A Hero of Our Time (24 page)

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Authors: Mikhail Lermontov

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

BOOK: A Hero of Our Time

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I pulled out my timepiece and showed it to him.

He apologized, saying that his watch was running fast.

An embarrassing silence endured for several minutes. Finally the doctor broke it, addressing himself to Grushnitsky.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that, having both demonstrated a readiness to fight and having paid these debts to the conditions of honor, you could both, gentlemen, make yourselves understood now and end this matter amicably.”

“I am willing,” I said.

The captain winked at Grushnitsky, and the latter, thinking I was being a coward, assumed a proud air, though until this minute a dull pallor had spread over his cheeks. For the first time since we arrived, he raised his eyes to me. But there was some sort of unrest in his gaze, indicating an inner struggle.

“Clarify your conditions,” he said, “and I will do everything that I can for you, you may rest assured . . .”

“Here are my conditions: that you now publicly retract your slander and ask my forgiveness . . .”

“Gracious sir, I am astonished that you deign to propose such things to me.”

“What could I propose to you otherwise?”

“We will shoot . . .”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“As you please, only remember that one of us will certainly be killed.”

“Would that it were you . . .”

“And I feel assured of the opposite . . .”

He became embarrassed, turned red, then laughed forcedly.

The captain took him by the arm and led him off to the side. They whispered for a long time. I had arrived in a rather peaceable mood, but all this was starting to madden me.

The doctor walked up to me.

“Listen,” he said with evident anxiety. “I suppose you have forgotten about their plot? . . . I don’t know how to load a pistol, but if it comes to that . . . You are a strange man! Tell them that you know their intentions, and they won’t dare . . . What is this—hunting? They’ll shoot you like a bird . . .”

“Please, don’t worry, doctor, and wait . . . I will arrange it all so that there is no advantage to their side. Let them whisper . . .”

“Gentlemen, this is getting tiresome!” I said to them loudly. “If we’re going to fight then let’s fight. You had time yesterday to discuss the matter in its entirety.”

“We are ready,” the captain answered.

“Take your positions, gentlemen! . . . Doctor, measure six paces, if you please.”

“Take your positions!” repeated Ivan Ignatievitch in a squeaky voice.

“Allow me!” I said, “. . . one more condition. Since we are fighting to the death, then we are obliged to do everything possible to make sure that this remains secret and that our seconds aren’t held responsible. Do you all agree?”

“Absolutely agreed.”

“So, this is what I have devised. Do you see, at the top of that sheer rock-face on the right, there is a narrow platform? From there to the bottom would be about thirty
sazhens,
if not more. Below, there are sharp rocks. Each of us will stand at the edge of the platform—this way, even a light wound will be fatal. This should complement your wishes, since you yourselves set six paces. Whoever is wounded will fly to the bottom without fail and will smash into smithereens. The doctor will extract the bullet, and then this sudden death can be easily explained by an unfortunate leap. We will cast lots to decide who shoots first. I inform you of my inference that I won’t otherwise fight.”

“As you please!” said the dragoon captain, having looked over at Grushnitsky expressively, who himself nodded his head as a sign of agreement. His face was changing by the minute. I had put him in a difficult situation. Shooting under the usual conditions, he could have aimed at my leg and lightly wounded me, and satisfied his revenge in this way without burdening his conscience too much. But now, he had to shoot at the air, or commit murder, or, finally, abandon his vile scheme and be subjected to an equal danger to mine. At that moment, I wouldn’t have wished to be in his place. He led the captain aside and started to talk to him about something with great heat. I saw how his lips were turning blue and trembling. But the captain turned away from him with a contemptuous smile. “You are a fool!” he said to Grushnitsky rather loudly. “You don’t understand anything! Let us be off gentlemen!”

The narrow path led between bushes on the slope; the loose steps of this natural staircase were made up of debris from the rock face; hanging on to the shrubs, we started to clamber up. Grushnitsky walked at the front, his seconds behind him, and then the doctor and me.

“You surprise me,” said the doctor, taking me firmly by the hand. “Let me take your pulse! . . . Oho! A fever! . . . But nothing is evident from the face . . . only your eyes are shining more brightly than usual.”

Suddenly, small rocks started noisily rolling down toward our feet. What was this? The branch that Grushnitsky had been holding onto had snapped; he slipped, and he would have slid down to the bottom on his back, had his seconds not held him up.

“Be careful!” I cried to him. “Don’t fall before it’s time—it’s a bad omen. Remember Julius Caesar!”

We had just climbed to the top of the bluff. The little platform was covered with a fine sand, as though designed for the purposes of a duel. The mountain summits clustered like an innumerable flock all around us, disappearing in the golden clouds of the morning; the white bulk of Elbrus rose up in the south, a lock in the chain of icy pinnacles; stringy clouds, racing in from the east, wandered among the peaks. I went up to the edge of the little platform, looked down, and my head was almost spinning—it looked cold and dark down there, like a grave. The mossy jagged edges of rock, scattered by thunderstorm and time, were awaiting their spoils.

The little platform on which we were meant to fight made a nearly perfect triangle. They measured six paces from the protruding corner and decided that the first of us to whom it would come to face unfriendly fire would stand in that corner, with his back to the edge. If he wasn’t killed then the opponents would switch places.

I had decided to give Grushnitsky every advantage. I wanted to test him. Perhaps a spark of magnanimity would be awakened in his soul, and then everything would turn out for the best; but vanity and weakness of character were to be victorious . . . I wanted to give myself full rights to have no mercy on him, if fate would pardon me. Who hasn’t negotiated such conditions with their conscience?

