This story is confusing, and I like that. Centers around the antihero Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin who is a Russian officer in the 1830s. Pechorin is insightful as he is cynical. He is obsessed with (?)– or at least certainly aware of his death, which seems to give him a leg up on just about everyone else he encounters. The first four parts of the novel focus on his romantic conquests, where Pechorin displays a lack of interest in the women who catch his eye past the point of momentary satisfaction. Only the last part deals directly with his anticipation of death, but due to the chronological reversal of the ordering of the books, the theme of mortality is present throughout. Pechorin emerges as a man of unerring psychological discernment who is a master manipulator of men and women alike. His love is born of narcissism, his malice of boredom, and his innermost thoughts consumed with desire for self-knowledge and its cousin self-mastery.

Bela

A guy wandering through the Caucasus Mountains encounters the older officer Maxim Maximytch who is an acquaintance of Pechorin. As they travel through the mountains, Maxim begins to tell the dude of the young officer Pechorin who was chasing after a woman named Bela. To convince Bela's brother Azamat to release her unto him, he must help Azamat steal a local warlord's horse (Kazbich) for him. Once he has her, though, Pechorin must convince her to give herself to him, just as he had to persuade her brother. Kazbich returns to seek revenge, but unable to find Azamat who is long gone with the horse, he instead kills Bela's father and wounds her too. She dies, after having been won over by Pechorin, and he is re-stationed elsewhere. The frame narrative ends with Maxim and the unnamed narrator of this part parting ways.

Maxim Maximytch

The story continues when Maxim is reunited with the narrator from part I. They meet at an inn, delighted to see one another having expected to have parted ways for good. They are annoyed by the rude servant where they're staying, but Maxim is delighted twice-over to learn that the servant's master is the Pechorin whom he holds in high regard. Pechorin stands up Maxim, but runs into the narrator the next day. He dispatches the narrator to fetch Maxim, who is rebuffed by Pechorin's cold reception of him. He refuses to dine with Maxim and also refuses to accept the belongings Maxim had been holding for him. Disgusted, Maxim casts them to the floor and the two depart – the unnamed narrator salvages the documents and also departs Maxim the next day

Foreword

The latter half of the book consists of the documents authored by Pechorin, which contain much insight into the man and Russian society (according to Lermontov and the unnamed narrator who authors a modest foreword to the journal entries) of the early 19th century.

The narrator accedes that he put off publication of the journal entries till Pechorin was dead. He is eager to publish, though, finding that there is much wisdom to be gained from peering into the candid thoughts of the enigmatic officer.

Grant that my reder is not punished me for placing my name ahead of another man's work

Taman

This is the first journal entry narrated from Pechorin's perspective and it takes place in the coastal town of Taman. Unable to find reasonable lodging (no room at da inn type shii), he finds a small hut on the very edge of the sea. Wishing to speak to the master of the house, he instead finds only a small blind boy who creeps up on him.

I struck a sulfur match and put it up to the boy’s nose. It illuminated two white eyes. He was blind, completely blind from birth. He stood in front of me without moving, and I began to scrutinize the features of his face. I confess that I have a strong prejudice against the blind, the cross-eyed, the deaf, the mute, the legless, the armless, the hunch-backed and the like. I have noticed that there is always a sort of strange relationship between the exterior of a person and his soul. It is as if, with the loss of a feature, the soul loses some kind of sensibility.

I started to scrutinize the face of this blind boy. But what would you suggest I read in a face that has no eyes? . . . I looked at him with involuntary pity for a while, when suddenly a barely visible smile scampered across his thin lips, and, I don’t know why, but it produced in me a most unpleasant impression. The suspicion that this blind boy wasn’t as blind as he seemed was born in my mind. In vain I tried to persuade myself that you couldn’t mimic a walleye, and why would you? But what was I to do? I am often prone to prejudice . . .

His own prejudice is immediately rebuffed by the fact that it feels as though the boy can still see him, making him indirectly call into question the validity of his previously stated worldview

Blind boy says that the old woman who owns the hut has gone to the village and will be back later. He sees the blind boy creeping around some more, headed towards the beach. Unable to sleep, he follows, and observes some sort of smuggling going on. The next morning, he confronts the blind boy and the woman and runs into a wall of outsiderism. He threatens to rat the young girl out if she won't at least tell him what's going on, and she tells him to meet her at the beach later that night:

Toward evening, I stopped her at the door and conducted the following conversation with her: “Tell me, pretty girl,” I asked, “what were you doing today on the roof?”

