A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [84]
Many similar such thoughts passed through my mind, and I didn’t suppress them because I don’t like to dwell on any sort of abstract thought. Where would that lead me? . . . In my early youth I was a dreamer, I loved to cherish gloomy and iridescent images in turn, which my restless and thirsty imagination painted for me. But what did this leave me with? Only fatigue, like that which comes after a nocturnal battle with a specter, and dim recollections, filled with regret. In this pointless struggle I exhausted both the fire of my soul and the constancy of my will, both necessary for a real life. I then set about living this life, having survived it already in my thoughts, and I became bored and repulsed, like a man who is reading a stupid imitation of a book with which he has long been familiar.
The incidents of the evening had made a rather deep impression on me and agitated my nerves. I do not know whether now I do indeed believe in predestination or not, but I firmly believed in it that night. The proof was striking, and despite the fact that I had mocked our ancestors and their obliging astrology, I had fallen involuntarily into their trap but stopped myself from following this dangerous path just in time. And having the rule of never rejecting anything absolutely, and never believing in anything blindly, I threw out metaphysics and started to look beneath my feet. Such precaution was very apt. I nearly fell, stumbling on something fat and soft, but by all appearances, not living. I stooped—the moon was shining directly onto the road—and what was it? In front of me lay a swine, cleaved in half by a saber . . . I had barely managed to examine it when I heard the noise of footsteps. Two Cossacks were running from the alley; one walked up to me and asked if I had seen a drunk Cossack chasing a swine. I declared to them that I had not met said Cossack and pointed to the unfortunate victim of his frenzied bravery.
“What a scoundrel!” said the second Cossack. “When he drinks too much chikhir,5 then he’s off hacking to pieces everything that he sees. Let’s go after him, Yeremeich, we must tie him up, otherwise . . .”
They went off, and I continued on my path with great care and happily made it to my quarters at last.
I stayed with an old uryadnik,6 whom I loved for his good morals, and especially for his pretty daughter, Nastya.
She was waiting for me at the wicket gate as usual, wrapped in a fur coat. The moon lit up her lovely lips, which had turned a little blue from the cold of the night. Having recognized me, she smiled, but I wasn’t in the mood. “Good night, Nastya,” I said, walking past. She wanted to say something in reply but simply sighed.
I closed the door to my room behind me and lit the candle and fell onto my bed. But slumber made me wait for it longer than usual. The east was already paling when I fell asleep, but apparently it was written in the skies that I wouldn’t get a good night’s sleep. At four o’clock in the morning, two fists knocked on my window. I jumped up. “What is it?”
“Get up! Get dressed!” various voices cried to me. I quickly dressed and went out. “Do you know what has happened?” three officers asked me in unison, coming for me. They were as pale as death.
“What?”
“Vulich has been killed.”
I turned to stone.
“Yes, killed,” they continued. “Let’s go, quickly.”
“Where to?!”
“You’ll find out on the way . . .”
We went off. They told me all that had happened, adding remarks about the strange predestination that had saved him from inevitable death half an hour before his death. Vulich had been walking alone along a dark street; the drunk Cossack who had cleaved the swine galloped at him and might have passed him by without noticing Vulich had the latter not stopped and said:
“Brother, whom are you looking for?”
“You!” replied the Cossack, striking him with