It was past midnight when, after a light-hearted farewell, he walked alone across the wide, empty square. The heavens were veiled in luminous mist. He moved with the confident step of a sleep-walker. Without being really conscious that he was on a path which he had not traversed for five-and-twenty years, he found the way through tortuous alleys, between dark houses, and over narrow bridges. At length he reached the dilapidated inn, and had to knock repeatedly before the door was opened to him with a slow unfriendliness.
When, a few minutes later, having but half undressed, he threw himself upon his uneasy pallet, he was overwhelmed with a weariness amounting to pain, while upon his lips was a bitter after-taste which seemed to permeate his whole being. Thus, at the close of his long exile, did he first woo sleep in the city to which he had so eagerly desired to return. And here, when morning was about to break, the heavy and dreamless sleep of exhaustion came to console the aging adventurer.
THE END [ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]
POSTFACE
It is a historical fact that Casanova visited Voltaire at Ferney. There is, however, no historical warrant for the account of the matter given in the foregoing novel, and still less for the statement that Casanova wrote a polemic against Voltaire. It is a historical fact, likewise, that Casanova, when between fifty and sixty years of age, found it necessary to enter Venetian service as a spy. Of this, and of many other doings of the celebrated adventurer to which casual allusion is made in the course of the novel, fuller and more accurate accounts will be found in Casanova’s Memoirs. Speaking generally, nevertheless, Casanova’s Homecoming is to be regarded throughout as a work of fiction.
A. S.