The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 01: ChildhoodCasanova, Giacomo
History
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 01: Childhood
Casanova, Giacomo
Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798; Europe -- History -- 18th century -- Biography
The appointed hour came, and everything being ready I got safely into the
boat, landed at the Sclavonian quay, ordered the boatman to wait for me,
and wrapped up in a mariner's cloak I took my way straight to the gate of
Saint-Sauveur, and engaged the waiter of a coffee-room to take me to
Razetta's house.
Being quite certain that he would not be at home at that time, I rang the
bell, and I heard my sister's voice telling me that if I wanted to see
him I must call in the morning. Satisfied with this, I went to the foot
of the bridge and sat down, waiting there to see which way he would come,
and a few minutes before midnight I saw him advancing from the square of
Saint-Paul. It was all I wanted to know; I went back to my boat and
returned to the fort without any difficulty. At five o'clock in the
morning everyone in the garrison could see me enjoying my walk on the
platform.
Taking all the time necessary to mature my plans, I made the following
arrangements to secure my revenge with perfect safety, and to prove an
alibi in case I should kill my rascally enemy, as it was my intention to
do. The day preceding the night fixed for my expedition, I walked about
with the son of the Adjutant Zen, who was only twelve years old, but who
amused me much by his shrewdness. The reader will meet him again in the
year 1771. As I was walking with him, I jumped down from one of the
bastions, and feigned to sprain my ankle. Two soldiers carried me to my
room, and the surgeon of the fort, thinking that I was suffering from a
luxation, ordered me to keep to bed, and wrapped up the ankle in towels
saturated with camphorated spirits of wine. Everybody came to see me, and
I requested the soldier who served me to remain and to sleep in my room.
I knew that a glass of brandy was enough to stupefy the man, and to make
him sleep soundly. As soon as I saw him fast asleep, I begged the surgeon
and the chaplain, who had his room over mine, to leave me, and at
half-past ten I lowered myself in the boat.
As soon as I reached Venice, I bought a stout cudgel, and I sat myself
down on a door-step, at the corner of the street near Saint-Paul's
Square. A narrow canal at the end of the street, was, I thought, the very
place to throw my enemy in. That canal has now disappeared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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