"There's no insult about it; that's where you're wrong; the soldiers' mistake was quite natural," replied Corporal Aubry gravely.
And he went on to explain in the most pedantic manner that in the army one must belong to some corps and wear a uniform, failing which it was quite simple that people should take one for a spy.
"The enemy sends us any number of them; everybody's a traitor in this war."
The scales fell from Fabrizio's eyes; he realised for the first time that he had been in the wrong in everything that had happened to him during the last two months.
"But make the boy tell us the whole story," said the cantiniere, her curiosity more and more excited.
Fabrizio obeyed.
When he had finished: "It comes to this," said the cantiniere, speaking in a serious tone to the corporal, "this child is not a soldier at all; we're going to have a bloody war now that we've been beaten and betrayed.
Why should he go and get his bones broken free, gratis and for nothing?"
"Especially," put in the corporal, "as he doesn't even know how to load his musket, neither by numbers, nor in his own time.
It was I put in the shot that brought down the Prussian."
"Besides, he lets everyone see the colour of his money," added the cantiniere; "he will be robbed of all he has as soon as he hasn't got us to look after him."
"The first cavalry non-com he comes across," said the corporal, "will take it from him to pay for his drink, and perhaps they'll enlist him for the enemy; they're all traitors.
The first man he meets will order him to follow, and he'll follow him; he would do better to join our Regiment."
"No, please, if you don't mind, Corporal!" Fabrizio exclaimed with animation; "I am more comfortable on a horse.
And, besides, I don't know how to load a musket, and you have seen that I can manage a horse."
Fabrizio was extremely proud of this little speech.
We need not report the long discussion that followed between the corporal and the cantiniere as to his future destiny.
Fabrizio noticed that in discussing him these people repeated three or four times all the circumstances of his story: the soldiers' suspicions, the gendarme selling him marching orders and a uniform, the accident by which, the day before, he had found himself forming part of the Marshal's escort, the glimpse of the Emperor as he galloped past, the horse that had been scoffed from him, and so on indefinitely.
With feminine curiosity the cantiniere kept harking back incessantly to the way in which he had been dispossessed of the good horse which she had made him buy.
"You felt yourself seized by the feet, they lifted you gently over your horse's tail, and sat you down on the ground!"
"Why repeat so often," Fabrizio said to himself, "what all three of us know perfectly well?"
He had not yet discovered that this is how, in France, the lower orders proceed in quest of ideas.
"How much money have you?" the cantiniere asked him suddenly.
Fabrizio had no hesitation in answering. He was sure of the nobility of the woman's nature; that is the fine side of France.
"Altogether, I may have got left thirty napoleons in gold, and eight or nine five-franc pieces."
"In that case, you have a clear field!" exclaimed the cantiniere. "Get right away from this rout of an army; clear out, take the first road with ruts on it that you come to on the right; keep your horse moving and your back to the army.
At the first opportunity, buy some civilian clothes.
When you've gone nine or ten leagues and there are no more soldiers in sight, take the mail-coach, and go and rest for a week and eat beefsteaks in some nice town.
Never let anyone know that you've been in the army, or the police will take you up as a deserter; and, nice as you are, my boy, you're not quite clever enough yet to stand up to the police.
As soon as you've got civilian clothes on your back, tear up your marching orders into a thousand pieces and go back to your real name: say that you're Vasi.
And where ought he to say he comes from?" she asked the corporal.
"From Cambrai on the Scheldt: it's a good town and quite small, if you know what I mean.
There's a cathedral there, and Fenelon."
"That's right," said the cantiniere. "Never let on to anyone that you've been in battle, don't breathe a word about B———, or the gendarme who sold you the marching orders.
When you're ready to go back to Paris, make first for Versailles, and pass the Paris barrier from that side in a leisurely way, on foot, as if you were taking a stroll.
Sew up your napoleons inside your breeches, and remember, when you have to pay for anything, shew only the exact sum that you want to spend.
What makes me sad is that they'll take you and rob you and strip you of everything you have.
And whatever will you do without money, you that don't know how to look after yourself … " and so on.
The good woman went on talking for some time still; the corporal indicated his support by nodding his head, not being able to get a word in himself.
Suddenly the crowd that was packing the road first of all doubled its pace, then, in the twinkling of an eye, crossed the little ditch that bounded the road on the left and fled helter-skelter across country.
Cries of "The Cossacks! The Cossacks!" rose from every side.
"Take back your horse!" the cantiniere shouted.
"God forbid!" said Fabrizio. "Gallop! Away with you!
I give him to you.
Do you want someting to buy another cart with?
Half of what I have is yours."
'Take back your horse, I tell you!" cried the cantiniere angrily; and she prepared to dismount.
Fabrizio drew his sabre.
"Hold on tight!" she shouted to her, and gave two or three strokes with the flat of his sabre to the horse, which broke into a gallop and followed the fugitives.
Our hero stood looking at the road; a moment ago, two or three thousand people had been jostling along it, packed together like peasants at the tail of a procession.