“Chatsworth?” suggested the colonel.

“That’s it!—­but I never shall be able to say it!—­Well, you know he’s over head and ears in love with me!”

“O Colomba, you’re growing a terrible flirt!  We shall have another wedding before long.”

“I!  Marry!  And then who will there be to bring up my nephew—­when Orso provides me with a nephew?  And who’ll teach him to talk Corsican?  Yes, he shall talk Corsican, and I’ll make him a peaked cap, just to vex you.”

“Well, well, wait till you have your nephew, and then you shall teach him to use a dagger, if you choose.”

“Farewell to daggers!” said Colomba merrily.  “I have a fan now, to rap your fingers with when you speak ill of my country.”

Chatting thus, they reached the farm-house, where they found wine, strawberries, and cream.  Colomba helped the farmer’s wife to gather the strawberries, while the colonel drank his aleatico.  At the turning of a path she caught sight of an old man, sitting in the sun, on a straw chair.  He seemed ill, his cheeks were fallen in, his eyes were hollow, he was frightfully thin; as he sat there, motionless, pallid, staring fixedly in front of him, he looked more like a corpse than like a living creature.  Colomba watched him for some minutes, and with a curiosity so great that it attracted the woman’s attention.

“That poor old fellow is a countryman of yours,” she said.  “For I know you are from Corsica by the way you talk, signorina!  He has had great trouble in his own country.  His children met with some terrible death.  They say—­you’ll excuse me, signorina—­that when they quarrel, your compatriots don’t show each other very much mercy.  Then the poor old gentleman, being left all alone, came over to Pisa, to a distant relation of his, who owns this farm.  Between his misfortunes and his sorrow, the good man is a little cracked. . . .  The lady found him troublesome—­for she sees a great deal of company.  So she sent him out here.  He’s very gentle—­no worry at all.  He doesn’t speak three words the whole day long.  In fact, his brain’s quite gone.  The doctor comes to see him every week.  He says he won’t live long.”

“There’s no hope for him, then!” said Colomba.  “In such a case, death will be a mercy.”

“You might say a word to him in Corsican, signorina.  Perhaps it would cheer him up to hear the speech of his own country.”

“I’ll see!” said Colomba, and her smile was mysterious.

She drew nearer to the old man, till her shadow fell across his chair.  Then the poor idiot lifted his head and stared at Colomba, while she looked at him, smiling still.  After a moment, the old man passed his hand across his forehead, and closed his eyes, as though he would have shut out the sight of Colomba.  He opened them again, desperately wide this time.  His lips began to work, he tried to stretch out his hands, but, fascinated by Colomba’s glance, he sat, nailed, as it were, to his chair, unable to move or utter a word.  At last great tears dropped from his eyes, and a few sobs escaped from his heaving chest.