All this he said in a preface to the second edition, after people had begun to declare that in the novel he had represented himself and his own experiences.

Naturally Petchorin was drawn on Byronic lines, in keeping with the spirit of the '30's, when individuality loudly protested against the oppressive conditions of life.

Naturally, also, all this now appears to be a caricature, true to the life of the highest Russian society as it was when it was written.

Before he had quite completed this work, in February, 1840, Lermontoff fought a duel with the son of Baron de Barante, a well-known French historian, and was transferred, in consequence, to an infantry regiment in the Caucasus, whither he betook himself for the third time.

A year later, after being permitted to make a brief stay in St.Petersburg, he returned to the Caucasus, and three months afterwards he was killed in a duel (on July 25, O.S., 1841) with a fellow officer, Martynoff, and was buried on the estate in the government of Penza, where he had been reared by his grandmother.