nt of hitherto unimagined spiritual ecstasy. Were not life
and death, time and eternity, one upon these lips? Was he not a god?
Were not youth and age merely a fable; visions of men's fancy? Were not
home and exile, splendor and misery, renown and oblivion, senseless
distinctions, fit only for the use of the uneasy, the lonely, the
frustrate; had not the words become unmeaning to one who was Casanova,
and who had found Marcolina?

More contemptible, more absurd, as the minutes passed, seemed to him
the prospect of keeping the resolution which he had made when still
pusillanimous, of acting on the determination to flee out of this night
of miracle dumbly, unrecognized, like a thief. With the infallible
conviction that he must be the bringer of delight even as he was the
receiver of delight, he felt prepared for the venture of disclosing his
name, even though he knew all the time that he would thus play for
a great stake, the loss of which would involve the loss of his very
existence. He was still shrouded in impenetrable darkness, and until the
first glimmer of dawn made its way through the thick curtain, he could
postpone a confession upon whose favorable acceptance by Marcolina his
fate, nay his life, depended.

Besides, was not this mute, passionately sweet association the very
thing to bind Marcolina to him more firmly with each kiss that they
enjoyed? Would not the ineffable bliss of this night transmute into
truth what had been conceived in falsehood? His duped mistress, woman
of women, had she not already an inkling that it was not Lorenzi, the
stripling, but Casanova, the man, with whom she was mingling in these
divine ardors?

He began to deem it possible that he might be spared the so greatly
desired and 'yet so intensely dreaded moment of revelation. He fancied
that Marcolina, thrilling, entranced, transfigured, would spontaneously
whisper his name. Then, when she had forgiven him, he would take her
with him that very hour. Together they would leave the house in the grey
dawn; together they would seek the carriage that was waiting at the
turn of the road; together they would drive away. She would be his for
evermore. This would be the crown of his life; that at an age when
others were doomed to a sad senility, he, by the overwhelming might of
his unconquerable personality, would have won for himself the youngest,
the most beautiful, the most gifted of women.

For this woman was his as no woman had ever bee