IX

"He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerful

as that of Charles Nordier's Oudet, threw an incredible fulness of

tone into the syllable or the consonant in which this burr was

sounded. Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when

commanding his men, or when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless

you had heard it, what force was expressed by this accent, which at

Paris is so common. When the Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were

angelically sweet, and his smooth brow had a most charming expression.

On parade, or with the army of Italy, not a man could compare with

him. Indeed, d'Orsay himself, the handsome d'Orsay, was eclipsed by

our colonel on the occasion of the last review held by Napoleon before

the invasion of Russia.

"Everything was in contrasts in this exceptional man. Passion lives on

contrast. Hence you need not ask whether he exerted over women the

irresistible influences to which our nature yields"--and the general

looked at the Princesse de Cadignan--"as vitreous matter is moulded

under the pipe of the glass-blower; still, by a singular fatality--an

observer might perhaps explain the phenomenon--the Colonel was not a

lady-killer, or was indifferent to such successes.

"To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in a few words

what I once saw him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were dragging our

guns up a very narrow road, bordered by a somewhat high slope on one

side, and by thickets on the other. When we were half-way up we met

another regiment of artillery, its colonel marching at the head. This

colonel wanted to make the captain who was at the head of our foremost

battery back down again. The captain, of course, refused; but the

colonel of the other regiment signed to his foremost battery to

advance, and in spite of the care the driver took to keep among the

scrub, the wheel of the first gun struck our captain's right leg and

broke it, throwing him over on the near side of his horse. All this

was the work of a moment. Our Colonel, who was but a little way off,

guessed that there was a quarrel; he galloped up, riding among the

guns at the risk of falling with his horse's four feet in the air, and

reached the spot, face to face with the other colonel, at the very

moment when the captain fell, calling out 'Help!' No, our Italian

colonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth of champagne rose to

his lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion. Incapable of uttering

a word, or even a cry, he made a terrific signal to his antagonist,

pointing to the wood and drawing his sword. The two colonels went

aside. In two seconds we saw our Colonel's opponent stretched on the

ground, his skull split in two. The soldiers of his regiment backed--

yes, by heaven, and pretty quickly too.

"The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay yelping in

the puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italian wife,

a beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to our

Colonel. This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was pledged to

protect the husband, bound to defend him as he would have defended the

woman herself.

"Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well received, this

captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end

of the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman

named Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in

her black almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably thin;

her face was covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the drought of a

highroad. Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in

disorder, and clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied close

over her head, still she had the graces of a woman; her movements were

engaging, her small rose mouth and white teeth, the outline of her

features and figure, charms which misery, cold, and neglect had not

altogether defaced, still suggested love to any man who could think of

a woman. Rosina had one of those frames which are fragile in

appearance, but wiry and full of spring. Her husband, a gentleman of

Piedmont, had a face expressive of ironical simplicity, if it is

allowable to ally the two words. Brave and well informed, he seemed to

know nothing of the connections which had subsisted between his wife

and the Colonel for three years past. I ascribed this unconcern to

Italian manners, or to some domestic secret; yet there was in the

man's countenance one feature which always filled me with involuntary

distrust. His under lip, which was thin and very restless, turned down

at the corners instead of turning up, and this, as I thought, betrayed

a streak of cruelty in a character which seemed so phlegmatic and

indolent.

"As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling when I

went in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they asked me

some questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled with

reflections on the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, the

Russians, and the cold. A minute after my arrival the colonel, having

finished his meagre meal, wiped his moustache, bid us good-night, shot

a black look at the Italian woman, saying, 'Rosina?' and then, without

waiting for a reply, went into the little barn full of hay, to bed.

The meaning of the Colonel's utterance was self-evident. The young

wife replied by an indescribable gesture, expressing all the annoyance

she could not feel at seeing her thralldom thus flaunted without human

decency, and the offence to her dignity as a woman, and to her

husband. But there was, too, in the rigid setting of her features and

the tight knitting of her brows a sort of presentiment; perhaps she

foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in her place.

