend, he approached Amalia with
+intent to embrace her also, but she held out her hand and he kissed it
+affectionately.
+
+When he turned to Marcolina, she said: "You ought to write down
+everything you told us this evening, Chevalier, and a great deal more,
+just as you have penned the story of your flight from The Leads."
+
+"Do you really mean that, Marcolina?" he enquired, with the shyness of a
+young author.
+
+She smiled with gentle mockery, saying: "I fancy such a book might prove
+far more entertaining than your polemic against Voltaire."
+
+"Very likely," he thought. "Perhaps I may follow your advice some day.
+If so, you, Marcolina, shall be the theme of the last chapter."
+
+This notion, and still more the thought that the last chapter was to be
+lived through that very night, made his face light up so strangely that
+Marcolina, who had given him her hand in farewell, drew it away
+again before he could stoop to kiss it. Without betraying either
+disappointment or anger, Casanova turned to depart, after signifying,
+with one of those simple gestures of which he was a master, his desire
+that no one, not even Olivo, should follow him.
+
+He strode rapidly through the chestnut avenue, handed a gold piece to
+the maid who had brought his valise to the carriage, took his seat and
+drove away.
+
+The sky was overcast. In the village, lamps were still burning in some
+of the cottages; but by the time the carriage regained the open road,
+the only light piercing the darkness was supplied by the yellow rays of
+the lantern dangling from the shaft. Casanova opened the valise, took
+out Lorenzi's cloak, flung it over his shoulders, and under this cover
+rapidly undressed. He packed the discarded clothing, together with shoes
+and stockings, in the valise, and wrapped himself in the cloak. Then he
+called to the coachman:
+
+"Stop, we must drive back!"
+
+The coachman turned heavily hi his seat.
+
+"I have left some of my papers in the house. Don't you understand? We
+must drive back."
+
+When the coachman, a surly, thin greybeard, still hesitated, Casanova
+said: "Of course I will pay you extra for your trouble. Here you are!"
+He pressed a gold piece into the man's hand.
+
+The coachman nodded, muttered something, gave his horse a needless cut
+with the whip, and turned the carriage round. When they drove back
+through the village, all the houses were dark. A little farther on, the
+coachman was about to turn into the by-road leading up the gentle ascent
+to Olivo's house.
+
+"Halt!" cried Casanova. "We won't drive any nearer, lest we should wake
+them all up. Wait for me here at the corner. I shall be back in a minute
+or two. If I should happen to keep you longer, you shall have a ducat
+for every hour!"
+
+The man by his nod seemed to show he understood what was afoot.
+
+Casanova descended and made quickly past the closed door and along the
+wall to the corner. Here began the path leading through the vineyards.
+It still led along the wall. Having walked it twice by daylight,
+Casanova had no difficulty in the dark. Half way up the hill came a
+second angle in the wall. Here he had again to turn to the right, across
+soft meadow-land, and in the pitchy night had to feel along the wall
+until he found the garden door. At length his fingers recognized the
+change from smooth stone to rough wood, and he could easily make out the
+framework of the narrow door. He unlocked it, entered the garden, and
+made all fast again behind him.
+
+Across the greensward he could now discern house and tower. They seemed
+incredibly far off and yet incredibly large. He stood where he was for a
+while, looking around. What to other eyes would have been impenetrable
+darkness, was to him no more than deep twilight. The gravel path
+being painful to his bare feet, he walked upon the greensward, where,
+moreover, his footfall made no sound. So light was his tread that he
+felt as if soaring.
+
+"Has my mood changed," he thought, "since those days when, as a man of
+thirty, I sought such adventures? Do I not now, as then, feel all the
+ardors of desire and all the sap of youth course through my veins? Am I
+not, as of old, Casanova? Being Casanova, why should I be subject, as
+others are subject, to the pitiful law which is called age!"
+
+Growing bolder, he asked himself: "Why am I creeping in disguise to
+Marcolina? Is not Casanova a better man than Lorenzi, even though he be
+thirty years older? Is not she the one woman who would have understood
+the incomprehensible? Was it needful to commit this lesser rascality,
+and to mislead another man into the commission of a greater rascality?
+Should I not, with a little patience, have reached the same goal?
+Lorenzi would in any case have gone to-morrow, whilst I should have
+remained. Five days, three days, and she would have given herself to me,
+knowing me to be Casanova."
+
+He stood close to the wall of the house beneath Marcolina's window,
+which was still closed. His thoughts ran on: "Is it too late? I
+could come back to-morrow or the next day. Could begin the work of
+seduction--in honorable fashion, so to speak. To-night would be but a
+foretaste of the future. Marcolina must not learn that I have been here
+to-day--or not until much later."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+
+Marcolina's window was still closed. There was no sign from within. It
+wanted a few minutes to midnight. Should he make his presence known in
+any way? By tapping gently at the window? Since nothing of this sort had
+been arranged, it might arouse Marcolina's suspicions. Better wait. It
+could not be much longer. The thought that she might instantly recognize
+him, might detect the fraud before he had achieved his purpose, crossed
+his mind--not for the first time, yet as a passing fancy, as a remote
+possibility which it was logical to take into account, but not anything
+to be seriously dreaded.
