A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [83]
“A stupid joke!” another chimed in.
“I’ll wager fifty rubles to five that the pistol isn’t loaded!” a third cried out.
New bets were made.
I was becoming fed up with this long ceremony.
“Listen,” I said, “either shoot yourself or hang the pistol back in its former place and let’s all go to bed.”
“Of course,” many exclaimed, “let’s all go to bed.”
“Gentlemen, I ask you to not move from your places!” said Vulich, putting the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead. Everyone seemed to turn to stone.
“Mr. Pechorin,” he added, “take a card and throw it up.”
I took, as I remember it now, an ace of hearts from the table and threw it upward; everyone’s breathing stopped; all eyes, showing fear and a sort of ambiguous curiosity, ran between the pistol and the fateful ace, which quivered in the air and slowly fell. The moment it touched the table, Vulich pulled the trigger . . . a misfire!
“Thank God!” many cried out. “It wasn’t loaded!”
“But, let’s see . . .” said Vulich. He cocked the gun again and took aim at a military cap hanging above the window. A shot rang out—the smoke filled the room. When it dissipated, they took down the military cap: it was shot right through the middle, and the bullet was lodged deeply in the wall.
About three minutes passed, and no one could utter a word. Vulich poured my gold pieces into his purse.
There was talk about the fact that the pistol didn’t fire the first time; some maintained that the pan had probably been clogged, others were saying in whispers that the gunpowder was damp the first time and that Vulich had poured some fresh powder into it afterward. But I claimed that the latter suggestion was unfounded, because I hadn’t taken my eyes from the pistol once.
“You are lucky in gambling,” I said to Vulich.
“For the first time since I was born,” he replied, smiling with self-satisfaction. “This is better than faro3 and stuss.”4
“And a little more dangerous, too.”
“What’s this? Are you starting to believe in predestination?”
“I believe in it; but I don’t understand why I was so certain that you would die today . . .”
And the man, who had aimed so coolly at his own forehead not long ago, now suddenly blushed and became embarrassed.
“Enough now!” he said, standing up. “Our wager has been settled, and now your observations, I think, are inappropriate . . .” He took his hat and walked out. This seemed strange to me—and for good reason!
Soon everyone dispersed to their houses, variously talking about Vulich’s caprice and, probably, unanimously calling me an egoist since I had made a wager with a man who wanted to shoot himself. As if, without me, he wouldn’t have found a convenient occasion!
I was returning home along the empty lanes of the stanitsa; the moon, full and red, like the glow of a fire, was beginning to show itself from behind the jagged horizon of houses. The stars calmly shone in the dark-blue vault of the sky, and I was amused to remember that there were once very sage people who thought that heavenly bodies took part in our insignificant arguments over little tufts of earth or over various invented rights . . . ! And what happened? These lamps which were lit, in their opinion in order to illuminate their battles and victories, still burn with their original brilliance, while their own passions and hopes were extinguished long ago along with their very selves, like small fires lit at the edge of a wood by a careless wanderer! And then what force of will gave them the conviction that the whole sky, with its innumerable population, was watching them with constant concern, mute though it may have been! . . . And we, their pitiful descendants, wandering the earth without conviction or pride, without pleasure or fear, but with that involuntary dread that grips the heart at the thought of an inescapable end—we are no longer able to be great martyrs, not for the good of mankind, nor even for the sake of our own happiness, because we know it is impossible. And we shift indifferently from one