I
Often Oblomov’s old school friend had endeavoured--though in vain--to
wean his comrade from the state of inertia in which he (Oblomov) was
plunged. The pair were discussing the same subject in Oblomov’s study.
“Once upon a time,” said Schtoltz, “I remember you a slim, lively young
fellow. Have you forgotten our joint readings of Rousseau, Schiller,
Goethe, and Byron?”
“Have I forgotten them?” re-echoed Oblomov. “No. How could I forget
them? How I used to dream over those books, and to whisper to myself
my hopes for the future, and to make plans of all sorts!--though I kept
them from you for fear lest you would laugh at them. But that expired
at Verklevo; and never since has it been repeated. What is the reason,
I would ask? Never have I gone through any great mental tempest or
upheaval, my conscience is as clear as a mirror, and no adverse stroke
of fortune has occurred to destroy my self-conceit. Yet for some reason
or another I have gone to pieces.” He sighed. “You see, Andrei, at no
point in my life have I been touched with a fire which could either save
me or destroy me. I have lived a life different from that of others.
With me it has not been a morning dawn which, gradually broadening to
a sultry, bustling noon, has faded, imperceptibly, naturally, into
eventide. No, I _began_ life with a quenching of the light of day, and,
from the first moment that I realized myself, realized also that I
was on the wane. I realized that fact as I sat at my desk in the
chancellory, as I read, as I consorted with friends, as I squandered
my means upon Minia, as I lounged on the Nevski Prospect, as I attended
receptions where I was welcomed as an eligible _parti_, as I wasted
my life and brains in fluctuating between town and country. Even my
self-conceit--upon what was it flung away? Upon figuring in clothes made
by a good tailor, upon gaining the _entrée_ to well-known houses, upon
having my hand shaken by Prince P------! Yet self-conceit ought to
be the very salt of life. Whither is mine gone? Either I have never
understood the life of which I speak or it was never suited to me. Oh,
that I had never known or seen it, that no one had ever pointed it out
to me! For yourself, you entered and left my orbit like a bright, swift
comet; and when you were gone I forgot everything, and began to fade.”
As Schtoltz listened to Oblomov’s words there was no trace of a
contemptuous smile on his features.
“Not long ago,” resumed Oblomov, “you said that my face had lost its
freshness and colour. Yes, that is so. I am like a ragged, cast-off
garment--though less from the fact that during the past twelve years
there has lain within me a light that has ever been seeking an outlet,
but has been doomed to illumine only its own prison. Now, therefore,
unable to gain its freedom, it is becoming altogether extinguished. Am I
alone in this, however? Look around you. The name of the tribe to which
I belong is legion.”
“Nevertheless, I intend to take you travelling with me,” remarked
Schtoltz, rising. “We will start to-morrow. It must be done now or
never.” With that he went to bed.
“Now or never.” Somehow to Oblomov the words seemed a sort of threat. He
approached his dusty writing-table, and took up a pen. Of ink there
was none, nor yet a single scrap of writing-paper. Mechanically and
at random he traced some letters in the dust with his finger. There
resulted the word _Oblomovstchina_. * He obliterated it with a quick
movement of his sleeve. Often in his dreams had he seen the word
written in letters of fire on the ceiling, even as once Belshazzar saw
characters traced on the wall of his banqueting-room. “Now or never.”
Oblomov listened to this last despairing call of his reason and his
energy, and, weighing; in the balance what little volition still
remained to him, considered to what end he could best devote that sorry
fragment. Which was he to do? To go forward or to stand still? To go
forward would mean divesting, not only his shoulders, but also his
intellect, his soul, of his dressing-gown; it would mean sweeping away,
not only from his chamber walls, but also from his eyes, the dust and
the cobwebs. Yet how was he to take the first step necessary? Where was
he to begin? He remembered Schtoltz’s words: “Go to Oblomovka, and there
learn what sowing and grinding mean, and why the peasant is poor or
rich. Walk the fields, attend the local elections, visit the mills, and
linger by the river wharves.”
* The disease of Oblomovka. See later.
Yes, that was what Schtoltz had said. But it would mean going forward,
and going forward unceasingly. In that case farewell to they poetic
ideal of life! Such a course would connote work in a smithery rather
than life: it would entail a continual round of heat and of clatter.
