A Hero of Our Time (26 page)

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Authors: Mikhail Lermontov

Tags: #Fiction, #Classics, #Historical, #Literary

BOOK: A Hero of Our Time
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I continued, “Therefore, you cannot love me . . .”
She turned away, leaned her elbows on the table, and covered her eyes with her hand, and it seemed to me that they glistened with tears.
“My God!” she uttered, barely distinguishably.
This was becoming unbearable—in a minute I would fall to her feet.
“So, as you can see yourself,” I said, with as firm a voice as I could, and a forced grin, “you can see for yourself that I cannot marry you; even if you might want this right now, you would soon rue it. My conversation with your mama has forced me to clarify this so plainly and grossly. I hope that she is in error. It will be easy for you to persuade her to the contrary. You see, in your eyes, I am playing the most pitiful and vile role, and I am even admitting to it. This is all I can do for you. Whatever bad opinion you hold of me, I submit to it . . . You see, I am lowly before you. Isn’t it true that even if at one time you loved me, that from this minute you despise me?”
She turned to me, pale as marble—only her eyes sparkled marvelously.
“I hate you,” she said.
I thanked her, bowed politely, and left.
An hour later, a courier
troika
was rushing me from Kislovodsk. A few
verst
s from Essentukov I recognized the corpse of my spirited horse near the road. The saddle was removed—probably by passing Cossacks—and instead of the saddle, on his back stood two crows. I exhaled and turned away . . .
And now, here, in this boring fortress, I often ask myself, running through thoughts of the past: why didn’t I want to follow the path opened to me by fate, where quiet happiness and spiritual peace awaited me? . . . No, such a fate wouldn’t have agreed with me! I am like a sailor, born and bred on the deck of a pirate ship. His soul has got used to storms and battles, and, when thrown ashore, he pines and languishes much as the shady groves beckon him, much as the peaceful sun shines at him. He walks along the coastal sands all day, listening to the monotonous murmur of the lapping waves and peering into the cloudy distance: is that the sail he seeks, on the pale line that separates the blue deep from the little gray storm clouds—at first resembling the wing of a seagull, but little by little, separating from the foam of the boulders, with a steady approach toward the deserted jetty . . .
3
THE FATALIST
I once happened to spend two weeks in a Cossack
stanitsa
1
on the left flank. An infantry battalion was stationed there. The officers gathered in one another’s quarters in turns, and played cards.
Once, we stayed up late at Major S—’s, having become bored with Boston
2
and thrown the cards under the table. The conversation was, for once, entertaining. We were discussing the Muslim belief that apparently says the fate of a man is written in the sky; this also finds many believers among us Christians. Each of us was recounting various unusual occurrences,
pro
and
contra
.
“All this, gentlemen, doesn’t prove anything,” said the old major. “Indeed, none of you have borne witness to these strange occurrences with which you are shoring up your opinions.”
“None of us has, of course,” the men said, “but we have heard these things from trusted people . . .”
“All this is nonsense!” someone said. “Where are these trusted people, who have seen this list that tells us the appointed hour of our death? . . . And if there is definitely such thing as predestination—why were we given free will, and reason? Why should we atone for our actions?”
At this time, an officer who had been sitting in the corner of the room stood and walked slowly up to the table, throwing a cool glance at the company. He was a Serbian type, which was evident from his name.
The exterior of Lieutenant Vulich corresponded entirely with his character. His great height and the dark complexion of his face, his black hair, his black and penetrating eyes, a big but straight nose (characteristic of his nation), a sad and cold smile eternally roaming on his lips—all this seemed to coordinate itself in giving him the look of a special being, not able to share thoughts and passions with those whom fate had given him to be his comrades.
He was brave, spoke little but incisively; he did not entrust anyone with the secrets of his spirit or family. He hardly drank wine, never pursued young Cossack girls—the charms of whom it is difficult to imagine without seeing them. They used to say, however, that the wife of the colonel was not indifferent to his expressive eyes. But he became seriously angry when you hinted at this.
