Read the work of a hero of our time chapter by chapter. Online reading of the book A Hero of Our Time I

Mikhail Lermontov

Hero of our time

This book has recently experienced the unhappy credulity of some readers and even magazines to the literal meaning of words. Some are terribly offended, and not jokingly, that they are being set up as an example of such an immoral person as the Hero of Our Time; others, however, very subtly noticed that the writer had painted his own portrait and those of his acquaintances ... An old and pitiful joke! But, apparently, Russia was so created that everything in it is being renewed, except for such absurdities. The most magical of fairy tales in our country can hardly escape the accusation of attempted insult!

The Hero of Our Time, my dear sirs, is, for sure, a portrait, but not of one person: this is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development. You will tell me again that a person cannot be so bad, and I will tell you that if you believed the possibility of the existence of all tragic and romantic villains, why do you not believe in the reality of Pechorin? If you admired fictions much more terrible and ugly, why does this character, even as fiction, find no mercy with you? Is it because there is more truth in him than you would like it to be? ..

You say that morality does not benefit from this? Sorry. Quite a few people were fed sweets; their stomachs deteriorated from this: they need bitter medicines, caustic truths. But do not think, however, after that, that the author of this book would someday have the proud dream of becoming a corrector of human vices. God save him from such ignorance! He just had fun drawing a modern man as he understands him, and to his and your misfortune, he met too often. There will also be the fact that the disease is indicated, but how to cure it - that is, God knows!

Part one

The sun was already beginning to hide behind a snow ridge when I drove into the Koishaur valley. The Ossetian cab driver tirelessly drove the horses in order to have time to climb the Koishaur mountain before nightfall, and sang songs at the top of his lungs. This valley is a glorious place! On all sides the mountains are impregnable, reddish rocks, hung with green ivy and crowned with clumps of plane trees, yellow precipices, streaked with gullies, and there is a high-high golden fringe of snow, and below Aragva, embracing another nameless river, noisily bursting out of a black gorge full of mist , stretches with a silver thread and sparkles like a snake with its scales.

Having approached the foot of the Koishaur mountain, we stopped near the dukhan. There were noisy crowds of about two dozen Georgians and mountaineers; nearby a caravan of camels stopped for the night. I had to hire bulls to drag my cart on this damned mountain, because it was already autumn and ice-covered, and this mountain is about two miles in length.

Nothing to do, I hired six bulls and several Ossetians. One of them put my suitcase on his shoulders, the others began to help the bulls with almost one cry.

For my cart, four bulls dragged another as if nothing had happened, despite the fact that it was stacked to the top. This circumstance surprised me. Her owner followed her, smoking from a small Kabardian pipe, trimmed in silver. He was wearing an officer's coat without epaulettes and a furry Circassian cap. He seemed about fifty years old; his dark complexion showed that he had long been familiar with the Transcaucasian sun, and his prematurely gray mustache did not match his firm gait and vigorous appearance. I went up to him and bowed: he silently answered my bow and let out a huge puff of smoke.

- We are fellow travelers, I think?

He bowed silently again.

- You, right, are going to Stavropol?

- So, sir ... with official things.

- Tell me, please, why is your heavy cart being dragged by four bulls jokingly, and mine, empty, six cattle barely move with the help of these Ossetians?

He smiled slyly and looked at me significantly.

- You, right, recently in the Caucasus?

- About a year, - I answered.

He smiled a second time.

- What then?

- Yes, sir! Terrible beasts, these Asians! Do you think they are helping, what are they shouting? And the devil can tell what they are shouting? Bulls understand them; harness at least twenty, so if they shout in their own way, the bulls are not moving ... Terrible rogues! And what will you take from them? .. They love to tear money from passing by ... Spoiled the swindlers! You will see that they will also charge you for vodka. I already know them, they won't deceive me!

- Have you been serving here for a long time?

- Yes, I already served here under Alexei Petrovich, - he answered, dignified. “When he arrived at the Line, I was a second lieutenant,” he added, “and under him I received two ranks for cases against the highlanders.

- And now you? ..

- Now I am considered in the third line battalion. And you, dare I ask? ..

I told him.

The conversation ended with this and we continued to walk in silence beside each other. We found snow on the top of the mountain. The sun went down, and night followed day without interval, as is usually the case in the south; but thanks to the outflow of snow, we could easily distinguish the road, which was still going uphill, although not so steep. I ordered to put my suitcase in the cart, replace the bulls with horses, and looked back at the valley for the last time; but the thick fog, which surged in waves from the gorges, completely covered it, not a single sound had already reached our ears from there. Ossetians noisily surrounded me and demanded for vodka; but the staff-captain shouted at them so menacingly that they fled in an instant.

- After all, such a people! - he said, - and he doesn't know how to name bread in Russian, but learned: "Officer, give me some vodka!" The Tatars are better for me: at least those who do not drink ...

The Hero of Our Time, my dear sirs, is like a portrait, but not of one person: this is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development. You will tell me again that a person cannot be so bad, and I will tell you that if you believed the possibility of the existence of all tragic and romantic villains, why do you not believe in the reality of Pechorin? If you admired fictions much more terrible and ugly, why does this character, even as fiction, find no mercy with you? Is it because there is more truth in him than you would like it to be? ..

You say that morality does not benefit from this? Sorry. Quite a few people were fed sweets; their stomachs deteriorated from this: they need bitter medicines, caustic truths. But do not think, however, after that, that the author of this book would someday have the proud dream of becoming a corrector of human vices. God save him from such ignorance! He just had fun drawing a modern man as he understands him and, to his and your misfortune, he met too often. There will also be the fact that the disease is indicated, but how to cure it - God knows!

PART ONE

I
Bela

Nothing to do, I hired six bulls and several Ossetians. One of them put my suitcase on his shoulders, the others began to help the bulls with almost one cry.

For my cart, four bulls dragged another as if nothing had happened, despite the fact that it was stacked to the top. This circumstance surprised me. Her owner followed her, smoking from a small Kabardian pipe, trimmed in silver. He was wearing an officer's coat without epaulettes and a furry Circassian cap. He seemed about fifty years old; his dark complexion showed that he had long been familiar with the Transcaucasian sun, and his prematurely gray mustache did not match his firm gait and vigorous appearance. I went up to him and bowed; he silently answered my bow and let out a huge puff of smoke.

- We are fellow travelers, I think?

He bowed silently again.

- You, right, are going to Stavropol?

- So, sir ... with official things.

- Tell me, please, why is your heavy cart being dragged by four bulls jokingly, and mine, empty, six cattle barely move with the help of these Ossetians?

He smiled slyly and looked at me significantly.

- You, right, recently in the Caucasus?

- About a year, - I answered.

He smiled a second time.

- What then?

- Have you been serving here for a long time?

- And now you? ..

- Now I am considered in the third line battalion. And you, dare I ask? ..

I told him.

The conversation ended with this, and we continued to walk in silence beside each other. We found snow on the top of the mountain. The sun went down, and night followed day without interval, as is usually the case in the south; but thanks to the outflow of snow, we could easily distinguish the road, which was still going uphill, although not so steep. I ordered to put my suitcase in the cart, replace the bulls with horses, and looked back at the valley for the last time; but the thick fog, which surged in waves from the gorges, completely covered it, not a single sound had already reached our ears from there. Ossetians noisily surrounded me and demanded for vodka; but the staff-captain shouted at them so menacingly that they fled in an instant.

There was still a verst to the station. It was quiet all around, so quiet that by the buzzing of a mosquito one could follow its flight. To the left was a deep gorge; behind him and in front of us, the dark blue peaks of the mountains, pitted with wrinkles, covered with layers of snow, were drawn on the pale sky, which still retained the last reflection of the dawn. Stars began to flicker in the dark sky, and strangely, it seemed to me that it was much higher than in our north. On both sides of the road stood naked, black stones; here and there bushes peeped out from under the snow, but not a single dry leaf moved, and it was fun to hear, in the midst of this dead sleep of nature, the snorting of a tired mail troika and the uneven rattling of a Russian bell.

- Good weather tomorrow! - I said. The staff captain did not answer a word and pointed to a high mountain that rose directly opposite us with his finger.

- What is it? I asked.

- Good Mountain.

- Well, what then?

- Look how it smokes.

Indeed, Good Mountain smoked; light streams of clouds crawled on its sides, and at the top lay a black cloud, so black that it seemed like a blur in the dark sky.

We could already make out the post station, the roofs of the sakles surrounding it, and welcoming lights flashed in front of us, when a damp, cold wind smelled, the gorge began to hum and a fine rain began to fall. I barely had time to throw on my cloak when the snow fell. I looked at the staff captain with awe ...

“We’ll have to spend the night here,” he said with annoyance. “You cannot cross the mountains in such a blizzard. What? there were landslides on Krestovaya? He asked the cab.

- It was not, sir, - answered the Ossetian cabman, - but hangs a lot, a lot.

In the absence of a room for passers-by at the station, we were given an overnight stay in a smoky sakla. I invited my companion to have a glass of tea together, for I had a cast-iron teapot with me - my only joy in my travels in the Caucasus.

Sakla was stuck with one side to the rock; three slippery, wet steps led to her door. I groped my way in and stumbled upon a cow (the barn for these people replaces the footman's). I didn't know where to go: sheep bleat here, a dog grumbles there. Fortunately, a dim light flashed to the side and helped me find another hole like a door. Here a rather entertaining picture emerged: the wide sakla, with which the roof rested on two sooty pillars, was full of people. In the middle a light crackled, spread out on the ground, and the smoke, pushed back by the wind from the hole in the roof, spread around in such a thick shroud that I could not look around for a long time; by the fire sat two old women, many children and one thin Georgian, all in rags. There was nothing to do, we took shelter by the fire, lit our pipes, and soon the kettle hissed cheerfully.

- Pathetic people! - I said to the staff captain, pointing to our filthy hosts, who silently looked at us in some kind of dumbfoundedness.

- Silly people! - he answered. - Believe it? They are not able to do anything, they are not capable of any education! At least, our Kabardians or Chechens, although robbers, naked, but desperate heads, and these people have no desire for weapons: you will not see a decent dagger on any one. Truly Ossetians!

- Have you been in Chechnya for a long time?

- Yes, for ten years I stood there in the fortress with a rota, at Kamenny Brod, - you know?

- I've heard.

- Here, father, we are tired of these thugs; today, thank God, it is more humble; and it happened that you walk a hundred paces behind the rampart, somewhere a shaggy devil sits and watches: he gape a little, so look - either a lasso on his neck, or a bullet in the back of his head. Well done! ..

- Ah, tea, have you had many adventures? I said, spurred on by curiosity.

- How not to be! used to ...

Then he began to pinch his left mustache, hung his head and became thoughtful. I wanted to be afraid of drawing some kind of story out of him - a desire common to all traveling and recording people. Meanwhile the tea was ripe; I took two hiking glasses out of my suitcase, poured it, and set one in front of him. He took a sip and said as if to himself: "Yes, it happened!" This exclamation gave me great hope. I know old Caucasians love to talk, to tell stories; They so rarely succeed: another five years is somewhere in the boondocks with a company, and for five whole years no one will say “hello” to him (because the sergeant major says “I wish you good health”). And there would be something to chat about: all around the people are wild, curious; every day there is danger, there are wonderful cases, and then you will inevitably regret that so little is recorded here.

- Would you like some more rum? - I said to my interlocutor. - I have a white man from Tiflis; now it's cold.

- No, thank you, I don’t drink.

- What is it?

- Yes, so. I gave myself a spell. When I was still a second lieutenant, once, you know, we played with each other, and at night there was anxiety; So we went out in front of the frunt tipsy, and we got it, as Alexei Petrovich found out: God forbid, how angry he is! almost brought him to justice. And it’s for sure: another time you live a whole year, you don’t see anyone, but how is there still vodka - a lost person!

Hearing this, I almost lost hope.

- Yes, at least the Circassians, - he continued, - as the booze get drunk at a wedding or at a funeral, so the wheelhouse went. I once took off my legs, and I was also a guest of the prince of Mirnov.

- How did it happen?

- Here (he filled his pipe, took a drag and began to tell), if you please see, I was then standing in the fortress behind the Terek with a company - this will soon be five years old. Once, in the fall, a transport came with provisions; there was an officer in the transport, a young man of about twenty-five. He appeared to me in full form and announced that he was ordered to stay with me in the fortress. He was so thin and white, he was wearing such a new uniform that I immediately guessed that he had recently been with us in the Caucasus. “Are you,” I asked him, “transferred here from Russia?” “Exactly so, mister captain,” he replied. I took his hand and said: “I am very glad, very glad. You will be a little bored ... well, yes, you and I will live like a friend. Yes, please, just call me Maksim Maksimych, and please - why this full form? always come to me in a cap. " He was given an apartment, and he settled in the fortress.

- What was his name? - I asked Maksim Maksimych.

- His name was ... Grigoriy Alexandrovich Pechorin... He was a fine fellow, I dare to assure you; just a little weird. After all, for example, in the rain, in the cold all day long hunting; everyone will be chilled, tired - but he has nothing. And another time he sits in his room, smells of the wind, assures that he has a cold; knocks on the shutter, he shudders and turns pale; and in my presence he went to the boar one on one; it used to be that for hours on end you won’t get a word, but sometimes, as you start talking, you’ll break your bellies with laughter ... Yes, sir, with great oddities, and must be a rich man: how many different expensive things he had! ..

- How long did he live with you? I asked again.

- Yes, for a year. Well, yes, but this year is remembered to me; he made me trouble, not be remembered for that! After all, there are, really, such people who are written in their own family that various unusual things should happen to them!

- Unusual? - I exclaimed with an air of curiosity, pouring him some tea.

- But I'll tell you. One peaceful prince lived about six versts from the fortress. His son, a boy of about fifteen, got into the habit of visiting us: every day, it happened, then after that, then after another. And for sure, we spoiled him with Grigoriy Alexandrovich. And what a thug he was, agile at whatever you want: whether to lift a hat at full gallop, or shoot from a gun. One thing was bad about him: he was terribly greedy for money. Once, for a laugh, Grigory Alexandrovich promised to give him a gold piece if he would steal the best goat from his father's flock; and what do you think? the next night he dragged him by the horns. And it used to be, we would try to tease him, so his eyes would be bloodshot, and now for the dagger. "Hey, Azamat, don't blow your head off," I told him, "Yaman will be your head off!"

Once the old prince himself comes to invite us to the wedding: he gave his eldest daughter in marriage, and we were kunaki with him: you can't refuse, you know, even though he is a Tatar. Set off. In the aul, many dogs greeted us with loud barking. The women, seeing us, hid; those we could see in person were far from beautiful. “I had a much better opinion of Circassians,” Grigory Alexandrovich told me. "Wait!" - I answered, grinning. I had mine on my mind.

A multitude of people had already gathered in the prince's sakla. Asians, you know, have a custom to invite everyone they meet and cross to a wedding. We were received with all the honors and taken to the kunatskaya. However, I did not forget to notice where our horses were placed, you know, for an unforeseen event.

- How do they celebrate their wedding? I asked the staff captain.

- Yes, usually. First, the mullah will read them something from the Koran; then they give the young people and all their relatives, eat, drink booze; then tricking begins, and always one ragtag, greasy, on a nasty lame horse, breaks down, clowns around, makes the honest company laugh; then, when it gets dark, the ball begins in the kunatskaya, in our opinion. The poor old man is strumming on a three-string ... I forgot what they call it ... well, like our balalaika. Girls and young guys stand in two lines, one opposite the other, clap their hands and sing. Here one girl and one man come out in the middle and begin to chant poetry to each other, whatever is horrible, and the rest pick up in chorus. Pechorin and I were sitting in a place of honor, and now the owner's younger daughter, a girl of about sixteen, came up to him and sang to him ... how to say? ... like a compliment.

- And what is it she sang, do not you remember?

- Yes, it seems, like this: “Slender, they say, our young horsemen, and the caftans on them are lined with silver, and the young Russian officer is slimmer than them, and the braids on him are gold. He is like a poplar between them; just not to grow, not to bloom in our garden ”. Pechorin got up, bowed to her, putting his hand to his forehead and heart, and asked me to answer her, I know well in their language and translated his answer.

When she left us, then I whispered to Grigory Alexandrovich: "Well, what is it?" - “Lovely! - he answered. - What is her name?" “Her name is Beloy,” I answered.

