



Produced by David Widger





MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

VENETIAN YEARS, Volume 1e--MILAN AND MANTUA

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




MILAN AND MANTUA




CHAPTER XX

Slight Misfortunes Compel Me to Leave Venice--My Adventures in Milan and
Mantua

On Low Sunday Charles paid us a visit with his lovely wife, who seemed
totally indifferent to what Christine used to be. Her hair dressed with
powder did not please me as well as the raven black of her beautiful
locks, and her fashionable town attire did not, in my eyes, suit her as
well as her rich country dress. But the countenances of husband and wife
bore the stamp of happiness. Charles reproached me in a friendly manner
because I had not called once upon them, and, in order to atone for my
apparent negligence, I went to see them the next day with M. Dandolo.
Charles told me that his wife was idolized by his aunt and his sister who
had become her bosom friend; that she was kind, affectionate, unassuming,
and of a disposition which enforced affection. I was no less pleased with
this favourable state of things than with the facility with which
Christine was learning the Venetian dialect.

When M. Dandolo and I called at their house, Charles was not at home;
Christine was alone with his two relatives. The most friendly welcome was
proffered to us, and in the course of conversation the aunt praised the
progress made by Christine in her writing very highly, and asked her to
let me see her copy-book. I followed her to the next room, where she told
me that she was very happy; that every day she discovered new virtues in
her husband. He had told her, without the slightest appearance of
suspicion of displeasure, that he knew that we had spent two days
together in Treviso, and that he had laughed at the well-meaning fool who
had given him that piece of information in the hope of raising a cloud in
the heaven of their felicity.

Charles was truly endowed with all the virtues, with all the noble
qualities of an honest and distinguished man. Twenty-six years afterwards
I happened to require the assistance of his purse, and found him my true
friend. I never was a frequent visitor at his house, and he appreciated
my delicacy. He died a few months before my last departure from Venice,
leaving his widow in easy circumstances, and three well-educated sons,
all with good positions, who may, for what I know, be still living with
their mother.

In June I went to the fair at Padua, and made the acquaintance of a young
man of my own age, who was then studying mathematics under the celebrated
Professor Succi. His name was Tognolo, but thinking it did not sound
well, he changed it for that of Fabris. He became, in after years, Comte
de Fabris, lieutenant-general under Joseph II., and died Governor of
Transylvania. This man, who owed his high fortune to his talents, would,
perhaps, have lived and died unknown if he had kept his name of Tognolo,
a truly vulgar one. He was from Uderzo, a large village of the Venetian
Friuli. He had a brother in the Church, a man of parts, and a great
gamester, who, having a deep knowledge of the world, had taken the name
of Fabris, and the younger brother had to assume it likewise. Soon
afterwards he bought an estate with the title of count, became a Venetian
nobleman, and his origin as a country bumpkin was forgotten. If he had
kept his name of Tognolo it would have injured him, for he could not have
pronounced it without reminding his hearers of what is called, by the
most contemptible of prejudices, low extraction, and the privileged
class, through an absurd error, does not admit the possibility of a
peasant having talent or genius. No doubt a time will come when society,
more enlightened, and therefore more reasonable, will acknowledge that
noble feelings, honour, and heroism can be found in every condition of
life as easily as in a class, the blood of which is not always exempt
from the taint of a misalliance.

The new count, while he allowed others to forget his origin, was too wise
to forget it himself, and in legal documents he always signed his family
name as well as the one he had adopted. His brother had offered him two
ways to win fortune in the world, leaving him perfectly free in his
choice. Both required an expenditure of one thousand sequins, but the
abbe had put the amount aside for that purpose. My friend had to choose
between the sword of Mars and the bird of Minerva. The ab