There was only one passion that he didn’t hide: a passion for gambling. At the green table he forgot everything, and usually lost. But constant losses only aggravated his stubborn nature. They say that once, during a night expedition, he was keeping bank on his pillow, and he was having terrific luck. Suddenly shots rang out, an alarm was raised, everyone jumped up and dashed to their guns.
“Stake the bank!” cried Vulich to one of the hottest betters, without getting up.
“Sevens,” replied the other, running off. Disregarding the general chaos, Vulich shuffled the double-deck of cards, and the card was dealt.
When he appeared on the front line, there was already a fierce gunfight in progress. Vulich didn’t bother himself about the bullets, or the Chechen sabers. He was looking for his lucky punter.
“Seven it is!” he cried, finding him at last in the line of skirmishers, which had started to force the enemy out of the forest. Walking closer, he pulled out his coin-purse and wallet and gave them both to the lucky man, not paying attention to objections about the inappropriateness of the payment. Having fulfilled this unpleasant debt, he threw himself forward, carrying the soldiers along and fired back and forth with the Chechens with a cold and calm head, until the end.
When Lieutenant Vulich walked up to the table, everyone fell silent, expecting some original trick from him.
“Gentlemen!” he said (his voice was calm, even though his tone was lower than usual). “Gentlemen! What is this empty argument? You want proof: I suggest you put this to the test yourselves. Perhaps there is a person who will exercise his will and put their life at our disposal, or is a fateful minute affixed to each of us beforehand . . . Who is game?”
“Not me, not me,” resounded from every side. “What a crank! The things that enter his head!”
“I’ll make a wager!” I said, joking.
“Which one?”
“I assert that predestination does not exist,” I said, pouring some two dozen gold pieces onto the table—everything that was in my pocket.
“I’ll take it,” replied Vulich in a muffled voice. “Major, you will be the judge; here are fifteen gold pieces, the remaining five you owe me, and please do me the kindness of adding them to this.”
“I will,” said the major, “only I don’t understand, really, what is happening, and how you will decide the matter?”
Vulich went into the major’s sleeping quarters without saying anything; we followed him. He walked up to a wall where some guns were hanging. At random he took down one of the variously calibered pistols from its nail; we still didn’t understand him but when he cocked the gun and poured gunpowder into the pan, many couldn’t help but cry out, and they grabbed his arms.
“What do you want to do? Listen, this is madness!” they screamed at him.
“Gentlemen!” he said slowly, freeing his hands. “Whom would it please to pay twenty gold pieces on my behalf?”
Everyone went quiet and stepped away.
Vulich walked into the other room and sat at the table. Everyone followed him. With a gesture, he invited us to sit down in a circle. Silently we obeyed him. At that moment he had acquired some kind of secret power over us. I looked him intently in the eye. With a calm and motionless gaze, he met my searching look, and his pale lips smiled. But, despite his composure, it seemed to me that I could read the stamp of death on his pale face. I had been making observations, and many old soldiers had confirmed my observations, that there is often some sort of strange imprint of inescapable fate on the face of a man who would die in a few hours’ time, so much so that to an experienced eye it is hard to mistake.
“You will die today!” I said to him.
He turned quickly to me, but answered slowly and calmly:
“Maybe yes, maybe no . . .” And then, addressing the major, he asked, “Is the pistol loaded?” The major in confusion couldn’t remember very well.
“Yes, it is, Vulich!” someone cried. “Of course it’s loaded if it’s hanging at the head of the bed—why play the fool?”
“A stupid joke!” another chimed in.
“I’ll wager fifty rubles to five that the pistol isn’t loaded!” a third cried out.
New bets were made.
I was becoming fed up with this long ceremony.
“Listen,” I said, “either shoot yourself or hang the pistol back in its former place and let’s all go to bed.”
