"What are you going to do? Are you mad?" we shouted at him.
"Gentlemen!" he said with deliberation, disengaging his arms. "Which of you would care to pay twenty gold pieces for me?"
Everyone fell silent and drew back.
Vulić went into the next room and sat down at the table. The rest of us followed him. He motioned us to take our seats around the table. We obeyed him in silence, for at this moment he had acquired some mysterious power over us. I looked intently into his eyes, but they met my searching gaze calmly and unwaveringly, and his pale lips smiled; yet in spite of his composure I thought I could read the seal of death on his dull white face. I have observed, and many old soldiers have confirmed the observation, that frequently the face of a person who is to die in a few hours' time bears some strange mark of his inevitable fate, which an experienced eye can hardly fail to detect.
"You will die today," I said to him. He turned sharply to me, but replied with calm deliberation: "I may, and then again I may not..."
Then, turning to the major, he asked whether the pistol was loaded. In his confusion, the major couldn't remember exactly.
"That's enough, Vulić!" someone cried. "It must be loaded since it hung at the head of the bed. What sort of a joke is this!"
"A stupid joke!" threw in another.
"I'll wager fifty rubles to five that the pistol is not loaded!" a third shouted.
Fresh bets were made.
I got tired of this endless ceremony. "Look here," I said, "either fire or hang the pistol back in its place and let's go to bed."
"That's right," many exclaimed. "Let's go to bed."
"Gentlemen, I beg of you not to move!" said Vulić, pressing the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead. We were all petrified.
"Mr Pechorin," he went on, "will you take a card and throw it up in the air."
As I recall now, I picked up an ace of hearts from the table and threw it up. We watched with bated breath, our eyes, wide with fear and an indefinable curiosity, shifting back and forth between the pistol and the fateful ace which was now slowly fluttering downwards. The moment it touched the table, Vulić pulled the trigger-but the pistol didn't go off.
"Thank God!" several voices cried. "It wasn't loaded..."
"We'll see about that," said Vulić. Again he cocked the weapon and aimed at a cap hanging above the window. A shot rang out and smoke filled the room, and when it dispersed the cap was taken down-there was the hole in the very center of it and the bullet had imbedded itself deep in the wall.
For a good three minutes no one could utter a word. Vulić calmly poured my money into his purse.
Speculation began as to why the pistol did not go off the first time. Some claimed that the pan must have been clogged, others whispered that the powder was damp at first, and that Vulić had afterwards sprinkled some fresh powder on it. I, however, assured them that the latter supposition was incorrect, for I had not taken my eyes off the pistol for a moment.
"You have gambler's luck!" I said to Vulić.
"For the first time in my life," he replied, smiling complacently. "This is better than faro or shtoss[111]."
"But slightly more dangerous."
"Well? Have you begun to believe in predestination?"
"I do believe in it. Only I don't understand why it seemed to me that you were doomed to die today …"
The very same man, who so short a time before had with supreme indifference aimed a pistol at his own forehead, now suddenly flared up and looked disconcerted.
"That will do!" he said, rising. "Our bet's finished and now your remarks seem out of place to me..." He picked up his cap and walked out. His behavior struck me as strange-and rightly so.
Soon everyone left, each giving his own interpretation of Vulić's eccentric behavior on the way home, and, probably, unanimously branding me an egoist for having wagered against a man who wanted to shoot himself-as if he could not have found a convenient opportunity without my help!
I returned home through the deserted side streets of the settlement. The full moon, red as the lurid glow of a fire, was just coming up over the jagged skyline of the housetops. The stars shone placidly in the dark-blue firmament, and I was amused at the thought that there once were sages who believed the heavenly bodies have a share in our wretched squabbles over a tiny territory or some other imaginary rights. Yet these lamps, which they thought had been lighted only to illuminate their battles and triumphs, still burn with undiminished brilliance, while their passions and hopes have long since died out together with them like a campfire left burning on the fringe of a forest by a careless wayfarer. But what strength of will they drew from the certainty that all the heavens with their numberless inhabitants looked down on them with constant though mute sympathy! Whereas we, their wretched descendents, who roam the earth without convictions or pride, without joys or fear other than the nameless dread that constricts the heart at the thought of the inevitable end, we are no longer capable of great sacrifices either for the good of mankind or even for our personal happiness, since we know that happiness is impossible; and we pass indifferently from one doubt to another just as our forebears floundered from one delusion to another, without the hopes they had and without even that vague but potent sense of joy the soul derives from any struggle with man or destiny...
Many similar thoughts passed through my mind. I did not hold back their passage, because I don't care to dwell upon abstract ideas-for what can they lead to? In my early youth I was a dreamer. I liked to toy with the images, now gloomy, now radiant, which my restless, eager imagination drew for me. But what have I derived from it all? Only weariness, like the aftermath of a nighttime battle with a phantom, and dim memories filled with regrets. In this futile struggle, I exhausted the fervor of spirit and the constancy of will which are essential to real life. When I embarked on that life, I had already lived it in my mind, and therefore it has become as boring and repulsive to me as a poor imitation of a long-familiar book.
The evening's events had made a rather deep impression on me and worked on my nerves. I'm not certain whether I now believe in predestination or not, but that night I firmly believed in it. The proof had been striking, and regardless of the fact that I had ridiculed our forebears and their complacent astrology, I found myself thinking as they did-but I caught myself in time on this dangerous road, and having made it a rule never to reject anything categorically and never to believe in anything blindly, I cast metaphysics aside and began to watch the ground under my feet. Such caution was timely, for I nearly stumbled over something thick and soft but apparently dead. I bent down-the moon now lit up the road-and what did I see lying in front of me, but a pig sliced into two with a saber... I had hardly had time to look at it when I heard footsteps: two Cossacks came running from a side street. One of them came up to me and asked whether I had seen a drunken Cossack pursuing a pig. I told them that I had not met the Cossack, but showed them the unlucky victim of his ferocious skill.
"The bandit!" said the second Cossack. "As soon as he drinks his fill of wine[112], he's out to cut up everything that comes his way. Let's go after him, Yeremeich; we've got to tie him up, or else..."