"Ask Olivo if you don't believe me."

"Well, what do I care about that? What care I whether she be virgin or
strumpet, wife or widow--I want to make her mine!"

"I can't give her to you, my friend!" Amalia's voice expressed genuine
concern.

"You see for yourself," he said, "what a pitiful creature I have become.
Ten years ago, five years ago, I should have needed neither helper nor
advocate, even though Marcolina had been the very goddess of virtue. And
now I am trying to make you play the procuress. If I were only a rich
man. Had I but ten thousand ducats. But I have not even ten. I am a
beggar, Amalia."

"Had you a hundred thousand, you could not buy Marcolina. What does she
care about money? She loves books, the sky, the meadows, butterflies,
playing with children. She has inherited a small competence which more
than suffices for her needs."

"Were I but a sovereign prince," cried Casanova, somewhat theatrically,
as was his wont when strongly moved. "Had I but the power to commit men
to prison, to send them to the scaffold. But I am nothing. A beggar, and
a liar into the bargain. I importune the Supreme Council for a post, a
crust of bread, a home! What a poor thing have I become! Are you not
sickened by me, Amalia?"

"I love you, Casanova!"