Word: casanovas
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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What follows is predictable, yet always moving. As Silvio loses himself in his literary obsession, Leda becomes bored, is seduced by a commonplace Casanova, Silvio's barber. In a climax of selfdiscovery, Silvio realizes that his wife has been unfaithful, that he is a failure as a writer, and that most of their troubles are his own fault. Humbled, he hopes to patch up his marriage: "To accept my status as a human being ... a decent fellow . . . modestly conscious of his own limitations ... the lover, and the beloved, of a young and beautiful wife...
Those who traveled less than Casanova embellished their drawing rooms with fragile fancies: a clock mounted on a chariot drawn along the mantelpiece by galloping gilt horses, or a monkey with a lorgnette in one hand and a tiny cigar in the other, smoking with bestial relish, or a dueling pistol which, with a pull of the trigger, released a tiny singing bird...
...used for more than just telling time. Such triumphs of ingenuity as Venice's famed Clock Tower, where the hours are struck by a pair of huge mechanical Moors, could be, and were, imitated in watches and snuff boxes made for the dandies of the day. Casanova thought himself half naked without several such showpieces about...
...party put tough young Laurent ("Eye of Moscow") Casanova in charge of the new effort. He sent organizers to Cherbourg to call dock strikes against the first ships bearing U.S. military aid; these are due to arrive in about a month...
...Casanova was having his troubles. The Communists have recently lost ground in French labor unions. Not a single important French union is now under firm Communist control. The one most nearly under the Red thumb is the longshoremen's union...