Bab Bab 3 · Chapter Three

Fabrizio soon came upon some _vivandières_, and the extreme gratitude

that he felt for the gaoler's wife of B---- impelled him to address

them; he asked one of them where he would find the 4th Hussar Regiment,

to which he belonged.

"You would do just as well not to be in such a hurry, young soldier,"

said the _cantinière_, touched by Fabrizio's pallor and glowing eyes.

"Your wrist is not strong enough yet for the sabre-thrusts they'll be

giving to-day. If you had a musket, I don't say, maybe you could let off

your round as well as any of them."

This advice displeased Fabrizio; but however much he urged on his horse,

he could go no faster than the _cantinière_ in her cart. Every now and

then the sound of the guns seemed to come nearer and prevented them from

hearing each other speak, for Fabrizio was so beside himself with

enthusiasm and delight that he had renewed the conversation. Every word

uttered by the _cantinière_ intensified his happiness by making him

understand it. With the exception of his real name and his escape from

prison, he ended by confiding everything to this woman who seemed such a

good soul. She was greatly surprised and understood nothing at all of

what this handsome young soldier was telling her.

"I see what it is," she exclaimed at length with an air of triumph.

"You're a young gentleman who has fallen in love with the wife of some

captain in the 4th Hussars. Your mistress will have made you a present

of the uniform you're wearing, and you're going after her. As sure as

God's in heaven, you've never been a soldier; but, like the brave boy

you are, seeing your regiment's under fire, you want to be there too,

and not let them think you a chicken."

_WAR_

Fabrizio agreed with everything; it was his only way of procuring good

advice. "I know nothing of the ways of these French people," he said to

himself, "and if I am not guided by someone I shall find myself being

put in prison again, and they'll steal my horse."

"First of all, my boy," said the _cantinière_, who was becoming more

and more of a friend to him, "confess that you're not one-and-twenty: at

the very most you might be seventeen."

This was the truth, and Fabrizio admitted as much with good grace.

"Then, you aren't even a conscript; it's simply because of Madame's

pretty face that you're going to get your bones broken. Plague it, she

can't be particular. If you've still got some of the _yellow-boys_ she

sent you, you must first of all buy yourself another horse; look how

your screw pricks up his ears when the guns sound at all near; that's a

peasant's horse, and will be the death of you as soon as you reach the

line. That white smoke you see over there above the hedge, that's the

infantry firing, my boy. So prepare for a fine fright when you hear the

bullets whistling over you. You'll do as well to eat a bit while there's

still time."

Fabrizio followed this advice and, presenting a napoleon to the

_vivandière_, asked her to accept payment.

"It makes one weep to see him!" cried the woman; "the poor child doesn't

even know how to spend his money! It would be no more than you deserve

if I pocketed your napoleon and put Cocotte into a trot; damned if your

screw could catch me up. What would you do, stupid, if you saw me go

off? Bear in mind, when the _brute_ growls, never to show your gold.

Here," she went on, "here's 18 francs, 50 centimes, and your breakfast

costs you 30 sous. Now, we shall soon have some horses for sale. If the

beast is a small one, you'll give ten francs, and, in any case, never

more than twenty, not if it was the horse of the Four Sons of Aymon."

The meal finished, the _vivandière_, who was still haranguing, was

interrupted by a woman who had come across the fields and passed them on

the road.

"Hallo there, hi!" this woman shouted. "Hallo, Margot! Your 6th Light

are over there on the right."

"I must leave you, my boy," said the _vivandière_ to our hero; "but

really and truly I pity you; I've taken quite a fancy to you, upon my

word I have. You don't know a thing about anything, you're going to get

a wipe in the eye, as sure as God's in heaven! Come along to the 6th

Light with me."

"I quite understand that I know nothing," Fabrizio told her, "but I want

to fight, and I'm determined to go over there towards that white smoke."

"Look how your horse is twitching his ears! As soon as he gets over

there, even if he's no strength left, he'll take the bit in his teeth

and start galloping, and heaven only knows where he'll land you. Will

you listen to me now? As soon as you get to the troops, pick up a musket

and a cartridge-pouch, get down among the men and copy what you see them

do, exactly the same: But, good heavens, I'll bet you don't even know

how to open a cartridge."

