A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [70]
“Aha!” said a rough voice. “You’ve been caught! Visiting princesses at night, indeed!”
“Hold him tighter!” said another voice, jumping out from behind a corner.
This was Grushnitsky and the dragoon captain.
I hit the latter on the head with my fist, knocked him from his feet, and fled into the bushes. I was familiar with all the paths of the garden that covered the slope opposite our houses.
“Thieves! Help!” they cried. A rifle shot rang out. A smoking wad fell almost at my feet.
A minute later I was already in my room, undressed and lying down. My lackey had barely closed the door and locked it when Grushnitsky and the captain started knocking.
“Pechorin! Are you sleeping? Are you there?” yelled the captain.
“Get up—there are thieves about . . . Circassians!”
“I have a cold,” I replied, “and I am afraid to make it worse.”
They left. It was a mistake to respond to them: they would have looked for me in the garden for another hour. In the meantime a terrible alarm was raised. A Cossack came galloping from the fortress. Everyone stirred. They started to search for Circassians in every bush—and, it goes without saying, they didn’t find anything. But I imagine many remained firm in the conviction that had the garrison demonstrated more courage and haste, then at least two dozen of the predators would have been stopped in their tracks.
June 16
This morning at the well there was talk and nothing else about the nocturnal attack of the Circassians. Having drunk the prescribed number of glasses of Narzan, I walked the length of the linden avenue about ten times and encountered Vera’s husband, who had just arrived from Pyatigorsk. He took me by the arm, and we went to the restaurant to have breakfast. He was terribly worried about his wife.
“How frightened she was last night!” he was saying. “And that it would happen at the moment of my absence.”
We settled down to breakfast by the door that led to a corner room in which ten or so young men were sitting, and amongst their number was Grushnitsky. Fate, for a second time, had provided me with the occasion of overhearing a conversation that was supposed to decide his fate. He didn’t see me, and therefore I couldn’t be suspicious of his designs. But this only augments his guilt in my eyes.
“It can’t really be that they were Circassians,” someone said. “Did anyone see them?”
“I will tell you the whole story,” replied Grushnitsky, “only, please, don’t give me away. Here is how it was: yesterday a man whom I won’t name comes to me and tells me that just before ten o’clock in the evening he saw someone stealing up to the Ligovsky house. I must remark that the Princess Ligovsky was here, but the young princess was at home. So he and I set off to lie in wait for the lucky man under the window.”
I admit that I took fright at this, even though my interlocutor was very busy with his breakfast: he could have overheard things that would be rather unpleasant for him, if Grushnitsky had guessed the truth. But blind with jealousy, he didn’t suspect it.
“So you see,” continued Grushnitsky, “we set off just simply to scare him, having taken a gun with us, loaded with blank cartridges. Toward two o’clock we were waiting in the garden. Finally, and God knows where he appeared from, only it wasn’t from the window, because it wasn’t open—he must have come out of the glass door that is behind the columns—finally, I say, we see someone coming down from the balcony . . . What kind of princess can she be? Ah? Well, I do declare, young Muscovite ladies! After this, what can you trust? We wanted to capture him, but he broke free, and, like a hare, fled into the bushes. Then I shot at him.”
A grumble of disbelief could be heard around Grushnitsky.
“You don’t believe me?” he continued. “I give you my honest, noble word, that all this is the absolute truth, and in evidence, if you like, I will give the gentleman’s name.”
“Tell us, tell us—who is it, then?” could be heard from