What would be the good of it? Would it not be better to stand still?
To stand still would merely mean occasionally putting on a shirt inside
out, dinners with Tarantiev, thinking as little as possible of anything,
leaving “A Voyage to Africa” unread to the end, and attaining a peaceful
old age in the fiat of which Tarantiev had spoken. “Now or never.”
“To be or not to be.” Oblomov rose from his chair, but, failing at once
to insert his foot into a slipper, sat down again.
Two weeks later Schtoltz departed for England, after exacting from
Oblomov a pledge to join him later in Paris. Oblomov even went to the
length of procuring a passport, ordering an expensive travelling coat,
and purchasing a cap. The furniture of the flat was to be removed to
the quarters of Tarantiev’s crony in the Veaborg Quarter, and stored in
the three rooms until its owner’s return.
A month went by--three months; yet Oblomov still did not start.
Schtoltz, who had reached Paris long ago, continued to send him letter
after letter, but they remained unanswered. Why so? Was it because
the ink in the inkstand had become dried up and no writing-paper was
available? No; both ink, pens, and paper were present in abundance.
Indeed, more than once Oblomov sat down to write, and did so fluently,
and, at times, as expressively and eloquently as he had done in the
days when, with Schtoltz, he had dreamed of the strenuous life, and
of traveling. Likewise he had taken to rising at seven o’clock in the
morning, and to reading, and to carrying books about with him. Also,
his face had lost its look of dreaminess, weariness, _ennui_--there
was colour in his cheek, a sparkle in his eye, and an air almost of
adventurousness--at least, almost of self-assurance--about his whole
bearing. Lastly, no longer was the dressing-gown to be seen, for
Tarantiev had carried it off to his friend’s flat, along with the rest
of Oblomov’s effects. Thus Oblomov wore better clothes than had been his
wont, and even sang cheerfully as he moved about. Why so? The reason
was that there had come into his life two friends of Schtoltz’s, in the
shape of a pretty girl named Olga Sergievna Ilyinitch and her aunt. On
his first visit to them he was overcome with constraint. “How gladly I
would take off my gloves!” he thought to himself. “And how hot the room
is! And how unused to this sort of thing I have grown!”
“Besides, she _will_ keep looking at me,” was his further reflection
as diffidently he scanned his clothes. He even wiped his face with his
handkerchief, lest a smut should have settled on his nose. Also, he
touched his tie, to make sure that its folds had not come undone, as had
sometimes happened with him. But no--all was as it should be. Yet she
would persist in regarding him attentively. Next, a footman tendered
him a cup of tea, with a plate of biscuits. He tried to subdue his
nervousness, and to unbend; but in the act of unbending he seized such a
handful of cracknels, biscuits, and sugared buns that the girl tittered
and the rest of those present gazed at the pile with unconcealed
interest. “My God, she is still looking at me!” he thought to himself.
“What on earth am I to do with all these biscuits?”
Without looking, he could tell that Olga had risen from her seat and
moved to another corner. This helped to relieve his breast of a certain
amount of weight. None the less she continued to contemplate him, in
order to see what he would do with the confectionery.
“Probably I had best eat them as quickly as possible,” he thought; with
which he fell to hurriedly selecting one after another. Luckily all were
of the sort which melts in the mouth. When only two of them remained he
heaved a sigh of relief, and decided to glance towards the corner where
he knew Olga to be seated. Horrors! She was standing by a bust, with one
hand resting on its pedestal, and her eyes closely observing him! Nay,
she had even come out of her corner to get a closer view of him! Without
doubt she must have noted his awkwardness with the biscuits!
True, at supper she sat at the other end or the table, and ate and
talked as though she were in no way concerned with him; yet never once
did he throw a timid glance in her direction (in the hope that she was
not looking his way) but straightway he encountered her gaze--a gaze
which, though good-humoured, was also charged with curiosity. That was
enough. He hastened to take leave of her aunt, who invited him to come
and dine another day. He bowed, and moved away across the drawing-room
without raising his eyes. Presently he encountered a screen, with behind
it, the grand piano. He looked again--and behold, behind the screen was
seated Olga! She was still gazing at him with intent curiosity. Also,
she seemed to him to be smiling.
