PART IV

I

For many a day after his illness Oblomov’s mood was one of dull and

painful despondency; but gradually this became replaced with a phase of

mute indifference, in which he would spend hours in watching the snow

fall and listening to the grinding of the landlady’s coffee-mill, to

the barking of the housedogs as they rattled at their chains, to the

creaking of Zakhar’s boots, and to the measured tick of the clock’s

pendulum. As of old, Agafia Matvievna, his landlady, would come and

propose one or another dish for his delectation; also her children would

come running to and fro through his rooms. To the landlady he returned

kindly, indifferent answers, and to the youngsters he gave lessons

in reading and waiting, while smiling wearily, involuntarily at their

playfulness. Little by little he regained his former mode of life.

One day Schtoltz walked into his room.

“Well, Ilya?” he said, with a questioning sternness which caused Oblomov

to lower his eyes and remain silent.

“Then it is to be ‘never’?” went on his friend.

“‘Never’?” queried Oblomov.

“Yes. Do you not remember my saying to you, ‘Now or never’?”

“I do,” the other returned. “But I am not the man I then was. I have now

set my affairs in order, and my plans for improving my estate are nearly

finished, and I write regularly for two journals, and I have read all

the books which you left behind you.”

“But why have you never come to join me abroad?” asked Schtoltz.

“Something prevented me.”

“Olga?”

Oblomov gathered animation at the question.

“Where is she?” he exclaimed. “I heard that she had gone abroad with her

aunt--that she went there soon after, after----”

“Soon after she had recognized her mistake,” concluded Schtoltz.

“You know the story, then?” said Oblomov, scarcely able to conceal his

confusion.

“Yes, the whole of it--even to the point of the sprig of lilac. Do you

not feel ashamed of yourself, Ilya? Does it not hurt you? Are you not

consumed with regret and remorse?”

“Yes; please do not remind me of it,” interrupted Oblomov hurriedly. “So

great was my agony when I perceived the gulf set between us that I fell

ill of a fever. Ah, Schtoltz, if you love me, do not torture me, do not

mention her name. Long ago I pointed out to her her mistake, but she

would not listen to me. Indeed I am not so much to blame.”

“I am not blaming you,” said Schtoltz gently; “for I have read your

letter. It is I that am most to blame--then she--then you least of all.”

“How is she now?”

“How is she? She is in great distress. She weeps, and will not be

comforted.”

Mingled anguish, sympathy, and alarm showed themselves on Oblomov’s

features.

“What?” he cried, rising to his feet. “Come, Schtoltz! We must go to her

at once, in order that I may beg her pardon on my knees.”

Schtoltz thought it well to change his tactics.

“Do you sit still,” he said with a laugh. “I have not been telling you

the exact truth. As a matter of fact, she is well and happy, and bids me

give you her greeting. Also, she wanted to write to you, but I dissuaded

her on the ground that it would only cause you pain.”

“Thank God for that!” cried Oblomov, almost with tears of joy. “Oh, I am

so glad, Schtoltz! Pray let me embrace you, and then let us drink to her

happiness!”

“But why are you hidden away in this corner?” asked Schtoltz after a

pause.

“Because it is quiet here--there is no one to disturb me.”

“I suppose so,” retorted Schtoltz. “In fact, you have here--well,

Oblomovka over again, only worse.” He glanced about him. “And how are

you now?”

“I am not very well. My breathing is bad, and spots persist in floating

before my eyes. Sometimes, too, when I am asleep, some one seems to come

and strike me a blow upon the back and head, so that I leap up with a

start.”

“Listen, Ilya,” said Schtoltz gravely. “I tell you, in all seriousness,

that if you do not change your mode of life you will soon be seized with

dropsy or a stroke. As for your future, I have no hopes of it at all.

If Olga, that angel, could not bear you from your swamp on her wings,

neither shall I succeed in doing so. However, to the end I shall stand

by you: and when I say that, I am voicing not only my own wish, but also

that of Olga. For she desires you not to perish utterly, not to be

buried alive; she desires that at least I shall make an attempt to dig

you from the tomb.”

