ward and outward lustre
were gradually beginning to fade, that ere long there would come a
favorable turn in his fortunes.

Since his means were now extremely slender, Casanova had decided to
await the expected pardon in the modest but respectable inn where he had
stayed in happier years. To make only passing mention of less spiritual
amusements, with which he could not wholly dispense--he spent most of
his time in writing a polemic against the slanderer Voltaire, hoping
that the publication of this document would serve, upon his return to
Venice, to give him unchallenged position and prestige in the eyes of
all well-disposed citizens.

One morning he went out for a walk beyond the town limits to excogitate
the final touches for some sentences that were to annihilate the infidel
Frenchman. Suddenly he fell prey to a disquiet that almost amounted
to physical distress. He turned over in his mind the life he had
been leading for the last three months. It had grown wearisomely
familiar--the morning walks into the country, the evenings spent in
gambling for petty stakes with the reputed Baron Perotti and the
latter's pock-marked mistress. He thought of the affection lavished upon
himself by his hostess, a woman ardent but no longer young. He thought
of how he had passed his time over the writings of Voltaire and over the
composition of an audacious rejoinder which until that moment had seemed
to him by no means inadequate. Yet now, in the dulcet atmosphere of a
morning in late summer, all these things appeared stupid and repulsive.

Muttering a curse without really knowing upon whose head he wished it
to alight, gripping the hilt of his sword, darting angry glances in all
directions as if invisible scornful eyes were watching him in the
surrounding solitude, he turned on his heel and retraced his steps
back to the town, determined to make arrangements that very hour for
immediate departure. He felt convinced that a more genial mood would
possess him were he to diminish even by a few miles the distance that
separated him from the home for which he longed. It was necessary to
hasten, so that he might be sure of booking a place in the diligence. It
was to leave at eventide by the eastward road. There was little else
to do, for he really need not bother to pay a farewell visit to
Baron Perotti. Half an hour would suffice for the packing of all his
possessions. He thought of the two suits, the shabbier of which he
was wearing