The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Hero of Our Time, by M. Y. Lermontov

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Title: A Hero of Our Time

Author: M. Y. Lermontov

Posting Date: July 21, 2008 [EBook #913]
Release Date: May, 1997

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HERO OF OUR TIME ***

Produced by Judith Boss

A HERO OF OUR TIME

By J. H. Wisdom & Marr Murray

Translated From The Russian Of M. Y. Lermontov

FOREWORD

THIS novel, known as one of the masterpieces of Russian Literature,
under the title "A Hero of our Time," and already translated into at
least nine European languages, is now for the first time placed before
the general English Reader.

The work is of exceptional interest to the student of English
Literature, written as it was under the profound influence of Byron and
being itself a study of the Byronic type of character.

The Translators have taken especial care to preserve both the atmosphere
of the story and the poetic beauty with which the Poet-novelist imbued
his pages.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

BOOK I. BELA

BOOK II. MAKSIM MAKSIMYCH

FOREWORD TO EXTRACTS FROM PECHORIN'S DIARY

BOOK III. TAMAN

BOOK IV. THE FATALIST

BOOK V. PRINCESS MARY

APPENDIX. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

BOOK I BELA

THE HEART OF A RUSSIAN

CHAPTER I

I was travelling post from Tiflis.

All the luggage I had in my cart consisted of one small portmanteau half
filled with travelling-notes on Georgia; of these the greater part has
been lost, fortunately for you; but the portmanteau itself and the rest
of its contents have remained intact, fortunately for me.

As I entered the Koishaur Valley the sun was disappearing behind the
snow-clad ridge of the mountains. In order to accomplish the ascent of
Mount Koishaur by nightfall, my driver, an Ossete, urged on the horses
indefatigably, singing zealously the while at the top of his voice.

What a glorious place that valley is! On every hand are inaccessible
mountains, steep, yellow slopes scored by water-channels, and reddish
rocks draped with green ivy and crowned with clusters of plane-trees.
Yonder, at an immense height, is