SOURCE: "Duality and Symmetry in Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time," in Nabokov and Others: Patterns in Russian Literature, Ardis, 1979, pp. 27-36.

[In the following essay, Rowe examines the symmetrical pairing of elements such as episodes, actions, descriptions, speeches, and characters in A Hero of Our Time.]

Commentators have been justifiably intrigued by the patterning of Lermontov's novel [A Hero of Our Time]. Despite its five parts and three narrators, however, the work seems most informed by duality as a structural principle. Even individual episodes, actions, descriptions, speeches continually occur in pairs. Moreover, there often seems to be a balancing of these pairs. In several cases, the spacing of this balancing within the novel promotes a remarkable symmetry.

To begin with, the novel easily "divides into two basic parts", as K. Loks has put it, with two corresponding introductions. Loks also sees the novel as comprising two planes. The first one involves Pechorin's relationship to other people; the second, his inner self. Somewhat similarly, Viktor Vinogradov observes that "the image of Pechorin is depicted on two planes"—outside observation and self-disclosure. In his view, this results in a novel of two parts, each with its own inner unity but organically bound to each other by semantic parallelism. Boris Eikhenbaum has used the term "dual composition" to suggest the development of a complex plot in conjunction with a gradual revelation of the hero's inner world.

Much of the duality in the novel relates to the hero. V. G. Belìnsky has described the "duality of Pechorin" by paraphrasing what the latter tells Werner: "Within me there are two persons: one of them lives in the full sense of the word, the other cogitates and judges him." Earlier, Pechorin suggests to Princess Mary that his soul split in two early in life: "One half of my soul… had died … the other half stirred and lived. …"

This pair of statements seems part of a larger patterning. We encounter two descriptions of Pechorin by the other two narrators and two by himself. First, Maksim Maksimich describes him as "a little odd". Pechorin, we learn, is sometimes cowardly, sometimes brave; alternately taciturn and garrulous. The author's "portrait" of Pechorin also features contrasts and contradictions. His arms do not swing when he walks, and his eyes do not laugh when he is laughing. This description is framed by two yawns, the second of which is said to be feigned.

Pechorin's two descriptions of himself seem calculated to engage the pity of his listener. The first, told to Maksim Maksimich, is of his "unfortunate disposition." The second, told to Princess Mary, is of his becoming "a moral cripple" early in life.

Pechorin persuades two women quite similarly. With Bela, he supposes that she may love someone else. "Or is it," he continues, that she finds him completely hateful. "Or" does her faith forbid her to return his feelings. Later, Pechorin urges Vera to renew their affair: perhaps she loves her second husband. "Or is he very jealous?" Or perhaps she fears losing his money. After these two speeches, we read vivid descriptions of the two women's eyes: Bela's express "distrust" and Vera's "despair"; but each soon gives in to Pechorin's wishes.

The similarity of these two persuasion scenes and of many other pairs of incidents throughout the novel almost gives one a feeling that destiny is being replayed. As Nabokov has observed of "The Fatalist," the scene of Vuličh with the pistol"… curiously echoes that of the duel in 'Princess Mary,' and there are other echoes further on (.. 'this is becoming a bore,' and … 'I became bored with the long procedure')." Earlier, Mr. Nabokov remarks that in "The Fatalist," "… the crucial passage also turns on a pistol being or not being loaded … and a kind of duel by proxy is fought between Pechorin and Vuličh, with Fate, instead of the smirking dragoon, supervising the lethal arrangements." Another parallel perhaps mentally adduced by Nabokov: "You are a strange fellow!" (to Pechorin) and "What an odd fellow!" (of Vuličh). There is even a discernible echo of Pechorin's feigned awakening by officers immediately after the garden chase in his real awakening by officers after Vuličh's death—just as the imaginary nocturnal terrorists of the first scene perhaps correspond to the drunken Efimich and his nocturnal slayings.

Pechorin's experiences seem to come before the reader in twos. He is grazed by two bullets—on the knee by Grushnitsky and on the shoulder by Efimich. He overhears two key plots—against Princess Mary and against himself. These are to embarrass her at the dance and to humiliate him in a sham duel, both of which he later thwarts. He learns two important secrets from Werner, both times cautioning the latter not to reveal them further. These are Princess Mary's "pleasant delusion" regarding Grushnitsky's rank and the "murderous alteration" to load only Grushnitsky's pistol. Pechorin then exploits both secrets quite devastatingly.

