hot as I could; I then got close to the grating
with one of the books, and found with pleasure
that there was light enough to read.

At the end of nine or ten days my money was
all expended, and when Lorenzo asked me for
some, I said it was all gone. He then wanted
to know where he was to apply for more, and I
told him nowhere—a laconic answer which
greatly displeased him, as did my general silence
and indifference. On the next morning he told me
that the tribunal had assigned me an allowance
of fifty sous a day, which he was to lay out,
and that he would account for what he spent
every month, and apply my savings to any
purpose I desired. I requested that he would buy
me the Gazette of Leyden twice a week, but
that, he said, was not permitted.

Casanova here relates how, owing to the
extreme heat of his prison, and the inanition
caused by bad nourishment, his health began to
suffer. It was the hottest time of the year, and
the sun's rays darting perpendicularly on the
leads, made his dungeon like a stove. After a
fortnight of horrible agony, unable to touch a
morsel of food, he was seized with fever, and
the doctor of the prison was sent for. We pass
over the details of his malady, which was cruelly
painful; but, at the end of a few days he became
convalescent, and, through the medical man's
intercession, his books were changed, and he
obtained a copy of De Consolatione Philosophiæ,
of Boethius—a good classical education having
been one of Casanova's endowments. After this
illness some slight relaxation of his close
confinement was allowed, his jailer informing him
that he was permitted to walk in the ante-
chamber while his cell was being cleaned out.
On the same day his monthly reckoning was
made, and he found that there remained thirty
livres to the good; but as Casanova had no
means of spending the money, he desired
Lorenzo to lay it out in masses, well knowing that
the masses would be said at the wine-shop.

I consoled myself, says Casanova, by thinking
that the money would do good to somebody,
and ever afterwards I so disposed of
it. Thus I lived on from day to day,
flattering myself every night that the next
morning would bring me my liberty; but though
always deceived in my expectations, I took it
into my head that I should infallibly be
released on the first of October, the day on which
the reign of the new Inquisition began. The
last night of September I did not lie down to
rest, my impatience for the coming day was
so great, so certain did I feel that with the
dawn I should be released; but the day
appeared, and Lorenzo came as usual, without
bringing me any news. For the next five or
six days I yielded to a fit of rage and despair,
and persuaded myself that they had resolved
to keep me in prison for the rest of my days.
This frightful notion excited in me a kind of
savage glee, for I felt that my fate was now
in my own hands: I should either succeed in
escaping or be killed, and one way or other I
was free.

The project of escape, once entertained,
began seriously to engage iny attention, and at
length it became my only thought. I resolved a
hundred expedients in my brain, each bolder
than the former, always giving the preference
to the last; and whilst thus occupied on the
first of November—a date of some importance
—a singular circumstance happened which
revealed the sad state of mind into which I
had fallen. I was standing upright in the ante-
chamber, looking towards the window, when
suddenly I saw the great beam which traversed
the ceiling, not tremble merely, but actually turn
on its side, and then, by a contrary movement,
slowly replace itself in its original position.
Losing my own footing at the same time I at
once recognised the shock of an earthquake,
and Lorenzo and the sbirri rushed out of my
cell declaring that they had also felt it. My
feeling at the instant was one of such
indescribable joy, that I was unable to utter a word.
Four or five seconds afterwards the shock was
repeated, and then I could not refrain from
crying out, "Un' altra, un' altra, gran Dio!
ma più forte!" (Another, another, great God!
but stronger!) The archers, terrified at my
seeming impiety, fled in horror. After their
departure, I found on reflection that I had been
calculating on the possible event of the destruction
of the ducal palace, and the recovery of my
freedom: the immense edifice crumbling around
me, I might, I thought, be cast out safe and
sound on the great square of St. Mark, or at the
worst be crushed to death beneath the ponderous
ruins. In the situation in which I then
was, we look upon liberty as all, and life as
nothing. This shock of earthquake was that
which, at the axis of its violence, destroyed
Lisbon.*
* November 1. 1755.

The cell where I was confined was distinguished
by the name of "the beam" (trave), because of
the huge joist which obscures the light. The floor
of this cell is exactly over the hall of the Inquisition,
where, generally, they only assemble at
night, after the daily sittings of the Council of
Ten, of which body all three are members.
Knowing perfectly both the locality and the
uniform custom of the Inquisitors, I felt assured
that my only chance of evasion consisted in
being able to penetrate the floor of my prison;
but to do so it was necessary that I should
possess instruments—difficult things to obtain in
a place where all external intercourse was
forbidden, and where no visits or letters were
permitted. To corrupt an archer, money was
needful, and I had none.

At this juncture a young man, named
Maggiori, whose crime had been that of making
love to a noble Venetian's daughter while in
his service, was brought in "under the leads,"
to be Casanova's fellow-prisoner.

This incident, so far as it affected Casanova,
was chiefly remarkable for an opportunity which
it afforded him of preparing for his great design.
Maggiori's prison allowance being only fifteen