“Certainly Andrei has often told me that I put on pairs of odd socks,
and my shirt inside out,” he reflected as he drove home. From that
moment he could not get Olga’s glance out of his head. In bed he lay on
his back and tried to adopt the most comfortable attitudes; yet still he
could not sleep....
One fine morning Tarantiev came and carried off the rest of Oblomov’s
furniture; with the result that its owner spent three such days as
he had never before experienced--days during which he was bedless and
sofa-less, and therefore driven to dine at the house of Olga’s aunt.
Suddenly he noticed that opposite the aunt’s house there stood an
untenanted villa. Consequently he hired it (furnished) at sight, and
went to live there. Thereafter he spent his whole time with Olga--he
read with her, he culled flowers with her, he walked by the lake and
over the hills with her. Yes, he, Oblomov! How came this about? It came
about thus.
On the evening of the fateful dinner-party at the aunt’s house Oblomov
experienced the same torture during the meal as he had done on the
previous occasion. Every word that he spoke he uttered with an acute
sense that over him, like a searchlight, there was hovering that glance,
and that it was burning and irritating him, and that it was stimulating
his nerves and blood. Surely, on the balcony, he thought, he would be
able, when ensconced behind a cloud of tobacco smoke, to succeed in
momentarily concealing himself from that silent, that insistent gaze?
“What does it all mean?” he said to himself as he rocked himself to and
fro. “Why, it is sheer torture! Have I made myself ridiculous? At no one
else would she dare to stare as she does at me. I suppose it is because
I am quieter than the rest. However, I will make an agreement with her.
I will tell her, in so many words, that her eyes are dragging my very
soul out of my body.”
Suddenly she appeared on the threshold of the balcony. He handed her a
chair, and she took a seat beside him.
“Are you so very _ennuyé?_” she inquired.
“_Ennuyé_, yes--but not much so. I have pursuits of my own.”
“Ah? Schtoltz tells me that you are engaged in drawing up a scheme of
some sort?”
“Yes. I want to live upon my estate, and am making a few preparations
for doing so.”
“And you are going abroad?”
“Undoubtedly--as soon as ever Schtoltz is ready to accompany me.”
“Shall you be very glad to go?”
“Yes, very.”
He looked at her. A smile was hovering on her face, and illuminating
her eyes, and gradually spreading over her cheeks. Only her lips
remained as pressed together as usual. He lacked the spirit to continue
his lies calmly.
“However, I--I am rather a lazy person,” he began. “But, but----”
Suddenly he felt vexed to think that _she_ should have extracted from
him a confession of his lethargy. “What is she to me?” he thought. “Am I
_afraid_ of her?”
“Lazy?” she exclaimed with a scarcely perceptible touch of archness.
“What? A man be lazy? That passes my comprehension.”
“Why should it?” was his inward comment. “It is all simple enough. I
have taken to sitting at home more and more, and therefore Schtoltz
thinks that I----”
“But I expect you write a great deal?” she went on. “And have you read
much?” Somehow her gaze seemed very intent.
“No, I cannot say that I have.” The words burst from him in a sudden
fear lest she should see fit: to put him through a course of literary
examination.
“What do you mean?” she inquired, laughing. Then he too laughed.
“I thought that you were going to crossquestion me about some novel or
another,” he explained. “But, you see, I never read such things.”
“Then you thought wrong. I was only going to ask you about a few books
of travel.”
He glanced at her quickly. Her lips were still compressed, but the rest
of her face was smiling.
“I must be very careful with her,” he reflected.
“What _do_ you read?” she asked with seeming curiosity.
“It happens that I am particularly fond of books of travel,” he replied.
“Travels in Africa, for instance?” There was quiet demureness in the
tone. He reddened at the not wholly unreasonable conjecture that she was
aware not only of _what_ he read but of _how_ he read.
“And are you also musical?” she continued, in order to relieve him of
his embarrassment. At this moment Schtoltz (who had now returned from
abroad) appeared on the scene.
“Ha, Ilya!” he cried. “I have told Olga Sergievna that you adore music,
and that to-night she must sing something--‘Casta Diva,’ for example.”
“Why did you speak for me at all?” protested Oblomov. “I am by no means
an adorer of music.”
