The Charterhouse of Parma (6 page)

“How stupid do they think we are?” the officer exclaimed. “This is too much!” He questioned our hero, who spoke of the Emperor and of
liberty in terms of the liveliest enthusiasm; whereupon the officer burst into uncontrollable laughter.

“Now I’ve heard everything!” he exclaimed. “Who could believe they’d send us such fools!”

And though Fabrizio made every effort to explain that in reality he wasn’t a barometer dealer at all, the officer sent him to prison in B——, a nearby town our hero reached at about three in the morning, beside himself with anger and tired to death.

Fabrizio, first astounded, then enraged, understanding absolutely nothing of what was happening to him, spent thirty-three long days in that wretched jail; he wrote letter after letter to the commandant of the place, and it was his jailer’s wife, a handsome Flemish woman of thirty-six, who promised to deliver them. But since she had no desire to see such a handsome fellow shot, and since moreover he paid well, she never failed to toss every one into the fire. Late in the evening she deigned to come in and listen to the prisoner’s complaints; she had told her husband that the young fool had money, whereupon the prudent jailer had given her carte blanche. She availed herself of this advantage and received several gold napoleons, for the adjutant had stolen only the horses, and the officer of the
gendarmerie
had confiscated nothing at all. One June afternoon, Fabrizio heard a burst of distant cannon-fire. So they were fighting at last! His heart leaped with impatience. He also heard a lot of commotion in the town; as a matter of fact a considerable maneuver was under way, three divisions passing through B——. When, around eleven at night, the jailer’s wife came to share his woes, Fabrizio was even friendlier than usual; then, taking her hands in his: “Get me out of here—I swear on my honor to come back to this prison as soon as the fighting is over.”

“Poppycock! Do you have what it takes?”

He looked troubled, not understanding her expression. The jailer’s wife, seeing this, decided his funds were running low, and instead of stipulating gold napoleons as she had planned, now spoke only of francs. “Listen,” she said, “if you can get hold of a hundred francs, I’ll put double napoleons on the corporal’s eyes when he comes on guard duty tonight. He won’t be able to see you leave jail, and if his regiment has to march tomorrow, he’ll agree to it.”

The bargain was soon struck. The jailer’s wife even consented to hide Fabrizio in her room, from which he could easily escape the following day.

The next morning, before dawn, this woman was overcome by a tender impulse and said to Fabrizio: “My boy, you’re still much too young to go in for this nasty business: take my advice and don’t come back here.”

“Don’t come back …” repeated Fabrizio. “Then is it a crime to want to defend one’s country?”

“Enough of that. Just remember I saved your life; the case was clear—you would have been shot. But don’t tell anyone, you’ll lose both of us our jobs, my man
and
me. And above all, don’t go telling that silly story of a Milanese gentleman disguised as a barometer salesman—it’s too stupid! Listen to me now: I’m going to give you the uniform of a hussar who died in here a couple of days ago: don’t open your mouth if you can help it, but if some billeting sergeant or an officer asks you questions you have to answer, say you were lying sick in some farmer’s house after he found you trembling with fever in a roadside ditch and took you in out of charity. If they’re not satisfied with an answer like that, say you’re going back to your regiment. They may arrest you because of your accent, so then you say you were born in
Piedmont
and stayed in France last year after conscription, something like that …”

For the first time, after thirty-three days of rage, Fabrizio understood everything that had happened to him. He had been taken for a spy. He argued with the jailer’s wife, who had been so tender that morning; and finally, while she was taking in the hussar’s uniform with a needle, he managed to make sense of his story to the astonished creature. She believed it for a while, he seemed so naive and looked so handsome in his hussar’s uniform!

“Since you’re so eager to fight,” she remarked, half-convinced at last, “you’d better enlist in a regiment once you get to Paris. If you buy some recruiting sergeant a drink, you’ll get what you want!”