+
+A ludicrous adventure now recurred to his mind. Twenty years ago he had
+spent a night with a middle-aged ugly vixen in Soleure, when he had
+imagined himself to be possessing a beautiful young woman whom he
+adored. He recalled how next day, in a shameless letter, she had derided
+him for the mistake that she had so greatly desired him to make and
+that she had compassed with such infamous cunning. He shuddered at the
+thought. It was the last thing he would have wished to think of just
+now, and he drove the detestable image from his mind.
+
+It must be midnight! How long was he to stand shivering there? Waiting
+in vain, perhaps? Cheated, after all? Two thousand ducats for nothing.
+Lorenzi behind the curtain, mocking at the fool outside!
+
+Involuntarily he gripped the hilt of the sword he carried beneath the
+cloak, pressed to his naked body. After all, with a fellow like Lorenzi
+one must be prepared for any tricks.
+
+At that instant he heard a gentle rattling, and knew it was made by the
+grating of Marcolina's window hi opening. Then both wings of the window
+were drawn back, though the curtain still veiled the interior. Casanova
+remained motionless for a few seconds more, until the curtain was pulled
+aside by an unseen hand. Taking this as a sign, he swung himself over
+the sill into the room, and promptly closed window and grating behind
+him. The curtain had fallen across his shoulders, so that he had to push
+his way beneath it. Now he would have been in absolute darkness had
+there not been shining from the depths of the distance, incredibly far
+away, as if awakened by his own gaze, the faintest possible illumination
+to show him the way. No more than three paces forward, and eager arms
+enfolded him. Letting the sword slip from his hand, the cloak from his
+shoulders, he gave himself up to his bliss.
+
+From Marcolina's sigh of surrender, from the tears of happiness which
+he kissed from her cheeks, from the ever-renewed warmth with which she
+received his caresses, he felt sure that she shared his rapture; and
+to him this rapture seemed more intense than he had ever experienced,
+seemed to possess a new and strange quality. Pleasure became worship;
+passion was transfused with an intense consciousness. Here at last was
+the reality which he had often falsely imagined himself to be on the
+point of attaining, and which had always eluded his grasp. He held in
+his arms a woman upon whom he could squander himself, with whom he could
+feel himself inexhaustible; the woman upon whose breast the moment of
+ultimate self-abandonment and of renewed desire seemed to coalesce into
+a single instant of hitherto unimagined spiritual ecstasy. Were not life
+and death, time and eternity, one upon these lips? Was he not a god?
+Were not youth and age merely a fable; visions of men's fancy? Were not
+home and exile, splendor and misery, renown and oblivion, senseless
+distinctions, fit only for the use of the uneasy, the lonely, the
+frustrate; had not the words become unmeaning to one who was Casanova,
+and who had found Marcolina?
+
+More contemptible, more absurd, as the minutes passed, seemed to him
+the prospect of keeping the resolution which he had made when still
+pusillanimous, of acting on the determination to flee out of this night
+of miracle dumbly, unrecognized, like a thief. With the infallible
+conviction that he must be the bringer of delight even as he was the
+receiver of delight, he felt prepared for the venture of disclosing his
+name, even though he knew all the time that he would thus play for
+a great stake, the loss of which would involve the loss of his very
+existence. He was still shrouded in impenetrable darkness, and until the
+first glimmer of dawn made its way through the thick curtain, he could
+postpone a confession upon whose favorable acceptance by Marcolina his
+fate, nay his life, depended.
+
+Besides, was not this mute, passionately sweet association the very
+thing to bind Marcolina to him more firmly with each kiss that they
+enjoyed? Would not the ineffable bliss of this night transmute into
+truth what had been conceived in falsehood? His duped mistress, woman
+of women, had she not already an inkling that it was not Lorenzi, the
+stripling, but Casanova, the man, with whom she was mingling in these
+divine ardors?
+
+He began to deem it possible that he might be spared the so greatly
+desired and 'yet so intensely dreaded moment of revelation. He fancied
+that Marcolina, thrilling, entranced, transfigured, would spontaneously
+whisper his name. Then, when she had forgiven him, he would take her
+with him that very hour. Together they would leave the house in the grey
+dawn; together they would seek the carriage that was waiting at the
+turn of the road; together they would drive away. She would be his for
+evermore. This would be the crown of his life; that at an age when
+others were doomed to a sad senility, he, by the overwhelming might of
+his unconquerable personality, would have won for himself the youngest,
+the most beautiful, the most gifted of women.
+
+For this woman was his as no woman had ever been before. He glided with
+her through mysterious, narrow canals, between palaces in whose
+shadows he was once more at home, under high-arched bridges which
+blurred figures were swiftly crossing. Many of the wayfarers glanced
+down for a moment over the parapet, and vanished ere their faces could
+be discerned.
+
+Now the gondola drew alongside. A marble stairway led up to the stately
+mansion of Senator Bragadino. It was the only palace holding festival.
+Masked guests were ascending and descending. Many of them paused with
+inquisitive glances; but who could recognize Casanova and Marcolina in
+their dominoes?
+
+He entered the hall with her. Here was a great company playing for high
+stakes. All the senators, Bragadino among them, were seated round the
+table in their purple robes. As Casanova came through the door, they
+whispered his name as if terror-stricken, for the flashing of his eyes
+behind the mask had disclosed his identity. He did not sit down; he did
+not take any cards, and yet he joined in the game. He won. He won all
+the gold on the table, and this did not suffice. The senators had to
+give him notes of hand. They lost their possessions, their palaces,
+their purple robes; they were beggars; they crawled round him clad in
+rags, kissing his hands.
