摘录
Excerpt On the fifth of June, in the year 1798, a body believed to be that of Giacomo Casanova, self-styled Chevalier de Seingalt, was buried in the graveyard of Dux Castle in the kingdom of Bohemia, in the presence of his last patron, Count Waldstein, his nephew, Carlo Angiolini, who had traveled from Dresden, and an assorted retinue of servants, most of whom had done their utmost to make miserable the last years of his life. Among the small group of mourners stood a woman named Laura Brock, who, though no longer young by the standards of that time, was nonetheless in the full bloom of womanhood, and radiated the certainty of a still firm body that knew its pleasures and its power. She alone knew the bittersweet secret of the passing of the man whose remains were being so perfunctorily disposed. As she listened to the ridiculous sentiments (all lies, really) of the priest delivering the eulogy, she suppressed a smile, and remembered the first time she had entered the library to serve Signor Casanova a cold supper of melon and ham. "The cook must belong to that race of men, born in the North and soured by the East, for whom food is something to be endured rather than savored," quipped the old man in French, a language he felt sure the serving-girl couldn't understand. The ham was exceedingly fat and was flanked by a lump of red sauerkraut topped by a shriveled half potato. Certainly not what he had in mind when he had ordered it. What he had in mind was thin prosciutto wrapped around slices of ripe yellow melon. Ah, what he had in mind and what surrounded him were like sunlight and shadow. He was dressed in a brilliantly colored Chinese silk robe embroidered with gold dragons, and wore a red wool cap over his wig against the dampness and cold that were a permanent feature of the castle. "And where," he continued, "did he find such a beautiful woman to abuse with his bad moods? Undeserving bastard!" He then gazed at her so long and so suggestively that she felt she could slap him. Instead, she had answered him in competent, though oddly inflected French, "If Monsieur Librarian wishes his ham warmed, that can be arranged without making an enemy of the cook." She did not mention that among her duties she was required to serve and to please Hans Gelder, the cook, who was in all respects exactly as the Chevalier de Seingalt had described him. Laura Brock was neither innocent nor silly, and knew well the sound of hollow compliments, but if the old man assumed that she would serve him as she, of necessity, served Hans Gelder, he would wait a long time as far as she was concerned. The cook, though brutish and fat, was only thirty years old -- the librarian looked to be at least one hundred! Oh, how she had underestimated the old goat! Sitting in front of her in his ridiculous, old-fashioned wig was the most famous seducer in Europe, a man who at one time had made himself unwelcome in more than a dozen countries. Jealous men had hidden their wives and daughters at the mention of his name. Or so she had been told by Gelder when she asked what the curious Italian gentleman had done before becoming librarian at Dux. In truth, after she had gotten to know him, she learned that Gelder's description of Casanova, unlike Casanova's description of Gelder, was not in the least accurate. There was something boyish about the old man, almost innocent, though he was without doubt a devilish charmer. "My dear fraülein, I did not mean to offend you or the cook," Casanova declared, recovering quickly from the surprise of her French. "De gustibus non disputandum. I still maintain that you are a beautiful woman. I see also that you are not a simple maid. I believe, in fact, that you know how to read and that this library is not an entirely strange place to you." At this Laura blushed in all sincerity. He had somehow discerned what she had been at pains to conceal for the eight months she had labored in the service of Count Waldstein. She had been taught to read by her father, the minister of a small country church in the village of Würzburg, Bavaria. At seventeen she had entered the service of Baroness Stefania von Helmund, who had taken a liking to her, arranging for French lessons and loaning her books, only some of which were moral or instructional. They would discuss Laura's reading in the Baroness's great baldaquin bed, from which the ailing and elderly Baron had been absent for many years. Often they wept for their heroes and embraced in sympathy with imperiled lovers, hoping that by imitation they might save the fictional characters from their literary fates. But only a few years into her service fate had intervened, and the Baroness had died unexpectedly in childbirth, a mysterious occurrence that baffled the impotent Baron most of all. Rather than return to her village, where her father hoped she would marry a local farmer, Laura found employment, and a certain freedom, at Dux. Count Waldstein seldom visited his country estate; the servants had the run of the place, and after becoming Gelder's occasional mistress, Laura Brock could do as she pleased. It pleased her to read, in secret, books from the vast Waldstein library. So when the new librarian appeared, Laura had volunteered immediately to serve him. If he was a strict old man who didn't approve of a servant reading, she would put sleeping drafts in his wine. It now appeared that drugs would not be necessary. Casanova had asked her what she liked to read. She refused to tell him at first, declaring indignantly that it would be like baring her soul. "Baring her soul" was how the heroine of a romance novel might have described such a disclosure, but Laura knew it was more a matter of what tickled her fancy. Her taste in books did not run to very serious works. When she finally confessed that she was fond of frivolous novels, Casanova did not express any disapproval, but embarked with her on a course of study that in the years that followed would make her a dangerously well-educated woman. Not many evenings after that, when Laura had prevailed upon Gelder to put a few extra slices of trimmed ham and a whole ripe pear on the old man's plate, Casanova asked her to read aloud to him from the French translation of Boccaccio's Decameron. This book, which she had read together with the Baroness more times than she could remember, was as dear to Laura as a lover; indeed, it had served her better than a lover many times, certainly better than Gelder, whose brief, grunting exertions were over before she could recite a favorite passage to herself, which alone, she blushed to think, made his rapid intrusions bearable. Seated at the library table, Casanova set the volume in front of him and invited Laura to sit on his knee to read. She refused, he cajoled her, she refused again, he insisted. There was a sleepy, ritualistic rhythm to these pleadings and refusals like the melody of a familiar tune, something by Mozart perhaps, and it made them both laugh. Finally Laura admitted that she wasn't worried about what he might do to her if she sat on his knee, but what she might do to him -- the weight of a hefty wench could damage such a fragile-looking limb. Casanova reacted with amusement. "I like you so much!" he exclaimed. "I could even love you! Ah, mademoiselle, you do not know what joy you bring to an old man's heart." There seemed to be no deterring the old goat, so Laura sat her well-rounded bottom gingerly down on the Chevalier's knee, listening for the snap of bone, and sighing with relief when the skinny leg held. Casanova shifted her so that her bottom came to rest fully on his lap. She smelled on his person wig powder, cinnamon, and something else that might have been a subtle scent of death, or only the dust of old books. In his lap she felt no telltale stiffening, and so she relaxed and prepared to read. Casanova opened the book not to the beginning, but randomly in the middle, and explained to her that any book of high quality, the Bible, for instance, or the histories of Herodotus, was capable of answering any question posed to it. He called this form of divination "oracular reading." All one had to do was ask the question, open the book, and voilà, the answer would be found. "Ask a question, my dear." Laura thought for a moment. "What does an old man want