Susan reports:
Paris, 1757
"The youngest daughter of my landlady Madame Quinson often came to my room unsummoned, and having perceived that she loved me, I should have thought it strange in me if I had taken it into my head to be cold to her -- the more so as she was not without qualities, she had a pretty voice and rattled away about everything with a vivacity which was charming. Her age was an ambrosial sixteen.
"For the first four or five months there was nothing between us but childish trifling; but happening one night to come in very late I found her asleep on my bed. Curious to see if she would wake, I undressed myself, got into the bed, and the rest goes without saying. At daybreak she went downstairs and got into her own bed. Her name was Mimi....
"[Later that morning] in comes Madame Quinson with Mimi to make my bed. I sit down to write, and I hear her say:
"'Oh, the sluts!'
"'To whom do you refer, Madame?"
"'The riddle is easily answered; these sheets are ruined.'
"'I am sorry; excuse me; say nothing and change them.'
"'Say nothing? Just let the hussies come back!'
"She goes downstairs for fresh sheets, Mimi remains. I reproach her for her imprudence, she laughs and says that Heaven has protected the innocence of our doings. From that day on Mimi stood on no ceremony; she came to sleep with me when she felt the need, and I, no less unceremoniously, sent her away when I did not want her, and our little household was as harmonious as possible...."
The History of My Life, by Giacomo Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, Vol. Three, Chapter Twelve
Above: Le Verrou (The Lock) by Jean-Honore Fragonard, c. 1776, Musee du Louvre
One of us -- 
8 comments:
Oh, I love it! "She loves me. How can I resist her?"
And she is at that ambrosial age!
What a pair of raging egomaniacs!
TOO much, though pretty funny anyway.
Thanks to you & Loretta for sharing!
Yeah, we seem to be binging on these guys (Byron, Rochester, Casanova) here lately. As Loretta and I have been saying to each other, it's not only that they're supremely self-centered -- of COURSE every woman is madly in love with me!!!--but they also don't feel the need at all to express any guilt about it, as most modern men would. Too much, indeed!
"She loves me, how could I disappoint her," too, it seems. :) Oh, that image. TNHGs are always good for a sigh first thing in the am... Grazie, Susan.
I've always loved that painting, Michelle. Soooo romantic, with those swirling red bed curtains -- though I've never been able to figure out who is locking whom into the bedchamber!
Ain't that just like the man! Did any of them ever run into a female who wouldn't give them the time of day? It still leaves me wondering why Casanova fascinates me.
Me thinks those breeches to be a little too tight for 1757, & a little too short to be his own!
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