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 reëchoed. “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 reëntered 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.