“What?” Schtoltz exclaimed. “Why, the man is offended! I introduce him
as a person of taste, and here is he stumbling over himself to destroy
his good reputation!”
“I am only declining the rôle of connoisseur,” said Oblomov. “’Tis
too difficult and risky a rôle. Sometimes I can listen with pleasure to
a cracked barrel-organ, and its tunes stick in my memory; while at other
times I leave the Opera before the piece is half over. It all depends
upon the mood in which I am. In fact, there are moments when I could
close my ears even to Mozart.”
“Then it is clear that you _do_ love music,” said Olga.
“Sing him something,” requested Schtoltz.
“But suppose that Monsieur Oblomov were, at this very moment, to be
feeling inclined to close his ears?” she said as she turned to him.
“I suppose I ought to utter some compliment or another,” he replied.
“But I cannot do so, and I would not, even if I could.”
“Why?”
“Because,” was Oblomov’s naïve rejoinder, “things would be so awkward
for me if I were to find that you sing badly.”
“Even as, the other day, you found things awkward with the biscuits?”
she retorted before she could stop herself. The next moment she reddened
as though she would have given worlds to have been able to recall her
words. “Pardon me,” she added. “I ought not to have said that.”
Oblomov had been unprepared, and was quite taken aback.
“That was a cruel advantage,” he murmured.
“No--only a small revenge (and an unpremeditated one) for your failure to
have had a compliment ready.”
“Then perhaps I will have one ready when I have heard you sing.”
“‘You wish me to sing, then?”
“No; _he_ wishes it.” Oblomov pointed to Schtoltz.
“But what of yourself?”
Oblomov shook his head deprecatingly.
“I could not wish for what I have not yet experienced,” he said.
“You are very rude, Ilya,” put in Schtoltz. “See what comes of lolling
about at home and confining your efforts to having your socks put on for
you.”
“Pardon me,” said Oblomov quickly, and without giving him time to
finish. “I should find it no trouble to say: ‘I shall be most glad, most
delighted, to hear you sing, for of course you sing perfectly.’ So,” he
went on, “‘it will afford me the very greatest possible pleasure.’ But
do you really think it necessary?”
“At least you might express a desire that I should sing--if only out of
curiosity.”
“I dare not do so,” replied Oblomov. “You are not an actress.”
“Then it shall be for _you_ that I will sing,” she said to Schtoltz.
“While you, Ilya,” he added, “can be getting your compliment ready.”
Evening was closing in, and the lamp had been lit. Moonlike, it cast
through the ivy-covered trellis a light so dim that the dusk still
veiled the outlines of Olga’s face and figure--it still shrouded them,
as it were, in crepe; while the soft, strong voice, vibrating with
nervous tension, came ringing through the darkness with a note of
mystery. At Schtoltz’s prompting she sang several arias and romances,
of which some expressed suffering, with a vague forecast of joy, while
others expressed joy, coupled with a lurking germ of sorrow.
As Oblomov listened he could scarcely restrain his tears or the cry of
ecstasy that was almost bursting from his soul. In fact, he would have
undertaken the tour abroad if thereby he could have remained where he
was at that moment, and _then_ gone.
“Have I pleased you to-night?” she inquired of Schtoltz.
“Ask, rather, Oblomov,” he replied. “Confess now, Ilya: how long is it
since you felt as you are feeling at this moment?”
“Yet he might have felt like that this morning if ‘a cracked
barrel-organ’ had happened to pass his window,” put in Olga--but so
kindly as to rob the words of their sarcasm.
“He never keeps his windows open,” remarked Schtoltz. “Consequently, he
could not possibly hear what is going on outside.”
That night Oblomov was powerless to sleep. He paced the room in a mood
of thoughtful despondency, and at dawn left the house to roam the city,
with his head and his heart full of God only knows what feelings and
reflections!
Three days later he called again at the aunt’s.
“I want you,” said Olga, “to feel thoroughly at home here.”
“Then pray do not look at me as you are doing now, and as you have
always done.”
Instantly her glance lost its usual expression or curiosity, and became
wholly softened to kindness.
“Why do you mind my looking at you so much?” she asked.
