sion, thou?'
" 'Oh, mercy!' replied Zambinella.
"'I should put thee to death!' cried Sarrasine,
drawing his sword with a violent movement. 'But, '
he resumed, with a cold disdain, 'in searching all
thy being with this blade, would I find in it a single
sentiment to extinguish, one vengeance to satisfy ?
Thou art nothing. Man or woman, I would kill
thee! but—'
"Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust which
obliged him to turn his head, and then he looked at
the statue.
" 'And that is an illusion!' he cried.
"Then, turning toward Zambinella:
" 'A woman's heart would be for me an asy-
lum, a country. Hast thou sisters who resemble
thee? No. Well, then, die!— But no, thou shalt
live. To leave thee alive, is it not to devote thee
to something worse than death ? It is not my blood
nor my existence that I regret, but the future and
my heart's fortune. Thy debilitated hand has over-
thrown my happiness. What hope can I ravish
from thee for all those which thou hast blighted?
Thou hast dragged me down even to thy level. To
love, to be loved! are henceforth words empty of
meaning for me, as for thee. Without ceasing I
17
258 SARRASINE
shall think of this imaginary woman in seeing a
real woman.'
"He indicated the statue with a gesture of de-
spair.
" 'I shall always have in memory a celestial
harpy who will come to bury its claws in all my
manhood sentiments, and who will stamp all other
women with the seal of imperfection. Monster!
thou who canst give life to nothing, thou hast un-
peopled the earth of all its women.'
"Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified
singer. Two great tears issued from his dry eyes,
rolled down his manly cheeks and fell to the floor, —
two tears of rage, two tears bitter and burning.
" 'No more love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all
human emotions.'
''With these words, he seized a hammer and
threw it at the statue with such extravagant force
that he missed it. He thought he had destroyed this
monument of his folly, and he then grasped his
sword and brandished it to kill the singer. Zambi-
nella uttered piercing cries. At this moment, three
men entered, and the sculptor fell suddenly, pierced
with three stiletto thrusts.
" 'From the Cardinal Cicognara,' said one of them.
" 'It is a good turn worthy of a Christian,' replied
the Frenchman, as he expired.
"These sombre emissaries informed Zambinella
of the uneasiness of his protector, who was waiting
at the door, in a closed carriage, in order to carry
him away as soon as he should be rescued."
SARRASINE 259
"But," said Madame de Rochefide to me, "what
connection is there between this history and the lit-
tle old man whom we have seen at the Lantys?"
"Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of
the statue of Zambinella and caused it to be exe-
cuted in marble; it is to-day in the Museum Albani.
It was there that, in 1791, the Lanty family found
it again, and requested Vien to copy it. The por-
trait which showed to you Zambinella at twenty, a
moment after having seen him a centenarian, served
later for the Endymion of Girodet; you have been
able to recognize its type in the Adonis."
"But this he or she Zambinella?"
"Can be no other, Madame, than the great-uncle
of Marianina. You may readily conceive now the
interest which Madame de Lanty may have in con-
cealing the origin of a fortune which comes from— "
"Enough!" she said, making to me an imperious
gesture.
We remained for a moment plunged in the most
profound silence.
"Well?" I said to her.
"Ah!—" she cried, rising and walking rapidly
about the chamber.
She came up to look at me, and said in a changed
voice :
"You have disgusted me with life and with pas-
sions for a long time. With the exception of mon-
sters, all human sentiments— do they not unravel
themselves thus, by atrocious deceptions ? Mothers,
our infants assassinate us either by their evil conduct
260 SARRASINE
or by their thanklessness. Wives, we are betrayed.
Lovers, we are forsaken, abandoned. Friendship!
does it exist? I would turn nun to-morrow if I did
not know how to remain like an inaccessible rock in
the midst of the storms of life. If the future state of
the Christian is also an illusion, at least it is not
proved so till after death. Leave me alone."
"Ah!" I said to her, "you know how to punish."
"Should I be wrong?"
"Yes," I replied, with a sort of courage. "In re-
lating this story, sufficiently well known in Italy, 1
have been able to give you a striking proof of the
actual progress made by civilization. There are no
longer made any of these unfortunate creatures."
"Paris," said she, "is a very hospitable soil: it
welcomes everything, the shameful fortunes and the
blood-stained fortunes. Crime and infamy there
have right of asylum ; virtue alone is there without
altars. But the pure souls have a country in heaven !
