The Charterhouse of Parma (8 page)

A nasty sight awaited the new soldier; they were amputating a cuirassier’s leg at the thigh, a handsome fellow almost six feet tall. Fabrizio closed his eyes and drank four brandies one after the next.

“Go for it, boy!” exclaimed the canteen-woman.

The brandy gave him an idea: “I must buy the good will of my comrades in the escort.” And he told the canteen-woman to give him the rest of the bottle.

“Do you know I can get ten francs for this, on a day like today?”

As he galloped back to the escort, the sergeant exclaimed: “So you’re bringing back something for us! That’s why you deserted, is it? Hand it over.”

The bottle circulated; the last one to drink tossed it into the air. “Thanks, comrade!” he shouted to Fabrizio. All eyes were on him, approvingly now, and these stares removed a hundred-pound weight from Fabrizio’s heart, which was one of those hearts of excessive delicacy which required friendship from those around it. At last he was no longer disliked by his companions—there was a bond between them!

Fabrizio breathed deeply, then said to the sergeant in a loud voice: “And if Captain Teulier’s been killed, where can I find my sister?” He regarded himself as a little Machiavelli for saying
Teulier
so cleverly instead of
Meunier
.

“You’ll find that out tonight,” the sergeant replied.

The escort set off again, heading for the infantry divisions. Fabrizio realized he was quite intoxicated; he had drunk too much brandy, and rolled a little in his saddle: opportunely enough, he remembered something his mother’s coachman used to say: “When you’ve had one too many, look between your horse’s ears and do what the man beside you does.” The Marshal stopped for a long while beside several cavalry units he ordered to charge; but for an hour or two our hero had virtually no awareness of what was happening around him. He felt very tired, and when his horse was galloping, he fell back in the saddle like a lump of lead.

Suddenly the sergeant shouted to his men: “Don’t you see it’s the Emperor, you dolts …?”

Immediately the entire escort shouted
“Vive l’Empereur!
” at the top of their lungs. It will be conceived how intently our hero stared, but he saw nothing but galloping generals, followed by another escort. The long horsehair plumes dangling from their dragoon-helmets kept him from making out their faces. “So I failed to see the Emperor on the battlefield because of those cursed brandies!” he reflected, and found himself wide awake.

They rode back down into a path filled with water, where the horses wanted to drink. “Was that the Emperor who went past just now?” he asked the man beside him.

“Of course—the one without gold braid. How could you miss him?” his comrade answered good-humoredly.

Fabrizio longed to gallop after the Emperor’s escort and join it. What bliss to be waging war in this hero’s own company! That was why he had come to France! “I’m perfectly free to do as I choose,” he mused, “after all, what other reason do I have for serving here but the will of my horse that has taken it into its head to gallop after these generals?”

What persuaded Fabrizio to remain was that his new comrades the hussars were smiling at him now; he was beginning to regard himself as the intimate friend of all these soldiers he had been riding with for several hours. Between them and himself he perceived the noble friendship of the heroes in Tasso and Ariosto. Were he to join the Emperor’s escort, there would be new acquaintances to make; perhaps he would even be frowned at, for those other riders were dragoons, and he was wearing a hussar’s uniform, along with all those serving under the Marshal. The way he was now being regarded delighted our hero, he would have done anything in the world for his comrades; his heart and soul were in the clouds. Everything seemed to have changed its appearance since he was with friends, and he was dying to ask questions. “But I’m still a little drunk,” he decided. “I must remember what the jailer’s wife said.” He noticed as they left the sunken path that the escort was no longer with Marshal Ney; the general they were now following was tall, slender, and his expression was severe, his eyes terrible.

This general was none other than Count d’A——, our Lieutenant
Robert of May 15, 1796. How happy he would have been to see Fabrizio del Dongo!

It was already some time since Fabrizio had stopped noticing the earth exploding into black crumbs under the hail of bullets; now, as they came up behind a regiment of cuirassiers, he clearly heard the grapeshot landing on their breastplates, and saw several men fall to the ground.

