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The Man Who Really Loved Women
Casanova was perhaps the most successful seducer in history; few women could resist him. His method was simple: on meeting a woman, he would study her, go along with her moods, find out what was missing in her life, and provide it. He made himself the Ideal Lover. The bored burgomaster's wife needed adventure and romance; she wanted someone who would sacrifice time and comfort to have her. For Miss Pauline what was missing was friendship, lofty ideals, serious conversation; she wanted a man of breeding and generosity who would treat her like a lady. For Ignazia, what was missing was suffering and torment. Her life was too easy; to feel truly alive, and to have something real to confess, she needed to sin. In each case Casanova adapted himself to the woman's ideals, brought her fantasy to life. Once she had fallen under his spell, a little ruse or calculation would seal the romance (a day among rats, a contrived fall from a horse, an encounter with another woman to make Ignazia jealous).
"The Ideal Lover is rare in the modern world, for the role takes effort. You will have to focus intensely on the other person, fathom what she is missing, what he is disappointed by. People will often reveal this in subtle ways: through a gesture, tone of voice, a look in the eye. By seeming to be what they lack, you will fit their ideal.
To create this effect requires patience and attention to detail. Most people are so wrapped up in their own desires, so impatient, they are incapable of the Ideal Lover role. Let that be a source of infinite opportunity. Be an oasis in the desert of the self-absorbed; few can resist the temptation of following a person who seems so attuned to their desires, to bringing to life their fantasies. And as with Casanova, your reputation as one who gives such pleasure will precede you and make your seductions that much easier.
The cultivation of the pleasures of the senses was ever my principal aim in life. Knowing that I was personally calculated to please the fair sex, I always strove to make myself agreeable to it."
Casanova
In a signal encounter with the famous French philosopher and writer Voltaire, Casanova explains that "I amuse myself by studying people as I travel . . . it is fun to study the world while passing through it." Indeed, Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt, traveller, adventurer, musician, lover, escaped convict, and avid reader, brings to his monumental The Story of My Life (Histoire de ma vie) an explicit relish-and aptitude-for intimate observations on human nature, customs, gastronomy, science, literature, economics, and religion.
These selections serve not only as a catalogue of erotic exploits, for which Casanova's memoir has gained its notoriety, but also as a gazetteer of important Enlightenment-era locales. Casanova, under various circumstances, travels from decadent Venice (where he was born in 1725) to trendy Paris, artistically rich and morally puritanical Vienna, and wealthy, plague-ridden Constantinople. Indeed, Casanova's identity as a Venetian provides an interesting counterpoint to his encounters and digressions with various personalities. His travels underscore the richness and diversity of Italian and Continental identity in the eighteenth century.
Throughout his adventures, Casanova is never less than an observant, personable guide. The deftly written sketches of those he encounters-including Catherine the Great of Russia, Pope Clement XIII, Voltaire, and the French dramatist Crebillon-show his formidable intelligence and curiosity. His descriptions of a host of others-including lower dignitaries, actresses and actors, inn-keepers, spies, and commoners-reveal his wit and his desire to unveil the broad scope of the eighteenth-century Continental world.
Indeed, what inevitably charms the reader in Casanova's wide-ranging memoirs is the author's natural intelligence and his disinclination to suffer fools gladly. Nonetheless, this intelligence does not prevent Casanova from falling into numerous scrapes, resulting more than once in his being imprisoned or exiled. In such instances, Casanova does not spare himself, acerbically commenting on his own poor judgment, and frequently linking his troubles to his susceptibility to "the allurements of all forms of sensual delight." The cultivation of such pleasures, Casanova tells us, "was my principle concern throughout my life." Still, he notes that "I do not know whether it was by my intellect that I have come so far in life, I do know that it is to it alone that I owe all the happiness I enjoy when I am face to face with myself."
