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Read books online » Fiction » Colomba by Prosper Mérimée (rainbow fish read aloud .txt) 📖

Book online «Colomba by Prosper Mérimée (rainbow fish read aloud .txt) 📖». Author Prosper Mérimée



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the two Corsicans cantering their little ponies rapidly toward the mountains. Half an hour later the colonel showed them to her, through his glasses, riding along the end of the bay, and she noticed that Orso constantly turned his head toward the town. At last he disappeared behind the marshes, the site of which is now filled by a flourishing nursery garden.

Miss Lydia glanced at herself in the glass, and thought she looked pale.

“What must that young man think of me,” said she, “and what did I think of him? And why did I think about him? . . . A travelling acquaintance! . . . What have I come to Corsica for? . . . Oh! I don’t care for him! . . . No! no! and besides the thing is impossible . . . And Colomba . . . Fancy me sister-in-law to a voceratrice, who wears a big dagger!”

And she noticed she was still holding King Theodore’s dagger in her hand. She tossed it on to her toilette table. “Colomba, in London, dancing at Almacks! . . . Good heavens! what a lion[*] that would be, to show off! . . . Perhaps she’d make a great sensation! . . . He loves me, I’m certain of it! He is the hero of a novel, and I have interrupted his adventurous career. . . . But did he really long to avenge his father in true Corsican fashion? . . . He was something between a Conrad and a dandy . . . I’ve turned him into nothing but a dandy! . . . And a dandy with a Corsican tailor! . . .”

     [*] At this period this name was used in England for people
     who were the fashion because they had something
     extraordinary about them.

She threw herself on her bed, and tried to sleep—but that proved an impossibility, and I will not undertake to continue her soliloquy, during which she declared, more than a hundred times over, that Signor della Rebbia had not been, was not, and never should be, anything to her.





CHAPTER IX

Meanwhile Orso was riding along beside his sister. At first the speed at which their horses moved prevented all conversation, but when the hills grew so steep that they were obliged to go at a foot’s pace, they began to exchange a few words about the friends from whom they had just parted. Colomba spoke with admiration of Miss Nevil’s beauty, of her golden hair, and charming ways. Then she asked whether the colonel was really as rich as he appeared, and whether Miss Lydia was his only child.

“She would be a good match,” said she. “Her father seems to have a great liking for you——”

And as Orso made no response, she added: “Our family was rich, in days gone by. It is still one of the most respected in the island. All these signori about us are bastards. The only noble blood left is in the families of the corporals, and as you know, Orso, your ancestors were the chief corporals in the island. You know our family came from beyond the hills, and it was the civil wars that forced us over to this side. If I were you, Orso, I shouldn’t hesitate—I should ask Colonel Nevil for his daughter’s hand.” Orso shrugged his shoulders. “With her fortune, you might buy the Falsetta woods, and the vineyards below ours. I would build a fine stone house, and add a story to the old tower in which Sambucuccio killed so many Moors in the days of Count Henry, il bel Missere.”

“Colomba, you’re talking nonsense,” said Orso, cantering forward.

“You are a man, Ors’ Anton’, and of course you know what you ought to do better than any woman. But I should very much like to know what objection that Englishman could have to the marriage. Are there any corporals in England?”

After a somewhat lengthy ride, spent in talking in this fashion, the brother and sister reached a little village, not far from Bocognano, where they halted to dine and sleep at a friend’s house. They were welcomed with a hospitality which must be experienced before it can be appreciated. The next morning, their host, who had stood godfather to a child to whom Madame della Rebbia had been godmother, accompanied them a league beyond his house.

“Do you see those woods and thickets?” said he to Orso, just as they were parting. “A man who had met with a misfortune might live there peacefully for ten years, and no gendarme or soldier would ever come to look for him. The woods run into the Vizzavona forest, and anybody who had friends at Bocognano or in the neighbourhood would want for nothing. That’s a good gun you have there. It must carry a long way. Blood of the Madonna! What calibre! You might kill better game than boars with it!”

Orso answered, coldly, that his gun was of English make, and carried “the lead” a long distance. The friends embraced, and took their different ways.

Our travellers were drawing quite close to Pietranera, when, at the entrance of a little gorge, through which they had to pass, they beheld seven or eight men, armed with guns, some sitting on stones, others lying on the grass, others standing up, and seemingly on the lookout. Their horses were grazing a little way off. Colomba looked at them for a moment, through a spy-glass which she took out of one of the large leathern pockets all Corsicans wear when on a journey.

“Those are our men!” she cried, with a well-pleased air. “Pieruccio had done his errand well!”

“What men?” inquired Orso.

“Our herdsmen,” she replied. “I sent Pieruccio off yesterday evening to call the good fellows together, so that they may attend you home. It would not do for you to enter Pietranera without an escort, and besides, you must know the Barricini are capable of anything!”

“Colomba,” said Orso, and his tone was severe, “I have asked you, over and over again, not to mention the Barricini and your groundless suspicions to me. I shall certainly not make myself ridiculous by riding home with all these loafers behind me, and I am very angry with you for having sent for them without telling me.”

“Brother, you have forgotten the ways of your own country. It is my business to protect you, when your own imprudence exposes you to danger. It was my duty to do what I have done.”

Just at that moment the herdsmen, who had caught sight of them, hastened to their horses, and galloped down the hill to meet them.

“Evvviva Ors’ Anton’!” shouted a brawny, white-bearded old fellow, wrapped, despite the heat, in a hooded cloak of Corsican cloth, thicker than the skins of his own goats. “The image of his father, only taller and stronger! What a splendid gun! There’ll be talk about that gun, Ors’ Anton’!”

“Evvviva Ors’ Anton’!” chorused the herdsmen. “We were sure you’d come back, at last!”

“Ah! Ors’ Anton’!” cried a tall fellow, with a skin tanned brick red. “How happy your father would be, if he were here to welcome you! The dear, good man! You would have seen him now, if he would have listened to me—if he would have let me settle Guidice’s business! . . . But he wouldn’t listen to me, poor fellow! He knows I was right, now!”

“Well, well!” said the old man. “Guidice will lose nothing by waiting.”

“Evvviva Ors’ Anton’!” And the reports of a dozen guns capped the plaudit.

Very much put out, Orso sat in the midst of the group of mounted men, all talking at once, and crowding round to shake hands with him. For some time he could not make himself heard. At last, with the air he put on when he used to reprimand the men of his company, or send one of them to the guard-room, he said:

“I thank you, friends, for the affection you show for me, and for that which you felt for my father! But I do not want advice from any of you, and you must not offer it. I know my own duty.”

“He’s right! He’s right!” cried the herdsmen. “You know you may reckon on us!”

“Yes, I do reckon on you. But at this moment I need no help, and no personal danger threatens me. Now face round at once, and be off with you to your goats. I know my way to Pietranera, and I want no guides.”

“Fear nothing, Ors’ Anton’,” said the old man. “They would never dare to show their noses to-day. The mouse runs back to its hole when the tom-cat comes out!”

“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.[*] 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!”

     [*] This saint is not mentioned in the calendar. To make a
     vow to Saint Nega means to deny everything deliberately.

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

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