“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, if you like! 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.

“And 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 Mikhaylovsky Danilevsky’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.