Fabrizio, stung to the quick, admitted nevertheless to his new friend

that she had guessed aright.

"Poor boy! He'll be killed straight away; sure as God! It won't take

long. You've got to come with me, absolutely," went on the _cantinière_

in a tone of authority.

"But I want to fight."

"You shall fight too; why, the 6th Light are famous fighters, and

there's fighting enough to-day for everyone."

"But shall we come soon to the regiment?"

"In a quarter of an hour at the most."

"With this honest woman's recommendation," Fabrizio told himself, "my

ignorance of everything won't make them take me for a spy, and I shall

have a chance of fighting." At this moment the noise of the guns

redoubled, each explosion coming straight on top of the last. "It's like

a Rosary," said Fabrizio.

"We're beginning to hear the infantry fire now," said the _vivandière_,

whipping up her little horse, which seemed quite excited by the firing.

The _cantinière_ turned to the right and took a side road that ran

through the fields; there was a foot of mud in it; the little cart

seemed about to be stuck fast: Fabrizio pushed the wheel. His horse fell

twice; presently the road, though with less water on it, was nothing

more than a bridle path through the grass. Fabrizio had not gone five

hundred yards when his nag stopped short: it was a corpse, lying across

the path, which terrified horse and rider alike.

Fabrizio's face, pale enough by nature, assumed a markedly green tinge;

the _cantinière_, after looking at the dead man, said, as though speaking

to herself: "That's not one of our Division." Then, raising her eyes to

our hero, she burst out laughing.

"Aha, my boy! There's a titbit for you!" Fabrizio sat frozen. What

struck him most of all was the dirtiness of the feet of this corpse

which had already been stripped of its shoes and left with nothing but

an old pair of trousers all clotted with blood.

"Come nearer," the _cantinière_ ordered him, "get off your horse,

you'll have to get accustomed to them; look," she cried, "he's stopped

one in the head."

A bullet, entering on one side of the nose, had gone out at the opposite

temple, and disfigured the corpse in a hideous fashion. It lay with one

eye still open.

"Get off your horse then, lad," said the _cantinière_, "and give him a

shake of the hand to see if he'll return it."

Without hesitation, although ready to yield up his soul with disgust,

Fabrizio flung himself from his horse and took the hand of the corpse

which he shook vigorously; then he stood still as though paralysed. He

felt that he had not the strength to mount again. What horrified him

more than anything was that open eye.

"The _vivandière_ will think me a coward," he said to himself bitterly.

But he felt the impossibility of making any movement; he would have

fallen. It was a frightful moment; Fabrizio was on the point of being

physically sick. The _vivandière_ noticed this, jumped lightly down

from her little carriage, and held out to him, without saying a word, a

glass of brandy which he swallowed at a gulp; he was able to mount his

screw, and continued on his way without speaking. The _vivandière_

looked at him now and again from the corner of her eye.

"You shall fight to-morrow, my boy," she said at length; "to-day you're

going to stop with me. You can see now that you've got to learn the

business before you can become a soldier."

"On the contrary, I want to start fighting at once," exclaimed our hero

with a sombre air which seemed to the _vivandière_ to augur well. The

noise of the guns grew twice as loud and seemed to be coming nearer. The

explosions began to form a continuous bass; there was no interval

between one and the next, and above this running bass, which suggested

the roar of a torrent in the distance, they could make out quite plainly

the rattle of musketry.

At this point the road dived down into a clump, of trees. The

_vivandière_ saw three or four soldiers of our army who were coming

towards her as fast as their legs would carry them; she jumped nimbly

down from her cart and ran into cover fifteen or twenty paces from the

road. She hid herself in a hole which had been left where a big tree had

recently been uprooted. "Now," thought Fabrizio, "we shall see whether I

am a coward!" He stopped by the side of the little cart which the woman

had abandoned, and drew his sabre. The soldiers paid no attention to him

and passed at a run along the wood, to the left of the road.