from a girl like me?" The Decameron opened to the sixth story on the third day, the tale of Ricciardo Minutolo, who loved the wife of Filipello Fighinolfi. He tricked her into believing that Filipello would secretly meet her at a bagno, and then made love to her himself, she believing all the while that she was actually with her husband. "How does this answer my question?" Laura was bewildered. Casanova explained. "Clearly, an old man would like to do with you what Ricciardo did with Filipello's wife, but he must trick you in the dark and make you believe that you are with another man. A younger one, no doubt." Laura bid the Chevalier to ask a question of his own. "What does an old man have to offer a beauty like you?" The book opened to the ninth story on the first day, in which the King of Cyprus is transformed from a weakling to a man of courage by the sharp words of a Gascon lady. "You see," Casanova said, "a perfect answer." Laura did see. An old man needed courage, and she could give it to him. Her face lit up at her own cleverness, and turning to Casanova, she told him that she understood, and she knew then that she looked more beautiful to him than ever before. Courage, for Casanova, was the most noble human quality. Courage was synonymous with sexual conquest and intellectual daring. To possess a woman, to defeat stupidity, or to think thoughts fully, without fear of where they might lead, these were only possible through courage. In grasping this, Laura Brock became Casanova's partner in adventure. Casanova had always regarded women as fellow adventurers. It had been his good luck to meet courageous women. "What does courage mean to you, Mademoiselle Brock?" he asked pedantically, sounding like his old tutor Gozzi. "We can never know just how much courage we have until a situation arises that tests us...I suppose there must be some other qualities, at least for men. Foolhardiness, perhaps." "A splendid answer." Casanova beamed. "You forget, however, the two most important ingredients, necessity and imagination! Courage without those criteria is no more than foolhardiness, as you say. Self-defense demands a certain sangfroid but it is hardly courage. Do you know who is the most courageous woman I have ever met?" "I will be much obliged if you told me her story." "When I met her, she was disguised as a castrato named Bellino. She has since made a great name for herself on the opera stage as a castrato and no one knows that she is really a woman. I met her at an inn where she was spending the week with her mother and her three siblings, a traveling theatrical family. I conceived a passionate desire for her. I was certain that she was a woman, despite her denials and her mother's oath. Her mother was a bit of a procuress, as it turned out, because when she saw that I was mad with desire for Bellino, she sent me one of her younger daughters, who was only twelve and a virgin. I spent a pleasant night in the company of the child and rewarded her handsomely in the morning, but I could not get Bellino off my mind. I pursued her to no avail all day, begging her to let me see for myself if she was a man or not. I only needed some proof for my hand, I even promised not to look. But she only fed my fires by first seeming to give a little, then drawing back. The next night, the wily mother sent me her other daughter, who was fourteen and just as delightful as her sister, though not a virgin and much more experienced. She pleased me very well, but I wanted Bellino. I was mad for her, so I laughed when the old fox sent me the last of her siblings, a real boy, about sixteen years old, who was completely effeminate and already trained to please men. I increased my pursuit of Bellino until, after much coaxing and some extraordinary conversation about the male and female natures, I was able to convince her to show me if I did not touch her. She allowed me to peek through her bodice from above and I saw what I thought to be a monstrous clitoris. I knew it could not be a male membrum because I had no doubts that Bellino was a woman. In any case, I had resolved that even if the giant clitoris turned out to be a membrum, I would possess her. An outward maleness did not deter me. After much, much pleading and more philosophy than I care to recall, I undressed her and found the truth." "I can only guess that your unfailing instinct for our sex did not mislead you!" "You understand me well, Mademoiselle Brock." Casanova fell, rather creakily, to the Oriental rug and kissed her pointed slipper, to Laura's embarrassment. "Please, rise, monsieur, you might be seen. She was a woman then?" "Not just a woman! Theresa. Theresa-Bellino! There were a number of qualities about Theresa that I will never forget. One was trivial, perhaps. Bellino had worn an artificial penis perfectly molded to her body, a contraption that, when she had first allowed me a glimpse, I had mistaken for a monstrous clitoris. Later, after I unmasked her, we delighted in playing with this artificial limb, making and breaking the illusion. There was something deeply satisfying in encountering her male organ, with all its potential menace and similarity to my own, and then conquering it and revealing the hidden vagina. This game confirmed my belief that the universe is, in essence, feminine, and that the aggressions it evinces are merely a mask, removable like a false penis." "You believe that the universe is a woman?" Laura was astonished. When Casanova nodded positively, she said: "This interpretation must gratify your maleness because in a feminine universe you must be the only man." Casanova savored her insight for a moment, letting it melt in his mouth like a Dutch chocolate. Perhaps she was making sport of him. He studied his uncannily bright servant through lowered eyelids and decided that she was serious. Nonetheless, it would not have served him to acknowledge her remark, so he went on. "The second thing about Theresa that has impressed itself on my mind forever was her courage. Theresa, in order to resist the entreaties of men, transformed herself into one, but not an ordinary man. She became a castrato, a man who was desired by other men, men who loved women and who would have had to have a great deal of courage to trespass on their understanding of what constituted a man or a woman. In the mirror of Theresa-Bellino all men were bound to feel troubled, none more than myself, who knew that I would possess her no matter what gender she turned out to be. I have never been unduly bothered by trifling with other men, but I fell in love with Theresa-Bellino, and love, as opposed to trifling, is what, in the end, unmans us..." "Forgive me, Chevalier," Laura interrupted, not quite following Casanova's logic. "Love is impossible then between people of the same gender?" She had loved the Baroness Stefania von Helmund and she defied anyone to deny it. "No, that is not what I mean. Love between men is possible." "And between women?" "I don't believe so," Casanova replied firmly. "Sooner or later one or the other will feel the lack. Do not misunderstand me, I love the activities of women with that proclivity and I have been a willing participant in a number of such orgies." "You are a conceited peacock, Chevalier, and I would challenge you to a physical contest if you were not a creaky old man!" She made a threatening fist and brought it down, in jest, on the Chevalier's jaw. She had actually landed a blow, despite herself, and was sorry to see Casanova wince. "I do not wish to argue this, mademoiselle. Your lack of experience gives me too much advantage." Laura held her tongue. Lack of experience, indeed. She had known her employer's body like the palm of her hand and had since explored other women's bodies, each one a mysterious island that she had delighted in mapping. "In any case, it was a battle," Casanova said. "How was it a battle? What was?" "I had succeeded in removing Bellino's penis before Bellino removed mine. This, in my opinion, is the model for all the battles I have waged in the world. The world, as you have so concisely put it, is a woman, but it is disguised as a male warrior, wearing a false penis. With courage and charm one can pull off her mask and reveal the beauty and kindness that are its true nature. In my laboratory, I