“Then she has not forgotten me?” cried Oblomov with emotion--adding: “As

though I were worthy of her remembrance!”

“No, she has not forgotten you, and, I think, never will. Indeed, she is

not the sort of person to forget you. Some day you must go and pay her a

visit in the country.”

“Yes, yes--but not now,” urged Oblomov.

“Even at this moment I--I----” He pointed to his heart.

“What does it contain?” asked Schtoltz. “Love?”

“No, shame and sorrow. Ah, life, life!”

“What of it?”

“It disturbs me--it allows me no rest.”

“Were it to do so, the flame of your candle would soon go out, and you

would find yourself in darkness. Ah, Ilya, Ilya! Life passes too swiftly

for it to be spent in slumber. Would, rather, it were a perpetual

fire!--that one could live for hundreds and hundreds of years! _Then_

what an immensity of work would one not do!”

“You and I are of different types,” said Oblomov. “_You_ have wings; you

do not merely exist--you also fly. You have gifts and ambition; you do

not grow fat; specks do not dance before your eyes; and the back of your

neck does not need to be periodically scratched. In short, my organism

and yours are wholly dissimilar.”

“Fie, fie! Man was created to order his own being, and even to change

his own nature; yet, instead, he goes and develops a paunch, and then

supposes that nature has laid upon him that burden. Once upon a time you

too had wings. Now you have laid them aside.”

“Where are they?” asked Oblomov. “I am powerless, completely powerless.”

“Rather, you are _determined_ to be powerless. Even during your boyhood

at Oblomovka, and amid the circle of your aunts and nurses and valets,

you had begun to waste your intellect, and to be unable to put on your

own socks, and so forth. Hence your present inability to live.”

“All that may be so,” said Oblomov with a sigh; “but now it is too late

to turn back.”

“And what am I to say to Olga on my return?”

Oblomov hung his head in sad and silent meditation.

“Say nothing,” at length he said. “Or say that you have not seen me....”

A year and a half later Oblomov was sitting in his dull, murky rooms. He

had now grown corpulent, and from his eyes _ennui_ peered forth like a

disease. At intervals, too, he would rise and pace the room, then lie

down again, then take a book from the table, read a few lines of it,

yawn, and begin drumming with his fingers upon the table’s surface. As

for Zakhar, he was more seedy and untidy than ever. The elbows of his

coat were patched, and he had about him a pinched and hungry air, as

though his appetite were bad, his sleep poor, and his work three times

as much as it ought to have been. Oblomov’s dressing-gown also was

patched: yet, carefully though the holes had been mended, the seams were

coming apart in various places. Likewise the coverlet of the bed was

ragged, while the curtains, though clean, were faded and hanging in

strips.

Suddenly the landlady entered to announce a visitor, and also to say

that it was neither Tarantiev nor Alexiev.

“Then it must be Schtoltz again!” thought Oblomov, with a sense of

horror. “What can he want with me? However, it does not matter.”

“How are you?” inquired Schtoltz when he entered the room. “You have

grown stout, yet your face is pale.”

“Yes, I am not well,” agreed Oblomov. “Somehow my left leg has lost

all feeling.” Schtoltz threw at him a keen glance, and then eyed the

dressing-gown, the curtains, and the coverlet.

“Never mind,” said Oblomov confusedly. “You know that never at any time

do I keep my place tidy. But how is Olga?”

“She has not forgotten you. Possibly you will end by forgetting _her?_”

“No, never! Never could I forget the time when I was really alive and

living in Paradise. Where is she, then?”

“In the country.”

“With her aunt?”

“Yes--and also with her husband.”

“So she is married? Has she been married long? And is she happy?”

Oblomov had quite sloughed his lethargy. “I feel as though you had

removed a great burden from my mind. True, when you were last here,

you assured me that she had forgiven me; but all this time I have been

unable to rest for the gnawing at my heart.... Tell me who the fortunate

man is?”

“Who he is?” repeated Schtoltz. “Why, cannot you guess, Ilya!”

Oblomov’s gaze grew more intent, and for a moment or two his features

stiffened, and every vestige of colour left his cheeks.

“Surely it is not yourself?” he asked abruptly.

