Colomba

  Produced by Dagny; Emma Dudding; John Bickers

  COLOMBA

  By Prosper Merimee

  Translated By The Lady Mary Loyd

  CHAPTER I

  "Pe far la to vendetta, Sta sigur', vasta anche ella."

  --Vocero du Niolo.

  Early in the month of October, 181-, Colonel Sir Thomas Nevil, adistinguished Irish officer of the English army, alighted with hisdaughter at the Hotel Beauveau, Marseilles, on their return from atour in Italy. The perpetual and universal admiration of enthusiastictravellers has produced a sort of reaction, and many tourists, in theirdesire to appear singular, now take the _nil admirari_ of Horace fortheir motto. To this dissatisfied class the colonel's only daughter,Miss Lydia, belonged. "The Transfiguration" has seemed to her mediocre,and Vesuvius in eruption an effect not greatly superior to that producedby the Birmingham factory chimneys. Her great objection to Italy, onthe whole, was its lack of local colour and character. My readers mustdiscover the sense of these expressions as best they may. A few yearsago I understood them very well myself, but at the present time I canmake nothing of them. At first, Miss Lydia had flattered herself she hadfound things on the other side of the Alps which nobody had ever beforeseen, about which she could converse _avec les honnetes gens_, as M.Jourdain calls them. But soon, anticipated in every direction by hercountrymen, she despaired of making any fresh discoveries, and went overto the party of the opposition. It is really very tiresome not to beable to talk abut the wonders of Italy without hearing somebody say "Ofcourse you know the Raphael in the Palazzo---- at ----? It is the finestthing in Italy!" and just the thing _you_ happen to have overlooked!As it would take too long to see everything, the simplest course is toresort to deliberate and universal censure.

  At the Hotel Beauveau Miss Lydia met with a bitter disappointment. Shehad brought back a pretty sketch of the Pelasgic or Cyclopean Gateat Segni, which, as she believed, all other artists had completelyoverlooked. Now, at Marseilles, she met Lady Frances Fenwick, who showedher her album, in which appeared, between a sonnet and a dried flower,the very gate in question, brilliantly touched in with sienna. MissLydia gave her drawing to her maid--and lost all admiration for Pelasgicstructures.

  This unhappy frame of mind was shared by Colonel Nevil, who, since thedeath of his wife, looked at everything through his daughter's eyes. Inhis estimation, Italy had committed the unpardonable sin of boring hischild, and was, in consequence, the most wearisome country on the faceof the earth. He had no fault to find, indeed, with the pictures andstatues, but he was in a position to assert that Italian sport wasutterly wretched, and that he had been obliged to tramp ten leaguesover the Roman Campagna, under a burning sun, to kill a few worthlessred-legged partridges.

  The morning after his arrival at Marseilles he invited CaptainEllis--his former adjutant, who had just been spending six weeks inCorsica--to dine with him. The captain told Miss Lydia a story aboutbandits, which had the advantage of bearing no resemblance to the robbertales with which she had been so frequently regaled, on the road betweenNaples and Rome, and he told it well. At dessert, the two men, leftalone over their claret, talked of hunting--and the colonel learned thatnowhere is there more excellent sport, or game more varied and abundant,than in Corsica. "There are plenty of wild boars," said Captain Ellis."And you have to learn to distinguish them from the domestic pigs, whichare astonishingly like them. For if you kill a pig, you find yourself indifficulties with the swine-herds. They rush out of the thickets (whichthey call _maquis_) armed to the teeth, make you pay for their beasts,and laugh at you besides. Then there is the mouflon, a strange animal,which you will not find anywhere else--splendid game, but hard toget--and stags, deer, pheasants, and partridges--it would be impossibleto enumerate all the kinds with which Corsica swarms. If you wantshooting, colonel, go to Corsica! There, as one of my entertainerssaid to me, you can get a shot at every imaginable kind of game, from athrush to a man!"

  At tea, the captain once more delighted Lydia with the tale of a_vendetta transversale_ (A vendetta in which vengeance falls on a moreor less distant relation of the author of the original offence.),even more strange than his first story, and he thoroughly stirredher enthusiasm by his descriptions of the strange wild beauty of thecountry, the peculiarities of its inhabitants, and their primitivehospitality and customs. Finally, he offered her a pretty littlestiletto, less remarkable for its shape and copper mounting than for itsorigin. A famous bandit had given it to Captain Ellis, and had assuredhim it had been buried in four human bodies. Miss Lydia thrust itthrough her girdle, laid it on the table beside her bed, and unsheathedit twice over before she fell asleep. Her father meanwhile was dreaminghe had slain a mouflon, and that its owner insisted on his paying forit, a demand to which he gladly acceded, seeing it was a most curiouscreature, like a boar, with stag's horns and a pheasant's tail.

  "Ellis tells me there's splendid shooting in Corsica," said the colonel,as he sat at breakfast, alone with his daughter. "If it hadn't been forthe distance, I should like to spend a fortnight there."

  "Well," replied Miss Lydia, "why shouldn't we go to Corsica? While youare hunting I can sketch--I should love to have that grotto CaptainEllis talked about, where Napoleon used to go and study when he was achild, in my album."

  It was the first time, probably, that any wish expressed by thecolonel had won his daughter's approbation. Delighted as he was by theunexpected harmony on their opinions, he was nevertheless wise enoughto put forward various objections, calculated to sharpen Miss Lydia'swelcome whim. In vain did he dwell on the wildness of the country, andthe difficulties of travel there for a lady. Nothing frightened her; sheliked travelling on horseback of all things; she delighted in the ideaof bivouacking in the open; she even threatened to go as far as AsiaMinor--in short, she found an answer to everything. No Englishwoman hadever been to Corsica; therefore she must go. What a pleasure it wouldbe, when she got back to St. James's Place, to exhibit her album! "But,my dear creature, why do you pass over that delightful drawing?" "That'sonly a trifle--just a sketch I made of a famous Corsican bandit who wasour guide." "What! you don't mean to say you have been to Corsica?"

  As there were no steamboats between France and Corsica, in those days,inquiries were made for some ship about to sail for the island MissLydia proposed to discover. That very day the colonel wrote to Paris,to countermand his order for the suite of apartments in which he wasto have made some stay, and bargained with the skipper of a Corsicanschooner, just about to set sail for Ajaccio, for two poor cabins, butthe best that could be had. Provisions were sent on board, the skipperswore that one of his sailors was an excellent cook, and had nothis equal for _bouilleabaisse_; he promised mademoiselle should becomfortable, and have a fair wind and a calm sea.

  The colonel further stipulated, in obedience to his daughter's wishes,that no other passenger should be taken on board, and that the captainshould skirt the coast of the island, so that Miss Lydia might enjoy theview of the mountains.