Colomba

by Prosper Mérimée

  CHAPTER II

  On the day of their departure everything was packed and sent on boardearly in the morning. The schooner was to sail with the eveningbreeze. Meanwhile, as the colonel and his daughter were walking on theCanebiere, the skipper addressed them, and craved permission to take onboard one of his relations, his eldest son's godfather's secondcousin, who was going back to Corsica, his native country, on importantbusiness, and could not find any ship to take him over.

  "He's a charming fellow," added Captain Mattei, "a soldier, an officerin the Infantry of the Guard, and would have been a colonel already if_the other_ (meaning Napoleon) had still been emperor!"

  "As he is a soldier," began the colonel--he was about to add, "I shallbe very glad he should come with us," when Miss Lydia exclaimed inEnglish:

  "An infantry officer!" (Her father had been in the cavalry, and sheconsequently looked down on every other branch of the service.) "Anuneducated man, very likely, who would be sea-sick, and spoil all thepleasure of our trip!"

  The captain did not understand a word of English, but he seemed to catchwhat Miss Lydia was saying by the pursing up of her pretty mouth, andimmediately entered upon an elaborate panegyric of his relative, whichhe wound up by declaring him to be a gentleman, belonging to a family of_corporals_, and that he would not be in the very least in the colonel'sway, for that he, the skipper, would undertake to stow him in somecorner, where they should not be aware of his presence.

  The colonel and Miss Nevil thought it peculiar that there should beCorsican families in which the dignity of corporal was handed down fromfather to son. But, as they really believed the individual in questionto be some infantry corporal, they concluded he was some poor devilwhom the skipper desired to take out of pure charity. If he had been anofficer, they would have been obliged to speak to him and live withhim; but there was no reason why they should put themselves out for acorporal--who is a person of no consequence unless his detachment isalso at hand, with bayonets fixed, ready to convey a person to a placeto which he would rather not be taken.

  "Is your kinsman ever sea-sick?" demanded Miss Nevil sharply.

  "Never, mademoiselle, he is as steady as a rock, either on sea or land!"

  "Very good then, you can take him," said she.

  "You can take him!" echoed the colonel, and they passed on their way.

  Toward five o'clock in the evening Captain Mattei came to escort themon board the schooner. On the jetty, near the captain's gig, they met atall young man wearing a blue frock-coat, buttoned up to his chin; hisface was tanned, his eyes were black, brilliant, wide open, his wholeappearance intelligent and frank. His shoulders, well thrown back, andhis little twisted mustache clearly revealed the soldier--for at thatperiod mustaches were by no means common, and the National Guard had notcarried the habits and appearance of the guard-room into the bosom ofevery family.

  When the young man saw the colonel he doffed his cap, and thanked him inexcellent language, and without the slightest shyness, for the servicehe was rendering him.

  "Delighted to be of use to you, my good fellow!" said the colonel, witha friendly nod, and he stepped into the gig.

  "He's not very ceremonious, this Englishman of yours," said the youngman in Italian, and in an undertone, to the captain.

  The skipper laid his forefinger under his left eye, and pulled down thecorners of his mouth. To a man acquainted with the language of signs,this meant that the Englishman understood Italian, and was an oddityinto the bargain. The young man smiled slightly and touched hisforehead, in answer to Mattei's sign, as though to indicate that everyEnglishman had a bee in his bonnet. Then he sat down beside them, andbegan to look very attentively, though not impertinently, at his prettyfellow-traveller.

  "These French soldiers all have a good appearance," remarked thecolonel in English to his daughter, "and so it is easy to turn them intoofficers." Then addressing the young man in French, he said, "Tell me,my good man, what regiment have you served in?" The young man nudged hissecond cousin's godson's father gently with his elbow, and suppressingan ironic smile, replied that he had served in the Infantry of theGuard, and that he had just quitted the Seventh Regiment of LightInfantry.

  "Were you at Waterloo? You are very young!"

  "I beg your pardon, colonel, that was my only campaign."

  "It counts as two," said the colonel.

  The young Corsican bit his lips.

  "Papa," said Miss Lydia in English, "do ask him if the Corsicans arevery fond of their Buonaparte."

  Before the colonel could translate her question into French, the youngman answered in fairly good English, though with a marked accent:

  "You know, mademoiselle, that no man is ever a prophet in his owncountry. We, who are Napoleon's fellow-countrymen, are perhaps lessattached to him than the French. As for myself, though my family wasformerly at enmity with his, I both love and admire him."

