A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [27]
“He spoke like this for a long time, and his words engraved themselves on my memory because it was the first time I had heard such things from a twenty-five-year-old, and, God willing, it will be the last . . . How extraordinary!
“So tell me,” the staff captain continued, addressing himself to me, “from the sound of things, you have been in the capital recently—surely the youth there are not all like that?”
I answered that there are many people who speak in the same way; that there are, probably, some that are telling the truth; however, disillusionment, like every fashion, having begun at the highest social strata, had descended to the lower strata, who were now wearing it out, and that now, those who are most bored of all try to hide this misfortune as though it were a vice. The staff captain didn’t understand these nuances, shook his head, and smiled slyly.
“And it was the French, no doubt, who brought in this fashion of boredom?”
“No, the English.”
“Aha, that’s it!” he replied. “Indeed, they have always been inveterate drunks!”
I couldn’t help remembering one Muscovite lady, who had assured me that Byron had been nothing more than a drunk. But the staff captain’s observation was more pardonable: in order to restrain himself from wine, he, of course, was trying to persuade himself that all the misfortunes of the world have their origins in drink.
Meanwhile, he continued his story in this way:
“Kazbich didn’t appear again. Only, and I don’t know why, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that it was not for nothing that he had come, and that he was preparing himself for something nefarious.
“One day, Pechorin had tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. I refused at length. Wild boar was no marvel to me! But, he managed to drag me off with him anyway. We took about five soldiers and set off early in the morning. Until ten o’clock we darted about the rushes and forest without seeing one beast.
“‘Ho! Shouldn’t we go back?’ I said. ‘What is there to aim at? It’s clear that it’s turned out to be an unlucky day!’ But Grigory Alexandrovich did not want to turn back without some sort of quarry, never mind the intense heat and exhaustion . . . that’s the kind of person he was—as soon as something occurs to him, he has to have it. He must have been spoiled by his mama as a child . . . Finally, at midday, we tracked down a damned boar. Paff! Paff! . . . No luck. It fled into the rushes. That’s the sort of unlucky day it was! . . . Then we paused to catch our breath for a moment, and set off home.
“We rode side by side, saying nothing, with loose reins, and we were right near the fortress—only bushes were hiding it from view. Suddenly a shot was fired . . . and we looked at each other. We were seized by the same suspicion . . . We galloped headlong toward the shot, and saw that soldiers had gathered in a bunch on the ramparts and were pointing to a field. And there, flying along, was a horseman carrying something white in his saddle. Grigory Alexandrovich gave out a cry worthy of a Chechen, pulled his rifle from its case and was off. I followed.
“Fortunately, due to our unsuccessful hunting efforts, our horses were not worn out, they strained under our saddles, and with each moment we were closer and closer . . . And at last, I recognized Kazbich, though I couldn’t make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. I drew up to Pechorin and yelled to him: ‘It’s Kazbich!’ And he looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip.
“At last we were within a rifle shot’s distance of him. Whether it was that Kazbich’s horse was exhausted, or that it was a worse horse than ours, much as he tried, it wasn’t making much progress. I imagine at that moment Kazbich was harking back to his Karagyoz . . .
“As I watched, Pechorin took aim with his rifle at full gallop . . . ‘Don’t shoot!’ I yelled to him. ‘Hold your fire! We