Publisher's Synopsis
The only child of a retired army officer, Pyotr Andreyich Grinyov is already enrolled in the Semenofsky regiment, due to assume his position as sergeant of the Guard once his education has finished. By the age of seventeen, he is keen to take up the mantle of military service, anticipating the liberties and pleasures of duty in Petersburg. But his father has other ideas: his son will be no preening idler of a Guard, but an active soldier. Indignant and resentful, Pyotr is assigned to garrison duty at the remote Fort Belogorsk. And there he meets Marya, the Commandant's daughter...
