Volume I Part 72 (2/2)
”The only fault of your dear father,” she continued, ”was a want of gratitude”
I have no doubt that she passed the same sentence upon the son, for, in spite of her kind invitation, I never paid her another visit
My purse ell filled, and as I did not care for Mantua, I resolved on going to Naples, to see again my dear Therese, Donna Lucrezia, Palo father and son, Don Antonio Casanova, and all enius did not approve of that decision, for I was not allowed to carry it into execution I should have left Mantua three days later, had I not gone to the opera that night
I lived like an anchorite duringto the folly I coht of my arrival I played only that tiht erotic inconvenience, by co me to follow the diet necessary to reater misfortunes which, perhaps, I should not have been able to avoid
CHAPTER XXI
My Journey to Cesena in Search of Treasure--I Take Up My Quarters in Franzia's House--His Daughter Javotte
The opera was nearly over when I was accosted by a young man who, abruptly, and without any introduction, toldtwoa visit to the natural history collection belonging to his father, Don Antonio Capitani, commissary and prebendal president
”Sir,” I answered, ”I have been guilty only through ignorance, and if you would be so good as to call forI shall have atoned for ht to address me the same reproach”
The son of the prebendal commissary called for me, and I found in his father a most eccentric, whimsical sort of man The curiosities of his collection consisted of his faic, relics, coins which he believed to be antediluvian, a model of the ark taken from nature at the time when Noah arrived in that extraordinary harbour, Mount Ararat, in Armenia He load several medals, one of Sesostris, another of Semiramis, and an old knife of a queer shape, covered with rust Besides all those wonderful treasures, he possessed, but under lock and key, all the paraphernalia of freemasonry
”Pray, tell me,” I said to him, ”what relation there is between this collection and natural history? I see nothing here representing the three kingdodom, that of Sesostris and that of Sedoms?”
When I heard that answer I eht, which was sarcastic in its intent, but which he took for admiration, and he at once unfolded all the treasures of his whi with the rusty blade which he said was the very knife hich Saint Peter cut off the ear of Malek
”What!” I exclaimed, ”you are the possessor of this knife, and you are not as rich as Croesus?”
”How could I be so through the possession of the knife?”
”In tays In the first place, you could obtain possession of all the treasures hidden under ground in the States of the Church”
”Yes, that is a natural consequence, because St Peter has the keys”
”In the second place, you ht sell the knife to the Pope, if you happen to possess proof of its authenticity”
”You mean the parchht one without the other?”
”All right, then In order to get possession of that knife, the Pope would, I have no doubt, make a cardinal of your son, but you ot it, but it is unnecessary At all events I can have one made”
”That would not do, you must have the very one in which Saint Peter hiladiuinam' That very sheath does exist, and it is now in the hands of a person who ht sell him your knife, for the sheath without the knife is of no use to him, just as the knife is useless to you without the sheath”
”How much would it cost me?”
”One thousand sequins”
”And how ive me for the knife?”
”One thousand sequins, for one has as much value as the other”