“Uh, I was looking to see whence comes the wind.”“

What for?”

“Whence the wind, hence happiness also.”

“What? Were you summoning happiness with your song?”

“Where there is song, there is happiness.”

“And suppose you sing sorrow to yourself?”

“What of it? Where things aren’t better, they are worse, and from worst to best is not far.”

“Who was it that taught you this song?”

“No one taught it to me. As it occurs to me, so I sing. Whoever hears it, hears it. And he who should not hear it, won’t understand it.”

“And what is your name, my songbird?”

“Whoever christened me knows.”

“Who christened you?”

“How should I know?”

“What secrecy! But I have found out something about you.”

Her face didn’t change, her lips didn’t stir; it was as if the matter didn’t concern her.

“I found out that you went to the shore last night.”

And then, with great emphasis, I related to her everything that I had seen, thinking it would disturb her—not in the least! She burst into loud laughter.

“You have seen much, but know little. So keep it under lock and key.”

Later, he gets on a boat with her where she takes him out to sea, kisses him, and then attempts to drown him. He throws her overboard only to run into her again after they both make separate escapes back to town. He spies on her, witnessing her skip town with another man (Yanko) from the smuggling operation. Pechorin also departs the next morning, deciding to keep his mouth shut lest he look like a fool.

Princess Mary

After arriving at his next destination of Pyatigorsk, he runs into an unfriendly acquaintance from the army, one officer Gushnitsky. They're mutually standoffish but cordial.

“What is Vera doing right now?” I thought . . . I would give dearly to be holding her hand at this moment. Suddenly I hear quick and uneven steps . . . It’s probably Grushnitsky . . . It is!

“Where have you come from?”

“From the Princess Ligovsky,” he said very significantly. “How Mary sings!”

“Do you know what?” I said to him. “I’ll wager that she doesn’t know you’re a cadet but thinks you were demoted . . .”

“Maybe! What is it to me?” he said absentmindedly.

“Well, I’m just saying . . .”

“And do you know that you made her terribly angry today? She felt it was an outrageous audacity. It took enormous effort but I managed to convince her that you are so well brought up and so well acquainted with society that you couldn’t have had the intention of insulting her. She says that you have an insolent gaze, that you probably have a very high opinion of yourself.”

“She isn’t mistaken . . . and do you not wish to defend her honor?”

“I regret that I do not have this right yet . . .”

“O-ho!” I thought, “he obviously has hopes already . . .”

“But then again, it’s worse for you,” continued Grushnitsky. “Now it will be difficult for you to make their acquaintance— a pity! Theirs is one of the most pleasant households I have ever known . . .”

I smiled inwardly.

“The most pleasant household to me is currently my own,” I said, yawning, and stood up to leave. “But you must admit that you are contrite?”

“What nonsense! If I so wished, I could be at the princess’s house tomorrow evening . . .” “We shall see . . .”

“And, in order to please you, I will even flirt with the princess . . .”

“Yes, if she deigns to speak to you . . .”

“I am waiting for the moment when your conversation bores her . . . Farewell!”

“And I am off to wander—I’m not at all able to fall asleep these days . . . Listen, why don’t we go to the restaurant, where we can gamble . . . I need strong sensations today . . .”

“I hope you lose . . .”

I went home.

Gushnitsky has the hots for Princess Mary of local nobility who is visiting with her mother, the princess Princess Ligovskoy. Pechorin distracts himself with the titillating prospect of romancing Gushnitsky's crush. Pechorin decides to seduce Mary to satisfy his vanities, to destroy Grushnitsky's happiness, and to communicate with his actual long-lost-love Vera who is a member of the Princess' inner circle.