Much of the pleasure Casanova experiences in the later, more subdued portion of his life is derived from remembering his colorful exploits, and threading them together in The Story of My Life. "In recalling the pleasures I enjoyed, I relived them," he writes in his 1797 Preface. Certainly, Casanova shows a striking ability to reconstruct events and impressions from his "follies of youth." While the authenticity of some events included in his memoirs is questionable, one suspects that Casanova's accounts are largely true, and that any deviations that occur are for the sake of literary considerations. Casanova may well have shunned writing a memoir that might "weary the mind . . . without interesting the heart."
There is something for every reader in The Story of My Life. As Edmund Wilson notes in an essay on Casanova, "Has any novelist or poet ever rendered better than Casanova the passing glory of the personal life-the gaiety, the spontaneity, the generosity of youth; the ups and downs of middle age when our character begins to get us and we are forced to come to terms with it; the dreadful blanks of later years, when what is gone is gone." Wilson notes, too, the "brilliant variety of characters," and calls Casanova's memoirs "one of the most remarkable presentations in literature of one man's individual life."
The Story of My Life succeeds, then, as an exploration of eighteenth-century culture, and as a candid account of personal triumph and folly. Formally, it offers a compelling example of the personal memoir where the intimate, public, and historical are woven together into a vibrant tapestry. The rich ensemble of characters, major and minor, who populate Casanova's memoirs continue, even in the twenty-first century, to fascinate with their paradoxicality. Casanova consorts with nuns who have other lovers, women who masquerade as men, and great intellects who show narrow-minded provincialism. Casanova's own awareness of the diversity he shows us, combined with his skill as a storyteller, make The Story of My Life an unforgettable encounter with the possibilities the human condition presents.
It seems that Giovanni Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) wasn't really a Casanova after all ... or, rather, not according to the contemporary definition of the word. Belgian psychoanalyst Lydia Flem presents a bold new interpretation of Casanova's life as seen through his 12-volume History of My Life (incredibly, it's incomplete), excerpts from which are sprinkled liberally throughout the text of her book Casanova. Yes, it's true, the man dedicated his life to the pursuit of happiness, but he also once declared that "to be happy, it seems to me one needs only a library." And far from being a serial seducer who conquered women only to abandon them, he treated women as intellectual equals, was almost never the one to initiate a breakup, and remained friends with many of his former lovers. Flem's insights into Casanova's life--and his memories of that life--are delivered in lively prose that moves quickly without skimping on intelligence.
Imagining Don Giovanni
Bursting with the light and life of eighteenth-century Prague, Anthony Rudel's captivating debut novel -- based on a historical event -- resurrects three of the most fascinating personalities of all time and a world of romance and imagination. In October 1787, sixty-two-year-old Giacomo Casanova, the notorious lover, and thirty-one-year-old Wolfgang Mozart, the immortal composer, are believed to have met in a Prague coffeehouse to discuss a revolutionary new opera based on the life of the infamous rake Don Juan. From this mere footnote in history, Anthony Rudel has spun a wondrous tale in which the two, along with the poet Lorenzo Da Ponte, work against the clock to complete the operatic masterpiece. A struggle of wills and desires ensues, winding its way through glittering society balls, rustic old-town inns, and majestic opera houses. It is a time of artistic fervor, philosophical awakening, deep friendship, and true love. Indeed, Mozart's fairy-tale marriage to the beautiful Constanze hangs in the balance. In the eleventh hour, the correspondence of an imprisoned French nobleman of questionable sanity illuminates the opera's destiny: the Marquis de Sade writes from his asylum cell to implore the trio to unite in support of Don Giovanni's theme of personal freedom. The flurry of incendiary artistry and explosive clashes builds to the opera's opening night, a crescendo of inspiration, passionate devotion to liberty, and renewed bonds of love. Combining the ingenious storytelling of the best historical novelists with the breathtaking, Old World European atmosphere of the Oscar-winning Amadeus and the Oscar-nominated Quills, Anthony Rudel has mined a glorious past for this fast-paced and sublimely entertaining first novel.