"They're ours," said the _vivandière_ calmly, as she came back, quite

breathless, to her little cart. . . . "If your horse was capable of

galloping, I should say: push ahead as far as the end of the wood, and

see if there's anyone on the plain." Fabrizio did not wait to be told

twice, he tore off a branch from a poplar, stripped it and started to

lash his horse with all his might; the animal broke into a gallop for a

moment, then fell back into its regular slow trot. The _vivandière_ had

put her horse into a gallop. "Stop, will you, stop!" she called after

Fabrizio. Presently both were clear of the wood. Coming to the edge of

the plain, they heard a terrifying din, guns and muskets thundered on

every side, right, left, behind them. And as the clump of trees from

which they emerged grew on a mound rising nine or ten feet above the

plain, they could see fairly well a corner of the battle; but still

there was no one to be seen in the meadow beyond the wood. This meadow

was bordered, half a mile away, by a long row of willows, very bushy;

above the willows appeared a white smoke which now and again rose

eddying into the sky.

"If I only knew where the regiment was," said the _cantinière_, in some

embarrassment. "It won't do to go straight ahead over this big field. By

the way," she said to Fabrizio, "if you see one of the enemy, stick him

with the point of your sabre, don't play about with the blade."

At this moment, the _cantinière_ caught sight of the four soldiers whom

we mentioned a little way back; they were coming out of the wood on to

the plain to the left of the road. One of them was on horseback.

"There you are," she said to Fabrizio. "Hallo there!" she called to the

mounted man, "come over here and have a glass of brandy." The soldiers

approached.

"Where are the 6th Light?" she shouted.

"Over there, five minutes away, across that canal that runs along by the

willows; why, Colonel Macon has just been killed."

"Will you take five francs for your horse, you?"

"Five francs! That's not a bad one, _ma_! An officer's horse I can sell

in ten minutes for five napoleons."

"Give me one of your napoleons," said the _vivandière_ to Fabrizio.

Then going up to the mounted soldier: "Get off, quickly," she said to

him, "here's your napoleon."

The soldier dismounted, Fabrizio sprang gaily on to the saddle, the

_vivandière_ unstrapped the little portmanteau which was on his old

horse.

"Come and help me, all of you!" she said to the soldiers, "is that the

way you leave a lady to do the work?"

But no sooner had the captured horse felt the weight of the portmanteau

than he began to rear, and Fabrizio, who was an excellent horseman, had

to use all his strength to hold him.

"A good sign!" said the _vivandière_, "the gentleman is not accustomed

to being tickled by portmanteaus."

"A general's horse," cried the man who had sold it, "a horse that's

worth ten napoleons if it's worth a liard."

"Here are twenty francs," said Fabrizio, who could not contain himself

for joy at feeling between his legs a horse that could really move.

At that moment a shot struck the line of willows, through which it

passed obliquely, and Fabrizio had the curious spectacle of all those

little branches flying this way and that as though mown down by a stroke

of the scythe.

"Look, there's the _brute_ advancing," the soldier said to him as he

took the twenty francs. It was now about two o'clock.

Fabrizio was still under the spell of this strange spectacle when a

party of generals, followed by a score of hussars, passed at a gallop

across one corner of the huge field on the edge of which he had halted:

his horse neighed, reared several times in succession, then began

violently tugging the bridle that was holding him. "All right, then,"

Fabrizio said to himself.

The horse, left to his own devices, dashed off hell for leather to join

the escort that was following the generals. Fabrizio counted four

gold-laced hats. A quarter of an hour later, from a few words said by

one hussar to the next, Fabrizio gathered that one of these generals was

the famous Marshal Ney. His happiness knew no bounds; only he had no way

of telling which of the four generals was Marshal Ney; he would have

given everything in the world to know, but he remembered that he had

been told not to speak. The escort halted, having to cross a wide ditch

left full of water by the rain overnight; it was fringed with tall trees

and formed the left hand boundary of the field at the entrance to which

Fabrizio had bought the horse. Almost all the hussars had dismounted;

