Monk

It may be recalled that I once opened up a book-blogging slot for the memoirs of Casanova. I quickly grew cold on it and let it fall off to the side. However, one night I had finished a fun novel and was not yet exhausted to sleep, but had no other new book at hand. In my desperation, I thought of some of the books I had let drop, and I decided to give Casanova another try.

These memoirs struck me as fun again. I am not inclined to put it back into my schedule, but will leave it for such odd times as that one restless night. Though, since I started book-blogging it, I thought I would continue to capture the quotes of what most fascinates or amuses me, albeit very irregularly. In the excerpt below, Casanova speaks of going off to college.

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When Dr. Gozzi granted me the privilege of going out alone, he gave me an opportunity for the discovery of several truths which, until then, were not only unknown to me, but the very existence of which I had never suspected. On my first appearance, the boldest scholars got hold of me and sounded my depth. Finding that I was a thorough freshman, they undertook my education, and with that worthy purpose in view they allowed me to fall blindly into every trap. They taught me gambling, won the little I possessed, and then they made me play upon trust, and put me up to dishonest practices in order to procure the means of paying my gambling debts; but I acquired at the same time the sad experience of sorrow!

Yet these hard lessons proved useful, for they taught me to mistrust the impudent sycophants who openly flatter their dupes, and never to rely upon the offers made by fawning flatterers. They taught me likewise how to behave in the company of duellists, the society of whom ought to be avoided, unless we make up our mind to be constantly in the very teeth of danger. I was not caught in the snares of professional lewd women, because not one of them was in my eyes as pretty as Bettina, but I did not resist so well the desire for that species of vain glory which is the reward of holding life at a cheap price.

-- Casanova, “The Memoirs”

_ _ _

What vain glory he is talking about we will cover next and soon.

Here is Voltaire at eight or nine, and we can perhaps already see the spirit of the man. Did I really say Voltaire? Of course, I mean Casanova, who seems to be an interesting thinker, but is no Voltaire. I imagine there is a reason why Voltaire is famous for his wit while Casanova is more reputed for his penis.

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One day, about the middle of November, I was with my brother Francois, two years younger than I, in my father’s room, watching him attentively as he was working at optics. A large lump of crystal, round and cut into facets, attracted my attention. I took it up, and having brought it near my eyes I was delighted to see that it multiplied objects. The wish to possess myself of it at once got hold of me, and seeing myself unobserved I took my opportunity and hid it in my pocket.

A few minutes after this my father looked about for his crystal, and unable to find it, he concluded that one of us must have taken it. My brother asserted that he had not touched it, and I, although guilty, said the same; but my father, satisfied that he could not be mistaken, threatened to search us and to thrash the one who had told him a story. I pretended to look for the crystal in every corner of the room, and, watching my opportunity I slyly slipped it in the pocket of my brother’s jacket.

At first I was sorry for what I had done, for I might as well have feigned to find the crystal somewhere about the room; but the evil deed was past recall. My father, seeing that we were looking in vain, lost patience, searched us, found the unlucky ball of crystal in the pocket of the innocent boy, and inflicted upon him the promised thrashing. Three or four years later I was foolish enough to boast before my brother of the trick I had then played on him; he never forgave me, and has never failed to take his revenge whenever the opportunity offered.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

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One suspects that the little brother did not suffer a lack of causes to continue the grudge.

We have finally gone through Casanova's own personal preface, and we take up chapter one of the memoirs, which is about his family pedigree and childhood.

Of course, it is only appropriate that Casanova’s life should spring from wild, romantic, passionate beginnings. His father, Gaetan-Joseph-Jacques, was a dancer and then an actor, and it is about him that Casanova is writing.

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Whether from fickleness or from jealousy, he abandoned the Fragoletta, and joined in Venice a troupe of comedians then giving performances at the Saint-Samuel Theatre. Opposite the house in which he had taken his lodgings resided a shoemaker, by name Jerome Farusi, with his wife Marzia, and Zanetta, their only daughter - a perfect beauty sixteen years of age. The young actor fell in love with this girl, succeeded in gaining her affection, and in obtaining her consent to a runaway match. It was the only way to win her, for, being an actor, he never could have had Marzia’s consent, still less Jerome’s, as in their eyes a player was a most awful individual.

The young lovers, provided with the necessary certificates and accompanied by two witnesses, presented themselves before the Patriarch of Venice, who performed over them the marriage ceremony. Marzia, Zanetta’s mother, indulged in a good deal of exclamation, and the father died broken hearted.

I was born nine months afterwards, on the 2nd of April, 1725.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

We have yet to get beyond the preface, and already we can see Casanova betraying a certain moral blindness in his defrauding of “friends” with an easygoing rationalization in the service of his own pleasure.

