High Summer and Courage

Back From the High Pass

"A brave person is someone who feels no fear at all," said the innkeeper. He was standing on a stool to light the lantern by the door. He spoke over his shoulder, without turning round, to the dusty figure limping in from the road at the end of summer. "Since you have come back over the high pass, you must have left every fear you ever had up there among the rocks."

"Then I am not brave in the least, because I was afraid on every single step of it," said the traveler, laughing as she dropped her pack by the bench. "And if you ask the proverbs, they will tell you that courage was never the absence of fear. They nearly all assume the fear is there, and they talk about what you do with your feet while it is."

The evening was hot and still, the dust of the crossroads lay pale in the last light, and the lantern's flame hardly moved behind its glass. The innkeeper climbed down from the stool, brought two cups of cold water from the well, and sat beside her to hear about the pass.

She told him about the narrow path above the gorge, the loose stones that slid away under her boots, and the moment halfway up when she had stopped. She had wanted very badly to turn back. Then she opened her notebook, which had grown fatter over the summer, and found the sayings she had been repeating to herself on the way.

Frightened Eyes, Busy Hands

"This one carried me over the worst part," she said. In Russian there is "Glaza boyatsya, a ruki delayut", "the eyes are afraid, but the hands do the work". It is said to someone facing a task that looks far too big: a whole field to dig, a wall to rebuild, a long letter to write. It does not pretend that the eyes are wrong to be afraid. It simply tells the hands to begin, because the hands do not need to stop being afraid in order to move. In Japanese there is a saying with the same good sense, "Anzuru yori umu ga yasushi", "giving birth is easier than worrying about it". People use it for any feared thing, such as an exam, a move to a new town or a hard conversation. They mean that the doing usually turns out lighter than the dread that came before it.

Imagine you are standing at the foot of a steep stone stairway to a temple on a hillside, with a few hundred steps above you and the afternoon sun on your neck. "It looks terrible from down here, I know, but it is never as long as it looks," says the old woman selling water at the bottom, handing you a bottle. "The eyes are afraid, but the feet do the climbing." You thank her, and you start counting steps, and before you have finished worrying you are halfway up.

"So the fear is allowed to come along, as long as it does not carry the pack," said the innkeeper.

The traveler said that was exactly how she would put it from now on.

Wits Before the Tiger

The next saying was Korean, and the traveler read it twice, slowly, because she loved the sound of it. "Horangihante mullyeogado jeongsinman charimyeon sanda" means "even if a tiger carries you off, you will live if you keep your wits about you". It is said when someone is in real trouble, lost in a strange city or caught in a crisis at work. It promises nothing about the tiger. It promises only that a clear head is still worth something, however bad things look. In Chinese a calmer saying points the same way: "Chuán dào qiáo tóu zìrán zhí", "when the boat reaches the bridge, it will straighten by itself". It pictures a boat drifting crooked toward a low bridge, and it trusts the boat to find its way through the arch when it gets there. People say it to calm someone who is worrying about a trouble that has not yet arrived, because many troubles sort themselves out when the moment actually comes.

Imagine your train has stopped in the middle of nowhere at night, and nobody in the carriage seems to know why or for how long. "We will miss the last bus from the station, and then where will we sleep?" asks the student in the seat across from you, chewing her nails. "When the boat reaches the bridge, it straightens by itself," you tell her, "and until then we might as well share these oranges." An hour later the train moves on, and the last bus, which has been told about the delay, is waiting outside the station with its engine running.

The innkeeper looked up at the lantern, and he said that in his whole life he had probably worried about a hundred bridges for every one he had actually reached.

Wolves at the Forest's Edge

"Some sayings are blunter," said the traveler. In Russian there is "Volkov boyatsya, v les ne khodit'", "if you are afraid of wolves, do not go into the forest". It is said with a shrug to anyone who wants the mushrooms and the berries without any of the risk. It means that some fears simply come with the road you have chosen. In Swahili there is "Mtaka cha mvunguni sharti ainame", "whoever wants what is under the bed must bend down". It says the same thing more gently: what you want will not come to you while you stand up straight and comfortable. In Turkish, "Korkunun ecele faydası yok" means "fear is of no use against the appointed hour". It is not a gloomy saying when people use it. It means that worrying will not hold back what is coming, so you may as well put the worry down and live well until then.

Imagine you are at a harbor at dawn, wondering whether to take a small boat out to a far island when the sea looks a little rough to you. "The sea is like this every morning in summer, and it settles by ten," says the fisherman untying the ropes. "If you are afraid of wolves, do not go into the forest, but if you want to see the island, the boat leaves now." You climb aboard, and by ten o'clock the water is as flat as he promised.

The innkeeper was quiet for a moment, and the lantern's flame stood very still above his head. "I have looked up at that pass from my own doorstep for forty years, and I have never once gone further than the market town two valleys away," he said. "Perhaps I have been the man who wants the mushrooms and never sets foot in the forest."

"You keep a light burning for everyone who does go in," said the traveler, "and on a dark road that is worth more than you know."

