"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. I was anxious to explain my thought to the captain. "Yes," I said, "it seems to me that in every peril there is an alternative, and the alternative adopted under the influence of, say, the sentiment of duty, is bravery, but the alternative adopted under the influence of a lower sentiment is cowardice; therefore it is impossible to call a man brave who risks his life out of vanity or curiosity or greediness, and, _vice versa,_ the man who under the influence of the virtuous sentiment of family obligation, or simply from conviction, avoids peril, cannot be called a coward." The captain looked at me with a queer sort of expression while I was talking. "Well, now, I don't know how to reason this out with you," said he, filling his pipe, "but we have with us a junker, and he likes to philosophize. You talk with him. He also writes poetry."