: A middle-aged officer meets an old friend with whom he served and experienced many things, but he behaves arrogantly and refuses to communicate with him. Seeing his indifference, the officer is forever disappointed in friendship.
Continuing his journey, the storyteller again met Maxim Maksimych in a roadside hotel.
Maxim Maksimych - an army officer of about fifty, a bachelor, kind, simple, honest
At the same time, here, on the way to Persia, his longtime friend Pechorin also stopped.
Grigory Pechorin - a young officer, exiled to serve in the Caucasus, intelligent, educated, with a contradictory character, disappointed in life, looking for thrills
The old commandant was very happy about the upcoming meeting and impatiently asked the footman to report to Pechorin that he was waiting for him at his place. Maxim Maksimych had to wait for him for a very long time - all evening and night. He did not understand why Gregory, his old friend, was in no hurry to see him.
When, finally, Pechorin appeared, then, contrary to the old man’s expectations, he only greeted his colleague coldly and casually and immediately got ready to leave. Maxim Maksimych asked him to stay longer, but he, citing a hurry, refused.“Not that I thought of meeting you,” said the distressed old man, and in response he heard: “It’s complete, everyone has his own way.” Maxim Maksimych asked Pechorin what to do with his journal, which the old man had kept all this time, hoping to return on occasion, and heard in response: "What do you want."
Pechorin left.
For a long time I could not hear either the ringing of a bell or the knock of wheels on a siliceous road, and the poor old man stood in the same place in deep thought.
Maxim Maksimych, deeply upset, gave Pechorin's magazine to the narrator - he was already unnecessary to him.
The officer’s travel notes along with the diary of Grigory Pechorin became a novel, which the narrator decided to publish, having learned that the hero was no longer alive. Gregory died on the way home from Persia. This magazine is an observation of the mind on the torment of the soul, written without vanity and honestly. The main question that occupied Pechorin is to what extent a person can control his fate.
