1838, and was allowed to return
to St. Petersburg in the same year. In 1840 he was again transferred
to the Caucasus for fighting a duel with the son of the French
Ambassador; towards the end of the year, he was once more allowed to
return to St. Petersburg. In 1841 he went back for a third time to
the Caucasus, where he forced a duel on one of his friends over a
perfectly trivial incident, and was killed, on the 15th of July of the
same year.

In all the annals of poetry, there is no more curious figure than
Lermontov. He was like a plant that above all others needed a
sympathetic soil, a favourable atmosphere, and careful attention. As
it was, he came in the full tide of the regime of Nicholas I, a regime
of patriarchal supervision, government interference, rigorous
censorship, and iron discipline,--a grey epoch absolutely devoid of
all ideal aspirations. Considerable light is thrown on the
contradictory and original character of the poet by his novel, _A Hero
of Our Days_, the first psychological novel that appeared in Russia.
The hero, Pechorin, is undoubtedly a portrait of the poet, although he
himself said, and perhaps thought, that he was merely creating a type.

The hero of the story, who is an officer in the Caucasus, analyses his
own character, and lays bare his weaknesses, follies, and faults, with
the utmost frankness. "I am incapable of friendship," he says. "Of two
friends, one is always the slave of the other, although often neither
of them will admit it; I cannot be a slave, and to be a master is a
tiring business." Or he writes: "I have an innate passion for
contradiction.... The presence of enthusiasm turns me to ice, and
intercourse with a phlegmatic temperament would turn me into a
passionate dreamer." Speaking of enemies, he says: "I love enemies,
but not after the Christian fashion." And on another occasion: "Why do
they all hate me? Why? Have I offended any one? No. Do I belong to
that category of people whose mere presence creates antipathy?" Again:
"I despise myself sometimes, is not that the reason that I despise
others? I have become incapable of noble impulses. I am afraid of
appearing ridiculous to myself."

On the eve of fighting a duel Pechorin writes as follows--

"If I die it will not be a great loss to the world, and as for me, I
am sufficiently tired of life. I am like a man yawning at a ball, who
does not go home to bed because the carriage is not there, but as soon
as the carri