Читать книгу The Chartreuse of Parma - Stendhal - Страница 10

Suddenly the sergeant shouted to his men:

“Don’t you see the Emperor, you——” and instantly the escort shouted “Vive l’Empereur” at the top of their voices. My readers may well imagine that our hero stared with all his eyes, but all he saw was a bevy of generals galloping by, followed by another escort. The long, hanging plumes on the helmets of the dragoons in attendance prevented him from making out any faces. “So, thanks to that cursed brandy, I’ve missed seeing the Emperor on the battle-field.” The thought woke him up completely. They rode into another lane swimming with water, and the horses paused to drink.

“So that was the Emperor who passed by?” he said to the next man.

“Why, certainly; the one in the plain coat. How did you miss seeing him?” answered his comrade good-naturedly.

Fabrizio was sorely tempted to gallop after the Emperor’s escort and join it. What a joy it would have been to serve in a real war in attendance on that hero! Was it not for that very purpose that he had come to France? “I am perfectly free to do it,” he reflected, “for indeed the only reason for my doing my present duty is that my horse chose to gallop after these generals.”

But what decided him on remaining was that his comrades the hussars treated him in a friendly fashion; he began to believe himself the close friend of every one of the soldiers with whom he had been galloping the last few hours; he conceived himself bound to them by the noble ties that united the heroes of Tasso and Ariosto. If he joined the Emperor’s escort he would have to make fresh acquaintances, and perhaps he might get the cold shoulder, for the horsemen of the other escort were dragoons, and he, like all those in attendance on the marshal, wore hussar uniform. The manner in which the troopers now looked at him filled our hero with happiness. He would have done anything on earth for his comrades; his whole soul and spirit were in the clouds. Everything seemed different to him now that he was among friends, and he was dying to ask questions.

“But I am not quite sober yet,” he thought. “I must remember the jailer’s wife.” As they emerged from the sunken road he noticed that they were no longer escorting Marshal Ney; the general they were now attending was tall and thin, with a severe face and a merciless eye.

He was no other than the Count d’A⸺, the Lieutenant Robert of May 15, 1796. What would have been his delight at seeing Fabrizio del Dongo!

For some time Fabrizio had ceased to notice the soil flying hither and thither under the action of the bullets. The party rode up behind a regiment of cuirassiers; he distinctly heard the missiles pattering on the cuirasses, and saw several men fall.

The sun was already low, and it was just about to set, when the escort, leaving the lane, climbed a little slope which led into a ploughed field. Fabrizio heard a curious little noise close to him, and turned his head. Four men had fallen with their horses; the general himself had been thrown, but was just getting up, all covered with blood. Fabrizio looked at the hussars on the ground; three of them were still moving convulsively, the fourth was shouting “Pull me out!” The sergeant and two or three troopers had dismounted to help the general, who, leaning on his aide-de-camp, was trying to walk a few steps away from his horse, which was struggling on the ground and kicking furiously.

The sergeant came up to Fabrizio. Just at that moment, behind him and close to his ear, he heard somebody say, “It’s the only one that can still gallop.” He felt his feet seized and himself lifted up by them, while somebody supported his body under the arms. Thus he was drawn over his horse’s hind quarters, and allowed to slip on to the ground, where he fell in a sitting posture. The aide-de-camp caught hold of the horse’s bridle, and the general, assisted by the sergeant, mounted and galloped off, swiftly followed by the six remaining men. In a fury, Fabrizio jumped up and ran after them, shouting, “Ladri! ladri!” (“Thieves! thieves!”) There was something comical about this running after thieves over a battle-field. The escort and General Count d’A⸺ soon vanished behind a row of willow trees. Before very long Fabrizio, still beside himself with rage, reached a similar row, and just beyond it he came on a very deep water-course, which he crossed. When he reached the other side he began to swear again at the sight—but a very distant sight—of the general and his escort disappearing among the trees. “Thieves! thieves!” he shouted again, this time in French. Broken-hearted—much less by the loss of his horse than by the treachery with which he had been treated—weary, and starving, he cast himself down beside the ditch. If it had been the enemy which had carried off his fine charger he would not have given it a thought, but to see himself robbed and betrayed by the sergeant he had liked so much, and the hussars, whom he had looked on as his brothers, filled his soul with bitterness. The thought of the infamy of it was more than he could bear, and, leaning his back against a willow, he wept hot, angry tears. One by one his bright dreams of noble and chivalrous friendship—like the friendships of the heroes of Jerusalem Delivered—had faded before his eyes! The approach of death would have been as nothing in his sight if he had felt himself surrounded by heroic and tender hearts, by noble-souled friends, whose hands should have pressed his while he breathed out his last sigh. But how was he to keep up his enthusiasm when he was surrounded by such vile rascals? Fabrizio, like every angry man, had fallen into exaggeration. After a quarter of an hour spent in such melancholy thoughts, he became aware that the bullets were beginning to fall among the row of trees which sheltered his meditation. He rose to his feet, and made an effort to discover his whereabouts. He looked at the meadow, bounded by a broad canal and a line of bushy willows, and thought he recognised the spot. Then he noticed a body of infantry which was crossing the ditch and debouching into the meadows some quarter of a league ahead of him. “I was nearly caught napping,” thought he. “I must take care not to be taken prisoner.” And he began to walk forward very rapidly. As he advanced, his mind was relieved; he recognised the uniform. The regiments which he feared might have cut off his retreat belonged to the French army; he bore to the right, so as to reach them.

Besides the moral suffering of having been so vilely deceived and robbed, Fabrizio felt another, the pangs of which were momentarily increasing—he was literally starving. It was with the keenest joy, therefore, that after walking, or rather running, for ten minutes, he perceived that the body of infantry, which had also been moving very rapidly, had halted, as though to take up a position. A few minutes more and he was among the nearest soldiers.

“Comrades, could you sell me a piece of bread?”

“Halloo, here’s a fellow who takes us for bakers!”

The rude speech and the general titter that greeted it overwhelmed Fabrizio. Could it be that war was not, after all, that noble and general impulse of souls thirsting for glory which Napoleon’s proclamations had led him to conceive it? He sat down, or rather let himself drop upon the sward; he turned deadly pale. The soldier who had spoken, and who had stopped ten paces off to clean the lock of his gun with his handkerchief, moved a little nearer, and threw him a bit of bread; then, seeing he did not pick it up, the man put a bit of the bread into his mouth. Fabrizio opened his eyes, and ate the bread without having strength to say a word; when at last he looked about for the soldier, intending to pay him, he saw he was alone. The nearest soldiers to him were some hundred paces off, marching away. Mechanically he rose and followed them; he entered a wood. He was ready to drop with weariness, and was already looking about for a place where he might lay him down, when to his joy he recognized first the horse, then the cart, and finally the cantinière he had met in the morning. She ran to him, quite startled by his looks.

“March on, my boy,” she said. “Are you wounded? and where’s your fine horse?” As she spoke she led him toward her cart, into which she pushed him, lifting him under the arms. So weary was our hero that before he had well got into the cart he had fallen fast asleep.