have often been astounded by the transformations which substances undergo with the help of mercury. Matter is always in a process of metamorphosis, a process that has served me as a means of reflecting about my feelings and experience. Mercury is nothing but courage." Satisfied with his analysis, the librarian sighed. Alas. These days, his penis served only as the object of philosophical reflection. But he kept this thought to himself. Theresa-Bellino, the mercurial, had indelibly impressed on his mind the glory of courage. Laura said "You are now speaking of Casanova's courage. What about Theresa's courage?" "It is obvious. Think of the lengths to which she has gone in order to succeed. A great operatic voice like hers would have been lost irretrievably to opera when only men were allowed to sing. She could have become a singer in the theater, but her talent was greater." Actresses, beginning with his own mother, Zanetta, were courageous women who let nothing stand in their way to success. Zanetta had abandoned him to the care of relatives and, blessedly, to his own devices, at a fairly early age. Yet he had always worshiped her and eagerly followed the news of her triumphs on the stages of the capitals of Europe. He was extremely proud of his mother. It had never bothered him that she had given herself to a succession of men and that his own paternity was a bit of a mystery. In fact, he rather enjoyed the idea that a man he admired, like the poet Baffo, might be his father. This uncertainty had given him the freedom to be who he chose to be, whether Casanova the lover, or Chevalier de Seingalt, man of letters. His liberty had been Zanetta's gift. She had held art above morality and had made pleasure seem an ordinary and necessary activity, even a right. But it was in Theresa-Bellino that art, pleasure, courage, and talent shone most brightly, making a unified blossom that represented everything that Casanova loved. He kept these reflections to himself. Laura saw that the librarian had become visibly tired and sad. She caressed his cheeks and his forehead and could almost see his thoughts race behind the wrinkles like fish beneath a wave. Alas, alas, Casanova thought. In his old age, he had the keys to understand what he had only intuited when young. Whether such reflections were of any use to anyone but himself was another matter. He didn't really care. Self-knowledge was its own reward. He doubted, in any case, whether anyone could benefit from somebody else's experience. Very rarely. And then, perhaps, only by negative example. Yet, Laura's hand felt good: it was cool, soothing, and, yes, somehow courageous. Seeing Laura's face made beautiful by understanding, Casanova was reminded of the face of a woman in Tintoretto's painting of the Crucifixion in his beloved Venice. This woman, part of a group of grieving women at the foot of the cross, looked out of the painting instead of gazing like the others at the tortured body of Christ. She looked as if she couldn't wait to escape from the scene to make love. When he told Laura of his memory of that face, she thoughtfully observed, "It is true that grief causes this reaction in some women." "You are delightfully wise," Casanova agreed. "Grief is the secret of magnificent loving. In Venice women wear their grief with such grace that men are often overcome by lust just watching them in church. Gondolas are black, like coffins, and they are the best places to make love, especially when returning from a funeral on the island of San Michele, or from a eulogy at Santa Maria della Salute, constructed in gratitude for the end of a plague that nearly killed all the beauties of Venice." The memory of Venice brought tears to Casanova's eyes which, falling, traced reddish trails through the white powder on his face. He looked like a tragic and ridiculous papier-mâché mask, with a black mole drawn on one cheek and red-rimmed, still-blue eyes. His eyebrows, drawn on with charcoal, made two triangles that sat like tents on his finely cracked forehead. The corners of his mouth trembled and he opened his lips to speak, but no words came out. Laura understood his silence as a wish to be alone. She slid off his lap, picked up the tray, and left the room. The next evening, Casanova had recovered enough equanimity to boast that in the old days, if she had set him on fire by sitting on his lap, he would have given her no rest until she had made him happy. Laura, though she feigned shock, was by now as sorry as he that she couldn't. But she could grant him the small favors he began to extract during their evenings of study. The old man was playing a sophisticated game that linked his love of the flesh with the more enduring -- or so it seemed to her in the course of her education -- affection for books. Soon she discovered that he was himself an author. He had also studied philosophy in Padua, at one of the oldest universities in Europe, had been a student of experimental physics at Santa Maria della Salute, and was a chemist, a poet, an actor, a playwright, a gambler, a Mason, and an economist who had organized a lottery for the French king. He had written many poems, mostly odes and satires, but also philosophical essays. At the moment, he told Laura, he was translating from English a scientific report about a race of people who live inside the earth. "They are," Casanova explained, "the descendants of a human being whom God created on the sixth day, a being who was both male and female, and who escaped the fate of Adam and Eve by obeying God and taking not one bite of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of evil." Laura interrupted him. "Isn't it the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?" "No. In Paradise all is good, therefore that fruit could only contain the knowledge of evil." Laura insisted. "But the knowledge of good can only come from the knowledge of evil. Adam and Eve did not know that Paradise was good, it just was, they were not aware of its nature." Casanova smiled. "Being aware of the nature of good is only a subtle form of evil. Such awareness leads to the defense of what one believes is good and causes a great deal of evil in its name." "This is entirely too hard for me to understand," conceded Laura, not at all convinced. "Please go on with your story." Casanova continued. "The Micromegs' habitat is the lost paradise, from which God has banished Adam and Eve. That unhappy couple, whose descendants we are, were condemned to exile on the surface of the earth, a terrible place subject to floods and disaster, harmful solar rays, and suffering. The happy, unbanished descendants of the Sixth Day being, known as the Micromegs, live in the edenic interior of the earth where they pass their allotted forty years (with some exceptions) making love and using their reason to improve themselves. "The Micromegs are not stupefied by religion and superstition, because they are still close to God, but they are nonetheless subject to errors and passions that lead them into trouble. They strive to achieve clarity and wisdom, difficult virtues even for them, and nearly impossible for the wretched surface beings. The Micromegs are short, standing only as tall as" (here he demonstrated, lightly cupping the beginning of her rump) "the top of your thigh where it rounds off into the 'curve of delight.'" "Some Micromegs have no need of eyes. They touch in order to know and they talk with their hands, using each other's bodies like instruments. For instance, if they want to discuss a problem involving the brain, they literally open each others' braincases and tap out with incredible delicacy their arguments and counterarguments, plucking the nerves under consideration and pinching just those nodules and living cruxes that serve their conversation. Their speech is a kind of music that swells spontaneously when their senses discover something. "For instance, if I were to tell you what is in my heart, I would speak like this..." He put his hand under her skirt and gripped her thigh with surprisingly strong fingers. Laura put a cautionary hand on his to prevent him from reaching what he murmured was "Aphrodite's Temple." She knew that place by decidedly less metaphorical names, though at one time she and the Baroness invented many playful pet names