And, for sure, she was good: tall, thin, black eyes, like those of a mountain chamois, and looked into your soul. Pechorin, in thought, did not take his eyes off her, and she often glanced at him from under her brows. Only Pechorin was not alone in admiring the pretty princess: from the corner of the room two other eyes were looking at her, motionless, fiery. I began to peer and recognized my old acquaintance Kazbich. You know, he was not that peaceful, not that not peaceful. There were many suspicions against him, although he was not noticed in any prank. He used to bring rams to our fortress and sell them cheaply, only he never bargained: what he asks for, come on - even if you slaughter them, he will not yield. They said about him that he liked to drag around the Kuban with abreks, and, to tell the truth, he had the most robber's face: small, dry, broad-shouldered ... And he was dexterous, dexterous, like a devil! The beshmet is always torn, in patches, and the weapon is in silver. And his horse was famous in the whole Kabarda - and, for sure, it is impossible to invent anything better than this horse. It was not for nothing that all the riders envied him and more than once tried to steal her, but they did not succeed. How I look at this horse now: black as pitch, legs - strings, and eyes no worse than Bela's; and what a power! gallop at least fifty versts; and already gone - like a dog running after the owner, even knew his voice! Sometimes he never binds her. Such a robber horse! ..

That evening Kazbich was gloomier than ever, and I noticed that he was wearing chain mail under his beshmet. "It is not for nothing that he is wearing this chain mail," I thought. "He must be planning something."

It became stuffy in the sakla, and I went out into the air to freshen up. The night was already falling on the mountains, and the fog began to roam the gorges.

I took it into my head to turn under the shed where our horses were standing, to see if they had food, and moreover, caution never interferes: I had a nice horse, and more than one Kabardian looked at it with affectionate glances, saying: “ Yakshi te, check yakshi!»

I make my way along the fence and suddenly I hear voices; I immediately recognized one voice: it was the rake Azamat, the son of our master; the other spoke less frequently and more quietly. “What are they talking about here? - I thought. "Isn't it about my horse?" So I sat down by the fence and began to listen, trying not to miss a single word. Sometimes the noise of songs and the sound of voices, flying out of the sakli, drowned out a conversation that was interesting for me.

- You have a glorious horse! - said Azamat. - If I were the owner of the house and had a herd of three hundred mares, I would give half for your horse, Kazbich!

"A! Kazbich! " - I thought and remembered the chain mail.

- Yes, - Kazbich answered after some silence, - in the whole Kabarda you will not find such. Once — that was beyond the Terek — I went with the abreks to fight off the Russian herds; we were not lucky, and we scattered in all directions.

Four Cossacks rushed after me; I already heard the cry of the giaurs behind me, and in front of me was a dense forest. I lay down on the saddle, entrusted myself to Allah and for the first time in my life I insulted the horse with a lash. Like a bird he dived between the branches; sharp thorns tore at my clothes, dry elm twigs hit me in the face. My horse jumped over the stumps, tore the bushes with its chest. It would have been better for me to leave him at the edge of the forest and hide in the forest on foot, but it was a pity to part with him, and the prophet rewarded me. Several bullets squeaked over my head; I already heard how the dismounted Cossacks ran in the tracks ... Suddenly in front of me there was a deep rupture; my horse became thoughtful - and jumped. His hind hooves snapped off the opposite bank, and he hung on his front legs. I dropped the reins and flew into the ravine; this saved my horse: he jumped out. The Cossacks saw all this, only not one came down to look for me: they probably thought that I was killed to death, and I heard them rushing to catch my horse. My heart was drenched in blood; I crawled along the thick grass along the ravine - I looked: the forest was over, several Cossacks were leaving it into the clearing, and now my Karagöz jumped out straight to them: everyone rushed after him with a cry; for a long, long time they chased him, especially once or twice he almost threw a lasso around his neck; I trembled, dropped my eyes and began to pray. In a few moments I raise them - and I see: my Karagöz flies, waving his tail, free as the wind, and the giaurs, far away, one after another, stretch across the steppe on exhausted horses. Wallach! it's true, true truth! I sat in my ravine until late at night. Suddenly, what do you think, Azamat? in the darkness I hear a horse running along the bank of the ravine, snorting, neighing and beating its hooves on the ground; I recognized the voice of my Karagöz; it was him, my comrade! .. Since then we have not parted.

And you could hear how he stroked the smooth neck of his horse with his hand, giving it various tender names.

- If I had a herd of a thousand mares, - said Azamat, - I would give you all of it for your Karagöz.

There are many beauties in our villages,
The stars shine in the darkness of their eyes.
It's sweet to love them, an enviable share;
But the brave will is more cheerful.
Gold will be bought by four wives
A dashing horse has no price:
He will not lag behind the whirlwind in the steppe,
He will not change, he will not deceive.

In vain did Azamat begged him to agree, and wept, and flattered him, and swore; finally Kazbich interrupted him impatiently:

- Go away, you mad boy! Where do you ride my horse? In the first three steps, he will throw you off, and you will smash your head against the stones.

- Me! - Azamat shouted in fury, and the iron of the child's dagger rang on the chain mail. A strong hand pushed him away, and he hit the fence so that the fence staggered. "There will be fun!" - I thought, rushed into the stable, bridled our horses and led them out to the backyard. Two minutes later, there was a terrible hubbub in the sakla. Here's what happened: Azamat ran there in a torn beshmet, saying that Kazbich wanted to stab him. Everyone jumped out, grabbed their guns - and the fun began! Scream, noise, shots; only Kazbich was already on horseback and spun among the crowd along the street like a demon, waving his sword away.

- It's a bad thing in someone else's feast - a hangover, - I said to Grigory Alexandrovich, catching his hand, - isn't it better for us to get out as soon as possible?

- Wait, how will it end.

- Yes, it will surely end badly; with these Asians, it’s like this: the booze came on, and the massacre began!

We got on horseback and rode home.

- And what about Kazbich? - I asked the staff captain impatiently.

- What is this people doing! He answered, finishing his glass of tea. - He slipped away!

- And not wounded? I asked.

- And God knows! Live, robbers! I saw others in business, for example: after all, I was all pierced, like a sieve, with bayonets, and everything was waving a saber, - the staff captain, after some silence, continued, stamping his foot on the ground: - I will never forgive myself for one thing: the devil pulled me when he arrived to the fortress, to retell to Grigory Alexandrovich everything that I heard sitting behind the fence; he laughed - so sly! - and he himself conceived something.

- What is it? Tell me, please.

- Well, there’s nothing to do! began to tell, so it is necessary to continue.

Four days later, Azamat arrives at the fortress. As usual, he went to see Grigory Alexandrovich, who always fed him with delicacies. I've been here. They started talking about horses, and Pechorin began to praise Kazbich's horse: it’s such and such a playful, beautiful, like a chamois - well, just, in his words, there is no such thing in the whole world.

The little eyes of the Tatar girl sparkled, but Pechorin did not seem to notice; I’ll talk about something else, and he, you see, will immediately knock the conversation onto Kazbich’s horse. This story continued every time Azamat came. About three weeks later I began to notice that Azamat was turning pale and drying, as happens from love in novels, sir. What a miracle? ..

You see, afterwards I recognized the whole thing: Grigory Aleksandrovich teased him so much that even in the water. Once he told him:

- I see, Azamat, that you really liked this horse; but not to see her as your back of the head! Well, tell me, what would you give to the one who gave it to you? ..

- Anything he wants, - answered Azamat.

- In that case, I will get it for you, only on condition ... Swear that you will fulfill it ...

- I swear ... You swear too!

- Good! I swear you will own a horse; only for him you must give me sister Bela: Karagöz will be her kalym. I hope the bargaining is profitable for you.

Azamat was silent.

- Do not want? As you want! I thought you were a man, and you were still a child: it's too early for you to ride ...

Azamat flushed.

- And my father? - he said.

- Doesn't he ever leave?

- Truth…

- I agree?..

- I agree, - whispered Azamat, pale as death. - When is it?

- The first time Kazbich comes here; he promised to drive a dozen rams; the rest is my business. Look, Azamat!

So they settled this business ... to tell the truth, not a good business! I later said this to Pechorin, but only he answered me that a wild Circassian woman should be happy, having such a sweet husband as he is, because, in their words, he is still her husband, and that Kazbich is a robber who needs was to punish. Judge for yourself, why could I answer against this? .. But at that time I knew nothing about their conspiracy. Once Kazbich came and asked if he needed sheep and honey; I told him to bring the next day.

- Azamat! - said Grigory Alexandrovich. - Tomorrow Karagöz is in my hands; if Bela is not here tonight, then you will not see the horse ...

- Good! - said Azamat and galloped to the aul.

In the evening, Grigory Aleksandrovich armed himself and drove out of the fortress: I don’t know how they managed this business - only at night they both returned, and the sentry saw that across Azamat’s saddle lay a woman whose arms and legs were tied, and her head was wrapped in a veil.

- And the horse? - I asked the staff captain.

- Now. The next morning Kazbich arrived early and brought a dozen sheep for sale. Tying his horse by the fence, he came in to me; I treated him to tea, because although he was a robber, he was still my kunak.

We began to chat about this and that ... Suddenly, I looked, Kazbich shuddered, changed his face - and to the window; but the window, unfortunately, overlooked the courtyard.

- What's the matter? I asked.

“My horse! .. horse! ..” he said, trembling all over.

Precisely, I heard the clatter of hooves: "It is true, some Cossack has arrived ..."

- Not! Urus Yaman, Yaman! - he roared and rushed headlong out like a wild leopard. In two leaps he was already in the yard; at the gate of the fortress a sentry barred his way with a gun; he jumped over the gun and rushed to run along the road ... Dust curled in the distance - Azamat rode on a dashing Karagöz; on the run Kazbich grabbed a gun from the case and fired, for a minute he remained motionless until he was convinced that he had made a mistake; then he screamed, hit the gun on a stone, smashed it to smithereens, fell to the ground and sobbed like a child ... So the people gathered around him from the fortress - he did not notice anyone; stood, talked, and went back; I ordered to put money near him for the rams - he did not touch them, he lay on his face like a dead person. Believe it or not, he lay like that until late at night and the whole night? .. Only the next morning he came to the fortress and began to ask them to name the kidnapper. The sentry, who saw Azamat untied his horse and galloped off on it, did not consider it necessary to hide. At this name, Kazbich's eyes sparkled, and he went to the aul where Azamat's father lived.

- What is father?

- Yes, the thing is that Kazbich did not find him: he was leaving somewhere for six days, otherwise would Azamat have managed to take his sister away?

And when the father returned, there was neither daughter nor son. Such a sly man: after all, he realized that he would not blow his head if he was caught. So since then he disappeared: surely, he stuck to some gang of abreks, and even laid down his violent head beyond the Terek or beyond the Kuban: there and the road! ..

I confess, and I got a fair share of it. As soon as I found out that the Circassian woman was with Grigoriy Alexandrovich, I put on epaulettes and a sword and went to him.

He was lying in the first room on the bed, with one hand under the back of his head and the other holding the extinguished pipe; the door to the second room was locked and there was no key in the lock. I noticed all this at once ... I began to cough and tap my heels on the threshold - only he pretended not to hear.

- Mister Warrant Officer! I said as severely as possible. - Can't you see that I have come to you?

Hero of our time

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov

List of school literature grade 9

The book includes the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov (1814–1841) "A Hero of Our Time", which is compulsory for reading and studying in a secondary school.

The novel "A Hero of Our Time" is one of the pinnacles of Russian prose of the first half of the 19th century. Perceived by Lermontov's contemporaries as "strange", the novel encourages more and more generations of readers to seek solutions to its riddles.

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov

Hero of our time

Foreword

You say that morality does not benefit from this? Sorry. Quite a few people were fed sweets; their stomachs deteriorated from this: they need bitter medicines, caustic truths. But do not think, however, after that, that the author of this book would someday have the proud dream of becoming a corrector of human vices. God save him from such ignorance! He just had fun drawing a modern man as he understands him and, to his and your misfortune, he met too often. There will also be the fact that the disease is indicated, but how to cure it - God knows!

PART ONE

Nothing to do, I hired six bulls and several Ossetians. One of them put my suitcase on his shoulders, the others began to help the bulls with almost one cry.

For my cart, four bulls dragged another as if nothing had happened, despite the fact that it was stacked to the top. This circumstance surprised me. Her owner followed her, smoking from a small Kabardian pipe, trimmed in silver. He was wearing an officer's coat without epaulettes and a furry Circassian cap. He seemed about fifty years old; his dark complexion showed that he had long been familiar with the Transcaucasian sun, and his prematurely gray mustache did not match his firm gait and vigorous appearance. I went up to him and bowed; he silently answered my bow and let out a huge puff of smoke.

- We are fellow travelers, I think?

He bowed silently again.

- You, right, are going to Stavropol?

- So, sir ... with official things.

- Tell me, please, why is your heavy cart being dragged by four bulls jokingly, and mine, empty, six cattle barely move with the help of these Ossetians?

He smiled slyly and looked at me significantly.

- You, right, recently in the Caucasus?

- About a year, - I answered.

He smiled a second time.

- What then?

- Have you been serving here for a long time?

- And now you? ..

- Now I am considered in the third line battalion. And you, dare I ask? ..

I told him.

- After all, such a people! - he said, - and he doesn't know how to name bread in Russian, but learned: "Officer, give me some vodka!"

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The Tatars are better for me: at least those who do not drink ...

- Good weather tomorrow! - I said. The staff captain did not answer a word and pointed to a high mountain that rose directly opposite us with his finger.

- What is it? I asked.

- Good Mountain.

- Well, what then?

- Look how it smokes.

Indeed, Good Mountain smoked; light streams of clouds crawled on its sides, and at the top lay a black cloud, so black that it seemed like a blur in the dark sky.

“We’ll have to spend the night here,” he said with annoyance. “You cannot cross the mountains in such a blizzard. What? there were landslides on Krestovaya? He asked the cab.

- It was not, sir, - answered the Ossetian cabman, - but hangs a lot, a lot.

- Pathetic people! - I said to the staff captain, pointing to our filthy hosts, who silently looked at us in some kind of dumbfoundedness.

- Have you been in Chechnya for a long time?

- Yes, for ten years I stood there in the fortress with a rota, at Kamenny Brod, - you know?

- I've heard.

- Ah, tea, have you had many adventures? I said, spurred on by curiosity.

- How not to be! used to ...

- Would you like some more rum? - I said to my interlocutor. - I have a white man from Tiflis; now it's cold.

- No, thank you, I don’t drink.

- What is it?

Hearing this, I almost lost hope.

- How did it happen?

- What was his name? - I asked Maksim Maksimych.

- His name was ... Grigoriy Alexandrovich Pechorin. He was a fine fellow, I dare to assure you; just a little weird. After all, for example, in the rain, in the cold all day long hunting; everyone will be chilled, tired - but he has nothing. And another time he sits in his room, smells of the wind, assures that he has a cold; knocks on the shutter, he shudders and turns pale; and in my presence he went to the boar one on one; it used to be that for hours on end you won’t get a word, but sometimes, as you start talking, you’ll break your bellies with laughter ... Yes, sir, with great oddities, and must be a rich man: how many different expensive things he had! ..

- How long did he live with you? I asked again.

- Unusual? - I exclaimed with an air of curiosity, pouring him some tea.

- But I'll tell you. One peaceful prince lived about six versts from the fortress. His little son, a boy of about fifteen, got into the habit of visiting us: every day, it happened, then after that, then

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after another. And for sure, we spoiled him with Grigoriy Alexandrovich. And what a thug he was, agile at whatever you want: whether to lift a hat at full gallop, or shoot from a gun. One thing was bad about him: he was terribly greedy for money. Once, for a laugh, Grigory Alexandrovich promised to give him a gold piece if he would steal the best goat from his father's flock; and what do you think? the next night he dragged him by the horns. And it used to be, we would try to tease him, so his eyes would be bloodshot, and now for the dagger. "Hey, Azamat, don't blow your head off," I told him, "Yaman will be your head off!"

- How do they celebrate their wedding? I asked the staff captain.

- And what is it she sang, do not you remember?

When she left us, then I whispered to Grigory Alexandrovich: "Well, what is it?" - “Lovely! - he answered. - What is her name?" “Her name is Beloy,” I answered.

It became stuffy in the sakla, and I went out into the air to freshen up. The night was already falling on the mountains, and the fog began to roam the gorges.

I took it into my head to turn under the shed where our horses were standing, to see if they had food, and moreover, caution never interferes: I had a nice horse, and more than one Kabardian looked at it affectionately, saying: “Yakshi tkhe, check yaksha! "

- You have a glorious horse! - said Azamat. - If I were the owner of the house and had a herd of three hundred mares, I would give half for your horse, Kazbich!

