loud that Fabrizio could not answer. Wemust confess that at this moment our hero was anything but a hero. Still, fear was only his second reaction; he was chiefly outraged by this noise that was hurting his ears. The escort broke into a gallop, crossing a broad stretch of ploughed field on the far side of the ditch, strewn with corpses.
“Redcoats! Redcoats!” the hussars shouted with joy.
At first Fabrizio failed to understand; then he noticed that indeed almost all the corpses were wearing red. One circumstance made him shudder with horror: many of these wretched redcoats were still alive; they were obviously calling for help, and no one was stopping to give it to them. Our hero, a profoundly humane character, took all the pains in the world to keep his horse from planting its hooves on any redcoat. The escort halted; Fabrizio, who was not paying sufficient attention to his duty as a soldier, galloped on, glancing down at a pathetic wounded soldier.
“Halt right there, you fool” the sergeant shouted at him.
Fabrizio realized he was twenty paces to the right, out in front of the generals, and precisely at the spot on which they were focusing their spyglasses. Returning to line up with the other hussars who had remained a few paces behind, he saw the fattest of these generals speaking to his neighbor with an authoritative, almost scolding expression; he was swearing. Fabrizio could not contain his curiosity, and in spite of the advice not to speak, which his friend the jailer’s wife had given him, he worked out a very correct little French sentence and said to the man next to him: “Who is that general chewing out the one next to him?”
“Damn, that’s the Marshal!”
“Which Marshal?”
“Marshal Ney, you idiot! Damn, where’ve you been fighting till now?”
Fabrizio, though extremely sensitive, had no thought of taking offense; he stared, lost in childish admiration of this famous Prince of the Moskova, “bravest of the brave.”
Suddenly everyone galloped off. A few moments later Fabrizio saw, twenty paces ahead, a ploughed field that seemed to be strange in motion; the furrows were filled with water, and the wet ground thatformed their crests was exploding into tiny black fragments flung three or four feet into the air. Fabrizio noticed this odd effect as he passed; then his mind returned to daydreams of the Marshal’s glory. He heard a sharp cry beside him: two hussars had fallen, riddled by bullets; and when he turned to look at them, they were already twenty paces behind the escort. What seemed horrible to him was a blood-covered horse struggling in the furrows and trying to follow the others: blood was flowing into the mire.
“Aha! Now we’re under fire at last. I’ve seen action!” he kept telling himself, with a certain satisfaction. “Now I’m a true soldier.” At this moment the escort began galloping at breakneck speed, and our hero realized that these were bullets tearing up the earth. Though he tried to see where they were coming from, there was nothing but white smoke from the battery a great ways off, and amid the continuous roaring of cannon-fire he seemed to hear explosions much closer to him; he could make nothing of it.
At this moment the generals and their escort rode down into a little path filled with water five feet below the level of the field. The Marshal stopped and stared through his spyglass once again. Fabrizio, this time, could examine him at his leisure: he was very blond, with a huge red face. “We don’t have faces like that in Italy,” he said to himself. “Pale as I am, and with such dark hair, I’ll never get to look like that,” he concluded sadly. For him these words meant: “I’ll never be a hero.” He stared at the hussars; all but one had yellow moustaches. If Fabrizio stared at the hussars in the escort, they certainly stared back, and this stare made him blush. To put an end to his embarrassment, he turned his horse toward the enemy. These
“Redcoats! Redcoats!” the hussars shouted with joy.
At first Fabrizio failed to understand; then he noticed that indeed almost all the corpses were wearing red. One circumstance made him shudder with horror: many of these wretched redcoats were still alive; they were obviously calling for help, and no one was stopping to give it to them. Our hero, a profoundly humane character, took all the pains in the world to keep his horse from planting its hooves on any redcoat. The escort halted; Fabrizio, who was not paying sufficient attention to his duty as a soldier, galloped on, glancing down at a pathetic wounded soldier.
“Halt right there, you fool” the sergeant shouted at him.
Fabrizio realized he was twenty paces to the right, out in front of the generals, and precisely at the spot on which they were focusing their spyglasses. Returning to line up with the other hussars who had remained a few paces behind, he saw the fattest of these generals speaking to his neighbor with an authoritative, almost scolding expression; he was swearing. Fabrizio could not contain his curiosity, and in spite of the advice not to speak, which his friend the jailer’s wife had given him, he worked out a very correct little French sentence and said to the man next to him: “Who is that general chewing out the one next to him?”
“Damn, that’s the Marshal!”
“Which Marshal?”
“Marshal Ney, you idiot! Damn, where’ve you been fighting till now?”
Fabrizio, though extremely sensitive, had no thought of taking offense; he stared, lost in childish admiration of this famous Prince of the Moskova, “bravest of the brave.”
Suddenly everyone galloped off. A few moments later Fabrizio saw, twenty paces ahead, a ploughed field that seemed to be strange in motion; the furrows were filled with water, and the wet ground thatformed their crests was exploding into tiny black fragments flung three or four feet into the air. Fabrizio noticed this odd effect as he passed; then his mind returned to daydreams of the Marshal’s glory. He heard a sharp cry beside him: two hussars had fallen, riddled by bullets; and when he turned to look at them, they were already twenty paces behind the escort. What seemed horrible to him was a blood-covered horse struggling in the furrows and trying to follow the others: blood was flowing into the mire.
“Aha! Now we’re under fire at last. I’ve seen action!” he kept telling himself, with a certain satisfaction. “Now I’m a true soldier.” At this moment the escort began galloping at breakneck speed, and our hero realized that these were bullets tearing up the earth. Though he tried to see where they were coming from, there was nothing but white smoke from the battery a great ways off, and amid the continuous roaring of cannon-fire he seemed to hear explosions much closer to him; he could make nothing of it.
At this moment the generals and their escort rode down into a little path filled with water five feet below the level of the field. The Marshal stopped and stared through his spyglass once again. Fabrizio, this time, could examine him at his leisure: he was very blond, with a huge red face. “We don’t have faces like that in Italy,” he said to himself. “Pale as I am, and with such dark hair, I’ll never get to look like that,” he concluded sadly. For him these words meant: “I’ll never be a hero.” He stared at the hussars; all but one had yellow moustaches. If Fabrizio stared at the hussars in the escort, they certainly stared back, and this stare made him blush. To put an end to his embarrassment, he turned his horse toward the enemy. These
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