The Kindly Ones

by Jonathan Littell

I thought again about Lermontov dying on the grass a few steps away, his chest shattered, for an empty remark about Martynov’s clothes. Unlike his hero Pechorin, Lermontov had fired into the air; his adversary, not. What could Martynov have been thinking as he looked at his enemy’s corpse? He himself had wanted to be a poet, and he had certainly read A Hero of Our Time; so he could savor the bitter echoes and slow ripples of the growing legend, he knew too that his name would remain only as that of Lermontov’s murderer, another d’Anthès encumbering Russian letters. But he must have had other ambitions when he started out in life; he too must have wanted to create, and create good things. Perhaps he was simply jealous of Lermontov’s talent? Or perhaps he chose to be remembered for the harm he had done, rather than not at all?