“What use have I for you?” was the answer.
In the meantime my Undine had sprung
into the boat. She beckoned to her companion with her hand. He placed something in the blind boy’s hand and added:
“There, buy yourself some gingerbreads.”
“Is this all?” said the blind boy.
“Well, here is some more.”
The money fell and jingled as it struck the rock.
The blind boy did not pick it up. Yanko took his seat in the boat; the wind was blowing from the shore; they hoisted the little sail and sped rapidly away. For a long time the white sail gleamed in the moonlight amid the dark waves. Still the blind boy remained seated upon the shore, and then I heard something which sounded like sobbing. The blind boy was, in fact, weeping, and for a long, long time his tears flowed. . . I grew heavy-hearted. For what reason should fate have thrown me into the peaceful circle of honourable smugglers? Like a stone cast into a smooth well, I had disturbed their quietude, and I barely escaped going to the bottom like a stone.
I returned home. In the hall the burnt-out candle was spluttering on a wooden platter, and my Cossack, contrary to orders, was fast asleep, with his gun held in both hands. I left him at rest, took the candle, and entered the hut. Alas! my cashbox, my sabre with the silver chasing, my Daghestan dagger — the gift of a friend — all had vanished! It was then that I guessed what articles the cursed blind boy had been dragging along. Roughly shaking the Cossack, I woke him up, rated him, and lost my temper. But what was the good of that?
And would it not have been ridiculous to com- plain to the authorities that I had been robbed by a blind boy and all but drowned by an eighteen-year-old girl?
Thank heaven an opportunity of getting away presented itself in the morning, and I left Taman.
What became of the old woman and the poor blind boy I know not. And, besides, what are the joys and sorrows of mankind to me — me, a travelling officer, and one, moreover, with an order for post-horses on Government business?
BOOK IV THE SECOND EXTRACT FROM PECHORIN’S DIARY
THE FATALIST
I ONCE happened to spend a couple of weeks in a Cossack village on our left flank. A battalion of infantry was stationed there; and it was the custom of the officers to meet at each other’s quarters in turn and play cards in the evening.
On one occasion — it was at Major S—-‘s — finding our game of Boston not sufficiently ab- sorbing, we threw the cards under the table and sat on for a long time, talking. The con- versation, for once in a way, was interesting. The subject was the Mussulman tradition that a man’s fate is written in heaven, and we dis- cussed the fact that it was gaining many votaries, even amongst our own countrymen. Each of us related various extraordinary occurrences, pro or contra.
“What you have been saying, gentlemen, proves nothing,” said the old major. “I presume there is not one of you who has actually been a witness of the strange events which you are citing in support of your opinions?”
“Not one, of course,” said many of the guests. “But we have heard of them from trustworthy people.” . . .
“It is all nonsense!” someone said. “Where are the trustworthy people who have seen the Register in which the appointed hour of our death is recorded? . . . And if predestination really exists, why are free will and reason granted us? Why are we obliged to render an account of our actions?”
At that moment an officer who was sitting in a corner of the room stood up, and, coming slowly to the table, surveyed us all with a quiet and solemn glance. He was a native of Servia, as was evident from his name.
The outward appearance of Lieutenant Vulich was quite in keeping with his character. His height, swarthy complexion, black hair, piercing black eyes, large but straight nose — an attribute of his nation — and the cold and melancholy smile which ever hovered around his lips, all seemed to concur in lending him the appearance of a man apart, incapable of reciprocating the thoughts and passions of those whom fate gave him for companions.
He was brave; talked little, but sharply; confided his thoughts and family secrets to no one; drank hardly a drop of wine; and never dangled after the young Cossack girls, whose charm it is difficult to realise without having seen them. It was said, however, that the colonel’s wife was not indifferent to those ex- pressive eyes of his; but he was seriously angry if any hint on the subject was made.
There was only one passion which he did not conceal — the passion for gambling. At the green table he would become oblivious of everything. He usually lost, but his constant ill success only aroused his obstinacy. It was related that, on one occasion, during a nocturnal expedition, he was keeping the bank on a pillow, and had a terrific run of luck. Suddenly shots rang out. The alarm was sounded; all but Vulich jumped up and rushed to arms.
“Stake, va banque!” he cried to one of the most ardent gamblers.
“Seven,” the latter answered as he hurried off.
Notwithstanding the general confusion, Vulich calmly finished the deal — seven was the card. By the time he reached the cordon a violent fusillade was in progress. Vulich did not trouble himself about the bullets or the sabres of the Chechenes, but sought for the lucky gambler.
“Seven it was!” he cried out, as at length he perceived him in the cordon of skirmishers who were beginning to dislodge the enemy from the wood; and going up to him, he drew out his purse and pocket-book and handed them to the winner, notwithstanding the latter’s objections on the score of the inconvenience of the payment. That unpleasant duty discharged, Vulich dashed forward, carried the soldiers along after him, and, to the very end of the affair, fought the Chechenes with the utmost coolness.
When Lieutenant Vulich came up to the table, we all became silent, expecting to hear, as usual, something original.
“Gentlemen!” he said — and his voice was quiet though lower in tone than usual — “gentle- men, what is the good of futile discussions? You wish for proofs? I propose that we try the experiment on ourselves: whether a man can of his own accord dispose of his life, or whether the fateful moment is appointed beforehand for each of us. Who is agreeable?”
“Not I. Not I,” came from all sides.
“There’s a queer fellow for you! He does get strange ideas into his head!”
“I propose a wager,” I said in jest.
“What sort of wager?”
“I maintain that there is no such thing as predestination,” I said, scattering on the table a score or so of ducats — all I had in my pocket.
“Done,” answered Vulich in a hollow voice. “Major, you will be judge. Here are fifteen ducats, the remaining five you owe me, kindly add them to the others.”
“Very well,” said the major; “though, indeed, I do not understand what is the question at issue and how you will decide it!”
Without a word Vulich went into the major’s bedroom, and we followed him. He went up to the wall on which the major’s weapons were hang- ing, and took down at random one of the pistols — of which there were several of different cali- bres. We were still in the dark as to what he meant to do. But, when he cocked the pistol and sprinkled powder in the pan, several of the officers, crying out in spite of themselves, seized him by the arms.
“What are you going to do?” they exclaimed. “This is madness!”
“Gentlemen!” he said slowly, disengaging his arm. “Who would like to pay twenty ducats for me?”
They were silent and drew away.
Vulich went into the other room and sat by the table; we all followed him. With a sign he invited us to sit round him. We obeyed in silence — at that moment he had acquired a certain mysterious authority over us. I stared fixedly into his face; but he met my scrutinising gaze with a quiet and steady glance, and his pallid lips smiled. But, notwithstanding his composure, it seemed to me that I could read the stamp of death upon his pale countenance. I have noticed — and many old soldiers have cor- roborated my observation — that a man who is to die in a few hours frequently bears on his face a certain strange stamp of inevitable fate, so that it is difficult for practised eyes to be mistaken.
“You will die to-day!” I said to Vulich.
He turned towards me rapidly, but answered slowly and quietly:
“May be so, may be not.” . . .
Then, addressing himself to the major, he asked:
“Is the pistol loaded?”
The major, in the confusion, could not quite remember.
“There, that will do, Vulich!” exclaimed somebody. “Of course it must be loaded, if it was one of those hanging on the wall there over our heads. What a man you are for joking!”
“A silly joke, too!” struck in another.
“I wager fifty rubles to five that the pistol is not loaded!” cried a third.
