As I was on the point of leaving Prague, I met in the street my friend Fabris, who had become a colonel, and he insisted upon my dining with him.  After ’embracing him, I represented to him, but in vain, that I had made all my arrangements to go away immediately.

“You will go this evening,” he said, “with a friend of mine, and you will catch the coach.”

I had to give way, and I was delighted to have done so, for the remainder of the day passed in the most agreeable manner.  Fabris was longing for war, and his wishes were gratified two years afterwards; he covered himself with glory.

I must say one word about Locatelli, who was an original character well worthy to be known.  He took his meals every day at a table laid out for thirty persons, and the guests were his actors, actresses, dancers of both sexes, and a few friends.  He did the honours of his well-supplied board nobly, and his real passion was good living.  I shall have occasion to mention him again at the time of my journey to St. Petersburg, where I met him, and where he died only lately at the age of ninety.

MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798

To Paris and prison, Volume 2b—­Venice

The rare unabridged London edition of 1894 translated by Arthur Machen to which has been added the chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.

VENICE

CHAPTER X

My Stay in Vienna—­Joseph ii—­My Departure for Venice

Arrived, for the first time, in the capital of Austria, at the age of eight-and-twenty, well provided with clothes, but rather short of money—­a circumstance which made it necessary for me to curtail my expenses until the arrival of the proceeds of a letter of exchange which I had drawn upon M. de Bragadin.  The only letter of recommendation I had was from the poet Migliavacca, of Dresden, addressed to the illustrious Abbe Metastasio, whom I wished ardently to know.  I delivered the letter the day after my arrival, and in one hour of conversation I found him more learned than I should have supposed from his works.  Besides, Metastasio was so modest that at first I did not think that modesty natural, but it was not long before I discovered that it was genuine, for when he recited something of his own composition, he was the first to call the attention of his hearers to the important parts or to the fine passages with as much simplicity as he would remark the weak ones.  I spoke to him of his tutor Gravina, and as we were on that subject he recited to me five or six stanzas which he had written on his death, and which had not been printed.  Moved by the remembrance of his friend, and by the sad beauty of his own poetry, his eyes were filled with tears, and when he had done reciting the stanzas he said, in a tone of touching simplicity,’Ditemi il vero, si puo air meglio’?