“I do not know. Somehow your gaze seems to draw from me everything that
I would rather people did not learn--you least of all.”
“Why so? You are a friend of Schtoltz’s, and he is a friend of mine, and
therefore----”
“And therefore there is no reason why you should know as much about me
as he does,” concluded Oblomov.
“No, there _is_ no reason. But at least there is a _possibility_ that I
may do so.”
“Yes---- thanks to his talkativeness! Indeed a poor service!”
“Have you, then, any secrets to conceal--or even crimes?” With a little
laugh she edged away from him.
“Perhaps,” he said with a sigh.
“Yes, to put on odd socks _is_ a grave crime,” she remarked with demure
timidity. Oblomov seized his hat.
“I will _not_ stand this!” he cried. “Yet you want me to feel at home
here! As for Schtoltz, I detest him! _He_ told you about the socks, I
suppose?”
“Nay, nay,” she said. “Pardon me this once, and I will try to look at
you in quite a different way. As a matter of fact, ’tis _you_ who are
looking at _me_ in rather an odd fashion.”
True enough, he was gazing into her kindly, grey-blue eyes--he was doing
so simply because he could not help it--and thinking to himself that
never in all the world had he seen a maiden so beautiful.
“Something seems to pass from her into myself,” he reflected. “And that
something is making my heart beat and boil. My God, what a joy to the
eye she is!”
“The important question,” she went on, “is how to preserve you from
feeling _ennuyé_.”
“You can do that by singing to me again.”
“Ah, I was expecting that compliment!” The words came from her in a
sudden burst as of pleasure. “Do you know, had you not uttered that
gasp after I had finished singing the other evening, I should never have
slept all night--I should have cried my very eyes out.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I do not know. I merely know that that time I sang as I had never done
before. Do not ask me to sing now, however--I could not do it.”
Nevertheless she did sing to him again; and, ah! what did that song not
voice? It seemed to be charged with her very soul.
As she finished, his face was shining with the happiness of a spirit
which has been moved to its utmost depths.
“Come!” she said. “Why do you look at me like that?”
“Yet she knew why he was doing so, and a modest touch of triumph that
she could so greatly have affected him filled her soul.
“Look at yourself in the mirror,” she went on, “and you will see that
your eyes are shining, and that--yes, really!--they have tears in them.
How deeply you must feel music!”
“No--it is not music that I am feeling,” he replied slowly; “but--but
_love!_”
‘Her glance met his, and instantly she saw that he had uttered the word
in spite of himself, that the word had got him in its power, and that
the word had voiced the truth.
Recovering himself, he picked up his hat, and left the room. When he
had gone she remained standing like a statue by the piano--her eyes cast
down, and her breast rising and falling tumultuously.
II
From that time forth she lived in him alone, while he, for his part,
racked his brains to avoid incurring the loss of her esteem. Whenever
she detected in his soul--and she could probe that soul very deeply--the
least trace of its former characteristics, she would work for him to
heap himself with reproaches for his lethargy and fear of life. Just
as he was about to yawn, as he was actually opening his mouth for the
purpose, her astonished glance would transfix him, and cause his mouth
to snap with a click which jarred his teeth. Still more did he hasten
to resume his alacrity whenever he perceived that his lassitude was
communicating itself to her, and threatening to render her cold
and contemptuous. Instantly he would undergo a revival of strenuous
activity; and then the shadow between them would disappear, and mutual
sympathy once more beat in strong, clear accord. Yet this solicitude on
his part had not, as yet, its origin in the magic ring of love. Indeed,
the effect of his charmed toils was negative rather than positive. True,
he no longer slept all day--on the contrary, he rode, read, walked, and
even thought of resuming his writing and his agricultural schemes;
yet the ultimate direction, the inmost significance, of his life
still remained confined to the sphere of good intentions. Particularly
disturbing did he find it whenever Olga plied him with some particular
question or another, and demanded of him, as of a professor, full
satisfaction of her curiosity. This occurred frequently, and arose not
out of pedantry on her part, but out of a desire to know the right and
the wrong of things.