  "You speak English!" exclaimed the colonel.

  "Very ill, as you may perceive!"

  Miss Lydia, though somewhat shocked by the young man's easy tone, couldnot help laughing at the idea of a personal enmity between a corporaland an emperor. She took this as a foretaste of Corsican peculiarities,and made up her mind to note it down in her journal.

  "Perhaps you were a prisoner in England?" asked the colonel.

  "No, colonel, I learned English in France, when I was very young, from aprisoner of your nation."

  Then, addressing Miss Nevil:

  "Mattei tells me you have just come back from Italy. No doubt,mademoiselle, you speak the purest Tuscan--I fear you'll find itsomewhat difficult to understand our dialect."

  "My daughter understands every Italian dialect," said the colonel. "Shehas the gift of languages. She doesn't get it from me."

  "Would mademoiselle understand, for instance, these lines from one ofour Corsican songs in which a shepherd says to his shepherdess:

  "S'entrassi 'ndru paradisu santu, santu, E nun truvassi a tia, mi n'escriria."

  ("If I entered the holy land of paradise and found thee not, I would depart!")

  --_Serenata di Zicavo_.

  Miss Lydia did understand. She thought the quotation bold, and the lookwhich accompanied it still bolder, and replied, with a blush, "Capisco."

  "And are you going back to your own country on furlough?" inquired thecolonel.

  "No, colonel, they have put me on half-pay, because I was at Waterloo,probably, and because I am Napoleon's fellow-countryman. I am goinghome, as the song says, low in hope and low in purse," and he looked upto the sky and sighed.

  The colonel slipped his hand into his pocket, and tried to think of somecivil phrase with which he might slip the gold coin he was fingeringinto the palm of his unfortunate enemy.

  "And I too," he said good-humouredly, "have been put on half-pay,but your half-pay can hardly give you enough to buy tobacco! Here,corporal!" and he tried to force the gold coin into the young man'sclosed hand, which rested on the gunwale of the gig.

  The young Corsican reddened, drew himself up, bit his lips, and seemed,for a moment, on the brink of some angry reply. Then suddenly hisexpression changed and he burst out laughing. The colonel, grasping hisgold piece still in his hand, sat staring at him.

  "Colonel," said the young man, when he had recovered his gravity, "allowme to offer you two pieces of advice--the first is never to offer moneyto a Corsican, for some of my fellow-countrymen would be rude enough tothrow it back in your face; the second is not to give people titlesthey do not claim. You call me 'corporal,' and I am a lieutenant--thedifference is not very great, no doubt, still----"

  "Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" exclaimed Sir Thomas. "But the skipper told meyou were a corporal, and that your father and all your family had beencorporals before you!"

  At these words the young man threw himself back and laughed louder thanever, so merrily that the skipper and his two sailors joined the chorus.

  "Forgive me, colonel!" he cried at last. "The mis
take is so comical, andI have only just realized it. It is quite true that my family glories inthe fact that it can reckon many corporals among its ancestors--but ourCorsican corporals never wore stripes upon their sleeves! Toward theyear of grace 1100 certain villages revolted against the tyranny of thegreat mountain nobles, and chose leaders of their own, whom they called_corporals_. In our island we think a great deal of being descended fromthese tribunes."

  "I beg your pardon, sir," exclaimed the colonel, "I beg your pardon athousand times! As you understand the cause of my mistake, I hope youwill do me the kindness of forgiving it!" and he held out his hand.

  "It is the just punishment of my petty pride," said the young man, stilllaughing, and cordially shaking the Englishman's hand. "I am not at alloffended. As my friend Mattei has introduced me so unsuccessfully, allowme to introduce myself. My name is Orso della Rebbia; I am a lieutenanton half-pay; and if, as the sight of those two fine dogs of yours leadsme to believe, you are coming to Corsica to hunt, I shall be very proudto do you the honours of our mountains and our _maquis_--if, indeed, Ihave not forgotten them altogether!" he added, with a sigh.

  At this moment the gig came alongside the schooner, the lieutenantoffered his hand to Miss Lydia, and then helped the colonel to swinghimself up on deck. Once there, Sir Thomas, who was still very muchashamed of his blunder, and at a loss to know what he had better do tomake the man whose ancestry dated from the year 1100 forget it, invitedhim to supper, without waiting for his daughter's consent, and with manyfresh apologies and handshakes. Miss Lydia frowned a little, but, afterall, she was not sorry to know what a corporal really was. She ratherliked there guest, and was even beginning to fancy there was somethingaristocratic about him--only she thought him too frank and merry for ahero of romance.