A new bet was made.
I was beginning to get tired of it all.
“Listen,” I said, “either shoot yourself, or hang up the pistol in its place and let us go to bed.”
“Yes, of course!” many exclaimed. “Let us go to bed.”
“Gentlemen, I beg of you not to move,” said Vulich, putting the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead.
We were all petrified.
“Mr. Pechorin,” he added, “take a card and throw it up in the air.”
I took, as I remember now, an ace of hearts off the table and threw it into the air. All held their breath. With eyes full of terror and a certain vague curiosity they glanced rapidly from the pistol to the fateful ace, which slowly descended, quivering in the air. At the moment it touched the table Vulich pulled the trigger . . . a flash in the pan!
“Thank God!” many exclaimed. “It wasn’t loaded!”
“Let us see, though,” said Vulich.
He cocked the pistol again, and took aim at a forage-cap which was hanging above the window. A shot rang out. Smoke filled the room; when it cleared away, the forage-cap was taken down. It had been shot right through the centre, and the bullet was deeply embedded in the wall.
For two or three minutes no one was able to utter a word. Very quietly Vulich poured my ducats from the major’s purse into his own.
Discussions arose as to why the pistol had not gone off the first time. Some maintained that probably the pan had been obstructed; others whispered that the powder had been damp the first time, and that, afterwards, Vulich had sprinkled some fresh powder on it; but I maintained that the last supposition was wrong, because I had not once taken my eyes off the pistol.
“You are lucky at play!” I said to Vulich. . .
“For the first time in my life!” he answered, with a complacent smile. “It is better than ‘bank’ and ‘shtoss.'”[1]
[1] Card-games.
“But, on the other hand, slightly more dangerous!”
“Well? Have you begun to believe in pre- destination?
“I do believe in it; only I cannot understand now why it appeared to me that you must
inevitably die to-day!”
And this same man, who, such a short time before, had with the greatest calmness aimed a pistol at his own forehead, now suddenly fired up and became embarrassed.
“That will do, though!” he said, rising to his feet. “Our wager is finished, and now your observations, it seems to me, are out of place.”
He took up his cap and departed. The whole affair struck me as being strange — and not without reason. Shortly after that, all the officers broke up and went home, discussing Vulich’s freaks from different points of view, and, doubt- less, with one voice calling me an egoist for having taken up a wager against a man who wanted to shoot himself, as if he could not have found a convenient opportunity without my intervention.
I returned home by the deserted byways of the village. The moon, full and red like the glow of a conflagration, was beginning to make its appear- ance from behind the jagged horizon of the house-tops; the stars were shining tranquilly in the deep, blue vault of the sky; and I was struck by the absurdity of the idea when I recalled to mind that once upon a time there were some exceed- ingly wise people who thought that the stars of heaven participated in our insignificant squabbles for a slice of ground, or some other imaginary rights. And what then? These lamps, lighted, so they fancied, only to illuminate their battles and triumphs, are burning with all their former brilliance, whilst the wiseacres themselves, to- gether with their hopes and passions, have long been extinguished, like a little fire kindled at the edge of a forest by a careless wayfarer! But, on the other hand, what strength of will was lent them by the conviction that the entire heavens, with their innumerable habitants, were looking at them with a sympathy, unalterable, though mute! . . . And we, their miserable descendants, roaming over the earth, without faith, without pride, without enjoyment, and without terror — except that involuntary awe which makes the heart shrink at the thought of the inevitable end — we are no longer capable of great sacrifices, either for the good of mankind or even for our own happiness, because we know the impossibility of such happiness; and, just as our ancestors used to fling themselves from one delusion to another, we pass indifferently from doubt to doubt, without possessing, as they did, either hope or even that vague though, at the same time, keen enjoyment which the soul encounters at every struggle with mankind or with destiny.
These and many other similar thoughts passed through my mind, but I did not follow them up, because I do not like to dwell upon abstract ideas — for what do they lead to? In my early youth I was a dreamer; I loved to hug to my bosom the images — now gloomy, now rainbow- hued — which my restless and eager imagination drew for me. And what is there left to me of all these? Only such weariness as might be felt after a battle by night with a phantom — only a con- fused memory full of regrets. In that vain contest I have exhausted the warmth of soul and firmness of will indispensable to an active life. I have entered upon that life after having already lived through it in thought, and it has become wearisome and nauseous to me, as the reading of a bad imitation of a book is to one who has long been familiar with the original.
The events of that evening produced a some- what deep impression upon me and excited my nerves. I do not know for certain whether I now believe in predestination or not, but on that evening I believed in it firmly. The proof was startling, and I, notwithstanding that I had laughed at our forefathers and their obliging astrology, fell involuntarily into their way of thinking. However, I stopped myself in time from following that dangerous road, and, as I have made it a rule not to reject anything decisively and not to trust anything blindly, I cast meta- physics aside and began to look at what was beneath my feet. The precaution was well-timed. I only just escaped stumbling over something thick and soft, but, to all appearance, inanimate. I bent down to see what it was, and, by the light of the moon, which now shone right upon the road, I perceived that it was a pig which had been cut in two with a sabre. . . I had hardly time to examine it before I heard the sound of steps, and two Cossacks came running out of a byway. One of them came up to me and
enquired whether I had seen a drunken Cossack chasing a pig. I informed him that I had not met the Cossack and pointed to the unhappy
victim of his rabid bravery.
“The scoundrel!” said the second Cossack. “No sooner does he drink his fill of chikhir[1] than off he goes and cuts up anything that comes in his way. Let us be after him, Eremeich, we must tie him up or else” . . .
[1] A Caucasian wine.
They took themselves off, and I continued my way with greater caution, and at length arrived at my lodgings without mishap.
I was living with a certain old Cossack under- officer whom I loved, not only on account of his kindly disposition, but also, and more especially, on account of his pretty daughter, Nastya.
Wrapped up in a sheepskin coat she was waiting for me, as usual, by the wicket gate. The moon illumined her charming little lips, now turned blue by the cold of the night. Recognizing me she smiled; but I was in no mood to linger with her.
“Good night, Nastya!” I said, and passed on.
She was about to make some answer, but only sighed.
I fastened the door of my room after me, lighted a candle, and threw myself on the bed; but, on that occasion, slumber caused its presence to be awaited longer than usual. By the time I fell asleep the east was beginning to grow pale, but I was evidently predestined not to have my sleep out. At four o’clock in the morning two fists knocked at my window. I sprang up.
“What is the matter?”
“Get up — dress yourself!”
I dressed hurriedly and went out.
“Do you know what has happened?” said three officers who had come for me, speaking all in one voice.
They were deadly pale.
“No, what is it?”
“Vulich has been murdered!”
I was petrified.
“Yes, murdered!” they continued. “Let us lose no time and go!”
“But where to?”
“You will learn as we go.”
We set off. They told me all that had hap- pened, supplementing their story with a variety of observations on the subject of the strange predestination which had saved Vulich from imminent death half an hour before he actually met his end.
Vulich had been walking alone along a dark street, and the drunken Cossack who had cut up the pig had sprung out upon him, and perhaps would have passed him by without noticing him, had not Vulich stopped suddenly and said:
“Whom are you looking for, my man?”
“You!” answered the Cossack, striking him with his sabre; and he cleft him from the shoulder almost to the heart. . .
The two Cossacks who had met me and
followed the murderer had arrived on the scene and raised the wounded man from the ground. But he was already as his last gasp and said these three words only — “he was right!”
