One evening, Rosabella was reading to her grandfather a description of an albino squirrel. The pure white animal, with pink eyes and a feathery tail, pleased her fancy extremely, and she expressed a strong desire to see one. Pierre said nothing; but not long after, as they sat eating grapes after dinner, a white squirrel leaped on the table, frisked from shoulder to shoulder, and at last sat up with a grape in its paws. Rosabella uttered an exclamation of delight. “Is it alive?” she said. “Do you not see that it is?” rejoined Pierre. “Call the dog, and see what he thinks about it.”
“We have so many things here, which are alive and yet not alive,” she replied, smiling.
Florien warmly praised the pretty automaton; but he was somewhat vexed that he himself did not think of making the graceful little animal for which the maiden had expressed a wish. Her pet Canary had died the day before, and his eye happened to rest on the empty cage hanging over the flower-stand. “I too will give her a pleasure,” thought he. A few weeks after, as they sat at breakfast, sweet notes were heard from the cage, precisely the same the Canary used to sing; and, looking up, the astonished maiden saw him hopping about, nibbling at the sugar and pecking his feathers, as lively as ever. Florien smiled, and said, “Is it as much alive as Pierre’s squirrel?”
The approach of the next birth-day was watched with eager expectation; for even the old man began to feel keen pleasure in the competition, as if he had witnessed a race between fleet horses. Pierre, excited by the maiden’s declaration that she mistook his golden apple for Florien’s workmanship, produced a much more elegant specimen of art than he had ever before conceived. It was a barometer, supported by two knights in silver chain-armour, who went in when it rained, and came out when the sun shone. On the top of the barometer was a small silver basket, of exceedingly delicate workmanship, filled with such flowers as close in damp weather. When the knights retired, these flowers closed their enamelled petals, and when the knights returned, the flowers expanded.
Florien produced a silver chariot, with two spirited and finely proportioned horses. A revolving circle in the wheels showed on what day of the month occurred each day of the week, throughout the year. Each month was surmounted by its zodiacal sign, beautifully enamelled in green, crimson and gold. At ten o’clock the figure of a young girl, wearing Rosabella’s usual costume, and resembling her in form and features, ascended slowly from behind the wheel, and at the same moment, the three Graces rose up in the chariot and held garlands over her. From the axle-tree emerged a young man, in Florien’s dress, and kneeling offered a rose to the maiden.
It was so beautiful as a whole, and so exquisitely finished in all its details, that Pierre clenched his fingers till the nails cut him, so hard did he try to conceal the bitterness of his disappointment at his own manifest inferiority. Could he have been an hour alone, all would have been well. But, as he stepped out on the piazza, followed by Florien, he saw him kiss his hand triumphantly to Rosabella, and she returned it with a modest but expressive glance. Unfortunately, he held in his hand a jewelled dagger, of Turkish workmanship, which Antoine Breguet had asked him to return to its case in the workshop. Stung with disappointed love and ambition, the tempestuous feelings so painfully restrained burst forth like a whirlwhind. Quick as a flash of lightning, he made a thrust at his graceful rival. Then frightened at what he had done, and full of horror at thoughts of Rosabella’s distress, he rushed into the road, and up the sides of the mountain, like a madman.
* * * * *
A year passed, and no one heard tidings of him. On the anniversary of Rosabella’s birth, the aged grandsire sat alone, sunning his white locks at the open window, when Pierre Barthoud entered, pale and haggard. He was such a skeleton of his former self that his master did not recognize him, till he knelt at his feet, and said, “Forgive me, father. I am Pierre.”
The poor old man shook violently, and covered his face with trembling hands. “Ah, thou wretched one,” said he, “how darest thou come hither, with murder on thy soul?”
“Murder?” exclaimed Pierre, in a voice so terribly deep and distinct, that it seemed to freeze the feeble blood of him who listened. “Is he then dead? Did I kill the beautiful youth, whom I loved so much?” He fell forward on the floor, and the groan that came from his strong chest was like an earthquake tearing up trees by the roots.