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

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

Author: Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

Release Date: October 30, 2006 [EBook #2959]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TO PARIS AND PRISON: THE FALSE NUN ***

Produced by David Widger

MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

TO PARIS AND PRISON, Volume 2d--The False Nun

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

THE FALSE NUN

CHAPTER XXI

Supper at My Casino With M. M. and M. de Bernis, the French Ambassador--A
Proposal from M. M.; I Accept It--Consequences--C. C. is Unfaithful to
Me, and I Cannot Complain

I felt highly pleased with the supper-party I had arranged with
M---- M----, and I ought to have been happy. Yet I was not so; but whence
came the anxiety which was a torment to me? Whence? From my fatal habit
of gambling. That passion was rooted in me; to live and to play were to
me two identical things, and as I could not hold the bank I would go and
punt at the ridotto, where I lost my money morning and night. That state
of things made me miserable. Perhaps someone will say to me:

"Why did you play, when there was no need of it, when you were in want of
nothing, when you had all the money you could wish to satisfy your
fancies?"

That would be a troublesome question if I had not made it a law to tell
the truth. Well, then, dear inquisitive reader, if I played with almost
the certainty of losing, although no one, perhaps, was more sensible than
I was to the losses made in gambling, it is because I had in me the evil
spirit of avarice; it is because I loved prodigality, and because my
heart bled when I found myself compelled to spend any money that I had
not won at the gaming-table. It is an ugly vice, dear reader, I do not
deny it. However, all I can say is that, during the four days previous to
the supper, I lost all the gold won for me by M---- M----

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