Герой нашего времени

A Hero of our 
Time

Translated by Martin Parker

Mikhail LerMontov

УДК 
372.8
ББК 
81.2 Англ-93
 
Т87

ISBN 978-5-9925-1254-0

 
Лермонтов, Михаил Юрьевич.
Л49 
Герой нашего времени : книга для чтения на 
английском языке / Пер. с рус. Мартина Паркера. — Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 2017. — 288 с. 
(Русская классическая литература на иностранных языках).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1254-0.

Предлагаем вниманию читателей роман великого русского писателя и поэта М. Ю. Лермонтова «Герой нашего 
времени», написанный в 1838–1840 годах. Печорин — представитель последекабристского поколения, образ главного 
героя раскрывает особенности современной ему эпохи.

УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

© КАРО, 2017

The Author’s Preface

The preface is the first and at the same time the 
last thing in any book. It serves either to explain the 
purpose of the work or to defend the author from his 
critics. Ordinarily, however, readers are concerned 
with neither the moral nor the journalistic attacks 
on the author — as a result they don’t read prefaces. 
Well, that’s too bad, especially in our country. Our 
public is still so immature and simple-hearted that 
it doesn’t understand a fable unless it finds the 
moral at the end. It fails to grasp a joke or sense an 
irony — it simply hasn’t been brought up properly. 
It’s as yet unaware that obvious violent abuse has no 
place in respectable society and respectable books, 
that education nowadays has worked out a sharper, 
almost invisible, but nevertheless deadly weapon, 
which behind the curtain of flattery cuts with a 

stab against which there is no defense. Our public 
is like the person from the sticks who, overhearing 
a conversation between two diplomats belonging to 
hostile courts, becomes convinced that each is being false to his government for the sake of a tender 
mutual friendship.
This book recently had the misfortune of being taken literally by some readers and even some 
reviewers. Some were seriously shocked at being 
given a man as amoral as the Hero of Our Time for a 
model. Others delicately hinted that the author had 
drawn portraits of himself and his acquaintances… 
What an old, weak joke! But apparently Russia is 
made up so that however she may progress in every 
other respect, she is unable to get rid of foolish ideas 
like this. With us the most fantastic of fairy tales has 
hardly a chance of escaping criticism as an attempt 
to hurt our feelings!
A Hero of Our Time, my dear readers, is indeed 
a portrait, but not of one man. It is a portrait built 
up of all our generation’s vices in full bloom. you 
will again tell me that a human being cannot be so 
wicked, and I will reply that if you can believe in the 

existence of all the villains of tragedy and romance, 
why wouldn’t believe that there was a Pechorin? if 
you could admire far more terrifying and repulsive 
types, why aren’t you more merciful to this character, even if it is fictitious? Isn’t it because there’s 
more truth in it than you might wish?
You say that morality will gain nothing by it. 
Excuse me. People have been fed so much candy 
they are sick to their stomachs. Now bitter medicine 
and acid truths are needed. But don’t ever think that 
the author of this book was ever ambitious enough 
to dream about reforming human vices. May God 
preserve him from such foolishness! It simply 
amused him to picture the modern man as he sees 
him and as he so often — to his own and your own 
misfortune — has found him to be. It’s enough that 
the disease has been diagnosed — how to cure it 
only the Lord knows!

Part I

I

Bela

I was traveling along the military road back from 
Tiflis. the only luggage in the little cart was one small 
suitcase half full of travel notes about Georgia. Fortunately for you most of them have been lost since 
then, though luckily for me the case and the rest of 
the things in it have survived.
The sun was already slipping behind a snowcapped ridge when I drove into Koishaur Valley. 
The Ossetian coachman, singing at the top of his 
voice, tirelessly urged his horses on in order to reach 
the summit of Koishaur Mountain before nightfall. 
What a glorious spot this valley is! All around it 
tower awesome mountains, reddish crags draped 
with hanging ivy and crowned with clusters of 
plane trees, yellow cliffs grooved by torrents, with 

