An Austrian Vittori | Profile

I have always been surprised by those who say they love Casanova’s Story of My Life. It is a predilection of Adolfo Bioy Casares, for example, and of the odd prologue writer, who cannot do anything other than affirm that the tome in hand is a masterpiece of the 18th century. In the case of Bioy, I don’t know what he was trying to prove by saying that, but it is certainly proof that he had never read it (I mean read it from cover to cover, not peck at it, as the pigeons do in the square). Historia de mi vida, by Casanova, is an illegible work, and it takes a great deal of perseverance and good will not to end up giving up reading after fifty pages. Tedious, repetitive, it extends, like a proto-Saer, more than in the detailed description of his conquests, in describing long games of cards in detail. Casanova boasted more of his scams than of his conquests. After all, there weren’t that many: barely a hundred in his short sexual life (he died at 73, but had given up sexual practices many years before, around 40, after having suffered two syphilis and having lost all his teeth because of the mercury treatments he underwent to combat the disease). As Félix de Azúa says: any boy who finishes university today could have been with a hundred girls; in many cases with more. And yet Casanova went down in history as a great libertine. Years before, of course, he appeared the figure of Sade, and reduced the Casanovian debauchery to a mere ritual dance, to continue with the image of the doves in the square.

Arthur Schnitzler has many masterpieces. Many prefer Dream Story, the novel on which Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael were based to write the screenplay for Eyes Wide Shut. I prefer The Return of Casanova, also published as Casanova: Last Act and Casanova’s Last Adventure, but the first is always recommended, because it is translated by Miguel Sáenz (I don’t know why the Spanish have good German translators).

In Schnitzler’s novel, Casanova waits in the mansion of an old acquaintance, in the countryside, which is what the Venetians call the rest of the planet that is not Venice, for the arrival of an envelope containing the written authorization to return to his hometown. , from where he had escaped at the age of 31, a majestic, impossible escape from the Doge’s Palace, the Alcatraz of the 18th century.

The novel takes place when Casanova is 49 years old, that is to say, he is almost an old man, and he qualifies the wait by playing cards (he loved the game: he is the inventor of the lottery), and now unable to seduce, he devotes himself to observing and intervening, Gombrowiczian style. , in the seductions of others. He knows all the signs and tricks, all the lies and gestures; he knows how to discover and unravel all lies; in short: he cannot be fooled. At most he can be disappointed, but it is difficult for him not to see the disguises in which the lie is dressed. Just because he was a great liar – in part he still is: in fact it is a wise exercise in lying that will allow him to re-enter Venice as a spy.

Casanova knows all the vices, but does not practice any. He watches and delights, but does not act. He feels special affection for a young soldier who reminds him of himself many years ago, a beautiful young man who receives the favors of a girl with whom Casanova ends up obsessed. And he hatches a plan to sleep with her in the dark, posing as the young military man. But for the plot to advance it is necessary for everything to go wrong. Like in a play by Dario Vittori.