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 vault1 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 sketch2 the mural paintings. But the colonel and Colomba, who neither of them cared much for archaeology3, 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 antiquities4; when once they begin sketching5 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 savage6 any more. Just observe the grace with which I wear this shawl. That fair-haired spark—that officer belonging to your regiment7 who came to the wedding—oh, dear! I can’t recollect8 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 flirt9! 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 vex10 you.”
“Well, well, wait till you have your nephew, and then you shall teach him to use a dagger11, if you choose.”
“Farewell to daggers12!” 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, pallid13, staring fixedly14 in front of him, he looked more like a corpse15 than like a living creature. Colomba watched him for some minutes, and with a curiosity so great that it attra............