Casanova's Homecoming

Casanova was in his fifty-third year. Though no longer driven by the lust of adventure that had spurred him in his youth he was still hunted athwart the world hunted now by a restlessness due to the approach of old age. His yearning for Venice the city of his birth grew so intense that like a wounded bird slowly circling downwards in its death flight he began to move in ever-narrowing circles. Again and again during the last ten years of his exile he had implored the Supreme Council for leave to return home. Erstwhile in the drafting of these petitions - a work in which he was a past master - a defiant wilful spirit seemed to have guided his pen; at times even he appeared to take a grim delight in his forwardness. But of late his requests had been couched in humble beseeching words which displayed ever more plainly the ache of homesickness and genuine repentance.