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

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Waldstein laughed and said he would return. Casanova waited in
ante-chambers; no one would place him either as governor, librarian or
chamberlain. He said everywhere that the Germans were thorough beasts.
The excellent and very amiable Duke of Weimer welcomed him wonderfully;
but in an instant he became jealous of Goethe and Wieland, who were under
the Duke's protection. He declaimed against them and against the
literature of the country which he did not, and could not, know. At
Berlin, he declaimed against the ignorance, the superstition and the
knavery of the Hebrews to whom I had addressed him, drawing meanwhile,
for the money they claimed of him, bills of exchange on the Count who
laughed, paid, and embraced him when he returned. Casanova laughed, wept,
and told him that God had ordered him to make this trip of six weeks, to
leave without speaking of it, and to return to his chamber at Dux.
Enchanted at seeing us again, he agreeably related to us all the
misfortunes which had tried him and to which his susceptibility gave the
name of humiliations. 'I am proud,' he said, 'because I am nothing'. . . .
Eight days after his return, what new troubles! Everyone had been
served strawberries before him, and none remained for him."
The Prince de Ligne, although he was Casanova's sincere friend and
admirer, gives a rather somber picture of Casanova's life at Dux: "It
must not be imagined that he was satisfied to live quietly in the refuge
provided him through the kindness of Waldstein. That was not within his
nature. Not a day passed without trouble; something was certain to be
wrong with the coffee, the milk, the dish of macaroni, which he required
each day. There were always quarrels in the house. The cook had ruined
his polenta; the coachman had given him a bad driver to bring him to see
me; the dogs had barked all night; there had been more guests than usual
and he had found it necessary to eat at a side table. Some hunting-horn
had tormented his ear with its blasts; the priest had been trying to
convert him; Count Waldstein had not anticipated his morning greeting;