Colomba

“Tom-cat yourself, old gray-beard!” said Orso. “What’s your name?”

“What! don’t you remember me, Ors’ Anton’? I who have so often taken you up behind me on that biting mule of mine! You don’t remember Polo Griffo? I’m an honest fellow, though, and with the della Rebbia, body and soul. Say but the word, and when that big gun of yours speaks, this old musket of mine, as old as its master, shall not be dumb. Be sure of that, Ors’ Anton’!”

“Well, well! But be off with you now, in the devil’s name, and let us go on our way!”

At last the herdsmen departed, trotting rapidly off toward the village, but they stopped every here and there, at all the highest spots on the road, as though they were looking out for some hidden ambuscade, always keeping near enough to Orso and his sister to be able to come to their assistance if necessary. And old Polo Griffo said to his comrades:

“I understand him! I understand him! He’ll not say what he means to do, but he’ll do it! He’s the born image of his father. Ah! you may say you have no spite against any one, my boy! But you’ve made your vow to Saint Nega.2 Bravo! I wouldn’t give a fig for the mayor’s hide—there won’t be the makings of a wineskin in it before the month is out!”

Preceded by this troop of skirmishers, the last descendant of the della Rebbia entered the village, and proceeded to the old mansion of his forefathers, the corporals. The Rebbianites, who had long been leaderless, had gathered to welcome him, and those dwellers in the village who observed a neutral line of conduct all came to their doorsteps to see him pass by. The adherents of the Barricini remained inside their houses, and peeped out of the slits in their shutters.

The village of Pietranera is very irregularly built, like most Corsican villages—for indeed, to see a street, the traveller must betake himself to Cargese, which was built by Monsieur de Marboeuf. The houses, scattered irregularly about, without the least attempt at orderly arrangement, cover the top of a small plateau, or rather of a ridge of the mountain. Toward the centre of the village stands a great evergreen oak, and close beside it may be seen a granite trough, into which the water of a neighbouring spring is conveyed by a wooden pipe. This monument of public utility was constructed at the common expense of the della Rebbia and Barricini families. But the man who imagined this to be a sign of former friendship between the two families would be sorely mistaken. On the contrary, it is the outcome of their mutual jealousy. Once upon a time, Colonel della Rebbia sent a small sum of money to the Municipal Council of his commune to help to provide a fountain. The lawyer Barricini hastened to forward a similar gift, and to this generous strife Pietranera owes its water supply. Round about the evergreen oak and the fountain there is a clear space, known as “the Square,” on which the local idlers gather every night. Sometimes they play at cards, and once a year, in Carnival-time, they dance. At the two ends of the square stands two edifices, of greater height than breadth, built of a mixture of granite and schist. These are the Towers of the two opposing families, the Barricini and the della Rebbia. Their architecture is exactly alike, their height is similar, and it is quite evident that the rivalry of the two families has never been absolutely decided by any stroke of fortune in favor of either.

It may perhaps be well to explain what should be understood by this word, “Tower.” It is a square building, some forty feet in height, which in any other country would be simply described as a pigeon-house. A narrow entrance-door, eight feet above the level of the ground, is reached by a very steep flight of steps. Above the door is a window, in front of which runs a sort of balcony, the floor of which is pierced with openings, like a machicolation, through which the inhabitants may destroy an unwelcome visitor without any danger to themselves. Between the window and the door are two escutcheons, roughly carved. One of these bears what was originally a Genoese cross, now so battered that nobody but an antiquary could recognise it. On the other are chiselled the arms of the family to whom the Tower belongs. If the reader will complete this scheme of decoration by imagining several bullet marks on the escutcheons and on the window frames, he will have a fair idea of a Corsican mansion, dating from the middle ages. I had forgotten to add that the dwelling-house adjoins the tower, and is frequently connected with it by some interior passage.

The della Rebbia house and tower stand on the northern side of the square at Pietranera. The Barricini house and tower are on the southern side. Since the colonel’s wife had been buried, no member of either family had ever been seen on any side of the square, save that assigned by tacit agreement to its own party. Orso was about to ride past the mayor’s house when his sister checked him, and suggested his turning down a lane that would take them to their own dwelling without crossing the square at all.

