one lovely april morning, sir thomas nevil, his daughter, a newly made bride—orso, and colomba, drove out of pisa to see a lately discovered etruscan vault to which all strangers who came to that part of the country paid a visit.
orso and his wife went down into the ancient building, pulled out their pencils, and began to sketch the mural paintings. but the colonel and colomba, who neither of them cared much for archaeology, left them to themselves, and walked about in the neighbourhood.
“my dear colomba,” said the colonel, “we shall never get back to pisa in time for lunch. aren’t you hungry? there are orso and his wife buried in their antiquities; when once they begin sketching together, it lasts forever!”
“yes,” remarked colomba. “and yet they never bring the smallest sketch home with them.”
“i think,” proceeded the colonel, “our best plan would be to make our way to that little farm-house yonder. we should find bread there, and perhaps some aleatico. who knows, we might even find strawberries and cream! and then we should be able to wait patiently for our artists.”
“you are quite right, colonel. you and i are the reasonable members of this family. we should be very foolish if we let ourselves by martyrized by that pair of lovers, who live on poetry! give me your arm! don’t you think i’m improving? i lean on people’s arms, wear fashionable hats and gowns and trinkets—i’m learning i don’t know how many fine things—i’m not at all a young savage any more. just observe the grace with which i wear this shawl. that fair-haired spark—that officer belonging to your regiment who came to the wedding—oh, dear! i can’t recollect his name!—a tall, curly-headed man, whom i could knock over with one hand——”
“chatsworth?” suggested the colonel.
“that’s it!—but i never shall be able to say it!—well, you know he’s over head and ears in love with me!”
“o colomba, you’re growing a terrible flirt! we shall have another wedding before long.”
“i! marry! and then who will there be to bring up my nephew—when orso provides me with a nephew? and who’ll teach him to talk corsican? yes, he shall talk corsican, and i’ll make him a peaked cap, just to vex you.”
“well, well, wait till you have your nephew, and then you shall teach him to use a dagger, if you choose.”
“farewell to daggers!” said colomba merrily. “i have a fan now, to rap your fingers with when you speak ill of my country.”
chatting thus, they reached the farm-house, where they found wine, strawberries, and cream. colomba helped the farmer’s wife to gather the strawberries, while the colonel drank his aleatico. at the turning of a path she caught sight of an old man, sitting in the sun, on a straw chair. he seemed ill, his cheeks were fallen in, his eyes were hollow, he was frightfully thin; as he sat there, motionless, pallid, staring fixedly in front of him, he looked more like a corpse than like a living creature. colomba watched him for some minutes, and with a curiosity so great that it attracted the woman’s attention.
“that poor old fellow is a countryman of yours,” she said. “for i know you are from corsica by the way you talk, signorina! he has had great trouble in his own country. his children met with some terrible death. they say—you’ll excuse me, signorina—that when they quarrel, your compatriots don’t show each other very much mercy. then the poor old gentleman, being left all alone, came over to pisa, to a distant relation of his, who owns this farm. between his misfortunes and his sorrow, the good man is a little cracked. . . . the lady found him troublesome—for she sees a great deal of company. so she sent him out here. he’s very gentle—no worry at all. he doesn’t speak three words the whole day long. in fact, his brain’s quite gone. the doctor comes to see him every week. he says he won’t live long.”
“there’s no hope for him, then!” said colomba. “in such a case, death will be a mercy.”
“you might say a word to him in corsican, signorina. perhaps it would cheer him up to hear the speech of his own country.”
“i’ll see!” said colomba, and her smile was mysterious.
she drew nearer to the old man, till her shadow fell across his chair. then the poor idiot lifted his head and stared at colomba, while she looked at him, smiling still. after a moment, the old man passed his hand across his forehead, and closed his eyes, as though he would have shut out the sight of colomba. he opened them again, desperately wide this time. his lips began to work, he tried to stretch out his hands, but, fascinated by colomba’s glance, he sat, nailed, as it were, to his chair, unable to move or utter a word. at last great tears dropped from his eyes, and a few sobs escaped from his heaving chest.
“‘tis the first time i’ve seen him like this,” said the good woman. “this signorina belongs to your own country; she has come to see you,” said she to the old man.
“mercy!” he cried in a hoarse voice. “mercy! are you not content? the leaf i burned. how did you read it? but why did you take them both? orlanduccio! you can’t have read anything against him! you should have left me one, only one! orlanduccio—you didn’t read his name!”
“i had to have them both!” answered colomba, speaking low and in the corsican dialect. “the branches are topped off! if the stem had not been rotten, i would have torn it up! come! make no moan. you will not suffer long! i suffered for two years!”
the old man cried out, and then his head dropped on his breast. colomba turned her back on him, and went slowly into the house, humming some meaningless lines out of a ballata:
“i must have the hand
that fired, the eye that aimed, the heart
that planned.”
while the farmer’s wife ran to attend on the old man, colomba, with blazing eyes and brilliant cheeks, sat down to luncheon opposite the colonel.
“what’s the matter with you?” he said. “you look just as you did that day at pietranera, when they fired at us while we were at dinner.”
“old corsican memories had come back to me. but all that’s done with. i shall be godmother, sha’n’t i? oh! what fine names i’ll give him! ghilfuccio—tomaso—orso—leone!”
the farmer’s wife came back into the room.
“well?” inquired colomba, with the most perfect composure. “is he dead, or had he only fainted?”
“it was nothing, signorina. but it’s curious what an effect the sight of you had on him.”
“and the doctor says he won’t last long?”
“not two months, very likely.”
“he’ll be no great loss!” remarked colomba.
“what the devil are you talking about?” inquired the colonel.
“about an idiot from my own country, who is boarded out here. i’ll send from time to time to find out how he is. why, colonel nevil, aren’t you going to leave any strawberries for lydia and my brother?”
when colomba left the farm-house and got into the carriage, the farmer’s wife looked after her for a while. then, turning to her daughter:
“dost see that pretty young lady yonder?” she said. “well, i’m certain she has the evil eye!”
