CHAPTER III.

VITTORIA MALASPINA.

"Ed il modo ancor m'offende."—_Francesca di Rimini._

I had become acquainted in Bastia with a gentleman of Balagna, Signor Mutius Malaspina. He is a descendant of the Tuscan Malaspinas, who governed Corsica in the eleventh century. Through his wife he became connected with the Paoli family, for Vittoria Malaspina was a great-granddaughter of Hyacinth Paoli, and descended from the renowned Clemens. Her father, Giovanni Pietri, Councillor of State, is one of the most meritorious public men in Corsica, and universally beloved.

Signor Malaspina had offered me hospitality in his house at Monticello, a paese in the hills a few miles above Isola Rossa, and I had gladly consented to be a guest in a house where Pasquale had once lived, and from which he has dated so many of his letters. Malaspina gave me a letter to present at his house, which, he said, I should not fail to find open, even though he himself might not have yet returned.

I had accordingly come to Isola Rossa with the intention of going up to Monticello, and spending some days there. I learned, however, on my journey, what I had been totally ignorant of, and what Malaspina had concealed from me—the fearful misfortune, namely, which, less than three years previously, had there befallen his family; so that I now did not know which to be most astonished at, the unparalleled nature of the catastrophe, or the character of the Corsican, who, notwithstanding what had happened, offered hospitality to an unknown stranger. I could no longer prevail upon myself to accept of it in a house where it had been murdered, but I went up to Monticello, to honour misfortune with human sympathy.

The house of the Malaspina family lies at the entrance of the paese, on the plateau of a rock hung with verdure; it is a large old mansion of the earliest times, stern, strong, and castle-like. Dark cypresses mourn round its terraces. Even from a distance they announce to the wanderer the tragedy that was enacted beside them. A neglected little esplanade lies at the entrance of the house. There is a little chapel on it encircled by young plane-trees; it covers the family burial-vault.

Passing under the arched doorway of the mansion, I ascended a narrow and gloomy stone staircase, and looked round for the inhabitants. The house seemed utterly forsaken and desolate. I walked through large dreary rooms, which the genius of comfort had deserted. At length I found the housekeeper, an old lady in mourning, and along with her, a girl eight years old, the youngest daughter. It cost me a great deal of trouble to gain any approach to a welcome from the ancient dame, but she gradually laid aside her distrust.

I put no questions. But the little Felicina asked me of her own accord to come and see her mother's room, and in her innocence said a great deal more than enough.

The old Marcantonia sat down beside me, and told me the story; and what she related I shall faithfully repeat, withholding only the unhappy man's surname, and the name of his native city.

"In the summer of 1849, a great many Italians fled their country, and came over to Corsica. There was one among them whom the authorities were going to send back, but Signor Pietri, who is kind to everybody, so managed matters that he was allowed to stay, and he took him into his own house in Isola Rossa. The stranger—his name was Giustiniano, stayed a month with Signor Pietri down there in Isola Rossa, and as at the end of that time the Signor had to go to Ajaccio to the council, Signor Mutius and Signora Vittoria brought Giustiniano up here. He had every kind of enjoyment with us that he could desire, horses and hunting, a good table, and plenty of company. The Italian was very pleasant and very affable, but he was melancholy, because he had to live in a foreign country. Every one liked the Signora Vittoria, and most of all, the poor; she was an angel."

"Was she beautiful?"

"She had a delicate complexion, still blacker hair than Felicina, and wonderfully beautiful hands and feet. She was large and full. The Italian, instead of finding himself happy in our house, where he enjoyed the most kind and friendly treatment possible, grew more melancholy every day. He began to speak little and to eat little, and looked as pale as death. He wandered about for hours among the hills, and often sat as if oppressed with some great grief, without saying a word."

"Did he never make any disclosure of his love to the Signora?"