+
+Nearby, in a hall with crimson hangings, there was music and dancing.
+Casanova wished to dance with Marcolina, but she had vanished. Once
+again the senators in their purple robes were seated at the table; but
+now Casanova knew that the hazards at stake were not those of a game of
+cards; he knew that the destinies of accused persons, some criminal and
+some innocent, hung in the balance.
+
+What had become of Marcolina? Had he not been holding her by the hand
+all the time? He rushed down the staircase. The gondola was waiting.
+On, on, through the maze of canals. Of course the gondolier knew where
+Marcolina was; but why was he, too, masked? That had not been the custom
+of old in Venice. Casanova wished to question him, but was afraid. Does
+a man become so cowardly when he grows old?
+
+Onward, ever onward. How huge Venice had grown during these
+five-and-twenty years! At length the houses came to an end; the canal
+opened out; they were passing between islands; there stood the walls of
+the Murano nunnery, to which Marcolina had fled.
+
+There was no gondola now; he had to swim; how delightful! It was true
+that in Venice the children were playing with his gold pieces. But what
+was money to him? The water was now warm, now cold; it dripped from his
+clothing as he climbed over the wall.
+
+"Where is Marcolina?" he enquired in the parlor, in loud, challenging
+tones such as only a prince would dare to use.
+
+"I will summon her," said the Lady Abbess, and sank into the ground.
+
+Casanova wandered about; he had wings; he fluttered to and fro along the
+gratings, fluttered like a bat. "If I had only known sooner that I can
+fly," he thought. "I will teach Marcolina."
+
+Behind the gratings, the figures of women were moving hither and
+thither. They were nuns--and yet they were all wearing secular dress.
+He knew it, though he could not really see them. He knew who they were.
+Henriette the Unknown; Corticelli and Cristina, the dancers; the bride;
+Dubois the Beautiful; the accurst vixen of Soleure; Manon Balletti; a
+hundred others--but never Marcolina!
+
+"You have betrayed me," he cried to the gondolier, who was waiting for
+him beneath. Never had he hated anyone as he hated this gondolier, and
+he swore to take an exquisite revenge.
+
+But how foolish he had been to seek Marcolina in the Murano nunnery when
+she had gone to visit Voltaire. It was fortunate that he could fly,
+since he had no money left with which to pay for a carriage.
+
+He swam away. But he was no longer enjoying himself. The water grew
+colder and colder; he was drifting out into the open sea, far from
+Murano, far from Venice, and there was no ship within sight; his heavy
+gold-embroidered garments were dragging him down; he tried to strip
+them off, but it was impossible, for he was holding his manuscript, the
+manuscript he had to give to M. Voltaire. The water was pouring into
+his mouth and nose; deadly fear seized him; he clutched at impalpable
+things; there was a rattling in his throat; he screamed; and with a
+great effort he opened his eyes.
+
+Between the curtain and the window-frame the dawn was making its way
+through in a narrow strip of light. Marcolina, in her white nightdress
+and with hands crossed upon her bosom, was standing at the foot of the
+bed contemplating Casanova with unutterable horror. Her glance instantly
+recalled him to his senses. Involuntarily he stretched out his arms
+towards her with a gesture of appeal. Marcolina, as if rejecting this
+appeal, waved him away with her left hand, while with the right she
+continued to grasp her raiment convulsively. Casanova sat up, his eyes
+riveted upon her. Neither was able to look away from the other. His
+expression was one of rage and shame; hers was one of shame and
+disgust. Casanova knew how she saw him, for he saw himself figured
+in imagination, just as he had seen himself yesterday in the bedroom
+mirror. A yellow, evil face, deeply lined, with thin lips and staring
+eyes--a face three times worse than that of yesterday, because of
+the excesses of the night, the ghastly dream of the morning, and the
+terrible awakening. And what he read in Marcolina's countenance was not
+what he would a thousand times rather have read there; it was not thief,
+libertine, villain. He read only something which crushed him to earth
+more ignominiously than could any terms of abuse; he read the word which
+to him was the most dreadful of all words, since it passed a final
+judgment upon him--old man.
+
+Had it been within his power to annihilate himself by a spell, he would
+have done so, that he might be spared from having to creep out of the
+bed and display himself to Marcolina in his nakedness, which must appear
+to her more loathsome than the sight of some loathsome beast.
+
+But Marcolina, as if gradually collecting herself, and manifestly in
+order to give him the opportunity which was indispensable, turned her
+face to the wall. He seized the moment to get out of bed, to raise the
+cloak from the floor, and to wrap himself in it. He was quick, too, to
+make sure of his sword. Now, when he conceived himself to have at least
+escaped the worst contumely of all, that of ludicrousness, he began to
+wonder whether it would not be possible to throw another light upon this
+affair in which he cut so pitiful a figure. He was an adept in the use
+of language. Could he not somehow or other, by a few well-chosen words,
+give matters a favorable turn?
