Free A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov Page B

Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself around his neck, without complaint, without any reproach for his long absence . . .
    “But even I was getting angry with him. ‘For pity’s sake,’ I said, ‘just here, a moment ago, Kazbich was by the stream and we fired at him. It’s been a while since you’ve come across him, hasn’t it? These mountain-dwelling people are vindictive. Do you think he has guessed that you had a part in helping Azamat? I’ll wager that he recognized Bela just now. And I know that about a year ago, he liked her tremendously—he told me so himself—and if he had figured out how to collect a decent amount of bride-money, then he’d probably have sought a marriage with her . . .’
    “Pechorin then fell to thinking. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘we must be more careful . . . Bela, from today you must not walk on the fortress ramparts.’
    “In the evening, I had a long, elucidating discussion with him. I was vexed that he had so changed toward the poor girl. Apart from the fact that he would spend half the day hunting, his treatment of her had turned cold, he rarely caressed her, and she had noticeably started to wither, her little face was drawn, and her big eyes had lost their luster.
    “Sometimes you would ask her:
    “‘Why such a big sigh Bela? Are you sad?’
    “‘No!’
    “‘Is there something you would like?’
    “‘No!’
    “‘Do you miss your kin?’
    “‘I don’t have kin.’
    “Sometimes you would get nothing more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ out of her for whole days.
    “So I told him as much.
    “‘Listen, Maxim Maximych,’ he replied. ‘I have an unfortunate character—whether it is how I was brought up, or whether God created me this way, I don’t know. I only know that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others, then I am no less unhappy myself. In my early youth, from the moment I left the care of my parents, I began furiously enjoying all the many pleasures you can obtain for money, and then, it seems, these pleasures became loathsome to me. Then I set forth into the wide world, and soon I’d had enough of society too. I fell in love with society beauties and was loved by them too—but their love only inflamed my imagination and pride, leaving my heart empty . . . I started to read, to study—but academics also bored me. I realized that neither glory nor happiness depends on them, because the happiest people are the ignorant. Glory comes from good fortune, and to attain it, you must merely be cunning. And then everything became tedious . . . Soon after, they transferred me to the Caucasus: this was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that boredom didn’t exist under Chechen bullets, but it was in vain—within a month I was so used to their whirring and to the nearness of death, that really, I paid more attention to the mosquitoes. And I was more bored than before, because I had lost what was nearly my last hope. When I saw Bela in my home, when for the first time I held her on my knees, I kissed her black curls, like a fool, I thought that she was an angel, sent to me by compassionate Fate . . . I was again mistaken. The love of a savage girl is not much better than the love of a noblewoman. The ignorance and simple-heartedness of the one becomes as tiresome as the coquettishness of the other. If you like, I still love her, I am grateful to her for several sufficiently sweet minutes. I would give my life for her, only I am bored in her company . . . Whether I’m a fool or a scoundrel, I don’t know. But one thing is sure—that I am as worthy of pity, maybe even more so, as she is. The soul inside me is corrupted by the world, my imagination is restless, my heart is insatiable. Nothing is ever enough. I have become as used to sorrow as I am to delight, and my life becomes more empty from one day to the next. There is only one remedy left for me: travel. As soon as I can, I will set off—only not to Europe, God forbid! I’ll go to America,