With varying degrees of irony, Pechorin announces both to Vera and to Grushnitsky that he plans to flirt with, or court, Princess Mary. Later he is informed both by the young Princess and by the old Princess that his rank and "situation" are not serious obstacles. He also performs a rather ironic "bow" before each Princess. The first follows the mother's suggestion that he is "a gentleman"; the second, her daughter's statement, "I hate you."

Pechorin warns Grushnitsky twice and "tests" him twice. The warnings relate to asking Princess Mary for the mazurka ("Look out, you might be forestalled,") and ascending to the duel ground ("Don't fall beforehand"). In the "tests," Pechorin twice scrutinizes Grushnitsky. As the Dragoon Captain proposes his plan to humiliate Pechorin: "In a tremor of eagerness, I awaited Grushnitsky's reply … If Grushnitsky had refused, I would have thrown myself upon his neck." Then, at the duel: "I decided to give Grushnitsky every advantage; I wished to test him. A spark of magnanimity might awaken in his soul…but vanity and weakness of character were to triumph!"

Pechorin squelches the Dragoon Captain twice: "So it was you that I hit so awkwardly on the head?" and "If so, you and I will fight a duel on the same conditions." Both times, the Captain observes a painful, chagrined silence. Pechorin also twice toys with Werner. First, the latter is allowed to believe he has crucially cautioned Pechorin against marriage: "Werner left, fully convinced that he had put me on my guard." Then, prior to the duel, Pechorin suggests to his worried friend that "the expectation of a violent death" is a "genuine illness": "This thought impressed the doctor and he cheered up."

As Nabokov has observed, Pechorin notices two corpses near the end of "Princess Mary": Grushnitsky's and that of his own horse. He also receives "two notes," one from Werner ("sleep in peace … if you can") and one from Vera ("in none is evil so attractive"). The second seems a direct echo of Pechorin's earlier thoughts of Vera ("What does she love me for so much … Can evil possibly be so attractive?"). And this pair of references to "attractive evil" seems paralleled by another pair of "vice" references. Pechorin declared that Vera "is the only woman who has completely understood me with all my petty weaknesses and wicked passions." This tends to recall the author's introductory assertion that Pechorin is "composed of all the vices of our generation in the fullness of their development." Quite rightly, this pair of references suggests that Vera's note (which John Mersereau, Jr. terms "the final verdict on Pechorin") is more informative than either the pair of descriptions by the two narrators or the pair by Pechorin himself. Thus, the end of Vera's description ("none can be so genuinely unhappy as you, because none tries so hard to convince himself of the contrary") both echoes and explains Pechorin's earlier dilemma:"… I only know that if I am a cause of unhappiness for others, I am no less unhappy myself." This statement, in turn, forms yet another pair with Pechorin's sad suspicion that his "only function on earth is to ruin other people's hopes." Finally, this pair seems paralleled by yet another. For in the words of Richard Freeborn, who sees Pechorin as "seducer, or pretender to that role" with Princess Mary and "executioner" to Grushnitsky: "In both cases he tries to mitigate his vengeful role by the private justification that h e … 'played the miserable role of executioner or traitor' or, as he puts it on the eve of his duel with Grushnistky: 'how many times I have played the role of an axe in the hands of fate.'"

Pechorin and Grushnitsky form an obvious pair. They frequently evince similar intentions leading to opposite results—a balance climaxed by their duel. Pechorin writes that Grushnitksy's "object is to become the hero of a novel." Werner says that for Princess Mary, Pechorin has become "the hero of a novel in the latest fashion." Pechorin playfully twists Grushnitsky's French aphorism by substituting a despising of women for a hatred of men. Oddly enough, the two are reversed even in appearance: Pechorin seems no more than twenty-three, though he might be thirty; Grushnitsky looks about twenty-five, yet he is hardly twenty-one.

In yet another association, Pechorin preempts an imaginary Grushnitsky. For as Nabokov has noted, Pechorin utters to Princess Mary the same sort of speech he had earlier imagined Grushnitsky telling her. Both speeches are to the effect: "No, you had better not know what is in my soul!"

