Casanova's Homecoming, Arthur Schnitzler [the false prince TXT] 📗

when still pusillanimous, of acting on the determination to flee out of this night of miracle dumbly, unrecognized, like a thief. With the infallible conviction that he must be the bringer of delight even as he was the receiver of delight, he felt prepared for the venture of disclosing his name, even though he knew all the time that he would thus play for a great stake, the loss of which would involve the loss of his very existence. He was still shrouded in impenetrable darkness, and until the first glimmer of dawn made its way through the thick curtain, he could postpone a confession upon whose favorable acceptance by Marcolina his fate, nay his life, depended.

Besides, was not this mute, passionately sweet association the very thing to bind Marcolina to him more firmly with each kiss that they enjoyed? Would not the ineffable bliss of this night transmute into truth what had been conceived in falsehood? His duped mistress, woman of women, had she not already an inkling that it was not Lorenzi, the stripling, but Casanova, the man, with whom she was mingling in these divine ardors?

He began to deem it possible that he might be spared the so greatly desired and 'yet so intensely dreaded moment of revelation. He fancied that Marcolina, thrilling, entranced, transfigured, would spontaneously whisper his name. Then, when she had forgiven him, he would take her with him that very hour. Together they would leave the house in the grey dawn; together they would seek the carriage that was waiting at the turn of the road; together they would drive away. She would be his for evermore. This would be the crown of his life; that at an age when others were doomed to a sad senility, he, by the overwhelming might of his unconquerable personality, would have won for himself the youngest, the most beautiful, the most gifted of women.

For this woman was his as no woman had ever been before. He glided with her through mysterious, narrow canals, between palaces in whose shadows he was once more at home, under high-arched bridges which blurred figures were swiftly crossing. Many of the wayfarers glanced down for a moment over the parapet, and vanished ere their faces could be discerned.

Now the gondola drew alongside. A marble stairway led up to the stately mansion of Senator Bragadino. It was the only palace holding festival. Masked guests were ascending and descending. Many of them paused with inquisitive glances; but who could recognize Casanova and Marcolina in their dominoes?

He entered the hall with her. Here was a great company playing for high stakes. All the senators, Bragadino among them, were seated round the table in their purple robes. As Casanova came through the door, they whispered his name as if terror-stricken, for the flashing of his eyes behind the mask had disclosed his identity. He did not sit down; he did not take any cards, and yet he joined in the game. He won. He won all the gold on the table, and this did not suffice. The senators had to give him notes of hand. They lost their possessions, their palaces, their purple robes; they were beggars; they crawled round him clad in rags, kissing his hands.

Nearby, in a hall with crimson hangings, there was music and dancing. Casanova wished to dance with Marcolina, but she had vanished. Once again the senators in their purple robes were seated at the table; but now Casanova knew that the hazards at stake were not those of a game of cards; he knew that the destinies of accused persons, some criminal and some innocent, hung in the balance.

What had become of Marcolina? Had he not been holding her by the hand all the time? He rushed down the staircase. The gondola was waiting. On, on, through the maze of canals. Of course the gondolier knew where Marcolina was; but why was he, too, masked? That had not been the custom of old in Venice. Casanova wished to question him, but was afraid. Does a man become so cowardly when he grows old?

Onward, ever onward. How huge Venice had grown during these five-and-twenty years! At length the houses came to an end; the canal opened out; they were passing between islands; there stood the walls of the Murano nunnery, to which Marcolina had fled.

There was no gondola now; he had to swim; how delightful! It was true that in Venice the children were playing with his gold pieces. But what was money to him? The water was now warm, now cold; it dripped from his clothing as he climbed over the wall.

"Where is Marcolina?" he enquired in the parlor, in loud, challenging tones such as only a prince would dare to use.

"I will summon her," said the Lady Abbess, and sank into the ground.

Casanova wandered about; he had wings; he fluttered to and fro along the gratings, fluttered like a bat. "If I had only known sooner that I can fly," he thought. "I will teach Marcolina."

Behind the gratings, the figures of women were moving hither and thither. They were nuns - and yet they were all wearing secular dress. He knew it, though he could not really see them. He knew who they were. Henriette the Unknown; Corticelli and Cristina, the dancers; the bride; Dubois the Beautiful; the accurst vixen of Soleure; Manon Balletti; a hundred others - but never Marcolina!

"You have betrayed me," he cried to the gondolier, who was waiting for him beneath. Never had he hated anyone as he hated this gondolier, and he swore to take an exquisite revenge.

But how foolish he had been to seek Marcolina in the Murano nunnery when she had gone to visit Voltaire. It was fortunate that he could fly, since he had no money left with which to pay for a carriage.