for it, intended to describe it in various moods: Caravanserai, Prince Ludwig's Jewel Box, Shark's Cove. Despite herself, her juices had begun to flow, and she was tempted to let his hand know whatever it was it wanted to know. She could almost hear some lovely, distant music -- the language of the Micromegs perhaps -- and, stirring in the gentleman's breeches, she could feel the awakening of something she had imagined long dormant. "Is that a happy Micromeg squirming down there?" she laughed. "Indeed, the Micromegs have the gift of changing shape, but the squirmer to which you refer must only be half a Micromeg, or no Micromeg at all, because he seems unable to achieve his optimum form..." That this instrument had caused trouble and given pleasure in some of the great houses of Europe excited Laura, and its present sad condition filled her with compassion. She desired to see it rise again, for her. Near the end of his life, Casanova speculated that his virile member had been prophetic, because it had ceased to rise at the time of the "dreadful revolution" -- his scepter, like the French king, toppled. "I adore routine," Casanova exclaimed in the morning, when she came to dress his hair. "When my routines are disturbed I feel a certain disequilibrium in the universe. I feel personally responsible for earthquakes and storms." "Indeed, but for those times when you cause such things yourself, directly, as part of your routine." The Chevalier laughed and patted her hand as it rested briefly on his wig. She then applied the powder, which always made her sneeze. A silvery cloud rose briefly, diffusing the colored light from the mullioned window before settling on the half-written page and writing instruments on Casanova's desk. Every day, he rose at six, had his hair dressed, made his own hot chocolate, and gave two hours of his time to his employer's library before settling down to write at precisely nine o'clock. His job was not a sinecure -- Count Waldstein was a kind man but not a fool. Approximately twelve thousand books and manuscripts waited to be catalogued. No one knew their exact numbers or their contents. Following the Emperor's 1770 edict liquidating four hundred monasteries and convents in Bohemia, rivers of books had poured out of the monastic libraries, ending up piled pell-mell in universities and private collections. Most of Count Waldstein's acquisitions came from Cyriak and Benedictine cloisters. Fortunately, eight homeless monks had come along with the books and were employed by Casanova arranging them in neat piles, that being about the only thing they could do, since only one of them could read. The count had taken pity on them, as well as on four Poor Clare sisters, lodging and feeding them at his own expense. The twelve clerics were housed in a dilapidated wing of the castle and were rarely seen except between eight-thirty and nine in the morning, when they trudged single file and silent through the busy central court on their way to the library. At first, Casanova had attempted to engage them in conversation, questioning them about their orders and the fate of their brothers and sisters, but he had given up when the permanently distressed creatures responded only in polite monosyllables. The Cyriaks were a silent order, and the effort of speaking caused them such agitation they looked on the verge of collapse. Generous nobles like Waldstein had settled meager pensions on a few of the thousands of aimless recluses, but most of them returned to the villages they had left decades before, where their poor relations, if there were any, could barely feed them. Others begged in the streets of Prague, holding out their bowls with touching dignity. Every morning, the authorities removed the bodies of those who had died in the night, some of them still holding their begging bowls, with the coins still in them. A story circulated to the effect that Death herself, dressed as a young widow in mourning, made the rounds of Prague, dropping gold coins in these bowls, after which the beggars died peacefully where they sat. Casanova often thought that a student of Bohemian history might learn a great deal by speaking with Prague's destitute Benedictines, Trinitarians, Ursulines, Servites, Barnabites, Carmelites, and the dozens of other orders. What could Joseph II have had on his stupid mind when he issued the edict shutting down the convents? Casanova had met the Emperor and he had no doubt that stupidity was at work. Joseph was a well-intentioned monarch who believed in the creation of an ideally productive state -- he had no time for idlers. He had read only a few books in his life, but one of them had unfortunately been Lodovico Antonio Muratori's Della pubblica felicita oggetto de' buoni principi, a naive treatise about government, and like all such systems, good only for befuddling the minds of insecure princes. Casanova's compatriots, when not applying themselves to the fine arts, did more harm than good. Look at what Niccolò Machiavelli had wrought! Joseph was Maria Theresa's son, but he had neither his mother's intuitive understanding of the complexity of empire nor her passion. The lack of passion was possibly a good thing, since one of his mother's passions had been the moral improvement of her subjects, which had made Vienna the dullest city in the empire. Casanova had spent as little time as possible in that city where women were monitored like nuns for signs of any public display of their God-given charms. It had been a matter of honor for any actress worthy of her profession to be banished from Vienna for lewdness. He remembered the tragic mien of his friend Rodolfo Armandi when he had confided in Casanova that his mistress, who was an actress, had not been banished from Vienna, a circumstance which, both of them agreed, cast grave doubts on her talent. When Casanova met the Emperor, the monarch was in the middle of an audience with a fellow Venetian, Lorenzo Da Ponte, a witty but annoying character who was always turning up like a bad shadow wherever Casanova happened to be. That he should be in audience with the sovereign at precisely the time when Casanova was scheduled to be received was almost more than he could take. Obtaining the audience had taken months and the intercession of Count Waldstein. Da Ponte made it seem that he had just breezed in and was on close terms with the monarch, greeting his compatriot affably but with just enough condescension to set him on edge. Casanova mentally impaled the younger man with his sword, even as he bowed toward the Emperor, who looked pained. Casanova waited in vain for Da Ponte to vanish. Joseph seemed not to care one way or another, no doubt assuming that the two of them were together, representing the Venetian Republic in some fashion. Casanova suspected that Da Ponte may have, in fact, usurped his appointment by presenting himself at the palace and introducing himself simply as the Venetian. The secretary had probably looked it up and seen that a certain Chevalier de Seingalt, Venetian, had been scheduled, and let Da Ponte in. If that was the case, Casanova would not simply impale him with his sword, he would actually cut him into several large chunks and feed them to Count Waldstein's greyhounds. Inwardly seething, he tried to ignore Da Ponte and presented the Emperor with an elaborate scroll on which was inscribed a magnificent plan for a Chinese-themed spectacle that Casanova was convinced would be greatly appreciated by the theater-loving populace of Vienna or Prague. This spectacle had been conceived by Casanova as an homage to the power and wisdom of emperors everywhere and contained, in addition to fabulous costumes and music, many lessons about the governing of empires, some of which flagrantly, but subtly, ran contrary to Joseph's own reforms. He hoped that the flattered monarch would not notice the subversion until he had endorsed and financed the project, by which time, to save face, he might actually reverse himself. Casanova was correct in assuming that Joseph would not notice. The monarch shoved the scroll impatiently aside and told Casanova to explain the project in as few words as possible because his time was valuable. Under Da Ponte's evil smirk, Casanova proceeded to outline the spectacle, but he was far less