I alone understood the dark significance of those words: they referred to me. I had
involuntarily foretold his fate to poor Vulich. My instinct had not deceived me; I had indeed read on his changed countenance the signs of approaching death.
The murderer had locked himself up in an empty hut at the end of the village; and thither we went. A number of women, all of them
weeping, were running in the same direction; at times a belated Cossack, hastily buckling on his dagger, sprang out into the street and overtook us at a run. The tumult was dreadful.
At length we arrived on the scene and found a crowd standing around the hut, the door and shutters of which were locked on the inside. Groups of officers and Cossacks were engaged in heated discussions; the women were shrieking, wailing and talking all in one breath. One of the old women struck my attention by her meaning looks and the frantic despair expressed upon her face. She was sitting on a thick plank, leaning her elbows on her knees and supporting her head with her hands. It was the mother of the murderer. At times her lips moved. . . Was it a prayer they were whispering, or a curse?
Meanwhile it was necessary to decide upon some course of action and to seize the criminal. Nobody, however, made bold to be the first to rush forward.
I went up to the window and looked in through a chink in the shutter. The criminal, pale of face, was lying on the floor, holding a pistol in his right hand. The blood-stained sabre was beside him. His expressive eyes were rolling in terror; at times he shuddered and clutched at his head, as if indistinctly recalling the events of yesterday. I could not read any sign of great determination in that uneasy glance of his, and I told the major that it would be better at once to give orders to the Cossacks to burst open the door and rush in, than to wait until the murderer had quite recovered his senses.
At that moment the old captain of the Cossacks went up to the door and called the murderer by name. The latter answered back.
“You have committed a sin, brother Ephi- mych!” said the captain, “so all you can do now is to submit.”
“I will not submit!” answered the Cossack.
“Have you no fear of God! You see, you are not one of those cursed Chechenes, but an honest Christian! Come, if you have done it in an unguarded moment there is no help for it! You cannot escape your fate!”
“I will not submit!” exclaimed the Cossack menacingly, and we could hear the snap of the cocked trigger.
“Hey, my good woman!” said the Cossack captain to the old woman. “Say a word to your son — perhaps he will lend an ear to you. . . You see, to go on like this is only to make God angry. And look, the gentlemen here have already been waiting two hours.”
The old woman gazed fixedly at him and shook her head.
“Vasili Petrovich,” said the captain, going up to the major; “he will not surrender. I know him! If it comes to smashing in the door he will strike down several of our men. Would it not be better if you ordered him to be shot? There is a wide chink in the shutter.”
At that moment a strange idea flashed through my head — like Vulich I proposed to put fate to the test.
“Wait,” I said to the major, “I will take him alive.”
Bidding the captain enter into a conversation with the murderer and setting three Cossacks at the door ready to force it open and rush to my aid at a given signal, I walked round the hut and approached the fatal window. My heart was beating violently.
“Aha, you cursed wretch!” cried the captain. “Are you laughing at us, eh? Or do you think that we won’t be able to get the better of you?”
He began to knock at the door with all his might. Putting my eye to the chink, I followed the movements of the Cossack, who was not expecting an attack from that direction. I pulled the shutter away suddenly and threw myself in at the window, head foremost. A shot rang out right over my ear, and the bullet tore off one of my epaulettes. But the smoke which filled the room prevented my adversary from finding the sabre which was lying beside him. I seized him by the arms; the Cossacks burst in; and three minutes had not elapsed before they had the criminal bound and led off under escort.
The people dispersed, the officers congratulated me — and indeed there was cause for congratula- tion.
After all that, it would hardly seem possible to avoid becoming a fatalist? But who knows for certain whether he is convinced of anything or not? And how often is a deception of the senses or an error of the reason accepted as a conviction! . . . I prefer to doubt everything. Such a disposition is no bar to decision of character; on the contrary, so far as I am concerned, I always advance more boldly when I do not know what is awaiting me. You see, nothing can happen worse than death — and from death there is no escape.
On my return to the fortress I related to Maksim Maksimych all that I had seen and experienced; and I sought to learn his opinion on the subject of predestination.
At first he did not understand the word. I explained it to him as well as I could, and then he said, with a significant shake of the head:
“Yes, sir, of course! It was a very ingenious trick! However, these Asiatic pistols often miss fire if they are badly oiled or if you don’t press hard enough on the trigger. I confess I don’t like the Circassian carbines either. Some- how or other they don’t suit the like of us: the butt end is so small, and any minute you may get your nose burnt! On the other hand, their sabres, now — well, all I need say is, my best respects to them!”
Afterwards he said, on reflecting a little:
“Yes, it is a pity about the poor fellow! The devil must have put it into his head to start a conversation with a drunken man at night! However, it is evident that fate had written it so at his birth!”
I could not get anything more out of Maksim Maksimych; generally speaking, he had no liking for metaphysical disputations.
BOOK V THE THIRD EXTRACT FROM PECHORIN’S DIARY
PRINCESS MARY
CHAPTER I
11th May.
YESTERDAY I arrived at Pyatigorsk.
I have engaged lodgings at the extreme end of the town, the highest part, at the foot of Mount Mashuk: during a storm the clouds will descend on to the roof of my dwelling.
This morning at five o’clock, when I opened my window, the room was filled with the fra- grance of the flowers growing in the modest little front-garden. Branches of bloom-laden bird- cherry trees peep in at my window, and now and again the breeze bestrews my writing-table with their white petals. The view which meets my gaze on three sides is wonderful: westward towers five-peaked Beshtau, blue as “the last cloud of a dispersed storm,”[1] and northward rises Mashuk, like a shaggy Persian cap, shutting in the whole of that quarter of the horizon. Eastward the outlook is more cheery: down below are dis- played the varied hues of the brand-new, spotlessly clean, little town, with its murmuring, health- giving springs and its babbling, many-tongued throng. Yonder, further away, the mountains tower up in an amphitheatre, ever bluer and mistier; and, at the edge of the horizon, stretches the silver chain of snow-clad summits, begin- ning with Kazbek and ending with two-peaked Elbruz. . . Blithe is life in such a land! A feeling akin to rapture is diffused through all my veins. The air is pure and fresh, like the kiss of a child; the sun is bright, the sky is blue — what more could one possibly wish for? What need, in such a place as this, of passions, desires, regrets?
[1] Pushkin. Compare Shelley’s Adonais, xxxi. 3: “as the last cloud of an expiring storm.”
However, it is time to be stirring. I will go to the Elizaveta spring — I am told that the whole society of the watering-place assembles there in the morning.
. . . . .
Descending into the middle of the town, I walked along the boulevard, on which I met a few melancholy groups slowly ascending the moun- tain. These, for the most part, were the families of landed-gentry from the steppes — as could be guessed at once from the threadbare, old- fashioned frock-coats of the husbands and the exquisite attire of the wives and daughters. Evidently they already had all the young men of the watering-place at their fingers’ ends, because they looked at me with a tender curiosity. The Petersburg cut of my coat misled them; but they soon recognised the military epaulettes, and turned away with indignation.
The wives of the local authorities — the host- esses, so to speak, of the waters — were more graciously inclined. They carry lorgnettes, and they pay less attention to a uniform — they have grown accustomed in the Caucasus to meeting a fervid heart beneath a numbered button and a cultured intellect beneath a white forage-cap. These ladies are very charming, and long continue to be charming. Each year their adorers are exchanged for new ones, and in that very fact, it may be, lies the secret of their unwearying amiability.