"He once followed her into her room, but she made him instantly quit it, and told the servant to say nothing of the affair to her master. Some days before the 20th of December—it is almost three years ago now—Giustiniano began to look so wretched, that we believed he would become seriously ill. We talked of his going to Bastia, for the sake of the change, and he himself had expressed a wish to do so. There were three days during which he did not eat a morsel. One morning, when I brought him his coffee as usual, I found his door locked. I came again after a while, and called him by name. He opened the door. I was terrified to see how he looked. I asked him, 'Signor, what ails you?' He laid his hand on my shoulder, as I now lay mine on yours, and said to me: 'Ah! Marcantonietta, if you knew how sore my heart is!' He did not say another word. I saw a pistol lying on his table, and powder in a paper, and bullets. He had made Felicina's elder sister fetch them for him from the bottega, the evening before. He now said he was going back to Bastia, to take ship there for another country. He took farewell of us all, and rode away down towards Isola Rossa. It was the 20th of December. On the morning of that day, the Signora Vittoria had said to me: 'I had a bad dream last night; I thought my sick _compare_ (godmother, gossip) was dying. I will go and see her to-day, and take a cordial with me.' For that was her way. She often visited sick people, and took them wine, oil, or fruits."

Here Marcantonia wept bitterly.

"Signor Malaspina had gone off to Speloncato; I was out, there was nobody in the house but the sick Madamigella Matilde—she was a relative of the Signora—the youngest children, and a maid-servant. It was the afternoon. As I was returning home, I heard a shot. I thought there were huntsmen in the hills, or that some one was blasting rocks. But soon after, I heard a second shot, and it seemed to come from the house. I was trembling in every limb when I entered the house; and, in terrible anxiety, I asked the girl, where is the Signora? She was trembling too, and she said: 'Ah, _Dio mio!_ She is up stairs in her room changing her dress, for she is going to see the sick woman.' Run, I said, and see after her."

"The girl came rushing down stairs again as pale as a corpse. 'Something must have happened,' said she, 'for the Signora's door is standing wide open, and everything in the room is tumbled up and down, and the stranger's door is locked.' I ran up with the girl, and Felicina and her sister—it was frightful to see my poor Signora's room—the Italian's door was fastened. We knocked, we called, at last we tore the door off its hinges—there, Signor, we saw before us!—but I shall tell you no more."

No, not a word more, Marcantonia! I rose, thrilled and shocked, and went out. The little Felicina and the housekeeper followed me. They led me to the little chapel. The child and the old woman kneeled down before the altar, and prayed. I took a myrtle twig from the altar, and threw it on the spot beneath which Vittoria lies buried. And sadly I wandered down towards Isola Rossa.

One can hardly grasp in thought the enormity of such a deed, much less prevail on one's-self to talk of it. Giustiniano had suddenly returned after leaving Monticello, and secretly gone up stairs; his room, and that of Vittoria, were on the same flat, separated by a passage. Giustiniano rushed in on her, armed with a pistol and a dagger. He wrestled fearfully with the powerful woman. He threw her on the floor, he dragged her into his room;—she was already dying, pierced with his dagger-thrusts. Her beautiful hair was found strewed about the floor, and the room all disordered with the struggle. Giustiniano threw the unhappy lady on his bed—he shot her with a pistol through the temples—he took her rings from her fingers, and put them on his own—then he lay down by her side, and blew out his brains.

So they were found by old Marcantonia, and poor little Felicina, then a child of five; weeping, she cried: "That is my mother's blood"—a fearful sight, a horrid catastrophe, to be impressed for life on a child's soul. The people of Monticello wanted to tear Giustiniano limb from limb. Malaspina, who had returned without the least misgiving from Speloncato, prevented this. The body was interred among the rocks of Mount Monticello. Vittoria was thirty-six years old, and the mother of six children. Giustiniano had scarcely reached his twenty-fifth year.

