MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

TO PARIS AND PRISON, Volume 2d--The False Nun

THE RARE UNABRIDGED LONDON EDITION OF 1894 TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR MACHEN TO
WHICH HAS BEEN ADDED THE CHAPTERS DISCOVERED BY ARTHUR SYMONS.




THE FALSE NUN




CHAPTER XXI

Supper at My Casino With M. M. and M. de Bernis, the French Ambassador--A
Proposal from M. M.; I Accept It--Consequences--C. C. is Unfaithful to
Me, and I Cannot Complain

I felt highly pleased with the supper-party I had arranged with
M---- M----, and I ought to have been happy. Yet I was not so; but whence
came the anxiety which was a torment to me? Whence? From my fatal habit
of gambling. That passion was rooted in me; to live and to play were to
me two identical things, and as I could not hold the bank I would go and
punt at the ridotto, where I lost my money morning and night. That state
of things made me miserable. Perhaps someone will say to me:

"Why did you play, when there was no need of it, when you were in want of