eloquent than the scroll. He ended up stressing the word "Chinese" far too many times, to the Emperor's obvious confusion. "Why would you make my capitals Chinese?" asked the Emperor, wrinkling his noble brow. "Your Imperial Excellency!" cried the frustrated Chevalier, "everyone is fascinated by China now!" "They are?" asked the genuinely bewildered Joseph. "What is your name?" "Casanova, Giacomo Casanova," he mumbled distractedly, not realizing his mistake until he actually heard Da Ponte laughing. Laughing! The little scoundrel! The nerve! "Ah," said the Emperor, terminating the audience. Ah. That had been the idiot sovereign's last remark. The humiliated Chevalier left the palace alone, while Da Ponte managed to remain, stealing a few more minutes of the Emperor's time. Later, Da Ponte relished telling the story and claimed that Joseph, after Casanova retreated, had exclaimed three times in a row: "Giacomo Casanova! Giacomo Casanova! Giacomo! Casanova!" When Da Ponte's version of events became known to Casanova his fury increased to the point of no return. Carefully considering his revenge, he rejected impalement and dismemberment. Instead, he decided to give Da Ponte a gift. He sent him a young prostitute infected with the pox, and was greatly amused when he heard that not long after, Da Ponte had taken ill and was suffering the hells of mercury treatment. Ironically, his revenge also embraced the Emperor, who was always sending his retainers to scour the streets for prostitutes. The same young woman infected Joseph as well, causing him to take to his bed, whence he issued some of the worst decrees of his reign. Casanova's audience with the Emperor thus had precisely the opposite effect from the one intended. His Imperial Highness would have been infinitely better off patronizing the Chinese spectacle. "Ah," Casanova exclaimed, quoting the Emperor, amused by this memory as he sipped the last of his morning chocolate. "That is life. Ironic." Ironic also that Da Ponte's mission in seeing the Emperor had been to continue a discussion initiated by the young composer Mozart for the underwriting of an opera in the German language. Casanova did see that opera, The Magic Flute, sung in German, and did not like it at all, partly because it reminded him of his embarrassing (and costly) assumption. Da Ponte's presence with Casanova in the imperial chamber had been purely coincidental. The homeless monks, had they any sense, should have rejoiced in the Emperor's ill fortune -- instead they prayed for him, beseeching God to bless the sovereign every time a coin was dropped into their begging bowls. Such people were good for nothing, Casanova reflected. Whatever information an honest student might glean from them would be no use whatsoever. His own monks and nuns, besides not being much for information of any kind, were quite old. It bothered him to see their bodies bent like question marks. Seeing them shuffle along without energy or pleasure infuriated him. He had to control a perverse desire to kick the helpless creatures. He was nearly as old himself, but he didn't feel the kind of resigned weakness that wafted off these quasi-humans like the rank smell of disease. But then he admonished himself to be more kind, because these creatures had been made old before their time. When young they had chosen a monastic life that was old in essence. They had sacrificed their vigor in the mind-numbing rituals of shuffling, mumbling, and dozing. To think that at one time he had considered such a life! Idiocy! He laughed thinking how little he knew himself in those days. He who could barely stand to be in any one place for longer than a week without serious distractions, who had restlessly crossed Europe in every imaginable conveyance! He shut his eyes, imagining the map of Europe covered by the wheel marks of his carriages, from Venice to Naples to Vienna to Dresden to Moscow and countless places in between. The longest he had stayed anywhere had been when benevolent sickness had nailed him to his bed. This, he supposed, was nature's way of giving his body much-needed rest. It was during his illnesses that he had read and studied the thousands of books and the several languages that now formed an erudite but annoying barrier between him and what he loved most, raw life. Casanova dropped a huge incunabulum to the floor, startling the monks kneeling silently in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew dust that came off the biblio-piles. Actually, the Hebrew books were not quite as numerous as they should have been, because the clever Jew who had facilitated the exchange from the cloisters to the castle had appropriated the most interesting volumes in that language. His name was Eliphas Emmanuel and he was well known to the Chevalier. Years before, he had met a learned Jew named Mordecai Emmanuel traveling with his beautiful daughter, Leah. Casanova had amazed the scholar with his knowledge of Hebrew, a language in which he could quote long passages from the Old Testament and the Talmud. Their long conversation resulted in an invitation to be the Jew's guest, an invitation Casanova accepted eagerly for both its intellectual pleasures and its erotic possibilities. Their discussion continued past midnight, while his successful seduction of the daughter continued past dawn. Leah, who was but sixteen, had a serious-looking younger brother, Eliphas, who participated occasionally with great shyness and gravity in the scholarly exchange between his father and the charming stranger. This brother eventually left Italy and took on a post as cantor in the Old Jewish synagogue in Prague. When not chanting in the temple, he collected Hebrew books and manuscripts, both for instruction and profit. When Joseph ordered the liquidation of monasteries, Eliphas traveled through Bohemia, buying books from their libraries and acting as agent for the orders that wished to sell their collections. It was thus, one decade after his seduction of Leah, that Casanova met again her brother, who, still a young man, resembled his sister to an uncanny degree. Eliphas was a welcome and constant visitor to Dux. Talking with him, Casanova felt that he was continuing the conversation he had begun with his father many years before. It was too bad that Leah was not there to soothe him after the intellectual excitement. She had married a man her own age and together they had departed for the New World, where, Eliphas said, they were happy, though living in poverty in a Jewish area of New York. Eliphas was deeply involved in the affairs of his community, which was one of the oldest in Europe and had, consequently, more than its share of misery and persecution. Maria Theresa had banished all Jews from Prague in 1744 because of their alleged collaboration with the Prussian armies during the Austrian-Bavarian wars. This unsubstantiated allegation led to the exodus of nearly one-quarter of Prague's inhabitants. The economic disruptions caused by the departure of the Jews were catastrophic, so the Empress relented in 1748, allowing them to return but only after paying the extraordinary price of three hundred thousand gold pieces, the so-called "toleration tax." No sooner had the community returned that a devastating conflagration, caused by arson, destroyed most of the Jewish Quarter on the night of the Sabbath in 1754, leaving most people homeless. After a long effort, the quarter was rebuilt, just in time for this new wave of homeless Christians to take the place of the Jews. "Their Austrian Majesties are masters of misery," Eliphas observed. "One can't judge them too harshly. Their intentions are nearly always reasonable," Casanova replied, with only a touch of irony. He was sympathetic to the plight of the Jews, a position that had earned him a good deal of hostility at the court of Frederick of Prussia, as well as being a point of contention between himself and Voltaire. Eliphas changed the subject and pointed to the towers of books rising haphazardly all over the floor of the great library hall. "How many of these texts are you hoping to penetrate?" "Good choice of words, Eliphas. If they were women, I would penetrate them all. Alas. I'm afraid that if I spent every remaining moment of my life reading I would not penetrate one-fiftieth