Seeing how thoughtful I was, she politely enquired my name from Baletti, for he had presented me only as a friend, and without having given her notice of my visit.  When he told her that my name was Casanova, she was extremely surprised.

“Yes, madam,” I said, “I am the son of Gaetan Casanova, of Parma.”

“Heavens and earth! what is this?  Ah! my friend, I adored your father!  He was jealous without cause, and abandoned me.  Had he not done so, you would have been my son!  Allow me to embrace you with the feelings of a loving mother.”

I expected as much, and, for fear she should fall, I went to her, received her kiss, and abandoned myself to her tender recollections.  Still an actress, she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, pretending to weep, and assuring me that I was not to doubt the truth of what she said.

“Although,” she added, “I do not look an old woman yet.”

“The only fault of your dear father,” she continued, “was a want of gratitude”

I have no doubt that she passed the same sentence upon the son, for, in spite of her kind invitation, I never paid her another visit.

My purse was well filled, and as I did not care for Mantua, I resolved on going to Naples, to see again my dear Therese, Donna Lucrezia, Palo father and son, Don Antonio Casanova, and all my former acquaintances.  However, my good genius did not approve of that decision, for I was not allowed to carry it into execution.  I should have left Mantua three days later, had I not gone to the opera that night.

I lived like an anchorite during my two months’ stay in Mantua, owing to the folly.  I committed on the night of my arrival.  I played only that time, and then I had been lucky.  My slight erotic inconvenience, by compelling me to follow the diet necessary to my cure, most likely saved me from greater misfortunes which, perhaps, I should not have been able to avoid.

CHAPTER XXI

My Journey to Cesena in Search of Treasure—­I Take Up My Quarters in Franzia’s House—­His Daughter Javotte

The opera was nearly over when I was accosted by a young man who, abruptly, and without any introduction, told me that as a stranger—­I had been very wrong in spending two months in Mantua without paying a visit to the natural history collection belonging to his father, Don Antonio Capitani, commissary and prebendal president.

“Sir,” I answered, “I have been guilty only through ignorance, and if you would be so good as to call for me at my hotel to-morrow morning, before the evening I shall have atoned for my error, and you will no longer have the right to address me the same reproach”

The son of the prebendal commissary called for me, and I found in his father a most eccentric, whimsical sort of man.  The curiosities of his collection consisted of his family tree, of books of magic, relics, coins which he believed to be antediluvian, a model of the ark taken from nature at the time when Noah arrived in that extraordinary harbour, Mount Ararat, in Armenia.  He load several medals, one of Sesostris, another of Semiramis, and an old knife of a queer shape, covered with rust.  Besides all those wonderful treasures, he possessed, but under lock and key, all the paraphernalia of freemasonry.