It was possible
for him to forget that he was a decayed starveling, supported by pitiful
remittances from former friends in England and Spain---doles which often
failed to arrive, so that he was reduced to the few and paltry gold
pieces which he could win from Baron Perotti or from the Baron's guests.
He could even forget that his highest aim now was to return to his
natal city where he had been cast into prison and from which, since
his escape, he had been banned; to return as one of the meanest of its
citizens, as writer, as beggar, as nonentity; to accept so inglorious a
close to a once brilliant career.
Marcolina listened attentively like the others, but with the same
expression as if she had been listening to someone reading aloud from an
amusing narrative. Her face did not betray the remotest realization of
the fact that the speaker was Casanova; that she was listening to the
man who had had all these experiences and many more; that she was
sitting beside the lover of a thousand women. Very different was the
fire in Amalia's eyes. To her, Casanova was the same as ever. To her,
his voice was no less seductive than it had been sixteen years earlier.
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