“It is. I married her last year.”

The agitation faded from Oblomov’s expression, and gave place to his

usual apathetic moodiness. For a moment or two he did not raise his

eyes; but when he did so they were full of kindly tears.

“Dear Schtoltz!” he cried, embracing his friend. “And dear Olga! May God

bless you both! How pleased I am! Pray tell her so.”

“I will tell her that in all the world there exists not my friend

Oblomov’s equal.” Schtoltz was profoundly moved.

“No, tell her, rather, that I was fated to meet her, in order that I

might set her on the right road. Tell her also that I bless both that

meeting and the road which she has now taken. To think that that road

might have been different! As it is, I have nothing to blush for, and

nothing of which to repent. You have relieved my soul of a great burden,

and all within it is bright. I thank you, I thank you!”

“I _will_ tell her what you have said,” replied Schtoltz. “She has

indeed reason for never forgetting you, for you would have been worthy

of her--yes, worthy of her, you who have a heart as deep as the sea. You

must come and visit us in the country.”

“No,” replied the other. “It is not that I am afraid of witnessing your

married happiness, or of becoming jealous of her love for you. Yet I

will not come.”

“Then of what are you afraid?”

“Of growing envious of you. In your happiness I should see, as in a

mirror, my own bitter, broken life. Yet no life but this do I wish, or

have it in my power, to live. Do not, therefore, disturb it. Memories

are the height of poetry only when they are memories of happiness. When

they graze wounds over which scars have formed they become an aching

pain. Let us speak of something else. Let me thank you for all the care

and attention which you have devoted to my affairs. Yet never can I

properly requite you. Seek, rather, requital in your own heart, and

in your happiness with Olga Sergievna. Likewise, forgive me for having

failed to relieve you of your duties with regard to Oblomovka. It is my

fixed intention to go there before long.”

“You will find great changes occurred in the place. Doubtless you have

read the statements of accounts which I have sent you?”

Oblomov remained silent.

“What? You have _not_ read them?” exclaimed Schtoltz, aghast. “Then

where are they?”

“I do not know. Wait a little, and I will look for them after dinner.”

“Ah, Ilya, Ilya! Scarcely do I know whether to laugh or to weep.”

“Never mind. We will attend to the affair after dinner. First let us

eat.”

During the meal Oblomov bestowed high encomiums upon his landlady’s

cooking.

“She looks after everything,” he said. “Never will you see me either

with unmended socks or with a shirt turned inside out. She supervises

every detail.”

He ate and drank with great gusto--so much so that Schtoltz contemplated

him with amazement.

“Drink, dear friend, drink,” said Oblomov. “This is splendid _vodka_.

Even Olga could not make _vodka_ or patties or mushroom stews equal to

these. They are like what we used to have at Oblomovka. No man could be

better looked after by a woman than I am by my landlady, Agafia

Matvievna. Nevertheless I, I------” He hesitated.

“Well, what?” prompted Schtoltz.

“I owe her ten thousand roubles on note of hand.”

“Ten thousand roubles? To your landlady? For board and lodging?” gasped

Schtoltz, horrified.

“Yes. You see, the sum has gone on accumulating, for I live generously,

and the debt includes accounts for peaches, pineapples, and so forth.”

“Ilya,” said Schtoltz, “_what_ is this woman to you?”

The other made no reply.

“She is robbing him,” thought his friend. “She is wheedling his all out

of him. Such things are everyday, occurrences, yet I had not guessed

it.”

Desirous of taking Oblomov away with him, he nevertheless found all his

efforts in that direction ineffectual.

“I ask you once again,” he said. “In what relation do you stand to your

landlady?”

Again Oblomov reddened.

“Why are you desirous of knowing?” he countered.

“Because, on the score of our old friendship, I think it my duty to give

you a very serious warning indeed.”

“A warning against what?”

“A warning against a pit into which you may fall, Now I must be going. I

will tell Olga that we may expect to see you this summer whether at our

place or at Oblomovka.”

Then Schtoltz departed.

Not for some years did he visit the capital again, for Olga’s health

necessitated a lengthy sojourn in the Crimea. For some reason or other

her recovery after the birth of a child had been slow.