No one will ever have recognized me! I am proud
of it."
And the marchioness remained thoughtful.
Paris, November, 1830.
FACINO CANE
(261)
FACINO CANE
•&
I lived at that time in a little street which you
doubtless know, the Rue de Lesdiguieres: it com-
mences at the Rue Saint-Antoine, opposite a foun-
tain near to the Place de la Bastille, and comes out
on the Rue de la Cerisaie. Love of science had
lodged me in a garret, where I worked during the
night, and I spent the day in a neighboring library,
that of MONSIEUR. I lived frugally, I had accept-
ed all the conditions of the monastic life, so necessary
to workers. When the weather was fine, 1 per-
mitted myself rarely to take a walk on the Boule-
vard Bourdon. One passion only drew me out of
my studious habits ; but was not this also study ? I
was interested in observing the manners and cus-
toms of the faubourg, its inhabitants and their char-
acters. As poorly dressed as the workmen
themselves, indifferent to the proprieties, I did not
put them on their guard against me; I was able to
mingle with them, to see them concluding their bar-
gains, and quarreling amongst themselves at the
hour when they left their work. In me, the faculty
of observation had already become intuitive, it pen-
etrated the soul without neglecting the body; or,
(263)
264 FACINO CANE
rather, it seized so promptly the exterior details,
that it immediately went beyond them; it gave me
the faculty of living the life of the individual on
whom it was directed, in permitting me to substi-
tute myself for him as the dervish of the Thousand
and One Nights assumed the body and the soul of
those persons over whom he pronounced certain
words.
When, between eleven o'clock and midnight, I
encountered a laborer and his wife returning to-
gether from the Ambigu-Comique, I amused myself
by following them from the Boulevard du Pont-
aux-Choux to the Boulevard Beaumarchais. These
honest people talked at first of the piece which they
had just seen; then they passed insensibly to their
own affairs; the mother dragged her child along by
the hand, without hearing either its complaints or
its questions; the couple counted the money which
would be paid to them the next day, they expended
it in twenty different ways. Then there would be
household details, lamentations over the excessive
price of potatoes, or on the length of the winter and
the dearness of fuel, energetic observations on the
sum due to the baker; finally, discussions which
became venomous, and in which each of them dis-
played his or her character in picturesque words. In
hearing these poor folk, I was able to assume their
life, I felt their rags on my back, I walked with my
feet in their worn shoes; their desires, their needs,
all passed into my soul, or my soul passed into
theirs. It was the dream of a waking man. I grew
FACINO CANE 265
indignant, with them, at the overseers of the work-
shops who tyrannized over them, or against the bad
arrangements which made them return several times
for their money. To quit one's daily habits, to
become a being outside of yourself by the intoxica-
tions of the moral faculties, and to play this game at
will, such was my distraction. To whom did I owe
this gift? Is it a second sight? is it one of those
qualities the abuse of which leads to madness? I
had never sought for the causes of this power ; I
possess it and make use of it, that is all. Know
only that, since that time, I have decomposed the
elements of that heterogeneous mass called the peo-
ple, that I have analyzed it in such a manner as to
be able to value its good or its evil qualities. I
knew already of what utility this faubourg could be
made, this seminary of revolutions which encloses
heroes, inventors, knowing practitioners, cheats,
blackguards, virtues and vices all crowded together
by poverty, smothered by necessity, drowned in
wine, worn out by strong liquors. You could not
possibly imagine how many lost adventures, how
many forgotten dramas there are in this city of
sorrow! How many horrible and beautiful things!
Imagination will never discover the full truth which
is hidden there and which no one can set out to
discover ; it is necessary to descend too low to find
these admirable scenes, tragic or comic, master-
pieces given birth to by chance. I do not know how
I have so long kept untold the story which I am about
to relate to you ; it is one of those curious recitals
266 FACINO CANE
left in the sack from which memory draws them
capriciously like the numbers of the lottery: I have
many others quite as singular as this one, equally
hidden; but they will have their turn, believe me.