"A! Kazbich! " - I thought and remembered the chain mail.

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a ravine horse, snorts, neighs and hits the ground with its hooves; I recognized the voice of my Karagöz; it was him, my comrade! .. Since then we have not parted.

And you could hear how he stroked the smooth neck of his horse with his hand, giving it various tender names.

- If I had a herd of a thousand mares, - said Azamat, - I would give you all of it for your Karagöz.

- Yok, I don't want to, - Kazbich answered indifferently.

“Listen, Kazbich,” Azamat said, caressing him, “you are a kind man, you are a brave horseman, and my father is afraid of the Russians and does not let me into the mountains; give me your horse, and I will do whatever you want, I will steal from your father the best rifle or saber you want from your father - and put his real gourde saber with a blade to your hand, it will scream into the body itself; and chain mail - such as yours, does not care.

Kazbich was silent.

- The first time I saw your horse, - continued Azamat, - when he was spinning and jumping under you, flaring his nostrils, and flints flew out from under his hooves in a spray, something incomprehensible became in my soul, and since then I was disgusted with everything: I looked at my father's best horses with contempt, I was ashamed to show myself to them, and longing took possession of me; and, longing, I sat on the cliff for whole days, and every minute your black horse appeared to my thoughts with its slender tread, with its smooth, straight, like an arrow, ridge; he looked into my eyes with his lively eyes, as if he wanted to utter a word. I will die, Kazbich, if you don’t sell it to me! - said Azamat in a trembling voice.

I heard that he was crying: but I need to tell you that Azamat was a stubborn boy, and nothing happened to beat his tears, even when he was younger.

Something like laughter was heard in response to his tears.

- Listen, - Azamat said in a firm voice, - you see, I decide on everything. Do you want me to steal my sister for you? How she dances! how she sings! and embroiders with gold - a miracle! A Turkish padishah has never had such a wife ... Do you want? wait for me tomorrow night there in the gorge where the stream runs: I will go with her past to the neighboring aul - and she is yours. Isn't Bel worth your steed?

Kazbich was silent for a long, long time; finally, instead of answering, he began an old song in an undertone:

There are many beauties in our villages,

The stars shine in the darkness of their eyes.

It's sweet to love them, an enviable share;

But the brave will is more cheerful.

Gold will be bought by four wives

A dashing horse has no price:

He will not lag behind the whirlwind in the steppe,

He will not change, he will not deceive.

In vain did Azamat begged him to agree, and wept, and flattered him, and swore; finally Kazbich interrupted him impatiently:

- Go away, you mad boy! Where do you ride my horse? In the first three steps, he will throw you off, and you will smash your head against the stones.

- It's a bad thing in someone else's feast - a hangover, - I said to Grigory Alexandrovich, catching his hand, - isn't it better for us to get out as soon as possible?

- Wait, how will it end.

- Yes, it will surely end badly; with these Asians, it’s like this: the booze came on, and the massacre began!

We got on horseback and rode home.

- And what about Kazbich? - I asked the staff captain impatiently.

- What is this people doing! He answered, finishing his glass of tea. - He slipped away!

- And not wounded? I asked.

- What is it? Tell me, please.

- Well, there’s nothing to do! began to tell, so it is necessary to continue.

You see, afterwards I recognized the whole thing: Grigory Aleksandrovich teased him so much that even in the water. Once he told him:

- I see, Azamat, that you really liked this horse; but not to see her as your back of the head! Well, tell me, what would you give to the one who gave it to you? ..

- Anything he wants, - answered Azamat.

- In that case, I will get it for you, only on condition ... Swear that you will fulfill it ...

- I swear ... You swear too!

- Good! I swear you will own a horse; only for him you must give me sister Bela: Karagöz will be her kalym. I hope the bargaining is profitable for you.

Azamat was silent.

- Do not want? As you want! I thought you were a man, and you were still a child: it's too early for you to ride ...

Azamat flushed.

- And my father? - he said.

- Doesn't he ever leave?

- Truth…

- I agree?..

- I agree, - whispered Azamat, pale as death. - When is it?

- The first time Kazbich comes here; he promised to drive a dozen rams; the rest is my business. Look, Azamat!

- Azamat! - said Grigory Alexandrovich. - Tomorrow Karagöz is in my hands; if Bela is not here tonight, then you will not see the horse ...

- Good! - said Azamat and galloped to the aul.

- And the horse? - I asked the staff captain.

- Now. The next morning Kazbich arrived early and brought a dozen sheep for sale. By tying

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the horse is at the fence, he came to me; I treated him to tea, because although he was a robber, he was still my kunak.

We began to chat about this and that ... Suddenly, I looked, Kazbich shuddered, changed his face - and to the window; but the window, unfortunately, overlooked the courtyard.

- What's the matter? I asked.

“My horse! .. horse! ..” he said, trembling all over.

Precisely, I heard the clatter of hooves: "It is true, some Cossack has arrived ..."

- What is father?

- Yes, the thing is that Kazbich did not find him: he was leaving somewhere for six days, otherwise would Azamat have managed to take his sister away?

I confess, and I got a fair share of it. As soon as I found out that the Circassian woman was with Grigoriy Alexandrovich, I put on epaulettes and a sword and went to him.

- Mister Warrant Officer! I said as severely as possible. - Can't you see that I have come to you?

- Ah, hello, Maxim Maksimych! Would you like a pipe? - he answered, not getting up.

- Sorry! I am not Maxim Maksimych: I am the staff captain.

- Does not matter. Would you like some tea? If you only knew what anxiety torments me!

- I know everything, - I answered, going to the bed.

- So much the better: I'm not in the spirit of telling.

- Mister Warrant Officer, you have committed an offense, for which I can be responsible ...

- And fullness! what's the trouble? After all, we have had everything in half for a long time.

- What kind of joke? Welcome your sword!

- Mitka, sword! ..

Mitka brought a sword. Having done my duty, I sat down on his bed and said:

- Listen, Grigory Alexandrovich, admit that it's not good.

- What's not good?

- Yes, the fact that you took Bela ... Oh, this beast for me Azamat! .. Well, admit it, - I told him.

- When do I like her? ..

Well, what do you want to answer to this? .. I became at a dead end. However, after some silence, I told him that if my father began to demand it, he would have to give it back.

- Not at all!

- Will he know that she is here?

- How will he know?

I again became stumped.

- Listen, Maxim Maksimych! - said Pechorin, standing up. - After all, you are a kind person - and if we give our daughter to this savage, he will kill her or sell her. The deed is done, it is not necessary only to spoil it with desire; leave it with me, and with you my sword ...

“Show me her,” I said.

- She's behind this door; Only I myself wanted to see her today in vain: I was sitting in the corner, wrapped in a blanket, neither talking nor looking: shy like a wild chamois. I hired our dukhan woman: she knows Tatar, will follow her and teach her to think that she is mine, because she will not belong to anyone but me, ”he added, hitting the table with his fist. I agreed on this too ... What would you like to do? There are people with whom you must certainly agree.

“And what,” I asked Maksim Maksimych, “did he really accustom her to himself, or did she wither away in captivity, from homesickness?”

- Pardon me, why from homesickness? From the fortress the same mountains were visible as from the aul - and these savages did not need anything else. Yes, moreover, Grigory Alexandrovich gave her something every day: for the first days she silently proudly repulsed the gifts that then went to the dukhan woman and aroused her eloquence. Ah, gifts! what a woman won't do for a colored rag! .. Well, yes, that's aside… Grigory Alexandrovich fought with her for a long time; meanwhile he studied in Tatar, and she began to understand in our way. Little by little she learned to look at him, at first sullenly, askance, and she was sad all the time, sang her songs in an undertone, so that sometimes I felt sad when I listened to her from the next room. I will never forget one scene, I walked by and looked through the window; Bela was sitting on the couch with her head resting on her chest, and Grigory Alexandrovich stood in front of her.

“Listen, my peri,” he said, “you know that sooner or later you have to be mine. Why are you only torturing me? Do you love any Chechen? If so, I'll let you go home now. She flinched barely perceptibly and shook her head. “Or,” he continued, “you absolutely hate me? She sighed. - Or does your faith forbid you to love me? - She turned pale and was silent. - Believe me, Allah is the same for all tribes, and if he allows me to love you, why will he forbid you to pay me in return? She gazed into his face intently, as if struck by this new thought; incredulity and a desire to be sure were expressed in her eyes. What eyes! they sparkled like two coals. - Listen, dear, kind Bela, - continued Pechorin, - you see how I love you; I’m ready to give everything to cheer you up: I want you to be happy; and if you are sad again, then I will die. Tell me, will you be more fun?

She pondered, not taking her black eyes off him, then smiled affectionately and nodded her head in agreement. He took her hand and began to persuade her to kiss him; she defended herself weakly and only repeated: "Podzhalusta, podzhalusta, not nada, not nada." He began to insist; she trembled, began to cry.

“I am your captive,” she said, “your slave; of course, you can force me - and again tears.

Grigory Alexandrovich hit himself on the forehead with his fist and jumped out into another room. I went to see him; he walked sullenly to and fro with folded arms.

- What, father? - I told him.

- The devil, not a woman! - he answered, - only I give you my word of honor that she will be mine ...

I shook my head.

- Would you like to bet? - he said, - in a week!

- Excuse me!

We shook hands and parted.

The next day he immediately sent a courier to Kizlyar for various purchases; many different Persian materials were brought, all of them can not be counted.

- What do you think, Maksim Maksimych, - he said to me, showing gifts, - will the Asian beauty stand

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against such a battery?

“You don’t know a Circassian girl,” I answered. They have their own rules: they are brought up differently. - Grigory Alexandrovich smiled and began to whistle the march.

But it turned out that I was right: the gifts had only half the effect; she became more affectionate, more trusting — and that was all; so he decided on a last resort. Once in the morning he ordered a horse to be saddled, dressed in Circassian style, armed himself and went in to her. “Bela,” he said, “you know how much I love you. I made up my mind to take you away, thinking that when you recognize me, you will fall in love; I was wrong: goodbye! remain the complete mistress of everything I have; if you want, return to your father - you are free. I am guilty before you and must punish myself; goodbye, I'm going - where? why i know! Perhaps I will not chase a bullet or a checker strike for long; then remember me and forgive me. " He turned away and held out his hand to her goodbye. She did not take her hands, was silent. Only standing outside the door, I could see her face through the crack: and I felt sorry - such a deadly pallor covered this pretty face! Hearing no answer, Pechorin took several steps towards the door; he was trembling - and should I tell you? I think he was able to do what he was talking about in jest. Such was the man, God knows! As soon as he touched the door, she jumped up, sobbed and threw herself on his neck. Would you believe it? I, standing outside the door, also cried, that is, you know, not that I cried, but this is stupidity! ..

The captain fell silent.

“Yes, I confess,” he said later, fingering his mustache, “I felt annoyed that no woman had ever loved me so much.

- And how long was their happiness? I asked.

- Yes, she confessed to us that from the day she saw Pechorin, he often dreamed of her in her dreams and that no man had ever made such an impression on her. Yes, they were happy!

- How boring! - I exclaimed involuntarily. Indeed, I was expecting a tragic outcome, and all of a sudden my hopes were deceived so unexpectedly! .. - But really, - I continued, - my father did not guess that she was in your fortress?

“That is, it seems he suspected. A few days later we learned that the old man had been killed. This is how it happened ...

My attention was awakened again.

- I must tell you that Kazbich imagined that Azamat, with the consent of his father, stole his horse from him, at least I think so. So he once waited by the road, three versts beyond the aul; the old man was returning from a vain search for his daughter; his bridle lagged behind - it was at dusk - he rode thoughtfully at a pace, when suddenly Kazbich, like a cat, dived from behind a bush, jumped on his horse behind him, knocked him down with a dagger blow, grabbed the reins - and he was like that; some bridles saw all this from a hillock; they rushed to catch up, but did not catch up.

“He rewarded himself for the loss of his horse and took revenge,” I said, in order to evoke the opinion of my interlocutor.

“Of course, in their language,” said the captain, “he was absolutely right.

I was involuntarily struck by the ability of a Russian person to apply to the customs of those peoples among which he happens to live; I do not know whether this property of the mind is worthy of blame or praise, only it proves its incredible flexibility and the presence of this clear common sense, which forgives evil wherever it sees its necessity or impossibility of its destruction.

Meanwhile the tea was drunk; the horses harnessed for a long time froze in the snow; the moon turned pale in the west and was already ready to plunge into its black clouds, hanging on the distant peaks, like shreds of a torn curtain; we left the sakli. Contrary to the prediction of my companion, the weather cleared up and promised us a quiet morning; round dances of stars intertwined in wonderful patterns in the distant sky and one after another extinguished as the pale gleam of the east spread over the dark purple vault, gradually illuminating the steep slopes of the mountains, covered with virgin snow. To the right and to the left dark, mysterious abysses blackened, and fogs, swirling and wriggling like snakes, slid there along the wrinkles of the neighboring rocks, as if feeling and frightened of the approach of the day.

Everything was quiet in heaven and on earth, as in the heart of a person at the moment of morning prayer; only occasionally a cool breeze came from the east, lifting the horses' mane, covered with frost. We set off; with difficulty, five thin nags dragged our carts along the winding road to Good Mountain; we walked behind, placing stones under the wheels when the horses were exhausted; the road seemed to lead to the sky, because, as many eyes could see, it kept rising and finally disappearing into a cloud, which had been resting on the top of Good Mountain since the evening, like a kite waiting for prey; the snow crunched under our feet; the air was becoming so rare that it was painful to breathe; the blood rushed to my head every minute, but with all that, some kind of gratifying feeling spread through all my veins, and it was somehow fun that I was so high above the world: a childish feeling, I do not argue, but, moving away from the conditions of society and approaching to nature, we unwittingly become children; everything acquired falls away from the soul, and it becomes again what it once was and, probably, will someday again. Anyone who happens, like me, to wander through the desert mountains, and for a long, long time gaze at their bizarre images, and eagerly swallow the life-giving air poured in their gorges, he, of course, will understand my desire to convey, tell, paint these magical pictures. At last we climbed Good Mountain, stopped and looked around: a gray cloud hung on it, and its cold breath threatened an imminent storm; but in the east everything was so clear and golden that we, that is me and the staff captain, completely forgot about him ... Yes, and the staff captain: in the hearts of the simple, the feeling of the beauty and grandeur of nature is stronger, a hundred times more alive than in us enthusiastic storytellers in word and on paper.

- You, I think, are accustomed to these magnificent paintings? - I told him.

- Yes, and you can get used to the whistle of a bullet, that is, get used to hiding an involuntary heartbeat.

- I heard on the contrary that for some old warriors this music is even pleasant.

- Of course, if you like, it's nice; only because the heart beats faster. Look, ”he added, pointing to the east,“ what an edge!

And, for sure, I can hardly see such a panorama anywhere else: beneath us lay the Koishaur valley, crossed by the Aragva and another river, like two silver threads; a bluish mist glided over it, fleeing into the neighboring gorges from the warm rays of the morning; to the right and to the left, the ridges of the mountains, one higher than the other, crossed, stretched, covered with snow, with bushes; in the distance the same mountains, but at least two rocks, similar to one another - and all these snows burned with a ruddy sheen so merrily, so brightly that it seems that they would have stayed here forever; the sun appeared a little from behind a dark blue mountain, which only a familiar eye could distinguish from a thundercloud; but there was a bloody streak over the sun, to which my friend paid special attention. “I told you,” he exclaimed, “that there will be weather today; we must hurry, or, perhaps, she will find us on Krestovaya. Get under way! " He shouted to the drivers.

They put chains under the wheels instead of brakes so that they would not roll out, took the horses by the bridle and began to descend; to the right was a cliff, to the left there was such an abyss that

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the village of Ossetians living at the bottom seemed like a swallow's nest; I shuddered, thinking that often here, in the dead of night, along this road, where two carts cannot part, a courier passes through ten times a year without getting out of his shaking carriage. One of our cabbies was a Russian peasant from Yaroslavl, the other an Ossetian: the Ossetian led the root by the bridle with all possible precautions, unharnessing the carried ones in advance - and our careless hare didn't even get off the beam! When I noticed to him that he could have worried in favor of at least my suitcase, for which I did not want to climb into this abyss, he answered me: “And, master! God willing, we’ll get there as well: it’s not the first time for us, ”and he was right: we certainly could not get there, but we got there, and if all people had more reasoned, then we would have made sure that life is not worth it taking so much care of her ...

