The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova De Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 04: Return to Venice
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova De Seingalt, 1725-1798. Volume 04: Return to Venice
Translated by Arthur Machen
Giacomo Casanova's fourth volume opens with the notorious adventurer slipping back into Venice, the city that once condemned him to the Leads prison, now walking its streets as a free man. But freedom in Casanova's world never comes without consequence. This volume chronicles his precarious reintegration into Venetian society, where every charmed evening carries the weight of discovery and every passionate entanglement threatens to undo years of survival. The memoir pulses with his characteristic wit and philosophical restlessness, particularly in the opening encounters with Madame F----, where witty banter about love and desire masks deeper anxieties about satisfaction, guilt, and the unsustainable nature of his lifestyle. Casanova was never simply a lover of women; he was a lover of risk, of intellectual combat, of the moment before downfall. This volume captures him at a turning point: older, wiser in some ways, but still unable to resist the pleasures and perils that defined him. The writing feels startlingly modern, self-aware and sardonic even as he chronicles his own failures. For readers who thought autobiography began with Rousseau, Casanova proves the form was already alive, dangerous, and deliciously unbound.
