And how she danced! I’ve seen our provincial fine ladies and once some twenty years ago I was at the Nobles’ Club in Moscow, but none of them could hold a candle to her. Pechorin dressed her up like a doll, petted and fondled her, and she grew so lovely that it was amazing. The tan disappeared from her face and arms, and her cheeks grew rosy… How gay she was! How she used to tease me, the little vixen… May God forgive her!”
“What happened when you told her about her father’s death?”
“We kept it from her for a long time, until she became accustomed to her new position. And when she was told, she cried for a couple of days and then forgot about it.
“For about four months everything went splendidly. Pechorin, I must have already told you, had a passion for hunting. Some irresistible force used to draw him to the forest to stalk wild boar or goats, but now he scarcely ventured beyond the ramparts. Then I noticed he was growing restless again – he would pace up and down the room with his arms folded behind his back. One day without saying a word to anyone he took his gun and went out, and was gone all morning. That happened once, twice, and then more and more frequently. Things are going badly, I thought, something must have come between them!
“One morning when I dropped in to see them – I can visualize it now – I found Bela sitting on the bed wearing a black silk beshmet and looking so pale and sad that I was really alarmed.
“‘Where’s Pechorin?’ I asked.
“‘Hunting.’
“‘When did he leave? Today?’
“She did not reply, it seemed difficult for her to speak.
“‘No, yesterday,’ she finally said with a deep sigh. “‘I hope nothing has happened to him.’
“‘All day yesterday I thought and thought,’ she said, her eyes full of tears, ‘and imagined all kinds of terrible things. First I thought a wild boar had injured him, then that the Chechen had carried him off to the mountains… And now I’m beginning to think that he doesn’t love me.’
“‘Truly, my dear, you couldn’t have imagined anything worse!’
“She broke into tears, and then proudly raised her head, dried her eyes, and continued: ‘If he doesn’t love me, what prevents him from sending me home? I am not forcing myself on him. And if this goes on I will leave myself! I am not his slave, I am a prince’s daughter!’
“I tried to reason with her. ‘Listen, Bela, he can’t sit here all the time like he’s tied to your apron strings. He’s a young man and likes to hunt. He’ll go and he’ll come back, but if you’re going to mope around he’ll only get tired of you quicker.’
“‘You’re right,’ she replied. ‘I’ll be happy.’ Laughing, she picked up her tambourine and began to sing and dance for me. But very soon she threw herself on the bed again and hid her face in her hands.
“What was I to do? You see, I’d never had dealings with women. I racked my brains for some way to comfort her but couldn’t think of anything. For a time we both were silent. A most unpleasant situation, I assure you!
“At length I said: ‘Would you like to go for a walk with me on the rampart? The weather’s fine.’ It was September, and the day was really wonderful, sunny but not too hot, the mountains as clearly visible as if laid out on a platter. We went out, and in silence walked up and down the ramparts of the fortress. After a while she sat down on the turf, and I sat next to her. It’s really funny to recall how I fussed over her like a nanny.
“Our fort was on a big hill, and the view from the parapet was excellent: on one side was a wide meadow crossed by gullies and ending in a forest that stretched all the way to the top of the mountain ridge, and here and there on this expanse you could see the smoke of villages and herds of grazing horses, while on the other side flowed a creek bordered by dense bushes that covered the flinty hills merging with the main chain of the Caucasus. We were sitting at a corner of a bastion and so we had a perfect view of either side. As I scanned the landscape, a man riding a gray horse emerged from the woods and came closer and closer, until he finally stopped on the far side of the creek two hundred yards or so from where we were and began spinning around on his horse like mad. What the hell was that?
“‘Your eyes are younger than mine, Bela, see if you can make out that horseman,’ said I. ‘I wonder whom he is trying to impress with that display.’
“She looked and cried out: ‘It’s Kazbich!’
“‘Ah, the bandit! Has he come to mock us?’ Now I could see it was Kazbich: the same dark face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. ‘that’s my father’s horse,’ Bela said, grabbing my arm; she trembled like a leaf and her eyes flashed. ‘Aha, my little one,’ thought I, ‘bandit blood talks in you too.’
“‘Come here,’ I called to a sentry, ‘take aim and knock that fellow off for me and you’ll get a ruble in silver.’ ‘Yes, Your Honor, only he doesn’t stay still…’ ‘tell him to,’ said I, laughing. ‘Hey, there!’ shouted the sentry waving his arm, ‘wait a minute, will you, stop spinning like a top!’ Kazbich actually paused to listen, probably thinking we wanted to negotiate, the insolent beggar! My grenadier took aim… bang!… and missed, for as soon as the powder flashed in the pan, Kazbich gave a jab to the horse making it leap aside. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, shook his whip menacingly in the air – and in a flash was gone.
“‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’ I said to the sentry.
“‘Your Honor! He’s gone off to die,’ he replied. ‘Such a cussed crowd they are you can’t kill them with one shot.’
“A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from the chase. Bela ran to meet him and threw her arms around his neck, and not a single complaint, not a single reproach for his long absence did I hear… Even I had lost patience with him. ‘Look here,’ said I, ‘Kazbich was on the other side of the river just now and we fired at him; you could easily have run into him too. These mountaineers are revenging people, and do you think he doesn’t suspect you helped Azamat? I’ll bet he saw Bela here. And I happen to know that a year ago he was sure attracted by her – told me so himself, in fact. Had he had any hope of raising a substantial bride-price he surely would have asked for her in marriage…’ Pechorin was serious now. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we have to be more careful… Bela, after today you mustn’t go out on the ramparts any more.’
“That evening I had a long talk with him; it made me sad that he had changed toward the poor girl, for besides being out hunting half the time, he began to treat her coldly, rarely showing her any affection. She began to waste away visibly, her face grew thin, and her eyes lost their glow. Whenever I asked her, ‘Why are you sighing, Bela? Are you sad?’ she would reply ‘No.’ ‘Do you want anything?’ ‘No!’ ‘Are you homesick for your family?’ ‘I have no family.’ For days on end you couldn’t get more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ out of her.
“I decided to have a talk with him about this. ‘Listen, Maksim Maksimich,’ he replied, ‘I have an unfortunate character. Whether it is my upbringing that made me like that or God who created me so, I don’t know. I know only that if I cause unhappiness to others I myself am no less unhappy. I realize this is poor consolation for them – but the fact remains that it’s so. In my early youth after leaving my parents, I plunged into all the pleasures money could buy, and naturally these pleasures grew distasteful to me. Then I went into high society, but soon enough grew tired of it; I fell in love with beautiful society women and was loved by them,
