Part 5

Suddenly, on the enemy's side, Fabrice saw four men arriving at full gallop. "Ah! we are being attacked," he thought; then he saw two of these men speak to the marshal. One of the generals of the latter's suite set off at a gallop in the direction of the enemy, followed by two hussars of the escort and the four men who had just arrived. After a small canal which everyone crossed, Fabrice found himself beside a quartermaster-sergeant who looked a very good-natured fellow. "I must speak to that man," he said to himself, "perhaps they will stop staring at me." He pondered long.

--Sir, this is the first time I have witnessed a battle, he said at last to the quartermaster-sergeant; but is this a real battle?

--Somewhat. But you, who are you?

--I am the brother of the wife of a captain.

--And what do you call him, this captain?

Our hero was terribly embarrassed; he had not foreseen this question. Fortunately, the marshal and the escort set off again at a gallop. What French name shall I say? he thought. At length he recalled the name of the innkeeper where he had lodged in Paris; he brought his horse close to that of the quartermaster-sergeant, and shouted to him with all his might:

--Captain Meunier!

The other, hearing badly because of the rolling of the cannon, answered him:

--Ah! Captain Teulier? Well! he has been killed.

"Bravo!" said Fabrice to himself. "Captain Teulier; I must look afflicted."

--Ah, my God! he cried, and he put on a piteous face.

They had left the sunken road, they were crossing a small meadow, going at full speed, the cannonballs were coming again, the marshal moved toward a division of cavalry. The escort found itself among corpses and wounded men; but this spectacle no longer made so much impression on our hero; he had something else to think about.

While the escort was halted, he caught sight of the little cart of a sutler, and his tenderness for that respectable corps prevailing over everything, he set off at a gallop to rejoin her.

--Stay where you are, you s...! the quartermaster-sergeant shouted at him.

"What can he do to me here?" thought Fabrice, and he continued to gallop toward the sutler. In giving his horse the spur, he had had some hope that it was his good sutler of the morning; the horses and the little carts much resembled one another, but the owner was quite another, and our hero found her looking very ill-tempered. As he came up to her, Fabrice heard her say:

--He was a very handsome man, though!

A very ugly sight awaited the new soldier there; they were amputating the thigh of a cuirassier, a fine young man of five feet ten inches. Fabrice closed his eyes and drank four glasses of brandy one after another.

--You do go at it, you shrimp! cried the sutler. 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 camp-follower.

--But do you know, she answered, that this remainder costs ten francs, on a day like today?

As he rejoined the escort at a gallop:

--Ah! you are bringing us the drop! cried the quartermaster-sergeant, is that why you were deserting? Give here.

The bottle went round; the last who took it threw it into the air after drinking.

--Thank you, comrade! he shouted to Fabrice.

All eyes looked at him with kindness. These looks removed a weight of a hundred pounds from Fabrice's heart: it was one of those hearts of too fine a make that need the friendship of what surrounds them. At last he was no longer ill-seen by his companions, there was a bond between them! Fabrice breathed deeply, then in a free voice he said to the quartermaster-sergeant:

--And if Captain Teulier has been killed, where could I rejoin my sister?

He thought himself a little Machiavelli, to say Teulier so well instead of Meunier.

--That you will know this evening, answered the quartermaster-sergeant.

The escort set off again and moved toward infantry divisions. Fabrice felt quite intoxicated; he had drunk too much brandy, he rolled a little in his saddle: he opportunely remembered a saying repeated by his mother's coachman: "When you have lifted the elbow, you must look between your horse's ears, and do as your neighbor does." The marshal stopped a long while beside several bodies of cavalry whom he had charge; but for an hour or two our hero was scarcely conscious of what was happening around him. He felt very weary, and when his horse galloped he fell back on the saddle like a lump of lead.

Suddenly the quartermaster-sergeant shouted to his men:

--Can't you see the Emperor, you s...! Instantly the escort cried long live the Emperor! at the top of their lungs. One may imagine whether our hero looked with all his eyes, but he saw only generals galloping, followed, they too, by an escort. The long hanging manes worn on their helmets by the dragoons of the suite prevented him from distinguishing the faces. "So, I could not see the Emperor on a battlefield, because of those accursed glasses of brandy!" This reflection woke him up completely.

They went down again into a road full of water, the horses wanted to drink.

--So it was the Emperor who passed there? he said to his neighbor.

--Why, certainly, the one who had no embroidered coat. How did you not see him? answered the comrade with kindness.

Fabrice had a great mind to gallop after the Emperor's escort and join it. What happiness to make war in earnest in the train of that hero! That was why he had come to France. "I am perfectly free to do so," he said to himself, "for after all I have no other reason for doing the service I do, than the will of my horse who has begun to gallop to follow these generals."

