“I am the Marchese Celsi. Let me present the Marchesa, my spouse.” The lady offered her finger tips. Casanova touched them with his lips.
The Marchese was two or three inches taller than Casanova, and unnaturally lean. He had a narrow face, of a yellow, waxy tint; his greenish eyes were piercing; his thick eyebrows were of reddish color, and met across the root of the nose. These characteristics gave him a somewhat formidable aspect. “My good Olivo,” he said, “we are all going to the same destination. Since it is little more than half a mile to your house, I shall get out and walk with you. You won’t mind driving the rest of the way alone,” he added, turning to the Marchesa, who had meanwhile been gazing at Casanova with searching, passionate eyes. Without awaiting his wife’s answer, the Marchese nodded to the coachman, who promptly lashed the horses furiously, as if he had some reason for driving his mistress away at top speed. In an instant the carriage vanished in a whirl of dust.
“The whole neighborhood,” said the Marchese, “is already aware that the Chevalier de Seingalt has come to spend a few days with his friend Olivo. It must be glorious to bear so renowned a name.”
“You flatter me, Signor Marchese,” replied Casanova. “I have not yet abandoned the hope of winning such a name, but I am still far from having done so. It may be that a work on which I am now engaged will bring me nearer to the goal.”
“We can take a short cut here,” said Olivo, turning into a path which led straight to the wall of his garden.
“Work?” echoed the Marchese with a doubtful air. “May I enquire to what work you refer, Chevalier?”
“If you ask me that question, Signor Marchese, I shall in my turn feel impelled to enquire what you meant just now when you referred to my renown.”
Arrogantly he faced the Marchese’s piercing eyes. He knew perfectly well that neither his romance Icosameron nor yet his Confutazione della storia del governo veneto d’Amelot de la Houssaie had brought him any notable reputation as an author. Nevertheless it was his pose to imply that for him no other sort of reputation was desirable. He therefore deliberately misunderstood the Marchese’s tentative observations and cautious allusions, which implied that Casanova was a celebrated seducer, gamester, man of affairs, political emissary, or what not. Celsi made no reference to authorship, for he had never heard of either the Refutation of Amelot or the Icosameron. At length, therefore, in polite embarrassment, he said: “After all, there is only one Casanova.”
“There, likewise, you are mistaken, Signor Marchese,” said Casanova coldly. “I have relatives, and a connoisseur like yourself must surely be acquainted with the name of one of my brothers, Francesco Casanova, the painter.”
It seemed that the Marchese had no claim to connoisseurship in this field either, and he turned the conversation to acquaintances living in Naples, Rome, Milan, or Mantua, persons whom Casanova was not unlikely to have met. In this connection he also mentioned the name of Baron Perotti, but somewhat contemptuously.