“If secrecy,” said I, “is of the essence of the Court, you cannot possibly judge, after my escape, whether I have done so rightly or wrongly.  The same reasons, which, according to your excellence, bid me go, would forbid my return.  Must I then say good-bye for ever to my country, and all that is dear to me?” As a last resource he tried to persuade me to pass the following day and night, at least, at the palace.  I am still ashamed of having refused the worthy old man to whom I owed so much this favour; for the palace of a noble is sacred to the police who dare not cross its threshold without a special order from the Tribunal, which is practically never given; by yielding to his request I should have avoided a grievous misfortune, and spared the worthy old man some acute grief.

I was moved to see M. de Bragadin weeping, and perhaps I might have granted to his tears that which I had obstinately refused to his arguments and entreaties.  “For Heaven’s sake!” said I, “spare me the harrowing sight of your tears.”  In an instant he summoned all his strength to his assistance, made some indifferent remarks, and then, with a smile full of good nature, he embraced me, saying, “Perhaps I may be fated never to see you again, but ’Fata viam invenient’.”

I embraced him affectionately, and went away, but his prediction was verified, for I never saw him again; he died eleven years afterwards.  I found myself in the street without feeling the slightest fear, but I was in a good deal of trouble about my debts.  I had not the heart to go to Muran to take away from M. M. her last five hundred sequins, which sum I owed to the man who won it from me in the night; I preferred asking him to wait eight days, and I did so.  After performing this unpleasant piece of business I returned home, and, having consoled my landlady to the utmost of my power, I kissed the daughter, and lay down to sleep.  The date was July 25th, 1755.

Next morning at day-break who should enter my room but the awful Messer-Grande.  To awake, to see him, and to hear him asking if I were Jacques Casanova, was the work of a moment.  At my “yes, I am Casanova,” he told me to rise, to put on my clothes, to give him all the papers and manuscripts in my possession, and to follow him.

“On whose authority do you order me to do this?”

“By the authority of the Tribunal.”