Volume VI Part 102 (1/2)
She was the banker, and she begged me to join the party now and then
”I will coht,” I replied, ”but you h play of me”
I kept the appoint tradesmen, ere all in love with her
After supper she held a bank, and I was greatly astonished when I saw her cheating with great dexterity It ood grace and left However, I did notat rehearsal, and co She pretended not to understand what Imyself she had the ier I turned , ”You will be sorry for this soh, and said, ”Well, well, I confess! and if you tell me how much you lost you shall have it back, and if you like you shall be a partner in the game”
”No, thank you, Irene, I will not be present at any ames of chance are strictly forbidden”
”I know that, but all the young men have promised strict secrecy”
”Come and breakfast with ing her daughter with her The girl was pretty, and allowed me to caress her
One day Baron Pittoni irls as well as I he begged Irene to hter include him in her list of favoured lovers
I advised her not to reject the offer, and the baron fell in love with her, which was a piece of luck for Irene, as she was accused of playing unlawful games, and would have been severely treated if the baron had not given her warning When the police pounced on her, they found no ga could be done
Irene left Trieste at the beginning of Lent with the coain at Padua Her daughter had becoirl, and our acquaintance was renewed in the tenderest manner
[Thus abruptly end the Meht of the Golden Spur, Prothonotary Apostolic, and Scoundrel Cosmopolitic]
EPISODE 30 -- OLD AGE AND DEATH OF CASANOVA
APPENDIX AND SUPPLEMENT
Whether the author died before the as co volumes were destroyed by himself or his literary executors, or whether the MS fell into bad hands, seems a matter of uncertainty, and the materials available towards a continuation of the Mementary We knoever, that Casanova at last succeeded in obtaining his pardon from the authorities of the Republic, and he returned to Venice, where he exercised the honourable office of secret agent of the State Inquisitors--in plain language, he becaht of the Golden Spur ent;” not surely, as a French writer suggests, because the dirty as too dirty for his fingers, but probably because he was getting old and stupid and out-of-date, and failed to keep in touch with new forain and paid a visit to Vienna, saw beloved Paris once more, and there met Count Wallenstein, or Waldstein
The conversation turned on ic and the occult sciences, in, which Casanova was an adept, as the reader of the Memoirs will remember, and the count took a fancy to the charlatan In short Casanova became librarian at the count's Castle of Dux, near Teplitz, and there he spent the fourteen rene (from whose Memoirs we learn these particulars) remarks, Casanova's life had been a storht have been expected that he would have found his patron's library a pleasant refuge after so h weather and storm in his own heart, and found daily opportunities of mortification and resentment The coffee was ill made, the s had bayed during the night, he had been made to dine at a small table, the parish priest had tried to convert him, the soup had been served too hot on purpose to annoy hiuest, the count had lent a book without telling hiroom had not taken off his hat; such were his complaints The fact is Casanova felt his dependent position and his utter poverty, and was all the nity as a man who had talked with all the crowned heads of Europe, and had fought a duel with the Polish general And he had another reason for finding life bitter--he had lived beyond his tiuillotined; the Revolution had come; and Casanova, his dress, and his ency” would appear to us of these days
Sixty years before, Marcel, the fa Casanova how to enter a roohteenth century is drawing to a close, old Casanova enters the roohs Old Casanova treads the graveonce, but now everyone laughs Young Casanova was always dressed in the height of the fashi+on; but the age of powder, wigs, velvets, and silks has departed, and old Casanova's atteenuine stones with hihter No wonder the old adventurer denounces the whole house of Jacobins and canaille; the world, he feels, is per is cross, and everyone is in a conspiracy to drive the iron into his soul
At last these persecutions, real or ienius bids hio, and, as before, he obeys Casanova has but little pleasure or profit out of this his last journey; he has to dance attendance in ante-chaive him any office, whether as tutor, librarian, or chamberlain In one quarter only is he well received--namely, by the famous Duke of Weimar; but in a few days he becoes, Goethe and Wieland, and goes off declaienerally--hich literature he holly unacquainted From Weimar to Berlin; where there are Jews to whonorant, superstitious, and knavish; but they lend hiives bills on Count Wallenstein, which are paid In six weeks the wanderer returns to Dux, and is welcomed with open arms; his journeys are over at last
But not his troubles A week after his return there are strawberries at dessert; everyone is served before himself, and when the plate comes round to hi from his room, and is discovered 'salement placarde a la porte des lieux d'aisance'!
Five more years of life remained to him They were passed in such pettyover his 'afreuse vieillesse', and in laments over the conquest of his native land Venice, once so splendid and powerful His appetite began to fail, and with it failed his last source of pleasure, so death came to him somewhat as a release He received the sacraments with devotion, exclaimed,--
”Grand Dieu, et vous tous temoins de ma mort, j'ai vecu en philosophe, et jeto a wonderfully brilliant and entirely useless career It has been suggested that if the age in which Casanova lived had been less corrupt, he hiht have used his all but universal talents to soe, but to our mind Casanova would always have remained Casanova He came of a family of adventurers, and the reader of his Memoirs will remark how he continually ruined his prospects by his ineradicable love for disreputable coe he regrets--not his past follies, but his inability to coain we are inclined to pronounce Casanova to be an aood nature he had added soht and wrong, he ht certainly have laid sone draws the following portrait of him under the name of Aventuros: