The Press.
London, England, 1854-06-10 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

love for love. I have been deceived in that hope ! Fare-
well! I leave you all I possess. If you will return to your
father, you are free to do so. lam guilty in your eyes;
and will punish myself fur that guilt ! Adieu! 1 leave you.
I have no aim, no purpose ; but it matters not. Perhaps
in exposing myself to balls and poignards I may soon be
rid of my existence. When lam no more, Bela, will you
bestow on me one thought,—will you forgive me ?'
" He held out his hand to her, and turned away his
head.
" She remained silent and motionless as a statue. I was
watching her through a crevice in the door. She was pale
as death.

" Receiving no answer, Petchorin walked a few steps, as
if going. He trembled. Look you, he was just the man
to act up to the very letter of the engagement that he had
at first entered upon as a jest. The most unintelligible of
characters! He was just at the door; all at once she made
a spring, threw her arms round his neck, and subbed. Will
you believe it, there were tears in my own eyes. When I
say tears, I mean—in short, it was childishness."
Here the captain paused.
" I confess," he continued, smoothing his moustachios,
" I regretted no woman had ever loved me thus."
" And did their happiness last?" I inquired of hint.
" Yes, indeed! Bela allowed that since she first saw
Petchorin at her father's house she had often dreamed of
him, and that no man had ever made so great an impres-
sion on her. Yes, they were happy !"

But soon the kind old captain perceives that
they arc happy no longer. The sorrowful de-
meanour of the young bride as she becomes
conscious of the prince's coldness is beauti-
fully indicated. When she exclaims to the
kind old captain, " He loves me no more !"
there is an agonising struggle in her breast
between her of and her pride ; but love
gains the mastery, and grief quickly succeeds
to anger. There is genuine heartache in the
simple yes and no with which she replies to the
affectionate inquiries of old Maximus :

" I had a long explanation with Petchorin. I saw, with
pain, that he was no longer the same towards this poor
child. Not satisfied with spending half his time in hunt-
ing, he treated her daily more and more coldly. Bela
pined away risibly; her pretty features had an expression
of suffering, and her beautiful eyes had no longer the same
brightness.
I sometimes would say to her, ' Why do you sigh,
Bela ? You are sorrowful.'
" No.' _ _

" 110 you desire anything?'
" No.'
" ' Would you like to see your relations ? '
" I have no relations.'
" For whole days the only answer that could be elicited
from her was a ' yes' or a no.'
She made me unhappy. I spoke to Petchorin about
her."

But the prince only answers him that lie is
spoiled by the breath of the world, and is dis-
gusted with everything—a fashion of exist
ence which originated, the author thinks, not
with the French, but the English. So the
beautiful Bela pines, her lord avoiding her as
often as he can, though great danger attends
his hunting excursions. He had obtained
Bela by a stratagem. Her young brother fell
sick with longing—such passion is not uncom-
mon in a Circassian breast—for the priceless
steed of a neighbouring chief. The prince bad
obtained the steed by stratagem to bribe the
boy, and had made a deadly enemy of the Cir-
cassian Kazbitch, who stealthily bided his
time for revenge. Petchorin and the captain,
while returning from hunting, perceive a
horseman speeding along the plain with some•
thing white at his saddle-bow
" Fortunately, thanks to the bad success of our sport,
our horses were still fresh ; they seemed to slide from be-
neath their saddles, and at each bound we gained upon the
ravisher. At length I recognised Kazbitch, but without
being able to make out what he held before him.
" It's Kazbitch !' I called out, as I neared Petchorin.
He nodded, and spurred forward. We were within gun-
sh3t of the mountaineer. Whether his horse was not so
strong as yours, or whether it was fatigued by a double
load, I know not, but be certainly made way with difficulty.
I am sure that at this moment he remembered his own
good steed. Still galloping forward, Petchorin bad taken
aim. Do not fire,' I exclaimed; ' do not risk your shot,
we are coming up with him.' Oh, young people ! all energy
and fire, where they are not wanted.
" He fired. and hit one of the horse's hind legs. The
startled animal advanced about ten paces, and then sunk on
his knees. Kazbitch leaped to the ground.
" Then we perceived that he held in his arms a woman,
whose head was covered with a veil. It was Bela—poor
Bela! He called out something in his own tongue,
menacing her with his poignard. There was no time to
lose. I fired in my turn, without daring to take aim.
The hall must have struck his shoulder, for his arm fell to
his side.
" When the smoke hail cleared away we perceived the
wounded horse stretched on the ground, and near him lay
Bela. As for Kazbitch, after having thrown away his gun,
he clambered like a cat along the edge of a precipice. I
had a great desire to dislodge him, but my gun was not
loaded. We sprung from our horses, and ran to Bela.
" Poor young thing! she was lying extended without

sense or movement, and the blood was fast bubbling forth
from her wound. The mean scoundrel! had he struck her
to the heart at once, he had been less cruel idle would
have suffered less—but the back I Ah, it was indeed a
brigand's stroke."
She had left the fort in the warm evening,
and the Circassian had pounced on her. A
surgeon is called to her aid :

" He came immediately, and, after having examined the
wound, declared she had not four and twen! ' Jury to live
but he was wrong."
" She recovered?" I asked of the captain, taking hold
of his hands in the excess of my joy.
" No," replied the (dicer, accustomed to military pre.
cision ; " but instead of four and twenty hours she died two
days after."
• • • * • •
" Two days after—poor child ! how she suffered. We
suffered too, and plentifully !
"At about ten at night she came to her senses. We
were seated near her bed-side. _ _ _

" She had scarcely opened her eyes when she asked for
Petchorin.
"• I am here near thee, my djanetchku r—that would
be, in Russ, My soul I my best beloved ! ' and he took her
haul.

" lam dying ! ' she said to him.
We tried to comfort her—told her the surgeon had
promised to bring her round.
" She shook her head, and turned her face toward., the
wall—poor child! she did not wish to the.
" In the night she was delirous ; her head burned,
and every now and then feverish slnveiings agitated her
frame.
"She spoke incoherently of her father, ber brother; she
longed fur her own home, her dear mountains. Then abs
turned to Petchorin, and called him by a thousand
caressing names—or else she would ask him why he loved
her no longer.
" He listened in silence : leaning his bead on his hand—
but I did not see a single tear moisten his eyelashes. Per-
haps it is not in his nature to weep, or he has sufficient
strength to control his feelings. For myself, I had never
been so deeply nor so painfully moved.
" Towards morning the delirium ceased. For nearly an
hour she remained motionless. She was pale as death,
and so weak that one could hardly be certain that she
breathed. Then for a few moments she was better, and
she began to speak. You imagine of what? Those
thoughts only come to the dying. She regretted that she
was not a Christian, because in the next world her soul
would not be with that of Petchorin, and that in heaven
another would be his companion."
• • • • • •
" With her trembling hands she clasped convulsively
the neck of her lover, as if to leave him her whole soul
in this last embrace. Look you! she could not have done
better than to die. Petchorin would have left her sooner
or later, and the stab of the poiguard was the better of the
two."

One touch at the conclusion is too exquisite
to be lost :

"And, then, I must confess it, one thing was very pain-
ful to me. In the face of death she never once remem-
bered me—l, who had loved her u a father! if she had
only said to me, Adieu, my old Maximus Maximitch ! ' I
think I could have died with her. Rut, Heaven iirgive
her ! And indeed, what am I, that she should think of me
in that solemn moment ?"

Petchorin goes to seek other adventures,—
to win moro hearts and break them; and when
the old captain meets him after years of ab-
sence ho receives but a cold shako of the hand
and a hasty farewell.
The artistic merit of the tale is very great
It scarcely occupies fifty pages, yet characters,
scenery, manners, and incidents have all the
distinctness and force of truth. It will live,
we think, among the most touching creations
of fiction.

One is inclined to suspect that the character
of Petchorin had its source more from inward
sentiment than outward reflection. Lermon-
tot indeed, hints that he has been accused of
presenting to the public his own portrait,
though he insists that he has only sketched a
portrait from observation. However that may
be, there is lurid significance in some of the
closing sentences of the volume when taken
in connection with his violent death so soon
afterwards:—
How can one help being a fatalist! But who can be
convinced that he ought or ought not to do such and such
a thing? How often do we nut take, as a proof, what is
only an error of the senses or of judgment? I love to
doubt everything; this disposition does not prevent
decision of character ; far from ite—st least, as to myself;
I advance with the more resolution, because I ignore what
awaits me. What can happen to me worse than death ?
Can one avoid death?
Whoever takes up the volume will finish it
of course. Yet we wish it had consisted only of
the story of "Bela," as it would have left us
with a more favourable impression both of the
genius and nature of the author.