Dogs That Only Bark

Not every fear, the traveler went on, is as large as it sounds. In Spanish people say "Perro ladrador, poco mordedor", "a barking dog is a poor biter", meaning that the loudest threat is often the least dangerous one. They say it about bad-tempered officials, about noisy neighbors and about storms that rattle the shutters without doing harm. In Arabic, along the Nile, there is "Illi yikhaf min il-'afrit yitla'lu", "whoever is afraid of the ghost, the ghost appears to him". It is said, often with a laugh, to someone whose fear has made a small thing grow into a big one. The idea is that the more you expect the worst, the more often you seem to meet it.

Imagine you have to ask the stern-looking man at the border post to stamp a form you filled in wrongly, and he has been shouting at the person ahead of you. "He shouts at everybody, but he has never yet sent anyone back," says the driver of your shared taxi, leaning out of the window. "A barking dog is a poor biter." You hand over the form, the man grumbles for a whole minute, and then he stamps it twice and wishes you a pleasant journey.

"I have a few barking guests like that every summer," said the innkeeper, "and most of them leave the biggest tips."

The Snake and the Rope

There is one fear the proverbs treat with special tenderness, the traveler said, and that is the fear left behind by something that once really hurt you. In English, "Once bitten, twice shy" describes a person who has been hurt once and is now careful, perhaps too careful. In Chinese there is a fuller version of the same picture: "Yī zhāo bèi shé yǎo, shí nián pà jǐng shéng", "bitten by a snake one morning, afraid of a well rope for ten years". Neither saying mocks the frightened person, because both know that the fear makes sense. They only point out, kindly, that the rope is not the snake, and that ten years is a long time to stay away from the well.

Imagine you were robbed on a night bus a year ago, and now you are about to take another one across the same mountains. "You keep staring at that luggage rack all evening," says your friend on the phone. "Bitten by a snake one morning, afraid of a well rope for ten years, as my grandfather used to say, but this time you have a lock and a window seat." You laugh a little, you lock your bag, and somewhere after midnight you fall asleep.

Daring in Four Tongues

The innkeeper asked whether there were any sayings that praised the risk itself, and the traveler turned to a page where four of them stood side by side. In German, "Wer wagt, gewinnt" means "whoever dares, wins". In Danish, "Frisk vovet er halvt vundet" means "boldly ventured is half won". In Italian, "Chi non risica non rosica" means "whoever does not risk does not get a bite", and in English, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" says the same plainly. Four languages, she said, and not one of them promises that the risk will succeed. They only say that without it, nothing can. What differs is only the prize each one pictures. The German and Danish sayings speak of winning, the English one of gain, and the Italian one of something to chew, which tells you a little about what each kitchen valued most at the end of a long day.

Imagine you are standing outside a small restaurant where the menu is written only in a language you cannot read, and the smell from the kitchen is wonderful. "We could just go back to the hotel and eat the biscuits," says your travel companion, without much hope in her voice. "Boldly ventured is half won," you answer. You go in, point at whatever the family at the next table is eating, and it turns out to be the best meal of the whole journey.

Seven Falls, Eight Risings

"And now the one I saved for last," said the traveler, "because it was the one I said out loud when I slipped on the loose stones near the top." In Japanese it is "Nana korobi ya oki", "fall seven times, stand up eight". It is said to anyone who has failed and is thinking of giving up: a student who failed an exam, a shopkeeper whose first shop closed, a walker who fell on a mountain path. The saying counts one more rising than falling, because the first standing up comes before any fall at all, on the day you begin.

Imagine you are trying for the third time to buy a train ticket in a language you have only just started learning, and once again the clerk has answered you in English. "You were much closer this time, and nobody at this window minds waiting for you," says the young man behind you in the queue, who has been listening. "Fall seven times, stand up eight, as my teacher used to say." You try once more, slowly, and this time the clerk answers you in her own language and slides the ticket under the glass with a smile.

"Then I have fallen a great many times without ever leaving the crossroads," said the innkeeper. "I suppose I have stood up one time more than that, or I would not be here to light the lantern."

The Doll That Rights Itself

The traveler told him about a little round doll that Japanese speakers call a daruma, which she had seen for sale at temple fairs around the new year. It has no arms or legs, and its bottom is weighted, so that however you push it over, it rolls back upright again. Its eyes are often left blank when you buy it. You paint in one eye when you make a wish or set yourself a hard task. You paint in the other when the wish comes true, so the doll watches you with one eye for as long as the work takes. Many people link it with the saying about seven falls and eight risings, and the innkeeper said he would very much like one for the shelf by the door.

One Small Fear Each Day

Here is a small thing to try the next time you travel. Each day, choose one small fear and walk toward it on purpose. Ask a stranger for directions in their own language, order a dish whose name you cannot pronounce, or take the narrow street instead of the wide one. Then, in the evening, write down in a notebook what you were afraid of and what actually happened. After a week, you will have a page of evidence that the eyes are afraid while the hands do the work, written in your own hand.

A Lantern in the Heat

It was late now, and the heat of the day had finally begun to lift from the stones. Moths had found the lantern and were circling its glass, and the flame burned low and quiet inside, steady in the still air.

"Tomorrow the farmer from down the valley brings the first sacks of the harvest, as he does every year," said the innkeeper. "And every year I say thank you in the same plain way, and every year it seems far too small for what he has carried up the hill."

The traveler looked at the lantern for a while, its small flame steady behind the dusty glass, and she said she would stay one more day to see him come.