What determined Fabrice to stay, was that the hussars his new comrades looked kindly on him; he was beginning to believe himself the intimate friend of all the soldiers with whom he had been galloping for some hours. He saw between them and him that noble friendship of the heroes of Tasso and Ariosto. If he joined the Emperor's escort, there would be a new acquaintance to make; perhaps even they would look coldly at him, for those other horsemen were dragoons and he wore the uniform of a hussar as did all who followed the marshal. The way they looked at him now brought our hero to the height of happiness; he would have done anything in the world for his comrades; his soul and his spirit were in the clouds. Everything seemed to him to have changed face since he was with friends, he was dying to ask questions. "But I am still a little drunk," he said to himself, "I must remember the jailer." He noticed on leaving the sunken road that the escort was no longer with Marshal Ney; the general they were following was tall, slim, and had a dry face and a terrible eye.

This general was none other than Count d'A..., the lieutenant Robert of 15 May 1796. What happiness he would have found in seeing Fabrice del Dongo.

It was already a long time since Fabrice no longer saw the earth flying in black crumbs under the action of the cannonballs; they arrived behind a regiment of cuirassiers, he distinctly heard the biscaïens strike on the cuirasses and he saw several men fall.

The sun was already very low, and it was about to set when the escort, leaving a sunken road, climbed a small slope of three or four feet to enter a plowed field. Fabrice heard a singular little noise close to him: he turned his head, four men had fallen with their horses; the general himself had been knocked over, but he was getting up all covered with blood. Fabrice looked at the hussars thrown to the ground: three were still making some convulsive movements, the fourth cried:

--Pull me out from underneath.

The quartermaster-sergeant and two or three men had dismounted to assist the general who, leaning on his aide-de-camp, tried to take a few steps; he sought to move away from his horse which was struggling, overturned on the ground and lashing out furious kicks.

The quartermaster-sergeant approached Fabrice. At this moment our hero heard said behind him and close to his ear:

--He is the only one who can still gallop.

He felt his feet seized; they were lifted while at the same time his body was supported under the arms; they passed him over the croup of his horse, then let him slide to the ground, where he fell sitting.

The aide-de-camp took Fabrice's horse by the bridle; the general, aided by the quartermaster-sergeant, mounted and set off at a gallop; he was rapidly followed by the six men who remained. Fabrice got up furious, and began to run after them crying:

--Ladri! ladri! (thieves! thieves!)

It was droll to run after thieves in the middle of a battlefield.

The escort and the general, Count d'A..., soon disappeared behind a row of willows. Fabrice, drunk with anger, also reached this line of willows; he found himself right against a very deep canal which he crossed. Then, arrived on the other side, he began again to swear on seeing once more, but at a very great distance, the general and the escort who were losing themselves among the trees.

--Thieves! thieves! he now cried in French.

In despair, far less at the loss of his horse than at the betrayal, he let himself fall at the edge of the ditch, tired and dying of hunger. If his fine horse had been taken from him by the enemy, he would not have thought of it; but to see himself betrayed and robbed by that quartermaster-sergeant whom he loved so much and by those hussars whom he regarded as brothers! that was what broke his heart. He could not console himself for so much infamy, and, his back against a willow, he began to weep hot tears. He was undoing one by one all his fine dreams of chivalrous and sublime friendship, like that of the heroes of the Jerusalem Delivered. To see death arrive was nothing, surrounded by heroic and tender souls, by noble friends who press your hand at the moment of the last sigh! but to keep one's enthusiasm, surrounded by vile knaves!!! Fabrice exaggerated like any indignant man. At the end of a quarter of an hour of self-softening, he noticed that the cannonballs were beginning to arrive as far as the row of trees in the shade of which he was musing. He rose and sought to get his bearings. He looked at these meadows bordered by a wide canal and the row of thick willows: he thought he recognized the place. He caught sight of a body of infantry crossing the ditch and entering the meadows, a quarter of a league ahead of him. "I was about to fall asleep," he said to himself; "the thing is not to be taken prisoner"; and he began to walk very fast. As he advanced he was reassured, he recognized the uniform, the regiments by which he had feared to be cut off were French. He bore to the right to rejoin them.

After the moral pain of having been so indignantly betrayed and robbed, there was another which, every moment, made itself felt more keenly: he was dying of hunger. It was therefore with extreme joy that, after having walked, or rather run for ten minutes, he perceived that the body of infantry, which was also going very fast, halted as if to take position. A few minutes later, he found himself in the midst of the front soldiers.

--Comrades, could you sell me a piece of bread?

--Look at that, another who takes us for bakers!

