Deviation Actions
Literature Text
However, I was fated to never experience such tranquil joy in Milan any longer. A Neapolitan whom I had helped in the past, and who now lived in France, received a letter from his brother saying that Ricciulli, in a fit of hatred and rage against me, had put a price on my head; a Calabrian had taken up the offer and he had been stalking us for tome time, looking for the best occasion to earn his sinister wages. The Neapolitan thus sent me an express message to warn me, and I truly needed it; I came to see Pauline when she woke up, sometimes earlier than that; but I only left her around two in the morning, and then I came back home either on foot or in my carriage, alone, in civilian clothes and with a cane as my only weapon. It took more than fifteen minutes to go from Pauline’s lodgings to mine, and a good part of the way home was along the canal. Despite the warning, I did not change my habits; but when I walked back home, I put on my uniform or a uniform coat, which concealed my sabre, and I took a pair of small pistols with me. These precautions proved useful, for one night, as I left Pauline’s house, I felt I was being followed. I was nimble, a fast walker and a good runner, and since there is no honour in fighting with wretches, I could simply have run to safety; but I could also confront the man who trailed me, pistols in hand. He was most likely not alone: such work requires accomplices, who were probably posted along the canal; but I felt armed enough to try my luck, and I kept walking, making sure I kept a good advance. When I reached the canal, I became even more attentive, and all my doubts were wiped away when, at around a third of the way, I saw a man walking out of a doorframe and towards me, at about sixty paces in front of me. At that moment, my stalker, joined by a third man, quickened his pace. My first objective was to prevent these three rogues from gathering, and with my sabre in one hand and a pistol in the other, I ran towards the one facing me. Seeing the glint of moonlight on my weapons, he ran away as fast as he could, which determined his companions to flee in turn and ensured my very safe return. As soon as I saw Pauline again, I told her about my adventurous walk home; despite my best efforts to make the tale entertaining, I could not prevent her from crying out of love for me, and horror at her husband’s deeds.
Indeed, unless the scoundrels used firearms, which would not happen in the middle of a city, I only needed to avoid bad encounters to be safe. When I walked home, I took care of walking far away from houses, taking the widest berth when turning around a corner and letting no one approach me. Besides, since the season became increasingly less propitious to nocturnal walks like the ones during which Pauline and I had been stalked, and now that I was convinced that Ricciulli’s vengeance did not put me in too great a danger, I only wanted to live as a happy slave in chains which I saw more than ever as eternal. Alas! they would be broken.
It became impossible for me to stay much longer in Milan. Having resolved not to serve General Masséna’s successor, I could no longer be a part of his headquarters; I had a leave; but using it meant actually leaving; and not using it meant that as soon as it expired, I would be sent to one of the armies’ divisions and I would leave Milan as well. In both cases, I would be away from Pauline, and should I go back to France, I thought I would have a better control over my future than if I were employed in a division, even with the rank of brigade general. I had not yet been officially confirmed in that rank, and General Brune could contest it; he could not admit it either without obliging me, which I could not accept because of General Masséna. Besides, those were the same considerations which had led me to ask for that leave, and those were the ones that forced me to take advantage of it.
While the idea of leaving was horrible, the execution of it was even worse, and as soon as I acknowledged it as inevitable, the necessity of setting a date was so painful that I thought I would not be able to overcome it. I spent weeks in that state of anguish. A letter from my father provided me with a new reason to hasten my resignation; then one last attempt by General Brune to keep me with him gave me an ultimatum, either I remained here, which I could not do, or I set my departure date once and for all.
Such was the fatal edict, the execution of which I delayed by one day, then another; but the cruel hour came, and it was in a maddening state of despair, which Pauline shared in a poignant way, that we were torn away from each other. I am saying this literally, for, seeing us unable to part, Richebourg, whom I had mentioned when speaking about General Casabianca, and who had just become my aide-de-camp, seized me in a solid hold and literally took me away. As her cries foretold—and I still hear them piercing my heart—, Pauline and I would never see each other again.
