Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 | Page 5

friendship. When
they grew up, Giustiniani became clerk in a very humble mercantile
establishment; whilst Bartuccio, more fortunate, obtained a good place
in the custom-house. They continued on excellent terms till the age of
about twenty-one years, when an incident occurred, that by making
rivals of them, made them enemies.
Giustiniani had occasion to visit the city of Ajaccio, and set out in
company with a small party mounted upon mules. Bartuccio went with
him to the crest of the hill, where they parted after an affectionate
embrace. The journey was fortunately performed; in about a month
Giustiniani was on his way back, and reached without incident, just as
night set in, a desolate ravine within a few leagues of Santa Maddalena.

Here a terrific storm of wind and rain broke upon the party, which
missed the track, and finally dispersed; some seeking shelter in the lee
of the rocks, others pushing right and left in search of the path, or of
some hospitable habitation. Giustiniani wandered for more than an hour,
until he descended towards the plain, and, attracted by a light,
succeeded at length in reaching a little cottage having a garden planted
with trees. The lightning had now begun to play, and shewed him the
white walls of the cottage streaming with rain, and the drenched foliage
that surrounded it. Guided by the rapidly succeeding gleams, he was
enabled to find the garden gate, where, there being no bell, he remained
for some time shouting in vain. The light still beamed gently through
one of the upper windows, and seemed to tell of a comfortable interior
and cosy inmates. Giustiniani exerted his utmost strength of voice, and
presently there was a movement in the lighted chamber--a form came to
the window; and, after some delay, the door of the house was opened,
and a voice asked who demanded admittance at that hour, and in such
weather. Our traveller explained, and was soon let in by a quiet-looking
old gentleman, who took him up stairs into a little library, where a good
wood-fire was blazing. A young girl of remarkable beauty rose as he
entered, and received him with cordial hospitality. Acquaintance was
soon made. Giustiniani told his little story, and learned that his host
was M. Albert Brivard, a retired medical officer, who, with his
daughter Marie, had selected this out-of-the-way place for economy's
sake.
According to my informant, Giustiniani at once fell in love with the
beautiful Marie, to such an extent that he could scarcely partake of the
supper offered him. Perhaps his abstinence arose from other
reasons--love being in reality a hungry passion in its early stage--for
next day the young man was ill of a fever, and incapable of continuing
his journey. M. Brivard and his daughter attended him kindly; and as he
seemed to become worse towards evening, sent a messenger to
Maddalena. The consequence was, that on the following morning
Bartuccio arrived in a great state of alarm and anxiety; but fate did not
permit him again to meet his friend with that whole and undivided
passion of friendship in his breast with which he had quitted him a
month before. Giustiniani was asleep when he entered the house, and

he was received by Marie. In his excited state of mind, he was apt for
new impressions, and half an hour's conversation seems not only to
have filled him with love, but to have excited the same feeling in the
breast of the gentle girl. It would have been more romantic, perhaps,
had Marie been tenderly impressed by poor Giustiniani when he arrived
at night, travel-stained and drenched with rain, in the first fit of a fever;
'but woman,' said the sagacious narrator, as he received a tumbler of
grog from the steward, 'is a mystery'--an opinion I am not inclined to
confute.
In a few days, Giustiniani was well enough to return to his home,
which he reached in a gloomy and dissatisfied state of mind. He had
already observed that Bartuccio, who rode over every day professedly
to see him, felt in reality ill at ease in his company, spoke no longer
with copious familiarity, and left him in a few minutes, professing to be
obliged to return to his duty. From his bed, however, he could hear him
for some time after laughing and talking with Marie in the garden; and
he felt, without knowing it, all the pangs of jealousy: not that he
believed his friend would interfere and dispute with him the possession
of the gem which he had discovered, and over which he internally
claimed a right of property, but he was oppressed with an uneasy
sentiment of future ill, and tormented with a diffidence as to his own
powers of pleasing, that made him say adieu