This harsh word and the general sniggering that followed it overwhelmed Fabrice. War was then no longer that noble and common surge of souls enamored of glory which he had pictured to himself from Napoleon's proclamations! He sat down, or rather let himself fall on the grass; he grew 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 up and threw him a piece of bread, then, seeing that he did not pick it up, the soldier put a piece of this bread in his mouth. Fabrice opened his eyes, and ate this bread without having the strength to speak. When at last he sought the soldier with his eyes to pay him, he found himself alone, the soldiers nearest him were a hundred paces off and marching. He rose mechanically and followed them. He entered a wood; he was about to fall from fatigue and was already looking about with his eye for a convenient place; but what was his joy in recognizing first the horse, then the cart, and at last the sutler of the morning! She ran to him and was frightened at his looks.

--Walk on a little, my lad, she said to him; are you wounded then? and your fine horse? As she spoke thus she led him toward her cart, where she made him get in, supporting him under the arms. Scarcely in the cart, our hero, exhausted with fatigue, fell fast asleep. 3

CHAPTER IV

Nothing could wake him, neither the musket-shots fired very near the little cart, nor the trot of the horse which the sutler whipped with all her might. The regiment, attacked unawares by swarms of Prussian cavalry, after having believed in victory all day long, was retreating, or rather fleeing toward France.

The colonel, a fine young man, well got-up, who had just succeeded Macon, was sabered; the major who replaced him in command, an old man with white hair, halted the regiment.

--D...! he said to the soldiers, in the time of the Republic one waited to skedaddle until forced to by the enemy... Defend every inch of ground and get yourselves killed, he cried, swearing; it is now the soil of the fatherland that these Prussians want to invade!

The little cart stopped, Fabrice woke suddenly. The sun had long since set; he was quite astonished to see that it was almost night. The soldiers were running hither and thither in a confusion which greatly surprised our hero; he found that they looked sheepish.

--What is it then? he said to the sutler.

--Nothing at all. It is that we are done for, my lad; it is the Prussian cavalry that is sabering us, only that. The blockhead of a general first thought it was ours. Come, quickly, help me mend Cocotte's trace that has broken.

A few musket-shots rang out at ten paces distance: our hero, fresh and lively, said to himself: "But really, all day long, I have not fought, I have only escorted a general."

--I must fight, he said to the sutler.

--Rest easy, you will fight, and more than you would wish! We are lost!

--Aubry, my boy, she cried to a corporal who was passing, keep an eye from time to time on where the little cart is.

--You are going to fight? said Fabrice to Aubry.

--No, I am putting on my pumps to go to the dance!

--I am coming with you.

--I commend the little hussar to you, cried the sutler, the young gentleman has pluck. Corporal Aubry marched without a word. Eight or ten soldiers rejoined him running, he led them behind a great oak surrounded by brambles. Arrived there, he placed them at the edge of the wood, still without a word, in a very extended line; each was at least ten paces from his neighbor.

--Now then! you others, said the corporal, and it was the first time he spoke, do not go firing before the order, bear in mind that you have no more than three cartridges.

"But what is happening then?" Fabrice asked himself. At length, when he found himself alone with the corporal, he said to him:

--I have no musket.

--Hold your tongue first! Advance there, fifty paces in front of the wood, you will find one of the poor soldiers of the regiment who have just been sabered; you will take his cartridge-box and his musket from him. Do not go stripping a wounded man, at least; take the musket and cartridge-box of one who is quite dead, and make haste, so as not to receive the musket-shots of our own people.

Fabrice set off running and came back quickly with a musket and a cartridge-box.

--Load your musket and put yourself there behind that tree, and above all do not fire before the order I shall give you... Good God! said the corporal, interrupting himself, he does not even know how to load his weapon!... (He helped Fabrice as he continued his speech.) If an enemy horseman gallops at you to saber you, turn around your tree and do not loose your shot but at point-blank when your horseman is three paces from you; your bayonet must almost touch his uniform.

"Throw away that big saber, though," cried the corporal, "do you want it to make you fall, name of D...! What soldiers they give us now!"

As he spoke thus, he himself took the saber and threw it far away with anger.

--You, wipe your musket-flint with your handkerchief. But have you ever fired a musket?

--I am a hunter.

--Praised be God! resumed the corporal with a great sigh. Above all do not fire before the order I shall give you.

And he went away.