But maybe you want to know the ending of Bela's story? First, I am not writing a story, but travel notes; consequently, I cannot compel the captain to tell the story before he really began to tell. So, wait a minute, or if you want, turn a few pages, but I do not advise you, because the crossing of the Mount of Cross (or, as the scientist Gamba calls it, le Mont St-Christophe) is worthy of your curiosity. So, we went down from Good Mountain to the Devil's Valley ... Here is a romantic name! You already see the nest of an evil spirit between the impregnable cliffs - it was not there: the name of the Devil's Valley comes from the word "devil", not "devil", for there was once a border of Georgia here. This valley was littered with snowdrifts, which quite vividly resembled Saratov, Tambov and other lovely places of our fatherland.

- Here is Krestovaya! - the captain told me when we drove into the Devil's Valley, pointing to a hill covered with a blanket of snow; on its top was a black stone cross, and a barely noticeable road led past it, along which one passes only when the side is covered with snow; our cabbies announced that there were no landslides yet, and, saving the horses, they drove us around. At the turn we met five Ossetians; they offered us their services and, clinging to the wheels, with a cry began to drag and support our carts. And indeed, the road is dangerous: to the right hung over our heads piles of snow, ready, it seems, at the first gust of wind to break off into the gorge; the narrow road was partly covered with snow, which in some places fell through under our feet, in others it turned into ice from the action of the sun's rays and night frosts, so we made our way with difficulty; horses fell; to the left a deep crevice gaped, where the stream rolled, now hiding under the ice crust, now jumping over the black stones with foam. At two o'clock we could barely round the Krestovaya Mountain - two miles in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds descended, hail and snow poured down; the wind, bursting into the gorges, roared, whistled like a Nightingale the robber, and soon the stone cross disappeared into the fog, which waves, one thicker and closer to the other, rushed from the east ... By the way, there is a strange but universal legend about this cross, that it set by Emperor Peter I, passing through the Caucasus; but, firstly, Peter was only in Dagestan, and, secondly, on the cross it is written in large letters that he was placed by order of Mr. Ermolov, namely in 1824. But the legend, despite the inscription, is so ingrained that, really, you don't know what to believe, especially since we are not used to believing the inscriptions.

We had to go down another five versts along icy rocks and swampy snow to reach the Kobe station. The horses are exhausted, we are chilled; the blizzard hummed harder and harder, like our dear, northern; only her wild tunes were sadder, mournful. “And you, an exile,” I thought, “weep for your wide, vast steppes! There is where to unfold cold wings, but here you are stuffy and cramped, like an eagle, which with a cry beats against the lattice of its iron cage ”.

- Badly! - said the staff captain, - look, you can see nothing around, only fog and snow; that and look, that we will fall into the abyss or we will go into a slum, and there lower, tea, Baidara played so hard that you will not run over. This is Asia for me! that people, that rivers - can not be relied on in any way!

The cabbies, shouting and cursing, beat the horses, which snorted, resisted and did not want to move in the light for anything in the world, despite the eloquence of the whips.

“Your Honor,” one finally said, “after all, we won't get to Kobe today; Would you like to order, while it is possible, turn to the left? Over there, something is blackening on the slope - that's right, sakli: there always people passing by stop in the weather; they say they will cheat if you give it for vodka, ”he added, pointing to the Ossetian.

- I know, brother, I know without you! - said the staff captain. - These beasts! glad to find fault in order to rip off on vodka.

“Admit it, however,” I said, “that we would have been worse off without them.

- Everything is so, everything is so, - he muttered, - these are my guides! they hear with instinct where they can use it, as if without them it is impossible to find roads.

So we turned left and somehow, after much trouble, we got to a meager shelter, consisting of two sakles, stacked of slabs and cobblestones and surrounded by the same wall; the ragged owners made us feel welcome. I later learned that the government pays them and feeds them on the condition that they receive travelers caught in the storm.

- All goes to good! - I said, sitting down by the fire, - now you will tell me your story about Bela; I'm sure it didn't end there.

- Why are you so sure? - answered me the staff captain, winking with a sly smile ...

- Because this is not in the order of things: what began in an extraordinary way must end in the same way.

- You guessed it ...

- I am glad.

“It’s good for you to rejoice, but I’m so, really, sad, as I remember. This Bela was a glorious girl! I was finally as used to her as to my daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family: I have not heard of my father and mother for about twelve years, and I didn’t think to stock up on a wife before — now, you know, it doesn’t suit me; I was glad that I had found someone to pamper. She used to sing us songs or dance a lezginka ... And how she danced! I saw our provincial young ladies, I was once, sir, in Moscow at the Noble Assembly, twenty years ago - but where are they? not at all! .. Grigory Alexandrovich dressed her up like a doll, cared for and cherished her; and she has become so prettier with us that it’s a miracle; the sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, a blush played out on her cheeks ... Oh, she used to be cheerful, and all over me, the mischievous woman, was joking ... God forgive her! ..

- And what when you announced her father's death?

- We hid it from her for a long time, until she got used to her position; and when they said, she cried for two days, and then forgot.

For about four months everything went as well as possible. Grigory Alexandrovich, I think I said, was passionately fond of hunting: it used to be that he was tempted into the woods after wild boars or goats - and then at least he went beyond the rampart. Here, however, I look, he began to think again, walks around the room, bending his arms back; then once, without telling anyone, he went to shoot, - he disappeared the whole morning; once and twice, more and more often ... "It's not good," I thought, "surely a black cat slipped between them!"

One morning I go to them - as now before my eyes: Bela was sitting on

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bed in a black silk beshmet, pale, so sad that I was frightened.

- Where is Pechorin? I asked.

- On the hunt.

- Gone today?

She was silent, as if it was difficult for her to pronounce.

“No, yesterday,” she finally said, sighing heavily.

- Has something happened to him?

“Yesterday I was thinking all day,” she answered through tears, “I thought up various misfortunes: it seemed to me that a wild boar had wounded him, then the Chechen dragged him to the mountains ... But now it seems to me that he does not love me.

- Really, dear, you could not think of anything worse!

She began to cry, then proudly raised her head, wiped away her tears and continued:

- If he doesn't love me, then who's stopping him from sending me home? I do not force him. And if this continues like this, then I myself will leave: I am not his slave - I am a prince's daughter! ..

I began to persuade her.

- Listen, Bela, after all, he can't sit here for a century, like sewn to your skirt: he is a young man, he loves to chase game, - he looks like, and he will come; and if you are sad, then sooner he will get bored.

- True true! - she answered, - I will be cheerful. - And with a laugh she grabbed her tambourine, began to sing, dance and jump around me; only this was not lasting; she fell back on the bed and covered her face with her hands.

What could I do with her? You know, I have never dealt with women; thought, thought, how to console her, and came up with nothing; we were both silent for some time ... An unpleasant situation, sir!

Finally I said to her: “Do you want us to go for a walk on the shaft? the weather is glorious! " This was in September; and indeed, the day was wonderful, bright and not hot; all the mountains were visible on a silver platter. We walked, walked up and down the rampart, in silence; finally she sat down on the sod and I sat down beside her. Well, really, it's funny to remember: I ran after her like some kind of nanny.

Our fortress stood on a high place, and the view from the rampart was beautiful: on one side, a wide clearing, dug by several ravines, ended in a forest that stretched to the very ridge of the mountains; here and there auls were smoking on it, herds were walking; on the other, a shallow river ran, and a dense shrub adjoined it, covering the siliceous heights that connected with the main chain of the Caucasus. We sat at the corner of the bastion so that we could see everything in both directions. Here I look: someone is riding out of the forest on a gray horse, getting closer and closer, and finally, he stopped on the other side of the river, a hundred yards away from us, and began to circle his horse like a madman. What a parable! ..

- Look, Bela, - I said, - you have young eyes, what kind of horseman is this: who is he here to amuse? ..

She looked and cried out:

- This is Kazbich! ..

- Oh, he is a robber! laugh, or what, came over us? - I peer, like Kazbich: his swarthy face, ragged, dirty as always.

“This is my father’s horse,” Bela said, grabbing my hand; she trembled like a leaf, and her eyes sparkled. “Aha! - I thought, - and in you, darling, the robber's blood is not silent! "

“Come here,” I said to the sentry.

- Yes, your honor; only he does not stand still ...

- Order! - I said, laughing ...

- Hey, dear! - shouted the sentry, waving his hand. - Wait a little, why are you spinning like a top?

Kazbich really stopped and began to listen: surely, he thought that negotiations were being started with him - how not so! .. My grenadier kissed ... bam! .. past, - just now the gunpowder on the shelf flared up; Kazbich pushed the horse, and it gave a leap to the side. He stood up in the stirrups, shouted something in his own way, threatened with a whip - and he was.

- Aren `t you ashamed! I said to the sentry.

- Your honor! I went to die, - he answered, - such a cursed people, you can't kill right away.

A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting; Bela threw herself on his neck, and not a single complaint, not a single reproach for a long absence ... Even I was really angry with him.

“Forgive me,” I said, “after all, right now there was Kazbich across the river, and we were firing at him; well, how long will you stumble upon it? These highlanders are vengeful people: do you think that he does not realize that you helped Azamat in part? And I bet that today he recognized Bela. I know that a year ago he really liked her - he told me himself - and if I had hoped to collect a decent kalym, then, surely, I would have wooed ...

Here Pechorin pondered. “Yes,” he replied, “you have to be more careful ... Bela, from now on you should no longer go to the ramparts.”

In the evening I had a long explanation with him: I was annoyed that he had changed to this poor girl; besides the fact that he spent half the day hunting, his appeal became cold, he rarely caressed her, and she noticeably began to dry out, her face stretched out, her large eyes grew dull. Sometimes you would ask: “What are you sighing about, Bela? are you sad? " - "Not!" - "Do you want something?" - "Not!" - "Do you miss your family?" - "I have no relatives." Happened, for whole days, except for "yes" and "no", you will get nothing more from her.

It was about this that I began to tell him. “Listen, Maksim Maksimych,” he answered, “I have an unhappy character: whether my upbringing made me so, whether God created me that way, I don't know; I only know that if I am the cause of the misfortune of others, then I myself am no less unhappy; of course, this is a bad consolation for them - only the fact is that it is so. In my first youth, from the minute I left the care of my relatives, I began to enjoy madly all the pleasures that money could get, and of course, these pleasures made me sick of them. Then I set off into the big world, and soon the company also bothered me; I fell in love with secular beauties and was loved - but their love only irritated my imagination and self-esteem, and my heart remained empty ... I began to read, study - science is also tired; I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends in the least on them, because the happiest people are ignorant, and fame is good luck, and in order to achieve it, you just need to be clever. Then I got bored ... Soon they transferred me to the Caucasus: this is the happiest time of my life. I hoped that boredom did not live under the Chechen bullets; - in vain: after a month I got so used to their buzzing and to the proximity of death that, really, I paid more attention to mosquitoes - and I became more bored than before, because I had almost lost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my house, when for the first time, holding her on my knees, I kissed her black locks, I, a fool, thought that she was an angel sent to me by a compassionate fate ... I was wrong again: the love of a savage is little better than the love of a noble lady; the ignorance and simplicity of one is as annoying as the coquetry of the other. If you want, I still love her, I am grateful to her for a few rather sweet minutes, I will give my life for her - only I am bored with her ... Whether I am a fool or a villain, I don’t know; but it is true that I am also very deserving of pity, perhaps more than she: in me my soul is spoiled by light, my imagination is restless, my heart is insatiable; Everything is not enough for me: I get used to sadness as easily as to pleasure, and my life becomes empty day by day; I have only one remedy left: to travel. As soon as possible, I'll go - just not to Europe, God forbid! - I'll go to America, to Arabia, to India, - maybe somewhere

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I'll die on the road! At least I am sure that this last consolation will not soon be exhausted with the help of storms and bad roads. " So he spoke for a long time, and his words engraved in my memory, because for the first time I heard such things from a twenty-five-year-old man, and, God willing, for the last ... What a miracle! Tell me, please, - continued the captain, turning to me, - you, it seems, have been in the capital, and recently: is it really all the youth there?

I replied that there are many people who say the same thing; that there are probably those who speak the truth; that, however, disappointment, like all fashions, starting with the upper strata of society, descended to the lower ones, who wear it out, and that now those who are most bored of all are trying to hide this misfortune as a vice. The staff captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head and smiled slyly:

- And that's it, tea, did the French make it fashionable to be bored?

- No, the British.

- Hah, that's what! .. - he answered, - but they were always notorious drunkards!

I involuntarily remembered a certain Moscow lady who claimed that Byron was nothing more like a drunkard. However, the staff captain's remark was more excuse: in order to refrain from wine, he, of course, tried to assure himself that all misfortunes in the world come from drunkenness.

Meanwhile, he continued his story in this way:

- Kazbich did not appear again. But I don’t know why, I couldn’t knock out of my head the thought that it was not for nothing that he came and was up to something bad.

Once Pechorin persuades me to go with him to the wild boar; I denied for a long time: well, what a wild boar was to me! However, he took me away with him. We took about five soldiers and left early in the morning. Until ten o'clock they dived through the reeds and through the forest - there was no beast. “Hey, shouldn't I come back? - I said, - why be stubborn? Obviously, such a miserable day has been set! " Only Grigory Alexandrovich, in spite of the heat and fatigue, did not want to return without prey, such was the man: what he thinks, give it; apparently, as a child he was spoiled by his mother ... Finally, at noon, they found the accursed boar: bang! paf! .. it wasn’t there: he went into the reeds ... it was such a miserable day! So we, having rested a little, went home.

We rode alongside, in silence, loosening the reins, and were already almost at the fortress itself: only the bushes were blocking it from us. Suddenly a shot ... We looked at each other: we were struck by the same suspicion ... We galloped headlong into the shot - we look: on the shaft the soldiers gathered in a heap and pointed to the field, and there a horseman was flying headlong and holding something white on the saddle. Grigory Alexandrovich screamed no worse than any Chechen; a gun from a case - and there; I follow him.

Fortunately, due to an unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not exhausted: they were torn from under the saddle, and every moment we were getting closer and closer ... And finally I recognized Kazbich, only I could not make out what he was holding in front of him. I then caught up with Pechorin and shouted to him: "This is Kazbich! .." He looked at me, nodded his head and hit the horse with a whip.

Finally, we were already on a rifle shot from him; Whether Kazbich's horse was exhausted or worse than ours, only, despite all his efforts, it did not painfully lean forward. I think at that moment he remembered his Karagöz ...

I looked: Pechorin at a gallop kissed from a gun ... “Don't shoot! - I shout to him, - take care of the charge; we will catch up with him anyway. " These young people! always inappropriately hot ... But a shot rang out, and a bullet interrupted the horse's hind leg; In her temper she made ten more leaps, stumbled and fell to her knees. Kazbich jumped off, and then we saw that he was holding in his arms a woman, wrapped in a veil ... It was Bela ... poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own way and raised a dagger over her ... There was nothing to hesitate: I fired, in turn, at random; the bullet must have hit him in the shoulder, because suddenly he lowered his hand ... When the smoke cleared, a wounded horse lay on the ground and Bela beside it; and Kazbich, throwing his gun, through the bushes, like a cat, climbed the cliff; I wanted to take it off from there - but there was no ready-made charge! We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor thing, she lay motionless, and blood poured from the wound in streams ... Such a villain; even if he struck in the heart - well, so be it, he would have finished everything all at once, or else in the back ... the most robber blow! She was unconscious. We tore off the veil and bandaged the wound as tightly as possible; in vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips - nothing could bring her to his senses.

Pechorin sat astride; I picked her up from the ground and somehow put her on the saddle with him; he put his arm around her, and we drove back. After a few minutes of silence, Grigory Alexandrovich told me: "Listen, Maxim Maksimych, we won't bring her alive that way." “True!” I said, and we set the horses in full swing. A crowd of people was waiting for us at the gates of the fortress; We carefully carried the wounded woman to Pechorin and sent for a doctor. Although he was drunk, he came: he examined the wound and announced that she could not live more than a day; only he was wrong ...

- Recovered? - I asked the staff captain, grabbing his hand and involuntarily delighted.

“No,” he answered, “but the doctor was mistaken that she lived for two more days.

- Yes, explain to me how Kazbich kidnapped her?

- And like this: despite the prohibition of Pechorin, she left the fortress to the river. It was, you know, very hot; she sat down on a rock and dipped her feet into the water. Here Kazbich crept up - a claw-scratch her, clamped his mouth and dragged her into the bushes, and there he jumped on a horse, and a thrust! In the meantime she had time to scream; the sentries were alarmed, fired, but by, and we arrived in time.

