The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, Vol. III (of VI), "The Eternal Quest": The First Complete and Unabridged English Translation, Illustrated with Old EngravingsCasanova, Giacomo
History
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, Vol. III (of VI), "The Eternal Quest": The First Complete and Unabridged English Translation, Illustrated with Old Engravings
Casanova, Giacomo
Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798; Europe -- History -- 18th century -- Biography
My business left me no time for sleep. M. Casanova came and asked me to dinner, telling me to meet him on the Exchange--a place well worth seeing. Millionaires are as plentiful as blackberries, and anyone who is not worth more than a hundred thousand florins is considered a poor man. I found M. d’O---- there, and was asked by him to dinner the following day at a small house he had on the Amstel. M. Casanova treated me with the greatest courtesy. After reading my pedigree he went for his own, and found it exactly the same; but he merely laughed, and seemed to care little about it, differing in that respect from Don Antonio of Naples, who set such store by my pedigree, and treated me with such politeness on that account. Nevertheless, he bade me make use of him in anything relating to business if I did anything in that way. I thought his daughter pretty, but neither her charms nor her wit made any impression on me. My thoughts were taken up with Esther, and I talked so much about her at dinner that at last my cousin declared that she did not consider her pretty. Oh, you women! beauty is the only unpardonable offence in your eyes. Mdlle. Casanova was Esther’s friend, and yet she could not bear to hear her praised.
On my seeing M. d’O---- again after dinner, he told me that if I cared to take fifteen per cent. on my shares, he would take them from me and save broker’s expenses. I thought the offer a good one, and I accepted it, taking a bill of exchange on Tourton & Baur. At the rate of exchange at Hamburg I found I should have seventy-two thousand francs, although at five per cent. I had only expected sixty-nine thousand. This transaction won me high favour with Madame d’Urfe, who, perhaps, had not expected me to be so honest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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