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

time.

Now the hostess entered, flushed with annoyance, to ask whether he had forgotten that his breakfast was awaiting him in his room. Casanova nonchalantly replied that he had not forgotten for a moment, and begged her, since he was short of time, to take his draft to the bank, and to bring back the two hundred and fifty lire. While she was hastening to fetch the money, Casanova returned to his room, and began to eat with wolfish voracity. He continued his meal when the hostess came back; stopping merely for an instant to pocket the money she brought him.

When he had finished eating, he turned to the woman. Thinking that her hour had at length come, she had drawn near, and was pressing up against him in a manner which could not be misunderstood. He clasped her somewhat roughly, kissed her on both cheeks, and, although she was obviously ready to grant him the last favors then and there, exclaimed: "I must be off. Till our next meeting!" He tore himself away with such violence that she fell back on to the corner of the couch. Her expression, with its mingling of disappointment, rage, and impotence, was so irresistibly funny that Casanova, as he closed the door behind him, burst out laughing.

The coachman could not fail to realize that his fare was in a hurry, but it was not his business to ask questions. He sat ready oil the box when Casanova came out of the inn, and whipped up the horse the very moment the passenger was seated. On his own initiative he decided not to drive through the town, but to skirt it, and to rejoin the posting road upon the other side. The sun was not yet high, for it was only nine o'clock. Casanova reflected: "It is likely enough that Lorenzi's body has not been found yet." He hardly troubled to think that he himself had killed Lorenzi. All he knew was that he was glad to be leaving Mantua farther and farther behind, and glad to have rest at last.

He fell into a deep sleep, the deepest he had ever known. It lasted practically two days and two nights. The brief interruptions to his slumbers necessitated by the change of horses from time to time, and the interruptions that occurred when he was sitting in inns, or walking up and down in front of posting stations, or exchanging a few casual words with postmasters, innkeepers, customhouse officers, and travellers, did not linger in his memory as individual details. Thus it came to pass that the remembrance of these two days and nights merged as it were into the dream he had dreamed in Marcolina's bed. Even the duel between the two naked men upon the green turf in the early sunshine seemed somehow to belong to this dream, wherein often enough, in enigmatic fashion, he was not Casanova but Lorenzi; not the victor but the vanquished; not the fugitive, but the slain round whose pale young body the lonely wind of morning played. Neither he nor Lorenzi was any more real than were the senators in the purple robes who had knelt before him like beggars; nor any less real than such as that old fellow leaning against the parapet of a bridge, to whom at nightfall he had thrown alms from the carriage. Had not Casanova bent his powers of reason to the task of distinguishing between real experiences and dream experiences, he might well have imagined that in Marcolina's arms he had fallen into a mad dream from which he did not awaken until he caught sight of the Campanile of Venice.


CHAPTER TWELVE


It was on the third morning of his journey that Casanova, having reached Mestre, sighted once more the bell tower after over twenty years of longing - a pillar of grey stone looming distantly in the twilight. It was but two leagues now to the beloved city in which he had been young. He paid the driver without remembering whether this was the fifth or the sixth with whom he had had to settle since quitting Mantua, and, followed by a lad carrying his baggage, walked through the mean streets to the harbor from which to-day, just as five-and-twenty years earlier, the boat was to leave for Venice at six in the morning.

The vessel seemed to have been waiting for him; hardly had he seated himself upon a narrow bench, among petty traders, manual workers, and women bringing their wares to market, when she cast off. It was a cloudy morning; mist was rolling across the lagoons; there was a smell of bilge-water, damp wood, fish, and fruit. The Campanile grew ever higher; additional towers appeared; cupolas became visible. The light of the morning sun was reflected from one roof, from two, from many. Individual houses were distinguishable, growing larger by degrees. Boats, great and small, showed through the mist; greetings were shouted from vessel to vessel. The chatter around him grew louder. A little girl offered him some grapes for sale. Munching the purple berries, he spat the skins over the side after the manner of his countrymen. He entered into friendly talk with someone who expressed satisfaction that the weather seemed to be clearing at last.

"What, has it been raining here for three days? That is news to me. I come from the south, from Naples and Rome."

The boat had entered the canals of the suburbs. Sordid houses stared at him with dirty windows, as if with vacant, hostile eyes. Twice or thrice the vessel stopped at a quay, and passengers came aboard; young fellows, one of whom had a great portfolio under his arm; women with baskets.

