This tragic utterance made with due solemnity, the captain withdrew to his place. With tears in his eyes, Ivan Ignatyevich also embraced Grushnitsky, and now the latter remained alone facing me. To this day I have tried to explain to myself the emotion that then surged in my breast: it was the vexation of injured vanity, and contempt, and wrath born of the realization that this man, who was now eyeing me so coolly, with such calm insolence, two minutes before had sought to kill me like a dog without endangering himself in the slightest-for had I been wounded a little more severely in the leg, I would certainly have toppled over the cliff.
I looked him squarely in the face for a few minutes, trying to detect the slightest sign of repentance. Instead I thought I saw him suppressing a smile.
"I advise you to say your prayers before you die," I told him then.
"You need not be more concerned about my soul than about your own. I only beg of you to fire with the least delay."
"And you will not retract your slander? Or apologize to me? Think well, has your conscience nothing to say to you?"
"Mr Pechorin!" shouted the captain of dragoons. "You are not here to take confession, allow me to observe... Let us get it over and done with as quickly as possible. Someone might ride through the gorge and see us."
"Very well. Doctor, will you come to me?"
The doctor came over. Poor doctor! He was paler than Grushnitsky had been ten minutes before.
I spoke the following words with deliberation, loudly and distinctly, as sentences of death are pronounced: "Doctor, these gentlemen, no doubt in their haste, forgot to put a bullet into my pistol. Would you please reload it-and do it thoroughly!"
"It can't be!" cried the captain. "It can't be! I loaded both pistols; the bullet may have rolled out of yours... That's not my fault! And you have no right to reload... no right whatsoever... it is most decidedly against the rules. I will not allow it…"
"Very good!" I said to the captain. "In that case, you and I will shoot it out on the same terms... ."
He didn't know what to say.
Grushnitsky stood there, his head sunk on his breast, embarrassed and gloomy.
"Let them do as they wish!" he finally said to the captain, who was trying to grab my pistol from the doctor's hand. "You know yourself that they are right."
In vain did the captain make signs to him. Grushnitsky did not even look up.
Meanwhile the doctor loaded the pistol and handed it to me.
Seeing this, the captain spat and stamped his foot. "You are a fool, my friend," he said, "a darned fool. If you're counting on me, you should do everything I say... You're getting what you deserve, so go ahead and be wiped out like a fly!" He turned away, muttering: "But it's altogether against the rules."
"Grushnitsky!" said I. "There's still time; retract your false insult and I'll forgive you everything. You've failed to make a fool of me, and my vanity is satisfied. Remember that once we were friends..."
His face twisted with passion, his eyes flashed.
"Fire!" he replied. "I despise myself and hate you. If you don't kill me, I'll stab you in the back some night. The world is too small to hold us both…"
I fired.
When the smoke cleared, there was no Grushnitsky on the ledge. Only a thin pillar of dust curled over the brink of the precipice.
Everybody cried out at once.
"Finita la commedia![109]" I said to the doctor.
He did not reply, but turned away in horror.
I shrugged my shoulders and bowed to Grushnitsky's seconds.
As I came down the path I saw Grushnitsky's bloodstained corpse between the clefts in the rocks. Involuntarily I closed my eyes.
Untying my horse, I set out for home at a walking pace. My heart was heavy within me. The sun seemed to have lost its brilliance and its rays did not warm me.
Before reaching the settlement I turned into a gorge on my right. I could not have endured the sight of anyone just then-I wanted to be alone. With the reins hanging loose and my head sunk on my breast, I rode on for some time, until I found myself in an entirely unfamiliar spot. I turned back and sought the road. The sun was setting when I reached Kislovodsk, a spent man on a spent horse.
My manservant told me that Werner had called and gave me two notes, one from him, and the other from Vera.
I opened the first; it contained the following:
Everything has been arranged as well as possible. The mutilated body has been brought in and the bullet removed from the chest. Everybody believes that his death was accidental. Only the commandant, who probably knows of your quarrel, shook his head, but said nothing. There is no evidence against you and you may sleep peacefully... if you can. Goodbye...
I hesitated long before opening the second note. What could she have to write to me? An ominous presentiment racked my soul.
Here it is, that letter whose every word ineffaceably seared itself into my memory:
I am writing to you quite certain that we will never see each other again. When we parted several years ago, I thought the same; but it pleased heaven to try me a second time; I did not withstand the test, my weak heart was again conquered by that familiar voice... but you will not despise me for this, will you? This letter is at once a farewell and a confession: I must tell you everything that has been stored in my heart ever since it first learned to love you. I will not accuse you – you behaved to me as any other man might have done: you loved me as your property, as a source of the reciprocal joys, fears and sorrows without which life would be wearisome and monotonous. I realized this from the very beginning... But you were unhappy, and I sacrificed myself in the hope that some day you would appreciate my sacrifice, that some day you would understand my infinite tenderness which nothing could affect. Much time has passed since then. I have fathomed all the secrets of your soul... and I see that mine was a vain hope. How it hurt me! But my love and my soul have melted into one: the flame is dimmer, but it has not died.
We are parting forever, yet you may be certain that I will never love another. My soul has spent all its treasures, its tears and hopes on you. She who has once loved you cannot but regard other men with some measure of contempt, not because you are better than they – oh no! – but because there is something unique in your nature, something peculiar to you alone, something so proud and unfathomable. Whatever you may be saying, your voice holds an invincible power. In no one is the desire to be loved so constant as in you. In no one is evil so attractive. In no one's glance is there such a promise of bliss. Nobody knows better than you how to use his advantages, and no one else can be so genuinely unhappy as you, because nobody tries so hard as you to convince himself of the contrary.
Now I must explain the reason for my hasty departure; it will strike you as of little consequence, because it concerns me alone.
This morning my husband came to me and told me about your quarrel with Grushnitsky. My face must have given me away, for he looked me straight in the eye long and searchingly. I nearly fainted at the thought that you were having to fight a duel and that I was the cause. I thought I would lose my mind... Now, however, when I can reason clearly, I am certain that you will live – it is impossible that you would die without me, impossible! My husband paced the room for a long time; I don't know what he said to me, nor do I remember what I replied... I probably told him that I loved you... I only remember that at the end of our conversation he insulted me with a terrible word and left the room. I heard him order the carriage... For three hours now I have been sitting at the window and awaiting your return... But you're alive, you can't die! The carriage is almost ready... Farewell, farewell! I'm lost – but what of it? If I could be certain that you will always remember me – I say nothing of loving me, no – only remember... Goodbye! Someone is coming... I have to hide this letter...