He stood close to the wall of the house beneath Marcolina's window, which was still closed. His thoughts ran on: "Is it too late? I could come back to-morrow or the next day. Could begin the work of seduction--in honorable fashion, so to speak. To-night would be but a foretaste of the future. Marcolina must not learn that I have been here to-day--or not until much later."
Marcolina's window was still closed. There was no sign from within. It wanted a few minutes to midnight. Should he make his presence known in any way? By tapping gently at the window? Since nothing of this sort had been arranged, it might arouse Marcolina's suspicions. Better wait. It could not be much longer. The thought that she might instantly recognize him, might detect the fraud before he had achieved his purpose, crossed his mind--not for the first time, yet as a passing fancy, as a remote possibility which it was logical to take into account, but not anything to be seriously dreaded.
A ludicrous adventure now recurred to his mind. Twenty years ago he had spent a night with a middle-aged ugly vixen in Soleure, when he had imagined himself to be possessing a beautiful young woman whom he adored. He recalled how next day, in a shameless letter, she had derided him for the mistake that she had so greatly desired him to make and that she had compassed with such infamous cunning. He shuddered at the thought. It was the last thing he would have wished to think of just now, and he drove the detestable image from his mind.
It must be midnight! How long was he to stand shivering there? Waiting in vain, perhaps? Cheated, after all? Two thousand ducats for nothing. Lorenzi behind the curtain, mocking at the fool outside!
Involuntarily he gripped the hilt of the sword he carried beneath the cloak, pressed to his naked body. After all, with a fellow like Lorenzi one must be prepared for any tricks.
At that instant he heard a gentle rattling, and knew it was made by the grating of Marcolina's window hi opening. Then both wings of the window were drawn back, though the curtain still veiled the interior. Casanova remained motionless for a few seconds more, until the curtain was pulled aside by an unseen hand. Taking this as a sign, he swung himself over the sill into the room, and promptly closed window and grating behind him. The curtain had fallen across his shoulders, so that he had to push his way beneath it. Now he would have been in absolute darkness had there not been shining from the depths of the distance, incredibly far away, as if awakened by his own gaze, the faintest possible illumination to show him the way. No more than three paces forward, and eager arms enfolded him. Letting the sword slip from his hand, the cloak from his shoulders, he gave himself up to his bliss.