the bank of the ditch was steep and very slippery and the water lay

quite three or four feet below the level of the field. Fabrizio,

distracted with joy, was thinking more of Marshal Ney and of glory than

of his horse, which, being highly excited, jumped into the canal, thus

splashing the water up to a considerable height. One of the generals was

soaked to the skin by the sheet of water, and cried with an oath: "Damn

the f---- brute!" Fabrizio felt deeply hurt by this insult. "Can I ask

him to apologise?" he wondered. Meanwhile, to prove that he was not so

clumsy after all, he set his horse to climb the opposite bank of the

ditch; but it rose straight up and was five or six feet high. He had to

abandon the attempt; then he rode up stream, his horse being up to its

head in water, and at last found a sort of drinking-place. By this

gentle slope he was easily able to reach the field on the other side of

the canal. He was the first man of the escort to appear there; he

started to trot proudly down the bank; below him, in the canal, the

hussars were splashing about, somewhat embarrassed by their position,

for in many places the water was five feet deep. Two or three horses

took fright and began to swim, making an appalling mess. A serjeant

noticed the manœuvre that this youngster, who looked so very unlike a

soldier, had just carried out.

"Up here! There is a watering-place on the left!" he shouted, and in

time they all crossed.

On reaching the farther bank, Fabrizio had found the generals there by

themselves; the noise of the guns seemed to him to have doubled; and it

was all he could do to hear the general whom he had given such a good

soaking and who now shouted in his ear:

"Where did you get that horse?"

Fabrizio was so much upset that he answered in Italian:

"_L'ho comprato poco fa._ (I bought it just now.)"

"What's that you say?" cried the general.

But the din at that moment became so terrific that Fabrizio could not

answer him. We must admit that our hero was very little of a hero at

that moment. However, fear came to him only as a secondary

consideration; he was principally shocked by the noise, which hurt his

ears. The escort broke into a gallop; they crossed a large batch of

tilled land which lay beyond the canal. And this field was strewn with

dead.

"Red-coats! red-coats!" the hussars of the escort exclaimed joyfully,

and at first Fabrizio did not understand; then he noticed that as a

matter of fact almost all these bodies wore red uniforms. One detail

made him shudder with horror; he observed that many of these unfortunate

red-coats were still alive; they were calling out, evidently asking for

help, and no one stopped to give it them. Our hero, being most humane,

took every possible care that his horse should not tread upon any of the

red-coats. The escort halted; Fabrizio, who was not paying sufficient

attention to his military duty, galloped on, his eyes fixed on a wounded

wretch in front of him.

"Will you halt, you young fool!" the serjeant shouted after him.

Fabrizio discovered that he was twenty paces on the generals' right

front, and precisely in the direction in which they were gazing through

their glasses. As he came back to take his place behind the other

hussars, who had halted a few paces in rear of them, he noticed the

biggest of these generals who was speaking to his neighbour, a general

also, in a tone of authority and almost of reprimand; he was swearing.

Fabrizio could not contain his curiosity; and, in spite of the warning

not to speak, given him by his friend the gaoler's wife, he composed a

short sentence in good French, quite correct, and said to his neighbour:

"Who is that general who is chewing up the one next to him?"

"Gad, it's the Marshal!"

"What Marshal?"

"Marshal Ney, you fool! I say, where have you been serving?"

Fabrizio, although highly susceptible, had no thought of resenting this

insult; he was studying, lost in childish admiration, the famous Prince

de la Moskowa, the "Bravest of the Brave."

Suddenly they all moved off at full gallop. A few minutes later Fabrizio

saw, twenty paces ahead of him, a ploughed field the surface of which

was moving in a singular fashion. The furrows were full of water and the

soil, very damp, which formed the ridges between these furrows kept

flying off in little black lumps three or four feet into the air.

Fabrizio noticed as he passed this curious effect; then his thoughts

turned to dreaming of the Marshal and his glory. He heard a sharp cry

close to him; two hussars fell struck by shot; and, when he looked back

at them, they were already twenty paces behind the escort. What seemed

to him horrible was a horse streaming with blood that was struggling on

the ploughed land, its hooves caught in its own entrails; it was trying

to follow the others: its blood ran down into the mire.

"Ah! So I am under fire at last!" he said to himself. "I have seen shots

fired!" he repeated with a sense of satisfaction. "Now I am a real

soldier." At that moment, the escort began to go hell for leather, and

our hero realised that it was shot from the guns that was making the

earth fly up all round him. He looked vainly in the direction from which

the balls were coming, he saw the white smoke of the battery at an

enormous distance, and, in the thick of the steady and continuous rumble

produced by the artillery fire, he seemed to hear shots discharged much

closer at hand: he could not understand in the least what was happening.

