Casanova's Homecoming Part 10

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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 ma.s.s 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 p.r.o.ne.

"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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sion 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 encompa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing 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 compa.s.sed 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.