At times a given question would absorb her even to the point of
forgetting her consideration for Oblomov. For instance, on one occasion,
when she had besought his opinion concerning double stars, and he
was incautious enough to refer her to Herschel, he was dispatched to
purchase the great authority’s book, and commanded to read it through,
and to explain the same to her full satisfaction. On another occasion he
was rash enough to let slip a word or two concerning various schools
of painting; wherefore he had to undergo another week’s reading and
explaining, and also to pay sundry visits to the Hermitage Museum. In
the end how he trembled whenever she asked him a question!
“Why do you not say something?” she would say to him. “Surely it cannot
be that the subject wearies you?”
“No, but how I love you!” he would reply, as though awakening from a
trance; to which she would retort--
“Do you really? But that is not what I have just asked you.”
On another occasion he said to her--
“Cannot you see what is taking place in me? To me, speaking is a
difficulty. Give me your hand, give me your hand! There seems to be
something hindering me, something weighing me down. It is a something
that is like the great rock which oppresses a man during deep sorrow.
And, strangely enough, the effect of it is the same whether I happen
to be sad or gay. Somehow my breath seems to hurt me as I draw it,
and occasionally I come near to weeping. Yet, like a man overcome with
grief, I feel that I should be lightened and relieved if I could weep.
What, think you, is amiss with me?”
She looked at him with a smile of happiness which nothing could disturb.
Evidently no weight was pressing upon _her_ heart.
“Shall I tell you?” she said. “Yes.”
“You are in love.”
He kissed her hand.
“And you?” he asked. “Are _you_ in love?”
“In love?” she repeated. “I do not like the term for myself. I like you:
that is better.”
“‘I like you’?” he re-echoed. “But a mother or a father or a nurse or
even a dog may be _liked_: the phrase may be used as a garment, even as
can, can--”
“Even as can an old dressing-gown,” she suggested with a smile.
Presently she added--
“Whether I am actually in love with you or not I hardly know. Perhaps
it is a stage that has not yet arrived. All I know is that I have
never liked father or mother or nurse or dog as I like you. I feel lost
without you. To be parted from you for a short while makes me sorry; to
be parted from you for a long while makes me sad; and, were you to die,
I should wear mourning for the rest of my life, and never again be able
to smile. To me such love is life, and life is----”
“Yes?”
“Is a duty, an obligation. Consequently love also is a duty. God has
sent me that duty, and has bid me perform it.” As she spoke she raised
her eyes to heaven.
“Who can have inspired her with these ideas?” Oblomov thought to
himself. “Neither through experience nor through trial nor through ‘fire
and smoke’ can she have attained this clear, simple conception of life
and of love.”
“Then, since there is joy in life, is there also suffering?” he asked
aloud.
“I do not know,” she replied. “That lies beyond my experience as much as
it lies beyond my understanding.”
“But how well _I_ understand it!”
“Ah!” she said merrily. “What glances you throw at me sometimes! Even my
aunt has noticed it.”
“But how can there be joy in love if it never brings one moments of
ecstatic delight?”
“What?” she replied with a glance at the scene around her. “Is not all
_this_ so much ecstatic delight?” She looked at him, smiled, and gave
him her hand. “Do you think,” she continued, “that presently I shall not
be sorry when you take your leave? Do you think that I shall not go to
bed the earlier in order that I may the sooner fall asleep, and cheat
the wearisome night, and be able to see you again in the morning?”
The light in Oblomov’s face had become brighter and brighter with each
successive question, and his gaze more and more suffused with radiance.
III
Next morning, however, he rose pale and sombre. There were traces of
sleeplessness on his features, wrinkles on his brow, and a lack of fire
and eagerness in his eyes. Once upon a time he would have sunk back
upon the pillow after drinking his tea, but now he had grown out of the
habit, and contented himself with resting his elbow where his head
had just been lying. Something in him was working strongly; but that
something was not love. True, Olga’s image was still before him, but
only at a distance, and in a mist, and shorn of its rays, like that of
some stranger. With aching eyes he gazed at it for a moment or two, and
then sighed.
“To live as God wills, and not as oneself wills, is a wise rule,” he
murmured. “Nevertheless------”
“Clearly that is so,” presently he went on. “Otherwise, one would fall
into a chaos of contradictions such as no human mind, however daring and
profound, could hope to resolve. Yesterday one has wished, to-day one
attains the madly longed-for object, and tomorrow one will blush to
think that one ever desired it. Therefore one will fall to cursing life.
