In April of the year 1840 he was again banished to
the Caucas for his duel with the son of the historian de Barante, where
he distinguished himself by his valor in conflict with the Tscherkes. In
February of 1841 we find the poet again at Petersburg, where the second
edition of his masterpiece, "A Hero of Our Own Time," was just
appearing. Yet toward the end of April again he was obliged to leave,--
this time through the influence and hatred of the Countess Benkendorff.
For the third time he went to the Caucas in exile. Here in Petigorsk he
was forced into close relation with one Major Nikolai Solomonowitsch
Martynow,--whom he did not spare from his well deserved scorn. Aroused
by the local society that pursued the poet with hatred and envy,
Martynow challenged him at a ball. The seconds, as also the entire city,
expected a harmless outcome only, especially as Lermontoff, as was known
to his adversary, had declared he should shoot in the air. He held his
hand high with the pistol stretched aloft; Martynow approached, aimed,
fired, and silently the poet fell dead. Thus his own lament for Pushkin
came to be worthily written for himself--
"The murderer contemptuous gazing
Did steadfastly his weapon aim--" etc., etc.
At the foot of the Machook mountains, July 27, 1841, in the
twenty-seventh year of his age, the poet died.
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