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THE preface to a book serves the double purpose of prologue and epilogue. It affords the author an opportunity of explaining the object of the work, or of vindicating himself and replying to his critics. As a rule, however, the reader is concerned neither with the moral purpose of the book nor with the attacks of the Reviewers, and so the preface remains unread. Nevertheless, this is a pity, especially with us Russians! The public of this country is so youthful, not to say simple-minded, that it cannot understand the meaning of a fable unless the moral is set forth at the end. Unable to see a joke, insensible to irony, it has, in a word, been badly brought up. It has not yet learned that in a decent book, as in decent society, open invective can have no place; that our present-day civilisation has invented a keener weapon, none the less deadly for being almost invisible, which, under the cloak of flattery, strikes with sure and irresistible effect. The Russian public is like a simple-minded person from the country who, chancing to overhear a conversation between two diplomatists belonging to hostile courts, comes away with the conviction that each of them has been deceiving his Government in the interest of a most affectionate private friendship.

The unfortunate effects of an over-literal acceptation of words by certain readers and even Reviewers have recently been manifested in regard to the present book. Many of its readers have been dreadfully, and in all seriousness, shocked to find such an immoral man as Pechorin set before them as an example. Others have observed, with much acumen, that the author has painted his own portrait and those of his acquaintances!... What a stale and wretched jest! But Russia, it appears, has been constituted in such a way that absurdities of this kind will never be eradicated. It is doubtful whether, in this country, the most ethereal of fairy-tales would escape the reproach of attempting offensive personalities.

Pechorin, gentlemen, is in fact a portrait, but not of one man only: he is a composite portrait, made up of all the vices which flourish, fullgrown, amongst the present generation. You will tell me, as you have told me before, that no man can be so bad as this; and my reply will be: “If you believe that such persons as the villains of tragedy and romance could exist in real life, why can you not believe in the reality of Pechorin? If you admire fictions much more terrible and monstrous, why is it that this character, even if regarded merely as a creature of the imagination, cannot obtain quarter at your hands? Is it not because there is more truth in it than may be altogether palatable to you?”

You will say that the cause of morality gains nothing by this book. I beg your pardon. People have been surfeited with sweetmeats and their digestion has been ruined: bitter medicines, sharp truths, are therefore necessary. This must not, however, be taken to mean that the author has ever proudly dreamed of becoming a reformer of human vices. Heaven keep him from such impertinence! He has simply found it entertaining to depict a man, such as he considers to be typical of the present day and such as he has often met in real life—too often, indeed, unfortunately both for the author himself and for you. Suffice it that the disease has been pointed out: how it is to be cured—God alone knows!

FOOTNOTES:

1 A retail shop and tavern combined.

2 A verst is a measure of length, about 3500 English feet.

3 Ermolov, i.e. General Ermolov. Russians have three names—Christian name, patronymic and surname. They are addressed by the first two only. The surname of Maksim Maksimych (colloquial for Maksimovich) is not mentioned.

4 The bell on the duga, a wooden arch joining the shafts of a Russian conveyance over the horse’s neck.

5 Rocky Ford.

6 A kind of beer made from millet.

7 i.e. acknowledging Russian supremacy.

8 A kind of two-stringed or three-stringed guitar.

9 “Good—very good.”

10 Turkish for “Black-eye.”

11 “No!”

12 A particular kind of ancient and valued sabre.

13 King—a title of the Sultan of Turkey.

14 I beg my readers’ pardon for having versified Kazbich’s song, which, of course, as I heard it, was in prose; but habit is second nature. (Author’s note.)

151 “No! Russian—bad, bad!”

15 Krestov is an adjective meaning “of the cross” (Krest=cross); and, of course, is not the Russian for “Christophe.”

16 A legendary Russian hero whose whistling knocked people down.

17 Lezghian dance.

18 In Russian—okaziya=occasion, adventure, etc.; chto za okaziya=how unfortunate!

19 The duga.

20 “Thou” is the form of address used in speaking to an intimate friend, etc. Pechorin had used the more formal “you.”

21 Team of three horses abreast.

22 Desyatnik, a superintendent of ten (men or huts), i.e. an officer like the old English tithing-man or headborough.

23 Card-games.

24 A Caucasian wine.

25 Pushkin. Compare Shelley’s Adonais, xxxi. 3: “as the last cloud of an expiring storm.”

26 The Snake, the Iron and the Bald Mountains.

27 Nizhegorod is the “government” of which Nizhniy Novgorod is the capital.

271 A popular phrase, equivalent to: “How should I think of doing such a thing?”

272 Published by Senkovski, and under the censorship of the Government.

273 Civil servants of the ninth (the lowest) class.

28 i.e. serfs.

29 Pushkin: Eugene Onyegin.

30 Canto XVIII, 10:

“Quinci al bosco t’ invia, dove cotanti]

Son fantasmi inganne vole e bugiardi”...]

301 None of the Waverley novels, of course, bears this title. The novel referred to is doubtless “Old Mortality,” on which Bellini’s opera, “I Puritani di Scozia,” is founded.

31 Popular phrases, equivalent to: “Men are fools, fortune is blind, and life is not worth a straw.”