One day, my housekeeper, the wife of a work-
man, came to ask me to honor with my presence
the wedding of one of her sisters. In order that you
may comprehend what this wedding could be, it is
necessary to tell you that I gave forty sous a month
to this poor creature, who came every morning to
make my bed, clean my shoes, brush my clothes,
sweep the chamber and prepare my dejeuner; the
rest of her time she spent in turning the handle of a
machine, and earned by this hard trade ten sous a
day. Her husband, a cabinet-maker, earned four
francs. But, as this household had three children,
it could with difficulty manage honestly to have
bread to eat. I have never encountered more solid
honesty than that of this man and this woman.
Whenever I left the quarter, during five years, the
Mere Vaillant came to congratulate me on my fete,
bringing me a bouquet and some oranges, she who
never had ten sous of savings. Poverty had brought
us close together. I was never able to give her any-
thing more than ten francs, often borrowed for this
purpose. This may explain my promise to go to the
wedding, I counted on being able to envelop myself
in the happiness of these poor people.
The festival, the ball, all took place in the estab-
lishment of a wine merchant in the Rue de Charen-
ton, on the first floor, in a large room lit by lamps
FACINO CANE 267
with tin reflectors, ornamented with a dirty wall-
paper up to the height of the tables, and along the
walls of which there were wooden benches. In this
chamber, eighty persons in tneir best clothes, set
off with bouquets and ribbons, all of them animated
by the spirit of that lively quarter, la Courtille,
with flushed faces, danced as if the world were about
to end. The newly-married couple embraced each
other to the general satisfaction, and there were
the "Eh! eh!" the "Ah! ah!" very facetious, but
really less indecent than are the timid eye-glances
of well-bred young girls. All this company ex-
pressed a brutal contentment which had in it some-
thing inexpressibly contagious.
But neither the physiognomies of this assembly,
nor the wedding, nor anything of this company has
any relation to my story. Remember only the odd-
ness of the scene. Figure to yourself the ignoble
shop painted in red, smell the odor of the wine,
listen to the roarings of this joy, place yourself in
this faubourg, in the middle of these workpeople,
of these old men, of these poor women given over to
the pleasures of a night!
The orchestra was composed of three blind men
from the hospital of the Quinze-Vingts, — the first
was a violin, the second a clarionet, and the third a
flageolet. All three were paid a lump sum of seven
francs for the night. For that price, certainly,
they gave neither Rossini nor Beethoven; they
played what they would and what they could ; no
one addressed them any reproaches, a charming
268 FACINO CANE
delicacy! Their music attacked the tympanum so
roughly, that after having looked at the general
assembly, I directed my observation to this blind
trio, and was immediately disposed to be indulgent
in recognizing their uniform. These artists were
placed in the embrasure of a window; to distinguish
their countenances it was necessary to be near
them. — I did not place myself there immediately,
but when I approached them, 1 do not know why,
everything was said, the wedding and its music
disappeared, my curiosity was excited to the highest
degree, for my soul passed into the body of the clar-
ionet player. The violin and the flageolet had both
of them commonplace faces, the well-known coun-
tenance of the blind, full of intenseness, attentive
and grave ; but that of the clarionet was one of
those phenomena which arrest suddenly the artist
and the philosopher.
Imagine to yourself the plaster mask of Dante, lit
up by the red light of the argand lamp, and sur-
mounted by a forest of hair of a silvery whiteness.
The bitter and dolorous expression of this magnifi-
cent head was increased by the blindness, for the
extinguished eyes were restored to life by thought;
it revealed itself in them like a burning light, pro-
duced by an unique and incessant desire, vigorously
inscribed on the arched forehead which was trav-
ersed by wrinkles like the courses on an old wall.
This old man blew in his instrument at hazard, with-
out paying the least attention to the measure or the
air, his fingers were raised or lowered, manipulating
FACINO CANE 269
the old keys, mechanically; he did not give him-
self any trouble to make what is called in the language
of the orchestra the canards, the dancers did not per-
ceive it any more than did the two acolytes of my
Italian; for I wished that he should be an Italian, and
he was an Italian. Something of grand and the des-
potic was to be encountered in this old Homer who
guarded in himself an Odyssey condemned to for-
getful ness. It was a grandeur so real, that it
triumphed still over his abjection ; it was a despot-
ism so vivid that it dominated poverty. Not one of
the violent passions which conduct man to good as
to evil, which make of him a convict or a hero, was
lacking to this visage nobly modeled, of an Italian
lividness, shaded by grayish brows which projected
their shadows over profound cavities in which one
feared to see reappear the light of thought, as one
fears to see come to the mouth of a cavern brigands
armed with torches and poniards. There existed a
lion in that cage of flesh, a lion whose rage had
been uselessly exhausted against the iron of his bar-
riers. The fire of despair was extinct in its cinders,
the lava had grown cold ; but the furrows, the over-
turnings, a little smoke, still bore witness to the
violence of the eruption, the ravages of flame.
