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“Well, I think I have then been tolerably fortunate, for if I have seen
right, yours is the only house in the village, that is not fortified.”

“This proves how much I have degenerated; for my father, my grandfather, or
any one of my forefathers would have taken part for one or other of the two
parties which have divided this village for the last ten years. Well, and do you
know what I am in all this, in the midst of the report of guns, the strokes of
knives, and the blows of stilettos! I am arbiter. You came to the province of
Sartene to see bandits, did you not? Well, come with me this evening, and I’ll
show you one.”

“How! You permit me then to accompany you?”

“Oh! yes; if it amuses you, it depends entirely upon yourself.”

“I certainly accept your invitation with great pleasure.”

“Your signoria must be very much fatigued,” said Madame de Franchi, casting a
glance at her son, as if she had partaken of the shame he felt at the
degeneration of Corsica.

“No, mother, no, he must come; and when in some Parisian saloon, they will
speak hereafter before monsieur of these terrible vendettas, and of those cruel
bandits, who yet frighten the young children at Bastia and Ajaccio, he can at
least shrug his shoulders and tell them all about it.”

“But what gave rise originally to this great quarrel, which as it appears is
now on the point of being settled peaceably?”

“Ah!” said Lucien, “in a quarrel, the origin is not of any consequence—but
the result. If a fly, in crossing a man’s path, has occasioned his death, the
man is not the less dead for that.”

I saw that he felt some reluctance to tell me the cause of this terrible mar,
which had for ten years desolated the village of Sullacaro. But, as a matter of
course, the more reserved I found him, the more inquisitive I became.

“But this quarrel must have had an origin,” said I. “Perhaps the reason for
it is a secret?”

“Oh! no, not at all. The matter originated between the Orlandi and the
Colonna.”

“On what occasion?”

“A hen escaped from the yard of the Orlandi, and flew over into that of the
Colonna. The Orlandi went over to claim their hen, but the Colonna refused to
give it up, claiming it as their own; the Orlandi then threatened to take them
before a justice of the peace. The old mother Colonna, who kept the hen in her
hands, then twisted its neck, and threw it into her neighbor’s face: saying,
‘Well then, if she belongs to you, eat her.’ One of the Orlandi then picked up
the hen, and was going to strike the offender with it; but at that moment, one
of the Colonna, who, unfortunately, had a loaded gun in his hand, took aim at
him, and shot him dead on the spot.”

“And how many lives have now paid for this scuffle?”

“There have been nine persons killed altogether.”

“And that for a wretched hen worth only twelve sous.”

“No doubt the hen was the cause; but as I have told you already, it is not
the cause, but the result which you must look at.”

“And because there have been nine persons killed, there must be a tenth
victim?”

“But you see,” replied Lucien, “that this will not be the case, as I am going
to be arbiter.”

“No doubt you do so, at the solicitation of one of these two families?”

“Not at all, but at the request of my brother, who has been spoken to about
this affair, at the Lord Chancellor’s. Now, I ask you in confidence, what
business have they at Paris, to interfere in the private transactions that take
place in an obscure village in Corsica? I suspect the Préfet has played us this
trick, by suggesting to them, perhaps, that if I would say one word in the
matter, all this quarrelling would end like a vaudeville, with a marriage and a
couplet to the public. They then probably spoke to my brother on the subject,
who of course took it up warmly, and wrote to me that he had pledged his word
for me. What shall I do now?” said the young man, raising his head. “Can I let
them say at Paris, that a Franchi has given his word for his brother, and that
that brother has failed to redeem it?”