At that moment, the generals and their escort dropped into a little road

filled with water which ran five feet below the level of the fields.

The Marshal halted and looked again through his glasses. Fabrizio, this

time, could examine him at his leisure. He found him to be very fair,

with a big red face. "We don't have any faces like that in Italy," he

said to himself. "With my pale cheeks and chestnut hair, I shall never

look like that," he added despondently. To him these words implied: "I

shall never be a hero." He looked at the hussars; with a solitary

exception, all of them had yellow moustaches. If Fabrizio was studying

the hussars of the escort, they were all studying him as well. Their

stare made him blush, and, to get rid of his embarrassment, he turned

his head towards the enemy. They consisted of widely extended lines of

men in red, but, what greatly surprised him, these men seemed to be

quite minute. Their long files, which were regiments or divisions,

appeared no taller than hedges. A line of red cavalry were trotting in

the direction of the sunken road along which the Marshal and his escort

had begun to move at a walk, splashing through the mud. The smoke made

it impossible to distinguish anything in the direction in which they

were advancing; now and then one saw men moving at a gallop against this

background of white smoke.

Suddenly, from the direction of the enemy, Fabrizio saw four men

approaching hell for leather. "Ah! We are attacked," he said to himself;

then he saw two of these men speak to the Marshal. One of the generals

on the latter's staff set off at a gallop towards the enemy, followed by

two hussars of the escort and by the four men who had just come up.

After a little canal which they all crossed, Fabrizio found himself

riding beside a serjeant who seemed a good-natured fellow. "I must speak

to this one," he said to himself, "then perhaps they'll stop staring at

me." He thought for a long time.

"Sir, this is the first time that I have been present at a battle," he

said at length to the serjeant. "But is this a real battle?"

"Something like. But who are you?"

"I am the brother of a captain's wife."

"And what is he called, your captain?"

Our hero was terribly embarrassed; he had never anticipated this

question. Fortunately, the Marshal and his escort broke into a gallop.

"What French name shall I say?" he wondered. At last he remembered the

name of the innkeeper with whom he had lodged in Paris; he brought his

horse up to the serjeant's, and shouted to him at the top of his voice:

"Captain Meunier!" The other, not hearing properly in the roar of the

guns, replied: "Oh, Captain Teulier? Well, he's been killed."

"Splendid," thought Fabrizio. "Captain Teulier; I must look sad."

"Good God!" he cried; and assumed a piteous mien. They had left the

sunken road and were crossing a small meadow, they were going hell for

leather, shots were coming over again, the Marshal headed for a division

of cavalry. The escort found themselves surrounded by dead and wounded

men; but this sight had already ceased to make any impression on our

hero; he had other things to think of.

While the escort was halted, he caught sight of the little cart of a

_cantinière_, and his affection for this honourable corps sweeping

aside every other consideration, set off at a gallop to join her.

"Stay where you are, curse you," the serjeant shouted after him.

"What can he do to me here?" thought Fabrizio, and he continued to

gallop towards the _cantinière_. When he put spurs to his horse, he had

had some hope that it might be his good _cantinière_ of the morning;

the horse and the little cart bore a strong resemblance, but their owner

was quite different, and our hero thought her appearance most

forbidding. As he came up to her, Fabrizio heard her say: "And he was

such a fine looking man, too!" A very ugly sight awaited the new

recruit; they were sawing off a cuirassier's leg at the thigh, a

handsome young fellow of five feet ten. Fabrizio shut his eyes and drank

four glasses of brandy straight off.

"How you do go for it, you boozer!" cried the _cantinière_. The brandy

gave him an idea: "I must buy the goodwill of my comrades, the hussars

of the escort."

"Give me the rest of the bottle," he said to the _vivandière_.

"What do you mean," was her answer, "what's left there costs ten francs,

on a day like this."

As he rejoined the escort at a gallop:

"Ah! You're bringing us a drop of drink," cried the serjeant. "That was

why you deserted, was it? Hand it over."

