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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.
She had lost her mother early. Her father, Olivo's half-brother, had been a physician in Bologna. Marcolina, while still a child, had astonished everyone by her precocious intelligence; but the marvel was soon staled by custom. A few years later, her father died.
"You are mad because in me, an old man, you think that you can rediscover the beloved of your youth; I am mad because I have taken it into my head that I wish to possess Marcolina. But perhaps we shall both be restored to reason. Marcolina shall restore me to youth for you. So help me to my wishes, Amalia!" "You are really beside yourself, Casanova. What you ask is impossible.
Her expression manifested the same protest, the same repulsion, which had wounded Casanova earlier in the day. "Am I really so repulsive?" he anxiously asked himself. Then, replying in thought to his own question: "No, that is not the reason. Marcolina is not really a woman. She is a she-professor, a she-philosopher, one of the wonders of the world perhaps but not a woman."
He acknowledged with serene dignity the effusive greeting of the company, and took his place opposite the Marchese, who was banker. The windows into the garden were open. Casanova heard voices outside; Marcolina and Amalia strolled by, glanced into the room for a moment, and then disappeared.
In silence she saluted her guests, and with an exaggerated reverence of her veiled head acknowledged Casanova's expressions of gratitude for the admission of himself, a stranger. But when Marcolina wished to kiss her hand, the Abbess gathered the girl in her arms.
Meanwhile Olivo gave the newcomer a circumstantial account of the rediscovery of Casanova. Dreamily Amalia continued to gaze at the beloved guest's masterful brown forehead. The children ran out into the garden; Marcolina had risen from the table and was watching them through the open window.
Marcolina, ignoring the personal animus in Casanova's words, sat looking skyward over the tree-crests, and tranquilly rejoined: "Ofttimes, and especially on a day like this" to Casanova, knowing what he knew, the words conveyed the thrill of reverence in the newly awakened heart of a woman "I feel as if all that people speak of as philosophy and religion were no more than playing with words.
The passages Casanova had selected as demonstrating Voltaire's spirit of mockery, his scepticism, and his atheism, were adroitly interpreted by Marcolina as testifying to the Frenchman's scientific genius, to his skill as an author, and to his indefatigable ardor in the search for truth.
Yet now, when Olivo introduced him to Marcolina as Signor Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, she smiled as she would have smiled at some utterly indifferent name that carried with it no aroma of adventure and mystery.
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