+
+From the nature of the circumstances, it was evidently impossible for
+Marcolina to doubt that Lorenzi had sold her to Casanova. Yet however
+intensely she might hate her wretched lover at that moment, Casanova
+felt that he himself, the cowardly thief, must seem a thousand times
+more hateful.
+
+Perhaps another course offered better promise of satisfaction. He might
+degrade Marcolina by mockery and lascivious phrases, full of innuendo.
+But this spiteful idea could not be sustained in face of the aspect she
+had now assumed. Her expression of horror had gradually been transformed
+into one of infinite sadness, as if it had been not Marcolina's
+womanhood alone which had been desecrated by Casanova, but as if during
+the night that had just closed a nameless and inexpiable offence had
+been committed by cunning against trust, by lust against love, by age
+against youth. Beneath this gaze which, to Casanova's extremest torment,
+reawakened for a brief space all that was still good in him, he turned
+away. Without looking round at Marcolina, he went to the window, drew
+the curtain aside, opened casement and grating, cast a glance round the
+garden which still seemed to slumber in the twilight, and swung himself
+across the sill into the open.
+
+Aware of the possibility that someone in the house might already be
+awake and might spy him from a window, he avoided the greensward and
+sought cover in the shaded alley. Passing through the door in the wall,
+he had hardly closed it behind him, when someone blocked his path. "The
+gondolier!" was his first idea. For now he suddenly realized that the
+gondolier in his dream had been Lorenzi. The young officer stood before
+him. His silver-braided scarlet tunic glowed in the morning light.
+
+"What a splendid uniform," was the thought that crossed Casanova's
+confused, weary brain. "It looks quite new. I am sure it has not been
+paid for." These trivial reflections helped him to the full recovery of
+his wits; and as soon as he realized the situation, his mind was filled
+with gladness. Drawing himself up proudly, and grasping the hilt of
+his sword firmly beneath the cloak, he said in a tone of the utmost
+amiability: "Does it not seem to you, Lieutenant Lorenzi, that this
+notion of yours has come a thought too late?"
+
+"By no means," answered Lorenzi, looking handsomer than any man Casanova
+had ever seen before. "Only one of us two shall leave the place alive."
+
+"What a hurry you are in, Lorenzi," said Casanova in an almost tender
+tone. "Cannot the affair rest until we reach Mantua? I shall be
+delighted to give you a lift in my carriage, which is waiting at the
+turn of the road. There is a great deal to be said for observing the
+forms in these matters, especially in such a case as ours."
+
+"No forms are needed. You or I, Casanova, at this very hour." He drew
+his sword.
+
+Casanova shrugged. "Just as you please, Lorenzi. But you might at least
+remember that I shall be reluctantly compelled to appear in a very
+inappropriate costume." He threw open the cloak and stood there nude,
+playing with the sword in his hand.
+
+Hate welled up in Lorenzi's eyes. "You shall not be at any
+disadvantage," he said, and began to strip with all possible speed.
+
+Casanova turned away, and for the moment wrapped himself in his cloak
+once more, for though the sun was already piercing the morning mists,
+the air was chill. Long shadows lay across the fields, cast by the
+sparse trees on the hill-top. For an instant Casanova wondered whether
+someone might not come down the path. Doubtless it was used only by
+Olivo and the members of his household. It occurred to Casanova that
+these were perhaps the last minutes of his life, and he was amazed at
+his own calmness.
+
+"M. Voltaire is a lucky fellow," came as a passing thought. But in truth
+he had no interest in Voltaire, and he would have been glad at this
+supreme moment to have been able to call up pleasanter images than that
+of the old author's vulturine physiognomy. How strange it was that no
+birds were piping in the trees over the wall. A change of weather must
+be imminent. But what did the weather matter to him? He would rather
+think of Marcolina, of the ecstasy he had enjoyed in her arms, and for
+which he was now to pay dear. Dear? Cheap enough! A few years of an old
+man's life hi penury and obscurity. What was there left for him to do in
+the world? To poison Bragadino? Was it worth the trouble? Nothing was
+worth the trouble. How few trees there were on the hill! He began to
+count them. "Five... seven... ten.--Have I nothing better to do?"
+
+"I am ready, Casanova."
+
+Casanova turned smartly. Lorenzi stood before him, splendid in his
+nakedness like a young god. No trace of meanness lingered in his face.
+He seemed equally ready to kill or to die.
+
+"What if I were to throw away my sword?" thought Casanova. "What if I
+were to embrace him?" He slipped the cloak from his shoulders and stood
+like Lorenzi, lean and naked.
+
+Lorenzi lowered his point in salute, in accordance with the rules of
+fence. Casanova returned the salute. Next moment they crossed blades,
+and the steel glittered like silver in the sun.
+
+"How long is it," thought Casanova, "since last I stood thus measuring
+sword with sword?" But none of his serious duels now recurred to his
+mind. He could think only of practice with the foils, such as ten years
+earlier he used to have every morning with his valet Costa, the rascal
+who afterwards bolted with a hundred and fifty thousand lire. "All the
+same, he was a fine fencer; nor has my hand forgotten its cunning!
+My arm is as true, my vision as keen, as ever..... Youth and age are
+fables. Am I not a god? Are we not both gods? If anyone could see us
+now. There are women who would pay a high price for the spectacle!"
