Nothing extraordinary happened during the rest of his journey. When he reached Amiens the sword thrust in his thigh was causing him great suffering. The country surgeon had not thought of keeping the wound open, and in spite of the bleeding, an abscess had formed. During the fortnight Fabrizio spent in the inn at Amiens, kept by an obsequious and covetous family, the allies were overrunning France, and so deeply did our hero reflect upon his late experiences that he became another man. There was only one point on which he still remained a child. Had the fighting he had seen really been a battle? and, secondly, Was it the battle of Waterloo?
For the first time in his life he found pleasure in reading; he was always hoping to discover in the newspapers or the descriptions of the battle something which would enable him to recognise the ground he had ridden over with Marshal Ney’s and the other general’s escort. During his stay at Amiens he wrote almost every day to his good friends of the Currycomb Inn. As soon as he was cured he went to Paris. At his former hotel he found twenty letters from his mother and his aunt, all beseeching him to return as quickly as possible. The last one from the Countess Pietranera was couched in a sort of enigmatic tone which alarmed him very much. This letter dispelled all his tender dreams. To a man of his nature a word sufficed to stir up apprehensions of the gravest kind, and his imagination immediately depicted misfortunes aggravated by the most gruesome details.
“Be careful not to sign your letters when you write us news of yourself,” said the countess. “When you return you must not come straight to the Lake of Como. Stop in Swiss territory, at Lugano.” He was to arrive at that little town under the name of Cavi; there, at the principal inn, he was to find his aunt’s man-servant, who would tell him what he was to do next. The countess closed her letter with the following words: “Use every means to conceal the folly you have committed, and, above all, keep no paper, whether written or printed, about you! In Switzerland you will be surrounded by the friends of Ste.-Marguerite.[2] If I have money enough I will send somebody to the Hôtel des Balances, at Geneva, to give you details which I can not write, and which, nevertheless, you must have before you arrive. But for God’s sake, not another day in Paris; our spies there will recognise you!”