The Chartreuse of Parma. Stendhal
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entrance to the bridge and on the right-hand side of the road stood a lonely house, which displayed the sign of the White Horse. “I’ll have my dinner there,” said Fabrizio to himself. Beside the bridge was a cavalry officer with his arm in a sling. He was sitting on his horse and looked very sad. Ten paces from him three dismounted troopers were busy with their pipes.
“Those fellows,” said Fabrizio to himself, “look very much as if they might be inclined to buy my horse even cheaper than the price I’ve paid for him.” The wounded officer and the three men on foot were watching him, and seemed to be waiting for him. “I really ought to avoid that bridge and follow the river bank on the right; that’s what the cantinière would advise me to do, to get out of the difficulty. Yes,” said our hero to himself, “but if I take to flight I shall be ashamed of it to-morrow. Besides, my horse has good legs, and the officer’s horse is probably tired out. If he tries to dismount me I’ll take to my heels.” Reasoning thus, Fabrizio shook his horse together and rode on as slowly as possible.
“Come on, hussar!” shouted the officer, with a voice of authority. Fabrizio came on a few steps, and then halted. “Do you want to take my horse from me?” he called out.
“Not a bit of it! Come on!”
Fabrizio looked at the officer. His mustache was white, he had the most honest face imaginable, the handkerchief which supported his left arm was covered with blood, and his right hand was also wrapped in a bloody bandage. “It’s those men on foot who will snatch at the horse’s bridle,” thought Fabrizio; but when he looked closer he saw that the men on foot were wounded as well.
“In the name of all that’s honourable,” said the officer, who wore a colonel’s epaulettes, “keep watch here, and tell every dragoon, light-cavalry man, and hussar you may see that Colonel Le Baron is in the inn there, and that he orders them to report themselves to him.” The old colonel looked broken-hearted. His very first words had won our hero’s heart, and he replied very sensibly, “I’m very young, sir; perhaps nobody would listen to me. I ought to have a written order from you.”
“He’s right,” said the colonel, looking hard at him. “Write the order, La Rose; you can use your right hand.” Without a word, La Rose drew a little parchment-covered book from his pocket, wrote a few words, tore out the leaf, and gave it to Fabrizio. The colonel repeated his orders, adding that Fabrizio would be relieved after two hours, as was only fair, by one of the wounded soldiers who were with him. This done, he went into the tavern with his men. Fabrizio, so greatly had he been struck by the silent and dreary sorrow of the three men, sat motionless at the end of the bridge, watching them disappear. “They were like enchanted genii,” said he to himself. At last he opened the folded paper, and read the following order:
“Colonel Le Baron, Sixth Dragoons, commanding the Second Brigade of the First Cavalry Division of the Fourteenth Corps, orders all cavalry, dragoons, light-cavalry men, and hussars not to cross the bridge, and to report themselves to him at his headquarters, the White Horse Tavern, close to the bridge.
“Dated. Headquarters, close to the bridge over the Sainte. June 19, 1815.
“Signed for Colonel Le Baron, wounded in the right arm, and by his orders.
“Sergeant La Rose.”
Fabrizio had hardly kept guard on the bridge for half an hour when six light-cavalry men mounted, and three on foot, approached him. He gave them the colonel’s order. “We are coming back,” said four of the mounted men, and they crossed the bridge at full trot. By that time Fabrizio was engaged with the two others. While the altercation grew warmer the three men on foot slipped over the bridge. One of the two remaining mounted men ended by asking to see the order, and carried it off, saying, “I’ll take it to my comrades, who are sure to come back; you wait patiently for them,” and he galloped off with his companion after him. The whole thing was done in an instant.
Fabrizio, in a fury, beckoned to one of the wounded soldiers who had appeared at one of the tavern windows. The man, whom Fabrizio observed to be wearing a sergeant’s stripes, came downstairs, and shouted, as he drew near him, “Draw your sword, sir! Don’t you know you’re on duty?” Fabrizio obeyed, and then said, “They’ve carried off the order!”
“They’re still savage over yesterday’s business,” answered the other drearily. “I’ll give you one of my pistols. If they break through again fire it in the air, and I’ll come down, or the colonel will make his appearance.”
Fabrizio had noticed the gesture of surprise with which the sergeant had received the intelligence that the order had been carried off. He had realized that the incident was a personal insult to himself, and was resolved that nothing of the sort should happen in future. He had gone back proudly to his post, armed with the sergeant’s pistol, when he saw seven hussars come riding up. He had placed himself across the entrance to the bridge. He gave them the colonel’s order, which vexed them very much. The boldest tried to get across. Fabrizio, obeying the wise advice of his friend the cantinière, who had told him the previous morning that he must cut and not thrust, lowered the point of his big straight sword, and made as though he would have run through anybody who disobeyed the order.
“Ha! the greenhorn wants to kill us, as if we had not been killed enough yesterday!” They all drew their swords, and fell upon Fabrizio. He gave himself up for dead, but he remembered the look of surprise on the sergeant’s face, and resolved he would not be despised a second time. He backed slowly over his bridge, trying to thrust with his point as he went. He looked so queer, with his great straight cavalry sword, much too heavy for him, and which he did not know how to handle, that the hussars soon saw who they had to do with. Then they tried not to wound him, but to cut his coat off his back. He thus received three or four small sword cuts on the arm. Meanwhile, faithful to the cantinière’s advice, he kept on thrusting with all his might. Unluckily one of his lunges wounded a hussar in the hand. The man, furious at being touched by such a soldier, replied with a violent thrust which wounded Fabrizio in the thigh. The wound was all the deeper because our hero’s charger, instead of escaping from the mêlée, seemed to delight in it, and to throw himself deliberately on the assailants. The hussars, seeing Fabrizio’s blood running down his right arm, were afraid they had gone too far, and, forcing him over to the left parapet of the bridge, they galloped off. The instant Fabrizio was free for a moment he fired his pistol in the air to warn the colonel.
Four mounted hussars and two on foot belonging to the same regiment as the last had been coming toward the bridge, and were still two hundred paces off when the pistol shot rang out. They were carefully watching what happened on the bridge, and thinking Fabrizio had fired upon their comrades, the four mounted men galloped down upon him, brandishing their swords; it was a regular charge. Colonel Le Baron, summoned by the pistol shot, opened the tavern door, rushed on to the bridge just as the hussars galloped up to it, and himself ordered them to halt.
“There’s no colonel here,” cried one of the men, and he spurred his horse. The colonel in his anger broke off his remonstrance, and seized the rein of the horse on the off side with his wounded hand. “Halt, sir!” he cried to the hussar. “I know you. You belong to Captain Henriet’s company.”
“Well, then, let the captain give me his orders! Captain Henriet was killed yesterday,” he added with a sneer, “and you may go and be damned!” As he spoke he tried to force his way through, and knocked over the old colonel, who fell in a sitting posture on the floor of the bridge. Fabrizio, who was two paces farther on the bridge, but facing the tavern, urged his horse furiously forward, and while the hussar’s horse overthrew the colonel, who still clung to the off rein, he thrust vehemently and angrily at its rider. Luckily the man’s horse, which was dragged downward by the bridle, on to which the colonel was still hanging, started to one side, so that the long blade of Fabrizio’s heavy cavalry sword slipped along the hussar’s waistcoat and came right out under his nose. The hussar, in his fury, turned round and hacked at Fabrizio with all his strength, cutting through his sleeve and making a deep wound in his arm. Our hero tumbled off his horse. One of the dismounted hussars, seeing the two defenders of the bridge lying on the ground, seized