of them." "You certainly could not. But you nonetheless plan to add your own books to the already existing immensity!" Casanova laughed. "Yes, a wise man would refrain. But what can I do? I am a writer, I produce words like the bee makes honey. I also have a need to see my words bound in fine skin and sold. I would be going against nature if I did not act on that desire." "Yes, yet I suppose that when G-D made the word flesh he did not expect his flesh creations to turn the world back into words." "We rarely respect His wishes in any other regard, why should we do less with this one?" "That is blasphemy, Chevalier," Eliphas said quickly, making a gesture of mock horror halfway between spitting and covering his eyes. "I am delighted. It is entirely too easy for me to horrify my fellow Catholics -- all Christians, for that matter. Your religion is more difficult to offend because so much of it is based on argument. Everything the Devil might say has been covered in the commentaries." "That may well be the case for scholars, but I assure you that the average Jew is just as superstitious as the average Christian. In fact, we have more superstitions than average Christians because we need them to get through the constant misery they inflict on us." "What would you say," Casanova asked thoughtfully, "was the most useful superstition of your people?" Eliphas told him the story of the Golem of Prague. One of the most learned rabbis of all time, Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known as the Maharal, the author of many books of commentaries, among them the Netivot Olam, which the Chevalier had certainly read, had also excelled in the magic arts. Despite his great learning and his eminent authority on ethical questions, he was repeatedly rejected from high posts in the community. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, when he was nearly seventy years old, he produced, using a secret cabbalistic recipe, a human being who owed his life to the secret name of G-D written on his forehead. This being, the Golem, would protect the Jews of the Old Quarter against further expulsions and attacks. The Golem was physically more powerful than his aging and frail protector. Rabbi Loew had to slip an amulet into the mouth of his creation every day in order to keep him calm and working for the good of the community. One day the rabbi's daughter, Esther, fell ill and the old man spent the day of the Sabbath at her bedside. In the evening, terrified men came into the sickroom shouting that the Golem was loose and destroying the synagogue. Rabbi Loew left Esther's bedside and found the Golem, mad with grief because he was in love with Esther, causing havoc on the streets. The rabbi was able to slip the amulet into his mouth, but the Golem became despondent after that and did not leave his room. Esther recovered and tried to persuade the Golem to resume his sweet-natured duties, but to no avail. Finally, the rabbi became convinced that no amount of persuasion would restore the creature. He resolved to destroy it, but this was nearly impossible unless the Golem accepted his own death. Rabbi Loew persuaded Esther to take a flower containing the Essence of Death to the sad monster. With a heavy heart, Esther took the flower to the Golem, who knew only too well what the blossom contained. He loved Esther and took the flower from her, fully aware that he was receiving Death from the hand of the woman he loved. He inhaled deeply of the flower's scent and fell unconscious. The rabbi tiptoed into the room and erased the name of G-D from the Golem's forehead. The monster turned skeletal and his bones were taken to a room in the attic of the Old New Synagogue, where they rest to this day under lock and key. Casanova was familiar with versions of the Golem story, just as he was familiar, perhaps more familiar, with the cabbalistic writings of the Maharal. The rabbi had written that the non-Jew is but unformed matter and that the Jew was form. The non-Jew was only an accident of matter, water, and history, while the Jew, made by God, was the only formed being. Matter, however, longs for form so that a non-Jew can become a Jew, simply by longing. Jews who convert to Christianity cannot remain formed and are soon dispersed into matter. These ideas had found few adherents anywhere, not among Jews and certainly not among Christians. Nonetheless, Casanova had considered the rabbi's ideas carefully in the context of the magical sciences that he had studied. The legend of the Golem may have had many superstitious elements, but the premise was sound. Human beings could be created, using the science of elements, just as life can be prolonged indefinitely by alchemical means. "The remains of the Golem, have you seen them?" he asked the cantor of the New Old Synagogue. "You toy with me," exclaimed the young scholar with somewhat feigned astonishment. "I said the story was just superstition." "But my dear Eliphas, we are not among superstitious men here." "My dear Chevalier," Eliphas said, taking from his pocket a large ring with several keys on it. "I am thirty-two years old. I have been cantor for ten. There are ten keys on this ring, one for each year, beginning in 1778. They are keys to ten rooms in the synagogue, which has twenty-four rooms, twelve on the first floor, eleven under the ground, and one in the attic. My ten keys open ten doors on the first floor. Ask me again in the year 1802." "I will," Casanova said, looking deeply into the black eyes of his friend, which looked so much like the eyes of his sister. He felt for a moment that he was actually looking into Leah's eyes, and a wave of affection and regret seized him. Something nameless passed between the two men. "One more thing," Casanova said, seeing that Eliphas was becoming anxious to leave, "what is your new name?" Eliphas laughed. The viscerally anti-Semitic Maria Theresa had just delivered a huge blow to the Jews, the full effects of which had not yet been understood. She had ordered all the Jews in her empire to change their Hebrew names to German ones. At the same time, she lifted most barriers to their educational and professional advancement. In one swift, ambiguous, double-headed motion she had destroyed their past while seemingly opening their future. The Jews were horrified. They debated day and night the question of how to preserve their identities. The thing dearest to the Jewish heart, right after the supreme unpronounceable, was the name that each family had managed to maintain through history, thus ensuring continuity. Words were sacred to Jews, but the sounds of their names were sacred above all. Maria Theresa could not have chosen a more insidious weapon. Jews had recovered from every calamity known to humankind: exile, hunger, flood, fire, murder. They had survived all those things through the power of words, the act of naming. Now they were being stripped of the essence of their Jewish identity. In the end, the decision was taken to preserve Jewish names in secret, thus placing yet another grave burden on their battered historical memory. They chose new German names from a deliberately limited range of words denoting the essentials of nature. Thus were born Steins, Golds, Rosens, Perlmutters, Baums, Birnbaums, and Rosenthals. "My name will always be Eliphas Emmanuel," Eliphas Emmanuel said, "but for the purposes of legal transactions you may call me Oscar Perlmutter." After Eliphas's departure, Casanova thought for a long time about the Golem, his life, and writing. The deeper meanings of the story were not yet evident to him but he knew that the city of Prague was essential to his destiny. He had not been the first of his family to come to Prague. He had visited his mother, Zanetta, on his first trip to the city. Zanetta had fled to Prague with the Dresden court when Frederick besieged the Saxon capital in 1759. She had been acting in La Pupilla, a play by her friend Goldoni. His mother had been distracted by a new lover, a Hungarian officer, and Casanova had been preoccupied by a love affair of his own. Their brief encounter had taken place backstage after a performance. They had made plans for dinner for the next day, but neither one was able to attend. His last glimpse of Zanetta in Prague had been of her standing among