The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 07: Venice — Inside the Classic

Metastasio and the Art of Apparent Ease

Casanova's portrait of Metastasio is built on specific, observable details. He describes the poet showing him pages covered with erasures and crossed-out words, proof that the lines readers find most effortless were the hardest won. Metastasio recites his own work with a simplicity that Casanova at first doubts, then accepts as genuine: he points out both fine passages and weak ones. When asked which of his operas he prefers, Metastasio answers "Attilio Regolo" but immediately adds, "but that does not mean it is the best." Casanova also reports Metastasio's remark that poetry cannot be translated into prose—a statement that, in context, serves as a quiet defense of his own art against failed French translations. The episode establishes Casanova as a shrewd observer of character, one who values technical mastery and emotional authenticity over mere reputation.

The Language of Seduction and Anxiety

When Casanova recounts his nocturnal meetings with C—— C——, the prose shifts into a register of heightened tension. The lovers speak of pleasure but think of sorrow; their two hours together are described as "less lively" because of uncertainty. Casanova's phrasing—"a presentiment of the future," "a confused hope"—conveys the emotional cost of their secrecy. The dialogue is spare but pointed: C—— C—— says, "I know my father," and Casanova replies with a plan to carry her off if refused. These exchanges reveal a power imbalance beneath the romance. Casanova presents himself as the active agent—arranging letters, planning elopement—while C—— C—— is caught between desire and filial duty. The narrative does not resolve this tension; instead, it lingers on the anxiety of waiting, the fear of discovery, and the way pleasure is diminished by the threat of consequences.

Social Strategy and the Senator's Letter

Casanova's relationship with his protector, M. de Bragadin, is central to his social maneuvering. When the father of C—— C—— arrives, Casanova enlists the senator to write a letter requesting a meeting. The father is puzzled—he has never had intercourse with that nobleman—and the uncertainty sets the stage for confrontation. Casanova notes that he asked M. de Bragadin to delay sending the letter until the following day, a small but telling detail that suggests his awareness of timing and impression. The father's expected stubbornness is described through the mother's report: he has decided his daughter shall marry a merchant, not before eighteen. Casanova's strategy—using a respected intermediary to apply pressure—reflects the hierarchical, patronage-based world of 18th-century Venice. Yet the plan is fragile, dependent on the father's reaction, and Casanova admits he cannot advise C—— C—— because he does not know how her father will view the matter.

Recurring Motifs: Keys, Midnight, and the Body

Throughout the excerpts, Casanova returns to physical details that carry symbolic weight. The key to the house, which C—— C—— tells him he may safely use, becomes a token of access and risk. Midnight is the appointed hour for their meetings, a time of secrecy and vulnerability. Casanova describes gaining admittance "without any difficulty" and finding his darling "with open arms," but the ease is undercut by the mother's earlier warning and the daughter's presentiment. The body itself is a site of tension: C—— C—— shudders at the mention of her father, and Casanova notes that their enjoyment is "much less lively" due to anxiety. These recurring motifs—keys, darkness, physical reactions—anchor the emotional drama in concrete, sensory details. They also hint at the broader pattern of Casanova's memoirs, where desire and constraint are always in negotiation, and where the body registers what the voice cannot say.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to Casanova's method of constructing scenes through small, telling gestures: a poet's tears, a shudder, a delayed letter. He rarely moralizes, preferring to let actions and their consequences unfold. The incomplete nature of the excerpts means that the outcome of the C—— C—— affair remains unknown, but the tension itself is the point. Casanova's Venice is a city of locked doors, midnight assignations, and social performances where every word and silence carries weight.

I often think how Casanova, for all his Venice glitter, was chasing a kind of freedom in the crowd. Then I recall that quiet volume, Five Years in the Alleghanies — Text and Context, where a man finds the same restless hunger in the woods. Both are lonely souls, just with different walls.