"A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in his couch

of straw or hay, he repeated, 'Rosina?'

"The tone of this second call was even more brutally questioning than

the first. The Colonel's strong burr, and the length which the Italian

language allows to be given to vowels and the final syllable,

concentrated all the man's despotism, impatience, and strength of

will. Rosina turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and went to

the Colonel.

"All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after looking at

them all, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.--'/Tu ridi?/

--you laugh?' said the husband.

" 'On my honor, old comrade,' said I, becoming serious again, 'I

confess that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times, and if

you are not satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give you

satisfaction.'

" 'Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!' he replied coldly.

"Thereupon we all lay down in the room, and before long all were sound

asleep.

"Next morning each one, without rousing his neighbor or seeking

companionship, set out again on his way, with that selfishness which

made our rout one of the most horrible dramas of self-seeking,

melancholy, and horror which ever was enacted under heaven.

Nevertheless, at about seven or eight hundred paces from our shelter

we, most of us, met again and walked on together, like geese led in

flocks by a child's wilful tyranny. The same necessity urged us all.

"Having reached a knoll where we could still see the farmhouse where

we had spent the night, we heard sounds resembling the roar of lions

in the desert, the bellowing of bulls--no, it was a noise which can be

compared to no known cry. And yet, mingling with this horrible and

ominous roar, we could hear a woman's feeble scream. We all looked

round, seized by I know not what impulse of terror; we no longer saw

the house, but a huge bonfire. The farmhouse had been barricaded, and

was in flames. Swirls of smoke borne on the wind brought us hoarse

cries and an indescribable pungent smell. A few yards behind, the

captain was quietly approaching to join our caravan; we gazed at him

in silence, for no one dared question him; but he, understanding our

curiosity, pointed to his breast with the forefinger of his right

hand, and, waving the left in the direction of the fire, he said,

'/Son'io/.'

"We all walked on without saying a word to him."

"There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep," said de

Marsay.

"It would be frightful to let us leave with this horrible picture in

our memory," said Madame de Montcornet. "I shall dream of it----"

"And what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marsay's 'First'?" said

Lord Dudley, smiling.

"When the English are in jest, their foils have the buttons on," said

Blondet.

"Monsieur Bianchon can tell us, for he saw her dying," replied de

Marsay, turning to me.

"Yes," said I; "and her end was one of the most beautiful I ever saw.

The Duke and I had spent the night by the dying woman's pillow;

pulmonary consumption, in the last stage, left no hope; she had taken

the sacrament the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. The Duchess,

waking at about four in the morning, signed to me in the most touching

way, with a friendly smile, to bid me leave him to rest, and she

meanwhile was about to die. She had become incredibly thin, but her

face had preserved its really sublime outline and features. Her pallor

made her skin look like porcelain with a light within. Her bright eyes

and color contrasted with this languidly elegant complexion, and her

countenance was full of expressive calm. She seemed to pity the Duke,

and the feeling had its origin in a lofty tenderness which, as death

approached, seemed to know no bounds. The silence was absolute. The

room, softly lighted by a lamp, looked like every sickroom at the hour

of death.

"At this moment the clock struck. The Duke awoke, and was in despair

at having fallen asleep. I did not see the gesture of impatience by

which he manifested the regret he felt at having lost sight of his

wife for a few of the last minutes vouchsafed to him; but it is quite

certain that any one but the dying woman might have misunderstood it.

A busy statesman, always thinking of the interests of France, the Duke

had a thousand odd ways on the surface, such as often lead to a man of

genius being mistaken for a madman, and of which the explanation lies

in the exquisiteness and exacting needs of their intellect. He came to

seat himself in an armchair by his wife's side, and looked fixedly at

her. The dying woman put her hand out a little way, took her husband's

and clasped it feebly; and in a low but agitated voice she said, 'My

poor dear, who is left to understand you now?' Then she died, looking

at him."

"The stories the doctor tells us," said the Comte de Vandenesse,

"always leave a deep impression."

"But a sweet one," said Mademoiselle des Touches, rising.

PARIS, June 1839-42.