- Why did Kazbich want to take her away?

- Have mercy, but these Circassians are a well-known thieves' people: what lies badly, they cannot but pull off; the other is not needed, but it will steal everything ... I beg your pardon for this! And besides, he had liked her for a long time.

- And Bela died?

- She died; only suffered for a long time, and we were already exhausted by order. At about ten o'clock in the evening she regained consciousness; we sat by the bed; she had just opened her eyes and began to call Pechorin. “I am here, beside you, my dzhanichka (that is, in our opinion, darling),” he answered, taking her hand. "I will die!" - she said. We began to console her, saying that the doctor promised to cure her without fail; she shook her head and turned to the wall: she didn't want to die! ..

At night she began to rave; her head was on fire, a shiver of fever sometimes ran all over her body; she spoke incoherent speeches about her father, brother: she wanted to go to the mountains, home ... Then she also talked about Pechorin, gave him various tender names or reproached him for having stopped loving his dzhanichka ...

He listened to her in silence, with his head in his hands; but all the time I did not notice a single tear on his eyelashes: whether he really could not cry, or whether he was in control, I don’t know; as for me, I have never seen anything more pitiful.

By morning the delirium was gone; For an hour she lay motionless, pale and so weak that it was hardly possible to notice that she was breathing; then she felt better, and she began to talk, but what do you think about? .. Such a thought will come, after all, only to a dying man! .. the soul of Grigory Alexandrovich, and that another woman would be his friend in paradise. It occurred to me to baptize her before death; I suggested it to her; she looked at me in

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indecision and could not utter a word for a long time; finally answered that she would die in the faith in which she was born. The whole day passed in this way. How she changed that day! pale cheeks have sunken, eyes have become large, lips burned. She felt an internal heat, as if a red-hot iron lay in her chest.

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Notes (edit)

Dukhan - tavern, tavern, small shop.

Ermolov. (Comment by M. Yu. Lermontov)

bad (Turkic).

Good, very good! (Turk.)

No (Turkic).

Gurda is a grade of steel, the name of the best Caucasian blades.

I apologize to the readers for having transposed into verse Kazbich's song, conveyed to me, of course, by prose; but habit is second nature. (Approx. M. Yu. Lermontov.)

Kunak means buddy. (Approx. M. Yu. Lermontov.)

ravines. (Approx. M. Yu. Lermontov.)

End of introductory snippet.

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Summary "Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, young oprichnik and daring merchant Kalashnikov" Lermontov M.Yu.
“The pathos of Lermontov's poetry lies in moral questions about the fate and rights of the human person” V.G. Belinsky

Plot plan

1. Preface to the novel.

2. "Bela":

- the narrator's journey, his meeting with Maxim Maxi-mich;
- the first part of Maxim Maksimych's story about Bela;
- crossing the Cross Pass;
- the second part of Maxim Maksimych's story;
- the denouement of "Bela" and the outset of the further narrative about Pechorin.

3. "Maxim Maksimych":

- the meeting of the narrator with Maxim Maksimych;
—Psychological portrait of Pechorin (narrator's observations).

4. "Journal of Pechorin":

- Preface to the "Journal ...";
- "Taman";
- "Princess Mary";
- "Fatalist".

Chronological plan

1. "Taman".
2. "Princess Mary".
3. "Fatalist".
4. The first part of the events of the story "Bela".
5. The second part of the events of the story "Bela".

6 The narrator's journey, his meeting with Maxim Maksimych.
7. Moving through the Cross Pass.
8. The denouement of Bela's story, told by Maxim Maksimych, and the outset of the further narration about Pechorin.
9. Meeting of the narrator with Maxim Maksimych and Pechorin.
10. Preface to the "Pechorin Journal".
11. Preface to the novel.

Retelling

The preface was made by the author to the second edition of the novel in response to the irritated reaction of the public. “Some are terribly offended ... that they are set as an example of such an immoral person as the Hero of Our Time; others very subtly noticed that the writer painted his own portrait and portraits of his acquaintances ... An old and pathetic joke! .. Hero of Our Time ... a portrait, but not one person: their development ... Enough people were fed with sweets ... bitter medicines, caustic truths are needed. " The author "it was fun to draw a modern man as he understands him ... It will be the case that the disease is indicated, and how to cure it - that is already God knows."

Part I

Chapter 1. Bela

On a picturesque mountain road on the way from Tiflis, the narrator meets the elderly staff captain Maksim Maksimych. They stay overnight in an Ossetian sakla. Maxim Maksimych tells a story, the central figure of which is the young officer Grigory Aleksandrovich Pechorin. (Pechorin was sent to the fortress, as it turned out later, for a duel with Grushnitsky.) “He was a nice fellow, only a little strange: in the rain, in the cold he was hunting all day long; everyone will be chilled, tired - but he has nothing. And another time he sits in his room, smells of the wind, assures that he has a cold; he knocks with a shutter, he shudders and turns pale, and when I was with him he went to see the boar one-on-one ... There are such people who are written in their family that various unusual things must happen to them!

A local prince lived not far from the fortress. His fifteen-year-old son Azamat, agile, dexterous and greedy for money, Pechorin teased, provoked: “Once, for a laugh ... he promised to give him a gold piece, if he would steal the best goat from his father's flock; and what do you think? The next night he dragged him by the horns. " Once the prince invited Pechorin and Maxim Maksimych to the wedding of his eldest daughter. The prince's youngest daughter - Bela - liked Pechorin. "Only Pechorin was not alone in admiring the pretty princess: from the corner of the room two other eyes were looking at her, motionless, fiery." It was Kazbich: "his face was the most robber: small, dry, broad-shouldered ... Dexterous was like a devil! .. His horse was famous throughout Kabarda." Maksim Maksimych accidentally overheard a conversation between Kazbich and Azamat about this horse, Karagez. Azamat tried to persuade him to sell the horse, even offered to steal his sister Bela for him. "Azamat begged him in vain ... and wept, and flattered him, and swore." Finally Kazbich pushed Azamat away. The boy ran into the saklya, “saying that Kazbich wanted to kill him. Everyone jumped out, grabbed their guns - and the fun began! "

Maksim Maksimych told Pechorin about this conversation: “he laughed - so cunning! - and he himself conceived something. " Pechorin began to tease Azamat on purpose, praising Kazbich's horse. This went on for almost three weeks: "Grigory Alexandrovich teased him so much that even in the water." Azamat was already ready for anything, and Pechorin easily persuaded the boy to "exchange" Karagez for his sister, Bela: "Karagez will be her kalym." Pechorin, with the help of Azamat, stole Bela, and the next morning, when Kazbich arrived, he distracted him with conversations, and Azamat hijacked Karagez. Kazbich jumped out, began to shoot, but Azamat was already far away: “For a minute he remained motionless ... then he screamed, hit the gun on a stone, smashed it to smithereens, fell to the ground and sobbed like a child ... he lay there until nightfall and all night". Kazbich remained unavenged: Azamat ran away from home: "So he has disappeared since then: it is true, he stuck to some gang of abreks, and he laid down his wild head ..."

The head-captain tried to persuade Pechorin, but in vain: he easily persuaded Maksim Maksimych to leave Bela in the fortress. “What would you like to do? There are people with whom you must certainly agree. " Pechorin at first teased Bela, "but she silently proudly repulsed the gifts ... Grigory Alexandrovich fought with her for a long time ... Little by little she learned to look at him, at first sullenly ... and she was sad all the time." Pechorin uses all his eloquence, but Bela was adamant. Frustrated Pechorin makes a bet with Maksim Maksimych: "I give you my word of honor that she will be mine ... - in a week!"

“The gifts only worked halfway; she became more affectionate, more trusting — and that was all; so he decided on the last resort. " “I made up my mind to take you away, thinking that you ... will fall in love; I was wrong: goodbye! Remain the complete mistress of everything that I have ... Perhaps I will not chase a bullet or strike for a long time: then remember me and forgive me. " Pechorin had already made a few steps towards the door when Bela "burst into tears and threw herself on his neck."

Maksim Maksimych tells about the fate of Bela's father: he was caught and killed by Kazbich.

In the morning, the narrator and the staff captain set off again on a journey through the wild and majestic nature of the Caucasus. The picture of the landscape instills in the narrator “some kind of gratifying feeling”: “I somehow had fun that I was so high above the world - a childish feeling, I don’t argue, but, moving away from the conditions of society and approaching nature, we involuntarily become children: everything acquired falls away from the soul, and it becomes again what it once was and, surely, it will someday again. " The description of the peaceful landscape of Good Mountain is replaced by a picture of an element hostile to man: “you can see nothing around, only fog and snow; and look that we will fall into the abyss ... ”The travelers had to wait out the bad weather in the mountain sakla. Maksim Maksimych finishes his story about Bela's story: "I finally got used to her as to my daughter, and she loved me ... For about four months everything went as well as possible." Then Pechorin "began to think again", more and more often disappeared on the hunt. This tormented Bela, she imagined various misfortunes, it seemed that Pechorin had stopped loving her: “If he doesn't love me, then who's stopping him from sending me home? I am not his slave - I am a prince's daughter! "

Wanting to console Bela, Maxim Maksimych invited her for a walk. Sitting on the rampart, they noticed a horseman in the distance. It was Kazbich. Pechorin, having learned about this, forbade Bela to go to the rampart. Maxim Maksimych began to reproach Pechorin that he had changed to Bela. Pechorin replied: “I have an unhappy character ... if I become the cause of the misfortune of others, then I myself am no less unhappy. In my first youth ... I began to enjoy madly all the pleasures that money can get, and, of course, these pleasures disgusted me ... soon society also bothered me ... the love of secular beauties only irritated my imagination and pride, and my heart remained empty ... I began to read, study - science was also tired ... Then I got bored. I hoped that boredom does not live under the Chechen bullets - in vain. When I saw Bela ... I thought she was an angel sent to me by a compassionate fate ... I was wrong again: the love of a savage is little better than the love of a noble lady ... I'm bored with her ... I have only one means left: to travel. "

Once Pechorin persuaded Maksim Maksimych to go hunting. Returning, they heard a shot, galloped at its sound and saw Kazbich holding Bela on the saddle. Pechorin's shot interrupted the leg of Kazbich's horse, and he, realizing that he could not leave, stabbed Bela with a dagger. Two days later, she died, "she only suffered for a long time," she was delirious, she called Pechorin. It occurred to Maksim Maksimych to "christen her before she died," but Bela "answered that she would die in the faith she was born into." Bela died soon after. “We went to the rampart; his face did not express anything special, and I felt annoyed: in his place I would have died of grief. I ... wanted to console him ... he raised his head and laughed ... I got a chill on my skin from this laugh ... "Belu was buried. “Pechorin was unwell for a long time, emaciated, poor thing; only we have never spoken about Bela since then, ”and three months later he was transferred to Georgia. "We haven't met since."

The narrator also parted with Maksim Maksimych: "We never hoped to meet again, but we did meet, and if you want, I'll tell you: it's a whole story."

Chapter 2. Maxim Maksimych

Soon the narrator and Maxim Maksimych met again at the hotel, "like old friends." They saw a dandy carriage drive into the courtyard of the hotel. The footman who followed her, a "spoiled servant," reluctantly replied that the carriage belonged to Pechorin and that he "stayed overnight at Colonel N.'s." Delighted, the captain asked the footman to tell his master that “Maksim Maksimych was here,” and remained to wait outside the gate, but Pechorin did not appear. "The old man was saddened by Pechorin's negligence," because he was sure that he "would come running as soon as he heard his name."

The next morning Pechorin appeared at the hotel, ordered to lay the carriage and, bored, sat down on a bench at the gate. The narrator immediately sent a man for Maksim Maksimych, and he himself began to examine Pechorin. “Now I have to paint a portrait of him”: “He was of average height; his slender, slender waist and broad shoulders proved his strong build, a dusty velvet frock coat, dazzlingly clean linen, a small aristocratic hand, thin pale fingers. His gait was careless and lazy, but he did not wave his arms - a sure sign of some secrecy of character ... At first glance - no more than twenty-three years, although after that I was ready to give him thirty. There is something childish in the smile, the skin had a kind of feminine tenderness; curly blond hair picturesquely outlined a pale, noble forehead, traces of wrinkles, and black mustache and eyebrows - a sign of the breed. " His eyes “did not laugh when he laughed! This is a sign - either of an evil disposition, or of deep constant sadness. They shone with some kind of phosphoric brilliance, dazzling, but cold. " The look, penetrating and heavy, "left an unpleasant impression of an immodest question and might have seemed insolent if I had not been so indifferently calm."

The narrator saw Maxim Maksimych running across the square with all his might, "he could hardly breathe." “He wanted to throw himself on Pechorin's neck, but he coldly, although with a friendly smile, extended his hand to him. Maxim Maksimych, worried, asks Pechorin, persuades him to stay: "Why are you in such a hurry? .. Do you remember our life in the fortress? .. And Bela? .." "Pechorin turned a little pale and turned away ..." When asked what he was doing all this time, he answered: "I missed ... However, goodbye, I am in a hurry ... Thank you for not forgetting ..." "The old man furrowed his eyebrows ... He was sad and angry." Pechorin was about to drive off when Maxim Maksimych cried out: “Wait, wait! I still have your papers ... What should I do with them? " "What do you want! - answered Pechorin. - Goodbye ... "

Tears of annoyance sparkled in Maksim Maksimych's eyes: “What is in him in me? I’m not rich, I’m not an official, and by my age he’s not at all a match ... Well, what devil is carrying him to Persia now? no good is who forgets old friends! .. ”The narrator asked Maksim Maksimych to give him Pechorin's papers. He threw several notebooks on the ground with contempt. The head-captain was deeply offended by Pechorin's behavior: “Where can we, uneducated old people, chase you! be ashamed and extend your hand to our brother. "
Having said goodbye dryly, the narrator and Maxim Maksimych parted: the narrator left alone. The story ends with an expression of sympathy for Maksim Maksimych: “It’s sad to see when a young man loses his best hopes and dreams ... But what can replace them in Maksim Maksimych’s years? Involuntarily, the heart will harden and the soul will close ... "

Pechorin's Journal

Foreword

“Recently I learned that Pechorin, returning from Persia, died. This news made me very happy: it gave me the right to print these notes ... I became convinced of the sincerity of the one who so mercilessly exposed his own weaknesses and vices. The history of the human soul, even the smallest soul, is almost more curious and not more useful than the history of an entire people, especially when it is the result of observations of a mature mind over itself and when it is written without a vain desire to arouse participation or surprise ... the book only that related to Pechorin's stay in the Caucasus ... My opinion about Pechorin's character ... is the title of this book. " They will say: "Yes, this is an evil irony!" - Don't know.

I. Taman

The further story is told on behalf of Pechorin.

“Taman is the nastiest town of all the seaside towns in Russia. I almost died of hunger there, and in addition they wanted to drown me. I arrived there on the checkpoint late at night. "

Pretending to be an officer traveling "on a state need," Pechorin demanded an apartment, but all the huts were occupied. The foreman, who saw off Pechorin, warned: “There is one more fater, only your honor will not like it; it's unclean there. " Pechorin was taken to a wretched hut on the very shore of the sea. “A boy of about fourteen crawled out of the entryway ... He was blind, completely blind by nature ... a barely perceptible smile ran over his thin lips, it made the most unpleasant impression on me ... A suspicion arose that this blind man was not so blind, how it seems. " It turned out that the boy is an orphan.

In the hut "there is not a single image on the wall - a bad sign!" Soon Pechorin noticed some kind of shadow. Following her, he saw that it was a blind man with some kind of knot sneaking onto the seashore, Pechorin began to follow the blind. On the shore, a woman came up to the boy. “What, blind man? - said a woman's voice, - the storm is strong; Yanko won't be there. " The blind man answered without the Little Russian accent with which he spoke with Pechorin. After a while, a boat sailed, loaded to capacity, a man in a Tatar ram's hat got out of it, "all three began to pull something out of the boat," then with bundles "set off along the shore." Pechorin was alarmed, "he could hardly wait for the morning."

In the morning the Cossack orderly conveyed to Pechorin the words of the sergeant about the hut where they were staying: “It's unclean here, brother, people are unkind! ..” An old woman and a girl appeared. Pechorin tried to get the old woman to talk, but she did not answer, pretending to be deaf. Then he grabbed the blind man by the ear: "Where did you go with the bundle at night?" But the blind man did not confess, he wept, groaned, the old woman stood up for him. Pechorin firmly decides to find out everything.