“Why should we go out of our way?” said Orso. “Doesn’t the square belong to everybody?” and he rode on.

“Brave heart!” murmured Colomba. “. . . My father! you will be avenged!”

When they reached the square, Colomba put herself between her brother and the Barricini mansion, and her eyes never left her enemy’s windows. She noticed that they had been lately barricaded and provided with archere. Archere is the name given to narrow openings like loopholes, made between the big logs of wood used to close up the lower parts of the windows. When an onslaught is expected, this sort of barricade is used, and from behind the logs the attacked party can fire at its assailants with ease and safety.

“The cowards!” said Colomba. “Look, brother, they have begun to protect themselves! They have put up barricades! But some day or other they’ll have to come out.”

Orso’s presence on the southern side of the square made a great sensation at Pietranera, and was taken to be a proof of boldness savouring of temerity. It was subject of endless comment on the part of the neutrals, when they gathered around the evergreen oak, that night.

“It is a good thing,” they said, “that Barricini’s sons are not back yet, for they are not so patient as the lawyer, and very likely they would not have let their enemy set his foot on their ground without making him pay for his bravado.”

“Remember what I am telling you, neighbour,” said an old man, the village oracle. “I watched Colomba’s face to-day. She had some idea in her head. I smell powder in the air. Before long, butcher’s meat will be cheap in Pietranera!”

CHAPTER X

Orso had been parted from his father at so early an age that he had scarcely had time to know him. He had left Pietranera to pursue his studies at Pisa when he was only fifteen. Thence he had passed into the military school, and Ghilfuccio, meanwhile, was bearing the Imperial Eagles all over Europe. On the mainland, Orso only saw his father at rare intervals, and it was not until 1815 that he found himself in the regiment he commanded. But the colonel, who was an inflexible disciplinarian, treated his son just like any other sub-lieutenant—in other words, with great severity. Orso’s memories of him were of two kinds: He recollected him, at Pietranera, as the father who would trust him with his sword, and would let him fire off his gun when he came in from a shooting expedition, or who made him sit down, for the first time, tiny urchin as he was, at the family dinner-table. Then he remembered the Colonel della Rebbia who would put him under arrest for some blunder, and who never called him anything but Lieutenant della Rebbia.

“Lieutenant della Rebbia, you are not in your right place on parade. You will be confined to barracks three days.”

“Your skirmishers are five yards too far from your main body—five days in barracks.”

“It is five minutes past noon, and you are still in your forage-cap—a week in barracks.”

Only once, at Quatre-Bras, he had said to him, “Well done, Orso! But be cautious!”

But, after all, these later memories were not connected in his mind with Pietranera. The sight of the places so familiar to him in his childish days, of the furniture he had seen used by his mother, to whom he had been fondly attached, filled his soul with a host of tender and painful emotions. Then the gloomy future that lay before him, the vague anxiety he felt about his sister, and, above all other things, the thought that Miss Nevil was coming to his house, which now struck him as being so small, so poor, so unsuited to a person accustomed to luxury—the idea that she might possibly despise it—all these feelings made his brain a chaos, and filled him with a sense of deep discouragement.

At supper he sat in the great oaken chair, blackened with age, in which his father had always presided at the head of the family table, and he smiled when he saw that Colomba hesitated to sit down with him. But he was grateful to her for her silence during the meal, and for her speedy retirement afterward. For he felt he was too deeply moved to be able to resist the attack she was no doubt preparing to make upon him. Colomba, however, was dealing warily with him, and meant to give him time to collect himself. He sat for a long time motionless, with his head on his hand, thinking over the scenes of the last fortnight of his life. He saw, with alarm, how every one seemed to be watching what would be his behaviour to the Barricini. Already he began to perceive that the opinion of Pietranera was beginning to be the opinion of all the world to him. He would have to avenge himself, or be taken for a coward! But on whom was he to take vengeance? He could not believe the Barricini to be guilty of murder. They were his family enemies, certainly, but only the vulgar prejudice of his fellow-countrymen could accuse them of being murderers. Sometimes he would look at Miss Nevil’s talisman, and whisper the motto “Life is a battle!” over to himself. At last, in a resolute voice, he said, “I will win it!” Strong in that thought, he rose to his feet, took up the lamp, and was just going up to his room, when he heard a knock at the door of the house. It was a very unusual hour for any visitor to appear. Colomba instantly made her appearance, followed by the woman who acted as their servant.

