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.
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