“Of course,” many exclaimed, “let’s all go to bed.”
“Gentlemen, I ask you to not move from your places!” said Vulich, putting the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead. Everyone seemed to turn to stone.
“Mr. Pechorin,” he added, “take a card and throw it up.”
I took, as I remember it now, an ace of hearts from the table and threw it upward; everyone’s breathing stopped; all eyes, showing fear and a sort of ambiguous curiosity, ran between the pistol and the fateful ace, which quivered in the air and slowly fell. The moment it touched the table, Vulich pulled the trigger . . . a misfire!
“Thank God!” many cried out. “It wasn’t loaded!”
“But, let’s see . . .” said Vulich. He cocked the gun again and took aim at a military cap hanging above the window. A shot rang out—the smoke filled the room. When it dissipated, they took down the military cap: it was shot right through the middle, and the bullet was lodged deeply in the wall.
About three minutes passed, and no one could utter a word. Vulich poured my gold pieces into his purse.
There was talk about the fact that the pistol didn’t fire the first time; some maintained that the pan had probably been clogged, others were saying in whispers that the gunpowder was damp the first time and that Vulich had poured some fresh powder into it afterward. But I claimed that the latter suggestion was unfounded, because I hadn’t taken my eyes from the pistol once.
“You are lucky in gambling,” I said to Vulich.
“For the first time since I was born,” he replied, smiling with self-satisfaction. “This is better than faro
3
and stuss.”
4
“And a little more dangerous, too.”
“What’s this? Are you starting to believe in predestination?”
“I believe in it; but I don’t understand why I was so certain that you would die today . . .”
And the man, who had aimed so coolly at his own forehead not long ago, now suddenly blushed and became embarrassed.
“Enough now!” he said, standing up. “Our wager has been settled, and now your observations, I think, are inappropriate . . .” He took his hat and walked out. This seemed strange to me—and for good reason!
Soon everyone dispersed to their houses, variously talking about Vulich’s caprice and, probably, unanimously calling me an egoist since I had made a wager with a man who wanted to shoot himself. As if, without me, he wouldn’t have found a convenient occasion!
I was returning home along the empty lanes of the
stanitsa;
the moon, full and red, like the glow of a fire, was beginning to show itself from behind the jagged horizon of houses. The stars calmly shone in the dark-blue vault of the sky, and I was amused to remember that there were once very sage people who thought that heavenly bodies took part in our insignificant arguments over little tufts of earth or over various invented rights . . . ! And what happened? These lamps which were lit, in their opinion in order to illuminate their battles and victories, still burn with their original brilliance, while their own passions and hopes were extinguished long ago along with their very selves, like small fires lit at the edge of a wood by a careless wanderer! And then what force of will gave them the conviction that the whole sky, with its innumerable population, was watching them with constant concern, mute though it may have been! . . . And we, their pitiful descendants, wandering the earth without conviction or pride, without pleasure or fear, but with that involuntary dread that grips the heart at the thought of an inescapable end—we are no longer able to be great martyrs, not for the good of mankind, nor even for the sake of our own happiness, because we know it is impossible. And we shift indifferently from one doubt to another, just as our ancestors rushed from one delusion to the next, but without having, as they did, either hope or even that indeterminate but real pleasure that meets the soul in every struggle with people or fate . . .
Many similar such thoughts passed through my mind, and I didn’t suppress them because I don’t like to dwell on any sort of abstract thought. Where would that lead me? . . . In my early youth I was a dreamer, I loved to cherish gloomy and iridescent images in turn, which my restless and thirsty imagination painted for me. But what did this leave me with? Only fatigue, like that which comes after a nocturnal battle with a specter, and dim recollections, filled with regret. In this pointless struggle I exhausted both the fire of my soul and the constancy of my will, both necessary for a real life. I then set about living this life, having survived it already in my thoughts, and I became bored and repulsed, like a man who is reading a stupid imitation of a book with which he has long been familiar.

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