RETURN TO VENICE
Chapter XVI
The wound was rapidly healing up, and I saw near at hand the moment
when Madame F would leave her bed, and resume her usual
avocations.
The governor of the galeasses having issued orders for a general
review at Gouyn, M. F, left for that place in his galley, telling
me to join him there early on the following day with the felucca. I
took supper alone with Madame F, and I told her how unhappy it
made me to remain one day away from her.
"Let us make up to-night for to-morrow's disappointment," she said,
"and let us spend it together in conversation. Here are the keys;
when you know that my maid has left me, come to me through my
husband's room."
I did not fail to follow her instructions to the letter, and we found
ourselves alone with five hours before us. It was the month of June,
and the heat was intense. She had gone to bed; I folded her in my
arms, she pressed me to her bosom, but, condemning herself to the
most cruel torture, she thought I had no right to complain, if I was
subjected to the same privation which she imposed upon herself. My
remonstrances, my prayers, my entreaties were of no avail.
"Love," she said, "must be kept in check with a tight hand, and we
can laugh at him, since, in spite of the tyranny which we force him
to obey, we succeed all the same in gratifying our desires."
After the first ecstacy, our eyes and lips unclosed together, and a
little apart from each other we take delight in seeing the mutual
satisfaction beaming on our features.
Our desires revive; she casts a look upon my state of innocence
entirely exposed to her sight. She seems vexed at my want of
excitement, and, throwing off everything which makes the heat
unpleasant and interferes with our pleasure, she bounds upon me. It
is more than amorous fury, it is desperate lust. I share her frenzy,
I hug her with a sort of delirium, I enjoy a felicity which is on the
point of carrying me to the regions of bliss.... but, at the very
moment of completing the offering, she fails me, moves off, slips
away, and comes back to work off my excitement with a hand which
strikes me as cold as ice.
"Ah, thou cruel, beloved woman! Thou art burning with the fire of
love, and thou deprivest thyself of the only remedy which could bring
calm to thy senses! Thy lovely hand is more humane than thou art,
but thou has not enjoyed the felicity that thy hand has given me. My
hand must owe nothing to thine. Come, darling light of my heart,
come! Love doubles my existence in the hope that I will die again,
but only in that charming retreat from which you have ejected me in
the very moment of my greatest enjoyment."
While I was speaking thus, her very soul was breathing forth the most
tender sighs of happiness, and as she pressed me tightly in her arms
I felt that she was weltering in an ocean of bliss.
Silence lasted rather a long time, but that unnatural felicity was
imperfect, and increased my excitement.
"How canst thou complain," she said tenderly, "when it is to that
very imperfection of our enjoyment that we are indebted for its
continuance? I loved thee a few minutes since, now I love thee a
thousand times more, and perhaps I should love thee less if thou
hadst carried my enjoyment to its highest limit."
"Oh! how much art thou mistaken, lovely one! How great is thy error!
Thou art feeding upon sophisms, and thou leavest reality aside; I
mean nature which alone can give real felicity. Desires constantly
renewed and never fully satisfied are more terrible than the torments
of hell."
"But are not these desires happiness when they are always accompanied
by hope?"
"No, if that hope is always disappointed. It becomes hell itself,
because there is no hope, and hope must die when it is killed by
constant deception."
"Dearest, if hope does not exist in hell, desires cannot be found
there either; for to imagine desires without hopes would be more than
madness."
"Well, answer me. If you desire to be mine entirely, and if you feel
the hope of it, which, according to your way of reasoning, is a
natural consequence, why do you always raise an impediment to your
own hope? Cease, dearest, cease to deceive yourself by absurd
sophisms. Let us be as happy as it is in nature to be, and be quite
certain that the reality of happiness will increase our love, and
that love will find a new life in our very enjoyment."
"What I see proves the contrary; you are alive with excitement now,
but if your desires had been entirely satisfied, you would be dead,
benumbed, motionless. I know it by experience: if you had breathed
the full ecstacy of enjoyment, as you desired, you would have found a
weak ardour only at long intervals."