Fabrice was all joyous. "At last I am going to fight in earnest," he said to himself, "kill an enemy! This morning they were sending us cannonballs, and I was doing nothing but exposing myself to be killed; a fool's trade." He looked all about with extreme curiosity. After a moment, he heard seven or eight musket-shots go off close to him. But, receiving no order to fire, he stayed quiet behind his tree. It was almost night; it seemed to him he was at the lie-in-wait, hunting the bear, in the mountain of Tramezzina, above Grianta. A hunter's idea came to him; he took a cartridge from his box and detached the ball from it: "If I see him," said he, "I must not miss him," and he let this second ball slide into the barrel of his musket. He heard two shots fired right beside his tree; at the same time he saw a horseman dressed in blue who passed at a gallop before him, going from his right to his left. "He is not at three paces," said he, "but at this distance I am sure of my shot," he followed the horseman well with the muzzle of his musket and at last pressed the trigger; the horseman fell with his horse. Our hero thought himself at the hunt: he ran quite joyfully onto the piece he had just brought down. He was already touching the man who seemed to him dying, when, with incredible swiftness, two Prussian horsemen arrived upon him to saber him. Fabrice took to his heels toward the wood; to run better he threw away his musket. The Prussian horsemen were no more than three paces from him when he reached a new planting of little oaks as thick as the arm and very straight which bordered the wood. These little oaks stopped the horsemen an instant, but they passed and began again to pursue Fabrice in a clearing. Again they were near catching him, when he slipped between seven or eight great trees. At this moment, he had almost his face burned by the flash of five or six musket-shots which went off in front of him. He lowered his head; as he raised it, he found himself face to face with the corporal.

--Did you kill yours? said corporal Aubry to him.

--Yes, but I lost my musket.

--It is not muskets we lack; you are a good b...; despite your cabbage look, you have well earned your day, and these soldiers here have just missed those two who were pursuing you and came straight at them; I, I did not see them. It is now a matter of clearing out smartly; the regiment must be a quarter-league off, and, moreover, there is a little bit of meadow where we may be gathered up in a half-circle.

As he spoke, the corporal marched rapidly at the head of his ten men. Two hundred paces from there, on entering the little meadow of which he had spoken, they met a wounded general who was carried by his aide-de-camp and a servant.

--You will give me four men, he said to the corporal in a faint voice, it is a matter of transporting me to the ambulance; I have my leg smashed.

--Go to the d..., answered the corporal, you and all the generals. You have all betrayed the Emperor today.

--How, said the general in fury, you disregard my orders! Do you know that I am General Count B***, commanding your division, etc.

He made speeches. The aide-de-camp threw himself on the soldiers. The corporal lunged a bayonet-thrust into his arm, then cleared out with his men, doubling the pace.

--May they all be like you, repeated the corporal swearing, arms and legs smashed! Pack of fops! All sold to the Bourbons, and betraying the Emperor!

Fabrice listened with stupefaction to this frightful accusation.

Toward ten o'clock in the evening, the little troop rejoined the regiment at the entrance of a large village which formed several very narrow streets, but Fabrice noticed that corporal Aubry avoided speaking to any of the officers. Impossible to advance, cried the corporal! All these streets were encumbered with infantry, horsemen and above all with artillery caissons and wagons. The corporal presented himself at the issue of three of these streets; after going twenty paces, they had to stop: everyone was swearing and getting angry.

--Some traitor in command again! cried the corporal; if the enemy has the sense to turn the village we are all prisoners like dogs. Follow me, you others.

Fabrice looked; there were no more than six soldiers with the corporal. Through a large open gate they entered a vast back-yard; from the back-yard they passed into a stable, whose little door gave them entry into a garden. They lost themselves there a moment, wandering hither and thither. But at last, in passing a hedge, they found themselves in a vast field of buckwheat. In less than half an hour, guided by the cries and the confused noise, they had regained the high road beyond the village. The ditches of this road were full of abandoned muskets; Fabrice chose one but the road, though very wide, was so encumbered with fugitives and carts, that in half an hour's time, scarcely had the corporal and Fabrice advanced five hundred paces; it was said that this road led to Charleroi. As eleven o'clock was striking on the village clock:

--Let us take again across country, cried the corporal.

The little troop was no longer composed but of three soldiers, the corporal and Fabrice. When they were a quarter-league from the high road:

--I can do no more, said one of the soldiers.

--And me neither, said another.

--Fine news! We are all in the same case, said the corporal; but obey me, and you will be the better for it.

He saw five or six trees along a little ditch in the middle of an immense field of wheat.

--To the trees! he said to his men; lie down there, he added when they arrived, and above all no noise. But, before going to sleep, who has bread?

--I, said one of the soldiers.

--Give, said the corporal, with a magisterial air; he divided the bread into five pieces and took the smallest.

--A quarter of an hour before daybreak, said he as he ate, you will have the enemy cavalry on your back. The thing is not to let yourselves be sabered. One alone is done for, with cavalry on his back, in these great plains, five on the contrary may escape: stay well united with me, fire only at point-blank, and tomorrow evening I pledge myself to return you to Charleroi.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”