+
+The blades bent, the points sparkled; at each contact the rapiers sang
+softly in the morning air. "A fight? No, a fencing match! Why this look
+of horror, Marcolina? Are we not both worthy of your love? He is but a
+youngster; I am Casanova!"
+
+Lorenzi sank to the ground, thrust through the heart. The sword fell
+from his grip. He opened his eyes wide, as if in utter astonishment.
+Once he raised his head for a moment, while his lips were fixed in a wry
+smile. Then the head fell back again, his nostrils dilated, there was a
+slight rattling in his throat, and he was dead.
+
+Casanova bent over him, kneeled beside the body, saw a few drops of
+blood ooze from the wound, held his hand in front of Lorenzi's
+mouth--but the breath was stilled. A cold shiver passed through
+Casanova's frame. He rose and put on his cloak. Then, returning to the
+body, he glanced at the fallen youth, lying stark on the turf in
+incomparable beauty. The silence was broken by a soft rustling, as the
+morning breeze stirred the tree-tops.
+
+"What shall I do?" Casanova asked himself. "Shall I summon aid? Olivo?
+Amalia? Marcolina? To what purpose? No one can bring him back to life."
+
+He pondered with the calmness invariable to him in the most dangerous
+moments of his career. "It may be hours before anyone finds him; perhaps
+no one will come by before evening; perchance later still. That will
+give me time, and time is of the first importance."
+
+He was still holding his sword. Noticing that it was bloody, he wiped it
+on the grass. He thought for a moment of dressing the corpse, but to do
+this would have involved the loss of precious and irrecoverable minutes.
+Paying the last duties, he bent once more and closed Lorenzi's eyes.
+"Lucky fellow," he murmured; and then, dreamily, he kissed the dead
+man's forehead.
+
+He strode along beside the wall, turned the angle, and regained the
+road. The carriage was where he had left it, the coachman fast asleep
+on the box. Casanova was careful to avoid waking the man at first. Not
+until he had cautiously taken his seat did he call out: "Hullo, drive
+on, can't you?" and prodded him in the back. The startled coachman
+looked round, greatly astonished to find that it was broad daylight.
+Then he whipped up his horse and drove off.
+
+Casanova sat far back in the carriage, wrapped in the cloak which had
+once belonged to Lorenzi. In the village a few children were to be seen
+in the streets, but it was plain that the elders were already at work in
+the fields. When the houses had been left behind Casanova drew a long
+breath. Opening the valise, he withdrew his clothes, and dressed beneath
+the cover of the cloak, somewhat concerned lest the coachman should
+turn and discover his fare's strange behavior. But nothing of the sort
+happened. Unmolested, Casanova was able to finish dressing, to pack away
+Lorenzi's cloak, and resume his own.
+
+Glancing skyward, Casanova saw that the heavens were overcast. He had
+no sense of fatigue, but felt tense and wakeful. He thought over his
+situation, considering it from every possible point of view, and coming
+to the conclusion that, though grave, it was less alarming than it might
+have seemed to timid spirits. He would probably be suspected of having
+killed Lorenzi, but who could doubt that it had been in an honorable
+fight? Besides, Lorenzi had been lying in wait, had forced the encounter
+upon him, and no one could consider him a criminal for having fought in
+self-defence. But why had he left the body lying on the grass like that
+of a dead dog? Well, nobody could reproach him on that account. To flee
+away swiftly had been well within his right, had been almost a duty. In
+his place, Lorenzi would have done the same. But perhaps Venice would
+hand him over? Directly he arrived, he would claim the protection of his
+patron Bragadino. Yet this might involve his accusing himself of a deed
+which would after all remain undiscovered, or at any rate would perhaps
+never be laid to his charge. What proof was there against him? Had he
+not been summoned to Venice? Who could say that he went thither as a
+fugitive from justice? The coachman maybe, who had waited for him half
+the night. One or two additional gold pieces would stop the fellow's
+mouth.
+
+Thus his thoughts ran in a circle. Suddenly he fancied he heard the
+sound of horses' hoofs from the road behind him. "Already?" was
+his first thought. He leaned over the side of the carriage to look
+backwards. All was clear. The carriage had driven past a farm, and the
+sound he had heard had been the echo of his own horse's hoofs. The
+discovery of this momentary self-deception quieted his apprehensions for
+a time, so that it seemed to him the danger was over. He could now see
+the towers of Mantua. "Drive on, man, drive on," he said under his
+breath, for he did not really wish the coachman to hear. The coachman,
+nearing the goal, had given the horse his head. Soon they reached the
+gate through which Casanova had left the town with Olivo less than
+forty-eight hours earlier. He told the coachman the name of the inn, and
+in a few minutes the carriage drew up at the sign of the Golden Lion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+
+Casanova leaped from the carriage. The hostess stood in the doorway. She
+was bright and smiling, in the mood apparently to give Casanova the warm
+welcome of a lover whose absence has been regretted and whose return
+has been eagerly desired. But Casanova looked warningly towards the
+coachman, implying that the man might be an inconvenient witness, and
+then told him to eat and drink to his heart's content.
+
+"A letter from Venice arrived for you yesterday, Chevalier," announced
+the hostess.
+
+"Another?" enquired Casanova, going upstairs to his room.