And all because of a proud, independent striding through existence and
a wilful ‘I will’! No; rather does one need to feel one’s way, to close
one’s eyes, to avoid becoming either intoxicated with happiness or
inclined to repine because it has escaped one. Yes, _that_ is life. Who
was it first pictured life as happiness and gratification? The fool!
‘Life is a duty,’ says Olga. ‘Life is a grave obligation which must be
fulfilled as such.’” He heaved a profound sigh.
“No, I cannot visit Olga to-day,” he went on. “My eyes are now open, and
I see my duty before me. Better part with her _now_, while it is still
possible, than later, when I shall have sworn to part with her no more.”
How had this mood of his come about? What wind had suddenly affected
him? How had it brought with it these clouds? Wherefore was he now for
assuming such a grievous yoke? Only last night he had looked into Olga’s
soul, and seen there a radiant world and a smiling destiny; only
last night he had read both her horoscope and his own. What had since
happened?
Frequently, in summer, one goes to sleep while the weather is still
and cloudless, and the stars are glimmering softly. “How beautiful the
countryside will look to-morrow under the bright beams of morning!” one
thinks to oneself. “And how glad one will be to dive into the depths of
the forest and seek refuge from the heat!” Then suddenly one awakes to
the beating of rain, to the sight of grey, mournful clouds, to a sense
of cold and damp.
In Oblomov’s breast the poison was working swiftly and vigorously. In
thought he reviewed his life, and for the hundredth time felt his heart
ache with repentance and regret for what he had lost. He kept picturing
to himself what, by now, he would have been had he strode boldly ahead,
and lived a fuller and a broader life, and exerted his faculties; whence
he passed to the question of his present condition, and of the means
whereby Olga had contrived to become fond of him, and of the reason why
she still was so. “Is she not making a mistake?” was a thought which
suddenly flashed through his mind like lightning; and as it did so the
lightning seemed to strike his heart, and to shatter it. He groaned with
the pain. “Yes, she _is_ making a mistake,” he kept saying again and
again. “She merely loves me as she works embroidery on canvas. In a
quiet, leisurely manner a pattern has evolved itself, and she has turned
it over, and admired it. Soon she will lay it aside, and forget all
about it. Yes, her present affection is a mere _making ready_ to fall in
love, a mere experiment of which I am the subject, for the reason that
I chanced to be the first subject to come to hand.” So he collated the
circumstances, and compared them. Never would she have noticed him
at all, had not Schtoltz pointed him out, and infected her young.
impressionable heart with sympathy for his (Oblomov’s) position, and
therefore implanted in her a desire to see if possibly she could shake
that dreamy soul from its lethargy before leaving it once more to its
own devices.
“Yes, that is how the case stands,” he said to himself with an access of
revulsion. He rose and lit a candle with a trembling hand. “’Tis
just that and nothing more. Her heart was ready to accept love--it was
tensely awaiting it--and I happened to fall in her way, and at the same
time to fall into a blunder. Only would some one else need to arrive for
her to renounce that blunder. As soon as ever she saw that some one else
she would turn from me with horror. In fact, I am stealing what belongs
to another; I am no better than a thief. My God, to think that I should
have been so blind!”
Glancing into the mirror, he saw himself pale, dull, and sallow.
Involuntarily he pictured to his mind those handsome young fellows who
would one day come her way. Suddenly she would take fire, glance at him,
and--burst out laughing! A second time he glanced into the mirror. No,
he was _not_ the type with which women could fall in love! He flung
himself down upon the bed, and buried his face in the pillow.
“Forgive me, Olga!” he murmured. “And may you always be happy!”
He gave orders that he was to be reported as “not at home” to any one
who might call from the Ilyinskis’ house. Then he sat down to write Olga
a letter. He wrote it swiftly. In fact, the pen flew over the pages.
And when he had finished the missive he was surprised to find that his
spirits felt cheered, and his mind easier.
“Why so?” he reflected. “Probably because I have put into what I have
just written the whole sorrow of my heart.”