I found Mutius Malaspina a plain and unpretending man, with iron features and an iron composure. I should have refrained from telling the tragic story here, were it not that it is already in every one's mouth, and even published in a little book printed in Bastia, which contains also sonnets on Vittoria. The memory of Vittoria Malaspina will endure while the island lasts. When centuries have passed, the melancholy fate of the noble woman, which I learned from the mouth of a member of the family in the house itself, will have become a popular tradition. Even when I was at Monticello, I could see how quickly real events, in the mouths of the people, began to assume something of the mythical. The same old housekeeper informed me, that the ghost of poor Vittoria had appeared to a sick woman in the paese. And soon the report will spread, too, that her murderer rises nightly from his tomb among the rocks, pale and restless as when in life, and glides towards the house where he perpetrated the dreadful deed.

Disposed to take a very gloomy view of human nature, I descended the hills, musing on the narrow boundary at which love, the noblest of all passions, becomes a criminal and terrific madness, if it passes it by a hair's-breadth. How closely in the human soul the divine borders on the devilish! and how comes it that the same feeling supplies the material for both? I saw neither the hills nor the serene sea; I cursed all Corsica, and wished I had never set foot on its bloody soil. Suddenly the beautiful child Camillo came leaping to my side. The little fellow had followed me over stock and stone up the hills. He now came towards me, holding out a handful of bramble-berries that he had plucked, and with bright friendly eyes asked me to take some. The sight of the innocent child brought back my good humour. It seemed as if he had thrown himself in my way, to show me how beautiful and innocent man leaves the hands of Nature. Camillo ran along by my side, bounding from stone to stone, till all at once he said: "I am tired; I want to sit a little." He sat down on a fragment of rock. I thought I had never seen a more beautiful child. When I said this to his elder brother, he answered: "Yes, everybody likes Camilluccio; in the procession of Corpus Domini he was an angel, and had a snow-white robe on, and a great palm-branch in his hand." I looked with delight upon the boy as he sat upon the rock, gazing silently from his large eyes, the beautiful raven curls hanging wild about his face. His little dress was torn; for his parents were poor. All at once he began unasked to sing the Marseillaise:—

"Allons enfans de la patrie... Contre nous de la tyrannie L'étendard sanglant est levé."

It was strange to hear the Marseillaise from the mouth of so lovely a child, and to see the grave face with which he sang. But how historical this bloody song sounds in the mouth of a Corsican boy! As little Camillo sang—"Tyranny has raised its bloody flag against us!" I thought, Poor child! Heaven guard you, and grant that you do not fall some day yet from the bullet of the Vendetta, nor wander as avenger in the hills.

As we approached Isola Rossa, we were alarmed by a red glow, as of flame, in the little town. I hastened on, believing fire had broken out. It proved to be a bonfire. The children, girls and boys, had kindled a huge bonfire on the Paoli Place, had joined hands and were dancing round about it in a ring, laughing and singing. They sang numberless little couplets of their own composition, some of which I still remember:—

Amo un presidente, I love a president— Sta in letto senza dente. He lies in bed, and has no teeth.

Amo un ufficiale, I love an officer— Sta in letto senza male. He lies in bed, and nothing ails him.

Amo un pastore, I love a herdsman— Sta in letto senza amore. He lies in bed, and has nothing to love.

Amo un cameriere, I love a valet— Sta in letto senza bere. He lies in bed, and has nothing to drink.

The youngsters seemed to have an exhaustless store of these little verses, and kept singing and swinging round the fire as if they would never stop. The melody was charming, _naïve_, childlike. I was so pleased with this extemporized child's festival, that in honour of it I improvised one or two couplets myself, whereupon the little folks burst into such uproarious shouts of merriment, as made all Isola Rossa ring again.

On the following day, I drove in a _char-à-banc_ to Calvi. Little Camillo was standing beside the vehicle as I stepped into it, and said sorrowfully: _Non me piace che tu ci abbandoni_—I'm not pleased that you're going to leave us. The wanderer fills his note-book with sketches of mountain, stream, and town, records deeds honourable and vile, why not for once preserve the picture of a beautiful child? When long years have elapsed, the face still returns upon our inward vision, and haunts the memory like a lovely song.