Facino Cane

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"I never knew a quiet moment until I had sold two-thirds of my
diamonds in London or Amsterdam, and held the value of my gold dust in
a negotiable shape. For five years I hid myself in Madrid, then in
1770 I came to Paris with a Spanish name, and led as brilliant a life
as may be. Then in the midst of my pleasures, as I enjoyed a fortune
of six millions, I was smitten with blindness. I do not doubt but that
my infirmity was brought on by my sojourn in the cell and my work in
the stone, if, indeed, my peculiar faculty for 'seeing' gold was not
an abuse of the power of sight which predestined me to lose it. Bianca
was dead.

"At this time I had fallen in love with a woman to whom I thought to
link my fate. I had told her the secret of my name; she belonged to a
powerful family; she was a friend of Mme. du Barry; I hoped everything
from the favor shown me by Louis XV.; I trusted in her. Acting on her
advice, I went to London to consult a famous oculist, and after a stay
of several months in London she deserted me in Hyde Park. She had
stripped me of all that I had, and left me without resource. Nor could
I make complaint, for to disclose my name was to lay myself open to
the vengeance of my native city; I could appeal to no one for aid, I
feared Venice. The woman put spies about me to exploit my infirmity. I
spare you a tale of adventures worthy of Gil Blas.--Your Revolution
followed. For two whole years that creature kept me at the Bicetre as
a lunatic, then she gained admittance for me at the Blind Asylum;
there was no help for it, I went. I could not kill her; I could not
see; and I was so poor that I could not pay another arm.

"If only I had taken counsel with my jailer, Benedetto Carpi, before I
lost him, I might have known the exact position of my cell, I might
have found my way back to the Treasury and returned to Venice when
Napoleon crushed the Republic--

"Still, blind as I am, let us go back to Venice! I shall find the door
of my prison, I shall see the gold through the prison walls, I shall
hear it where it lies under the water; for the events which brought
about the fall of Venice befell in such a way that the secret of the
hoard must have perished with Bianca's brother, Vendramin, a doge to
whom I looked to make my peace with the Ten. I sent memorials to the
First Consul; I proposed an agreement with the Emperor of Austria;
every one sent me about my business for a lunatic. Come! we will go to
Venice; let us set out as beggars, we shall come back millionaires. We
will buy back some of my estates, and you shall be my heir! You shall
be Prince of Varese!"

My head was swimming. For me his confidences reached the proportions
of tragedy; at the sight of that white head of his and beyond it the
black water in the trenches of the Bastille lying still as a canal in
Venice, I had no words to answer him. Facino Cane thought, no doubt,
that I judged him, as the rest had done, with a disdainful pity; his
gesture expressed the whole philosophy of despair.

Perhaps his story had taken him back to happy days and to Venice. He
caught up his clarionet and made plaintive music, playing a Venetian
boat-song with something of his lost skill, the skill of the young
patrician lover. It was a sort of _Super flumina Babylonis_. Tears
filled my eyes. Any belated persons walking along the Boulevard
Bourdon must have stood still to listen to an exile's last prayer, a
last cry of regret for a lost name, mingled with memories of Bianca.
But gold soon gained the upper hand, the fatal passion quenched the
light of youth.

"I see it always," he said; "dreaming or waking, I see it; and as I
pace to and fro, I pace in the Treasury, and the diamonds sparkle. I
am not as blind as you think; gold and diamonds light up my night, the
night of the last Facino Cane, for my title passes to the Memmi. My
God! the murderer's punishment was not long delayed! _Ave Maria_," and
he repeated several prayers that I did not heed.

"We will go to Venice!" I said, when he rose.

"Then I have found a man!" he cried, with his face on fire.

I gave him my arm and went home with him. We reached the gates of the
Blind Asylum just as some of the wedding guests were returning along
the street, shouting at the top of their voices. He squeezed my hand.

"Shall we start to-morrow?" he asked.

"As soon as we can get some money."

"But we can go on foot. I will beg. I am strong, and you feel young
when you see gold before you."

Facino Cane died before the winter was out after a two months'
illness. The poor man had taken a chill.

PARIS, March 1836.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Cane, Marco-Facino
Massimilla Doni

Vendramini, Marco
Massimilla Doni

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