Petersburg, just
as he was, wearing silk stockings and a coat of apple-green satin, and
carrying nothing but a walking cane.
He told of actresses, singers, dressmakers, countesses, dancers,
chambermaids; of gamblers, officers, princes, envoys, financiers,
musicians, and adventurers. So carried away was he by the rediscovered
charm of his own past, so completely did the triumph of these splendid
though irrecoverable experiences eclipse the consciousness of the
shadows that encompassed his present, that he was on the point of
telling the story of a pale but pretty girl who in a twilit church at
Mantua had confided her love troubles to him--absolutely forgetting that
this same girl, sixteen years older, now sat at the table before him
as the wife of his friend Olivo--when the maid came in to say that the
carriage was waiting. Instantly, with his incomparable talent for doing
the right thing, Casanova rose to bid adieu. He again pressed Olivo, who
was too much affected to speak, to bring wife and children to visit him
in Venice. Having embraced his friend, he approached Amalia with
intent to embrace her also, but she held out her hand and he kissed it
affectionately.
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