“It’s nothing!” she said, hurrying to the door.

Yet before she opened it she inquired who knocked. A gentle voice answered, “It is I.”

Instantly the wooden bar across the door was withdrawn, and Colomba reappeared in the dining-room, followed by a little ragged, bare-footed girl of about ten years old, her head bound with a shabby kerchief, from which escaped long locks of hair, as black as the raven’s wing. The child was thin and pale, her skin was sunburnt, but her eyes shone with intelligence. When she saw Orso she stopped shyly, and courtesied to him, peasant fashion—then she said something in an undertone to Colomba, and gave her a freshly killed pheasant.

“Thanks, Chili,” said Colomba. “Thank your uncle for me. Is he well?”

“Very well, signorina, at your service. I couldn’t come sooner because he was late. I waited for him in the maquis for three hours.”

“And you’ve had no supper?”

“Why no, signorina! I’ve not had time.”

“You shall have some supper here. Has your uncle any bread left?”

“Very little, signorina. But what he is most short of is powder. Now the chestnuts are in, the only other thing he wants is powder.”

“I will give you a loaf for him, and some powder, too. Tell him to use it sparingly—it is very dear.”

“Colomba,” said Orso in French, “on whom are you bestowing your charity?”

“On a poor bandit belonging to this village,” replied Colomba in the same language. “This little girl is his niece.”

“It strikes me you might place your gifts better. Why should you send powder to a ruffian who will use it to commit crimes? But for the deplorable weakness every one here seems to have for the bandits, they would have disappeared out of Corsica long ago.”

“The worst men in our country are not those who are ‘in the country.’”

“Give them bread, if it so please you. But I will not have you supply them with ammunition.”

“Brother,” said Colomba, in a serious voice, “you are master here, and everything in this house belongs to you. But I warn you that I will give this little girl my mezzaro, so that she may sell it; rather than refuse powder to a bandit. Refuse to give him powder! I might just as well make him over to the gendarmes! What has he to protect him against them, except his cartridges?”

All this while the little girl was ravenously devouring a bit of bread, and carefully watching Colomba and her brother, turn about, trying to read the meaning of what they were saying in their eyes.

“And what has this bandit of yours done? What crime has driven him into the maquis?”

“Brandolaccio has not committed any crime,” exclaimed Colomba. “He killed Giovan’ Oppizo, who murdered his father while he was away serving in the army!”

Orso turned away his head, took up the lamp, and, without a word, departed to his bedroom. Then Colomba gave the child food and gunpowder, and went with her as far as the house-door, saying over and over again:

“Mind your uncle takes good care of Orso!”

CHAPTER XI

It was long before Orso fell asleep, and as a consequence he woke late—late for a Corsican, at all events. When he left his bed, the first object that struck his gaze was the house of his enemies, and the archere with which they had furnished it. He went downstairs and asked for his sister.

“She is in the kitchen, melting bullets,” answered Saveria, the woman-servant.

So he could not take a step without being pursued by the image of war.

He found Colomba sitting on a stool, surrounded by freshly cast bullets, and cutting up strips of lead.

“What the devil are you doing?” inquired her brother.

“You had no bullets for the colonel’s gun,” she answered, in her soft voice. “I found I had a mould for that calibre, and you shall have four-and-twenty cartridges to-day, brother.”

“I don’t need them, thank God!”

“You mustn’t be taken at a disadvantage, Ors’ Anton’. You have forgotten your country, and the people who are about you.”

“If I had forgotten, you would soon have reminded me. Tell me, did not a big trunk arrive here some days ago?”

“Yes, brother. Shall I take it up to your room?”

“You take it up! Why, you’d never be strong enough even to lift it! . . . Is there no man about who can do it?”

