“An idiotic custom it is!”

“It costs me a great deal to sing in this way.  It brings back all our own sorrows to me.  I shall be ill after it, to-morrow.  But I must do it.  Give me leave to do it.  Brother, remember that when we were at Ajaccio, you told me to improvise to amuse that young English lady who makes a mock of our old customs.  So why should I not do it to-day for these poor people, who will be grateful to me, and whom it will help to bear their grief?”

“Well, well, as you will.  I’ll go bail you’ve composed your ballata already, and don’t want to waste it.”

“No, brother, I couldn’t compose it beforehand.  I stand before the dead person, and I think about those he has left behind him.  The tears spring into my eyes, and then I sing whatever comes into my head.”

All this was said so simply that it was quite impossible to suspect Signorina Colomba of the smallest poetic vanity.  Orso let himself be persuaded, and went with his sister to Pietri’s house.  The dead man lay on a table in the largest room, with his face uncovered.  All the doors and windows stood open, and several tapers were burning round the table.  At the head stood the widow, and behind her a great many women, who filled all one side of the room.  On the other side were the men, in rows, bareheaded, with their eyes fixed on the corpse, all in the deepest silence.  Each new arrival went up to the table, kissed the dead face, bowed his or her head to the widow and her son, and joined the circle, without uttering a word.  Nevertheless, from time to time one of the persons present would break the solemn silence with a few words, addressed to the dead man.

“Why has thou left thy good wife?” said one old crone.  “Did she not take good care of thee?  What didst thou lack?  Why not have waited another month?  Thy daughter-in-law would have borne thee a grandson!” A tall young fellow, Pietri’s son, pressed his father’s cold hand and cried:  “Oh! why hast thou not died of the mala morte?[*] Then we could have avenged thee!”

[*] La mala morte, a violent death.

These were the first words to fall on Orso’s ear as he entered the room.  At the sight of him the circle parted, and a low murmur of curiosity betrayed the expectation roused in the gathering by the voceratrice’s presence.  Colomba embraced the widow, took one of her hands, and stood for some moments wrapped in meditation, with her eyelids dropped.  Then she threw back her mezzaro, gazed fixedly at the corpse, and bending over it, her face almost as waxen as that of the dead man, she began thus: