Casanovas Homecoming | Page 6

keen vision enabled him to see well
even in the dark, had noted her presence sooner than Olivo. He smiled,
and was aware that the smile made him look younger. Amalia had not
grown fat, as he had feared. She was still slim and youthful. She
recognized him instantly.
"What a pleasant surprise!" she exclaimed without the slightest
embarrassment, hastening down the stairs, and offering her cheek to
Casanova. The latter, nothing loath, gave her a friendly hug.
"Am I really to believe," said he, "that Maria, Nanetta, and Teresina are
your very own daughters, Amalia? No doubt the passage of the years
makes it possible...."
"And all the other evidence is in keeping," supplemented Olivo. "Rely
upon that, Chevalier!"
Amalia let her eyes dwell reminiscently upon the guest. "I suppose,"
she said, "it was your meeting with the Chevalier that has made you so

late, Olivo?"
"Yes, that is why I am late. But I hope there is still something to eat?"
"Marcolina and I were frightfully hungry, but of course we have waited
dinner for you."
"Can you manage to wait a few minutes longer," asked Casanova,
"while I get rid of the dust of the drive?"
"I will show you your room immediately," answered Olivo. "I do hope,
Chevalier, you will find it to your taste; almost as much to your taste,"
he winked, and added in a low tone, "as your room in the inn at
Mantua--though here one or two little things may be lacking."
He led the way upstairs into the gallery surrounding the hall. From one
of the corners a narrow wooden stairway led into the tower. At the top,
Olivo opened the door into the turret chamber, and politely invited
Casanova to enter the modest guest chamber. A maidservant brought
up the valise. Casanova was then left alone in a medium-sized room,
simply furnished, but equipped with all necessaries. It had four tall and
narrow bay-windows, commanding views to the four points of the
compass, across the sunlit plain with its green vineyards, bright
meadows, golden fields, white roads, light-colored houses, and dusky
gardens. Casanova concerned himself little about the view, and
hastened to remove the stains of travel, being impelled less by hunger
than by an eager curiosity to see Marcolina face to face. He did not
change, for he wished to reserve his best suit for evening wear.
CHAPTER TWO.
When Casanova reentered the hall, a panelled chamber on the ground
floor, there were seated at the well-furnished board, his host and
hostess, their three daughters, and a young woman. She was wearing a
simple grey dress of some shimmering material. She had a graceful
figure. Her gaze rested on him as frankly and indifferently as if he were
a member of the household, or had been a guest a hundred times before.
Her face did not light up in the way to which he had grown accustomed

in earlier years, when he had been a charming youth, or later in his
handsome prime. But for a good while now Casanova had ceased to
expect this from a new acquaintance. Nevertheless, even of late the
mention of his name had usually sufficed to arouse on a woman's face
an expression of tardy admiration, or at least some trace of regret,
which was an admission that the hearer would have loved to meet him
a few years earlier. Yet now, when Olivo introduced him to Marcolina
as Signor Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, she smiled as she would
have smiled at some utterly indifferent name that carried with it no
aroma of adventure and mystery. Even when he took his seat by her
side, kissed her hand, and allowed his eyes as they dwelt on her to
gleam with delight and desire, her manner betrayed nothing of the
demure gratification that might have seemed an appropriate answer to
so ardent a wooing.
After a few polite commonplaces, Casanova told his neighbor that he
had been informed of her intellectual attainments, and asked what was
her chosen subject of study. Her chief interest, she rejoined, was in the
higher mathematics, to which she had been introduced by Professor
Morgagni, the renowned teacher at the university of Bologna. Casanova
expressed his surprise that so charming a young lady should have an
interest, certainly exceptional, in a dry and difficult subject. Marcolina
replied that in her view the higher mathematics was the most
imaginative of all the sciences; one might even say that its nature made
it akin to the divine. When Casanova asked for further enlightenment
upon a view so novel to him, Marcolina modestly declined to continue
the topic, declaring that the others at table, and above all her uncle,
would much rather hear some details of a newly recovered friend's
travels than listen to