After some time, Pechorin heard “something similar to a song ... the singing is strange, now drawn-out and sad, now fast and lively ... on the roof of my hut there was a girl ... a real mermaid (it was this girl Pechorin saw in the past at night on the shore). All day she spun around Pechorin's hut, flirted with him. "Strange creature! Her eyes with brisk insight rested on me, and these eyes seemed to be endowed with some kind of magnetic power ... But as soon as I began to speak, she ran away, smiling insidiously. She was charming: "She had a lot of breed ... Unusual flexibility of the camp, long blond hair, correct nose ..." In the evening Pechorin stopped her at the door and tried to start a conversation, but she answered all questions evasively. Then Pechorin said, wanting to embarrass her: “I learned that you went ashore last night,” but the girl “just burst out laughing at the top of her lungs:“ You saw a lot, but you know little; and what you know, so keep it under lock and key. " After a while, the girl came to Pechorin's room. “She sat down quietly and silently fixed her eyes on me; her chest now rose high, then, it seemed, she was holding her breath ... Suddenly she jumped up, wrapped her arms around my neck, and a wet, fiery kiss sounded on my lips ... It darkened in my eyes, I squeezed her in my arms, but she like a snake slipped between my hands, whispering in my ear: "Tonight, when everyone is asleep, go ashore," and jumped out of the room like an arrow.

At night Pechorin, taking a pistol with him, went out, warning the Cossack: "If I fire a pistol, then run to the shore."
The girl took Pechorin by the hand, and they, going down to the sea, got into the boat. When the boat sailed from the shore, the girl hugged Pechorin: “I love you ...” “I felt her fiery breath on my face. Suddenly something fell noisily into the water: I grabbed my belt - there was no pistol. I look around - we are about fifty fathoms from the coast, and I can't swim! Suddenly a strong jolt almost threw me into the sea ... a desperate struggle began between us ... “What do you want? I shouted. "You saw," she answered, "you will report!" The girl tried to throw Pechorin into the water, but he, having contrived, threw her overboard himself. Somehow reaching the shore, Pechorin hid in the grass of the cliff and saw that a girl swam ashore. Soon a boat with Yanko sailed, a few minutes later a blind man with a sack appeared. “Listen, blind man! - said Yanko, - things have gone badly, I'll go look for work elsewhere. She will go with me; and tell the old woman that, they say, it's time to die. " "And I?" Said the blind man in a plaintive voice. "What do I need you for?" was the answer. Yanko threw a coin to the blind man, who did not pick it up. “They raised a small sail and quickly rushed ... the blind man was still sitting on the shore, I heard something like a sob ... I felt sad. And why would fate have thrown me into a peaceful circle of honest smugglers? Like a stone thrown into a smooth spring, I disturbed their calmness and, like a stone, I almost sank myself! "

Returning to the hut, Pechorin found that his casket, saber, dagger had disappeared. “There was nothing to do ... And wouldn't it be ridiculous to complain to the authorities that a blind boy robbed me, and an eighteen-year-old girl almost drowned me? .. I left Taman. What happened to the old woman and the poor blind man - I don't know. And what does it matter to me to the joys and disasters of men, to me, a wandering officer, and even with a road trip due to the state's need. "

Part two (end of Pechorin's journal)

II. Princess Mary

May 11th. Yesterday I arrived in Pyatigorsk, rented an apartment on the edge of the city ... I have a wonderful view from three sides. To the west, the five-headed Beshtu turns blue like "the last cloud of a scattered storm"; to the north, Mashuk rises like a furry Persian hat ... It's fun to live in such a land! The air is clean and fresh, like the kiss of a child; the sun is bright, the sky is blue - what would seem to be more? Why are there passions, desires, regrets? ..

Pechorin went to the Elisabeth source, where the "water society" gathered. On the way, he noticed bored people (fathers of families, their wives and daughters, dreaming of grooms), overtook a crowd of men who “drink - but not water, drag only in passing; they play and complain of boredom. " At the source Pechorin called out to Grushnitsky, an acquaintance from the active detachment. “Grushnitsky is a cadet. He has only been in the service for a year, wears, for a special kind of smartness, a thick soldier's greatcoat, He has a St. George's cross ... He is hardly twenty-one years old. He speaks quickly and pretentiously: he is one of those people who have ready-made pompous phrases for all occasions ... It is their pleasure to produce an effect. " Grushnitsky is not used to listening to his interlocutor, he does not know people, because he is only concerned with himself. "I understood him, and he doesn't love me for that ... I don't love him either: and I feel that someday we will run into him on a narrow road ..."

Grushnitsky tells Pechorin that the only interesting people here are the princess of Lithuania and her daughter, but he does not know them. At this moment the Lithuanians pass by, and Pechorina notes the charm of the young lady. "Grushnitsky managed to take a dramatic pose with the help of a crutch" and uttered a pretentious phrase, so that the young lady, turning around, looked at him with curiosity. Pechorin teases Grushnitsky: "This Princess Mary is very pretty, she has velvet eyes ... I advise you to appropriate this expression ... And that her teeth are white?" A little later, passing by, Pechorin saw Grushnitsky drop a glass on the sand, and pretends that he cannot pick it up because of his wounded leg. Mary "jumped up more easily than a bird, bent down, raised a glass and gave it to him." Grushnitsky is elated, but Pechorin skeptically upsets him: “I wanted to infuriate him. I have an innate passion to contradict. "

May 13th. In the morning, Dr. Werner came to Pechorin, “a skeptic and materialist, and with it a poet. He studied all the living strings of the human heart, as they study the veins of a corpse ... He was poor, dreamed of millions, but for money he would not have taken an extra step ... He had an evil tongue ... He was small and thin, and weak ... one leg was shorter than the other, like Byron's, his head seemed huge ... His small black eyes ... tried to penetrate your thoughts ... His coat, tie and vest were always black. The youth called him Mephistopheles ... We soon understood each other and became friends, because I am not capable of friendship: of two friends, one is always a slave of the other. "

Pechorin remarked: "We are rather indifferent to everything, except ourselves ..." Werner said that the princess became interested in Pechorin, and Princess Mary - Grushnitsky. She is sure that he was demoted to the soldier for a duel. Werner also saw their relative in the Lithuanian family: "of medium height, blonde, on the right cheek a black mole." Pechorin recognizes this birthmark “one woman whom he loved in the old days ...” “A terrible sadness oppressed my heart. Has fate brought us together again in the Caucasus, or did she come here on purpose, knowing that she would meet me? .. There is no person in the world over whom the past would acquire such power as it did over me. I am stupidly created: I forget nothing - nothing! "

In the evening on the boulevard Pechorin saw the Litovskys. He began to tell funny stories and anecdotes to familiar officers, and soon even those who surrounded the princess gathered around him. "Several times her gaze ... expressed annoyance, trying to express indifference ... Grushnitsky followed her like a predatory animal ..."

May 16th. “In the course of two days, my affairs have progressed terribly. The princess decisively hates me. She finds it strange ... that I'm not trying to get to know her ... I use all my strength to distract her admirers ... " , past the windows of the princess. Pechorin continued to tease Grushnitsky, assuring that the princess was in love with him. “It is clear that he is in love, because he has become even more trusting than before ... I do not want to force confessions from him; I want him to choose me as his attorney - and then I will enjoy ... "

Walking, remembering a woman with a mole on her cheek, Pechorin went up to the grotto and saw a seated woman ... “Vera! - I cried out involuntarily. She shuddered and turned pale ... A long-forgotten thrill ran through my veins at the sound of that sweet voice ... ”It turned out that Vera was married for the second time. "Her face expressed deep despair, tears sparkled in her eyes ..." "I should hate you ... you gave me nothing but suffering ..." Finally, our lips came close and merged into a hot, delightful kiss ... I gave her my word to get to know the Lithuanians and to follow the princess in order to divert attention from her. Thus, my plans were not in the least frustrated, and I will have fun ... I have never become a slave to a woman I love; on the contrary, I have always acquired an invincible power over their will and heart, without trying at all about it. " Vera "did not make me swear allegiance, and I will not deceive her: she is the only woman in the world whom I would not have been able to deceive." “Returning home, I sat on horseback and rode into the steppe:“ There is no female gaze that I would not forget at the sight of the curly mountains ... I think the Cossacks, yawning on their towers, took me for a Circassian. ” Pechorin really resembled a Circassian - both in clothes and a mountain fit in the saddle. He was proud of his "art in horseback riding in the Caucasian way."

In the evening Pechorin noticed a noisy cavalcade, ahead of which Grushnitsky and Mary were riding, and heard their conversation: Grushnitsky was trying to impress the princess as a romantic hero. Pechorin, waiting for them to catch up with him, unexpectedly drove out from behind a bush, which frightened the princess: she took him for a Circassian, as he expected. That same evening, Pechorin met Grushnitsky, who was returning from the Lithuanians. Junker was almost happy, elated with hope, confident that Pechorin envied him and regretted his impudent behavior. Pechorin, continuing his game, answered Grushnits-someone that if he wanted, he would be with the princess tomorrow and would even start dragging after the princess ...

May 21st. “Almost a week has passed, and I have not yet met the Lithuanians. I'm waiting for an opportunity. Grushnitsky, like a shadow, follows the princess everywhere ... when will she get bored with him? Tomorrow is a ball, and I will dance with the princess ... "

May 22nd. The Lithuanians were among the last to attend the ball. Grushnitsky did not take his eyes off "his goddess." Pechorin heard one fat lady, one of those who envied the princess, say to her cavalier, the dragoon captain: “This princess of Lithuania is a very bearable girl! .. And what is she proud of? She should have been taught a lesson ... "The Dragoon captain volunteers to do this.

Pechorin invited the princess to a waltz, and after "with the most submissive air" he asked her forgiveness for his impudent behavior. At this time, the dragoon captain persuaded a drunken gentleman to invite the princess to the mazurka. The whole company watched with interest how the frightened princess would get out of the awkward situation. She is rescued by Pechorin, who escorted the drunk away. "I was rewarded with a deep, wonderful look." The princess's mother thanked Pechorin and invited him to her place. In a conversation with Princess Pechorin, continuing to carry out his plan, he behaved respectfully, made it clear that he had liked her for a long time. In passing, he noticed that Grushnitsky was just a cadet, which discouraged the princess: she believed that Grushnitsky was a demoted officer.

May 23rd. In the evening Grushnitsky, meeting Pechorin on the boulevard, began to thank him for helping the princess, as if he had the right to do so. He admitted that he loved the princess to madness, and she suddenly changed to him. Then they went together to the Lithuanians. There he was introduced to Vera, not knowing that they had known each other for a long time. Pechorin tried to please the princess, joked. Vera was grateful to Pechorin: she thought that, for the sake of meeting her, he began to drag after the princess. Mary was annoyed that Pechorin was indifferent to her singing, and spoke to Grushnitsky. For the sophisticated Pechorin, her intention is clear, he thinks: “You want to pay me back in the same coin, to prick my pride, - you will not succeed! And if you declare war on me, then I will be merciless. "

May 29th. “All these days I have never deviated from my system.” The princess "begins to see in me an extraordinary person." "Every time Grushnitsky approaches her, I assume a humble face and leave them alone." Pechorin habitually conducts his role: he is either attentive to Mary, or indifferent to her. He managed to force the princess to confess her sympathy for him. Pechorin understands: "She is tired of Grushnitsky."

3rd June. “I often ask myself why I so persistently seek the love of a young girl whom I don’t want to seduce and whom I will never marry? .. But there is immense pleasure in the possession of a young, barely blossoming soul! .. others ... as food that supports my spiritual strength ... My first pleasure is to subordinate everything that surrounds me to my will ... I would be happy if everyone loved me. Evil begets evil; the first suffering gives the concept of the pleasure of torturing another ... "

Grushnitsky was promoted to officer and expects to make an impression on the princess by this. In the evening, on a walk, Pechorin spoke evil of his acquaintances. Mary is frightened by his sarcasm: “You are a dangerous person!. it was: “I was modest - I was accused of deceit; I became secretive ... I was ready to love the whole world - no one understood me: and I learned to hate ... I became a moral cripple: one half of my soul did not exist, it dried up, evaporated, died - while the other moved and I lived at the service of everyone. " “At that moment I met her eyes: tears were running in them; she felt sorry for me! Compassion ... put its claws into her inexperienced heart. " To Pechorin's question: "Did you love?" The princess "shook her head - and again fell into thoughtfulness": "She is dissatisfied with herself, she accuses herself of being cold ... Tomorrow she will want to reward me. I already know all this by heart - that's what is boring! "

4th June. The princess believed her heart's secrets to Vera, and she tortured Pechorin with jealousy. He promised her to follow the Litovskys to Kislovodsk. In the evening at the Lithuanian Pechorin's, he noticed how Mary had changed: “she listened to my nonsense with such deep, intense, even tender attention that I felt ashamed ... Vera noticed all this: deep sadness was depicted on her face ... I felt sorry for her ... Then I told the whole dramatic story ... of our love, of course, covering it all with fictitious names. " Pechorin said that Vera had to forgive his coquetry with the princess.

June 5th. Before the ball, Grushnitsky appeared to Pechorin "in the full radiance of an army infantry uniform ... His festive appearance, his proud gait would have made me laugh if it were in accordance with my intentions." Going to the ball, Pechorin thought: "Is it really my only purpose on earth - to destroy other people's hopes?., Unwittingly, I played the miserable role of an executioner or a traitor." At the ball, Pechorin overheard Grushnitsky's conversation with Mary: he reproached her for her indifference. Pechorin did not fail to prick Grushnitsky: "he is even more youthful in his uniform," which made him mad: "like all boys, he has a pretense to be an old man." The whole evening Grushnitsky bored the princess, and "after the third square dance she already hated him." Grushnitsky, having learned that Mary had promised the mazurka Pechorin, wants to take revenge on the “coquette”.

After the ball, having escorted the princess to the carriage, Pechorin kissed her hand: "it was dark and no one could see it." He returned to the hall "very pleased with himself." “When I entered, everyone was silent: apparently, they were talking about me ... it seems that a hostile gang is being formed against me ... I am very glad; I love enemies, although not in a Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. To be always on the alert ... to guess the intention, destroy conspiracies, pretend to be deceived, and suddenly, with one push, topple the entire huge and difficult building of tricks and plans - that's what I call life. "

June 6th. “This morning Vera left with her husband for Kislovodsk” -. Mary is ill and does not come out. Grushnitsky is waiting for an opportunity to take revenge on Pechorin. “Returning home, I noticed that I was missing something. I have not seen her! She is ill! Have I really fallen in love? .. What nonsense! "

June 7th. In the morning Pechorin walked past the Lithuanian house. The princess was alone. “I made my way into the living room without a report, using the freedom of local customs ...” Pechorin explains to the offended princess his insolence (he kissed her hand after the ball): “Forgive me, princess! I acted like a madman ... this will not happen another time ... Why do you need to know what has happened so far in my soul? You will never know. Farewell". "As I left, I think I heard that she was crying." In the evening, Werner told Pechorin about rumors that he was going to marry the princess. Pechorin is sure that Grushnitsky started the rumor, and decided to take revenge on him.

June 10th. “For three days now, I have been in Kislovodsk. Every day I see Vera at the well and at the walk ... Grushnitsky with his gang rages every day in the tavern and hardly bows to me. "

June 11th. Finally the Lithuanians arrive. “Am I in love? I am so stupidly created that this can be expected of me. " “I dined with them. The princess looks at me very tenderly and does not leave her daughter ... bad! But Vera is jealous of me for the princess: I have achieved this well-being! What does a woman not do so as not to upset her rival? .. There is nothing more paradoxical than a woman's mind ... Women should wish that all men knew them as well as I did, because I love them a hundred times more since then, how I am not afraid of them and comprehended their minor weaknesses. "

June 12th. On horseback riding when crossing the river, the princess felt dizzy, Pechorin took advantage of the moment: “I quickly bent down to her, wrapped my hand around her flexible waist ... my cheek almost touched her cheek; flame emanated from her ... I paid no attention to her trembling and embarrassment, and my lips touched her tender cheek; she shuddered, but said nothing; we were driving behind; nobody saw. I vowed not to say a word ... I wanted to see her get out of this predicament. “Either you despise me, or you love me very much! She said finally. - Maybe you want to laugh at me ... Are you silent? ... maybe you want me to be the first to tell you that I love you? .. "I was silent ..." Do you want this? " - ... There was something terrible in the decisiveness of her gaze and voice. "Why?" I answered with a shrug. "She hit her horse with the whip and set off with all her might ... All the way to home, she talked and laughed every minute." Pechorin understands: it was "a nervous fit: she will spend the night awake and cry": "This thought gives me immense pleasure: there are minutes when I understand the Vampire ..."