"Ah! charming creature, your experience is but very small; do not
trust to it. I see that you have never known love. That which you
call love's grave is the sanctuary in which it receives life, the
abode which makes it immortal. Give way to my prayers, my lovely
friend, and then you shall know the difference between Love and
Hymen. You shall see that, if Hymen likes to die in order to get rid
of life, Love on the contrary expires only to spring up again into
existence, and hastens to revive, so as to savour new enjoyment. Let
me undeceive you, and believe me when I say that the full
gratification of desires can only increase a hundredfold the mutual
ardour of two beings who adore each other."
"Well, I must believe you; but let us wait. In the meantime let us
enjoy all the trifles, all the sweet preliminaries of love. Devour
thy mistress, dearest, but abandon to me all thy being. If this
night is too short we must console ourselves to-morrow by making
arrangements for another one."
"And if our intercourse should be discovered?"
"Do we make a mystery of it? Everybody can see that we love each
other, and those who think that we do not enjoy the happiness of
lovers are precisely the only persons we have to fear. We must only
be careful to guard against being surprised in the very act of
proving our love. Heaven and nature must protect our affection, for
there is no crime when two hearts are blended in true love. Since I
have been conscious of my own existence, Love has always seemed to me
the god of my being, for every time I saw a man I was delighted; I
thought that I was looking upon one-half of myself, because I felt I
was made for him and he for me. I longed to be married. It was that
uncertain longing of the heart which occupies exclusively a young
girl of fifteen. I had no conception of love, but I fancied that it
naturally accompanied marriage. You can therefore imagine my
surprise when my husband, in the very act of making a woman of me,
gave me a great deal of pain without giving me the slightest idea of
pleasure! My imagination in the convent was much better than the
reality I had been condemned to by my husband! The result has
naturally been that we have become very good friends, but a very
indifferent husband and wife, without any desires for each other. He
has every reason to be pleased with me, for I always shew myself
docile to his wishes, but enjoyment not being in those cases seasoned
by love, he must find it without flavour, and he seldom comes to me
for it.
"When I found out that you were in love with me, I felt delighted,
and gave you every opportunity of becoming every day more deeply
enamoured of me, thinking myself certain of never loving you myself.
As soon as I felt that love had likewise attacked my heart, I ill-
treated you to punish you for having made my heart sensible. Your
patience and constancy have astonished me, and have caused me to be
guilty, for after the first kiss I gave you I had no longer any
control over myself. I was indeed astounded when I saw the havoc
made by one single kiss, and I felt that my happiness was wrapped up
in yours. That discovery flattered and delighted me, and I have
found out, particularly to-night, that I cannot be happy unless you
are so yourself."
"That is, my beloved, the most refined of all sentiments experienced
by love, but it is impossible for you to render me completely happy
without following in everything the laws and the wishes of nature."
The night was spent in tender discussions and in exquisite
voluptuousness, and it was not without some grief that at day-break I
tore myself from her arms to go to Gouyn. She wept for joy when she
saw that I left her without having lost a particle of my vigour, for
she did not imagine such a thing possible.
After that night, so rich in delights, ten or twelve days passed
without giving us any opportunity of quenching even a small particle
of the amorous thirst which devoured us, and it was then that a
fearful misfortune befell me.
One evening after supper, M. D having retired, M. F
used no ceremony, and, although I was present, told his wife that he
intended to pay her a visit after writing two letters which he had to
dispatch early the next morning. The moment he had left the room we
looked at each other, and with one accord fell into each other's
arms. A torrent of delights rushed through our souls without
restraint, without reserve, but when the first ardour had been
appeased, without giving me time to think or to enjoy the most
complete, the most delicious victory, she drew back, repulsed me, and
threw herself, panting, distracted, upon a chair near her bed.
Rooted to the spot, astonished, almost mad, I tremblingly looked at
her, trying to understand what had caused such an extraordinary
action. She turned round towards me and said, her eyes flashing with
the fire of love,
"My darling, we were on the brink of the precipice."