The sun was already very low and about to set when the escort, leaving the sunken path, climbed a slope of some three or four feet into a ploughed field. Fabrizio heard a strange little noise right beside him, he turned to look: four men had fallen with their horses; the general himself had been knocked down but stood up again, covered with blood. Fabrizio stared at the hussars on the ground: three of them were still making convulsive movements, the fourth screamed: “Pull me out, get this beast off me!”

The sergeant and two or three men had dismounted to help the general who, leaning on his aide-de-camp, was trying to take a few steps; he wanted to get away from his horse that was struggling on the ground, its hooves lashing out furiously.

The sergeant came over to Fabrizio. At this moment our hero heard someone behind him say, quite close to his ear: “That’s the only one still fit to gallop.” He felt someone grab his feet; they were lifted out of the stirrups at the same time that his body was seized under the arms, and he was raised over the horse’s tail and let slide to the ground, where he landed in a sitting position.

The aide-de-camp took Fabrizio’s horse by the bridle; the general, with the sergeant’s help, mounted and galloped off, rapidly followed by the remaining six men. Fabrizio stood up, furious, and began running after them, shouting:
“Ladri! Ladri!
” (Thieves! Thieves!) What a farce, to be running across a battlefield after horse-thieves!

The escort and the general (Count d’A——) soon disappeared behind a row of willows. Fabrizio, blind with rage, also reached this boundary and found himself at a deep ditch, which he waded across. Then, on the other side, he began swearing again as he once more caught sight—but far off now—of the general and his escort vanishing into the trees. “Thieves! Thieves!” he shouted, in French this time.

Despairing much less over the loss of his horse than on account of the betrayal, Fabrizio let himself collapse beside the ditch, exhausted and famished. If his splendid horse had been stolen by the enemy, he would have thought nothing of it; but to see himself robbed and betrayed by this sergeant he was so fond of and by these hussars he regarded as his brothers! That was what broke his heart. He could not console himself for such infamy and, leaning against a willow, began to weep bitter tears. One by one he was dispelling all his fine dreams of sublime and knightly comradeship like that of the heroes of
Gerusalemme Liberata
. To look death in the face was nothing, surrounded by tender and heroic souls, noble friends who clasp your hand at their last gasp! But to preserve your enthusiasm in the midst of knaves and scoundrels!! Fabrizio was exaggerating, like any offended man. After a quarter of an hour’s emotion, he noticed that the bullets were beginning to reach the row of trees shading his meditations. He stood up and tried to figure out where he was. He stared at these fields bordered by a wide ditch and the row of bushy willows: he thought he recognized the place. He caught sight of a group of infantrymen crossing the ditch and walking into the field a quarter of a league ahead of him. “I was falling asleep,” he realized; “I must be careful not to be taken prisoner,” and he began walking very fast. As he proceeded he was reassured, recognizing the uniforms: the regiments by which he feared being cut off were French! He turned right to join them.

After the moral anguish of having been so basely robbed and betrayed, there was yet another which constantly made itself felt even more intensely: he was dying of hunger. So it was with extreme delight that after having walked, or rather run, for some ten minutes, he realized that the infantrymen, who were also moving very fast, were stopping as though to take up positions. A few minutes later he found himself among the first soldiers. “Comrades, can you sell me a piece of bread?”

“Here’s someone who thinks we’re bakers.”