In the evening, returning home, Pechorin overheard the dragoon captain suggesting that Grushnitsky summon Pechorin because of “some stupidity” to a duel: “Only this is where the squiggle is: we will not put bullets in the pistols. I can tell you that Pechorin will get cold feet. " “I waited with trepidation for Grushnitsky's answer; cold anger seized me at the thought that if not for the case, then I could have become the laughing stock of these fools. " After some silence, Grushnitsky agreed. “I returned home excited by two different feelings. The first was sadness. Why do they all hate me? .. And I felt that poisonous anger filled my soul ... Beware, Mr. Grushnitsky! .. I did not sleep all night. " "In the morning I met the princess at the well." She begs: "... speak the truth ... only sooner ... I can sacrifice everything for the one I love ..." actions; I do not love you". “Her lips turned a little pale ...” Leave me alone, ”she said barely audibly. I shrugged, turned and left. "

June 14th. “I sometimes despise myself ... isn't that why I despise others as well? .. No matter how passionately I love a woman, if she only lets me feel that I have to marry her, forgive love! I am ready for all sacrifices, but I will not sell my freedom. "

June 15th. Pechorin receives a note from Vera, in which she makes an appointment with him: she will be at home alone. Pechorin triumphs: "Finally it turned out in my opinion." After the love meeting Pechorin, descending from the upper balcony to the lower one, looked into Mary's room: "She was sitting motionless, her head resting on her chest." At that moment, someone grabbed him by the shoulder. "They were the Grushnitsky and the dragoon captain." Pechorin broke free and ran away: "In a minute I was already in my room." Grushnitsky and the dragoon captain knocked on Pechorin's door, but he replied that he was sleeping, depriving them of suspicion of evidence.

June 16th. In the morning Pechorin overheard Grushnitsky swear that last night he almost caught Pechorin leaving the princess. Pechorin challenged Grushnitsky to a duel. Werner agreed to be a second and went to negotiate the terms of the duel with Grushnitsky. There he overheard the dragoon captain insisting to load only one pistol - Grushnitsky. The doctor told this to Pechorin, he had a new plan.

On the night before the duel, Pechorin cannot sleep. "Well? die, so die! The loss to the world is small; and I myself am rather bored myself ... Why did I live? For what purpose was I born? ... and it is true that I had a high assignment, because I feel immense strength in my soul ... But I did not guess this assignment. .. How many times have I already played the role of an ax in the hands of fate! ... My love did not bring happiness to anyone, because I ... loved for myself, for my own pleasure.

And maybe I'll die tomorrow! ... Some will say: he was a good fellow, others - a scoundrel. Both will be false. Is it worth living after that? And all you live is out of curiosity: you expect something new ... It's funny and annoying! "

“It has been a month and a half since I’ve been in fortress N. Maksim Maksimych went hunting ... I’m alone ... It's boring! .. I will continue my journal ...

I thought to die; it was impossible: I had not yet drained the bowls of suffering ... "

Pechorin recalls the events of the duel. On the way, he admired the landscape: “I don't remember a deeper and fresher morning! ... I remember - this time, more than ever before, I loved nature. " Werner asked Pechorin about the will, he replied: “The heirs will find themselves ... Do you want me, doctor, to reveal my soul to you? I have long lived not with my heart, but with my head. There are two people in me: one lives in the full sense of the word, the other thinks and judges him ... "

The opponents met at the cliff. Werner is worried: Pechorin does not want to show that he knows the conspiracy. But Pechorin has his own calculations: he suggested shooting at the top: “even a slight wound will be fatal,” insists that the lot decide who to shoot first. Grushnitsky was nervous: "now he had to shoot in the air or become a murderer ... At that moment I would not want to be in his place ... I wanted to test him."

Grushnitsky had the lot to shoot first: “he was ashamed to kill an unarmed man ... His knees were trembling. He aimed straight at my forehead ... Suddenly he lowered the muzzle of the pistol and, turning pale as a sheet, turned to his second. "I can not!" He said in a dull voice. "Coward!" - answered the captain. “The shot rang out. The bullet scratched my knee ... And now he was left alone against me. " Pechorin's chest boiled "and the annoyance of offended pride, and contempt, and anger." "Think carefully: isn't your conscience telling you something?" - he said to Grushnitsky and turned to the doctor: "These gentlemen, probably in a hurry, forgot to put a bullet in my pistol: I ask you to load it again - and good!" “Grushnitsky stood with his head on his chest, embarrassed and gloomy. “Leave them! He said to the captain. "You know they are right." “Grushnitsky,” I said, “there is still time; give up your slander, and I will forgive you everything. " “His face flushed, his eyes flashed:“ Shoot! - he answered, - I despise myself, but I hate you ... there is no place for us on earth together ... "" I fired ... When the smoke cleared, Grushnitsky was not on the site. " “Going down the path, I noticed the bloody corpse of Grushnitsky between the clefts of the rocks. I involuntarily closed my eyes ... "

Arriving home, Pechorin found two notes: one from the doctor, the other from Vera. Werner reported that everything was settled and coldly said goodbye to Pechorin: "There is no evidence against you, and you can sleep peacefully ... if you can ..." Vera wrote: "... This letter will be a farewell and a confession ... you loved me as a property, as a source of joy, anxiety and sorrow ... in your nature there is something special, something proud and mysterious; no one knows how to want to be loved all the time; in no one is evil so attractive ... and no one can be so truly unhappy as you, because no one tries so much to convince himself otherwise ... "Vera confessed to her husband her love for Pechorin, and they leave: "I am lost, - but what a need? .. If I could be sure that you will always remember me ... I have lost everything in the world for you ..."

“I jumped out onto the porch like a madman, jumped on my Circassian and set off at full speed on the road to Pyatigorsk ... With the opportunity to lose her forever, Vera became the most dear to me in the world.” The exhausted, driven horse "hit the ground." "Exhausted by the anxieties of the day and insomnia, I fell on the wet grass and, like a child, cried ... I thought my chest would burst." When Pechorin came to his senses, he realized that "chasing lost happiness is useless and reckless ... Everything is for the best! .. It's great to cry ..." He returned to his place on foot and slept all day.

The doctor came with a warning: the authorities suspect a duel; said that the princess was sure that Pechorin had shot himself because of her daughter. The next day Pechorin was assigned to the fortress N and came to say goodbye to the Lithuanians. The princess thought that some secret reason was stopping Pechorin from proposing a hand and heart. But he asked permission to explain himself to Mary. "Princess," I said, "do you know that I laughed at you? .. You must despise me ... Isn't it true, even if you loved me, you despise from this minute? .." "I hate you ..." - she said.

An hour later Pechorin left Kislovodsk. He continues his diary in the fortress: "Why did I not want to set foot on this path, where quiet joys and peace of mind awaited me? .. No, I would not get along with this share!"

III. Fatalist

Pechorin describes his life in the Cossack village, where he spent two weeks. The officers played cards in the evenings. Once ... at Major S *** ... they discussed whether it was true that the fate of a person was written in heaven. "Each one told different extraordinary incidents of pro or condi" (pros and cons). Among the officers was Lieutenant Vulich, a Serb by birth, tall, dark-skinned, black-eyed. “He was brave, spoke little, but harshly; did not confide his spiritual and family secrets to anyone; I hardly drank wine ... There was only one passion ... passion for the game. " He suggested testing, "whether a person can arbitrarily dispose of his life." Pechorin offered a bet: "I affirm that there is no predestination" and put all the money that he had with him. Vulich at random took a pistol off the wall and cocked the hammer. “I thought I was reading the stamp of death on his pale face. - You will die today! - I told him. " Nobody knew if the pistol was loaded; everyone tried to dissuade Vulich. But he put the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead, "pulled the trigger - a misfire"; immediately took aim at his cap - a shot rang out. "Soon everyone went home, talking differently about Wulich's quirks and, probably, unanimously calling me an egoist, because I was betting against a man who wanted to shoot himself."

Pechorin returned home and thought about the insignificance of human disputes and about the eternity of the heavenly bodies, about the ancestors, to whom "willpower gave the confidence that the whole sky ... looks at them with sympathy." “And we, their pitiful descendants ... are no longer capable of great sacrifices either for the good of mankind, or even for our own happiness ... without having, like them, neither hope, nor even ... the pleasure that the soul meets in any struggle with people or with fate ... In a vain struggle, I exhausted both the heat of the soul and the constancy of will; I entered this life, having experienced it already mentally, and I felt bored and disgusted ... "

That evening Pechorin firmly believed in predestination. Suddenly he came across something thick and soft. It turned out to be a pig cut in half. Two Cossacks running down the lane asked if Pechorin had seen a drunken Cossack: “What a robber! As soon as the chikhir got drunk, he went to crumble everything that was not at all. ... you have to tie him up, otherwise ... "

Pechorin could not sleep. In the early morning they knocked on the window. The officers reported that Vulich was killed: the drunken Cossack who killed the pig ran into him. Before his death, he only said: "He is right!" This phrase referred to Pechorin: he predicted the imminent death of Vulich.

The killer locked himself in an empty hut, no one dared to go there. The old esaul called out to the Cossack: “I have sinned, brother Efimitch, there’s nothing to do, submit! ... You can't escape your fate! " "I will not submit!" - shouted the Cossack menacingly, and you could hear the cocked trigger click. Here Pechorin "flashed a strange thought: like Vulich, I decided to try my luck." Telling the Esaulu to distract the Cossack with conversations, Pechorin, tearing off the shutter, rushed out the window. The Cossack fired and missed. Pechorin grabbed him by the arms, the Cossacks rushed in, "and in less than three minutes the criminal was already tied up."

“After all this, how does it seem not to become a fatalist? But who knows for certain whether he is convinced of what or not? .. I like to doubt everything: I always go forward more boldly when I do not know what awaits me. After all, nothing worse than death will happen — and death cannot be avoided! " Returning to the fortress, Pechorin wished to know the opinion of Maxim Maksimych about predestination. But he didn’t understand much, he was used to thinking concretely: “These Asian cocks often cut off ...” Then he said: “Yes, sorry for the poor fellow ... it was written to the family! .. "

"Foreword"

In every book, the preface is the first and at the same time the last thing; it either serves as an explanation of the purpose of the essay, or as an excuse and response to criticism. But usually readers do not care about the moral purpose and about the magazine attacks, and therefore they do not read the prefaces. It's a pity that this is so, especially with us. Our audience is so young and simple-minded that it does not understand the fable, if at the end it does not find moralizing. She does not guess jokes, does not feel irony; she's just ill-mannered. She does not yet know that in a decent society and in a decent book, explicit abuse cannot take place; that modern education has invented a sharper, almost invisible, and nevertheless deadly weapon, which, under the garment of flattery, strikes an irresistible and sure blow. Our audience is like a provincial who, having overheard a conversation between two diplomats belonging to hostile courts, would have remained confident that each of them is deceiving his government in favor of mutual, most tender friendship.
This book has recently experienced the unhappy credulity of some readers and even magazines to the literal meaning of words. Some are terribly offended, and not jokingly, that they are being set up as an example of such an immoral person as the Hero of Our Time; others, however, very subtly noticed that the writer had painted his own portrait and those of his acquaintances ... An old and pitiful joke! But it can be seen that Russia was so created that everything in it is being renewed, except for such absurdities. The most magical of fairy tales in our country can hardly escape the accusation of attempted insult!
The Hero of Our Time, my dear sirs, is, for sure, a portrait, but not of one person: this is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development. You will tell me again that a person cannot be so foolish, and I will tell you that if you believed in the possibility of the existence of all tragic and romantic villains, why do you not believe in Pechorin's reality? If you admired fictions much more terrible and ugly, why does this character, even as fiction, find no mercy with you? Is it because there is more truth in him than you would like? ..
You say that morality does not benefit from this? Sorry. Quite a few people were fed sweets; their stomachs deteriorated from this: they need bitter medicines, caustic truths. But do not think, however, after that, that the author of this book would someday have a proud dream of becoming a corrector of human vices. God save him from such ignorance! He just had fun drawing a modern man as he understands him and, to his and your misfortune, he met too often. There will also be the fact that the disease is indicated, but how to cure it - that's God knows!