  "Lieutenant della Rebbia," said the colonel, bowing to him, Englishfashion, over a glass of Madeira, "I met a great many of your countrymenin Spain--they were splendid sharp-shooters."

  "Yes, and a great many of them have stayed in Spain," replied the younglieutenant gravely.

  "I shall never forget the behaviour of a Corsican battalion at theBattle of Vittoria," said the colonel; "I have good reason to rememberit, indeed," he added, rubbing his chest. "All day long they had beenskirmishing in the gardens, behind the hedges, and had killed I don'tknow how many of our horses and men. When the retreat was sounded, theyrallied and made off at a great pace. We had hoped to take our revengeon them in the open plain, but the scoundrels--I beg your pardon,lieutenant; the brave fellows, I should have said--had formed a square,and there was no breaking it. In the middle of the square--I fancy I cansee him still--rode an officer on a little black horse. He kept closebeside the standard, smoking his cigar as coolly as if he had been in acafe. Every now and then their bugles played a flourish, as if to defyus. I sent my two leading squadrons at them. Whew! Instead of breakingthe front of the square, my dragoons passed along the sides, wheeled,and came back in great disorder, and with several riderless horses--andall the time those cursed bugles went on playing. When the smoke whichhad hung over the battalion cleared away, I saw the officer stillpuffing at his cigar beside his eagle. I was furious, and led a finalcharge myself. Their muskets, foul with continual firing, would not gooff, but the men had drawn up, six deep, with their bayonets pointedat the noses of our horses; you might have taken them for a wall. I wasshouting, urging on my dragoons, and spurring my horse forward, when theofficer I have mentioned, at length throwing away his cigar, pointed meout to one of his men, and I heard him say something like _'Al capellobianco!'_--I wore a white plume. Then I did not hear any more, for abullet passed through my chest. That was a splendid battalion, M. dellaRebbia, that first battalion of the Eighteenth--all of them Corsicans,as I was afterward told!"

  "Yes," said Orso, whose eyes had shone as he listened to the story."They covered the retreat, and brought back their eagle. Two thirds ofthose brave fellows are sleeping now on the plains of Vittoria!"

  "And, perhaps, you can tell me the name of the officer in command?"

  "It was my father--he was then a major in the Eighteenth, and waspromoted colonel for his conduct on that terrible day."

  "Your father! Upon my word, he was a brave man! I should be glad to seehim again, and I am certain I should recognise him. Is he still alive?"

  "No, colonel," said the young man, turning slightly pale.

  "Was he at Waterloo?"

  "Yes, colonel; but he had not the happiness of dying on the field ofbattle. He died in Corsica two years ago. How beautiful the sea is! Itis ten years since I have seen the Mediterranean! Don't you think theMediterranean much more beautiful than the ocean, mademoiselle?"

  "I think it too blue, and its waves lack grandeur."

  "You like wild beauty then, mademoiselle! In that case, I am sure youwill be delighted with Corsica."

  "My daughter," said the colonel, "delights in everything that is out ofthe common, and for that reason she did not care much for Italy."

  "The only place in Italy that I know," said Orso, "is Pisa, where I wasat school for some time. But I can not think, without admiration, ofthe Campo-Santo, the Duomo, and the Leaning Tower--especially of theCampo-Santo. Do you remember Orcagna's 'Death'? I think I could drawevery line of it--it is so graven on my memory."

  Miss Lydia was afraid the lieutenant was going to deliver anenthusiastic tirade.

  "It is very pretty," she said, with a yawn. "Excuse me, papa, my headaches a little; I am going down to my cabin."

  She kissed her father on the forehead, inclined her head majesticallyto Orso, and disappeared. Then the two men talked about hunting andwar. They discovered that at Waterloo they had been posted oppositeeach other, and had no doubt exchanged many a bullet. This knowledgestrengthened their good understanding. Turning about, they criticisedNapoleon, Wellington, and Blucher, and then they hunted buck, boar, andmountain sheep in company. At last, when night was far advanced, andthe last bottle of claret had been emptied, the colonel wrung thelieutenant's hand once more and wished him good-night, expressing hishope that an acquaintance, which had begun in such ridiculous fashion,might be continued. They parted, and each went to bed.