“How happy I am!” was her frequent reflection. Yet, no sooner had she

passed her life in admiring review than she would find herself relapsing

into a meditative mood. What a curious person she was!--a person who,

in proportion as her felicity became more, complete, plunged ever deeper

and deeper into a brooding over the past! Delving into the recesses of

her own mind, she began to realize that this peaceful existence, this

halting at various stages of felicity, annoyed her. However, with

an effort of will she shook her soul clear of this despondency, and

quickened her steps through life in a feverish desire to seek noise and

movement and occupation. Yet the bustle of society brought her small

relief, and she would retire again into her corner--there to rid her

spirit of the unwonted sense of depression. Then she would go out once

more, and busy herself with petty household cares which confined her to

the nursery and the duties of a nurse and a mother, or join her husband

in reading and discussing serious books or poetry. Her main fear was

lest she should fall ill of the disease, the apathetic malady, of

Oblomovka. Yet, for all her efforts to slough these phases of torpor and

of spiritual coma, a dream of happiness other than the present used to

steal upon her, and wrap her in a haze of inertia, and cause her whole

being to halt, as for a rest from the exertions of life. Again, to

this mood there would succeed a phase of torture and weariness and

apprehension--a phase of dull sorrowfulness which kept asking itself

dim, indefinite questions and ceaselessly pondering upon them. And as

she listened to those questions she would examine herself, yet never

discover what it was she yearned for, nor why, at times, she seemed to

tire of her comfortable existence, to demand of it new and unfamiliar

impressions, and to be gazing ahead in search of something.

“What does it all mean?” she would say to herself with a shudder. “Is

there really anything more that I require, or that I need wish for?

Whither am I travelling? I have no farther to go--my journey is ended.

Yet have I _really_ completed my cycle of existence? Is this _really_

all--all?” Then she would glance timidly around her, and wonder, in

doubt and trembling, what such whispers of the soul might portend. With

anxious eyes she would scan the earth, the heavens, and the wilds, yet

find therein no answer, but merely gloom, profundity, and remoteness.

All nature seemed to be saying the same thing; in nature she could

perceive only a ceaseless, uniform current of life to which there was

neither a beginning nor an ending. Of course, she knew whom she could

consult concerning these tremors--she knew who could return the needed

answers to her questionings. But what would those answers import?

What if Schtoltz should say that her self-questionings represented the

murmurings of an unsympathetic, an unwomanly, heart--that his quondam

idol possessed but a _blasé_, dissatisfied soul from which nothing good

was to be looked for? Yes, how greatly she might fall in his estimation,

were he to discover these new and unwonted pangs of hers! Consequently,

whenever, in spite of her best efforts to conceal the fact, her eyes

lost their velvety softness, and acquired a dry and feverish glitter;

whenever, too, a heavy cloud overspread her face, and she could not

force herself to smile, and to talk, and to listen indifferently to the

latest news in the political world, or to descriptions of interesting

phenomena in some new walk of learning, or to remarks upon some new

creation of art--well, then she hid herself away, on the plea of

illness.

Yet she felt no desire to give way to tears; she experienced none of

those sudden alarms which had been hers during the period when her

girlish nerves had been excited even to the point of self-expression. So

if, while resting on some calm, beautiful evening, there came stealing

upon her, even amid her husband’s talk and caresses, a feeling of

weariness and indifference to everything, she would merely ask herself

despairingly what it all meant. At one moment she would become, as

it were, turned to stone, and sit silent; at another she would make

feverish attempts to conceal her strange malady. Finally a headache

would supervene, and she would retire to rest. Yet all the while it was

a difficult matter for her to evade the keen eyes of her husband. This

she knew well, and therefore prepared herself for conversation with him

as nervously as she would have done for confession to a priest.

II

One evening she and Schtoltz were pacing the poplar avenue in their

garden. She was suffering from her usual inexplicable lack of energy,

and finding herself able to return but the briefest of answers to what

he said.

“By the way,” he remarked, “the nurse tells me that Olinka is troubled

with a night cough. Ought we not to send for the doctor to-morrow?”

