Free The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal

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 LieutenantRobert 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