On the 24th of July, Captain Khlopof in epaulets and cap--a style
of dress in which I had not seen him since my arrival in the
Caucasus--entered the low door of my earth-hut.
"I'm just from the colonel's," he said in reply to my questioning look;
"to-morrow our battalion is to move."
"Where?" I asked.
"To N----. The troops have been ordered to muster at that place."
"And probably some expedition will be made from there?"
"Of course."
"In what direction, think you?"
"I don't think. I tell you all I know. Last night a Tatar from the
general came galloping up,--brought orders for the battalion to march,
taking two days' rations. But whither, why, how long, isn't for them to
ask. Orders are to go--that's enough."
"Still, if they are going to take only two days' rations, it's likely
the army will not stay longer."
"That's no argument at all."
"And how is that?" I asked with astonishment.
"This is the way of it: When they went against Dargi they took a week's
rations, but they spent almost a month."
"And can I go with you?" I asked, after a short silence.
"Yes, you _can_ go; but my advice is--better not. Why run the risk?"
"No, allow me to disregard your advice. I have been spending a
whole month here for this very purpose,--of having a chance to see
action,--and you want me to let it have the go-by!"
"All right, come with us; only isn't it true that it would be better
for you to stay behind? You could wait for us here, you could go
hunting. But as to us,--God knows what will become of us!... And
that would be first-rate," he said in such a convincing tone that it
seemed to me at the first moment that it would actually be first-rate.
Nevertheless, I said resolutely that I wouldn't stay behind for any
thing.
"And what have you to see there?" said the captain, still trying
to dissuade me. "If you want to learn how battles are fought, read
Mikhaïlovski Danilevski's 'Description of War,' a charming book; there
it's all admirably described,--where every corps stands, and how
battles are fought."
"On the contrary, that does not interest me," I replied.
"Well, now, how is this? It simply means that you want to see how men
kill each other, doesn't it?... Here in 1832 there was a man like
yourself, not in the regular service,--a Spaniard, I think he was. He
went on two expeditions with us,... in a blue mantle or something of
the sort, and so the young fellow was killed. Here, _bátiushka,_ one is
not surprised at any thing."
Ashamed as I was at the captain's manifest disapprobation of my
project, I did not attempt to argue him down.
"Well, he was brave, wasn't he?"
"God knows as to that. He always used to ride at the front. Wherever
there was firing, there he was."
"So he must have been brave, then," said I.
"No, that doesn't signify bravery,--his putting himself where he wasn't
called."
"What do you call bravery, then?"
"Bravery, bravery?" repeated the captain with the expression of a man
to whom such a question presents itself for the first time. "A brave
man is one who conducts himself as he ought," said he after a brief
consideration.
I remembered that Plato defined bravery as the knowledge of what one
ought and what one ought not to fear; and in spite of the triteness and
obscurity in the terminology of the captain's definition, I thought
that the fundamental conception of both was not so unlike as might at
first sight appear, and that the captain's definition was even more
correct than the Greek philosopher's, for the reason, that, if he could
have expressed himself as Plato did, he would in all probability have
said that that man is brave who fears only what he ought to fear and
not what there is no need of fearing.