These ideas, called up by the aspect of this man,
were as heated in my soul as they were cold on his
countenance.
Between each contradance the violin and the
flageolet, seriously occupied with their glasses and
their bottle, hung their instruments to certain
270 FACINO CANE
buttons of their rusty coats, put out their hands to a
little table placed in the embrasure of a window in
which was their supply, and offered each time to
the Italian a full glass, which he could not take him-
self, for the table was behind his chair; each time
the clarionet thanked them by a friendly sign of the
head. Their movements were performed with that
precision which is always so surprising among the
blind of the Quinze-Vingts, and which makes it
seem as though they saw. I approached the three
blind men to listen to them, but when I was near
them, they studied me, failing to recognize doubt-
less one of the working-class, and kept silent.
"From what country are you, you who play the
clarionet?"
"From Venice," replied the blind man, with a
slight Italian accent.
"Were you born blind, or did you lose your sight
by—?"
"By accident," he replied quickly, "a cursed
gutta serena. ' '
"Venice is a beautiful city; I have always desired
to go there."
The countenance of the old man became animated,
his wrinkles were agitated, he was violently moved.
"If I were to go there with you, you would not
lose your time," he said to me.
"Do not speak to him of Venice," said the violin
to me, "or our Doge will go off again; all the more
so that he already has put two bottles away, the
prince!"
FACINO CANE 27 1
"Come, forward march, Pere Canard," said the
flageolet
All three of them commenced to play; but, during
the time which they took to execute the four parts
of the contradance, the Venetian scented me; he
guessed at the excessive interest which 1 took in
him. His physiognomy lost its cold expression of
sadness; I do not know what hope lit up his fea-
tures, spread like a blue flame in his wrinkles; he
smiled and wiped his forehead, that audacious and
terrible forehead; in short, he became gay like a
man who mounts his hobby-horse.
"How old are you?" I asked him.
"Eighty-two years."
"How long have you been blind?"
"For nearly fifty years," he replied, with an
accent which revealed that his regrets were not only
for the loss of his sight, but for some great power
of which he had been deprived.
"Why do they, then, call you the Doge?" I asked
him.
" Ah ! a farce, "said he :" I am a patrician of Venice,
and I might have been Doge as well as any other."
"What is your name, then?"
"Here," he said to me, "the Pere Canet. My
name could never be inscribed in any other way on
the registers; but, in Italian, it is Marco Facino
Cane, principe de Varese."
"How! you are descended from the famous con-
dottiere, Facino Cane, whose conquests passed to
the Dukes of Milan?"
272 FACINO CANE
"E vero," said he. "In those times, in order not
to be killed by the Visconti, the son of Cane took
refuge in Venice and caused his name to be in-
scribed on the Golden Book. But there is now no
longer any Cane nor any Book!"
And he made a terrifying gesture of extin-
guished patriotism and of disgust for all things
human.
"But, if you were Senator of Venice, you should
be rich; how have you been able to lose all your for-
tune?"
At this question, he raised his head toward me as
if to contemplate me with a movement truly tragic,
and replied to me:
"In misfortunes!"
He no longer cared to drink; he refused by a ges-
ture a glass of wine which the old flageolet offered
him at this moment, then he lowered his head.
These details were not of a nature to extinguish
my curiosity. During the contradance which was
played by these three machines, I contemplated the
noble old Venetian with those sentiments which
take possession of a young man of twenty. I saw
Venice and the Adriatic, I saw it in ruins in this
ruined figure. I walked about in this city so dear
to its inhabitants; I went from the Rialto to the
Grand Canal, from the quay of the Schiavoni to the
Lido, I returned to its cathedral, so originally sub-
lime, I looked at the windows of the Casa d'Oro,
the ornaments of each of which are different; I con-
templated its old palaces so rich in marble, in short
FACINO CANE 273
all those marvels with which he who is wise sym-
pathizes all the more that he coiors them at his own
will, and does not deprive his dreams of their poetry
by the spectacle of reality. 1 followed up the course
of the life of this scion of the greatest of the con-
dottieri, searching in it the traces of his misfortunes
and the causes of that profound degradation, physi-
cal and moral, which rendered finer still the sparks
of grandeur and of nobility reanimated in this
moment. Our thoughts were doubtless reciprocal,
for I believe that blindness renders the intellectual
communications much more rapid in prohibiting the
attention from scattering itself on exterior objects.