“No. I have given her some hot medicine, and am going to keep her

indoors for the present,” answered Olga dully.

In silence they walked to the end of the avenue.

“Why have you sent no reply to that letter from your friend Sonichka?”

he inquired. “This is the third letter that you have left unanswered.”

“I would rather forget her altogether,” was Olga’s brief rejoinder.

“Then you are not well?” he continued after a pause.

“Oh yes; nothing is the matter with me. Why should you think

otherwise’?”

“Then you are _ennuyée?_”

She clasped her hands upon his shoulder.

“No,” she said, in a tone of assumed cheerfulness--yet a tone in which

the note of _ennui_ was only too plainly apparent.

He led her clear of the shade of the trees, and turned her face to the

moonlight.

“Look at me,” he commanded. He gazed intently into her eyes.

“One would say that you were unhappy,” he commented. “Your eyes have a

strange expression in them which I have noticed more than once before.

What is the matter with you, Olga?”

She took him by the sleeve and drew him back into the shade.

“Are you aware,” she said with forced gaiety, “that I am hungry for

supper?”

“No, no,” he protested. “Do not make a jest of this.”

“Unhappy, indeed?” she said reproachfully, halting in front of him.

“Yes, I _am_ unhappy--but only from excess of happiness.” So tender was

her tone, and so caressing the note in her voice, that he bent down and

kissed her.

With that she grew bolder. The jesting supposition that she could be

unhappy inspired her to greater frankness.

“No, I am not _ennuyée_,” she went on; “nor should I ever be so. You

know that well, yet you refuse to believe my words. Nor am I ill. It

is merely that, that well, that sometimes a feeling of depression comes

over me. You are a difficult man to conceal things from. Sometimes I

feel depressed, though I could not say why.”

She laid her head upon his shoulder.

“Nevertheless, what _is_ the reason of it?” he asked her gently as he

bent over her.

“I do not know,” she repeated.

“Yet there _must_ be a reason of some sort. If that reason lies neither

in me nor in your surroundings, it must lie in yourself. Sometimes such

depression is a symptom of ill-health. Are you _sure_ that you are quite

well?”

“At all events I feel so,” she replied gravely. “See for yourself how I

eat and walk and sleep and work! Yet every now and then there comes over

me a mood in which life seems to me incomplete.... Do not mind this,

however. It is nothing--nothing at all.”

“Tell me more,” he urged. “Certainly life is incomplete, but what would

you add to it?”

“And sometimes,” she continued, “I grow afraid lest everything should be

about to be changed, or to come to an end; while at other times I find

myself torturing my brain with a stupid wondering as to what more is to

be expected from the future, this happiness of ours, this life, with its

joys and sorrows”--she had dropped her voice to a whisper, in a sort

of shame at her own questionings--“I know to be quite natural; yet

something seems still to be drawing me onwards, and to be making

me dissatisfied with my lot. How ashamed I feel of my folly and

fancifulness! But do not notice me: this despondency of mine will soon

pass away, and I shall once more become bright and cheerful.”

She pressed herself closer with a timid caress, as though she were

asking pardon for what she termed her “folly.” He questioned her as

to her symptoms as a physician might have done, and, in return, she

described to him her dull self-interrogations, her confusion of soul.

Meanwhile Schtoltz paced the avenue with his head on his breast and

his mind filled with doubt and anxiety--anxiety at the fact that he so

little understood his wife. At length she, in her turn, drew him into

the light of the moon, and gazed inquiringly into his eyes.

“What are you thinking of?” she asked bashfully. “Are you smiling at my

foolishness? Yes, ’tis very foolish, this despondency of mine. Do you

not think so?”

He made no reply.

“Why do you not speak?” she urged impatiently.

“You have long been keeping silence,” he replied, “although always you

have known how solicitous I am on your account. Permit _me_, therefore,

to keep silence and reflect.”

“Yet, if you do that, I shall feel uneasy. Never ought I to have spoken

out. Pray say _something_.”

“What am I to say?” he asked meditatively. “It may be that a nervous

break down is hanging over you. Should that be so, the doctor, not I,

will have to decide how best you can be treated. I will send for him

to-morrow. In any case, if the mischief is not that, then----”

“Then what?” she queried, shaking his arm.