Ascending by the narrow path to the Elizaveta spring, I overtook a crowd of officials and military men, who, as I subsequently learned, compose a class apart amongst those who place their hopes in the medicinal waters. They drink — but not water — take but few walks, indulge in only mild flirtations, gamble, and complain of boredom.
They are dandies. In letting their wicker- sheathed tumblers down into the well of sulphur- ous water they assume academical poses. The officials wear bright blue cravats; the military men have ruffs sticking out above their collars. They affect a profound contempt for provincial ladies, and sigh for the aristocratic drawing-rooms of the capitals — to which they are not admitted.
Here is the well at last! . . . Upon the small square adjoining it a little house with a red roof over the bath is erected, and somewhat further on there is a gallery in which the people walk when it rains. Some wounded officers were sitting — pale and melancholy — on a bench, with their crutches drawn up. A few ladies, their tumbler of water finished, were walking with rapid steps to and fro about the square. There were two or three pretty faces amongst them. Beneath the avenues of the vines with which the slope of Mashuk is covered, occasional glimpses could be caught of the gay-coloured hat of a lover of solitude for two — for beside that hat I always noticed either a military forage-cap or the ugly round hat of a civilian. Upon the steep cliff, where the pavilion called “The Aeolian Harp” is erected, figured the lovers of scenery, directing their telescopes upon Elbruz. Amongst them were a couple of tutors, with their pupils who had come to be cured of scrofula.
Out of breath, I came to a standstill at the edge of the mountain, and, leaning against the corner of a little house, I began to examine the picturesque surroundings, when suddenly I heard behind me a familiar voice.
“Pechorin! Have you been here long?”
I turned round. Grushnitski! We embraced. I had made his acquaintance in the active service detachment. He had been wounded in the foot by a bullet and had come to the waters a week or so before me.
Grushnitski is a cadet; he has only been a year in the service. From a kind of foppery peculiar to himself, he wears the thick cloak of a common soldier. He has also the soldier’s cross of St. George. He is well built, swarthy and black- haired. To look at him, you might say he was a man of twenty-five, although he is scarcely twenty-one. He tosses his head when he speaks, and keeps continually twirling his moustache with his left hand, his right hand being occupied with the crutch on which he leans. He speaks rapidly and affectedly; he is one of those people who have a high-sounding phrase ready for every occasion in life, who remain untouched by simple beauty, and who drape themselves majestically in extraordinary sentiments, exalted passions and exceptional sufferings. To produce an effect is their delight; they have an almost insensate fondness for romantic provincial ladies. When old age approaches they become either peaceful landed-gentry or drunkards — sometimes both. Frequently they have many good qualities, but they have not a grain of poetry in their com- position. Grushnitski’s passion was declamation. He would deluge you with words so soon as the conversation went beyond the sphere of ordinary ideas. I have never been able to dispute with him. He neither answers your questions nor listens to you. So soon as you stop, he begins a lengthy tirade, which has the appearance of being in some sort connected with what you have been saying, but which is, in fact, only a continuation of his own harangue.
He is witty enough; his epigrams are fre- quently amusing, but never malicious, nor to the point. He slays nobody with a single word; he has no knowledge of men and of their foibles, because all his life he has been interested in nobody but himself. His aim is to make himself the hero of a novel. He has so often endeavoured to convince others that he is a being created not for this world and doomed to certain mysterious sufferings, that he has almost convinced himself that such he is in reality. Hence the pride with which he wears his thick soldier’s cloak. I have seen through him, and he dislikes me for that reason, although to outward appearance we are on the friendliest of terms. Grushnitski is looked upon as a man of distinguished courage. I have seen him in action. He waves his sabre, shouts, and hurls himself forward with his eyes shut. That is not what I should call Russian courage! . . .
I reciprocate Grushnitski’s dislike. I feel that some time or other we shall come into collision upon a narrow road, and that one of us will fare badly.
His arrival in the Caucasus is also the result of his romantic fanaticism. I am convinced that on the eve of his departure from his paternal village he said with an air of gloom to some pretty neighbour that he was going away, not so much for the simple purpose of serving in the army as of seeking death, because . . . and hereupon, I am sure, he covered his eyes with his hand and continued thus, “No, you — or thou — must not know! Your pure soul would shudder! And
what would be the good? What am I to you? Could you understand me?” . . . and so on.
He has himself told me that the motive which induced him to enter the K—- regiment must remain an everlasting secret between him and Heaven.
However, in moments when he casts aside the tragic mantle, Grushnitski is charming and entertaining enough. I am always interested to see him with women — it is then that he puts forth his finest efforts, I think!
We met like a couple of old friends. I began to question him about the personages of note and as to the sort of life which was led at the waters.
“It is a rather prosaic life,” he said, with a sigh. “Those who drink the waters in the morning are inert — like all invalids, and those who drink the wines in the evening are unendurable — like all healthy people! There are ladies who entertain, but there is no great amusement to be obtained from them. They play whist, they dress badly and speak French dreadfully! The only Moscow people here this year are Princess Ligovski and her daughter — but I am not acquainted with them. My soldier’s cloak is like a seal of renunciation. The sympathy which it arouses is as painful as charity.”
At that moment two ladies walked past us in the direction of the well; one elderly, the other youthful and slender. I could not obtain a good view of their faces on account of their hats, but they were dressed in accordance with the strict rules of the best taste — nothing superfluous. The second lady was wearing a high-necked dress of pearl-grey, and a light silk kerchief was wound round her supple neck. Puce-coloured boots clasped her slim little ankle so charmingly, that even those uninitiated into the mysteries of beauty would infallibly have sighed, if only from wonder. There was something maidenly in her easy, but aristocratic gait, something eluding definition yet intelligible to the glance. As she walked past us an indefinable perfume, like that which sometimes breathes from the note of a charming woman, was wafted from her.
“Look!” said Grushnitski, “there is Princess Ligovski with her daughter Mary, as she calls her after the English manner. They have been here only three days.”
“You already know her name, though?”
“Yes, I heard it by chance,” he answered, with a blush. “I confess I do not desire to make their acquaintance. These haughty aristocrats look upon us army men just as they would upon savages. What care they if there is an intellect beneath a numbered forage-cap, and a heart beneath a thick cloak?”
“Poor cloak!” I said, with a laugh. “But who is the gentleman who is just going up to them and handing them a tumbler so officiously?”
“Oh, that is Raevich, the Moscow dandy. He is a gambler; you can see as much at once from that immense gold chain coiling across his sky- blue waistcoat. And what a thick cane he has! Just like Robinson Crusoe’s — and so is his beard too, and his hair is done like a peasant’s.”
“You are embittered against the whole human race?”
“And I have cause to be” . . .
“Oh, really?”
At that moment the ladies left the well and came up to where we were. Grushnitski suc- ceeded in assuming a dramatic pose with the aid of his crutch, and in a loud tone of voice answered me in French:
“Mon cher, je hais les hommes pour ne pas les mepriser, car autrement la vie serait une farce trop degoutante.”
The pretty Princess Mary turned round and favoured the orator with a long and curious glance. Her expression was quite indefinite, but it was not contemptuous, a fact on which I inwardly congratulated Grushnitski from my heart.
“She is an extremely pretty girl,” I said. “She has such velvet eyes — yes, velvet is the word. I should advise you to appropriate the expression when speaking of her eyes. The lower and upper lashes are so long that the sunbeams are not reflected in her pupils. I love those eyes without a glitter, they are so soft that they appear to caress you. However, her eyes seem to be her only good feature. . . Tell me, are her teeth white? That is most important! It is a pity that she did not smile at that high-sounding phrase of yours.”
