12th April 1786.  “You will infinitely oblige me if you will tell me to whom you wrote such pretty things about me; apparently it is the Abbe Da Ponte; but I would go to his house and, either he would prove that you had written it or I would have the honor of telling him that he is the most infamous traducer in the world.  I think that the lovely picture which you make of my future has not as much excuse as you may think, and, in spite of your science, you deceive yourself....  But just now I will inform you of all my wooers and you can judge for yourself by this whether I deserve all the reproaches you made me in your last letter.  It is two years since I came to know the Count de K . . . ; I could have loved him but I was too honest to be willing to satisfy his desires . . . .  Some months afterward, I came to know the Count de M . . . ; he was not so handsome as K . . . , but he possessed every possible art for seducing a girl; I did everything for him, but I never loved him as much as his friend.  In fine, to tell you all my giddinesses in a few words, I set everything right again with K . . . . and got myself into a quarrel with M . . . ., then I left K. . . . and returned to M . . . ., but at the house of the latter there was always an officer who pleased me more than both the two others and who sometimes conducted me to the house; then we found ourselves at the house of a friend, and it is of this same officer that I am ill.  So, my dear friend, that is all.  I do not seek to justify my past conduct; on the contrary, I know well that I have acted badly....  I am much afflicted at being the cause of your remaining away from Venice during the Carnival . . . .  I hope to see you soon again and am, with much love,

“Monsieur, your sincere “Caton M. . . .”

16th July 1786.  “I have spoken with the Abbe Da Ponte.  He invited me to come to his house because, he said, he had something to tell me for you.  I went there, but was received so coldly that I am resolved not to go there again.  Also, Mlle. Nanette affected an air of reserve and took at on herself to read me lessons on what she was pleased to call my libertinism . . . .  I beg that you will write nothing more about me to these two very dangerous personages....  Just now I will tell you of a little trick which I played on you, which without doubt deserves some punishment.  The young, little Kasper, whom you formerly loved, came to ask me for the address of her dear Monsieur de Casanova, so that she could write a very tender letter full of recollections.  I had too much politeness to wish to refuse a pretty girl, who was once the favorite of my lover, so just a request, so I gave her the address she wished; but I addressed the letter to a city far from you.  Is it not, my dear friend, that you would like well to know the name of the city, so that you could secure the letter by posts.  But you can depend on my word that you will not know it until you have written me a very long letter begging