“So why am I going to such pains? Out of envy for Grushnitsky? The poor thing, he doesn’t deserve it at all. Or is this the result of that nasty but invincible feeling that makes us destroy the sweet delusions of a dear friend, in order to have the petty satisfaction of telling him, when in despair he asks you what he should believe: “My friend, I have had the same thing happen. And yet, as you can see, I enjoy dinner and supper and sleep very peacefully, and, I hope, I will be able to die without shouts and tears.” But there is an unbounded pleasure to be had in the possession of a young, newly blossoming soul! It is like a flower, from which the best aroma evaporates when meeting the first ray of the sun; you must pluck it at that minute, breathing it in until you’re satisfied, and then throw it onto the road: perhaps someone will pick it up! I feel this insatiable greed, which swallows everything it meets on its way. I look at the suffering and joy of others only in their relation to me, as though it is food that supports the strength of my soul. I myself am not capable of going mad under the influence of passion. My ambition is stifled by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in another way, for ambition is nothing other than a thirst for power, and my best pleasure is to subject everyone around me to my will, to arouse feelings of love, devotion and fear of me—is this not the first sign and the greatest triumph of power? Being someone’s reason for suffering while not being in any position to claim the right—isn’t this the sweetest nourishment for our pride? And what is happiness? Sated pride. If I considered myself to be better, more powerful than everyone in the world, I would be happy. If everyone loved me, I would find endless sources of love within myself. Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others. An evil idea cannot enter a person’s head without his wanting to bring it into reality: ideas are organic creations, someone once said. Their birth gives them form immediately, and this form is an action. The person in whom most ideas are born is the person who acts most. Hence a genius, riveted to his office desk, must die or lose his mind, just as a man with a powerful build who has a sedentary life and modest behavior will die from an apoplectic fit. “Passions are nothing other than the first developments of an idea: they are a characteristic of the heart’s youth, and whoever thinks to worry about them his whole life long is a fool: many calm rivers begin with a noisy waterfall, but not one of them jumps and froths until the very sea. And this calm is often the sign of great, though hidden, strength. The fullness and depth of both feeling and thought will not tolerate violent upsurges. The soul, suffering and taking pleasure, takes strict account of everything and is always convinced that this is how things should be. It knows that without storms, the constant sultriness of the sun would wither it. It is infused with its own life—it fosters and punishes itself, like a child. And it is only in this higher state of self-knowledge that a person can estimate the value of divine justice.

As I re-read this page, I notice that I have substantially digressed from my subject . . . But what of it? . . . I am, after all, writing these diaries for myself, and therefore, whatever I throw into it, will become, in time, precious recollections.

He succeeds on all three fronts. Embarrassed and infuriated, Gushnitsky challenges Pechorin to a duel where he is severely outsmarted and outclassed.

Now it is I who shall look for the symptoms of secret fear on your pale face. Why did you set yourself these fateful six paces? You think that I will offer you my forehead without a struggle . . . but we are casting lots! . . . But then . . . then . . . what if his luck outweighs mine . . . if my star has at last betrayed me? . . . It would be no surprise: it has faithfully served my whims for so long, there is no more constancy in the heavens than on earth.

Fear the man who himself does not fear death. After Gushnitsky's ruse fails, his second basically abandons him lmao:

“Well, brother Grushnitsky, too bad that you missed!” said the captain. “Now it’s your turn: take up your position! Embrace me first: we won’t see each other again!”

The Fatalist

The final section takes place in a Cossack village and is focused on predestination. Some army mates are in a disagreement about the issue, recounting various anecdotal stories as proof for and against. An old officer Vulich, known gambler, claims he can solve the question. He leads the gathered entourage to an upstairs armory and pulls down a gun from the wall. Loads it, and shoots it at himself after a Russian equivalent of a coin flip. It misfires and to dispel any conspiracies of foul play for spectacle, he then shoots it at the wall. It does not misfire. Vulich collects payment from Pechorin (who had gambled on Vulich's life). Mere hours later, Vulich is cut down by a drunk Cossack who cuts him in half. When Pechorin arrives at the scene, the murderer has barricaded himself in a hut. Pechorin apprehends the man SWAT style. The final scene depicts the second-to-last meeting between Maxim and Pechorin, after which Pechorin privately notes that Maxim is boring.

Final part of the book deals w/ predestination, gambling, gambling upon one's life, as well as courageously or boldly going towards the unknown bc nothing can be worse than death which is inevitable

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