Old Age and Death The Memoirs Of Jacques Casanova De Seingalt ...

28
On the 10th March, Francesca wrote:
"Dearest of Friends, I reply at once to your good letter of the 28th
February which I received Sunday . . . . I thank you for your kindness
which makes you say that you love me and that when you have money you
will send me some . . . but that at the moment you are dry as a
salamander. I do not know what sort of animal that is. But as for me I am
certainly dry of money and I am consumed with the hope of having some
. . . . I see that you were amused at the Carnival and that you were four
times at the masked ball, where there were two hundred women, and that
you danced minuets and quadrilles to the great astonishment of the
ambassador Foscarini who told everyone that you were sixty years old,
although in reality you have not yet reached your sixtieth year. You
might well laugh at that and say that he must be blind to have such an
idea.
"I see that you assisted, with your brother, at a grand dinner at the
Ambassador's . . . .
"You say that you have read my letters to your brother and that he
salutes me. Make him my best compliments and thank him. You ask me to
advise you whether, if he should happen to return to Venice with you, he
could lodge with you in your house. Tell him yes, because the chickens
are always in the loft and make no dirt; and, as for the dogs, one
watches to see that they do not make dirt. The furniture of the apartment
is already in place; it lacks only a wardrobe and the little bed which
you bought for your nephew and the mirror; as for the rest, everything is
as you left it. . . ."
It is possible that, at the "grand dinner," Casanova was presented to
Count Waldstein, without whose kindness to Casanova the Memoirs probably