Never did Ascanio utter a word that could alarm the timid, innocent child who called him brother. They were alone, and they loved each other; but for the very reason that they were alone they were the more conscious of the presence of God, whose heaven they saw nearer at hand, and for the very reason that they loved each other, they respected their love as a divinity.
As soon as the first rays of dawn began to cast a feeble light upon the roofs of the houses, Colombe regretfully sent her friend away, but called him back as many times as Juliet did Romeo. One or the other had always forgotten something of the greatest importance; however, they had to part at last, and Colombe, up to the moment, toward noon, when she committed her heart to God, and slept the sleep of the angels, would sit alone, and dream, listening to the voices whispering in her heart, and to the little birds singing under the lindens in her old garden. It goes without saying that Ascanio always carried the ladder away with him.
Every morning she strewed bread around the mouth of the statue for the little birds; the bold-faced little fellows would come and seize it, and fly quickly away again at first; but they gradually grew tame. Birds seem to understand the hearts of young girls, who are winged like themselves. They finally would remain for a long while, and would pay in song for the banquet with which Colombe regaled them. There was one audacious goldfinch who ventured within the room, and finally acquired the habit of eating from Colombe's hand at morning and evening. When the nights began to be a little cool, one night he allowed himself to be taken captive by the young prisoner, who put him in her bosom, and there he slept until morning, notwithstanding Ascanio's visit and Colombe's nightly promenade. After that the willing captive never failed to return at night. At daybreak he would begin to sing: Colombe would then hold him for Ascanio to kiss, and set him at liberty.
Thus did Colombe's days glide by in the head of the statue. Only two things occurred to disturb the tranquillity of her existence; those two things were the provost's domiciliary visits. Once Colombe awoke with a start at the sound of her father's voice. It was no dream; he was down in the garden beneath her, and Benvenuto was saying to him: "You ask what this colossal figure is, Monsieur d'Estourville? It is the statue of Mars, which his Majesty condescended to order for Fontainebleau. A little bauble sixty feet high, as you see!"
"It is of noble proportions, and very beautiful," replied D'Estourville; "but let us go on, this is not what I am in search of."
"No, it would be too easy to find."
And they passed on.
Colombe, kneeling with outstretched arms, felt an intense longing to cry out, "Father, father, I am here!" The old man was seeking his child, weeping for her perhaps; but the thought of Comte d'Orbec, the hateful schemes of Madame d'Etampes, and the memory of the conversation Ascanio overheard, paralyzed her impulse. And on the second visit the same impulse did not come to her when the voice of the odious count was mingled with the provost's.
"There's a curious statue built just like a house," said D'Orbec, as he halted at the foot of the colossus. "If it stands through the winter, the swallows will build their nests in it in the spring."
On the morning of the day when the mere voice of her fiancé so alarmed Colombe, Ascanio had brought her a letter from Cellini.