The Complete Memoirs of Jacques Casanova eBook

Giacomo Casanova
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,501 pages of information about The Complete Memoirs of Jacques Casanova.

The Complete Memoirs of Jacques Casanova eBook

Giacomo Casanova
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,501 pages of information about The Complete Memoirs of Jacques Casanova.

“Ah!” she said a few minutes after, “my maid has forgotten to change my chemise.”

“Allow me to take her place.”

“Very well, but recollect that I give permission only to your eyes to take a share in the proceedings.”

“Agreed!”

She unlaced herself, took off her stays and her chemise, and told me to be quick and put on the clean one, but I was not speedy enough, being too much engaged by all I could see.

“Give me my chemise,” she exclaimed; “it is there on that small table.”

“Where?”

“There, near the bed.  Well, I will take it myself.”

She leaned over towards the table, and exposed almost everything I was longing for, and, turning slowly round, she handed me the chemise which I could hardly hold, trembling all over with fearful excitement.  She took pity on me, my hands shared the happiness of my eyes; I fell in her arms, our lips fastened together, and, in a voluptuous, ardent pressure, we enjoyed an amorous exhaustion not sufficient to allay our desires, but delightful enough to deceive them for the moment.

With greater control over herself than women have generally under similar circumstances, she took care to let me reach only the porch of the temple, without granting me yet a free entrance to the sanctuary.

MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

Venetian years, Volume 1d—­return to Venice

The rare unabridged London edition of 1894 translated by Arthur Machen to which has been added the chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.

RETURN TO VENICE

CHAPTER XVI

A Fearful Misfortune Befalls Me—­Love Cools Down—­Leave Corfu and Return to Venice—­Give Up the Army and Become a Fiddler

The wound was rapidly healing up, and I saw near at hand the moment when Madame F——­ would leave her bed, and resume her usual avocations.

The governor of the galeasses having issued orders for a general review at Gouyn, M. F——­, left for that place in his galley, telling me to join him there early on the following day with the felucca.  I took supper alone with Madame F——­, and I told her how unhappy it made me to remain one day away from her.

“Let us make up to-night for to-morrow’s disappointment,” she said, “and let us spend it together in conversation.  Here are the keys; when you know that my maid has left me, come to me through my husband’s room.”

I did not fail to follow her instructions to the letter, and we found ourselves alone with five hours before us.  It was the month of June, and the heat was intense.  She had gone to bed; I folded her in my arms, she pressed me to her bosom, but, condemning herself to the most cruel torture, she thought I had no right to complain, if I was subjected to the same privation which she imposed upon herself.  My remonstrances, my prayers, my entreaties were of no avail.

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The Complete Memoirs of Jacques Casanova from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.