“You are speaking of a pretty woman just as you might of an English horse,” said Grushnitski indignantly.
“Mon cher,” I answered, trying to mimic his tone, “je meprise les femmes, pour ne pas les aimer, car autrement la vie serait un melodrame trop ridicule.”
I turned and left him. For half an hour or so I walked about the avenues of the vines, the limestone cliffs and the bushes hanging between them. The day grew hot, and I hurried home- wards. Passing the sulphur spring, I stopped at the covered gallery in order to regain my breath under its shade, and by so doing I was afforded the opportunity of witnessing a rather interesting scene. This is the position in which the dramatis personae were disposed: Princess Ligovski and the Moscow dandy were sitting on a bench in the covered gallery — apparently engaged in serious conversation. Princess Mary, who had doubtless by this time finished her last tumbler, was walking pensively to and fro by the well. Grushnitski was standing by the well itself; there was nobody else on the square.
I went up closer and concealed myself behind a corner of the gallery. At that moment Grush- nitski let his tumbler fall on the sand and made strenuous efforts to stoop in order to pick it up; but his injured foot prevented him. Poor fellow! How he tried all kinds of artifices, as he leaned on his crutch, and all in vain! His expressive countenance was, in fact, a picture of suffering.
Princess Mary saw the whole scene better than I.
Lighter than a bird she sprang towards him, stooped, picked up the tumbler, and handed it to him with a gesture full of ineffable charm. Then she blushed furiously, glanced round at the gallery, and, having assured herself that her mother apparently had not seen anything, im- mediately regained her composure. By the time Grushnitski had opened his mouth to thank her she was a long way off. A moment after, she came out of the gallery with her mother and the dandy, but, in passing by Grushnitski, she assumed a most decorous and serious air. She did not even turn round, she did not even observe the passionate gaze which he kept fixed upon her for a long time until she had descended the mountain and was hidden behind the lime trees of the boulevard. . . Presently I caught glimpses of her hat as she walked along the street. She hurried through the gate of one of the best houses in Pyatigorsk; her mother walked behind her and bowed adieu to Raevich at the gate.
It was only then that the poor, passionate cadet noticed my presence.
“Did you see?” he said, pressing my hand vigorously. “She is an angel, simply an angel!”
“Why?” I inquired, with an air of the purest simplicity.
“Did you not see, then?”
“No. I saw her picking up your tumbler. If there had been an attendant there he would have done the same thing — and quicker too, in the hope of receiving a tip. It is quite easy, however, to understand that she pitied you; you made such a terrible grimace when you walked on the wounded foot.”
“And can it be that seeing her, as you did, at that moment when her soul was shining in her eyes, you were not in the least affected?”
“No.”
I was lying, but I wanted to exasperate him. I have an innate passion for contradiction — my whole life has been nothing but a series of melan- choly and vain contradictions of heart or reason. The presence of an enthusiast chills me with a twelfth-night cold, and I believe that constant association with a person of a flaccid and phleg- matic temperament would have turned me into an impassioned visionary. I confess, too, that an unpleasant but familiar sensation was coursing lightly through my heart at that moment. It was — envy. I say “envy” boldly, because I am accustomed to acknowledge everything to myself. It would be hard to find a young man who, if his idle fancy had been attracted by a pretty woman and he had suddenly found her openly singling out before his eyes another man equally unknown to her — it would be hard, I say, to find such a young man (living, of course, in the great world and accustomed to indulge his self-love) who would not have been unpleasantly taken aback in such a case.
In silence Grushnitski and I descended the mountain and walked along the boulevard, past the windows of the house where our beauty had hidden herself. She was sitting by the window. Grushnitski, plucking me by the arm, cast upon her one of those gloomily tender glances which have so little effect upon women. I directed my lorgnette at her, and observed that she smiled at his glance and that my insolent lorgnette made her downright angry. And how, indeed, should a Caucasian military man presume to direct his eyeglass at a princess from Moscow? . . .
CHAPTER II
13th May.
THIS morning the doctor came to see me. His name is Werner, but he is a Russian. What is there surprising in that? I have known a man named Ivanov, who was a German.
Werner is a remarkable man, and that for many reasons. Like almost all medical men he is a sceptic and a materialist, but, at the same time, he is a genuine poet — a poet always in deeds and often in words, although he has never written two verses in his life. He has mastered all the living chords of the human heart, just as one learns the veins of a corpse, but he has never known how to avail himself of his knowledge. In like manner, it sometimes happens that an excellent anatomist does not know how to cure a fever. Werner usually made fun of his patients in private; but once I saw him weeping over a dying soldier. . . He was poor, and dreamed of millions, but he would not take a single step out of his way for the sake of money. He once told me that he would rather do a favour to an enemy than to a friend, because, in the latter case, it would mean selling his beneficence, whilst hatred only increases proportionately to the magnanimity of the adversary. He had a
malicious tongue; and more than one good, simple soul has acquired the reputation of a vulgar fool through being labelled with one of his epigrams. His rivals, envious medical men of the watering-place, spread the report that he was in the habit of drawing caricatures of his patients. The patients were incensed, and almost all of them discarded him. His friends, that is to say all the genuinely well-bred people who were serving in the Caucasus, vainly endeavoured to restore his fallen credit.
His outward appearance was of the type which, at the first glance, creates an unpleasant impres- sion, but which you get to like in course of time, when the eye learns to read in the ir- regular features the stamp of a tried and lofty soul. Instances have been known of women falling madly in love with men of that sort, and having no desire to exchange their ugliness for the beauty of the freshest and rosiest of Endymions. We must give women their due: they possess an instinct for spiritual beauty, for which reason, possibly, men such as Werner love women so passionately.
Werner was small and lean and as weak as a baby. One of his legs was shorter than the other, as was the case with Byron. In comparison with his body, his head seemed enormous. His hair was cropped close, and the unevennesses of his cranium, thus laid bare, would have struck a phrenologist by reason of the strange intertexture of con- tradictory propensities. His little, ever restless, black eyes seemed as if they were endeavouring to fathom your thoughts. Taste and neatness were to be observed in his dress. His small, lean, sinewy hands flaunted themselves in bright-yellow gloves. His frock-coat, cravat and waistcoat were invariably of black. The young men dubbed him Mephistopheles; he pretended to be angry at the nickname, but in reality it flattered his vanity. Werner and I soon understood each other and became friends, because I, for my part, am ill- adapted for friendship. Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although frequently neither acknowledges the fact to himself. Now, the slave I could not be; and to be the master would be a wearisome trouble, because, at the same time, deception would be required. Besides, I have servants and money!
Our friendship originated in the following circumstances. I met Werner at S—-, in the midst of a numerous and noisy circle of young people. Towards the end of the evening the conversation took a philosophico-metaphysical turn. We discussed the subject of convictions, and each of us had some different conviction to declare.
“So far as I am concerned,” said the doctor, “I am convinced of one thing only” . . .
“And that is –?” I asked, desirous of learning the opinion of a man who had been silent till then.
“Of the fact,” he answered, “that sooner or later, one fine morning, I shall die.”
“I am better off than you,” I said. “In addi- tion to that, I have a further conviction, namely, that, one very nasty evening, I had the misfor- tune to be born.”
