The scales fell from Fabrizio’s eyes, and for the first time he understood that in everything that had happened to him during the past two months he himself had been at fault.
“But the boy must tell us the whole story,” said the cantinière, whose curiosity was momentarily growing keener.
Fabrizio obeyed, and when he had finished—
“The fact is,” said she seriously, and addressing the corporal, “the child knows nothing about soldiering. This war will be a wretched war, now that we are beaten and betrayed. Why should he get his bones broken, gratis pro Deo!”
“And with that,” said the corporal, “he doesn’t even know how to load his gun, either in slow time or in quick! It was I who put in the bullet that killed his Prussian for him.”
“And, besides,” added the cantinière, “he lets everybody see his money, and he’ll be stripped of everything as soon as he leaves us.”
“And the first cavalry sergeant he comes across,” the corporal went on, “will take possession of him and make him pay for his drinks, and he may even be recruited for the enemy, for there’s treachery everywhere. The first man he meets will tell him to follow him, and follow him he will! He would do much better to enlist in our regiment.”
“Not so, I thank you, corporal,” cried Fabrizio eagerly. “I’m much more comfortable on horseback; and, besides, I don’t know how to load a musket, and you’ve seen that I can manage a horse.”
Fabrizio was very proud of this little speech of his. I will not reproduce the long discussion as to his future which ensued between the corporal and the cantinière.
Fabrizio remarked that in the course of it they repeated all the incidents of his story three or four times over—the soldiers’ suspicions; the gendarme who sold him the uniform and the papers; the manner in which he had fallen in with the marshal’s escort on the previous day; the story of the horse, etc. The cantinière, with feminine curiosity, constantly harked back to the manner in which he had been robbed of the good horse she had made him buy.