The jailer’s wife added a good deal of advice for the future, and finally, at dawn, let Fabrizio out of her room, after making him swear a hundred times over that he would never utter her name, whatever
happened. Once Fabrizio had left the little town, walking boldly along with the hussar’s sword under his arm, he was overcome by a scruple: “Here I am,” he mused, “with the uniform and the map of a hussar who died in jail, apparently because he stole a cow and some silverware! So I’ve inherited his identity, so to speak … without wanting to or expecting anything of the kind! Beware of prison! The signs are clear: I’ll have a lot to suffer from prisons!”

Not an hour had passed since Fabrizio had parted from his benefactress, when it began raining so hard that the new hussar could barely walk, encumbered as he was by the heavy boots which were certainly not his size. He met up with a farmer riding on a sorry nag he purchased then and there with the help of sign-language; the jailer’s wife had suggested he speak as little as possible, on account of his accent.

On that day the army, which had just won the battle of Ligny, was marching straight for Brussels; it was the eve of the battle of Waterloo. Around noon, the downpour still continuing, Fabrizio heard the sound of cannon-fire; such happiness immediately erased all memory of the dreadful moments of despair which his recent unjust imprisonment had forced upon him. He rode late into the night, and since he was beginning to gain a little good sense, he sought lodgings in a farmhouse quite far from the road. The farmer wept and claimed that everything had been taken from him; Fabrizio gave him an
écu
, and he found some oats. “My horse isn’t much good,” Fabrizio decided, “but even so, he might find favor with some adjutant,” and he lay down in the stable beside the poor beast. An hour before daylight, Fabrizio was on the road again, and by lavishing caresses on his horse, he managed to persuade it to trot. By about five in the morning, he heard the cannonade: Waterloo had begun.

Fabrizio soon encountered some canteen-women, and his extreme gratitude to the jailer’s wife in B——moved him to speak to them; he inquired as to the whereabouts of the Fourth Regiment of Hussars, to which he belonged.

“Better not be in such a hurry, soldier-boy,” one woman said, touched by Fabrizio’s pale face and fine eyes. “Your wrist isn’t strong enough yet for the saber-cuts being given today. Still, if you had a musket, you might fire a bullet as well as the next man.”

Such advice did not please Fabrizio, but however much he urged on his horse, he could not pass the canteen-woman’s cart. Now and then the sound of cannon-fire seemed to come closer and kept them from hearing each other, for Fabrizio was so beside himself with enthusiasm that he had begun talking once again. Each of the canteen-woman’s remarks doubled his pleasure by making him understand it. Except for his real name and his escape from prison, he ended by confiding everything to this obviously kind woman. She was greatly astonished and understood nothing the handsome young soldier was telling her.

“Now I see what it is!” she finally exclaimed in triumph. “You’re a civilian in love with the wife of some captain in the Fourth. Your mistress has given you that uniform, and you’re running after her. Sure as
the Lord is God, you’ve never been a soldier in your life, but you’re a brave boy, and now that your regiment’s under fire, you want to be there and not let them think you’re some pantywaist!”

Fabrizio agreed with all she said: it was his only way of obtaining good advice. “I haven’t a clue how these French people behave,” he said to himself, “and unless someone helps me, I’ll get myself thrown into prison all over again, and my horse stolen into the bargain.”

“First of all, my boy,” said the canteen-woman, who was becoming an ever more intimate friend, “admit you’re not yet twenty-one; at the very most you might be seventeen.”

This was the truth, and Fabrizio confessed it freely.

“So you’re not even a conscript; it’s all because of Madame’s pretty face that you’re going to get your bones broken for you. Damn but she’s none too particular! If you still have some of those gold pieces she gave you, first thing you do is buy a different horse. Look how your nag pricks up her ears when the cannons snore a little too close; that’s a farm horse, and she’ll be the death of you as soon as you reach the line. See that white smoke above the hedge over there? That’s infantry fire, my boy! So get ready for a big scare when you hear the bullets whistling. You’d better get something into your stomach while there’s still time.”