The bottle went round, the last man to take it flung it in the air after

drinking. "Thank you, chum!" he cried to Fabrizio. All eyes were

fastened on him kindly. This friendly gaze lifted a hundredweight from

Fabrizio's heart; it was one of those hearts of too delicate tissue

which require the friendship of those around it. So at last he had

ceased to be looked at askance by his comrades; there was a bond between

them! Fabrizio breathed a deep sigh of relief, then in a bold voice said

to the serjeant:

"And if Captain Teulier has been killed, where shall I find my sister?"

He fancied himself a little Machiavelli to be saying Teulier so

naturally instead of Meunier.

"That's what you'll find out to-night," was the serjeant's reply.

The escort moved on again and made for some divisions of infantry.

Fabrizio felt quite drunk; he had taken too much brandy, he was rolling

slightly in his saddle: he remembered most opportunely a favourite

saying of his mother's coachman: "When you've been lifting your elbow,

look straight between your horse's ears, and do what the man next you

does." The Marshal stopped for some time beside a number of cavalry

units which he ordered to charge; but for an hour or two our hero was

barely conscious of what was going on round about him. He was feeling

extremely tired, and when his horse galloped he fell back on the saddle

like a lump of lead.

Suddenly the serjeant called out to his men: "Don't you see the Emperor,

curse you!" Whereupon the escort shouted: "_Vive l'Empereur_!" at the

top of their voices. It may be imagined that our hero stared till his

eyes started out of his head, but all he saw was some generals

galloping, also followed by an escort. The long floating plumes of

horsehair which the dragoons of the bodyguard wore on their helmets

prevented him from distinguishing their faces. "So I have missed seeing

the Emperor on a field of battle, all because of those cursed glasses of

brandy!" This reflexion brought him back to his senses.

They went down into a road filled with water, the horses wished to

drink.

"So that was the Emperor who went past then?" he asked the man next to

him.

"Why, surely, the one with no braid on his coat. How is it you didn't

see him?" his comrade answered kindly. Fabrizio felt a strong desire to

gallop after the Emperor's escort and embody himself in it. What a joy

to go really to war in the train of that hero! It was for that he

had come to France. "I am quite at liberty to do it," he said to

himself, "for after all I have no other reason for being where I am but

the will of my horse, which started galloping after these generals."

What made Fabrizio decide to stay where he was was that the hussars, his

new comrades, seemed so friendly towards him; he began to imagine

himself the intimate friend of all the troopers with whom he had been

galloping for the last few hours. He saw arise between them and himself

that noble friendship of the heroes of Tasso and Ariosto. If he were to

attach himself to the Emperor's escort, there would be fresh

acquaintances to be made, perhaps they would look at him askance, for

these other horsemen were dragoons, and he was wearing the hussar

uniform like all the rest that were following the Marshal. The way in

which they now looked at him set our hero on a pinnacle of happiness; he

would have done anything in the world for his comrades; his mind and

soul were in the clouds. Everything seemed to have assumed a new aspect

now that he was among friends; he was dying to ask them various

questions. "But I am still a little drunk," he said to himself, "I must

bear in mind what the gaoler's wife told me." He noticed on leaving the

sunken road that the escort was no longer with Marshal Ney; the general

whom they were following was tall and thin, with a dry face and an

awe-inspiring eye.

This general was none other than Comte d'A----, the Lieutenant Robert of

the 15th of May, 1796. How delighted he would have been to meet Fabrizio

del Dongo!

It was already some time since Fabrizio had noticed the earth flying off

in black crumbs on being struck by shot; they came in rear of a regiment

of cuirassiers, he could hear distinctly the rattle of the grapeshot

against their breastplates, and saw several men fall.

The sun was now very low and had begun to set when the escort, emerging

from a sunken road, mounted a little bank three or four feet high to

enter a ploughed field. Fabrizio heard an odd little sound quite close

to him: he turned his head, four men had fallen with their horses; the

general himself had been unseated, but picked himself up, covered in

blood. Fabrizio looked at the hussars who were lying on the ground:

three of them were still making convulsive movements, the fourth cried:

"Pull me out!" The serjeant and two or three men had dismounted to

assist the general who, leaning upon his aide-de-camp, was attempting to

walk a few steps; he was trying to get away from his horse, which lay on

the ground struggling and kicking out madly.