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They will not form a wrong opinion of me when they see one emptying the purse of my friends to satisfy my fancies, for those friends entertained idle schemes and by giving them the hope of success I trusted to disappointment to cure them. I would deceive them to make them wiser, and I did not consider myself guilty, for I applied to my own enjoyment sums of money which would have been lost in the vain pursuit of possessions denied by nature; therefore I was not actuated by any avaricious rapacity. I might think myself guilty if I were rich now, but I have nothing. I have squandered everything; it is my comfort and my justification. The money was intended for extravagant follies, and by applying it to my own frolics I did not turn it into a very different channel.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

_ _ _

See, when you think about it, it is all really very Christian.

Casanova speaks of his rich tastes, and hence reveals himself as more of a modern Christian than a medieval one. The world is meant to be enjoyed rather than eschewed in favor of the Kingdom to come. There may well be something to that, but, oh, what a slippery slope that can be!

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I have always been fond of highly-seasoned, rich dishes, such as macaroni prepared by a skilful Neapolitan cook, the olla-podrida of the Spaniards, the glutinous codfish from Newfoundland, game with a strong flavour, and cheese the perfect state of which is attained when the tiny animalculae from its very essence begin to shew signs of life. As for women, I have always found the odour of my beloved ones exceeding pleasant.

What depraved tastes! some people will exclaim. Are you not ashamed to confess such inclinations without blushing! Dear critics, you make me laugh heartily. Thanks to my coarse tastes, I believe myself happier than other men, because I am convinced that they enhance my enjoyment. Happy are those who know how to obtain pleasures without injury to anyone; insane are those who fancy that the Almighty can enjoy the sufferings, the pains, the fasts and abstinences which they offer to Him as a sacrifice, and that His love is granted only to those who tax themselves so foolishly.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

The chief business of my life has always been to indulge my senses; I never knew anything of greater importance. I felt myself born for the fair sex, I have ever loved it dearly, and I have been loved by it as often and as much as I could. I have likewise always had a great weakness for good living, and I ever felt passionately fond of every object which excited my curiosity.

[...]

Should anyone bring against me an accusation of sensuality he would be wrong, for all the fierceness of my senses never caused me to neglect any of my duties.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

I am suspicious about that last proposition. We know that he got into a lot of trouble, including the prison kind of trouble, but whether any of this had to do with his sensuality, I suppose, remains to be seen.

Casanova gives us the early bound for his memoirs.

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The history of my life must begin by the earliest circumstance which my memory can evoke; it will therefore commence when I had attained the age of eight years and four months. Before that time, if to think is to live be a true axiom, I did not live, I could only lay claim to a state of vegetation. The mind of a human being is formed only of comparisons made in order to examine analogies, and therefore cannot precede the existence of memory. The mnemonic organ was developed in my head only eight years and four months after my birth; it is then that my soul began to be susceptible of receiving impressions.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

Casanova’s memoirs, written in old age and during his last years, cap his life and serve as a ‘looking back’.

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I have reached, in 1797, the age of three-score years and twelve; I can not say, Vixi, and I could not procure a more agreeable pastime than to relate my own adventures, and to cause pleasant laughter amongst the good company listening to me, from which I have received so many tokens of friendship, and in the midst of which I have ever lived.

[...]

By recollecting the pleasures I have had formerly, I renew them, I enjoy them a second time, while I laugh at the remembrance of troubles now past, and which I no longer feel. A member of this great universe, I speak to the air, and I fancy myself rendering an account of my administration, as a steward is wont to do before leaving his situation.

For my future I have no concern, and as a true philosopher, I never would have any, for I know not what it may be: as a Christian, on the other hand, faith must believe without discussion, and the stronger it is, the more it keeps silent.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

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If there is nothing after death, that is fine. If there is still some kind of experiencing after death, well, won’t that be something? But whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.

“An ancient author tells us somewhere, with the tone of a pedagogue, if you have not done anything worthy of being recorded, at least write something worthy of being read.”

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

Casanova need not have worried about leading an interesting life. It would also seem that he has no need to chide himself for want of eloquence. I still have yet to break out of the preface, but his memoirs is looking like a veritable masterpiece. I am glad I caught onto it. Sylvia Plath is a special flower, but I need some high-testosterone in my mix, and Casanova certainly provides us with that.

Part five from the preface to the Memoirs.

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You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools. As to the deceit perpetrated upon women, let it pass, for, when love is in the way, men and women as a general rule dupe each other. But on the score of fools it is a very different matter.

I always feel the greatest bliss when I recollect those I have caught in my snares, for they generally are insolent, and so self-conceited that they challenge wit. We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised, for a fool is covered with steel and it is often very hard to find his vulnerable part. In fact, to gull a fool seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man.

-- Casanova, The Memoirs

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Casanova also makes plain that he distinguished the fools from the stupid, as the latter only suffer from a want of education, while the former carry a serious defect of character, as he sees it.