"The precipice! Ah! cruel woman, you have killed me, I feel myself
dying, and perhaps you will never see me again."
I left her in a state of frenzy, and rushed out, towards the
esplanade, to cool myself, for I was choking. Any man who has not
experienced the cruelty of an action like that of Madame F, and
especially in the situation I found myself in at that moment,
mentally and bodily, can hardly realize what I suffered, and,
although I have felt that suffering, I could not give an idea of it.
I was in that fearful state, when I heard my name called from a
window, and unfortunately I condescended to answer. I went near the
window, and I saw, thanks to the moonlight, the famous Melulla
standing on her balcony.
"What are you doing there at this time of night?" I enquired.
"I am enjoying the cool evening breeze. Come up for a little while."
This Melulla, of fatal memory, was a courtezan from Zamte, of rare
beauty, who for the last four months had been the delight and the
rage of all the young men in Corfu. Those who had known her agreed
in extolling her charms: she was the talk of all the city. I had
seen her often, but, although she was very beautiful, I was very far
from thinking her as lovely as Madame F, putting my affection for
the latter on one side. I recollect seeing in Dresden, in the year
1790, a very handsome woman who was the image of Melulla.
I went upstairs mechanically, and she took me to a voluptuous
boudoir; she complained of my being the only one who had never paid
her a visit, when I was the man she would have preferred to all
others, and I had the infamy to give way.... I became the most
criminal of men.
It was neither desire, nor imagination, nor the merit of the woman
which caused me to yield, for Melulla was in no way worthy of me; no,
it was weakness, indolence, and the state of bodily and mental
irritation in which I then found myself: it was a sort of spite,
because the angel whom I adored had displeased me by a caprice,
which, had I not been unworthy of her, would only have caused me to
be still more attached to her.
Melulla, highly pleased with her success, refused the gold I wanted
to give her, and allowed me to go after I had spent two hours with
her.
When I recovered my composure, I had but one feeling-hatred for
myself and for the contemptible creature who had allured me to be
guilty of so vile an insult to the loveliest of her sex. I went home
the prey to fearful remorse, and went to bed, but sleep never closed
my eyes throughout that cruel night.
In the morning, worn out with fatigue and sorrow, I got up, and as
soon as I was dressed I went to M. F, who had sent for me to give
me some orders. After I had returned, and had given him an account
of my mission, I called upon Madame F, and finding her at her
toilet I wished her good morning, observing that her lovely face was
breathing the cheerfulness and the calm of happiness; but, suddenly,
her eyes meeting mine, I saw her countenance change, and an
expression of sadness replace her looks of satisfaction. She cast
her eyes down as if she was deep in thought, raised them again as if
to read my very soul, and breaking our painful silence, as soon as
she had dismissed her maid, she said to me, with an accent full of
tenderness and of solemnity,
"Dear one, let there be no concealment either on my part or on yours.
I felt deeply grieved when I saw you leave me last night, and a
little consideration made me understand all the evil which might
accrue to you in consequence of what I had done. With a nature like
yours, such scenes might cause very dangerous disorders, and I have
resolved not to do again anything by halves. I thought that you went
out to breathe the fresh air, and I hoped it would do you good. I
placed myself at my window, where I remained more than an hour
without seeing alight in your room. Sorry for what I had done,
loving you more than ever, I was compelled, when my husband came to
my room, to go to bed with the sad conviction that you had not come
home. This morning, M. F. sent an officer to tell you that he wanted
to see you, and I heard the messenger inform him that you were not
yet up, and that you had come home very late. I felt my heart swell
with sorrow. I am not jealous, dearest, for I know that you cannot
love anyone but me; I only felt afraid of some misfortune. At last,
this morning, when I heard you coming, I was happy, because I was
ready to skew my repentance, but I looked at you, and you seemed a
different man. Now, I am still looking at you, and, in spite of
myself, my soul reads upon your countenance that you are guilty, that
you have outraged my love. Tell me at once, dearest, if I am
mistaken; if you have deceived me, say so openly. Do not be
unfaithful to love and to truth. Knowing that I was the cause of it,
I should never forgive my self, but there is an excuse for you in my
heart, in my whole being."
