knew. If I
had even been his friend, well and good: the artful indiscretion of the
true friend is intelligible to everybody; but I only saw Pechorin
once in my life--on the high-road--and, consequently, I cannot cherish
towards him that inexplicable hatred, which, hiding its face under the
mask of friendship, awaits but the death or misfortune of the beloved
object to burst over its head in a storm of reproaches, admonitions,
scoffs and regrets.

On reading over these notes, I have become convinced of the sincerity
of the man who has so unsparingly exposed to view his own weaknesses and
vices. The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly
less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people;
especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature
mind upon itself, and has been written without any egoistical desire of
arousing sympathy or astonishment. Rousseau's Confessions has precisely
this defect--he read it to his friends.

And, so, it is nothing but the desire to be useful that has constrained
me to print fragments of this diary which fell into my hands by chance.
Although I have altered all the proper names, those who are mentioned
in it will probably recognise themselves, and, it may be, will find some
justification for actions for which they have hitherto blamed a man who
has ceased henceforth to have anything in common with this world. We
almost always excuse that which we understand.

I have inserted in this book only those portions of the diary which
refer to Pechorin's sojourn in the Caucasus. There still remains in
my hands a thick writing-book in which he tells the story of his whole
life. Some time or other that, too, will present itself before the
tribunal of the world, but, for many and weighty reasons, I do not
venture to take such a responsibility upon myself now.

Possibly some readers would like to know my own opinion of Pechorin's
character. My answer is: the title of this book. "But that is malicious
irony!" they will say... I know not.

BOOK III THE FIRST EXTRACT FROM PECHORIN'S DIARY

TAMAN

TAMAN is the nastiest little hole of all the seaports of Russia. I was
all but starved there, to say nothing of having a narrow escape of being
drowned.

I arrived late at night by the post-car. The driver stopped the tired
troika [21] at the gate of the only stone-built house that stood at the
entrance to the town. The sentry, a Cossack fro