In my early youth, the image that attracted me was Pechorin with his game of disappointment and indifference. But sometimes «Pechorin» relaxed too much, and then the unexpected happened …
On the Internet, among cheat sheets and blanks of school essays on literature, I found a characteristic of Pechorin, which fits perfectly with my image.
Such an image seemed terribly attractive to me. Everything is so — restraint, feeling «above the gray everyday life», a game of disappointment with life (this is at 15-20 years old). And how romantic this description sounds: “he is above the environment, smart, educated. But internally devastated, disappointed … «
A mysterious young man with his own mind, thoughtfully sad, older than his years, knowing everything, ironically sarcastic. Oh, irony — that was my forte. So familiar that my smile, as I later noticed, was, firstly, most often with closed lips, and secondly, it was distinctly sloping to the left. A kind of wry smirk «well, yes, yes, but how about it.»
- «I’m better than you»: what is the use of arrogance?
The main thing is that the girls often liked it. Probably, the girls dreamed of melting this cold heart, or they were attracted by seeming adulthood and reasonableness against the background of “these orangutans” (as I was once told). To fill this internally empty and disappointed person, to save him from the fetters of melancholy — what could be more beautiful? But in the end it didn’t work out. And I just grinned ironically: well, they say, I’m sorry, this is me, I don’t need anyone, life is decay, there is no point.
Although, perhaps, the girls «clung» to something else. Sometimes, when the Pechorin was too relaxed, like a devil out of a snuffbox, someone jumped out unbridled, unbridled with a wide smile and an indestructible thirst for life. Papuan Tumbalele Makelebumba from the village of Taligende. His temper, inclinations, vices and shortcomings are clearly visible in this old sketch of mine:
«Pechorin» was ashamed of this terrible type and practically did not give him will. At least the girls were not supposed to see a childish and emotional Papuan under any circumstances. Almost always it worked out, although no, no, but the face was blurred in a wide smile with all teeth. Papuan envy also strove to get out, but Pechorin successfully knocked it down with his arrogance.
And one year in 2000, I worked out student practice in a children’s camp as a counselor. The shift ended, the horde of children withdrew, and peace and quiet reigned in the camp buildings and the spaces between them. Three counselors, including me, walked with empty plastic tanks from under the water, which was brought to us in order to water the children. The tanks are booming, if you knock on them, you get a pretty sound of some tom-tom. So the three of us turned them over and began to thrash as we went, humming a meaningless jumble of words and sounds. At the same time they tried to dance, so it looked like an authentic African song and dance ensemble of the Yoruba tribe.
- What scares you about love?
And then, from behind one of the buildings, the girls-counselors appeared and headed in our direction. «Pechorin», with a delay of 10 seconds, turned on the air raid siren inside me and tried to take control. It was impossible for the girls to see this dirty savage, because only a smart, restrained and disappointed in people gentleman has the right to exist (otherwise, how else to deal with women?). However, Tumbalele, raging to the sound of tom-toms and two other savages dancing nearby, was not going to give up. According to Pechorin’s plan, I was supposed to immediately lower my hands, leave a smirk on my face and take a couple of steps away from the raging counselors-colleagues (they say, I’m just walking nearby, don’t think that I’m like that …). On the other hand, Tumbalele did not intend to betray his fellows, and he generally liked the whole action. In the end, I continued to hit the “tam-tom”, but it already looked like the game of a wooden Nutcracker: the body ceased to be plastic, hard palms slowly patted the plastic (and did not imprint on it with all their strength), and bouncing and dancing, apparently, resembled the movements of the toy, in which the legs bend only at the knees, and the developers did not think about the lower back at all.
- How to make a good impression?
The girls passed, smiling, Pechorin somehow picked up and for a long time could not recover from shame. Now no one and nothing will restore the desecrated honor… Life is decay and a gray meaningless emptiness…
One of these girls became my wife. And somehow, talking, she remembered that scene when they saw us, three Papuans, walking along a sun-drenched path. “I liked you very, very much then — so lively, carefree, cheerful …”. Those 10 seconds…
Pechorin fell into a deep faint.