+
+The hostess followed. A sealed despatch was lying on the table. Casanova
+opened it in great excitement. He was anxious lest it should prove to be
+a revocation of the former offer. But the missive contained no more than
+a few lines from Bragadino, enclosing a draft for two hundred and fifty
+lire, in order that Casanova, should he have made up his mind to accept,
+might instantly set out for Venice.
+
+Turning to the hostess, Casanova explained with an air of well-simulated
+vexation that he was unfortunately compelled to continue his journey
+instantly. Were he to delay, he would risk losing the post which his
+friend Bragadino had procured for him in Venice, a post for which there
+were fully a hundred applicants. Threatening clouds gathered on the
+hostess' face, so Casanova was prompt to add that all he proposed was to
+make sure of the appointment and to receive his patent as secretary to
+the Supreme Council. As soon as he was installed in office, he would ask
+permission to return to Mantua, that he might arrange his affairs. Of
+course this request could not be refused. He was going to leave most
+of his effects here. When he returned, it would only depend upon his
+beloved and charming friend whether she would give up inn-keeping and
+accompany him to Venice as his wife. She threw her arms round his neck,
+and with brimming eyes asked him whether before starting he would not at
+least make a good breakfast, if she might bring it up to his room. He
+knew she had in mind to provide a farewell feast, and though he felt
+no appetite for it, he agreed to the suggestion simply to be rid of her.
+
+As soon as she was gone, he packed his bag with such underclothing and
+books as he urgently needed. Then, making his way to the parlor, where
+the coachman was enjoying a generous meal, he asked the man whether, for
+a sum which was more than double the usual fare, he would with the same
+horse drive along the Venice road as far as the next posting station.
+The coachman agreed without demur, thus relieving Casanova of his
+principal anxiety for the time.
+
+Now the hostess entered, flushed with annoyance, to ask whether he had
+forgotten that his breakfast was awaiting him in his room. Casanova
+nonchalantly replied that he had not forgotten for a moment, and begged
+her, since he was short of time, to take his draft to the bank, and to
+bring back the two hundred and fifty lire. While she was hastening to
+fetch the money, Casanova returned to his room, and began to eat with
+wolfish voracity. He continued his meal when the hostess came back;
+stopping merely for an instant to pocket the money she brought him.
+
+When he had finished eating, he turned to the woman. Thinking that her
+hour had at length come, she had drawn near, and was pressing up against
+him in a manner which could not be misunderstood. He clasped her
+somewhat roughly, kissed her on both cheeks, and, although she was
+obviously ready to grant him the last favors then and there, exclaimed:
+"I must be off. Till our next meeting!" He tore himself away with
+such violence that she fell back on to the corner of the couch. Her
+expression, with its mingling of disappointment, rage, and impotence,
+was so irresistibly funny that Casanova, as he closed the door behind
+him, burst out laughing.
+
+The coachman could not fail to realize that his fare was in a hurry, but
+it was not his business to ask questions. He sat ready oil the box when
+Casanova came out of the inn, and whipped up the horse the very moment
+the passenger was seated. On his own initiative he decided not to drive
+through the town, but to skirt it, and to rejoin the posting road upon
+the other side. The sun was not yet high, for it was only nine o'clock.
+Casanova reflected: "It is likely enough that Lorenzi's body has not
+been found yet." He hardly troubled to think that he himself had killed
+Lorenzi. All he knew was that he was glad to be leaving Mantua farther
+and farther behind, and glad to have rest at last.
+
+He fell into a deep sleep, the deepest he had ever known. It lasted
+practically two days and two nights. The brief interruptions to his
+slumbers necessitated by the change of horses from time to time, and the
+interruptions that occurred when he was sitting in inns, or walking up
+and down in front of posting stations, or exchanging a few casual words
+with postmasters, innkeepers, customhouse officers, and travellers, did
+not linger in his memory as individual details. Thus it came to pass
+that the remembrance of these two days and nights merged as it were into
+the dream he had dreamed in Marcolina's bed. Even the duel between the
+two naked men upon the green turf in the early sunshine seemed somehow
+to belong to this dream, wherein often enough, in enigmatic fashion, he
+was not Casanova but Lorenzi; not the victor but the vanquished; not the
+fugitive, but the slain round whose pale young body the lonely wind of
+morning played. Neither he nor Lorenzi was any more real than were the
+senators in the purple robes who had knelt before him like beggars; nor
+any less real than such as that old fellow leaning against the parapet
+of a bridge, to whom at nightfall he had thrown alms from the carriage.
+Had not Casanova bent his powers of reason to the task of distinguishing
+between real experiences and dream experiences, he might well have
+imagined that in Marcolina's arms he had fallen into a mad dream from
+which he did not awaken until he caught sight of the Campanile of
+Venice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+
+It was on the third morning of his journey that Casanova, having reached
+Mestre, sighted once more the bell tower after over twenty years of
+longing--a pillar of grey stone looming distantly in the twilight. It
+was but two leagues now to the beloved city in which he had been young.
+He paid the driver without remembering whether this was the fifth or
+the sixth with whom he had had to settle since quitting Mantua, and,
+followed by a lad carrying his baggage, walked through the mean streets
+to the harbor from which to-day, just as five-and-twenty years earlier,
+the boat was to leave for Venice at six in the morning.
