In every danger there is a choice. Does it not depend on whether the choice is prompted by a noble feeling or a base one whether it should be called courage or cowardice? These were the questions and the doubts that occupied my mind and to decide which I intended to avail myself of the first opportunity to go into action.
In the summer of 184—I was living in the Caucasus at the small fortified post of N—.]
On the twelfth of July Captain Khlópov entered the low door of my earth-hut. He was wearing epaulettes and carrying a sword, which I had never before seen him do since I had reached the Caucasus.
‘I come straight from the colonel’s,’ he said in answer to my questioning look. ‘To-morrow our battalion is to march.’
‘Where to?’ I asked.
‘To M. The forces are to assemble there.’
‘And from there I suppose they will go into action?’
‘I expect so.’
‘In what direction? What do you think?’
‘What is there to think about? I am telling you what I know. A Tartar galloped here last night and brought orders from the general for the battalion to march with two days’ rations of rusks. But where to, why, and for how long, we do not ask, my friend. We are told to go – and that’s enough.’
‘But if you are to take only two days’ rations of rusks it proves that the troops won’t be out longer than that.’
‘It proves nothing at all!’
‘How is that?’ I asked with surprise.
‘Because it is so. We went to Dargo and took one week’s rations of rusks, but we stayed there nearly a month.’
‘Can I go with you?’ I asked after a pause.
‘You could, no doubt, but my advice is, don’t. Why run risks?’
‘Oh, but you must allow me not to take your advice. I have been here a whole month solely on the chance of seeing an action, and you wish me to miss it!’
‘Well, you must please yourself. But really you had better stay behind. You could wait for us here and might go hunting – and we would go our way, and it would be splendid,’ he said with such conviction that for a moment it really seemed to me too that it would be ‘splendid’. However, I told him decidedly that nothing would induce me to stay behind.
‘But what is there for you to see?’ the captain went on, still trying to dissuade me. ‘Do you want to know what battles are like? Read Mikháylovski Danílevski’s Description of War. It’s a fine book, it gives a detailed account of everything. It gives the position of every corps and describes how battles are fought.’
‘All that does not interest me,’ I replied.
‘What is it then? Do you simply wish to see how people are killed? – In 1832 we had a fellow here, also a civilian, a Spaniard I think he was. He took part with us in two campaigns, wearing some kind of blue mantle. Well, they did for the fine fellow. You won’t astonish anyone here, friend!’
Humiliating though it was that the captain so misjudged my motives, I did not try to disabuse him.
‘Was he brave?’ I asked.
‘Heaven only knows: he always used to ride in front, and where there was firing there he always was.’
‘Then he must have been brave,’ said I.
‘No. Pushing oneself in where one is not needed does not prove one to be brave.’
‘Then what do you call brave?’
‘Brave?… Brave?’ repeated the captain with the air of one to whom such a question presents itself for the first time. ‘He who does what he ought to do is brave,’ he said after thinking awhile.
I remembered that Plato defines courage as ‘The knowledge of what should and what should not be feared’, and despite the looseness and vagueness of the captain’s definition I thought that the fundamental ideas of the two were not so different as they might appear, and that the captain’s definition was even more correct than that of the Greek philosopher. For if the captain had been able to express himself like Plato he would no doubt have said that, ‘He is brave who fears only what should be feared and not what should not be feared’.
I wished to explain my idea to the captain.
‘Yes,’ said I, ‘it seems to me that in every danger there is a choice, and a choice made under the influence of a sense of duty is courage, but a choice made under the influence of a base motive is cowardice. Therefore a man who risks his life from vanity, curiosity, or greed, cannot be called brave; while on the other hand he who avoids a danger from honest consideration for his family, or simply from conviction, cannot be called a coward.’
The captain looked at me with a curious expression while I was speaking.
‘Well, that I cannot prove to you,’ he said, filling his pipe, ‘but we have a cadet here who is fond of philosophizing. You should have a talk with him. He also writes verses.’
I had known of the captain before I left Russia, but I had only made his acquaintance in the Caucasus. His mother, Mary Ivánovna Khlópova, a small and poor landowner, lives within two miles of my estate. Before I left for the Caucasus I had called on her. The old lady was very glad to hear that I should see her ‘Páshenka’, by which pet name she called the grey-haired elderly captain, and that I, ‘a living letter’, could tell him all about her and take him a small parcel from her. Having treated me to excellent pie and smoked goose, Mary Ivánovna went into her bedroom and returned with a black bag to which a black silk ribbon was attached.
‘Here, this is the icon of our Mother Mediatress of the Burning Bush,’ said she, crossing herself and kissing the icon of the Virgin and placing it in my hands. ‘Please let him have it. You see, when he went to the Caucasus I had a Mass said for him and promised, if he remained alive and safe, to order this icon of the Mother of God for him. And now for eighteen years the Mediatress and the Holy Saints have had mercy on him, he has not been wounded once, and yet in what battles has he not taken part?… What Michael who went with him told me was enough, believe me, to make one’s hair stand on end. You see, what I know about him is only from others. He, my pet, never writes me about his campaigns for fear of frightening me.’
(After I reached the Caucasus I learnt, and then not from the captain himself, that he had been severely wounded four times and of course never wrote to his mother either about his wounds or his campaigns.)
‘So let him now wear this holy image,’ she continued. ‘I give it him with my blessing. May the Most Holy Mediatress guard him. Especially when going into battle let him wear it. Tell him so, dear friend. Say “Your mother wishes it.” ’
I promised to carry out her instructions carefully.
‘I know you will grow fond of my Páshenka,’ continued the old lady. ‘He is such a splendid fellow. Will you believe it, he never lets a year pass without sending me some money, and he also helps my daughter Ánnushka a good deal, and all out of his pay! I thank God for having given me such a child,’ she continued with tears in her eyes.
‘Does he often write to you?’ I asked.
‘Seldom, my dear: perhaps once a year. Only when he sends the money, not otherwise. He says, “If I don’t write to you, mother, that means I am alive and well. Should anything befall me, which God forbid, they’ll tell you without me.” ’
When I handed his mother’s present to the captain (it was in my own quarters) he asked for a bit of paper, carefully wrapped it up, and then put it away. I told him many things about his mother’s life. He remained silent, and when I had finished speaking he went to a corner of the room and busied himself for what seemed a long time, filling his pipe.
‘Yes, she’s a splendid old woman!’ he said from there in a rather muffled voice. ‘Will God ever let me see her again?’