Versailles, France
Pietchorine is not a hero of his time, and is hero of no specific time neither. He stares at a box at the theatre where beauty and grace – in the shape of a woman, of course – lie, as we have all did.
The story of the rivalry between the handsome low-ranked civil servant and the not so handsome officer is the eternal story of everyone envying everyone else’s blessings or achievements.
The Story of Petchorine is the story of every unachieved dream, the dreams one cannot abandon :
When someone has had a an aspiration for a long time and sacrificed a lot for it, it is hard to renounce to it, and it is impossible, if the last hopes of withering youth are tied to that aspiration
Princess Ligovskaya – Mikhail Lermontov