ntoff wrote a drama, "The
Masquerade" (1834), and the fine poem, "Boyarin Orsha," but his fame
began only in 1837, with his splendid poem on the death of Pushkin, "The
Death of the Poet," beginning, "The poet perished, the slave of honor,"
in which he expressed his entire sympathy with the poet in his untimely
death, and poured out all his bitterness upon the circle which was
incapable of appreciating and prizing the genius. This, in a multitude
of manuscript copies, created a great sensation in St. Petersburg. Soon
afterwards, on hearing contradictory rumors as to the duel and Pushkin's
death, he added sixteen verses, beginning, "And you, ye arrogant
descendants." One of the prominent persons therein attacked having had
his attention called to the matter in public by an officious gossip (he
had probably known all about it before, and deliberately ignored the
matter), felt obliged to report Lermontoff. The result was that
Lermontoff was transferred as ensign to a dragoon regiment which was
serving in Georgia, and early in 1837 he set out for the Caucasus.
Through his grandmother's efforts he was permitted to return from the
Caucasus about eight months later, to a hussar regiment. By this time
people were beginning to appreciate him; he had written his magnificent
"Ballad of Tzar Ivan Vasilievitch, the Young Lifeguardsman, and the Bold
Merchant Kalashnikoff," which every one hailed as an entirely new
phenomenon in Russian literature, amazing in its highly artistic
pictures, full of power and dignity, combined with an exterior like that
of the inartistic productions of folk-poetry. This poem was productive
of all the more astonishment, because his "The Demon,"[13] written much
earlier (1825-1834), was little known. "The Demon" is poor in contents,
but surprisingly rich in wealth and luxury of coloring, and in the
endless variety of its pictures of Caucasian life and nature.

In 1838, while residing in St. Petersburg, Lermontoff wrote little at
first, but in 1839 he wrote "Mtzyri," and a whole series of fine tales
in prose, which eventually appeared under the general title of "A Hero
of Our Times." This work, which has lost much of its vivid interest for
people of the present day, must remain, nevertheless, one of the most
important monuments of that period to which Lermontoff so completely
belonged. In the person of the hero, Petchorin, he endeavored to present
"a portrait composed of the vices of the generation of which h