Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 30: Old Age and Death by Giacomo Casanova
page 32 of 74 (43%)
page 32 of 74 (43%)
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29th May 1784. "I note with pleasure that you are going to take the baths; but I regret that this treatment enfeebles and depresses you. It reassures me that you do not fail in your appetite nor your sleep.... I hope I will not hear you say again that you are disgusted with everything, and no longer in love with life . . . . I see that for you, at this moment, fortune sleeps . . . . I am not surprised that everything is so dear in the city where you are, for at Venice also one pays dearly and everything is priced beyond reach." Zaguri wrote Casanova the 12th May, that he had met Francesca in the Mongolfieri casino. And on the 2nd June Casanova, doubtless feeling his helplessness in the matter of money, and the insufficiency of his occasional remittances, and suspicious of Francesca's loyalty, wrote her a letter of renunciation. Then came her news of the sale of his books; and eighteen months passed before he wrote to her again. On the 12th June 1784, Francesca replied: "I could not expect to convey to you, nor could you figure, the sorrow that tries me in seeing that you will not occupy yourself any more with me . . . . I hid from you that I had been with that woman who lived with us, with her companion, the cashier of the Academie des Mongolfceristes. Although I went to this Academy with prudence and dignity, I did not want to write you for fear you would scold me. That is the only reason, and hereafter you may be certain of my sincerity and frankness. . . . I beg you to forgive me this time, if I write you something I have never written for fear that you would be angry with me because I had not told you. Know then that four months ago, your books which were on the mezzanine were sold to a library for the sum of fifty lires, when we were in urgent need. It was my mother |
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