All the others considered that we were talking nonsense, but indeed not one of them said any- thing more sensible. From that moment we singled each other out amongst the crowd. We used frequently to meet and discuss abstract subjects in a very serious manner, until each observed that the other was throwing dust in his eyes. Then, looking significantly at each other — as, according to Cicero, the Roman augurs used to do — we would burst out laughing heartily and, having had our laugh, we would separate, well content with our evening.
I was lying on a couch, my eyes fixed upon the ceiling and my hands clasped behind my head, when Werner entered my room. He sat down in an easy chair, placed his cane in a corner, yawned, and announced that it was getting hot out of doors. I replied that the flies were bothering me — and we both fell silent.
“Observe, my dear doctor,” I said, “that, but for fools, the world would be a very dull place. Look! Here are you and I, both sensible men! We know beforehand that it is possible to dispute ad infinitum about everything — and so we do not dispute. Each of us knows almost all the other’s secret thoughts: to us a single word is a whole history; we see the grain of every one of our feelings through a threefold husk. What is sad, we laugh at; what is laughable, we grieve at; but, to tell the truth, we are fairly indifferent, generally speaking, to everything except our- selves. Consequently, there can be no inter- change of feelings and thoughts between us; each of us knows all he cares to know about the other, and that knowledge is all he wants. One expedient remains — to tell the news. So tell me some news.”
Fatigued by this lengthy speech, I closed my eyes and yawned. The doctor answered after thinking awhile:
“There is an idea, all the same, in that non- sense of yours.”
“Two,” I replied.
“Tell me one, and I will tell you the other.”
“Very well, begin!” I said, continuing to examine the ceiling and smiling inwardly.
“You are anxious for information about some of the new-comers here, and I can guess who it is, because they, for their part, have already been inquiring about you.”
“Doctor! Decidedly it is impossible for us to hold a conversation! We read into each other’s soul.”
“Now the other idea?” . . .
“Here it is: I wanted to make you relate something, for the following reasons: firstly, listening is less fatiguing than talking; secondly, the listener cannot commit himself; thirdly, he can learn another’s secret; fourthly, sensible people, such as you, prefer listeners to speakers. Now to business; what did Princess Ligovski tell you about me?”
“You are quite sure that it was Princess Ligovski . . . and not Princess Mary?” . . .
“Quite sure.”
“Why?”
“Because Princess Mary inquired about Grush- nitski.”
“You are gifted with a fine imagination! Princess Mary said that she was convinced that the young man in the soldier’s cloak had been reduced to the ranks on account of a duel” . . .
“I hope you left her cherishing that pleasant delusion” . . .
“Of course” . . .
“A plot!” I exclaimed in rapture. “We will make it our business to see to the denouement of this little comedy. It is obvious that fate is taking care that I shall not be bored!”
“I have a presentiment,” said the doctor, “that poor Grushnitski will be your victim.”
“Proceed, doctor.”
“Princess Ligovski said that your face was familiar to her. I observed that she had probably met you in Petersburg — somewhere in society. . . I told her your name. She knew it well. It appears that your history created a great stir there. . . She began to tell us of your adventures, most likely supplementing the gossip of society with observations of her own. . . Her daughter listened with curiosity. In her imagination you have be- come the hero of a novel in a new style. . . I did not contradict Princess Ligovski, although I knew that she was talking nonsense.”
“Worthy friend!” I said, extending my hand to him.
The doctor pressed it feelingly and continued:
“If you like I will present you” . . .
“Good heavens!” I said, clapping my hands. “Are heroes ever presented? In no other way do they make the acquaintance of their beloved than by saving her from certain death!” . . .
“And you really wish to court Princess Mary?”
“Not at all, far from it! . . . Doctor, I triumph at last! You do not understand me! . . . It vexes me, however,” I continued after a moment’s silence. “I never reveal my secrets myself, but I am exceedingly fond of their being guessed, because in that way I can always disavow them upon occasion. However, you must describe both mother and daughter to me. What sort of people are they?”
“In the first place, Princess Ligovski is a woman of forty-five,” answered Werner. “She has a splendid digestion, but her blood is out of order — there are red spots on her cheeks. She has spent the latter half of her life in Moscow, and has grown stout from leading an inactive life there. She loves spicy stories, and sometimes says improper things herself when her daughter is out of the room. She has declared to me that her daughter is as innocent as a dove. What does that matter to me? . . . I was going to answer that she might be at her ease, because I would never tell anyone. Princess Ligovski is taking the cure for her rheumatism, and the daughter, for goodness knows what. I have ordered each of them to drink two tumblers a day of sulphurous water, and to bathe twice a week in the diluted bath. Princess Ligovski is apparently unac- customed to giving orders. She cherishes respect for the intelligence and attainments of her daughter, who has read Byron in English and knows algebra: in Moscow, evidently, the ladies have entered upon the paths of erudition — and a good thing, too! The men here are generally so unamiable, that, for a clever woman, it must be intolerable to flirt with them. Princess Ligovski is very fond of young people; Princess Mary looks on them with a certain contempt — a Moscow habit! In Moscow they cherish only wits of not less than forty.”
“You have been in Moscow, doctor?”
“Yes, I had a practice there.”
“Continue.”
“But I think I have told everything. . . No, there is something else: Princess Mary, it seems, loves to discuss emotions, passions, etcetera. She was in Petersburg for one winter, and disliked it — especially the society: no doubt she was coldly received.”
“You have not seen anyone with them to- day?”
“On the contrary, there was an aide-de-camp, a stiff guardsman, and a lady — one of the latest arrivals, a relation of Princess Ligovski on the husband’s side — very pretty, but apparently very ill. . . Have you not met her at the well? She is of medium height, fair, with regular features; she has the complexion of a con- sumptive, and there is a little black mole on her right cheek. I was struck by the expressiveness of her face.”
“A mole!” I muttered through my teeth. “Is it possible?”
The doctor looked at me, and, laying his hand on my heart, said triumphantly:
“You know her!”
My heart was, in fact, beating more violently than usual.
“It is your turn, now, to triumph,” I said. “But I rely on you: you will not betray me. I have not seen her yet, but I am convinced that I recognise from your portrait a woman whom I loved in the old days. . . Do not speak a word to her about me; if she asks any questions, give a bad report of me.”
“Be it so!” said Werner, shrugging his shoulders.
When he had departed, my heart was com- pressed with terrible grief. Has destiny brought us together again in the Caucasus, or has she come hither on purpose, knowing that she would meet me? . . . And how shall we meet? . . . And then, is it she? . . . My presentiments have never deceived me. There is not a man in the world over whom the past has acquired such a power as over me. Every recollection of bygone grief or joy strikes my soul with morbid effect, and draws forth ever the same sounds. . . I am stupidly constituted: I forget nothing — no- thing!
After dinner, about six o’clock, I went on to the boulevard. It was crowded. The two princesses were sitting on a bench, surrounded by young men, who were vying with each other in paying them attention. I took up my position on another bench at a little distance off, stopped two Dragoon officers whom I knew, and proceeded to tell them something. Evidently it was amusing, because they began to laugh loudly like a couple of mad- men. Some of those who were surrounding
Princess Mary were attracted to my side by curiosity, and gradually all of them left her and joined my circle. I did not stop talking; my anecdotes were clever to the point of absurdity, my jests at the expense of the queer people passing by, malicious to the point of frenzy. I continued to entertain the public till sunset. Princess Mary passed by me a few times, arm-in- arm with her mother, and accompanied by a certain lame old man. A few times her glance as it fell upon me expressed vexation, while en- deavouring to express indifference. . .
