A Hero of Our Time (Modern Library Classics) by Mikhail Lermontov

Author:Mikhail Lermontov [Lermontov, Mikhail]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

Today I arose late; by the time I arrived at the well, everyone was gone. It was getting hot; shaggy white clouds were scudding quickly off the snowy mountains, promising a storm; Mashuk’s dome was smoking like an extinguished torch; around it gray scraps of cloud coiled and slithered like snakes, clouds detained in their desire and seemingly caught on the thorns of its bushes. The air was saturated with electricity. I delved farther down the viny lane leading to the grotto; I was sad. I was thinking of that young woman with the mole on her cheek whom the doctor had been telling me about. Why was she here? And was it she? And why did I think it was? And why was I even quite certain it was? There are plenty of women with moles on their cheeks! Musing in this way, I approached the grotto itself. I looked, and in the cool shadow of its vault, on a stone bench, sat a woman wearing a straw bonnet and wrapped in a black shawl, her head dropped to her breast; her hat covered her face. I was about to turn around, so as not to disturb her reverie, when she looked at me.

“Vera!” I could not help but cry out.

She shuddered and turned white. “I knew you were here,” she said. I sat down beside her and took her hand. A long-forgotten quiver ran through my veins at the sound of this dear voice; she looked into my eyes with her deep and tranquil ones; they expressed distrust and something resembling reproach.

“We haven’t seen each other in a long time,” said I.

“A long time—and we have both changed so much!”

“You must no longer love me.”

“I am married!” she said.

“Again? A few years ago this reason existed as well; but meanwhile.…”

She jerked her hand from mine, and her cheeks flamed.

“Perhaps you love your second husband?”

She did not reply and turned away.

“Or he is very jealous?”

Silence.

“What is it? He’s young, fine, most likely rich, and you’re afraid.…” I glanced at her and was shocked: her face expressed profound despair, and tears glittered in her eyes.

“Tell me,” she whispered at last, “do you find it so very amusing to torture me? I ought to despise you; ever since we’ve known each other you’ve given me nothing but pain.…” Her voice quivered; she leaned toward me and laid her head on my chest.

“Perhaps,” thought I, “that is precisely why you loved me. Joys are forgotten, but sorrows never!”

I held her fast, and we remained thus for a long time. At last our lips came together and merged in an ardent, ravishing kiss; her hands were as cold as ice, but her head was burning. After this, one of those conversations began between us that make no sense on paper and cannot be repeated or even remembered: the meaning of the sounds replaces and enhances the meaning of the words, as in Italian opera.

She definitely does not want me to meet her husband—that lame old man whom I had glimpsed on the boulevard; she married him for her son’s sake.

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