The Secrets of Casanova by Greg Michaels Page A

mended,” teased Dominique. While Jacques stroked beneath his pectoral with a fingertip of saliva, she continued, “Your stamina is astonishing. You say you write tonight?” A brief smile played upon her lips. “What else do you accomplish late in the night?”
    There was no response.
    She shrugged her shoulders. “If you write late into the night, it would appear you possess a vigorous intellect,” she tried again.
    “I continue working, madame, on the squaring of the cube. Many philosophers, as well as Messieurs Descartes and Newton, have labored ineffectually on this extraordinarily vexing problem, but I intend to find the mathematical solution.”
    “You will, without a doubt, be successful with this extraordinarily vexing problem,” Dominique replied with a smile. “You say you live to satisfy your senses, yet your intellectual curiosity seems paramount. Beyond your intellectual endeavors, have you other pursuits?”
    Jacques looked up, then stepped close. “None as important as the one who stands before me.”
    Dominique drew a sudden breath.
    “You may have to teach me,” he said.
    Spellbound, Dominique whispered, “Teach you?”
    “Yes, teach me.” His words lingered while he brushed away a lock of hair on Dominique’s cheek and leaned forward.
    She blushed deeply.
    Jacques smiled at his thoughts; unhurriedly, he withdrew from her. “Yes, you may have to teach me the lunge, the fencing move which gave your husband victory.”
    A gush of silver moonlight overwhelmed the loft for several moments, enough time for Jacques to catch Dominique’s emerald eyes swell large and bright.
    “Besides the squaring of the cube,” he said, turning away, “I’m also expanding my old doctoral thesis: ‘Any being which can be conceived only abstractly can exist only abstractly.’ For devout religionists, it’s a dizzying concern.”
    “Your sarcasm puzzles me,” Dominique replied. “You puzzle me. Shall I take it that you are a good member of the Church?”
    Jacques picked up his linen shirt and slung it over his shoulder. He began to leave but abruptly spun back.
    “Madame, I was not born to be redeemed.”
    Then and there, Dominique decided she’d much to teach this man.
     

- 8 -
    WITHIN A DAY, DOMINIQUE FOUND herself sitting on a grassy knoll face-to-face with her houseguest, listening to a tale that some in Europe already knew: Jacques’ escape from I Piombi.
    Jacques tented his fingers around his knee and leaned back, resting against a tree. Shining just over his shoulder, the sun was preparing its departure.
    “I don’t know why I’m telling this,” he said.
    “Because,” she smiled, “I asked you. I’m interested.”
    Jacques laughed. “I should’ve been interested in the warning my patron, Senator Bragadin, gave when he advised me to leave Venice.” He looked into the distance. “Three years before that, you see, I’d saved the senator’s life, and I soon convinced him that I possessed profound occult powers. Now, know this: Senator Bragadin is no fool. On the other hand, there isn’t a man in Europe, including me, whose mind is entirely free from some superstition.
    “Most men carry many such mindless notions: belief in gnomes, undines, and sylphs of the mystical cabala; a yearning for the philosopher’s stone to cure all disease or to transmute base metal into gold; the conviction that some astrologer can make known a man’s destiny; a faith in magic elixirs, in alchemy, in … the list goes on.
    “Like all men, Senator Bragadin wanted to believe in something. This I knew. So my knowledge of the occult helped me cement the role of—more or less—adopted son. It was a position that placed me in the upper chamber of Venetian society with gentlemen’s clothes of silk and sufficient funds for endless gambling and the procurement of the most delicate treasures. Signor Bragadin was generous and tolerant, even while insisting that someday I would pay the price for my perilous