Colonel Chabert - Honoré de Balzac (free books to read txt) 📗

of this rag the body was so completely hidden in

shadow that a man of imagination might have supposed the old head was

due to some chance play of light and shade, or have taken it for a

portrait by Rembrandt, without a frame. The brim of the hat which

covered the old man’s brow cast a black line of shadow on the upper

part of the face. This grotesque effect, though natural, threw into

relief by contrast the white furrows, the cold wrinkles, the colorless

tone of the corpse-like countenance. And the absence of all movement

in the figure, of all fire in the eye, were in harmony with a certain

look of melancholy madness, and the deteriorating symptoms

characteristic of senility, giving the face an indescribably ill-starred look which no human words could render.

 

But an observer, especially a lawyer, could also have read in this

stricken man the signs of deep sorrow, the traces of grief which had

worn into this face, as drops of water from the sky falling on fine

marble at last destroy its beauty. A physician, an author, or a judge

might have discerned a whole drama at the sight of its sublime horror,

while the least charm was its resemblance to the grotesques which

artists amuse themselves by sketching on a corner of the lithographic

stone while chatting with a friend.

 

On seeing the attorney, the stranger started, with the convulsive

thrill that comes over a poet when a sudden noise rouses him from a

fruitful reverie in silence and at night. The old man hastily removed

his hat and rose to bow to the young man; the leather lining of his

hat was doubtless very greasy; his wig stuck to it without his

noticing it, and left his head bare, showing his skull horribly

disfigured by a scar beginning at the nape of the neck and ending over

the right eye, a prominent seam all across his head. The sudden

removal of the dirty wig which the poor man wore to hide this gash

gave the two lawyers no inclination to laugh, so horrible to behold

was this riven skull. The first idea suggested by the sight of this

old wound was, “His intelligence must have escaped through that cut.”

 

“If this is not Colonel Chabert, he is some thorough-going trooper!”

thought Boucard.

 

“Monsieur,” said Derville, “to whom have I the honor of speaking?”

 

“To Colonel Chabert.”

 

“Which?”

 

“He who was killed at Eylau,” replied the old man.

 

On hearing this strange speech, the lawyer and his clerk glanced at

each other, as much as to say, “He is mad.”

 

“Monsieur,” the Colonel went on, “I wish to confide to you the secret

of my position.”

 

A thing worthy of note is the natural intrepidity of lawyers. Whether

from the habit of receiving a great many persons, or from the deep

sense of the protection conferred on them by the law, or from

confidence in their missions, they enter everywhere, fearing nothing,

like priests and physicians. Derville signed to Boucard, who vanished.

 

“During the day, sir,” said the attorney, “I am not so miserly of my

time, but at night every minute is precious. So be brief and concise.

Go to the facts without digression. I will ask for any explanations I

may consider necessary. Speak.”

 

Having bid his strange client to be seated, the young man sat down at

the table; but while he gave his attention to the deceased Colonel, he

turned over the bundles of papers.

 

“You know, perhaps,” said the dead man, “that I commanded a cavalry

regiment at Eylau. I was of important service to the success of

Murat’s famous charge which decided the victory. Unhappily for me, my

death is a historical fact, recorded in Victoires et Conquetes,

where it is related in full detail. We cut through the three Russian

lines, which at once closed up and formed again, so that we had to

repeat the movement back again. At the moment when we were nearing the

Emperor, after having scattered the Russians, I came against a

squadron of the enemy’s cavalry. I rushed at the obstinate brutes. Two

Russian officers, perfect giants, attacked me both at once. One of

them gave me a cut across the head that crashed through everything,

even a black silk cap I wore next my head, and cut deep into the

skull. I fell from my horse. Murat came up to support me. He rode over

my body, he and all his men, fifteen hundred of them—there might have

been more! My death was announced to the Emperor, who as a precaution

—for he was fond of me, was the master—wished to know if there were

no hope of saving the man he had to thank for such a vigorous attack.

He sent two surgeons to identify me and bring me into Hospital,

saying, perhaps too carelessly, for he was very busy, ‘Go and see

whether by any chance poor Chabert is still alive.’ These rascally

saw-bones, who had just seen me lying under the hoofs of the horses of

two regiments, no doubt did not trouble themselves to feel my pulse,

and reported that I was quite dead. The certificate of death was

probably made out in accordance with the rules of military

jurisprudence.”

 

As he heard his visitor express himself with complete lucidity, and

relate a story so probable though so strange, the young lawyer ceased

fingering the papers, rested his left elbow on the table, and with his

head on his hand looked steadily at the Colonel.

