A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [71]
“Pechorin,” replied Grushnitsky.
At that moment, he raised his eyes—I was standing in the doorway opposite him. He blushed horribly. I walked up to him and said slowly and distinctly:
“I am very sorry to have come in after you have already given your honest word in the confirmation of this disgusting slander. My presence saves you from further depravity.”
Grushnitsky leapt up from his place and made motions of becoming impassioned.
“I request of you,” I continued in the same tone, “I request of you that you retract your words right now. You know very well that this is a fabrication. I don’t think that the indifference of a woman toward your shining merits deserves such terrible vengeance. Consider this well: in maintaining your opinion, you are losing the right to be called a noble man and are risking your life.”
Grushnitsky stood in front of me, having lowered his eyes, in fierce agitation. But the struggle between his conscience and his vanity was short-lived. The dragoon captain, sitting next to him, nudged him with his elbow. He flinched and quickly answered me without lifting his eyes:
“Gracious sir, when I say something, then it is what I think, and I am prepared to repeat it . . . I am not afraid of your threats and am prepared for anything . . .”
“You have already demonstrated the latter,” I replied to him coldly, and, taking the dragoon captain by the arm, I left the room.
“What can I do for you?” asked the captain.
“You are Grushnitsky’s friend, and will be his second, I assume?”
The captain bowed very importantly.
“You have guessed it,” he answered. “I am even obliged to be his second, since the insult caused to him concerns me too. I was with him yesterday night,” he added, straightening his slightly round-shouldered figure.
“Oh! So it was you whom I hit so clumsily on the head?”
He turned yellow, then blue. The concealed spite showed on his face.
“I will have the honor of sending my second to you today,” I added, bowing very politely and giving the impression that I wasn’t paying attention to his fury.
I met Vera’s husband on the terrace of the restaurant. It seems that he had been waiting for me.
He grasped my hand with a feeling that looked like delight.
“Noble young man!” said he, with tears in his eyes. “I heard everything. What a swine! Ingrate! . . . What proper household would entertain them after this?! Thank God I don’t have daughters. But you will be rewarded by the young lady for whom you are risking your life. You can be sure of my modesty for the time being,” he continued. “I was once young myself and served in the military—I know not to intervene in these matters. Farewell.”
Poor man! He is happy that he doesn’t have daughters . . .
I went straight to Werner, found him at home, and told him everything—my relations with Vera and with the princess and the conversation that I overheard, from which I learned the intention of these gentlemen to make a fool of me, to make me fire blank cartridges. But now the matter had departed from the boundaries of a joke. They probably didn’t expect such a result. The doctor agreed to be my second. I gave him several instructions concerning the stipulations of the duel. He should insist that the matter is worked out as secretly as possible, because though I am ready to expose myself to death at any time, I am not in the least inclined toward ruining my future in this world forever.
After this I went home. The doctor returned from his mission an hour later.
“There is definitely a plot against you,” he said. “I found the dragoon captain and another gentleman, whose last name I don’t remember, at Grushnitsky’s place. I paused for a minute in the entrance hall in order to remove my galoshes. There was a terrible noise and argument going on inside . . .
“‘I won’t agree to that for anything!’ Grushnitsky was saying. ‘He insulted me publicly—before that it was entirely different . . .’
“‘What is it to you?’ answered the dragoon captain. ‘I’ll take it all onto myself. I have been a second in five duels and I know well how to arrange it