“What has he been telling you?” she in- quired of one of the young men, who had gone back to her out of politeness. “No doubt a most interesting story — his own exploits in battle?” . . .
This was said rather loudly, and probably with the intention of stinging me.
“Aha!” I thought to myself. “You are
downright angry, my dear Princess. Wait awhile, there is more to follow.”
Grushnitski kept following her like a beast of prey, and would not let her out of his sight. I wager that to-morrow he will ask somebody to present him to Princess Ligovski. She will be glad, because she is bored.
CHAPTER III
16th May.
IN the course of two days my affairs have gained ground tremendously. Princess Mary positively hates me. Already I have had repeated to me two or three epigrams on the subject of myself — rather caustic, but at the same time very flattering. She finds it exceedingly strange that I, who am accustomed to good society, and am so intimate with her Petersburg cousins and aunts, do not try to make her acquaintance. Every day we meet at the well and on the boule- vard. I exert all my powers to entice away her adorers, glittering aides-de-camp, pale-faced visitors from Moscow, and others — and I almost always succeed. I have always hated entertaining guests: now my house is full every day; they dine, sup, gamble, and alas! my champagne triumphs over the might of Princess Mary’s magnetic eyes!
I met her yesterday in Chelakhov’s shop. She was bargaining for a marvellous Persian rug, and implored her mother not to be niggardly: the rug would be such an ornament to her boudoir. . . I outbid her by forty rubles, and bought it over her head. I was rewarded with a glance in which the most delightful fury sparkled. About dinner- time, I ordered my Circassian horse, covered with that very rug, purposely to be led past her windows. Werner was with the princesses at the time, and told me that the effect of the scene was most dramatic. Princess Mary wishes to preach a crusade against me, and I have even noticed that, already, two of the aides-de-camp salute me very coldly, when they are in her pre- sence — they dine with me every day, however.
Grushnitski has assumed an air of mystery; he walks with his arms folded behind his back and does not recognise anyone. His foot has got well all at once, and there is hardly a sign of a limp. He has found an opportunity of entering into conversation with Princess Ligovski and of paying Princess Mary some kind of a compliment. The latter is evidently not very fastidious, for, ever since, she answers his bow with a most charming smile.
“Are you sure you do not wish to make the Ligovskis’ acquaintance?” he said to me yester- day.
“Positive.”
“Good gracious! The pleasantest house at the waters! All the best society of Pyatigorsk is to be found there” . . .
“My friend, I am terribly tired of even other society than that of Pyatigorsk. So you visit the Ligovskis?”
“Not yet. I have spoken to Princess Mary once or twice, but that is all. You know it is rather awkward to go and visit them without being invited, although that is the custom here. . . It would be a different matter if I was wearing epaulettes” . . .
“Good heavens! Why, you are much more interesting as it is! You simply do not know how to avail yourself of your advantageous position. . . Why, that soldier’s cloak makes a hero and a martyr of you in the eyes of any lady of senti- ment!”
Grushnitski smiled complacently.
“What nonsense!” he said.
“I am convinced,” I continued, “that Princess Mary is in love with you already.”
He blushed up to the ears and looked big.
Oh, vanity! Thou art the lever with which Archimedes was to lift the earthly sphere! . . .
“You are always jesting!” he said, pretending to be angry. “In the first place, she knows so little of me as yet” . . .
“Women love only those whom they do not know!”
“But I have no pretensions whatsoever to pleasing her. I simply wish to make the ac- quaintance of an agreeable household; and it would be extremely ridiculous if I were to cherish the slightest hope. . . With you, now, for instance, it is a different matter! You Petersburg con- querors! You have but to look — and women melt. . . But do you know, Pechorin, what Princess Mary said of you?” . . .
“What? She has spoken to you already
about me?” . . .
“Do not rejoice too soon, though. The other day, by chance, I entered into conversation with her at the well; her third word was, ‘Who is that gentleman with such an unpleasant, heavy glance? He was with you when’ . . . she
blushed, and did not like to mention the day, remembering her own delightful little exploit. ‘You need not tell me what day it was,’ I answered; ‘it will ever be present to my memory!’ . . . Pechorin, my friend, I cannot congratulate you, you are in her black books. . . And, indeed, it is a pity, because Mary is a charming girl!” . . .
It must be observed that Grushnitski is one of those men who, in speaking of a woman with whom they are barely acquainted, call her my Mary, my Sophie, if she has had the good fortune to please them.
I assumed a serious air and answered:
“Yes, she is good-looking. . . Only be care- ful, Grushnitski! Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing. Princess Mary seems to be one of those women who want to be amused. If she is bored in your company for two minutes on end — you are lost irrevocably. Your silence ought to excite her curiosity, your con- versation ought never to satisfy it completely; you should alarm her every minute; ten times, in public, she will slight people’s opinion for you and will call that a sacrifice, and, in order to requite herself for it, she will torment you. Afterwards she will simply say that she cannot endure you. If you do not acquire authority over her, even her first kiss will not give you the right to a second. She will flirt with you to her heart’s content, and, in two years’ time, she will marry a monster, in obedience to her mother, and will assure herself that she is unhappy, that she has loved only one man — that is to say, you — but that Heaven was not willing to unite her to him because he wore a soldier’s cloak, although beneath that thick, grey cloak beat a heart, passionate and noble” . . .
Grushnitski smote the table with his fist and fell to walking to and fro across the room.
I laughed inwardly and even smiled once or twice, but fortunately he did not notice. It is evident that he is in love, because he has grown even more confiding than heretofore. Moreover, a ring has made its appearance on his finger, a silver ring with black enamel of local workman- ship. It struck me as suspicious. . . I began to examine it, and what do you think I saw? The name Mary was engraved on the inside in small letters, and in a line with the name was the date on which she had picked up the famous tumbler. I kept my discovery a secret. I do not want to force confessions from him, I want him, of his own accord, to choose me as his confidant — and then I will enjoy myself! . . .
. . . . .
To-day I rose late. I went to the well. I found nobody there. The day grew hot. White, shaggy cloudlets were flitting rapidly from the snow-clad mountains, giving promise of a thunder- storm; the summit of Mount Mashuk was
smoking like a just extinguished torch; grey wisps of cloud were coiling and creeping like snakes around it, arrested in their rapid sweep and, as it were, hooked to its prickly brushwood. The atmosphere was charged with electricity. I plunged into the avenue of the vines leading to the grotto.
I felt low-spirited. I was thinking of the lady with the little mole on her cheek, of whom the doctor had spoken to me. . . “Why is she here?” I thought. “And is it she? And what reason have I for thinking it is? And why am I so certain of it? Is there not many a woman with a mole on her cheek?” Reflecting in such wise I came right up to the grotto. I looked in and I saw that a woman, wearing a straw hat and wrapped in a black shawl, was sitting on a stone seat in the cold shade of the arch. Her head was sunk upon her breast, and the hat covered her face. I was just about to turn back, in order not to disturb her meditations, when she glanced at me.
“Vera!” I exclaimed involuntarily.
She started and turned pale.
“I knew that you were here,” she said.
I sat down beside her and took her hand. A long-forgotten tremor ran through my veins at the sound of that dear voice. She gazed into my face with her deep, calm eyes. Mistrust and something in the nature of reproach were ex- pressed in her glance.
“We have not seen each other for a long time,” I said.
“A long time, and we have both changed in many ways.”
“Consequently you love me no longer?” . . .
“I am married!” . . . she said.
“Again? A few years ago, however, that reason also existed, but, nevertheless” . . .