“Cast lots, Doctor!” said the captain.

The doctor pulled a silver coin out of his pocket and held it up.

“Tails!” cried Grushnitsky, hurriedly, like a man who has been suddenly wakened by a friendly nudge.

“Heads!” I said.

The coin soared up and fell ringing. Everyone rushed toward it.

“You are lucky,” I said to Grushnitsky. “You shoot first! But remember that if you don’t kill me, then I won’t miss. I give you my honest word.”

He blushed. He was ashamed to kill an unarmed man. I looked at him intently. For about a minute it seemed to me that he would throw himself at my feet, begging forgiveness. But how could you admit to such a vile scheme? One means remained for him—to shoot into the air. I was sure that he would shoot into the air! Just one thing could prevent this: the thought that I would request a second duel.

“It’s time,” the doctor whispered to me, tugging me by the sleeve. “If you don’t now say that we know their intentions, then everything is lost. Look, he is already loading . . . if you don’t say something then I will . . .”

“Not for anything in the world, doctor!” I answered, holding him back by the arm. “You will ruin everything. You gave me your word that you wouldn’t get in my way . . . What is it to you? Perhaps I want to be killed . . .”

He looked at me in surprise.

“Oh, that is another matter! . . . Only don’t complain about me in the next world . . .”

Meanwhile the captain was loading his pistols; he handed one to Grushnitsky, whispering something to him with a little smile; and handed the other to me.

I stood in the corner of the little platform, having tightly wedged my left foot against a rock and leaning a little forward so that in the event of a light wound I would not topple backward.

Grushnitsky stood opposite me, and when given the signal he began to raise his pistol. His knees were shaking. He aimed straight at my forehead . . .

An indescribable rage started boiling in my breast. Suddenly he lowered the muzzle of the pistol and, turning pale as a sheet, turned to his second.

“I can’t,” he said in a dull voice.

“Coward!” the captain responded.

A shot rang out. The bullet scratched my knee. I couldn’t help taking a few steps forward, to move away from the edge as soon as possible.

“Well, brother Grushnitsky, too bad that you missed!” said the captain. “Now it’s your turn: take up your position! Embrace me first: we won’t see each other again!”

They embraced; the captain could barely keep himself from laughing. “Don’t be afraid,” he added, slyly looking at Grushnitsky. “Everything on earth is nonsense! . . . Nature is a fool, fate is a turkey, and life is a
kopeck
!”

With this tragic phrase, delivered with decorous importance, he walked to his place. Grushnitsky was then also embraced by a teary-eyed Ivan Ignatievitch and then remained alone before me. I am still trying to explain to myself what kind of feeling was agitating then in my breast: it was the vexation of insulted vanity, and contempt, and anger, borne of the thought that this man, looking at me now with such assurance, with such calm impertinence, had, but two minutes ago, without exposing himself to any danger, wanted to kill me like a dog, for if he had wounded me a little more forcefully, I would have definitely fallen from the crag.

I looked him intently in the face for several minutes, trying to note at least a faint trace of repentance. But it seemed to me that he was holding back a smile.

“I advise you to pray to God before you die,” I said to him then.

“Don’t worry more about my soul than your own. Just one thing I’ll ask of you: fire sooner.”

“And you don’t retract your slander? You won’t ask my forgiveness? . . . Think now, isn’t your conscience telling you something?”

“Mr. Pechorin!” cried the dragoon captain. “You are not here to hear a confession, allow me to remark . . . Let us be done with this. Suppose someone were to pass through the gully—and were to see us.”

“Very good, doctor, come here.”

The doctor approached. The poor doctor! He was paler than Grushnitsky had been ten or so minutes ago.

I pronounced the following words purposefully, with pauses, loudly and distinctly, just as they pronounce death sentences:

“Doctor, these gentlemen, likely in haste, have forgotten to put a bullet in my pistol. I ask you to load it again—and well!”

“It’s not possible!” cried the captain. “It’s not possible! I loaded both pistols. Unless, perhaps the ball rolled out of yours . . . and that’s not my fault! But you don’t have the right to reload . . . no right . . . this is completely against the rules, and I don’t allow it . . .”

“Good!” I said to the captain, “if that is so, then you and I will shoot under the very same conditions . . .” He stopped short.

Grushnitsky stood, having lowered his head onto his breast, embarrassed and dismal.

“Let them!” he said finally to the captain, who wanted to pull my pistol from the doctor’s hands . . . “You know yourself that they are right.”

In vain, the captain was making various signals to him—and Grushnitsky didn’t want to look.

In the meantime, the doctor had loaded the pistol and given it to me. Having seen this, the captain spat and stamped his foot.

“You are such a fool, brother,” he said. “A vulgar fool! . . . Since you put yourself in my hands you should listen to me in everything . . . It serves you right! Die, like a fly . . .”

He turned and walked off, muttering, “And anyway, this is completely against the rules.”

“Grushnitsky!” I said. “There is still time. Retract your slander, and I will forgive you everything. You didn’t succeed in fooling me, and my vanity is satisfied—remember, we were once friends . . .”

His face flared up, his eyes sparkled.

“Shoot!” he answered. “I despise myself, and I hate you. If you don’t kill me, I will stab you from around a corner one night. There isn’t room on this earth for both of us . . .”

I shot . . .

When the smoke had dissipated, there was no Grushnitsky on the platform. Only a light pillar of dust still curled up at the edge of the precipice.

Everyone cried out in one voice.

“É finita la commedia!”
²¹I said to the doctor.

He didn’t reply and turned away in horror.

I shrugged my shoulders and exchanged bows with Grushnitsky’s seconds.