Fabrizio followed this advice, and offering the canteen-woman a napoleon, asked her to accept what he owed her.

“It’s pitiful!” she exclaimed. “The poor boy doesn’t even know how to spend his money! Serve you right if I took your
napoleon
and then made Cocotte here trot right along. I’ll be damned if your nag could follow us. What would you do, silly fool, when you saw me clearing out? Learn this much, at least: when the Big One grumbles, never show your cash. Here,” she said, “take your eighteen francs fifty centimes, and your meal will cost you thirty sous. Now, we’ll soon be having some horses for sale. If there’s a small one, you offer ten francs, in any case never more than twenty, even if it’s Lancelot’s own!”

The meal over, the canteen-woman, who was still haranguing him, was interrupted by a woman crossing the fields and passing them on the road. “Hey there!” she shouted. “Margot! Your Sixth Light is over on the right.”

“I must leave you, my boy,” the canteen-woman remarked to our hero; “but I pity you, I really do; we’re friends, after all, Lord knows! You really are an ignoramus, aren’t you? And you’re going to get yourself mowed down as sure as the Lord is God! You better come with me to the Sixth Light.”

“I know I’m ignorant,” Fabrizio replied, “but I want to fight, and I’ve made up my mind to go where that white smoke is.”

“Look how your nag is pricking up her ears! Once she’s over there, weak as she is, she’ll take the bit between her teeth and start galloping and God knows where you’ll end up. Listen to me! As soon as you’re with the soldier-boys, pick up a musket and a cartridge-pouch, get yourself down beside the men, and do exactly what they do. But my God, I bet you don’t even know how to tear open a cartridge!”

Fabrizio, stung to the quick, nonetheless admitted to his new friend that she had guessed correctly.

“The poor boy’ll get himself killed right off. As God is my witness it won’t take long. You better come with me,” the canteen-woman continued imperatively.

“But I want to fight …”

“And fight you will. Come on, the Sixth Light is famous for fighting, and today there’ll be enough for everyone.”

“But will we find your regiment soon?”

“In a quarter of an hour at most.”

“With this good woman’s help,” Fabrizio told himself, “I won’t be taken for a spy, despite my ignorance, and I’ll be able to do some fighting.” At this moment the cannon-fire redoubled, each explosion coming immediately after the last. “It’s like a rosary,” Fabrizio thought.

“You can hear the infantry shots now,” said the canteen-woman, whipping her little horse, which seemed quite excited by the gunfire.

The canteen-woman turned right and followed a road through the fields; the mud was a foot deep here, and the little cart was about to get stuck; Fabrizio gave the wheel a push; his own horse fell twice; soon the road, though less muddy, was no more than a path through high grass. Fabrizio had not ridden five hundred paces when his mare stopped short: a body was lying across the path, frightening both horse and rider.

Fabrizio’s face, naturally pale, turned distinctly green; the canteen-woman, after glancing at the corpse, observed as if to herself: “Not from our division.” Then, glancing up at our hero, she burst out laughing. “Here, my boy!” she exclaimed. “Here’s something nice for you!”

Fabrizio was petrified. What struck him most was the dead man’s filthy feet, already stripped of his shoes; the corpse was left with nothing but a blood-stained pair of ragged trousers.

“Come here,” the canteen-woman ordered, “get off your horse. You’ve got to get used to this. Look!” she exclaimed. “He got it in the head.” A bullet, entering one side of the nose, had come out through the opposite temple and hideously disfigured the corpse; one eyes was still open. “So get off your horse, boy,” the canteen-woman said, “shake his hand for him, and see if he’ll shake yours.”

Without hesitation, though ready to expire with disgust, Fabrizio flung himself off his horse and took the corpse’s hand, shaking it hard; then he remained standing where he was, as if paralyzed; he felt he had no strength to remount. What horrified him most was that open eye.