old props, her powdered face streaked by tears, waving good-bye as if for the last time. Casanova had walked from the theater to the bank of the Vltava river, where he studied the lights of the castle in the dark water for a long time before returning to his rooms, where a lovely little party, arranged by his paramour, was already in progress. He had not yet been to the Jewish Quarter but now decided to visit at the earliest opportunity. He would disguise himself as a Jew and attend Sabbath services. The thought of donning a disguise cheered the Chevalier as it always did, and he decided to send his monks back to their rooms. He would take the day off and amuse himself in some familiar but never boring way. Castles are all much the same, but Bohemian castles have an added layer of dust and pungency, he mused, watching the timeless bustle below the library window. Peasant carts loaded to bursting with oats, stewards rolling beer barrels on the cobblestones, scullery maids rolling their hips as if they were underwater, an inkstained clerk rushing somewhere with a scroll under his arm, and dogs everywhere, running between legs and humping each other. Only a cat, curled on a gargoyle spout, fast asleep in the pale morning light of an autumn day, appeared to ignore the agitation below. I admire you, cat, Casanova said, feeling in his bones a joy that came only rarely now, but which had been his dearest companion every morning of his youth. This joy, he knew, was the beginning of mischief. An hour later, atop a skinny nag that seemed to be the only available mount, he exited the castle gates and quickly gained the open country. He had no particular destination in mind, but when he arrived at a crossroads in the forest between two hills, he took the left fork without hesitation. The woods stretched thickly on both sides of the path and he could hear the birds making a huge racket in the trees. A herd of deer grazed in his path and scattered quite lazily when he was nearly in their midst. The Bohemian forest was a legendary place and Casanova expected a host of fabulous animals and, he hoped, a score of nymphs, to suddenly appear. A village did appear, not an hour after he'd left the castle; it was a wretched collection of huts huddled around a gloomy and evidently abandoned convent. A girl in rags shooed a flock of geese out of his way. Soon an army of tattered children came running after him. He disbursed a few coins into the dust and they scrambled after them, fighting and shouting. The Chevalier dismounted at the convent gates and pushed them open, followed by all the children and the geese. The courtyard was empty, but a string of smoke hanging above a chimney betrayed some life within. Before he could go any farther, a mustachioed man dressed in the remains of an unidentifiable uniform, and wearing a quite hefty sword, barred his path. He spoke in Czech, a language that Casanova had tried to master but, so far, to no avail. He tried German. The man answered him in that language, evidently displeased by having to do so. "You are in a quarantined place, sir. There is disease here." Casanova looked at the blue sky -- golden light poured over the tiles of the building throwing in sharp relief the moss and weeds growing from the walls. It was hard to believe that sickness was raging within. "I am a doctor," he said. "What is the nature of this disease?" He shook away a few of the tykes that were clinging to him, trying to go through the pockets of his breeches. The guard looked stumped by his declaration. Casanova pressed on: "I am familiar with many illnesses, perhaps I can help." At this point, two identical men tumbled out of the convent door and answered for him. "We have a rare illness here." "Rarer than coins in a poor man's pouch," his twin echoed. The guard took heart from his helpers. "It is so virulent it kills on the spot anyone who as much as wants to know its name." "That is indeed a horrible disease," laughed Casanova. "I have had some nameless diseases myself, but I was half cured when I learned their names." The guard reached for his sword, but Casanova had already drawn his and, without thinking, slapped him on the side of his head with the flat of the blade, felling him. "You've killed him," shouted a twin, and the other echoed, "You've killed him dead!" "No I haven't." Annoyed, Casanova shoved his foot in the man's ribs. He opened his eyes and groaned. "Show me in," ordered the Chevalier, politely. When Casanova entered what had been the dining hall of the convent, he knew immediately the nature of the illness. A dozen or so deserters from his Imperial Majesty's armies were lying about on straw mats in various states of undress. Some of them were reading, propped on one elbow. None bothered to rise when the Chevalier entered the dormitory. On closer inspection, he saw that almost half of the group were women, though it was difficult to tell in the gloom. Sensing no menace, Casanova opened several of the shuttered windows and chill autumn air and bright light rushed in, invigorating somewhat the listless residents. Having gotten their attention, the Chevalier stood in the middle of the room and declared them to be cured. "My fellow sufferers, I understand your ennui. Please rise from your beds and make yourselves presentable. Two of you will go to the castle at Dux to buy wine, beer, and hams. I will provide the feast, but not before you bathe, comb your hair, and sweep out this filthy room!" There was general agreement with this plan, and before long, an energetic wind swept the assembled, who bestirred themselves from their mats and took to the cisterns outside, where they splashed each other with water, making childish noises of delight. The village children themselves were hanging from the Chevalier like monkeys from a tree. He didn't find this entirely unpleasant because, dirty as they were, they smelled young, like saplings, and the Chevalier, a connoisseur of scents, found them intoxicating. The goose girl sat gravely on his lap, her budding breasts a reminder that nature renewed herself at every opportunity. Long before the provisions arrived, Casanova had already been briefed on the true nature of the quarantine and illness from which the residents suffered. "We met in the forest," a thin young soldier explained in German. "We are deserters from several armies. At first, we wandered around aimlessly and survived by stealing. When the convent was closed, some of us moved in. At first there were only six of us -- now we are sixteen. We have been in this place for two years." A young woman stepped forward. Her dark hair was neatly braided in a long plait down her back, and she appeared to be their spokesman. "We have been reading many books, and have formed ourselves into a community that shares everything without regard for age or status. We have forsaken our former lives and have taken on new names. We even have a new calendar, from the day the first of us arrived." "You share everything? Even your bodies?" Casanova looked directly into her eyes. They were very black, with heavy lids, and there was something both Slavic and Asiatic about them. "Absolutely. We are in Paradise. We banished jealousy and greed." She said this plainly, but with weary conviction, as if subsequent events had put this belief under some doubt. "You do not believe in original sin then?" "We do not believe in the original sin," she said slowly. "Or God?" "We are deists," a man said angrily. "There is a God and he is good. We are followers of Saint Sylvester, who said, 'God is like an onion because he is good and makes you cry.' That is the entirety of our belief." Casanova was quite astonished. He had heard of such social practices among the savages of North America. There had also been such beliefs among heretics long ago burnt at the stake by the Pope. He asked if they had modeled themselves on ideas from the New World. "Not entirely." The young woman spoke with quiet authority. "We have read La Nouvelle Héloïse, as well as accounts of the noble savages. But those were not our models. There have been many communities in Bohemia in the last century that lived simply and in harmony, without any private property. Most of them emigrated to the New World to avoid being destroyed during the wars of the