Then he began to rail against Marcolina again. He loaded her with obscene epithets. “Do you imagine,” he hissed between his teeth, “that your pleasure will last? You will become fat and wrinkled and old just like the other women who were young when you were young. You will be an old woman with flaccid breasts; your hair will be dry and grizzled; you will be toothless, you will have a bad smell. Last of all you will die. Perhaps you will die while you are still quite young. You will become a mass of corruption, food for worms.”
To wreak final vengeance upon her, he endeavored to picture her as dead. He saw her lying in an open coffin, wrapped in a white shroud. But he was unable to attach to her image any sign of decay, and her unearthly beauty aroused him to renewed frenzy. Through his closed eyelids he saw the coffin transform itself into a nuptial bed. Marcolina lay laughing there with lambent eyes. As if in mockery, with her small, white hands she unveiled her firm little breasts. But as he stretched forth his arms towards her, in the moment when he was about to clasp her in his passionate embrace, the vision faded.
CHAPTER FIVE.
Someone was knocking at the door. Casanova awoke from a heavy sleep to find Olivo standing before him.
“At your writing so early?”
Casanova promptly collected his wits. “It is my custom,” he said, “to work the first thing in the morning. What time is it?”
“Eight o’clock,” answered Olivo. “Breakfast is ready in the garden. We will start on our drive to the nunnery as early as you please, Chevalier. How the wind has blown your papers about!”
He stooped to pick up the fallen leaves. Casanova did not interfere. He had moved to the window, and was looking down upon the breakfast table which had been set on the greensward in the shade of the house. Amalia, Marcolina, and the three young girls, dressed in white, were at breakfast. They called up a good-morning. He had no eyes for anyone but Marcolina, who smiled at him frankly and in the friendliest fashion. In her lap was a plateful of early-ripe grapes, which she was eating deliberately.
Contempt, anger, and hatred vanished from Casanova’s heart. All he knew was that he loved her. Made drunken by the very sight of her, he turned away from the window to find Olivo on hands and knees still assembling the scattered pages of manuscript from under the table and chest of drawers. “Don’t trouble any further,” he said to his host. “Leave me to myself for a moment while I get ready for the drive.”