A Hero of Our Time by M. Y. Lermontov (best ereader for pdf .txt) 📖

helped us to forget the modest number of dishes — of which there was one, all told. Then we lit our pipes, took our chairs, and sat down — I by the window, and he by the stove, in which a fire had been lighted because the day was damp and cold. We remained silent. What had we to talk about? He had already told me all that was of interest about himself and I had nothing to relate. I looked out of the window. Here and there, behind the trees, I caught glimpses of a number of poor, low houses straggling along the bank of the Terek, which flowed seaward in an ever-widening stream; farther off rose the dark-blue, jagged wall of the mountains, behind which Mount Kazbek gazed forth in his high-priest’s hat of white. I took a mental farewell of them; I felt sorry to leave them…

Thus we sat for a considerable time. The sun was sinking behind the cold summits and a whitish mist was beginning to spread over the valleys, when the silence was broken by the jingling of the bell of a travelling-carriage and the shouting of drivers in the street. A few vehicles, accompanied by dirty Armenians, drove into the courtyard of the inn, and behind them came an empty travelling-carriage. Its light movement, comfortable arrangement, and elegant appearance gave it a kind of foreign stamp. Be-hind it walked a man with large moustaches. He was wearing a Hungarian jacket and was rather well dressed for a manservant. From the bold manner in which he shook the ashes out of his pipe and shouted at the coachman it was impossible to mistake his calling. He was obviously the spoiled servant of an indolent master — something in the nature of a Russian Figaro.

“Tell me, my good man,” I called to him out of the window. “What is it? — Has the ‘Adventure’ arrived, eh?”

He gave me a rather insolent glance, straightened his cravat, and turned away. An Armenian, who was walking near him, smiled and answered for him that the “Adventure” had, in fact, arrived, and would start on the return journey the following morning.

“Thank heavens!” said Maksim Maksimych, who had come up to the window at that moment. “What a wonderful carriage!” he added; “probably it belongs to some official who is going to Tiflis for a judicial inquiry. You can see that he is unacquainted with our little mountains! No, my friend, you’re not serious! They are not for the like of you; why, they would shake even an English carriage to bits! — But who could it be? Let us go and find out.”

We went out into the corridor, at the end of which there was an open door leading into a side room. The manservant and a driver were dragging portmanteaux into the room.

“I say, my man!” the staff-captain asked him: “Whose is that marvellous carriage? — Eh? — A beautiful carriage!”

Without turning round the manservant growled something to himself as he undid a portmanteau. Maksim Maksimych grew angry.

“I am speaking to you, my friend!” he said, touching the uncivil fellow on the shoulder.

“Whose carriage? — My master’s.”

“And who is your master?”

“Pechorin —”

“What did you say? What? Pechorin? — Great Heavens! … Did he not serve in the Caucasus?” exclaimed Maksim Maksimych, plucking me by the sleeve. His eyes were sparkling with joy.

“Yes, he served there, I think — but I have not been with him long.”

“Well! Just so! … Just so! … Grigori Aleksandrovich? … that is his name, of course? Your master and I were friends,” he added, giving the manservant a friendly clap on the shoulder with such force as to cause him to stagger.

“Excuse me, sir, you are hindering me,” said the latter, frowning.

“What a fellow you are, my friend! Why, don’t you know, your master and I were bosom friends, and lived together? … But where has he put up?”

The servant intimated that Pechorin had stayed to take supper and pass the night at Colonel N–-‘s.

“But won’t he be looking in here in the evening?” said Maksim Maksimych. “Or, you, my man, won’t you be going over to him for something? … If you do, tell him that Maksim Maksimych is here; just say that — he’ll know! — I’ll give you half a ruble for a tip!”

The manservant made a scornful face on hearing such a modest promise, but he assured Maksim Maksimych that he would execute his commission.

“He’ll be sure to come running up directly!” said Maksim Maksimych, with an air of triumph. “I will go outside the gate and wait for him! Ah, it’s a pity I am not acquainted with Colonel N–-!”

Maksim Maksimych sat down on a little bench outside the gate, and I went to my room. I confess that I also was awaiting this Pechorin’s appearance with a certain amount of impatience — although, from the staff-captain’s story, I had formed a by no means favourable idea of him. Still, certain traits in his character struck me as remarkable. In an hour’s time one of the old soldiers brought a steaming samovar and a teapot.

“Won’t you have some tea, Maksim Maksimych?” I called out of the window.

“Thank you. I am not thirsty, somehow.”

“Oh, do have some! It is late, you know, and cold!”

“No, thank you” …

“Well, just as you like!”

I began my tea alone. About ten minutes afterwards my old captain came in.

