Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
At this point, Marcolina, who had been listening attentively and with apparent seriousness, suddenly assumed a half-commiserating, half-mischievous expression, and said: "You are trying, Signor Casanova" she seemed deliberately to avoid addressing him as Chevalier "to give me an elaborate proof of your renowned talent as entertainer, and I am extremely grateful to you.
"I suppose," she said, "it was your meeting with the Chevalier that has made you so late, Olivo?" "Yes, that is why I am late. But I hope there is still something to eat?" "Marcolina and I were frightfully hungry, but of course we have waited dinner for you." "Can you manage to wait a few minutes longer," asked Casanova, "while I get rid of the dust of the drive?"
When the carriage reached home, where an inviting odor of roast meat and cooking vegetables assailed their nostrils, Casanova was in the midst of an appetizing description of a Polish pasty, a description to which even Marcolina attended with a flattering air of domesticity.
"Indeed, Uncle," answered Marcolina, "there was not one of them who would have ventured to challenge Voltaire to a duel!" "What, Voltaire? The Chevalier has called him out?" cried Olivo, misunderstanding the jest. "Your witty niece, Olivo, refers to the polemic on which I have been at work for the last few days, the pastime of leisure hours. I used to have weightier occupations."
Marcolina, ignoring this remark, said: "You will find it pleasantly cool now for your walk. Goodbye for the present." She nodded a farewell, and moved briskly across the greensward to the house. Casanova, repressing an impulse to follow her with his eyes, enquired: "Is Signora Amalia coming with us?" "No, Chevalier," answered Olivo.
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.
She has told me by letter, of course, for the inmates are under a vow of perpetual silence that she has heard of Marcolina's erudition, and would like to meet her face to face." "I hope, Marcolina," said Lorenzi, speaking to her for the first time, "that you will not attempt to imitate the noble abbess in other respects as well as learning." "Why should I?" rejoined Marcolina serenely.
But there was no one in the house upon whom he could vent his fury; and he could not fail to realize the utter absurdity of a half-formed idea that Marcolina must be in some way contributory to the intolerable shame which had been put upon him.
Were not youth and age merely a fable; visions of men's fancy? Were not home and exile, splendor and misery, renown and oblivion, senseless distinctions, fit only for the use of the uneasy, the lonely, the frustrate; had not the words become unmeaning to one who was Casanova, and who had found Marcolina?
Very different was the fire in Amalia's eyes. To her, Casanova was the same as ever. To her, his voice was no less seductive than it had been sixteen years earlier. He could not but be aware that at a word or a sign, and as soon as he pleased, he could revive this old adventure. But what to him was Amalia at this hour, when he longed for Marcolina as he had never longed for woman before.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking