Free The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal Page A

knocked down but stood up again, covered with blood. Fabrizio stared at the hussars on the ground: three of them were still making convulsive movements, the fourth screamed: “Pull me out, get this beast off me!”
    The sergeant and two or three men had dismounted to help the general who, leaning on his aide-de-camp, was trying to take a few steps; he wanted to get away from his horse that was struggling on the ground, its hooves lashing out furiously.
    The sergeant came over to Fabrizio. At this moment our hero heard someone behind him say, quite close to his ear: “That’s the only one still fit to gallop.” He felt someone grab his feet; they were lifted out of the stirrups at the same time that his body was seized under the arms, and he was raised over the horse’s tail and let slide to the ground, where he landed in a sitting position.
    The aide-de-camp took Fabrizio’s horse by the bridle; the general, with the sergeant’s help, mounted and galloped off, rapidly followed by the remaining six men. Fabrizio stood up, furious, and began running after them, shouting:
“Ladri! Ladri!
” (Thieves! Thieves!) What a farce, to be running across a battlefield after horse-thieves!
    The escort and the general (Count d’A——) soon disappeared behind a row of willows. Fabrizio, blind with rage, also reached this boundary and found himself at a deep ditch, which he waded across. Then, on the other side, he began swearing again as he once more caught sight—but far off now—of the general and his escort vanishing into the trees. “Thieves! Thieves!” he shouted, in French this time.
    Despairing much less over the loss of his horse than on account of the betrayal, Fabrizio let himself collapse beside the ditch, exhausted and famished. If his splendid horse had been stolen by the enemy, he would have thought nothing of it; but to see himself robbed and betrayed by this sergeant he was so fond of and by these hussars he regarded as his brothers! That was what broke his heart. He could not console himself for such infamy and, leaning against a willow, began to weep bitter tears. One by one he was dispelling all his fine dreams of sublime and knightly comradeship like that of the heroes of
Gerusalemme Liberata
. To look death in the face was nothing, surrounded by tender and heroic souls, noble friends who clasp your hand at their last gasp! But to preserve your enthusiasm in the midst of knaves and scoundrels!! Fabrizio was exaggerating, like any offended man. After a quarter of an hour’s emotion, he noticed that the bullets were beginning to reach the row of trees shading his meditations. He stood up and tried to figure out where he was. He stared at these fields bordered by a wide ditch and the row of bushy willows: he thought he recognized the place. He caught sight of a group of infantrymen crossing the ditch and walking into the field a quarter of a league ahead of him. “I was falling asleep,” he realized; “I must be careful not to be taken prisoner,” and he began walking very fast. As he proceeded he was reassured, recognizing the uniforms: the regiments by which he feared being cut off were French! He turned right to join them.
    After the moral anguish of having been so basely robbed and betrayed, there was yet another which constantly made itself felt even more intensely: he was dying of hunger. So it was with extreme delight that after having walked, or rather run, for some ten minutes, he realized that the infantrymen, who were also moving very fast, were stopping as though to take up positions. A few minutes later he found himself among the first soldiers. “Comrades, can you sell me a piece of bread?”
    “Here’s someone who thinks we’re bakers.”
    This harsh remark and the general mockery that followed it overwhelmed Fabrizio. So war was no longer that noble and mutual impulse of glory-loving souls which he had assumed it was from Napoléon’s proclamations! He sat down, or rather let himself