Next, he dispatched the letter by the hand of Zakhar, and, leaving the
house, turned into the park, and seated himself on the grass. Among the
turf-shoots ants were scurrying hither and thither, and jostling one
another, and parting again. From above, the scene looked like the
commotion in a human market-place--it showed the same bustle, the same
congestion, the same swarm of population. Here and there, too, a bumble
bee buzzed over a flower, and then crept into its chalice, while a
knot of flies had glued themselves to a drop of sap on the trunk of a
lime-tree, in the foliage a bird was repeating an ever-insistent note
(as though calling to its mate), and a couple of butterflies were
tumbling through the air in a giddy, fluttering, intricate movement
which resembled a waltz. Everywhere from the herbage strong scents could
be detected arising; everywhere there could be heard a ceaseless chirping
and twittering.
Suddenly he saw Olga approaching. Walking very quietly, she was wiping
her eyes with a handkerchief as she did so. He had not expected those
tears. Somehow they seemed to sear his heart. He rose and ran to meet
her.
“Olga, Olga!” were his first tender words.
She started, looked at him with an air of astonishment, and turned away.
He followed her.
“You are weeping?” he said.
“Yes, and’ is _you_ have made me do so,” she replied, while her form
shook with sobs. “But it is beyond your power to comfort me.”
“That miserable letter!” he ejaculated, suddenly becoming full of
remorse.
For answer she opened a basket which she was carrying, took from it the
letter, and handed it to him.
“Take it away,” she said. “The sight of it will only make me weep more
bitterly.”
He stuffed it silently into his pocket, and, with head bent, seated
himself beside her.
“Give me credit for good intentions,” he urged. “In any case the letter
was evidence only of my care for your happiness--of the fact that I
was thinking of it in advance, and was ready to sacrifice myself on its
account. Do you think that I wrote the message callously--that inwardly
I was not shedding tears the whole time? Why should I have acted as I
did?”
“Why, indeed?” she interrupted. “For the reason that you wished to
surprise me here, and to see whether I was weeping, and how bitterly.
Had you _really_ meant the letter as you say, you would be making
preparations to go abroad instead of meeting me as you are now doing.
Last night you wanted my ‘I love you’; to-day you want to see my tears;
and to-morrow, I daresay, you will be wishing that I were dead!”
“How can you wrong me like that? Believe me, I would give half my life
to see smiles on your face instead of tears.”
“Yes--now that you have seen a woman weeping on your account. But no;
you have no heart. You say that you had no desire to make me weep. Had
that been so, you would not have acted as you have done.”
“Then what ought I to do?” he asked tenderly. “Will you let me beg your
pardon?”
“No; only children beg pardon, or persons who have jostled some one in a
crowd. Moreover, even when granted, such pardon is worth nothing.”
“But what if the letter should be true, and your affection for me all a
mistake?” he suggested.
“You are _afraid_, then?--you are afraid of falling into a well?--you
are afraid lest some day I should hurt you by ceasing to be fond of
you?”
“Would I could sink into the ground!” he reflected. The pain was
increasing in proportion as he divined Olga’s thoughts.
“On the other hand,” she went on, “suppose you were to weary of love,
even as you have wearied of books, of work, and of the world in general?
Suppose that, fearing no rival, you were to go to sleep by my side (as
you do on your sofa at home), and that my voice were to become powerless
to wake you? Suppose that your present swelling of heart were to pass
away, and your dressing-gown come to acquire more value in your eyes
than myself? Often and often do such questions prevent my sleeping;
yet I do not, on that account, trouble _you_ with conjectures as to the
future. Always I hope for better things, for, with me, happiness
has cast out fear. Only for one thing have I long been sitting and
waiting--namely, for happiness; until at length I had come to believe
that I had found it.... Even if I _have_ made a mistake, at least
this”--and she laid her hand upon her heart--“does not convict me of
guilt. God knows that I never desired such a fate! And I had been so
happy!” She broke off abruptly.
“Then be happy again,” urged Oblomov.
“No. Rather, go you whither you have always been wishing to go,” she
said softly.
“You are wiser than I am,” he murmured, twisting a sprig of acacia
between his fingers.
“No, I am simpler and more daring than you. What are you afraid of? Do
you _really_ think that I should cease to love you?”
“With you by my side I fear nothing,” he replied. “With you by my side
nothing terrible can fall to my lot.”