And just as you, Lorenzi, during the last quarter of an hour, have more than once been on the point of seizing me by the throat; so I, I must confess, played for a time with the idea of giving you the two thousand ducats as to my friend.

Rarely, Lorenzi, have I been so strangely drawn to anyone as I was to you from the first.

But had I yielded to this generous impulse, the next moment I should have regretted it bitterly.

In like manner you, Lorenzi, hi the moment before you blow your brains out, would desperately regret having been such a fool as to throw away a thousand nights of love with new and ever new women for one single night of love which neither night nor day was to follow." Lorenzi remained mute.

His silence continued for many minutes, until Casanova began to ask himself how long his patience was to be tried.
He was on the point of departing with a curt salutation, and of thus indicating that he understood his proposition to have been rejected, when Lorenzi, without a word slowly moved his right hand backwards into the tail-pocket of his coat.