wanted a few minutes to midnight. Should he make his presence known in
any way? By tapping gently at the window? Since nothing of this sort had
been arranged, it might arouse Marcolina's suspicions. Better wait. It
could not be much longer. The thought that she might instantly recognize
him, might detect the fraud before he had achieved his purpose, crossed
his mind--not for the first time, yet as a passing fancy, as a remote
possibility which it was logical to take into account, but not anything
to be seriously dreaded.

A ludicrous adventure now recurred to his mind. Twenty years ago he had
spent a night with a middle-aged ugly vixen in Soleure, when he had
imagined himself to be possessing a beautiful young woman whom he
adored. He recalled how next day, in a shameless letter, she had derided
him for the mistake that she had so greatly desired him to make and
that she had compassed with such infamous cunning. He shuddered at the
thought. It was the last thing he would have wished to think of just
now, and he drove the detestable image from his mind.

It must be midnight! How long was he to stand shivering there? Waiting
in vain, perhaps? Cheated, after all? Two thousand ducats for nothing.
Lorenzi behind the curtain, mocking at the fool outside!

Involuntarily he gripped the hilt of the sword he carried beneath the
cloak, pressed to his naked body. After all, with a fellow like Lorenzi
one must be prepared for any tricks.

At that instant he heard a gentle rattling, and knew it was made by the
grating of Marcolina's window hi opening. Then both wings of the window
were drawn back, though the curtain still veiled the interior. Casanova
remained motionless for a few seconds more, until the curtain was pulled