The Project Gutenberg EBook of To Paris And Prison: Venice
by Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

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Title: To Paris And Prison: Venice
The Memoirs Of Jacques Casanova De Seingalt 1725-1798

Author: Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

Release Date: October 30, 2006 [EBook #2957]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TO PARIS AND PRISON: VENICE ***

Produced by David Widger

MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

TO PARIS AND PRISON, Volume 2b--VENICE

THE RARE UNABRIDGED LONDON EDITION OF 1894 TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR MACHEN TO
WHICH HAS BEEN ADDED THE CHAPTERS DISCOVERED BY ARTHUR SYMONS.

VENICE

CHAPTER X

My Stay in Vienna--Joseph II--My Departure for Venice

Arrived, for the first time, in the capital of Austria, at the age of
eight-and-twenty, well provided with clothes, but rather short of
money--a circumstance which made it necessary for me to curtail my
expenses until the arrival of the proceeds of a letter of exchange which
I had drawn upon M. de Bragadin. The only letter of recommendation I had
was from the poet Migliavacca, of Dresden, addressed to the illustrious
Abbe Metastasio, whom I wished ardently to know. I delivered the letter
the day after my arrival, and in one hour of conversation I found him
more learned than I should have supposed from his works. Besides,
Metastasio was so modest that at first I did not think that modesty
natural, but it was not long before I discovered that it was genuine, for
when he recited something of his own composition, he was the first to
call the attention of his hearers to the important parts or to the fine
passages with as much simplicity as he would remark the weak ones. I
spoke to him of his tutor Gravina, and as we were on that subject he
recited to me five or six stanzas which he had written on his death, and
which had not been printed. Moved by the remembrance of his friend, and
by the sad beauty of his own poetry, his eyes were filled with tears, and
when he had done reciting the stanzas he said, in a tone of touching
simplicity,'Ditemi il vero, si puo air meglio'?

I answered that he alone had the right to believe