Casanovas Homecoming | Page 9

out of doors. Marcolina, who led the way, ran across the sunlit
greensward to join the children in their game of battledore and
shuttlecock. She was hardly taller than the eldest of the three girls; and
when her hair came loose in the exercise and floated over her shoulders
she too looked like a child. Olivo and the Abbate seated themselves on
a stone bench beneath the trees, not far from the house. Amalia
sauntered on with Casanova. As soon as the two were out of hearing,
she began to converse with Casanova in a tone which seemed to ignore
the lapse of years.
"So we meet again, Casanova! How I have longed for this day. I never
doubted its coming."
"A mere chance has brought me," said Casanova coldly.
Amalia smiled. "Have it your own way," she said. "Anyhow, you are
here! All these sixteen years I have done nothing but dream of this
day!"
"I can't help thinking," countered Casanova, "that throughout the long
interval you must have dreamed of many other things--and must have
done more than dream."
Amalia shook her head. "You know better, Casanova. Nor had you
forgotten me, for were it otherwise, in your eagerness to get to Venice,
you would never have accepted Olivo's invitation."
"What do you mean, Amalia? Can you imagine I have come here to
betray your husband?"

"How can you use such a phrase, Casanova? Were I to be yours once
again, there would be neither betrayal nor sin."
Casanova laughed. "No sin? Wherefore not? Because I'm an old man?"
"You are not old. For me you can never be an old man. In your arms I
had my first taste of bliss, and I doubt not it is my destiny that my last
bliss shall be shared with you!"
"Your last?" rejoined Casanova cynically, though he was not altogether
unmoved. "I think my friend Olivo would have a word to say about
that."
"What you speak of," said Amalia reddening, "is duty, and even
pleasure; but it is not and never has been bliss."
They did not walk to the end of the grass alley. Both seemed to shun
the neighborhood of the greensward, where Marcolina and the children
were playing. As if by common consent they retraced their steps, and,
silent now, approached the house again. One of the ground-floor
windows at the gable end of the house was open. Through this
Casanova glimpsed in the dark interior a half-drawn curtain, from
behind which the foot of a bed projected. Over an adjoining chair was
hanging a light, gauzy dress.
"Is that Marcolina's room?" enquired Casanova.
Amalia nodded. "Do you like her?" she said--nonchalantly, as it
seemed to Casanova.
"Of course, since she is good looking."
"She's a good girl as well."
Casanova shrugged, as if the goodness were no concern of his. Then:
"Tell me, Amalia, did you think me still handsome when you first saw
me to-day?"
"I do not know if your looks have changed. To me you seem just the

same as of old. You are as I have always seen you, as I have seen you
in my dreams."
"Look well, Amalia. See the wrinkles on my forehead; the loose folds
of my neck; the crow's-feet round my eyes. And look," he grinned, "I
have lost one of my eye teeth. Look at these hands, too, Amalia. My
fingers are like claws; there are yellow spots on the finger-nails; the
blue veins stand out. They are the hands of an old man."
She clasped both his hands as he held them out for her to see, and
affectionately kissed them one after the other in the shaded walk.
"To-night, I will kiss you on the lips," she said, with a mingling of
humility and tenderness, which roused his gall.
Close by, where the alley opened on to the greensward, Marcolina was
stretched on the grass, her hands clasped beneath her head, looking
skyward while the shuttlecocks flew to and fro. Suddenly reaching
upwards, she seized one of them in mid air, and laughed triumphantly.
The girls flung themselves upon her as she lay defenceless.
Casanova thrilled. "Neither my lips nor my hands are yours to kiss.
Your waiting for me and your dreams of me will prove to have been
vain--unless I should first make Marcolina mine."
"Are you mad, Casanova?" exclaimed Amalia, with distress in her
voice.
"If I am, we are both on the same footing," replied Casanova. "You are
mad because in me, an old man, you think that you can rediscover the
beloved of your youth; I am mad because I have taken it into my head
that I wish to possess Marcolina. But perhaps we shall both be restored
to reason. Marcolina shall restore me to youth--for you. So