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.