This harsh remark and the general mockery that followed it overwhelmed Fabrizio. So war was no longer that noble and mutual impulse of glory-loving souls which he had assumed it was from Napoléon’s proclamations! He sat down, or rather let himself fall to
the ground; he grew very pale. The soldier he had spoken to, who had stopped ten paces off to clean his musket-lock with his handkerchief, came over and tossed him a hunk of bread; then, seeing that he failed to pick it up, thrust it into his mouth. Fabrizio opened his eyes and chewed the bread without having the strength to speak. When at last he glanced around for the soldier in order to pay him, he found himself alone—the nearest soldiers were a hundred paces off, and marching away. He stood up mechanically and followed them. He entered a grove of trees; numb with fatigue, he was glancing around for a convenient place to sleep, but what was his joy upon recognizing first the horse, then the cart, and finally the canteen-woman of that morning! She ran over to him, alarmed by his appearance. “Walk a little farther, my boy,” she exclaimed. “Are you wounded? Where’s that fine horse of yours?” With such words she led him toward her cart, onto which she helped him, supporting him under the arms. No sooner on the cart than our hero, overcome with exhaustion, fell fast asleep.

Nothing could wake him, neither the musket-fire so close to the little cart, nor the trotting horse which the canteen-woman was whipping with all her might. The regiment, unexpectedly attacked by a host of Prussian cavalry, after imagining victory all day long, was beating a retreat, or rather fleeing in the direction of France.

The colonel, a handsome, smartly dressed young fellow who had just succeeded Macon, was cut down; the battalion commander replacing him, an old man with white hair, ordered the regiment to halt. “Damn you!” he harangued the soldiers, “in the days of the Republic we didn’t run away until the enemy forced us to.… Defend every inch of ground with your lives!” he shouted, swearing at them. “It’s your native land these Prussians will be invading now!”

The little cart stopped, and Fabrizio woke with a start. The sun had long since set; he was astonished to discover that it was almost dark. Soldiers were running here and there in a confusion which amazed our hero; he thought they looked ashamed of themselves. “What’s happening?” he asked the canteen-woman.

“Nothing much. Except that we’re done for, my boy; that’s the Prussian cavalry cutting us down. At first that fool of a general thought
they were our men. Quick now, help me mend Cocotte’s harness—it’s broken.”

Some shots were fired not ten paces away; our hero, cool and composed now, realized, “Actually, I didn’t see battle once this whole day, all I did was escort a general.” And he told the canteen-woman, “I must get into the fighting.”

“Rest easy, you’ll be fighting, and more than you bargained for! We’re in for it.… Hey, Aubry boy!” she shouted at a passing corporal. “Keep an eye on the cart for me.”

“Are you going to fight?” Fabrizio asked Aubry.

“No, I’m putting on my dancing-slippers!”

“I’ll follow you.”

“Take care of the little hussar,” the canteen-woman called to him, “he’s a gentleman with a heart.”

Corporal Aubry walked on without a word. When eight or ten soldiers ran up and joined him, he led them behind a big oak in a briar patch. Here he posted them along the edge of the woods, still without a word, on a wide front, each man at least ten paces from the next.

“All right, you men!” the corporal shouted, and these were his first words. “Don’t fire until you’re ordered to—remember, all you’ve got is three rounds.”

“What’s happening here?” Fabrizio wondered. Finally, when he was alone with the corporal, he told him, “I have no musket.”

“Shut up, then. Go over there: fifty paces into the woods you’ll find one of those poor bastards of the regiment that’s just been cut down—take his musket and his cartridge-pouch. But don’t strip a wounded man; take the gun from someone who’s good and dead, and hurry up about it so you don’t get shot by our fellows.”

Fabrizio ran off and quickly returned with a musket and pouch.

“Load your gun and get behind that tree, and be sure not to fire until I give orders.… God in Heaven!” the corporal broke off. “He doesn’t even know how to load his gun …!” He helped Fabrizio do this while giving further directions. “If an enemy hussar gallops toward you with his saber up, duck behind your tree, and don’t fire until he’s on top of you—three steps off. Your bayonet should be almost
touching his uniform. And throw away that heavy saber,” the corporal shouted, “you want it to trip you up, for God’s sake …! A fine lot of soldiers they’re sending us these days!” And with these words he grabbed Fabrizio’s saber and flung it angrily as far as he could. “All right, you, wipe your musket-flint with your handkerchief. Haven’t you ever fired a gun?”