Here, at last, was familiar ground. Was not that the church where Martina used to go to confession? Was not that the house in which, after his own fashion, he had restored the pallid and dying Agatha to ruddy health? Was not that the place in which he had dealt with the charming Sylvia's rascal of a brother, had beaten the fellow black and blue? Up that canal to the right, in the small yellow house upon whose splashed steps the fat, bare-footed woman was standing....

Before he had fully recaptured the distant memory attaching to the house in question, the boat had entered the Grand Canal, and was passing slowly up the broad waterway with palaces on either hand. To Casanova, in his dreamy reflections, it seemed as if but yesterday he had traversed the same route.

He disembarked at the Rialto Bridge, for, before visiting Signor Bragadino, he wished to make sure of a room in a modest hostelry nearby - he knew where it was, though he could not recall the name. The place seemed more decayed, or at least more neglected, than he remembered it of old. A sulky waiter, badly in need of a shave, showed him to an uninviting room looking upon the blind wall of a house opposite. Casanova had no time to lose. Moreover, since he had spent nearly all his cash on the journey, the cheapness of these quarters was a great attraction. He decided, therefore, to make his lodging there for the present. Having removed the stains of travel, he deliberated for a while whether to put on his finer suit; then decided it was better to wear the soberer raiment, and walked out of the inn.

It was but a hundred paces, along a narrow alley and across a bridge, to Bragadino's small but elegant palace. A young servingman with a rather impudent manner took in Casanova's name in a way which implied that its celebrity had no meaning for him. Returning from his master's apartments with a more civil demeanor, he bade the guest enter.

Bragadino was seated at breakfast beside the open window, and made as if to rise; but Casanova begged him not to disturb himself.

"My dear Casanova," exclaimed Bragadino, "How delighted I am to see you once more! Who would have thought we should ever meet again?" He extended both hands to the newcomer.

Casanova seized them as if to kiss them, but did not do so. He answered the cordial greeting with warm words of thanks in the grandiloquent manner usual to him on such occasions. Bragadino begged him to be seated, and asked him whether he had breakfasted. Told that his guest was still fasting, Bragadino rang for his servant and gave the necessary orders. As soon as the man had gone, Bragadino expressed his gratification that Casanova had so unreservedly accepted the Supreme Council's offer. He would certainly not suffer for having decided to devote himself to the service of his country. Casanova responded by saying that he would deem himself happy if he could but win the Council's approval.

Such were Casanova's words, while his thoughts ran on. He could no longer detect in himself any feeling of hatred towards Bragadino. Nay, he realized that he was rather sorry for this man advanced in years and grown a trifle foolish, who sat facing him with a sparse white beard and red-rimmed eyes, and whose skinny hand trembled as he held his cup. The last time Casanova had seen him, Bragadino had probably been about as old as Casanova was to-day; but even then, to Casanova, Bragadino had seemed an old man.

The servant brought in Casanova's breakfast. The guest needed little pressing to induce him to make a hearty meal, for on the road he had had no more than a few snacks.

"I have journeyed here from Mantua without pausing for a night's rest, so eager was I to show my readiness to serve the Council and to prove my undying gratitude to my benefactor." - This was his excuse for the almost unmannerly greed with which he gulped down the steaming chocolate.

Through the window, from the Grand Canal and the lesser canals, rose the manifold noises of Venetian life. All other sounds were dominated by the monotonous shouts of the gondoliers. Somewhere close at hand, perhaps in the opposite palace (was it not the Fogazzari palace?), a woman with a fine soprano voice was practising; the singer was young - someone who could not have been born at the time when Casanova escaped from The Leads.

He ate rolls and butter, eggs, cold meat, continually excusing himself for his outrageous hunger, while Bragadino looked on well pleased.

"I do like young people to have a healthy appetite," said the Senator. "As far as I can remember, my dear Casanova, you have always been a good trencherman!" He recalled to mind a meal which he and Casanova had enjoyed together in the early days of their acquaintance. "Or rather, as now, I sat looking on while you ate. I had not taken a long walk, as you had. It was shortly after you had kicked that physician out of the house, the man who had almost been the death of me with his perpetual bleedings."

They went on talking of old times - when life had been better in Venice than it was to-day.

"Not everywhere," said Casanova, with a smiling allusion to The Leads.

Bragadino waved away the suggestion, as if this were not a suitable time for a reference to such petty disagreeables. "Besides, you must know that I did everything I could to save you from punishment, though unfortunately my efforts proved unavailing. Of course, if in those days I had already been a member of the Council of Ten!"

This broached the topic of political affairs. Warming to his theme, the old man recovered much of the wit and liveliness of earlier days. He told Casanova many remarkable details concerning the unfortunate tendencies which had recently begun