Perhaps still more ironically, Pechorin's resourceful imagination arranges a victory which seems to be replayed as a defeat. His words to Bela ("Farewell, I am going—where? How should I know? Perchance, I shall not be long running after a bullet or a sword blow: remember me then.…") are echoed in Vera's letter ("Farewell, farewell… I perish—but what does it matter? If I could be sure that you will always remember me …"). Before, Pechorin's victory with Princess Mary echoed the words he had contemptuously assigned to Grushnitsky; now, his loss of Vera is underscored by the echo of his successful words to Bela.

As "Princess Mary" begins, Pechorin opens his window early in the morning: "… my room was filled with the perfume of flowers growing in the modest front garden." Soon after, he first sees Princess Mary: "…there emanated from her that ineffable fragrance which breathes sometimes from a beloved woman's letter." This early pair of references to emanating fragrance are reflected in another, crucial pair later on. First, there is Pechorin's famous pronouncement: "… there is boundless delight in the possession of a young, barely unfolded soul! It is like a flower whose best fragrance emanates to meet the first ray of the sun. It should be plucked that very minute and after inhaling one's fill of it, one should throw it away on the road: perchance, someone will pick it up!." This rather cruel attitude (a plucked flower soon dies, even if "picked up") presumably suggests Pechorin's treatment of Princess Mary. Soon after this, he tells her: "One half of my soul… had withered away—while the other half stirred and lived. …" Here, Pechorin is explaining how he became "a moral cripple": misunderstood as a young boy, he "learned to hate." And his eloquence seems most successfully to counter Princess Mary's charge that he is "worse than a murderer": "… she was sorry for me!" In the overall context, however, Pechorin seems to be admitting that his attitude towards Princess Mary is a sort of revenge: the desire to pluck a young soul-flower (above, in his journal) smacks of retaliation for having been driven to cut away half of his own flower-soul.

Still greater irony derives from what may be termed the horse-goat/woman theme. Azamat's double theft (goat, Bela) seems paralleled by Kazbich's song: "Gold can purchase you a foursome of wives,/ But a spirited steed is a priceless possession." This seems especially so because Pechorin simultaneously loses both Vera and his own horse at the end of "Princess Mary." Moreover, losing Karagyoz, Kazbich "fell on the ground and began to sob like a child." Losing Vera, Pechorin "fell on the wet grass and began crying like a child." The irony reaches its climax in the following pair of descriptions. In "Princess Mary" Pechorin had declared: "I love to gallop on a spirited horse through tall grass … the soul feels easy … There is no feminine gaze that I would not forget.…" After reading Vera's letter: "Like a madman, I … galloped … I galloped on, breathless with impatience.… I felt that she had become dearer to me than anything in the world … !"

The overall dualistic pattern of A Hero of Our Time seems reflected even in Lermontov's use of individual words. Early in "Princess Mary," Pechorin predicts that he and Grushnitsky will "meet on a narrow path, and one of us will fare ill." Later, Pechorin insists that the duel be fought on "a narrow bit of flat nature", so that a light wound will be fatal. Just prior to the duel, Pechorin is struck by the blueness and freshness of the morning: he feels "a kind of delicious languor" and is "in love with nature." As "Princess Mary" began, he had also noted the blueness and freshness of the morning, adding: "a kind of joyful feeling permeates all my veins." Mersereau connects these two observations, terming the first one "a lyrical overture to the tragedy that is to follow." If one recalls Freeborn's remark that "Princess Mary" is "composed of two relationships" (Pechorin as "seducer" and "executioner"), then both his descriptions of the morning may be seen as ironic overtures.

Just before relating Bela's death, Maksim Maksimich twice employs the words "unlucky day!" The "nonsense" that Vera supposedly tells Pechorin seems echoed by the "nonsense" he almost feels for Princess Mary. The "comedy" he finds just before the undine kisses him seems echoed (as Peace has suggested) by the "commedia!" of Grushnitsky's death. There are others, including two pairs of references to "jests" by Pechorin. As Nabokov noted concerning the word "separating" at the end of "Princess Mary": "It is just like Lermontov and his casual style to let this long and limp word appear twice in the same, final, sentence."

The symmetry of duality in Lermontov's novel becomes most evident if one pictures its five stories in linear arrangement, with "Taman" as the centerpiece. In the inner pair, Pechorin undermines the person named by the title: Maksim Maksimich, Princess Mary. The outer pair relates the deaths of the two people so named.

