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.