|
يك داستان كوتاه باحال
\"Nevertheless,\" I continued, \"the first time I saw M. Martin, I
admit, like you, I did give vent to an exclamation of surprise. I found
myself next to an old soldier with the right leg amputated, who had
come in with me. His face had struck me. He had one of those intrepid
heads, stamped with the seal of warfare, and on which the battles of
Napoleon are written. Besides, he had that frank good-humored
expression which always impresses me favorably. He was without doubt
one of those troopers who are surprised at nothing, who find matter for
laughter in the contortions of a dying comrade, who bury or plunder him
quite lightheartedly, who stand intrepidly in the way of bullets; in
fact, one of those men who waste no time in deliberation, and would not
hesitate to make friends with the devil himself. After looking very
attentively at the proprietor of the menagerie getting out of his box,
my companion pursed up his lips with an air of mockery and contempt,
with that peculiar and expressive twist which superior people assume to
show they are not taken in. Then when I was expatiating on the courage
of M. Martin, he smiled, shook his head knowingly, and said, `Well
known.\'
\"How `well known\'? I said. `If you would only explain to me the
mystery I should be vastly obliged.\'
\"After a few minutes, during which we made acquaintance, we went to
dine at the first restaurateur\'s whose shop caught our eye. At dessert
a bottle of champagne completely refreshed and brightened up the
memories of this odd old soldier. He told me his story, and I said he
had every reason to exclaim, `Well known.\'\"
When she got home, she teased me to that extent and made so many
promises that I consented to communicate to her the old soldier\'s
confidences. Next day she received the following episode of an epic
which one might call \"The Frenchman in Egypt.\"
During the expedition in Upper Egypt under General Desaix, a Provençal
soldier fell into the hands of the Mangrabins, and was taken by these
Arabs into the deserts beyond the falls of the Nile.
In order to place a sufficient distance between themselves and the
French army, the Mangrabins made forced marches, and only rested during
the night. They camped round a well overshadowed by palm trees under
which they had previously concealed a store of provisions. Not
surmising that the notion of flight would occur to their prisoner, they
contented themselves with binding his hands, and after eating a few
dates, and giving provender to their horses, went to sleep.
When the brave Provençal saw that his enemies were no longer watching
him, he made use of his teeth to steal a scimitar, fixed the blade
between his knees, and cut the cords which prevented using his hands;
in a moment he was free. He at once seized a rifle and dagger, then
taking the precaution to provide himself with a sack of dried dates,
oats, and powder and shot, and to fasten a scimitar to his waist he
leaped onto a horse, and spurred on vigorously in the direction where
he thought to find the French army. So impatient was he to see a
bivouac again that he pressed on the already-tired courser at such
speed that its flanks were lacerated with his spurs, and at last the
poor animal died, leaving the Frenchman alone in the desert. After walking
some time in the sand with all the courage of an escaped convict, the
soldier was obliged to stop, as the day had already ended. In spite of
the beauty of an Oriental sky at night, he felt he had not strength
enough to go on. Fortunately he had been able to find a small hill, on
the summit of which a few palm trees shot up into the air; it was their
verdure seen from afar which had brought hope and consolation to his
heart. His fatigue was so great that he lay down upon a rock of
granite, capriciously cut out like a camp bed; there he fell asleep
without taking any precaution to defend himself while he slept. He had
made the sacrifice of his life. His last thought was one of regret. He
repented having left the mangrabins, whose nomad life seemed to smile
on him now that he was afar from them and without help. He was awakened
by the sun, whose pitiless rays fell with all their force on the
granite and produced an intolerable heat for he had had the stupidity
to place himself inversely to the shadow thrown by the verdant majestic
heads of the palm trees. He looked at the solitary trees and
shuddered--they reminded him of the graceful shafts crowned with
foliage which characterize the Saracen columns in the cathedral of
Arles.
But when, after counting the palm trees, he cast his eye around him,
the most horrible despair was infused into his soul. Before him
stretched an ocean without limit. The dark sand of the desert spread
farther than sight could reach in every direction, and glittered like
steel struck with a bright light. It might have been a sea of looking
glass, or lakes melted together in a mirror. A fiery vapor carried up
in streaks made a perpetual whirlwind over the quivering land. The sky
was lit with an Oriental splendor of insupportable purity, leaving
naught for the imagination to desire. Heaven and earth were on fire.
The silence was awful in its wild and terrible majesty. Infinity,
immensity, closed in upon the soul from every side. Not a cloud in the
sky, not a breath in the air, not a flaw on the bosom of the sand, ever
moving in diminutive waves; the horizon ended as at sea on a clear day,
with one line of light, definite as the cut of a sword.
The Provençal threw his arms around the trunk of one of the palm trees,
as though it were the body of a friend, and then in the shelter of the
thin straight shadow that the palm cast upon the granite, he wept. Then
sitting down he remained as he was, contemplating with profound sadness
the implacable scene, which was all he had to look upon. He cried
aloud, to measure the solitude. His voice, lost in the hollows of the
hill, sounded faintly, and aroused no echo--the echo was in his own
heart. The Provençal was twenty-two years old; he loaded his carbine.
\"There\'ll be time enough,\" he said to himself, laying on the ground
the weapon which alone could bring him deliverance.
Looking by turns at the black expanse and the blue expanse, the soldier
dreamed of France--he smelled with delight the gutters of Paris--he
remembered the towns through which he had passed, the faces of his
fellow soldiers, the most minute details of his life. His southern
fancy soon showed him the stones of his beloved Provence, in the play
of the heat which waved over the spread sheet of the desert. Fearing
the danger of this cruel mirage, he went down the opposite side of the
hill to that by which he had come up the day before. The remains of a
rug showed that this place of refuge had at one time been inhabited; at
a short distance he saw some palm trees full of dates. Then the
instinct which binds us to life awoke again in his heart. He hoped to
live long enough to await the passing of some Arabs, or perhaps he
might hear the sound of cannon, for at this time Bonaparte was
traversing Egypt.
This thought gave him new life. The palm tree seemed to bend with the
weight of the ripe fruit. He shook some of it down. When he tasted this
unhoped-for manna, he felt sure that the palms had been cultivated by a
former inhabitant--the savory, fresh meat of the dates was proof of the
care of
his predecessor. He passed suddenly from dark despair to an almost
insane joy. He went up again to the top of the hill, and spent the rest
of the day in cutting down one of the sterile palm trees, which the
night before had served him for shelter. A vague memory made him think
of the animals of the desert; and in case they might come to drink at
the spring, visible from the base of the rocks but lost farther down,
he resolved to guard himself from their visits by placing a barrier at
the entrance of his hermitage
فرستنده:حميد رضا فرخاري |
|
