A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [72]
“At that minute I walked up. They went silent. Our negotiations lasted rather a long time; finally we decided the matter thus: about five versts from here, there is a hidden gully. They will go there tomorrow at four o’clock in the morning, and we will depart half an hour after them. Shots will be at six paces—this was requested by Grushnitsky. The dead body will be attributed to the Circassians. Now, these are my suspicions: they, the seconds that is, have somewhat changed their prior plans it seems, and they want to load a bullet into Grushnitsky’s pistol alone. This is a little similar to murder, but in wartime, and especially an Asiatic war, such stratagems are allowed. Only Grushnitsky, it would seem, is a little more noble than his friends. What do you think? Shall we reveal to him that we have figured it out?”
“Not for anything in this world, Doctor! Be calm, I will not give in to them.”
“What then do you want to do?”
“That is my secret.”
“Watch you don’t get caught . . . especially at six paces!”
“Doctor, I will wait for you tomorrow at four o’clock. The horses will be ready . . . Good-bye.”
I sat at home until evening, and shut myself in my room. A lackey came to call me to the Princess Ligovsky—I ordered him to tell them I was ill.
Two o’clock at night . . . I cannot sleep . . . But I must fall asleep, so that tomorrow my hand won’t shake. However, at six paces, it is hard to miss. Ah! Mr. Grushnitsky! You won’t succeed in your hoax . . . We will swap roles. Now it is I who shall look for the symptoms of secret fear on your pale face. Why did you set yourself these fateful six paces? You think that I will offer you my forehead without a struggle . . . but we are casting lots! . . . But then . . . then . . . what if his luck outweighs mine . . . if my star has at last betrayed me? . . . It would be no surprise: it has faithfully served my whims for so long, there is no more constancy in the heavens than on earth.
So? If I die, then I die! The loss to the world won’t be great. Yes, and I’m fairly bored with myself already. I am like a man who is yawning at a ball, whose reason for not going home to bed is only that his carriage hasn’t arrived yet. But the carriage is ready . . . farewell!
I run through the memory of my past in its entirety and can’t help asking myself: Why have I lived? For what purpose was I born? . . . There probably was one once, and I probably did have a lofty calling, because I feel a boundless strength in my soul . . . But I didn’t divine this calling. I was carried away with the baits of passion, empty and unrewarding. I came out of their crucible as hard and cold as iron, but I had lost forever the ardor for noble aspirations, the best flower of life. Since then, how many times have I played the role of the ax in the hands of fate! Like an instrument of execution, I fell on the head of doomed martyrs, often without malice, always without regret . . . My love never brought anyone happiness, because I never sacrificed anything for those I loved: I loved for myself, for my personal pleasure. I was simply satisfying a strange need of the heart, with greediness, swallowing their feelings, their joys, their suffering—and was never sated. Just as a man, tormented by hunger, goes to sleep in exhaustion and dreams of sumptuous dishes and sparkling wine before him. He devours the airy gifts of his imagination with rapture, and he feels easier. But as soon as he wakes: the dream disappears . . . and all that remains is hunger and despair redoubled!
And, maybe, I will die tomorrow! . . . And not one being on this earth will have ever understood me totally. Some thought of me as worse, some as better, than I actually am . . . Some will say “he was a good fellow,” others will say I was a swine. Both one and the other would be wrong. Given this, does it seem worth the effort to live? And yet, you live, out of curiosity,