 

“Do you know, monsieur, that I am lawyer to the Countess Ferraud,” he

said, interrupting the speaker, “Colonel Chabert’s widow?”

 

“My wife—yes monsieur. Therefore, after a hundred fruitless attempts

to interest lawyers, who have all thought me mad, I made up my mind to

come to you. I will tell you of my misfortunes afterwards; for the

present, allow me to prove the facts, explaining rather how things

must have fallen out rather than how they did occur. Certain

circumstances, known, I suppose to no one but the Almighty, compel me

to speak of some things as hypothetical. The wounds I had received

must presumably have produced tetanus, or have thrown me into a state

analogous to that of a disease called, I believe, catalepsy. Otherwise

how is it conceivable that I should have been stripped, as is the

custom in time of the war, and thrown into the common grave by the men

ordered to bury the dead?

 

“Allow me here to refer to a detail of which I could know nothing till

after the event, which, after all, I must speak of as my death. At

Stuttgart, in 1814, I met an old quartermaster of my regiment. This

dear fellow, the only man who chose to recognize me, and of whom I

will tell you more later, explained the marvel of my preservation, by

telling me that my horse was shot in the flank at the moment when I

was wounded. Man and beast went down together, like a monk cut out of

card-paper. As I fell, to the right or to the left, I was no doubt

covered by the body of my horse, which protected me from being

trampled to death or hit by a ball.

 

“When I came to myself, monsieur, I was in a position and an

atmosphere of which I could give you no idea if I talked till

to-morrow. the little air there was to breathe was foul. I wanted to

move, and found no room. I opened my eyes, and saw nothing. The most

alarming circumstance was the lack of air, and this enlightened me as

to my situation. I understood that no fresh air could penetrate to me,

and that I must die. This thought took off the sense of intolerable

pain which had aroused me. There was a violent singing in my ears. I

heard—or I thought I heard, I will assert nothing—groans from the

world of dead among whom I was lying. Some nights I still think I hear

those stifled moans; though the remembrance of that time is very

obscure, and my memory very indistinct, in spite of my impressions of

far more acute suffering I was fated to go through, and which have

confused my ideas.

 

“But there was something more awful than cries; there was a silence

such as I have never known elsewhere—literally, the silence of the

grave. At last, by raising my hands and feeling the dead, I discerned

a vacant space between my head and the human carrion above. I could

thus measure the space, granted by a chance of which I knew not the

cause. It would seem that, thanks to the carelessness and the haste

with which we had been pitched into the trench, two dead bodies had

leaned across and against each other, forming an angle like that made

by two cards when a child is building a card castle. Feeling about me

at once, for there was no time for play, I happily felt an arm lying

detached, the arm of a Hercules! A stout bone, to which I owed my

rescue. But for this unhoped-for help, I must have perished. But with

a fury you may imagine, I began to work my way through the bodies

which separated me from the layer of earth which had no doubt been

thrown over us—I say us, as if there had been others living! I worked

with a will, monsieur, for here I am! But to this day I do not know

how I succeeded in getting through the pile of flesh which formed a

barrier between me and life. You will say I had three arms. This

crowbar, which I used cleverly enough, opened out a little air between

the bodies I moved, and I economized my breath. At last I saw

daylight, but through snow!

 

“At that moment I perceived that my head was cut open. Happily my

blood, or that of my comrades, or perhaps the torn skin of my horse,

who knows, had in coagulating formed a sort of natural plaster. But,

in spite of it, I fainted away when my head came into contact with the

snow. However, the little warmth left in me melted the snow about me;

and when I recovered consciousness, I found myself in the middle of a

round hole, where I stood shouting as long as I could. But the sun was

rising, so I had very little chance of being heard. Was there any one

in the fields yet? I pulled myself up, using my feet as a spring,

resting on one of the dead, whose ribs were firm. You may suppose that

this was not the moment for saying, ‘Respect courage in misfortune!’

In short, monsieur, after enduring the anguish, if the word is strong

enough for my frenzy, of seeing for a long time, yes, quite a long

time, those cursed Germans flying from a voice they heard where they

could see no one, I was dug out by a woman, who was brave or curious

enough to come close to my head, which must have looked as though it

had sprouted from the ground like a mushroom. This woman went to fetch

her husband, and between them they got me to their poor hovel.

 

“It would seem that I must have again fallen into a catalepsy—allow

me to use the word to describe a state of which I have no idea, but

which, from the account given by my hosts, I suppose to have been the

effect of that malady. I remained for six months between life and

death; not speaking, or, if I spoke, talking in delirium. At last, my

hosts got me admitted to the hospital at Heilsberg.

 

“You