More than once, in the course of my life, I have found myself under
the painful necessity of telling falsehoods to the woman I loved; but
in this case, after so true, so touching an appeal, how could I be
otherwise than sincere? I felt myself sufficiently debased by my
crime, and I could not degrade myself still more by falsehood. I was
so far from being disposed to such a line of conduct that I could not
speak, and I burst out crying.
"What, my darling! you are weeping! Your tears make me miserable.
You ought not to have shed any with me but tears of happiness and
love. Quick, my beloved, tell me whether you have made me wretched.
Tell me what fearful revenge you have taken on me, who would rather
die than offend you. If I have caused you any sorrow, it has been in
the innocence of a loving and devoted heart."
"My own darling angel, I never thought of revenge, for my heart,
which can never cease to adore you, could never conceive such a
dreadful idea. It is against my own heart that my cowardly weakness
has allured me to the commission of a crime which, for the remainder
of my life, makes me unworthy of you."
"Have you, then, given yourself to some wretched woman?"
"Yes, I have spent two hours in the vilest debauchery, and my soul
was present only to be the witness of my sadness, of my remorse, of
my unworthiness."
"Sadness and remorse! Oh, my poor friend! I believe it. But it is
my fault; I alone ought to suffer; it is I who must beg you to
forgive me."
Her tears made mine flow again.
"Divine soul," I said, "the reproaches you are addressing to yourself
increase twofold the gravity of my crime. You would never have been
guilty of any wrong against me if I had been really worthy of your
love."
I felt deeply the truth of my words.
We spent the remainder of the day apparently quiet and composed,
concealing our sadness in the depths of our hearts. She was curious
to know all the circumstances of my miserable adventure, and,
accepting it as an expiation, I related them to her. Full of
kindness, she assured me that we were bound to ascribe that accident
to fate, and that the same thing might have happened to the best of
men. She added that I was more to be pitied than condemned, and that
she did not love me less. We both were certain that we would seize
the first favourable opportunity, she of obtaining her pardon, I of
atoning for my crime, by giving each other new and complete proofs of
our mutual ardour. But Heaven in its justice had ordered
differently, and I was cruelly punished for my disgusting debauchery.
On the third day, as I got up in the morning, an awful pricking
announced the horrid state into which the wretched Melulla had thrown
me. I was thunderstruck! And when I came to think of the misery
which I might have caused if, during the last three days, I had
obtained some new favour from my lovely mistress, I was on the point
of going mad. What would have been her feelings if I had made her
unhappy for the remainder of her life! Would anyone, then, knowing
the whole case, have condemned me if I had destroyed my own life in
order to deliver myself from everlasting remorse? No, for the man
who kills himself from sheer despair, thus performing upon himself
the execution of the sentence he would have deserved at the hands of
justice cannot be blamed either by a virtuous philosopher or by a
tolerant Christian. But of one thing I am quite certain: if such a
misfortune had happened, I should have committed suicide.
Overwhelmed with grief by the discovery I had just made, but thinking
that I should get rid of the inconvenience as I had done three times
before, I prepared myself for a strict diet, which would restore my
health in six weeks without anyone having any suspicion of my
illness, but I soon found out that I had not seen the end of my
troubles; Melulla had communicated to my system all the poisons which
corrupt the source of life. I was acquainted with an elderly doctor
of great experience in those matters; I consulted him, and he
promised to set me to rights in two months; he proved as good as his
word. At the beginning of September I found myself in good health,
and it was about that time that I returned to Venice.
 VIEW DON GIOVANNI HIGHLIGHTS
Ruggero Raimondi, Kiri Te Kanawa, Jose van Dam, Edda Moser,... in phantastic opera film by Joseph Losey great voices, fascinating costumes...
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