+
+The vessel seemed to have been waiting for him; hardly had he seated
+himself upon a narrow bench, among petty traders, manual workers, and
+women bringing their wares to market, when she cast off. It was a cloudy
+morning; mist was rolling across the lagoons; there was a smell of
+bilge-water, damp wood, fish, and fruit. The Campanile grew ever higher;
+additional towers appeared; cupolas became visible. The light of the
+morning sun was reflected from one roof, from two, from many. Individual
+houses were distinguishable, growing larger by degrees. Boats, great and
+small, showed through the mist; greetings were shouted from vessel to
+vessel. The chatter around him grew louder. A little girl offered him
+some grapes for sale. Munching the purple berries, he spat the skins
+over the side after the manner of his countrymen. He entered into
+friendly talk with someone who expressed satisfaction that the weather
+seemed to be clearing at last.
+
+"What, has it been raining here for three days? That is news to me. I
+come from the south, from Naples and Rome."
+
+The boat had entered the canals of the suburbs. Sordid houses stared at
+him with dirty windows, as if with vacant, hostile eyes. Twice or thrice
+the vessel stopped at a quay, and passengers came aboard; young fellows,
+one of whom had a great portfolio under his arm; women with baskets.
+
+Here, at last, was familiar ground. Was not that the church where
+Martina used to go to confession? Was not that the house in which, after
+his own fashion, he had restored the pallid and dying Agatha to ruddy
+health? Was not that the place in which he had dealt with the charming
+Sylvia's rascal of a brother, had beaten the fellow black and blue? Up
+that canal to the right, in the small yellow house upon whose splashed
+steps the fat, bare-footed woman was standing....
+
+Before he had fully recaptured the distant memory attaching to the house
+in question, the boat had entered the Grand Canal, and was passing
+slowly up the broad waterway with palaces on either hand. To Casanova,
+in his dreamy reflections, it seemed as if but yesterday he had
+traversed the same route.
+
+He disembarked at the Rialto Bridge, for, before visiting Signor
+Bragadino, he wished to make sure of a room in a modest hostelry
+nearby--he knew where it was, though he could not recall the name.
+The place seemed more decayed, or at least more neglected, than he
+remembered it of old. A sulky waiter, badly in need of a shave, showed
+him to an uninviting room looking upon the blind wall of a house
+opposite. Casanova had no time to lose. Moreover, since he had spent
+nearly all his cash on the journey, the cheapness of these quarters was
+a great attraction. He decided, therefore, to make his lodging there
+for the present. Having removed the stains of travel, he deliberated for
+a while whether to put on his finer suit; then decided it was better to
+wear the soberer raiment, and walked out of the inn.
+
+It was but a hundred paces, along a narrow alley and across a bridge, to
+Bragadino's small but elegant palace. A young servingman with a rather
+impudent manner took in Casanova's name in a way which implied that its
+celebrity had no meaning for him. Returning from his master's apartments
+with a more civil demeanor, he bade the guest enter.
+
+Bragadino was seated at breakfast beside the open window, and made as if
+to rise; but Casanova begged him not to disturb himself.
+
+"My dear Casanova," exclaimed Bragadino, "How delighted I am to see
+you once more! Who would have thought we should ever meet again?" He
+extended both hands to the newcomer.
+
+Casanova seized them as if to kiss them, but did not do so. He answered
+the cordial greeting with warm words of thanks in the grandiloquent
+manner usual to him on such occasions. Bragadino begged him to be
+seated, and asked him whether he had breakfasted. Told that his guest
+was still fasting, Bragadino rang for his servant and gave the
+necessary orders. As soon as the man had gone, Bragadino expressed his
+gratification that Casanova had so unreservedly accepted the Supreme
+Council's offer. He would certainly not suffer for having decided to
+devote himself to the service of his country. Casanova responded
+by saying that he would deem himself happy if he could but win the
+Council's approval.
+
+Such were Casanova's words, while his thoughts ran on. He could no
+longer detect in himself any feeling of hatred towards Bragadino. Nay,
+he realized that he was rather sorry for this man advanced in years and
+grown a trifle foolish, who sat facing him with a sparse white beard and
+red-rimmed eyes, and whose skinny hand trembled as he held his cup. The
+last time Casanova had seen him, Bragadino had probably been about as
+old as Casanova was to-day; but even then, to Casanova, Bragadino had
+seemed an old man.
+
+The servant brought in Casanova's breakfast. The guest needed little
+pressing to induce him to make a hearty meal, for on the road he had had
+no more than a few snacks.
+
+"I have journeyed here from Mantua without pausing for a night's rest,
+so eager was I to show my readiness to serve the Council and to prove
+my undying gratitude to my benefactor."--This was his excuse for
+the almost unmannerly greed with which he gulped down the steaming
+chocolate.
+
+Through the window, from the Grand Canal and the lesser canals, rose the
+manifold noises of Venetian life. All other sounds were dominated by the
+monotonous shouts of the gondoliers. Somewhere close at hand, perhaps in
+the opposite palace (was it not the Fogazzari palace?), a woman with a
+fine soprano voice was practising; the singer was young--someone who
+could not have been born at the time when Casanova escaped from The
+Leads.
+
+He ate rolls and butter, eggs, cold meat, continually excusing himself
+for his outrageous hunger, while Bragadino looked on well pleased.