“I’m not so weak as you think!” said Colomba, turning up her sleeves, and displaying a pair of round white arms, perfect in shape, but looking more than ordinarily strong. “Here, Saveria,” said she to the servant; “come and help me!”

She was already lifting the trunk alone, when Orso came hastily to her assistance.

“There is something for you in this trunk, my dear Colomba,” said he. “You must excuse the modesty of my gifts. A lieutenant on half-pay hasn’t a very well-lined purse!”

As he spoke, he opened the trunk, and took out of it a few gowns, a shawl, and some other things likely to be useful to a young girl.

“What beautiful things!” cried Colomba. “I’ll put them away at once, for fear they should be spoiled. I’ll keep them for my wedding,” she added, with a sad smile, “for I am in mourning now!”

And she kissed her brother’s hand.

“It looks affected, my dear sister, to wear your mourning for so long.”

“I have sworn an oath,” said Colomba resolutely, “I’ll not take off my mourning. . . .” And her eyes were riveted on the Barricini mansion.

“Until your wedding day?” said Orso, trying to avoid the end of her sentence.

“I shall never marry any man,” said Colomba, “unless he has done three things . . .” And her eyes still rested gloomily on the house of the enemy.

“You are so pretty, Colomba, that I wonder you are not married already! Come, you must tell me about your suitors. And besides, I’m sure to hear their serenades. They must be good ones to please a great voceratrice like you.”

“Who would seek the hand of a poor orphan girl? . . . And then, the man for whom I would change my mourning-dress will have to make the women over there put on mourning!”

“This is becoming a perfect mania,” said Orso to himself. But to avoid discussion he said nothing at all.

“Brother,” said Colomba caressingly, “I have something to give you, too. The clothes you are wearing are much too grand for this country. Your fine cloth frock-coat would be in tatters in two days, if you wore it in the maquis. You must keep it for the time when Miss Nevil comes.”

Then, opening a cupboard, she took out a complete hunting dress.

“I’ve made you a velvet jacket, and here’s a cap, such as our smart young men wear. I embroidered it for you, ever so long ago. Will you try them on?” And she made him put on a loose green velvet jacket, with a huge pocket at the back. On his head she set a pointed black velvet cap, embroidered with jet and silk of the same colour, and finished with a sort of tassel.

“Here is our father’s carchera”3 she said. “His stiletto is in the pocket of the jacket. I’ll fetch you his pistol.”

“I look like a brigand at the Ambigu-Comique,” said Orso, as he looked at himself in the little glass Saveria was holding up for him.

“Indeed, you look first-rate, dressed like that, Ors’ Anton’,” said the old servant, “and the smartest pinsuto4 in Bocognano or Bastelica is not braver.”

Orso wore his new clothes at breakfast, and during that meal he told his sister that his trunk contained a certain number of books, that he was going to send to France and Italy for others, and intended she should study a great deal.

“For it really is disgraceful, Colomba,” he added, “that a grown-up girl like you should still be ignorant of things that children on the mainland know as soon as they are weaned.”

“You are right, brother,” said Colomba. “I know my own shortcomings quite well, and I shall be too glad to learn—especially if you are kind enough to teach me.”

Some days went by, and Colomba never mentioned the name of Barricini. She lavished care and attention on her brother, and often talked to him about Miss Nevil. Orso made her read French and Italian books, and was constantly being surprised either by the correctness and good sense of her comments, or by her utter ignorance on the most ordinary subjects.

One morning, after breakfast, Colomba left the room for a moment, and instead of returning as usual, with a book and some sheets of paper, reappeared with her mezzaro on her head. The expression of her countenance was even more serious than it generally was.

“Brother,” she said, “I want you to come out with me.”

“Where do you want me to go with you?” said Orso, holding out his arm.

“I don’t want your arm, brother, but take your gun and your cartridge-pouch. A man should never go abroad without his arms.”

“So be it. I must follow the fashion. Where are we going?”

Colomba, without answering, drew her mezzaro closer about her head, called the watch-dog, and went out followed by her brother. Striding swiftly out of the village, she turned into a sunken road that wound among the vineyards, sending on the dog, to whom she made some gesture, which he seemed to understand, in front of her. He instantly began to run zigzag fashion, through the vines, first on one side and then on the other, always keeping within about fifty paces of his mistress, and occasionally stopping in the middle of the road and wagging his tail. He seemed to perform his duties as a scout in the most perfect fashion imaginable.

