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CHAPTER II

He was, as my guide had told me, a young man, between twenty and twenty-one
years of age, with black hair and eyes, rather small, but admirably well made.

In his anxiety to pay his compliments to me, he had come up just as he was,
that is in his riding dress, consisting of a green frock-coat, to which a
cartouchière, pressing his waist, gave a certain military air, gray pantaloons
trimmed inside with Russia leather, and boots with spurs; a cap in the style of
those worn by our chasseurs d’Afrique completed his dress.

At his cartouchière were suspended on one side a whip, on the other a gourd.

Besides, he held in his hand an English rifle.

Notwithstanding the youth of my host, whose upper lip was hardly shaded by a
light moustache, there was in his whole person a most striking air of resolution
and independence.

He displayed the man educated for personal combat, accustomed to live in the
midst of danger, not fearing it, but also not despising it—grave, because he is
solitary—calm, because he is strong.

In a single glance he had seen all; my traveling-case, my weapons, the dress
I had just quitted, and the one I had put on; his eye was rapid and sure, like
that of a man whose life depends often upon a moment.

“Excuse me, if I disturb you, signor,” said he, “I do so with a good
intention, that of inquiring what are your wants. I always feel uneasy when I
find a gentleman arriving here from the continent, for we are yet so uncivilized
in our Corsican mountains, that it is only with trembling we extend, especially
towards Frenchmen, that old hospitality which will soon become only a tradition
preserved to us by our fathers.

“You are wrong to fear, signor,” replied I; “it would be impossible to
satisfy the wants of a traveller, more fully than Signora de Franchi has done;
besides,” continued I, looking round the room, “it is not here that I could
complain of this pretended want of refinement, of which, with too much modesty,
you accuse yourself; and if through these windows I did not observe this most
admirable prospect, I could fancy myself in a chamber of the Chaussée d’Antin.”

“Ah! it was a mania of my poor brother Louis,” replied the young man; “he
loved to live à la Française, but I doubt if after his return from Paris, this
poor parody of the refinement which he will leave behind, will satisfy and
please him as much as it did before he left us.”

“Your brother left Corsica a long time ago?” inquired I from my young
interlocutor.

“About one year since, signor.”

“You expect him back soon?”

“Ah! not before three or four years.”

“That will be a long separation for two brothers who probably have never
before been apart from each other?”

“Yes, and especially who loved each other as we did.”

“No doubt he will come to see you before he finishes his studies?”

“Probably; he promised us, at least.”

“At all events, nothing can prevent you from going to visit him?”

“No, I don’t leave Corsica.”

There was expressed in the tone with which he gave this answer, that love of
the fatherland, which looks on the rest of the world with a general disdain.

I smiled.

“That appears strange to you,” added he after awhile, smiling also; “you are
astonished that I don’t feel willing to leave a country so miserable as ours;
but I cannot help it. I am as much a production of this island as its green
oats, and its rose-laurels; I must have my atmosphere impregnated with the
perfume of the sea, and the exhalations of its mountains. I must have my
torrents to cross, my rocks to climb, and my forests to explore; I want space—I
want liberty. If I was transported to a city, it seems to me that I should die
there.”

“But how then can so great a moral difference exist between you and your
brother?”

“You would add, and with so great a personal resemblance, if you only knew
him.”

“You are very much alike, then?”

“So much so, that when we were children our parents found it necessary to put
some mark upon our garments in order to distinguish us.”

“And when you grew older?”

“Then our dissimilar habits and pursuits produced a slight difference in our
complexion—that’s all. All the while locked up—all the time occupied with his
books and studies, my brother has become more fair, while I, constantly in the
open air, always crossing the hills or the plain, grew darker.”

“I hope, said I, “that you will enable me to judge of this difference, by
giving me some message for Signor de Franchi?”