+
+"I do like young people to have a healthy appetite," said the Senator.
+"As far as I can remember, my dear Casanova, you have always been a
+good trencherman!" He recalled to mind a meal which he and Casanova had
+enjoyed together in the early days of their acquaintance. "Or rather, as
+now, I sat looking on while you ate. I had not taken a long walk, as
+you had. It was shortly after you had kicked that physician out of the
+house, the man who had almost been the death of me with his perpetual
+bleedings."
+
+They went on talking of old times--when life had been better in Venice
+than it was to-day.
+
+"Not everywhere," said Casanova, with a smiling allusion to The Leads.
+
+Bragadino waved away the suggestion, as if this were not a suitable time
+for a reference to such petty disagreeables. "Besides, you must know
+that I did everything I could to save you from punishment, though
+unfortunately my efforts proved unavailing. Of course, if in those days
+I had already been a member of the Council of Ten!"
+
+This broached the topic of political affairs. Warming to his theme, the
+old man recovered much of the wit and liveliness of earlier days.
+He told Casanova many remarkable details concerning the unfortunate
+tendencies which had recently begun to affect some of the Venetian
+youth, and concerning the dangerous intrigues of which infallible signs
+were now becoming manifest.
+
+Casanova was thus well posted for his work. He spent the day in the
+gloomy chamber at the inn; and, simply as a means to secure calm after
+the recent excitements, he passed the hours in arranging his papers, and
+in burning those of which he wished to be rid. When evening fell, he
+made his way to the Cafe Quadri in the Square of St. Mark, since
+this was supposed to be the chief haunt of the freethinkers and
+revolutionists. Here he was promptly recognized by an elderly musician
+who had at one time been conductor of the orchestra in the San Samueli
+Theatre, where Casanova had been a violinist thirty years before. By
+this old acquaintance, and without any advances on his own part, he was
+introduced to the company. Most of them were young men, and many of
+their names were those which Bragadino had mentioned in the morning as
+belonging to persons of suspicious character.
+
+But the name of Casanova did not produce upon his new acquaintances the
+effect which he felt himself entitled to anticipate. It was plain that
+most of them knew nothing more of Casanova than that, a great many years
+ago, he had for one reason or another, and perhaps for no reason at
+all, been imprisoned in The Leads; and that, surmounting all possible
+dangers, he had made his escape. The booklet wherein, some years
+earlier, he had given so lively a description of his flight, had
+not indeed passed unnoticed; but no one seemed to have read it with
+sufficient attention. Casanova found it amusing to reflect that it lay
+within his power to help everyone of these young gentlemen to a speedy
+personal experience of the conditions of prison life in The Leads, and
+to a realization of the difficulties of escape. He was far, however,
+from betraying the slightest trace that he harbored so ill-natured an
+idea. On the contrary, he was able to play the innocent and to adopt an
+amiable role. After his usual fashion, he entertained the company
+by recounting all sorts of lively adventures, describing them as
+experiences he had had during his last journey from Rome to Venice. In
+substance these incidents were true enough, but they all dated from
+fifteen or twenty years earlier. He secured an eager and interested
+audience.
+
+Another member of the company announced as a noteworthy item of news
+that an officer of Mantua on a visit to a friend, a neighboring
+landowner, had been murdered, and that the robbers had stripped him to
+the skin. The story attracted no particular attention, for in those days
+such occurrences were far from rare. Casanova resumed his narrative
+where it had been interrupted, resumed it as if this Mantua affair
+concerned him just as little as it concerned the rest of the company. In
+fact, being now freed from a disquiet whose existence he had hardly been
+willing to admit even to himself, his manner became brighter and bolder
+than ever.
+
+It was past midnight when, after a light-hearted farewell, he walked
+alone across the wide, empty square. The heavens were veiled in luminous
+mist. He moved with the confident step of a sleep-walker. Without being
+really conscious that he was on a path which he had not traversed for
+five-and-twenty years, he found the way through tortuous alleys,
+between dark houses, and over narrow bridges. At length he reached the
+dilapidated inn, and had to knock repeatedly before the door was opened
+to him with a slow unfriendliness.
+
+When, a few minutes later, having but half undressed, he threw himself
+upon his uneasy pallet, he was overwhelmed with a weariness amounting
+to pain, while upon his lips was a bitter after-taste which seemed to
+permeate his whole being. Thus, at the close of his long exile, did
+he first woo sleep in the city to which he had so eagerly desired to
+return. And here, when morning was about to break, the heavy and
+dreamless sleep of exhaustion came to console the aging adventurer.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+POSTFACE
+
+
+It is a historical fact that Casanova visited Voltaire at Ferney. There
+is, however, no historical warrant for the account of the matter given
+in the foregoing novel, and still less for the statement that Casanova
+wrote a polemic against Voltaire. It is a historical fact, likewise,
+that Casanova, when between fifty and sixty years of age, found it
+necessary to enter Venetian service as a spy. Of this, and of many other
+doings of the celebrated adventurer to which casual allusion is made in
+the course of the novel, fuller and more accurate accounts will be found
+in Casanova's _Memoirs_. Speaking generally, nevertheless, _Casanova's
+Homecoming_ is to be regarded throughout as a work of fiction.
+
+A. S.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Casanova's Homecoming, by Arthur Schnitzler
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