“Tell me, Markof,” began the old man at length, “what would you answer, not to a judge or to the authorities, or even to the emperor, but to your own conscience, should it ask you, ‘Why did you enter upon this terrible, unjust slaughter?’”
Markof shrugged his shoulders as if in mockery.
“You speak rather freely, old man,” said he, “for one who is going to be shot in four hours’ time. However, we’ll have a little conversation, if you like. It’s a better occupation for me than to toss about sleeplessly in fever. How shall I answer my conscience? I shall say first that I am a soldier, and that it is my duty to obey orders implicitly; and secondly, I am a Russian by birth, and I would make it clear to the whole world that he who dares to rise up against the might of the great power of Russia shall be crushed as a worm under the heel, and his very tomb shall be made level with the dust....”
“O Markof, Markof, what a wild and bloodthirsty pride speaks in your words!” replied the old man. “And what untruth! If you look at an object and put your eyes quite close to it you see only the smallest of its details, but go further away, and you see it in its true form. Do you really think that your great country is immortal? Did not the Persians think so once, and the Macedonians, and proud Rome, who seized the whole world in her iron claws, and the wild hordes of Huns who overran Europe, and mighty Spain, lord over three-fourths of the globe? Yet ask history what has become of their immeasurable power. And I can tell you that thousands of centuries before these there were great kingdoms, stronger, prouder, and more cultured than yours. But life, which is stronger than nations and more ancient than memorials, has swept them aside in her mysterious path, leaving neither trace nor memory of them.”
“That’s foolishness,” objected the captain, in a feeble voice, lying down again upon his back. “History follows out its own course, and we can neither guide it nor show it the way.”
The old man laughed noiselessly.
“You’re like that African bird which hides its head in the sand when it is pursued by the hunter. Believe me, a hundred years hence your children’s children will be ashamed of their ancestor, Alexander Vassilitch Markof, murderer and executioner.”
“You speak strongly, old man! Yes, I’ve heard of the ravings of those enthusiastic dreamers who want to change swords into ploughshares.... Ha-ha-ha! I picture to myself the sort of state these scrofulous neurasthenists and rickety idiots of pacifists would make. No, it is only wax that can forge out an athletic body and an iron character. However ...”—Markof pressed his hand to his forehead, striving to remember something—“however, this is all unimportant. ... But what was it I wanted to ask you? ... Ah, yes! Somehow I don’t think you will tell me untruths. Do you belong to these parts?”
“No.” The old man shook his head.
“But surely you were born in the district?”