The first and last stories are also symmetrically balanced by statements about fate. In Nabokov's words: "Maksim Maksimich closes the book with much the same remark as the one he makes about Pechorin at the beginning." These two statements suggest that both Pechorin and Vuličh had extraordinary fates "assigned" to them "at their birth." Vinogradov (after emphasizing this parallel) observes that Maksim Maksimich balks before "two metaphysical questions" which are "the two central themes" of the novel. These he sees as "predestination" and "the social genesis of disillusionment as a characteristic psychological trait of contemporary man."

The first and last stories also seem balanced by what could be termed knife-blade foreshadowings. The ring of Azamat's dagger against Kazbich's chain-armor anticipates the latter's stabbing of Bela with his dagger. Efimich's slashing a pig in two prefigures his cutting Vuličh in two with the same sword. Somewhat similarly, Pechorin's success in having Azamat steal the goat seems to suggest the notion of having him steal his sister. And Vuličh's early success seems to suggest to Pechorin the notion of taking Efimich alive: "It occurred to me to test my fate as Vuličh had." In each case, the rather obvious local duality is only a part of the overall dualistic symmetry.

Yet another balance between "Bela" and "The Fatalist" is that both stories have "false endings," as Eikhenbaum has put it. "Bela" ends with the narrator's hope that we respect Maksim Maksimich: "If you admit that, I shall be fully rewarded for my story, which perhaps has been too long." The ending of "The Fatalist," which, Eikhenbaum notes, also features Maksim Maksimich, also seems final—yet the novel's chronological conclusion is of course the ending of "Maksim Maksimich," or perhaps the "Introduction to Pechorin's Journal," wherein we learn of Pechorin's death.

Moving towards the center of the book, we may note a rather unexpected parallel between the very different stories "Maksim Maksimich" and "Princess Mary." Near the end of each, Pechorin parts forever from a friend who has anxiously observed his adventures and attempted quite successfully to offer counsel. (Pechorin learns key information from each, but he counters their suggestions with rather disarming ironies.) In the first parting, Pechorin "… proffered his hand while Maksim Maksimich wanted to throw himself on Pechorin's neck". As Pechorin parts from Werner: "He would have liked to shake my hand, and … would have thrown himself on my neck; but I remained cold as stone …" Merssereau observes that these two parallelled episodes emphasize the hero's "essential aloneness."

The central story has its own dualistic symmetry. Just as the entire novel opens and closes with Maksim's similar statements about fate, "Taman" opens and closes with the ironic notion that Pechorin is "on official business." Arriving, Pechorin and his Cossack are led to two huts, which are termed "an evil place". These words are later repeated by a friend of Pechorin's Cossack. Pechorin sees the hopeful silhouette of "two ships" outlined against the pale horizon. These two are of course no help; later, however, two other boats prove most unfavorable. (One carries away the hero's belongings; the other carries him to his near death.) Early in the story, Pechorin is greatly disturbed by the blind boy's "two white eyes." Later, as he follows his undine to the boat, there is no moon: "… only two little stars, like two guiding beacons, sparkled in the dark-blue vault".

As Mersereau has noted, "Taman" contains "two allusions to Pechorin's past." It also contains two details which interlock with passages elsewhere in the novel. As Nabokov has put it, the "breakers" of the Taman seascape "reappear" in the next story as "breakers".… Somewhat similarly, Pechorin's statement about his undine ("breeding in women, as in horses, is a great thing,") reflects ironically back into the preceding story upon the portrait of Pechorin himself ("a sign of breeding in man, as a black mane and a black tail in a white horse"). Vinogradov has stressed this parallel.

The overall dualistic structure of Lermontov's novel seems especially remarkable if one considers that some of the parts were separately composed and published. Yet as a finished, final product, the work seems ordered by a pleasing, balanced symmetry. As Mersereau has suggested, Lermontov could have planned the entire novel in advance: he was "a literary genius" and "knew what he was doing." Ultimately, the dualistic structure gives us a faintly uneasy feeling that fate is somehow being replayed—that the hero's various adventures form an appropriately patterned prelude to his decision (in Peace's words) "to measure himself against Fate itself" in "The Fatalist". Indeed, the fact that Vuličh successfully tests Fate only to die a violent death lends additional persuasiveness to Nabokov's suspicion that Pechorin's death (after his successful testing of Fate) "was a violent one." And if it was, Maksim Maksimich's opening and closing suggestions (that Pechorin and Vuličh had extraordinary fates "assigned" to them "at their birth") acquire—in relation to the hero—an eerie tinge of unwitting precognition.