Bela

I rode on the checkpoints from Tiflis. All the luggage of my cart consisted of one small suitcase, which was half full of travel notes about Georgia. Most of them, fortunately for you, are lost, but the suitcase, with the rest of the things, fortunately for me, remained intact.
The sun was already beginning to hide behind a snow ridge when I drove into the Koishaur Valley. The Ossetian cab driver tirelessly drove the horses in order to have time to climb the Koishaur Mountain before nightfall, and sang songs at the top of his lungs. This valley is a glorious place! On all sides the mountains are impregnable, reddish rocks, hung with green ivy and crowned with clumps of plane trees, yellow cliffs, lined with gullies, and there is a high-high golden fringe of snow, and below Aragva, embracing another nameless river, noisily escaping from the black, full of mist gorges, stretches with a silver thread and sparkles like a snake with its scales.
Having approached the foot of the Koishaur Mountain, we stopped near the dukhan. There were noisy crowds of about two dozen Georgians and mountaineers; Nearby, a caravan of camels stopped for the night. I had to hire bulls to drag my cart on this damned mountain, because it was already autumn and ice-covered, and this mountain is about two miles in length.
Nothing to do, I hired six bulls and several Ossetians. One of them put my suitcase on his shoulders, the others began to help the bulls with almost one cry.
For my cart, four bulls were dragging another, as if nothing had happened, despite the fact that it was stacked to the top. This circumstance surprised me. Her owner followed her, smoking from a small Kabardian pipe, trimmed in silver. He was wearing an officer's coat without epaulettes and a furry Circassian hat. He seemed about fifty years old; his dark complexion showed that he had long been familiar with the Transcaucasian sun, and his prematurely gray mustache did not match his firm gait and vigorous appearance. I went up to him and bowed; he silently answered my bow and let out a huge puff of smoke.
- We are fellow travelers, I think?
He silently bowed again.
- Are you going to Stavropol right?
- So, sir ... with official things.
- Tell me, please, why are four bulls jokingly dragging your heavy cart, and six cattle are barely moving my empty cart with the help of these Ossetians?
He smiled slyly and looked at me significantly.
- Are you right recently in the Caucasus?
- About a year, - I answered.
He smiled a second time.
- What then?
- Yes, sir! Terrible beasts, these Asians! Do you think they are helping, what are they shouting? And the devil can take them apart, what are they screaming? Bulls understand them; harness at least twenty, so if they shout in their own way, the bulls are not moving ... Terrible rogues! And what will you take from them? .. They like to tear money from passing by ... Spoiled the swindlers! you will see, they will also charge you for vodka. I already know them, they won't deceive me!
- Have you been serving here for a long time?
“Yes, I already served here under Alexei Petrovich,” he answered, dignified. “When he arrived at the Line, I was a second lieutenant,” he added, “and under him I received two ranks for cases against the highlanders.
- And now you? ..
- Now I am considered in the third line battalion. And you, dare I ask? ..
I told him.
The conversation ended with this, and we continued to walk in silence beside each other. We found snow on the top of the mountain. The sun went down and night followed day without interval, as is usually the case in the south; but, thanks to the outflow of snows, we could easily distinguish the road, which was still going uphill, although not so steep. I ordered to put my suitcase in the cart, replace the bulls with horses, and looked down at the valley for the last time, but the thick fog that surged in waves from the ravines completely covered it, and not a single sound reached our ears from there. Ossetians noisily surrounded me and demanded for vodka; but the staff-captain shouted at them so menacingly that they fled in an instant.
- After all, such a people! - he said: - and he does not know how to name bread in Russian, but learned: "Officer, give me some vodka!" The Tatars are better for me: at least those who do not drink ...
There was still a verst to the station. It was quiet all around, so quiet that by the buzzing of a mosquito one could follow its flight. To the left was a deep gorge; behind him and in front of us, the dark blue peaks of the mountains, pitted with wrinkles, covered with layers of snow, were drawn on the pale sky, which still retained the last reflection of the dawn. The stars began to flicker in the dark sky, and strangely, it seemed to me that they were much higher than in our north. On both sides of the road stood naked, black stones; here and there bushes peeped out from under the snow, but not a single dry leaf moved, and it was fun to hear, in the midst of this dead sleep of nature, the snorting of a tired mail troika and the uneven rattling of a Russian bell.
- Good weather tomorrow! - I said.
The staff captain did not answer a word and pointed to a high mountain that rose directly opposite us with his finger.
- What is it? I asked.
- Good Mountain.
- Well, what then?
- Look how it smokes.
Indeed, Good Mountain smoked; light streams of clouds crawled on its sides, and at the top lay a black cloud, so black that it seemed like a spot in the dark sky.
We could already distinguish the post station, the roofs of the sakles surrounding it, and welcoming lights flashed in front of us, when a damp, cold wind smelled, the gorge hummed, and a fine rain began to fall. I barely had time to throw on my cloak when the snow fell. I looked at the staff captain with awe ...
- We will have to spend the night here, - he said with annoyance: - in such a blizzard through the mountains you will not move. What? there were landslides on Krestovaya? he asked the cab.
- It was not, sir, - answered the Ossetian cabman: - but hangs a lot, a lot.
In the absence of a room for passers-by at the station, we were given an overnight stay in a smoky sakla. I invited my companion to have a glass of tea together, for I had a cast-iron teapot with me - my only joy in my travels in the Caucasus.
Sakla was stuck with one side to the rock; three slippery, wet steps led to her door. Gropingly I entered and came across a cow (the barn for these people replaces the footman's). I didn't know where to go: here sheep bleat, a dog grumbles there. Fortunately, a dim light flashed to the side and helped me find another hole like a door. Here a rather entertaining picture emerged: the wide sakla, with which the roof rested on two sooty pillars, was full of people. In the middle a light crackled, spread out on the ground, and the smoke, pushed back by the wind from the hole in the roof, spread around in such a thick shroud that I could not look around for a long time; by the fire sat two old women, many children and one thin Georgian, all in rags. There was nothing to do, we took shelter by the fire, lit our pipes, and soon the kettle hissed cheerfully.
- Pathetic people! - I said to the staff captain, pointing to our filthy hosts, who silently looked at us in some kind of dumbfoundedness.
- Silly people! - he answered. - Believe it or not, they are not able to do anything, they are not capable of any education! At least, our Kabardians or Chechens, although robbers, naked, but desperate heads, and these have no desire for weapons: you will not see a decent dagger on any one. Truly Ossetians!
- Have you been in Chechnya for a long time?
- Yes, for ten years I stood there in the fortress with a rota, at Kamenny Brod, - you know?
- I've heard.
- Here, father, we are tired of these thugs; Today, thank God, it’s quieter, but it used to be a hundred paces behind the rampart, and somewhere a shaggy devil sits and watches: he gape a little, so look - either a lasso on his neck, or a bullet in the back of his head. Well done! ..
- And tea, did you have a lot of adventures? I said, spurred on by curiosity.
- How not to be! used to ...
Then he began to pinch his left mustache, hung his head and became thoughtful. I wanted to be afraid of drawing some kind of story out of him, a desire common to all traveling and recording people. Meanwhile the tea was ripe; I took two hiking glasses out of my suitcase, poured and set one in front of him. He took a sip and said as if to himself: "Yes, it happened!" This exclamation gave me great hope. I know old Caucasians love to talk, to tell stories; they rarely succeed: another five years is somewhere in the backwoods with a company, and for five whole years no one will tell him Hello(because the sergeant major says I wish you health). And there would be something to chat about: all around the people are wild, curious; every day there is danger, there are wonderful cases, and then you will inevitably regret that so little is recorded here.
- Would you like some more rum? - I said to my interlocutor: - I have a white man from Tiflis; now it's cold.
- No, thank you, I don’t drink.
- What is it?
- Yes, so. I gave myself a spell. When I was still a second lieutenant, since, you know, we played with each other, and at night there was anxiety; So we went out in front of the frunt tipsy, and we got it, as Alexei Petrovich found out: God forbid, how angry he is! almost brought him to justice. And that's for sure, another time you live a whole year, you don't see anyone, but how is there still vodka - a lost person!
Hearing this, I almost lost hope.
- Yes, at least the Circassians, - he continued: - as the booze get drunk at a wedding, or at a funeral, so the wheelhouse went. I once took off my legs, and I was also a guest at Mirnov's prince.
- How did it happen?
- Here (he filled his pipe, took a drag and began to tell) - here, if you please, I was then standing in the fortress behind the Terek with a company - this will soon be five years old. Once, in the fall, a transport arrived with provisions: there was an officer in the transport, a young man of about twenty-five. He appeared to me in full form and announced that he was ordered to stay with me in the fortress. He was so thin, white, his uniform was so new that I immediately guessed that he was recently with us in the Caucasus. “Are you right,” I asked him: “transferred here from Russia?” “Exactly so, mister captain,” he replied. - I took his hand and said: “I am very glad, very glad. You will be a little bored ... well, yes, you and I will live like a friend. Yes, please, just call me Maxim Maksimych, and please - why this full form? always come to me in a cap. " He was given an apartment, and he settled in the fortress.
- What was his name? - I asked Maksim Maksimych.
- His name was ... Grigoriy Alexandrovich Pechorin. He was a fine fellow, I dare to assure you; just a little weird. After all, for example, in the rain, in the cold, hunting all day; everyone will be chilled, tired, but he is nothing. And another time he sits in his room, smells of the wind, assures that he has a cold; knocks on the shutter, he shudders and turns pale; and in my presence he went to the boar one-on-one; it used to be that for hours on end you won’t achieve a word, but sometimes, as you start talking, you’ll break your bellies with laughter ... Yes, sir, with great oddities, and there must be a rich man: how many different expensive things he had! ..
- How long did he live with you? I asked again.
- Yes, for a year. Well, yes, but this year is remembered to me; he made me trouble, not be remembered for that! After all, there are, really, such people who are written in their own family that various unusual things should happen to them!
- Unusual? - I exclaimed with an air of curiosity, pouring him some tea.
- But I'll tell you. One peaceful prince lived about six miles from the fortress. His little son, a boy of about fifteen, got into the habit of visiting us: every day it happened now after one after another. And we certainly spoiled him with Grigoriy Alexandrovich. And what a thug he was, agile at whatever you want: whether to raise a hat at full gallop, or shoot from a gun. One thing was bad about him: he was terribly greedy for money. Once, for a laugh, Grigory Alexandrovich promised to give him a gold piece if he would steal the best goat from his father's flock; and what do you think? the next night he dragged him by the horns. And, it used to be, we would try to tease him, so the eyes will be bloodshot, and now for the dagger. "Hey, Azamat, don't blow your head off," I told him: "Yaman will be your head off!"
Once the old prince himself comes to invite us to the wedding: he gave his eldest daughter in marriage, and we were kunaki with him: you can't refuse, you know, even though he is a Tatar. Set off. In the aul, many dogs greeted us with loud barking. The women, seeing us, hid; those we could see in person were far from beautiful. “I had a much better opinion of Circassians,” Grigory Alexandrovich told me. - "Wait!" - I answered, grinning. I had mine on my mind.
A multitude of people had already gathered in the prince's sakla. Asians, you know, have a custom to invite everyone they meet and cross to a wedding. We were received with all the honors and taken to the kunatskaya. However, I did not forget to notice where our horses were placed, you know, for an unforeseen event.
- How do they celebrate their wedding? I asked the staff captain.
- Yes, usually. First, the mullah will read them something from the Koran; then they give the young people and all their relatives; eat, drink booze; then tricking begins, and always one ragtag, greasy, on a nasty, lame horse, breaks down, clowns, makes the honest company laugh; then, when it gets dark, the ball begins in the kunatskaya, in our opinion. Poor old man strumming on a three-string ... I forgot what they say ... well, like our balalaika. Girls and young guys stand in two lines, one opposite the other, clap their hands and sing. Here comes one girl and one man in the middle and begin to sing poetry to each other in a chant, whatever is horrible, and the rest pick up in chorus. Pechorin and I were sitting in a place of honor, and so the owner's younger daughter, a girl of about sixteen, came up to him and sang to him ... how to say? ... like a compliment.
- And what is it she sang, do not you remember?
- Yes, it seems, like this: “Slender, they say, are our young horsemen, and the caftans on them are lined with silver, and the young Russian officer is slimmer than them, and the braids on him are gold. He is like a poplar between them; just not to grow, not to bloom in our garden ”. Pechorin got up, bowed to her, putting his hand to his forehead and heart, and asked me to answer her; I know well in their language, and translated his answer.
When she left us, then I whispered to Grigory Alexandrovich: "Well, what is it?" - “Lovely! - he answered: - what is her name? " “Her name is Beloy,” I answered.
And, for sure, she was good: tall, thin, black eyes, like a mountain chamois, and looked into your soul. Pechorin, in thought, did not take his eyes off her, and she often looked at him from under her brows. Only Pechorin was not alone in admiring the pretty princess: from the corner of the room two other eyes were looking at her, motionless, fiery. I began to peer and recognized my old acquaintance Kazbich. He, you know, was not that peaceful, not that not peaceful. There were many suspicions against him, although he was not noticed in any prank. He used to bring rams to our fortress and sell them cheaply, only he never bargained: what he asks for, come on - even if you slaughter them, he will not yield. They said about him that he liked to drag around the Kuban with abreks, and, to tell the truth, he had the most robber's face: small, dry, broad-shouldered ... And he was dexterous, dexterous, like a devil! The beshmet is always torn, in patches, and the weapon is in silver. And his horse was famous in the whole Kabarda - and, for sure, it is impossible to invent anything better than this horse. It was not for nothing that all the riders envied him, and more than once they tried to steal it, but they did not succeed. How I look at this horse now: black as pitch, legs - strings, and eyes no worse than Bela's; and what a power! download at least 50 versts; and already gone - like a dog running after the owner, even knew his voice! Sometimes he never binds her. Such a robber horse! ..
That evening Kazbich was gloomier than ever, and I noticed that he was wearing chain mail under his beshmet. “It’s not for nothing that he is wearing this chain mail,” I thought: “he’s surely planning something.”
It became stuffy in the sakla, and I went out into the air to freshen up. The night was already falling on the mountains, and the fog began to roam the gorges.
I took it into my head to turn under the shed where our horses were standing, to see if they had food, and moreover, caution never interferes: I had a nice horse, and more than one Kabardian looked at it affectionately, saying: yakshi te, check yakshi!
I make my way along the fence and suddenly I hear voices; I immediately recognized one voice: it was the rake Azamat, the son of our master; the other spoke less frequently and more quietly. "What are they talking about here?" I thought: "Isn't it about my horse?" So I sat down by the fence and began to listen, trying not to miss a single word. Sometimes the noise of songs and the sound of voices, flying out of the sakli, drowned out a conversation that was interesting for me.
- You have a glorious horse! - said Azamat: - if I were the owner of the house and had a herd of three hundred mares, I would give half for your horse, Kazbich!
"Ah, Kazbich!" - I thought, and remembered the chain mail.
- Yes, - Kazbich answered after some silence: - in the whole Kabarda you will not find such. Once, it was beyond the Terek, I went with the abreks to fight off the Russian herds; we were not lucky, and we crumbled in all directions. Four Cossacks rushed after me; I could already hear the shouts of the giaurs behind me, and in front of me was a dense forest. I lay down on the saddle, entrusted myself to Allah, and for the first time in my life I insulted the horse with a lash. Like a bird he dived between the branches; sharp thorns tore at my clothes, dry elm twigs hit me in the face. My horse jumped over the stumps, tore the bushes with its chest. It would have been better for me to leave him at the edge of the forest and hide in the forest on foot, but it was a pity to part with him, and the prophet rewarded me. Several bullets squeaked over my head; I already heard how the dismounted Cossacks ran in the tracks ... Suddenly in front of me there was a deep rupture; my horse became thoughtful - and jumped. His hind hooves snapped off the opposite bank, and he hung on his front legs. I dropped the reins and flew into the ravine; this saved my horse: he jumped out. The Cossacks saw all this, only not one came down to look for me: they truly thought that I was killed to death, and I heard them rushing to catch my horse. My heart was drenched in blood; I crawled along the thick grass along the ravine - I looked: the forest was over, several Cossacks were leaving it into the clearing, and now my Karagöz was jumping straight out to them; everyone rushed after him with a cry; for a long, long time they chased him, especially once or twice he almost threw a lasso around his neck; I trembled, dropped my eyes and began to pray. In a few moments I raise them - and I see: my Karagöz flies, waving his tail, free as the wind, and the giaurs, far away, one after another, stretch across the steppe on exhausted horses. Wallach! it's true, true truth! I sat in my ravine until late at night. Suddenly, what do you think, Azamat? in the darkness I hear a horse running along the bank of the ravine, snorting, neighing and beating its hooves on the ground; I recognized the voice of my Karagöz: it was him, my comrade! .. Since then we have not parted.
And you could hear how he stroked the smooth neck of his horse with his hand, giving it various tender names.
- If I had a herd of a thousand mares, - said Azamat, - I would give you all of it for your Karagöz.
- Yok I don’t want to, ”Kazbich answered indifferently.
- Listen, Kazbich, - Azamat said, caressing him: - you are a kind man, you are a brave horseman, and my father is afraid of Russians and does not let me into the mountains; give me your horse, and I will do whatever you want, I will steal from your father the best rifle or saber you want from your father - and his saber is a real gourde: put it on your hand with a blade, it will scream into the body itself; and chain mail, like yours, does not matter.
Kazbich was silent.
- The first time I saw your horse, - continued Azamat: - when he was spinning under you and jumping, flaring his nostrils, and flints flew out from under his hooves in a spray, something incomprehensible became in my soul, and since then everything I was disgusted: I looked at my father's best horses with contempt, I was ashamed to show myself to them, and longing took possession of me; and, longing, I sat on the cliff for whole days, and every minute your black horse appeared to my thoughts with its slender gait, with its smooth, straight as an arrow ridge; he looked into my eyes with his lively eyes, as if he wanted to utter a word. I will die, Kazbich, if you don’t sell it to me! - said Azamat in a trembling voice.
I heard that he was crying: but I must tell you that Azamat was a stubborn boy, and nothing happened to beat his tears, even when he was younger.
Something like laughter was heard in response to his tears.
- Listen! - Azamat said in a firm voice: - you see, I decide on everything. Do you want me to steal my sister for you? How she dances! how she sings! and embroiders with gold - a miracle! A Turkish padishah has never had such a wife ... Do you want? wait for me tomorrow night there, in the gorges, where the stream runs: I will go with her past to the neighboring aul - and she is yours. Isn't Bel worth your steed?
Kazbich was silent for a long, long time; finally, instead of answering, he began an old song in an undertone:

There are many beauties in our villages,
The stars shine in the darkness of their eyes.
It's sweet to love them, an enviable share;
But the brave will is more cheerful.
Gold will be bought by four wives
A dashing horse has no price:
He will not lag behind the whirlwind in the steppe,
He will not change, he will not deceive.

In vain did Azamat begged him to agree and wept, and flattered him, and swore; finally Kazbich interrupted him impatiently:
- Go away, you mad boy! Where can you ride my horse? In the first three steps, he will throw you off, and you will smash your head against the stones.
- Me! - Azamat shouted in fury, and the iron of the child's dagger rang against the chain mail. A strong hand pushed him away, and he hit the fence so that the fence staggered. "There will be fun!" - I thought, rushed into the stable, bridled our horses and led them out to the backyard. Two minutes later, there was a terrible hubbub in the sakla. Here's what happened: Azamat ran there in a torn beshmet, saying that Kazbich wanted to stab him. Everyone jumped out, grabbed their guns - and the fun began! Scream, noise, shots; only Kazbich was already on horseback and spun among the crowd along the street like a demon, waving his sword away.
"It's a bad thing in someone else's feast, a hangover," I said to Grigory Alexandrovich, catching his hand: "Isn't it better for us to get out as soon as possible?"
- Wait, how will it end.
- Yes, it will surely end badly; with these Asians, everything is like this: the booze pulled up, and the massacre began! - We got on horseback and rode home.
- And what about Kazbich? - I asked the staff captain impatiently.
- What is this people doing! - he answered, finishing his glass of tea: - he slipped away!
- And not wounded? I asked.
- God knows! Live, robbers! I have seen others in business, for example: after all, they are all punctured, like a sieve, with bayonets, and everything is waving a saber. - The headquarters captain, after some silence, continued, stamping his foot on the ground: - I will never forgive myself for one thing: the devil pulled me, having arrived at the fortress, to retell to Grigory Alexandrovich everything that I heard sitting behind the fence; he laughed - so sly! - and he himself conceived something.

Read the work of a hero of our time chapter by chapter. Online reading of the book A Hero of Our Time I

PART ONE

I Bela

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Bela

I
Bela