Were not life
and death, time and eternity, one upon these lips? Was he not a god?
Were not youth and age merely a fable; visions of men's fancy? Were not
home and exile, splendor and misery, renown and oblivion, senseless
distinctions, fit only for the use of the uneasy, the lonely, the
frustrate; had not the words become unmeaning to one who was Casanova,
and who had found Marcolina?
More contemptible, more absurd, as the minutes passed, seemed to him
the prospect of keeping the resolution which he had made when still
pusillanimous, of acting on the determination to flee out of this night
of miracle dumbly, unrecognized, like a thief. With the infallible
conviction that he must be the bringer of delight even as he was the
receiver of delight, he felt prepared for the venture of disclosing his
name, even though he knew all the time that he would thus play for
a great stake, the loss of which would involve the loss of his very
existence. He was still shrouded in impenetrable darkness, and until the
first glimmer of dawn made its way through the thick curtain, he could
postpone a confession upon whose favorable acceptance by Marcolina his
fate, nay his life, depended.
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