The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 04: Return to Venice — Reading Notes

(2 User reviews) 569

In Category - Memoirs

Authors: Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798, Machen, Arthur, 1863-1947 [Translator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2004 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798; Europe -- History -- 18th century -- Biography Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 39,612

Reading time 173 min

Text sections 4

The source record for The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 04: Return to Venice — Reading Notes measures this digital text at 39,612 words, 2 hr 53 min estimated reading time, and 4 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 23.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Casanova, Giacomo, 1725-1798,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #2954

Casanova's return to Venice involves a tense love affair with Madame F——, a daring oracle trick, and a young countess's escape from a forced marriage, all narrated with vivid physicality and strategic calculation.

Editorial Edition Score 4.5/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg2954

Read the Text

I took a cordial leave of the Abbe Grimani, and I proceeded to Fort Saint Andre. I found my brother hard at work, neither pleased nor displeased with his position, and enjoying good health. After embracing him affectionately, I enquired what crime he had committed to be thus a prisoner.

"Ask the major," he said, "for I have not the faintest idea."

The major came in just then, so I gave him the military salute, and asked by what authority he kept my brother under arrest.

"I am not accountable to you for my actions."

"That remains to be seen."

I then told my brother to take his hat, and to come and dine with me. The major laughed, and said that he had no objection provided the sentinel allowed him to pass.

I saw that I should only waste my time in discussion, and I left the fort fully bent on obtaining justice.

The next day I went to the war office, where I had the pleasure of meeting my dear Major Pelodoro, who was then commander of the Fortress of Chiozza. I informed him of the complaint I wanted to prefer before the secretary of war respecting my brother's arrest, and of the resolution I had taken to leave the army. He promised me that, as soon as the consent of the secretary for war could be obtained, he would find a purchaser for my commission at the same price I had paid for it.

I had not long to wait. The war secretary came to the office, and everything was settled in half an hour. He promised his consent to the sale of my commission as soon as he ascertained the abilities of the purchaser, and Major Spiridion happening to make his appearance in the office while I was still there, the secretary ordered him rather angrily, to set my brother at liberty immediately, and cautioned him not to be guilty again of such reprehensible and arbitrary acts.

I went at once for my brother, and we lived together in furnished lodgings.

A few days afterwards, having received my discharge and one hundred sequins, I threw off my uniform, and found myself once more my own master.

I had to earn my living in one way or another, and I decided for the profession of gamester. But Dame Fortune was not of the same opinion, for she refused to smile upon me from the very first step I took in the career, and in less than a week I did not possess a groat. What was to become of me? One must live, and I turned fiddler. Doctor Gozzi had taught me well enough to enable me to scrape on the violin in the orchestra of a theatre, and having mentioned my wishes to M. Grimani he procured me an engagement at his own theatre of Saint Samuel, where I earned a crown a day, and supported myself while I awaited better things.

Fully aware of my real position, I never shewed myself in the fashionable circles which I used to frequent before my fortune had sunk so low. I knew that I was considered as a worthless fellow, but I did not care. People despised me, as a matter of course; but I found comfort in the consciousness that I was worthy of contempt. I felt humiliated by the position to which I was reduced after having played so brilliant a part in society; but as I kept the secret to myself I was not degraded, even if I felt some shame. I had not exchanged my last word with Dame Fortune, and was still in hope of reckoning with her some day, because I was young, and youth is dear to Fortune.

I Turn Out A Worthless Fellow--My Good Fortune--I Become A Rich Nobleman

With an education which ought to have ensured me an honourable standing in the world, with some intelligence, wit, good literary and scientific knowledge, and endowed with those accidental physical qualities which are such a good passport into society, I found myself, at the age of twenty, the mean follower of a sublime art, in which, if great talent is rightly admired, mediocrity is as rightly despised. I was compelled by poverty to become a member of a musical band, in which I could expect neither esteem nor consideration, and I was well aware that I should be the laughing-stock of the persons who had known me as a doctor in divinity, as an ecclesiastic, and as an officer in the army, and had welcomed me in the highest society.

Continue Reading →

The fourth volume of Casanova's memoirs opens with a wound—literal and metaphorical—as the narrator recovers from an injury while his lover, Madame F——, imposes a regime of sexual denial that she herself cannot sustain. The June heat, the locked doors, and the cold hand that substitutes for consummation create a scene of intense, frustrated desire. Casanova's voice oscillates between frank arousal and ironic detachment, a pattern that persists throughout the excerpts.

Soon after, the setting shifts to Venice, where the memoirist adopts a new role: that of a spiritual adviser who fabricates oracular pronouncements to steer the affairs of his patrons. The contrast between the bedroom's raw physicality and the drawing room's calculated deceptions is the volume's central tension.

Frustrated Desire and the Cold Hand

The opening episode with Madame F—— is remarkable for its explicit choreography of denial. Casanova describes a lover who “condemns herself to the most cruel torture” and then, in a moment of “desperate lust,” bounds upon him only to withdraw at the climax, substituting a hand “cold as ice.” The language is clinical yet feverish: “she fails me, moves off, slips away.” This pattern of arousal interrupted recurs as a structural motif, not merely a bedroom anecdote.

What makes the passage distinctive is Casanova’s refusal to romanticize. He records his own “want of excitement” and her “vexed” reaction with equal candor. The episode ends not with satisfaction but with a promise deferred: “My hand must owe nothing to thine.” The reader is left with a portrait of love as a contest of wills, where pleasure is weaponized and withheld.

The Oracle as a Narrative Device

In Venice, Casanova reinvents himself as a conduit for divine messages. When M. Barbaro asks him to consult his “heavenly spirit,” Casanova coolly produces an answer that condemns the ravisher Steffani to death. The memoirist admits his own surprise at his boldness, but the episode reveals a key technique: he uses the oracle to create outcomes he desires, while maintaining an air of supernatural authority.

The excerpts show him “gaining time” to assess the father’s disposition before fabricating a prophecy. This is not mysticism but stagecraft. Casanova’s power depends on the credulity of his patrons—M. de Bragadin, who believes the oracle infallible—and on his own ability to read social situations. The oracle becomes a plot engine, allowing him to intervene in the countess’s fate without revealing his own involvement.

The Countess and the Web of Secrecy

A young countess, hidden in Casanova’s care, refuses to marry the man who “dishonoured” her. She gives him a written promise of marriage as evidence, and he considers using it to enlist M. Barbaro’s mediation. But Casanova hesitates: revealing that she is under his protection would “injure my protegee.” The line between protector and manipulator blurs.

The countess’s situation mirrors Madame F——’s: both women are trapped by men’s promises and pursued by family. Casanova positions himself as a go-between, but his motives are mixed. He admits that one reason for his hesitation is that he “saw myself on the point of losing her.” The memoir does not resolve her story in the excerpts, leaving the reader to wonder whether his intervention will free her or entangle her further.

Readers should attend to the way Casanova juxtaposes physical and social maneuvering. The same hand that cools desire in Corfu later writes oracular answers in Venice. The volume’s title promises a return, but the excerpts suggest that homecoming is less a destination than a new stage for old games of power, secrecy, and calculated intimacy.

Reading about Casanova’s return to Venice, that mix of cleverness and longing, I found myself thinking of his later years—the quieter ache beneath the escapades. There’s a thread from the countess’s escape to the convent walls in The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 08: Convent Affairs — Background and Themes, each a war between freedom and constraint. Strange how his schemes always circled that same old wound.