The Human Comedy Read Online Free PDF Page B

from the famous condottiere Facino Cane, whose conquests were inherited by the dukes of Milan?”
    “ É vero ,” he said. “Back then, to avoid being killed by the Viscontis, Cane’s son fled to Venice and got himself registered in the Golden Book. But now there are no more Canes and no more book.” He made a frightening gesture—of patriotism long dead and of disgust for human affairs.
    “But if you were a senator of Venice, you must have been rich. How did you lose your wealth?”
    At my question he lifted his head toward me, as if to consider me with a movement that was truly tragic, and he replied, “Through a number of misfortunes . . .”
    He had no further interest in drinking; with a gesture he waved away the wineglass the old flageolet player held out to him, and then he lowered his head. These details were not likely to quench my curiosity. During the contra dance the three fellows played next, I contemplated the old Venetian nobleman with feelings that devour a man of twenty. I could see Venice and the Adriatic, I could see its ruins on that withered face. I walked that city so cherished by its inhabitants, I went from the Rialto to the Grand Canal, from the Schiavoni wharf to the Lido, I returned to the San Marco Basilica, so outlandishly sublime; I gazed at the Cà d’Oro’s windows, each with its different ornamentation; I contemplated those richly marbled old palaces—in short, all those marvels a scholar loves, and loves all the more for coloring them himself as he wishes, refusing to allow the spectacle of reality to de-poeticize them.
    I thought back along the life course of this scion of the greatest condottiere, seeking the traces of his troubles and the causes of his profound physical and moral degradation—a degradation that rendered all the lovelier the glints of grandeur and nobility now reawakened. Our thoughts might have been alike, for I believe that blindness makes mental communications swifter by keeping attention from scattering over external objects. Evidence of our common thinking was quick to arrive. Facino Cane quit playing, rose, came to me, and said, “Let’s leave!” which hit me like an electric shower. I gave him my arm and we left the place.
    When we reached the street, he said, “Will you take me to Venice? Will you lead me there? Will you put your faith in me? You will be richer than the ten richest houses in Amsterdam or London, richer than the Rothschilds, yes, rich as The Thousand and One Nights .”
    I thought the man was mad, but there was in his tone a power that I obeyed. I let myself be directed and he led me to the moat around the Bastille as if he had eyes. He sat down on a stone in a very isolated spot where they have since built a bridge that connects the Canal Saint-Martin to the Seine. I took a seat on another stone facing the old man, whose white hair shone in the moonlight like silver threads. The silence, barely disturbed by the stormy noise from the distant boulevards, the purity of the night—everything contributed to make this scene truly fantastic.
    “You mention millions to a young man, and you think he would hesitate to brave a thousand obstacles to collect them! Are you making fun of me?”
    “May I die unconfessed,” he answered violently, “if what I am about to tell you is untrue.
    “I was twenty, like you are now; I was rich, I was handsome, I was a nobleman, I started out with the greatest folly of all—with love. I loved as no one loves any longer these days—to the point of closing myself into a chest and taking the risk of being stabbed in it for just the promise of a kiss. To die for her seemed to me worth life itself. In 1760, I fell in love with a woman of the Vendramin family, eighteen years old, married to a Sagredo, one of the richest senators, thirty years old and mad about his wife. My mistress and I were innocent as a couple of cherubs when one day the husband caught us talking of love. I was unarmed. He aimed and missed