Reformation." Casanova didn't know if he was more amazed by the mention of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel or by the principles of this Bohemian community. All that aside, he didn't understand why such a sensible arrangement was suffering from malaise. The place was filthy and everyone looked tired. He said so. "It wasn't always this way," said the young woman, who had renamed herself Héloïse. "During the first year, we transformed this place into a true paradise. We hid all outward signs of our existence, of course, so as not to attract the attention of the authorities, but we were productive. Our bakery was superb -- we brewed beer and cured meat. We had a flock of sheep and we wove woolen cloth. The men were carpenters and smiths. Everything was in perfect repair and there was such cleanliness!" Everyone shook their head in agreement and then fell silent, as if drowned inside a black cloud. "Your fires must have been noticed. You are no more than an hour's ride from Dux." "There were visitors," agreed one of the twins, whose name was Pangloss. "But our guests were sworn to secrecy," added Candide. "Two visitors stayed. They loved our way of life, and they kept our secret. Until six months ago." "What happened then?" Before anyone could answer, the doors swung open and the two men who had gone to Dux for provisions came in carrying a small barrel of beer, several bottles of wine, and four fat hams. The sight of the goods brought a spark of excitement to the group. A not too dirty tablecloth appeared from somewhere, and even some pewter mugs, plates, and knives. The good feeling was contagious, but a persistent melancholy still pervaded the room. After a few glasses of drink, the company became more loquacious, though no less resigned. They told their stories in a rush, interrupting each other, in an outpouring that made the Chevalier suspect that they hadn't spoken even to each other in a long time. There were many nationalities represented in the room, though the group used German as a common language. There were Bohemians, Moravians, Austrians, one Bavarian, Croatians, and two Magyars. Each man had been kidnapped from his village and forced into the Imperial Army. The women, with the exception of Héloïse, had been camp followers who had fled with the men when they deserted. Héloïse did not volunteer her story, but it was clear to Casanova that she had come from a good family and had been educated. She was proud, but her eyes bespoke a great sadness. "You did not have the opportunity to answer my question," Casanova reminded her. "What happened six months ago?" "Two of our group deserted us." "Was that fatal to the rest of you?" She was silent for a moment, then lowered her voice and explained the circumstance in a near-whisper addressed only to him. There was no danger of being overheard anyway. The beer and wine had quickly done their job. Everyone was shouting at everyone else as if they had met for the first time. "They fell in love. This was against the rules and everyone did their best to stop it. We forbade them to sleep together and we all took turns sleeping with each of them. Despite our efforts, they met secretly. One day they threatened to tell the children." Héloïse bit her lip suddenly, as if she had said too much. "Tell the children what?" "I cannot tell you." Casanova reached across the table and took her hand. A tear fell across her cheek. He reached for his handkerchief, but could not remove it because the goose girl had fallen asleep on his lap and her little bottom had pinned it in place. The Chevalier wiped away Héloïse's tear with his hand, then brought the hand to his lips and tasted it. That silly gesture unleashed a flood of tears. Héloïse bounded from the table and ran out of the room. Casanova lifted the child gently from his lap and deposited her in the lap of the hussar he had slapped with his sword, who had revived as soon as the drink had arrived. He followed Héloïse outside. He found her crouched in the shadow of a ruined stable. He pulled her gently by the hand and she followed him wearily. They walked until they reached the top of a small hill covered in late-autumn flowers. They lay in the meadow side by side and Casanova spoke gently to her, holding her face in his hands. At last, she stopped shivering and crying. "They threatened to tell the children..." he reminded her. "The children from the village," she said calmly now in her flat, authoritative voice, "they are the children of the peasants who lived here before. They are not, as you can see, our children." "The question came to mind," said Casanova softly. "What happened to their parents?" "We killed them," Héloïse said simply. That was the secret. This small paradise was founded on a crime. "This is what you meant then when you said that you did not believe in the original sin?" "Yes. We do not believe in the original sin. We have our own." Casanova fell silent. It was a terrible revelation, but it was incomplete. "How is it that the children did not know?" Héloïse put her head between her hands. "We wanted to protect their innocence," she said, looking at the ground. "The women promised to teach the children songs. We led them into the mountain there..." She motioned toward a blue ridge barely visible in the distance. "We walked there singing and in the evening we had a feast. We stayed in the mountains for three days. We had taken all the provisions of our group with us. We had roasts and cheeses and..." She couldn't go on. "You took all the children?" Casanova insisted. "All but the babes in arms." "The babes in arms..." "Died with their mothers." Héloïse couldn't go on. Casanova could not deny being moved, less perhaps by the fate of those hapless peasants than by the bitter lesson of the utopian experiment itself. He had always thought that the world, bad as it was, should be left alone to the extent that it was bearable. Stoic philosophy stressed the acceptance of fate as long as one did not find its decrees too repulsive. The radical "utopian" transformations that were becoming current in the world would come to no good. If they did not begin in a crime, like this one, they would surely end in one. Ideas were spreading at such an incredible rate that it wouldn't be long before all people could have access to the most dangerous, poisonous, and silly ideas from the diseased brain of any lunatic with a printing press. There was nothing to stop the spread of half-baked ideas -- people traveled and read more than ever before in history. Casanova felt guilty -- he knew that he himself was an agent of infection who had taken all sort of absurd and seditious notions from one corner of Europe to another. Most of these he had discarded along the way. He had, after all, plenty of common sense. Nonetheless, he had let plenty of dangerous stupidities into the fresh air. Of course, when everyone knows everything, he reflected, some stupid ideas will certainly lose their charm. They will be kept in check by better ideas. Perhaps. A long time in the future, perhaps. Héloïse shivered in his arms. He felt her hand between his legs, looking for comfort. He sprang to life like a young man, fondled by that dirty, eager hand. When he felt her weight on his body, he remained perfectly still while she guided him to her secret place. And as she fucked him, he watched with detachment her surrender. She collapsed on him, whimpering like a child who had been punished and then hugged. But when he thought of the ragged children in the village, he lost his firmness. He left her crying quietly. Meanwhile, the party had reached a stage of drunkenness beyond conversation. The communards were dancing together while the twins sang a bawdy song and beat on the table with empty wine bottles. When Héloïse returned, the intense young man who had claimed that they were "deists" took her by the waist and swept her into the circle of dancers. The doctor felt that he had done his job. He had cured them of their illness, albeit temporarily. He left the room without hurry, mounted his nag, and headed back to Dux at an easy pace. Darkness fell just as he entered the gates. Excerpted from Casanova in Bohemia by Andrei Codrescu. Copyright © 2002 by Andrei Codrescu. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.