The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal

of the battle of Waterloo. Around noon, the downpour still continuing, Fabrizio heard the sound of cannon-fire; such happiness immediately erased all memory of the dreadful moments of despair which his recent unjust imprisonment had forced upon him. He rode late into the night, and since he was beginning to gain a little good sense, he sought lodgings in a farmhouse quite far from the road. The farmer wept and claimed that everything had been taken from him; Fabrizio gave him an
écu
, and he found some oats. “My horse isn’t much good,” Fabrizio decided, “but even so, he might find favor with some adjutant,” and he lay down in the stable beside the poor beast. An hour before daylight, Fabrizio was on the road again, and by lavishing caresses on his horse, he managed to persuade it to trot. By about five in the morning, he heard the cannonade: Waterloo had begun.
    * The impassioned speaker translates into prose some lines by the famous poet Monti . [Stendhal’s note.]

C HAPTER T HREE
    Fabrizio soon encountered some canteen-women, and his extreme gratitude to the jailer’s wife in B——moved him to speak to them; he inquired as to the whereabouts of the Fourth Regiment of Hussars, to which he belonged.
    “Better not be in such a hurry, soldier-boy,” one woman said, touched by Fabrizio’s pale face and fine eyes. “Your wrist isn’t strong enough yet for the saber-cuts being given today. Still, if you had a musket, you might fire a bullet as well as the next man.”
    Such advice did not please Fabrizio, but however much he urged on his horse, he could not pass the canteen-woman’s cart. Now and then the sound of cannon-fire seemed to come closer and kept them from hearing each other, for Fabrizio was so beside himself with enthusiasm that he had begun talking once again. Each of the canteen-woman’s remarks doubled his pleasure by making him understand it. Except for his real name and his escape from prison, he ended by confiding everything to this obviously kind woman. She was greatly astonished and understood nothing the handsome young soldier was telling her.
    “Now I see what it is!” she finally exclaimed in triumph. “You’re a civilian in love with the wife of some captain in the Fourth. Your mistress has given you that uniform, and you’re running after her. Sure asthe Lord is God, you’ve never been a soldier in your life, but you’re a brave boy, and now that your regiment’s under fire, you want to be there and not let them think you’re some pantywaist!”

    Fabrizio agreed with all she said: it was his only way of obtaining good advice. “I haven’t a clue how these French people behave,” he said to himself, “and unless someone helps me, I’ll get myself thrown into prison all over again, and my horse stolen into the bargain.”
    “First of all, my boy,” said the canteen-woman, who was becoming an ever more intimate friend, “admit you’re not yet twenty-one; at the very most you might be seventeen.”
    This was the truth, and Fabrizio confessed it freely.
    “So you’re not even a conscript; it’s all because of Madame’s pretty face that you’re going to get your bones broken for you. Damn but she’s none too particular! If you still have some of those gold pieces she gave you, first thing you do is buy a different horse. Look how your nag pricks up her ears when the cannons snore a little too close; that’s a farm horse, and she’ll be the death of you as soon as you reach the line. See that white smoke above the hedge over there? That’s infantry fire, my boy! So get ready for a big scare when you hear the bullets whistling. You’d better get something into your stomach while there’s still time.”
    Fabrizio followed this advice, and offering the canteen-woman a napoleon, asked her to accept what he owed her.
    “It’s pitiful!” she exclaimed. “The poor boy doesn’t even know how to spend his money! Serve you right if I took your napoleon and then made