“You are right, you know; it would be better to have a drop of tea — but I was waiting for Pechorin. His man has been gone a long time now, but evidently something has detained him.”

The staff-captain hurriedly sipped a cup of tea, refused a second, and went off again outside the gate — not without a certain amount of disquietude. It was obvious that the old man was mortified by Pechorin’s neglect, the more so because a short time previously he had been telling me of their friendship, and up to an hour ago had been convinced that Pechorin would come running up immediately on hearing his name.

It was already late and dark when I opened the window again and began to call Maksim Maksimych, saying that it was time to go to bed. He muttered something through his teeth. I repeated my invitation — he made no answer.

I left a candle on the stove-seat, and, wrapping myself up in my cloak, I lay down on the couch and soon fell into slumber; and I would have slept on quietly had not Maksim Maksimych awakened me as he came into the room. It was then very late. He threw his pipe on the table, began to walk up and down the room, and to rattle about at the stove. At last he lay down, but for a long time he kept coughing, spitting, and tossing about.

“The bugs are biting you, are they not?” I asked.

“Yes, that is it,” he answered, with a heavy sigh.

I woke early the next morning, but Maksim Maksimych had anticipated me. I found him sitting on the little bench at the gate.

“I have to go to the Commandant,” he said, “so, if Pechorin comes, please send for me.” …

I gave my promise. He ran off as if his limbs had regained their youthful strength and suppleness.

The morning was fresh and lovely. Golden clouds had massed themselves on the mountain-tops like a new range of aerial mountains. Before the gate a wide square spread out; behind it the bazaar was seething with people, the day being Sunday. Barefooted Ossete boys, carrying wallets of honeycomb on their shoulders, were hovering around me. I cursed them; I had other things to think of — I was beginning to share the worthy staff-captain’s uneasiness.

Before ten minutes had passed the man we were awaiting appeared at the end of the square. He was walking with Colonel N., who accompanied him as far as the inn, said good-bye to him, and then turned back to the fortress. I immediately despatched one of the old soldiers for Maksim Maksimych.

Pechorin’s manservant went out to meet him and informed him that they were going to put to at once; he handed him a box of cigars, received a few orders, and went off about his business. His master lit a cigar, yawned once or twice, and sat down on the bench on the other side of the gate. I must now draw his portrait for you.

He was of medium height. His shapely, slim figure and broad shoulders gave evidence of a strong constitution, capable of enduring all the hardships of a nomad life and changes of climates, and of resisting with success both the demoral-ising effects of life in the Capital and the tempests of the soul. His velvet overcoat, which was covered with dust, was fastened by the two lower buttons only, and exposed to view linen of dazzling whiteness, which proved that he had the habits of a gentleman. His gloves, soiled by travel, seemed as though made expressly for his small, aristocratic hand, and when he took one glove off I was astonished at the thinness of his pale fingers. His gait was careless and indolent, but I noticed that he did not swing his arms — a sure sign of a certain secretive-ness of character. These remarks, however, are the result of my own observations, and I have not the least desire to make you blindly believe in them. When he was in the act of seating himself on the bench his upright figure bent as if there was not a single bone in his back. The attitude of his whole body was expressive of a certain nervous weakness; he looked, as he sat, like one of Balzac’s thirty-year-old coquettes resting in her downy arm-chair after a fatiguing ball. From my first glance at his face I should not have supposed his age to be more than twenty-three, though afterwards I should have put it down as thirty. His smile had something of a child-like quality. His skin possessed a kind of feminine delicacy. His fair hair, naturally curly, most picturesquely outlined his pale and noble brow, on which it was only after lengthy observation that traces could be noticed of wrinkles, intersecting each other: probably they showed up more distinctly in moments of anger or mental disturbance. Notwithstanding the light colour of his hair, his moustaches and eyebrows were black — a sign of breeding in a man, just as a black mane and a black tail in a white horse. To complete the portrait, I will add that he had a slightly turned-up nose, teeth of dazzling whiteness, and brown eyes — I must say a few words more about his eyes.

In the first place, they never laughed when he laughed. Have you not happened, yourself, to notice the same peculiarity in certain people? … It is a sign either of an evil disposition or of deep and constant grief. From behind his half-lowered eyelashes they shone with a kind of phosphorescent gleam — if I may so express my-self — which was not the reflection of a fervid soul or of a playful fancy, but a glitter like to that of smooth steel, blinding but cold. His glance — brief, but piercing and heavy — left the unpleasant impression of an indiscreet question and might have seemed insolent had it not been so unconcernedly tranquil.

It may be that all these remarks came into my mind only after I had known some details of his life, and it may be, too, that his appearance would have produced an entirely different impression upon another; but, as you will not hear of him from anyone except myself, you will have to rest content,