“My resolution grew stronger every day; but the time for beginning the great work of my deliverance had not yet arrived, for the weather was so cold that I could not hold the crowbar in my frozen hands. The long winter nights made me wretched, for I was obliged to pass nineteen mortal hours in darkness; and even during the day, the light that entered by the window was not strong enough to enable me to read. The possession of even a wretched kitchen lamp would have rendered me happy; but how was I to make one. I required a cup, a wick, oil, a flint and steel, besides tinder and matches. But nevertheless I set to work to obtain them, and succeeded after repeated efforts, in which I availed myself of every pretext my ingenuity could devise. As soon as the lamp was in working order, I fixed on the first Monday in Lent for the commencement of my operations on the floor, for I was apprehensive of being disturbed during the carnival.”
His fears were well founded; a Jew was sent to bear him company in his cell; and for two whole months, Cassanova was not relieved of this man’s unwelcome presence.
“As soon as I was alone again I began to work with renewed activity. It was above all things necessary to avoid delay, now that I had actually cut into the planks, for a new companion might have insisted, as the Jew had done, on having the prison swept. I first removed my bed, and then throwing myself upon my chest, crowbar in hand, began to hack away at the boards, carefully collecting the débris in a napkin which I spread out by my side. I have said that I had to hack away the boards. I ought rather to have said that I was obliged to pick them to pieces with the point of my crowbar. The work was fatiguing in the extreme, and at first I brought away pieces no bigger than a grain of wheat; but after a time my labour was cheered with more encouraging results.
“The plank I had selected was of very tough wood, and was about sixteen inches in breadth. I continued to pick it to pieces for about six hours, and then I carefully gathered up the débris in the napkin, in order to throw them away behind a heap of papers in the gallery. They formed a bundle four or five times as large as the hole from which I had taken them. I put the bed back in its place, and on the morning contrived to get rid of the rubbish without being perceived. By the next day, having worked my way through the first plank, which was about two inches in thickness, I came upon a second of nearly the same solidity, as far as I could judge. But I was so afraid of having a new visitor quartered upon me, that I now wielded my crowbar with even greater energy than before. In less than three weeks I had made a hole clean through all the three planks; but judge of my despair when I found that these rested on a tesselated marble pavement, which turned the point of the tool and seemed to defy all my efforts to remove it. I was cast down, disgusted, heart-broken, in a word; but at length, I know not how, the story of Hannibal came unto my mind, and I forthwith emptied into the hole a bottle of very strong vinegar which I had by me. In the morning—whether it was owing to the action of the vinegar or to my renewed strength, I cannot say—I was able to remove the pieces of marble by pulverising the cement which held them together; and in four days the mosaic was destroyed. I found another plank beneath it, but this was no more than I expected, and I concluded that it would be the last, for I was tolerably familiar with the plan on which these ceilings and floors were made. I had great difficulty, however, in cutting through it, for as the hole in the planking was over ten inches in depth, it was well nigh impossible to use the crowbar at all at the bottom of it.
“At about three in the afternoon of the 25th June, while I was working quite naked, and covered with sweat, in the hole, I heard—with an emotion of agony I can hardly describe—the sound of a door being unbolted in the corridor which led to my cell. I blew out the candle hastily, left crowbar and napkin in the hole, wheeled my bed in its place and threw myself upon it as though dead; and in a moment after, the door of my cell flew open, and Laurent came in. Two seconds earlier and he would have surprised me. He was about to walk straight up to me when I uttered a cry of pain that made him draw back. ‘Good heaven, Signor!’ he cried, ‘I pity you, for this place would be enough to suffocate any one. Get up and give thanks to Providence for having sent you an excellent companion.’
“The new comer seemed to think he was entering the infernal regions, for he began to cry out, ‘What a heat! what a stench!’ and Laurent ordered us out into the gallery, in order, as he said, that the cell might be purged of the unpleasant odour of oil that hung about it. The pain and surprise with which I heard these last words was extreme. I had forgotten in my hurry to snuff out the smouldering wick of the lamp after having extinguished the flame. I thought that Laurent knew everything, and that the Jew had completely betrayed me; but in reality he had not discovered the secret of the lamp.”
Eight days after that he was relieved of his unwelcome companion.
The next day he says, “Laurent having rendered me an account of the money that belonged to me, I found I had an odd sum of four sequins remaining, and I won his favour by telling him he might keep it as a present for his wife. I did not tell him it was for the rent of my lamp, but he was quite free to think so if he pleased. After this I pursued