“If Muschetto begins to bark, brother,” said Colomba, “cock your gun, and stand still.”

Half a mile beyond the village, after making many detours, Colomba stopped short, just where there was a bend in the road. On that spot there rose a little pyramid of branches, some of them green, some withered, heaped about three feet high. Above them rose the top of a wooden cross, painted black. In several of the Corsican cantons, especially those among the mountains, a very ancient custom, connected, it may be with some pagan superstition, constrains every passer-by to cast either a stone or a branch on the spot whereon a man has died a violent death. For years and years—as long as the memory of his tragic fate endures—this strange offering goes on accumulating from day to day.

This is called the dead man’s pile—his “mucchio.”

Colomba stopped before the heap of foliage, broke off an arbutus branch, and cast it on the pile.

“Orso,” she said, “this is where your father died. Let us pray for his soul!”

And she knelt down. Orso instantly followed her example. At that moment the village church-bell tolled slowly for a man who had died during the preceding night. Orso burst into tears.

After a few minutes Colomba rose. Her eyes were dry, but her face was eager. She hastily crossed herself with her thumb, after the fashion generally adopted by her companions, to seal any solemn oath, then, hurrying her brother with her, she took her way back to the village. They re-entered their house in silence. Orso went up to his room. A moment afterward Colomba followed him, carrying a small casket which she set upon the table. Opening it, she drew out a shirt, covered with great stains of blood.

“Here is your father’s shirt, Orso!”

And she threw it across his knees. “Here is the lead that killed him!” And she laid two blackened bullets on the shirt.

“Orso! Brother!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms and clasping him desperately to her. “Orso, you will avenge him!”

In a sort of frenzy she kissed him, then kissed the shirt and the bullets, and went out of the room, leaving her brother sitting on his chair, as if he had been turned to stone. For some time Orso sat motionless, not daring to put the terrible relics away. At last, with an effort, he laid them back in their box, rushed to the opposite end of his room, and threw himself on his bed, with his face turned to the wall, and his head buried in his pillow, as though he were trying to shut out the sight of some ghost. His sister’s last words rang unceasingly in his ears, like the words of an oracle, fatal, inevitable, calling out to him for blood, and for innocent blood! I shall not attempt to depict the unhappy young man’s sensations, which were as confused as those that overwhelm a madman’s brain. For a long time he lay in the same position, without daring to turn his head. At last he got up, closed the lid of the casket, and rushed headlong out of the house, into the open country, moving aimlessly forward, whither he knew not.

By degrees, the fresh air did him good. He grew calmer, and began to consider his position, and his means of escape from it, with some composure. He did not, as my readers already know, suspect the Barricini of the murder, but he did accuse them of having forged Agostini’s letter, and this letter, he believed, at any rate, had brought about his father’s death. He felt it was impossible to prosecute them for the forgery. Now and then, when the prejudices or the instincts of his race assailed him, and suggested an easy vengeance—a shot fired at the corner of some path—the thought of his brother-officers, of Parisian drawing-rooms, and above all, of Miss Nevil, made him shrink from them in horror. Then his mind dwelt on his sister’s reproaches, and all the Corsican within him justified her appeal, and even intensified its bitterness. One hope alone remained to him, in this battle between his conscience and his prejudices—the hope that, on some pretext or other, he might pick a quarrel with one of the lawyer’s sons, and fight a duel with him. The idea of killing the young man, either by a bullet or a sword-thrust reconciled his French and Corsican ideas. This expedient adopted, he began to meditate means for its execution, and was feeling relieved already of a heavy burden, when other and gentler thoughts contributed still further to calm his feverish agitation. Cicero, in his despair at the death of his daughter Tullia, forgot his sorrow when he mused over all the fine things he might say about it. Mr. Shandy consoled himself by discourses of the same nature for the loss of his son. Orso cooled his blood by thinking that he would depict his state of mind to Miss Nevil, and that such a picture could not fail to interest that fair lady deeply.