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fall tothe ground; he grew very pale. The soldier he had spoken to, who had stopped ten paces off to clean his musket-lock with his handkerchief, came over and tossed him a hunk of bread; then, seeing that he failed to pick it up, thrust it into his mouth. Fabrizio opened his eyes and chewed the bread without having the strength to speak. When at last he glanced around for the soldier in order to pay him, he found himself alone—the nearest soldiers were a hundred paces off, and marching away. He stood up mechanically and followed them. He entered a grove of trees; numb with fatigue, he was glancing around for a convenient place to sleep, but what was his joy upon recognizing first the horse, then the cart, and finally the canteen-woman of that morning! She ran over to him, alarmed by his appearance. “Walk a little farther, my boy,” she exclaimed. “Are you wounded? Where’s that fine horse of yours?” With such words she led him toward her cart, onto which she helped him, supporting him under the arms. No sooner on the cart than our hero, overcome with exhaustion, fell fast asleep.

C HAPTER F OUR
    Nothing could wake him, neither the musket-fire so close to the little cart, nor the trotting horse which the canteen-woman was whipping with all her might. The regiment, unexpectedly attacked by a host of Prussian cavalry, after imagining victory all day long, was beating a retreat, or rather fleeing in the direction of France.
    The colonel, a handsome, smartly dressed young fellow who had just succeeded Macon, was cut down; the battalion commander replacing him, an old man with white hair, ordered the regiment to halt. “Damn you!” he harangued the soldiers, “in the days of the Republic we didn’t run away until the enemy forced us to.… Defend every inch of ground with your lives!” he shouted, swearing at them. “It’s your native land these Prussians will be invading now!”
    The little cart stopped, and Fabrizio woke with a start. The sun had long since set; he was astonished to discover that it was almost dark. Soldiers were running here and there in a confusion which amazed our hero; he thought they looked ashamed of themselves. “What’s happening?” he asked the canteen-woman.
    “Nothing much. Except that we’re done for, my boy; that’s the Prussian cavalry cutting us down. At first that fool of a general thoughtthey were our men. Quick now, help me mend Cocotte’s harness—it’s broken.”
    Some shots were fired not ten paces away; our hero, cool and composed now, realized, “Actually, I didn’t see battle once this whole day, all I did was escort a general.” And he told the canteen-woman, “I must get into the fighting.”
    “Rest easy, you’ll be fighting, and more than you bargained for! We’re in for it.… Hey, Aubry boy!” she shouted at a passing corporal. “Keep an eye on the cart for me.”
    “Are you going to fight?” Fabrizio asked Aubry.
    “No, I’m putting on my dancing-slippers!”
    “I’ll follow you.”
    “Take care of the little hussar,” the canteen-woman called to him, “he’s a gentleman with a heart.”
    Corporal Aubry walked on without a word. When eight or ten soldiers ran up and joined him, he led them behind a big oak in a briar patch. Here he posted them along the edge of the woods, still without a word, on a wide front, each man at least ten paces from the next.
    “All right, you men!” the corporal shouted, and these were his first words. “Don’t fire until you’re ordered to—remember, all you’ve got is three rounds.”
    “What’s happening here?” Fabrizio wondered. Finally, when he was alone with the corporal, he told him, “I have no musket.”
    “Shut up, then. Go over there: fifty paces into the woods you’ll find one of those poor bastards of the regiment that’s just been cut down—take his musket and his cartridge-pouch. But don’t strip a wounded man; take the gun from someone who’s good and dead, and hurry up about