A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [67]
I said nothing . . .
“Is that what you want?” she continued, quickly turning to me . . . There was something frightening in the resolve of her gaze and voice . . .
“What for?” I replied, shrugging my shoulders.
She struck her horse with the whip and went off at full speed along the narrow, dangerous road; it happened so quickly that I barely managed to catch up and then only once she had joined the rest of the group. She talked and laughed in alternation all the way home. There was something feverish in her movements. She didn’t look at me once. Everyone noticed this unusual jollity. And the Princess Ligovsky was overjoyed inside, looking at her daughter. But her daughter was simply having a nervous fit: she would spend the night without sleeping and would weep too. This thought gave me immense pleasure: there are moments when I understand vampires18 . . . But I also have a reputation for being a good fellow and aspire to this name too!
Dismounting from their horses, the ladies went in to Princess Ligovsky’s house. I was agitated and I galloped to the mountains to disperse the thoughts that were thronging in my head. The dewy evening breathed a ravishing coolness. The moon was rising from behind the dark mountaintops. Every step made by my unshod horse resounded dully in the silence of the ravine. At the waterfall, I let my horse drink, and I greedily took two breaths of the fresh air of the southern night, and set off on my return journey. I passed through the slobodka. The lights in the windows were going out. The sentries on the ramparts of the fortress and the Cossacks on the surrounding picquets called to each other in long, drawn-out sounds.
I noticed an extraordinary light from one of the houses of the slobodka, which was built on the edge of the precipice; from time to time, the discordant sounds of talking and shouting rang out, indicating that it was a military carousal. I dismounted and stole up to the window; the shutters were not too tightly shut, which allowed me to see the revelers and to catch their words. They were talking about me.
The dragoon captain, flushed with wine, was banging his fist on the table, demanding attention.
“Gentlemen!” he said. “This is like nothing I’ve seen before. Pechorin needs to be taught a lesson! Those Petersburg fledglings are always giving themselves airs, until you hit them on the nose! He thinks that he is the only one who has lived in good society, since he always wears clean gloves and polished boots.”
“And what of that haughty smile! I am convinced, meanwhile, that he is a coward, yes, a coward!”
“I think the same,” said Grushnitsky, “and he likes a riposte. I once said a great deal of things that would have normally incited a person to hack me to pieces on the spot, but Pechorin addressed everything from an amusing perspective. I didn’t challenge him, of course, because that was for him to do. Yes, and I didn’t want to have any more business with him . . .”
“Grushnitsky is being vicious toward him because he snatched the princess away,” someone said.
“What a thing to invent! It’s true, I pursued the princess a little, yes, and I have now given it up, because I don’t want to get married, and it isn’t within my principles to compromise a young lady.”
“Yes, I believe you, that he is a prime coward, that is Pechorin, and not Grushnitsky—oh, Grushnitsky is a clever fellow, and what’s more he is my true friend!” said the dragoon captain again. “Gentlemen! Is anyone here going to defend him? No one? Excellent! And would you like to test his bravery? It will amuse us . . .”
“Yes, we would—but how?”
“Well, listen now: Grushnitsky is especially angry with him—so he has the principal role! He will find something wrong with some sort of silliness and will challenge Pechorin to a duel . . . Wait now, this is where it gets interesting . . . He will challenge him to a duel: good! And everything—the challenge, the preparations, the stipulations—will be as solemn and awful as possible. I