She plucked her hand away from mine and her cheeks flamed.
“Perhaps you love your second husband?” . . .
She made no answer and turned her head away.
“Or is he very jealous?”
She remained silent.
“What then? He is young, handsome and, I suppose, rich — which is the chief thing — and you are afraid?” . . .
I glanced at her and was alarmed. Profound despair was depicted upon her countenance; tears were glistening in her eyes.
“Tell me,” she whispered at length, “do you find it very amusing to torture me? I ought to hate you. Since we have known each other, you have given me naught but suffering” . . .
Her voice shook; she leaned over to me, and let her head sink upon my breast.
“Perhaps,” I reflected, “it is for that very reason that you have loved me; joys are forgotten, but sorrows never” . . .
I clasped her closely to my breast, and so we remained for a long time. At length our lips drew closer and became blent in a fervent, intoxicating kiss. Her hands were cold as ice; her head was burning.
And hereupon we embarked upon one of those conversations which, on paper, have no sense, which it is impossible to repeat, and impossible even to retain in memory. The meaning of the sounds replaces and completes the meaning of the words, as in Italian opera.
She is decidedly averse to my making the acquaintance of her husband, the lame old man of whom I had caught a glimpse on the boulevard. She married him for the sake of her son. He is rich, and suffers from attacks of rheumatism. I did not allow myself even a single scoff at his expense. She respects him as a father, and will deceive him as a husband. . . A strange thing, the human heart in general, and woman’s heart in particular.
Vera’s husband, Semyon Vasilevich G—-v, is a distant relation of Princess Ligovski. He lives next door to her. Vera frequently visits the Princess. I have given her my promise to make the Ligovskis’ acquaintance, and to pay court to Princess Mary in order to distract attention from Vera. In such way, my plans have been not a little deranged, but it will be amusing for me. . .
Amusing! . . . Yes, I have already passed that period of spiritual life when happiness alone is sought, when the heart feels the urgent necessity of violently and passionately loving somebody. Now my only wish is to be loved, and that by very few. I even think that I would be content with one constant attachment. A
wretched habit of the heart! . . .
One thing has always struck me as strange. I have never made myself the slave of the woman I have loved. On the contrary, I have always acquired an invincible power over her will and heart, without in the least endeavouring to do so. Why is this? Is it because I never esteem any- thing highly, and she has been continually afraid to let me out of her hands? Or is it the magnetic influence of a powerful organism? Or is it, simply, that I have never succeeded in meeting a woman of stubborn character?
I must confess that, in fact, I do not love women who possess strength of character. What business have they with such a thing?
Indeed, I remember now. Once and once only did I love a woman who had a firm will which I was never able to vanquish. . . We parted as enemies — and then, perhaps, if I had met her five years later we would have parted other- wise. . .
Vera is ill, very ill, although she does not admit it. I fear she has consumption, or that disease which is called “fievre lente” — a quite un- Russian disease, and one for which there is no name in our language.
The storm overtook us while in the grotto and detained us half an hour longer. Vera did not make me swear fidelity, or ask whether I had loved others since we had parted. . . She trusted in me anew with all her former unconcern, and I will not deceive her: she is the only woman in the world whom it would never be within my power to deceive. I know that we shall soon have to part again, and perchance for ever. We will both go by different ways to the grave, but her memory will remain inviolable within my soul. I have always repeated this to her, and she believes me, although she says she does not.
At length we separated. For a long time I followed her with my eyes, until her hat was hidden behind the shrubs and rocks. My heart was painfully contracted, just as after our first parting. Oh, how I rejoiced in that emotion! Can it be that youth is about to come back to me, with its salutary tempests, or is this only the fare- well glance, the last gift — in memory of itself? . . . And to think that, in appearance, I am still a boy! My face, though pale, is still fresh; my limbs are supple and slender; my hair is thick and curly, my eyes sparkle, my blood boils. . .
Returning home, I mounted on horseback and galloped to the steppe. I love to gallop on a fiery horse through the tall grass, in the face of the desert wind; greedily I gulp down the fragrant air and fix my gaze upon the blue distance, endeavouring to seize the misty outlines of objects which every minute grow clearer and clearer. Whatever griefs oppress my heart, whatever disquietudes torture my thoughts — all are dispersed in a moment; my soul becomes at ease; the fatigue of the body vanquishes the disturbance of the mind. There is not a woman’s glance which I would not forget at the sight of the tufted mountains, illumined by the southern sun; at the sight of the dark-blue sky, or in hearkening to the roar of the torrent as it falls from cliff to cliff.
I believe that the Cossacks, yawning on their watch-towers, when they saw me galloping thus needlessly and aimlessly, were long tormented by that enigma, because from my dress, I am sure, they took me to be a Circassian. I have, in fact, been told that when riding on horseback, in my Circassian costume, I resemble a Kabardian more than many a Kabardian himself. And, indeed, so far as regards that noble, warlike garb, I am a perfect dandy. I have not a single piece of gold lace too much; my weapon is costly, but simply wrought; the fur on my cap is neither too long nor too short; my leggings and shoes are matched with all possible accuracy; my tunic is white; my Circassian jacket, dark-brown. I have long studied the mountaineer seat on horseback, and in no way is it possible to flatter my vanity so much as by acknowledging my skill in horsemanship in the Cossack mode. I keep four horses — one for myself and three for my friends, so that I may not be bored by having to roam about the fields all alone; they take my horses with pleasure, and never ride with me.
It was already six o’clock in the evening, when I remembered that it was time to dine. My horse was jaded. I rode out on to the road leading from Pyatigorsk to the German colony, to which the society of the watering-place frequently rides en piquenique. The road meanders between bushes and descends into little ravines, through which flow noisy brooks beneath the shade of tall grasses. All around, in an amphitheatre, rise the blue masses of Mount Beshtau and the Zmeiny, Zhelezny and Lysy Mountains.[1] Descending into one of those ravines, I halted to water my horse. At that moment a noisy and glittering cavalcade made its appearance upon the road — the ladies in black and dark-blue riding habits, the cavaliers in costumes which formed a medley of the Circassian and Nizhegorodian.[2] In front rode Grushnitski with Princess Mary.
[1] The Snake, the Iron and the Bald Mountains.
[2] Nizhegorod is the “government” of which Nizhniy- Novgorod is the capital.
The ladies at the watering-place still believe in attacks by Circassians in broad daylight; for that reason, doubtless, Grushnitski had slung a sabre and a pair of pistols over his soldier’s cloak. He looked ridiculous enough in that heroic attire.
I was concealed from their sight by a tall bush, but I was able to see everything through the leaves, and to guess from the expression of their faces that the conversation was of a sentimental turn. At length they approached the slope; Grushnitski took hold of the bridle of the Princess’s horse, and then I heard the conclusion of their conversation:
“And you wish to remain all your life in the Caucasus?” said Princess Mary.
“What is Russia to me?” answered her
cavalier. “A country in which thousands of people, because they are richer than I, will look upon me with contempt, whilst here — here this thick cloak has not prevented my acquaintance with you” . . .
“On the contrary” . . . said Princess Mary, blushing.
Grushnitski’s face was a picture of delight. He continued:
“Here, my life will flow along noisily, un- observed, and rapidly, under the bullets of the savages, and if Heaven were every year to send me a single bright glance from a woman’s eyes — like that which –“
At that moment they came up to where I was. I struck my horse with the whip and rode out from behind the bush. . .
“Mon Dieu, un circassien!” . . . exclaimed Princess Mary in terror.