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Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 29: Florence to Trieste by Giacomo Casanova
page 43 of 150 (28%)
knew he was not a fool, and when he mixed with learned men he was quite
clever enough to be a good listener.

Both temperament and his purse made him temperate in all things, and he
had received a sound Christian education. He never talked about religion,
but nothing scandalized him. He seldom praised and never blamed.

He was almost entirely indifferent to women, flying from ugly women and
blue stockings, and gratifying the passion of pretty ones more out of
kindliness than love, for in his heart he considered women as more likely
to make a man miserable than happy. I was especially interested in this
last characteristic.

We had been friends for three weeks when I took the liberty of asking him
how he reconciled his theories with his attachment to Brigida Sabatini.

He supped with her every evening, and she breakfasted with him every
morning. When I went to see him, she was either there already or came in
before my call was over. She breathed forth love in every glance, while
the abbe was kind, but, in spite of his politeness, evidently bored.

Brigida looked well enough, but she was at least ten years older than the
abbe. She was very polite to me and did her best to convince me that the
abbe was happy in the possession of her heart, and that they both enjoyed
the delights of mutual love.

But when I asked him over a bottle of good wine about his affection for
Brigida, he sighed, smiled, blushed, looked down, and finally confessed
that this connection was the misfortune of his life.

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