He swam away. But he was no longer enjoying himself. The water grew colder and colder; he was drifting out into the open sea, far from Murano, far from Venice, and there was no ship within sight; his heavy gold-embroidered garments were dragging him down; he tried to strip them off, but it was impossible, for he was holding his manuscript, the manuscript he had to give to M. Voltaire. The water was pouring into his mouth and nose; deadly fear seized him; he clutched at impalpable things; there was a rattling in his throat; he screamed; and with a great effort he opened his eyes.

Between the curtain and the window-frame the dawn was making its way through in a narrow strip of light. Marcolina, in her white nightdress and with hands crossed upon her bosom, was standing at the foot of the bed contemplating Casanova with unutterable horror. Her glance instantly recalled him to his senses. Involuntarily he stretched out his arms towards her with a gesture of appeal. Marcolina, as if rejecting this appeal, waved him away with her left hand, while with the right she continued to grasp her raiment convulsively. Casanova sat up, his eyes riveted upon her. Neither was able to look away from the other. His expression was one of rage and shame; hers was one of shame and disgust. Casanova knew how she saw him, for he saw himself figured in imagination, just as he had seen himself yesterday in the bedroom mirror. A yellow, evil face, deeply lined, with thin lips and staring eyes - a face three times worse than that of yesterday, because of the excesses of the night, the ghastly dream of the morning, and the terrible awakening. And what he read in Marcolina's countenance was not what he would a thousand times rather have read there; it was not thief, libertine, villain. He read only something which crushed him to earth more ignominiously than could any terms of abuse; he read the word which to him was the most dreadful of all words, since it passed a final judgment upon him - old man.

Had it been within his power to annihilate himself by a spell, he would have done so, that he might be spared from having to creep out of the bed and display himself to Marcolina in his nakedness, which must appear to her more loathsome than the sight of some loathsome beast.

But Marcolina, as if gradually collecting herself, and manifestly in order to give him the opportunity which was indispensable, turned her face to the wall. He seized the moment to get out of bed, to raise the cloak from the floor, and to wrap himself in it. He was quick, too, to make sure of his sword. Now, when he conceived himself to have at least escaped the worst contumely of all, that of ludicrousness, he began to wonder whether it would not be possible to throw another light upon this affair in which he cut so pitiful a figure. He was an adept in the use of language. Could he not somehow or other, by a few well-chosen words, give matters a favorable turn?

From the nature of the circumstances, it was evidently impossible for Marcolina to doubt that Lorenzi had sold her to Casanova. Yet however intensely she might hate her wretched lover at that moment, Casanova felt that he himself, the cowardly thief, must seem a thousand times more hateful.

Perhaps another course offered better promise of satisfaction. He might degrade Marcolina by mockery and lascivious phrases, full of innuendo. But this spiteful idea could not be sustained in face of the aspect she had now assumed. Her expression of horror had gradually been transformed into one of infinite sadness, as if it had been not Marcolina's womanhood alone which had been desecrated by Casanova, but as if during the night that had just closed a nameless and inexpiable offence had been committed by cunning against trust, by lust against love, by age against youth. Beneath this gaze which, to Casanova's extremest torment, reawakened for a brief space all that was still good in him, he turned away. Without looking round at Marcolina, he went to the window, drew the curtain aside, opened casement and grating, cast a glance round the garden which still seemed to slumber in the twilight, and swung himself across the sill into the open.

Aware of the possibility that someone in the house might already be awake and might spy him from a window, he avoided the greensward and sought cover in the shaded alley. Passing through the door in the wall, he had hardly closed it behind him, when someone blocked his path. "The gondolier!" was his first idea. For now he suddenly realized that the gondolier in his dream had been Lorenzi. The young officer stood before him. His silver-braided scarlet tunic glowed in the morning light.

"What a splendid uniform," was the thought that crossed Casanova's confused, weary brain. "It looks quite new. I am sure it has not been paid for." These trivial reflections helped him to the full recovery of his wits; and as soon as he realized the situation, his mind was filled with gladness. Drawing himself up proudly, and grasping the hilt of his sword firmly beneath the cloak, he said in a tone of the utmost amiability: "Does it not seem to you, Lieutenant Lorenzi, that this notion of yours has come a thought too late?"

"By no means," answered Lorenzi, looking handsomer than any man Casanova had ever seen before. "Only one of us two shall leave the place alive."

"What a hurry you are in, Lorenzi," said Casanova in an almost tender tone. "Cannot the affair rest until we reach Mantua? I shall be delighted to give you a lift in my carriage, which is waiting at the turn