a gilded fringe of snow high above, while down 
below the Aragva River embraces a nameless stream 
that noisily bursts forth from a black, gloom-filled 
gorge and then stretches in a silvery ribbon into the 
distance, its surface shimmering like the scaly back 
of a snake.
On reaching the foot of the Koishaur Mountain 
we stopped outside a tavern where some twenty 
Georgians and mountaineers made up a noisy assembly. Nearby a camel caravan had halted for the 
night. I saw I would need oxen to haul my carriage 
to the top of the confounded mountain, for it was already fall and a thin layer of ice covered the ground, 
and the climb was a mile and a half long.
So I had no choice but to rent six oxen and several 
Ossetians. One of them lifted up my suitcase and 
the others started helping the oxen along — though 
they did little more than shout.
Behind my carriage came another pulled by 
four oxen with no visible effort, though the vehicle 
was piled high with baggage. This rather surprised 
me. In the wake of the carriage walked its owner, 
puffing at a small silver-inlaid Kabardian pipe. He 

was wearing an officer’s coat without epaulets and a 
shaggy Circassian cap. He looked about fifty, his tan 
face showed a long relationship with the Caucasian 
sun, and his prematurely gray mustache did not 
match his firm step and vigorous appearance. I went 
up to him and bowed. He silently returned my greeting, blowing out an enormous cloud of smoke.
“I guess we’re fellow travelers?”
He bowed again, but did not say a word.
“I suppose you’re going to Stavropol?”
“Yes, sir, I am… with some government baggage.”
“Will you please explain to me how it is that four 
oxen easily manage to pull your heavy carriage while 
six animals can barely haul my empty one with the 
help of all these Ossetians?”
He smiled wisely, casting a glance at me as if to 
size me up.
“I bet you haven’t been long in the Caucasus?”
“About a year,” I replied.
He smiled again.
“Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason, sir. They’re awful goodfor-nothings, these Asiatics! you don’t think their 

yelling helps much, do you? You can’t tell what the 
hell they’re saying. But the oxen understand them all 
right. Hitch up twenty of the animals if you want to 
and they won’t budge as soon as those fellows begin 
yelling in their own language. . . Terrific cheats, they 
are. But what can you do about them? They do like 
to skin the traveler. Spoiled, they are, the robbers!… 
you’ll see they’ll make you tip them too. I know 
them by now, they won’t fool me!”
“Have you served long in these parts?”
“Yes, ever since General Aleksey Yermolov was 
here,” he replied, drawing himself up. “when he 
arrived at the line i was a second lieutenant, and 
under him was promoted twice for service against 
the guerrillas.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m in the third line battalion. And you, 
may I ask?”
I told him.
This brought the conversation to an end and we 
walked along side by side in silence. On top of the 
mountain we ran into snow. The sun set and night 
followed day without any interval in between as is 

usual in the South. Thanks to the glistening snow, 
however, we could easily pick out the road which still 
continued to climb, though less steeply than before. 
I gave orders to put my suitcase in the carriage and 
replace the oxen with horses, and turned to look back 
at the valley down below for the last time, but a thick 
mist that rolled in waves from the gorges blanketed it 
completely and not a sound reached us from its depths. 
The Ossetians loudly pestered me, demanding money 
for vodka. But the captain shouted at them so fiercely 
that they went away in a second.
“You see what they’re like!” he grumbled. “They 
don’t know enough Russian to ask for a piece of 
bread, but they’ve learned to beg for tips: ‘Officer, 
give me money for vodka!’ Even the Tatars are better — at least, they don’t drink alcohol….”
About a mile remained to the stage coach station. It was quiet all around, so quiet that you could 
trace the flight of a mosquito by its buzz. A deep 
gorge yawned black to the left. Beyond it and ahead 
of us the dark blue mountain peaks wrinkled with 
gorges and gullies and topped by layers of snow 
loomed against the pale horizon that still retained