The proof of our sympathy was not long in manifest-
ing itself. Facino Cane ceased to play, rose, came
to me and said to me "Let us go!" which produced
on me the effect of an electric shock. I gave him
my arm and we went out.
When we were in the street, he said to me:
"Will you take me to Venice, conduct me there?
Will you have faith in me? You will be richer than
are the ten richest houses of Amsterdam or of Lon-
don, richer than the Rothschilds; in short, rich as
the Thousand and One Nights."
I thought that this man was mad ; but he had in
his voice a power which 1 obeyed. I let him con-
duct me and he led me toward the ditches of the
Bastille as if he had eyes. He seated himself on a
stone, in a very solitary locality, where since has
been built the bridge by which the Canal Saint-
Martin communicates with the Seine. I placed
18
274 FACINO CANE
myself on another stone before this old man, whose
white hair shone like silver threads in the light of
the moon. The silence which was scarcely troubled
by the stormy noise of the boulevard which reached
us, the purity of the night, everything, contributed
to render this scene truly fantastic.
"You speak of millions to a young man, and you
think that he would hesitate to endure a thousand
evils to possess them! Are you not mocking me?"
"May I die unconfessed, " he said to me, violently,
"if that which I am going to say to you is not true.
I was twenty years of age, as you are at this
moment. I was rich, I was handsome, I was noble;
I commenced by the first of follies, love. I have
loved as one no longer loves, even to the point of
putting myself in a chest and risking being pon-
iarded without having received anything but the
promise of a kiss. To die for her seemed to me
a whole life. In 1760, I fell in love with a Ven-
dramini, a woman of eighteen, married to a Sagredo,
one of the richest senators, a man of thirty, madly
loving his wife. My mistress and 1, we were as in-
nocent as two cherubim, when the sposo surprised us
talking love; I was without arms, he was armed, but
he missed me; I sprang upon him, I strangled him
with my two hands, twisting his neck like that of a
pullet. I wished to depart with Bianca; she would
not follow me. Such are women ! I went away alone.
I was condemned, my goods were sequestered for
the benefit of my heirs; but I had carried off my
diamonds, five pictures by Titian rolled up, and all
FACINO CANE 275
my gold. I went to Milan, where I was not dis-
turbed: my affair did not interest the state. — A lit-
tle observation before continuing, " he said after a
pause. "Whether the fancies of a woman have any
influence or not on her child while she carries it or
when she conceives it, it is certain that my mother
had a passion for gold during her pregnancy. I have
for gold a monomania, the satisfaction of which is
so necessary to my life that, in all the situations in
which I have found myself, I have never been with-
out gold about me; I handle gold constantly; when
young I always wore jewels and I had always about
me two or three hundred ducats."
In saying these words, he drew two ducats from
his pocket and showed them to me.
"I am sensitive to gold. Although blind, I stop
before the jewelers' windows. This passion ruined
me; I have become a gambler to play with gold. I
was not a cheat; I was cheated, I was ruined. When
I no longer had any fortune, I passionately longed
to see Bianca again, — I returned secretly to Venice,
I found her again; I was happy during six months,
hidden by her, nourished by her. I thought de-
liciously to finish my life thus. She was sought
by the Proveditor ; he suspected a rival; in Italy,
they smell them, — he spied on us, he surprised us
in bed, the coward! Judge how fierce was our
struggle: I did not kill him, I wounded him griev-
ously. This adventure destroyed my happiness.
Since that day, I have never found again a Bianca.
I have had great pleasures, I have lived at the
276 FACINO CANE
Court of Louis XV., among the most celebrated
women; nowhere have I found the qualities, the
graces, the love of my dear Venetian. The Pro-
veditor had his servants; he summoned them, the
palace was surrounded, invaded; I defended myself