“I congratulated myself heartily on having found the means to make myself feared by this fellow. I saw that his own interest compelled him to conceal from his masters all that had passed.... I had ordered Laurent to buy me the works of Maffei. ‘I will borrow the books for you from some one here,’ he said, ‘and you can lend him some of yours in return. By that plan you will save your money.’”
Cassanova consented, and gave a book in exchange for another that Laurent brought him.
“Delighted at the opportunity of entering into a correspondence with some one who might perhaps help me to escape from the place, I opened the book as soon as Laurent was gone, and read with intense joy a paraphrase of these words of Seneca. ‘Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius,’ done in six good lines, and written on the fly leaf. I made as many more lines at once, and had recourse to the following expedients for copying them out. I had let the nail of my little finger grow until it was very long, and I had only to cut it to a point to make a pen. I was just on the point of pricking my finger, to make ink out of my own blood, when it struck me I could write equally well with mulberry juice, of which I had a quantity by me. Besides the six lines, I wrote out a catalogue of all my books, and slid it down the back of the book which I had borrowed. It must be remembered that in Italy, the books are for the most part bound in parchment, and on opening them the back forms a kind of pocket. On the title page I inscribed the word ‘Latet.’ I was impatient to have an answer, so when Laurent came in the morning, I told him I had read my book through, and wanted another. In a few moments he returned with the second volume. I was no sooner alone than I opened it, and found a slip of paper, containing these words, written in Latin: ‘We are both in the same prison, and we both discover with the greatest pleasure that the ignorance of a miserly gaoler has procured us a privilege almost unexampled in places of this sort. I, who write to you, am Marin Balbi, a noble Venetian, and my companion is the Count André Asquin, of Udine. He charges me to tell you that all the books he possesses are catalogued on a slip in the back of this volume, and that they are wholly at your service, but we both warn you that you must use the greatest circumspection to prevent Laurent from learning what is going on.’ I am bound to say that I thought this exhortation to prudence, written openly on a leaf not belonging to the book, rather odd. It was too much to expect that Laurent would not at one time or other open the book he carried, and if he should find a sheet of manuscript, he could easily find some one to read it for him, and then all would be discovered. The note led me to conclude that my correspondent was but a kind of plain-speaking blunderer. I looked over the catalogue, and then in reply wrote my name, the manner of my arrest, and my ignorance of the cause, with the hopes that I cherished of soon regaining my liberty. Balbi, who was a monk, sent in return a letter of sixteen pages, in which he gave me the history of all his misfortunes, and told me that he had been four years in prison. His companion did not write.”