The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal Page B

bridge and communicated the colonel’s order, which seemed to annoy them a good deal, and the boldest sought to pass. Fabrizio, following the sage precept of his friend the canteen-woman, who only that morning had told him to stab and not to slash, lowered the point of his straight saber and prepared to thrust at the man who sought to force his way past him.
    “So the young fool wants to kill us!” exclaimed one of the hussars. “As if we hadn’t been killed enough yesterday!” At once all of them drew their sabers and fell on Fabrizio, who thought he was a dead man; but he remembered the sergeant’s surprise, and did not want to be shamed again. As he retreated down the bridge, he tried to give a few thrusts with his saber. He presented such an absurd spectacle wielding this huge straight cavalry saber which was much too heavy for him, that the hussars soon realized whom they were dealing with, and now attempted no longer to wound him but to cut his uniform off his body. Thus Fabrizio received three or four tiny saber wounds on his arms.For his part, still faithful to the canteen-woman’s precept, he thrust and stabbed with all his might. Unfortunately, one of these thrusts wounded a hussar on the hand; furious at being touched by such a green soldier, he riposted by a deep thrust that wounded Fabrizio high on the thigh. What made the blow more telling was that our hero’s horse, far from fleeing the engagement, seemed to delight in flinging itself upon the assailants. These, seeing Fabrizio’s blood flow down his right leg, thought they had carried the game a little too far and, pushing him toward the left parapet of the bridge, went past at a gallop. As soon as he could, Fabrizio fired his pistol into the air to warn the colonel.
    Four mounted hussars and two on foot, of the same regiment as the others, were approaching the bridge and were still two hundred paces off when the pistol was fired: they watched attentively what was happening on the bridge, and supposing that Fabrizio had fired on their comrades, the four mounted men galloped toward him, sabers high; it was a veritable charge.
    Colonel Le Baron, warned by the pistol shot, opened the inn door and rushed out onto the bridge just as the galloping hussars reached it, and himself repeated the order to stop. “There is no longer any colonel here,” exclaimed one of the hussars as he spurred his horse.
    The colonel in exasperation interrupted the reprimand he was making, and with his wounded right hand grasped the bridle on the off-side of the horse. “Halt, you bad soldier!” he said to the hussar. “I know you, you’re in Captain Henriet’s company.”
    “And if I am, let the captain himself give me orders! Captain Henriet was killed yesterday,” he added with a sneer, “so go fuck yourself!”
    And with these words, he tried to force a passage and pushed the old colonel, who fell into a sitting position on the bridge pavement. Fabrizio, who was two steps farther along on the bridge, but facing the inn, spurred his horse, and while the breastplate on the hussar’s horse knocked over the colonel, who had not released the off-side rein, Fabrizio, outraged, made a deep thrust at his assailant. Fortunately, the hussar’s horse, feeling itself pulled downward by the bridle the colonel was still holding, made a sidelong movement, so that the long blade of Fabrizio’s heavy-cavalry saber slid along the hussar’s vest and its wholelength passed in front of his face. Enraged, the hussar turned around and delivered a blow with all his strength, which cut through Fabrizio’s sleeve and entered deep into his arm: our hero fell.
    One of the dismounted hussars, seeing the two defenders of the bridge on the ground, seized the opportunity, leaped onto Fabrizio’s horse, and tried to make away with it by spurring it to gallop across the bridge.
    The sergeant, running out of the inn, had seen his colonel fall and supposed him to be seriously wounded. He ran