deepest he had ever known. It lasted
practically two days and two nights. The brief interruptions to his
slumbers necessitated by the change of horses from time to time, and the
interruptions that occurred when he was sitting in inns, or walking up
and down in front of posting stations, or exchanging a few casual words
with postmasters, innkeepers, customhouse officers, and travellers, did
not linger in his memory as individual details. Thus it came to pass
that the remembrance of these two days and nights merged as it were into
the dream he had dreamed in Marcolina's bed. Even the duel between the
two naked men upon the green turf in the early sunshine seemed somehow
to belong to this dream, wherein often enough, in enigmatic fashion, he
was not Casanova but Lorenzi; not the victor but the vanquished; not the
fugitive, but the slain round whose pale young body the lonely wind of
morning played. Neither he nor Lorenzi was any more real than were the
senators in the purple robes who had knelt before him like beggars; nor
any less real than such as that old fellow leaning against the parapet
of a bridge, to whom at nightfall he had thrown alms from the carriage.
Had not Casanova bent his powers of reason to the task of distinguishing
between real experiences and dream experiences, he might well have
imagined that in Marcolina's arms he had fallen into a mad dream from
which he did not awaken until he caught sight of the Campanile of
Venice.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was on the third morning of his journey that Casanova, having reached
Mestre, sighted once more the bell tower after over twenty years of
longing--a pillar of grey stone looming distantly in the twilight. It
was but two leagues now to the beloved city in which he had been young.
He paid the driver without remembering whether this was the fifth or
the sixth with whom he had had to settle since quitting Mantua, and,
followed by a lad carrying his baggage, walked through the mean streets
to the harbor from which to-day, just as five-and-twenty years earlier,
the boat was to leave for Venice at six in the morning.

The vessel seemed to have been waiting for him; hardly had he seated
himself upon a narrow bench, among petty traders, manual workers, and
women bringing their wares to market, when she cast off. It was a cloudy
morning; mist was rolling across the lagoons; there was a smell of
bilge-water, damp wood, fish, and fruit. The Campanile grew ever higher;