The serjeant came up to Fabrizio. At that moment our hero heard a voice

say behind him and quite close to his ear: "This is the only one that

can still gallop." He felt himself seized by the feet; they were taken

out of the stirrups at the same time as someone caught him underneath

the arms; he was lifted over his horse's tail and then allowed to slip

to the ground, where he landed sitting.

The aide-de-camp took Fabrizio's horse by the bridle; the general, with

the help of the serjeant, mounted and rode off at a gallop; he was

quickly followed by the six men who were left of the escort. Fabrizio

rose up in a fury, and began to run after them shouting: "_Ladri!

Ladri_! (Thieves! Thieves!)" It was an amusing experience to run after

horse-stealers across a battlefield.

The escort and the general, Comte d'A----, disappeared presently behind

a row of willows. Fabrizio, blind with rage, also arrived at this line

of willows; he found himself brought to a halt by a canal of

considerable depth which he crossed. Then, on reaching the other side,

he began swearing again as he saw once more, but far away in the

distance, the general and his escort vanishing among the trees.

"Thieves! Thieves!" he cried, in French this time. In desperation, not

so much at the loss of his horse as at the treachery to himself, he let

himself sink down on the side of the ditch, tired out and dying of

hunger. If his fine horse had been taken from him by the enemy, he would

have thought no more about it; but to see himself betrayed and robbed by

that serjeant whom he liked so much and by those hussars whom he

regarded as brothers! That was what broke his heart. He could find no

consolation for so great an infamy, and, leaning his back against a

willow, began to shed hot tears. He abandoned one by one all those

beautiful dreams of a chivalrous and sublime friendship, like that of

the heroes of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_. To see death come to one was

nothing, surrounded by heroic and tender hearts, by noble friends who

clasp one by the hand as one yields one's dying breath! But to retain

one's enthusiasm surrounded by a pack of vile scoundrels! Like all angry

men Fabrizio exaggerated. After a quarter of an hour of this melting

mood, he noticed that the guns were beginning to range on the row of

trees in the shade of which he sat meditating. He rose and tried to find

his bearings. He scanned those fields bounded by a wide canal and the

row of pollard willows: he thought he knew where he was. He saw a body

of infantry crossing the ditch and marching over the fields, a quarter

of a league in front of him. "I was just falling asleep," he said to

himself; "I must see that I'm not taken prisoner." And he put his best

foot foremost. As he advanced, his mind was set at rest; he recognized

the uniforms, the regiments by which he had been afraid of being cut off

were French. He made a right incline so as to join them.

After the moral anguish of having been so shamefully betrayed and

robbed, there came another which, at every moment, made itself felt more

keenly; he was dying of hunger. It was therefore with infinite joy that

after having walked, or rather run for ten minutes, he saw that the

column of infantry, which also had been moving very rapidly, was halting

to take up a position. A few minutes later, he was among the nearest of

the soldiers.

"Friends, could you sell me a mouthful of bread?"

"I say, here's a fellow who thinks we're bakers!"

This harsh utterance and the general guffaw that followed it had a

crushing effect on Fabrizio. So war was no longer that noble and

universal uplifting of souls athirst for glory which he had imagined it

to be from Napoleon's proclamations! He sat down, or rather let himself

fall on the grass; he turned very pale. The soldier who had spoken to

him, and who had stopped ten paces off to clean the lock of his musket

with his handkerchief, came nearer and flung him a lump of bread; then,

seeing that he did not pick it up, broke off a piece which he put in our

hero's mouth. Fabrizio opened his eyes, and ate the bread without having

the strength to speak. When at length he looked round for the soldier to

pay him, he found himself alone; the men nearest to him were a hundred

yards off and were marching. Mechanically he rose and followed them. He

entered a wood; he was dropping with exhaustion, and already had begun

to look round for a comfortable resting-place; but what was his delight

on recognising first of all the horse, then the cart, and finally the

_cantinière_ of that morning! She ran to him and was frightened by his

appearance.

"Still going, my boy," she said to him; "you're wounded then? And

where's your fine horse?" So saying she led him towards the cart, upon

which she made him climb, supporting him under the arms. No sooner was

he in the cart than our hero, utterly worn out, fell fast asleep.