“It is over-imagination on your part. You are too full of life and

hitherto been maturing.” He was speaking rather to himself than to her.

“Pray utter your thoughts aloud, Andrei,”

“It is over--I am still maturing,” she said beseechingly. “I

cannot bear it when you go muttering to yourself like that. I have told

you of my follies, and you merely bow your head and mumble something

into your beard. In this dark spot such conduct makes me feel

uncomfortable.”

“I am at a loss what to say. You tell me, ‘Depression comes over me,’

and ‘I find myself troubled with disturbing questions.’ What am I

to make of that? Let us speak on the subject again later, and in

the meanwhile consider matters. Possibly you require a course of

sea-bathing, or something of the kind.”

“But you said to yourself: ‘Hitherto you have been maturing.’ What did

you mean by that?”

“I was thinking that, that----” He spoke slowly and hesitatingly, as

though he were distrustful of his own thoughts and ashamed of his own

words. “You see, there are moments when symptoms of this kind betoken

that, if a woman has nothing radically wrong with her health, she has

reached maturity--has arrived at the stage when life’s growth becomes

arrested, and there remains for her no further problem to solve.”

“Then you mean that I am growing old?” she interrupted sharply. “How can

you say that? I am still young and strong.” And she drew herself up as

she spoke.

He smiled.

“Do not fear,” he said. “You are not of the kind that will ever grow

old. True, in old age one’s energies fail, and one ceases to battle with

life; but that is a very different thing. Provided it be what I take

it to be, your sense of depression and weariness is a sign of vigour.

Frequently the growings of a vivid, excitable intellect transcend

the limits of everyday existence, and, finding no answer to what that

intellect demands of life, become converted into despondency and a

temporary dissatisfaction with life. The meaning of it is that the soul

is sorrowful at having to ask life its secret. Perhaps such is the case

with _you_. If so, you need not term it folly.”

She sighed, but, apparently, with relief at the thought that the danger

was over, and that she had not fallen in her husband’s estimation.

“I am quite happy,” she repeated, “nor do I spend my time in dreaming,

nor is my life monotonous. What more, then, is there for me to have?

What do these questionings portend? They harass me like a sickness.”

“They are a spur to encourage a weak, groping intellect which has lacked

full preparation. True, such depression and self-questionings have

caused many to lose their senses; but to others they seem mere formless

visions, a mere fever of the brain.”

“To think that just when one’s happiness is full to overflowing, and one

is thoroughly in love with life, there should come upon one a taint of

sorrow!” she murmured.

“Yes; such is the payment exacted for the Promethean fire. You must not

only endure, you must even love and respect, the sorrow and the doubts

and the self-questionings of which you have spoken: for they constitute

the excess, the luxury, of life, and show themselves most when happiness

is at its zenith, and has alloyed with it no gross desires. Such

troubles are powerless to spring to birth amid life which is ordinary

and everyday; they cannot touch the individual who is forced to endure

hardship and want. That is why the bulk of the crowd goes on its

way without ever experiencing the cloud of doubt, the pain of

self-questioning. To him or to her, however, who _voluntarily_ goes to

meet those difficulties they become welcome guests, not a scourge.”

“But one can never get even with them. To almost every one they bring

sorrow and indifference.”

“Yes; but that does not last. Later they serve to shed light upon

life, for they lead one to the edge of the abyss whence there is no

return--then gently force one to turn once more and look upon life. Thus

they seem to challenge one’s tried faculties in order that the latter

may be prevented from sinking wholly into inertia.”

“And to think, also, that one should be disturbed by phantoms at

all!” she lamented. “When all is bright, one’s life suddenly becomes

overshadowed with some sinister influence. Is there _no_ resource

against it?”

“Yes, there is one. That resource lies in life itself. Without such

phantoms and such questionings life would soon become a wearisome

business.”

“Then what ought I to do? To submit to them, and to wear out my heart?”

“No,” he replied. “Rather, arm yourself with resolution, and patiently,

but firmly, pursue your way.” With that he embraced her tenderly. “You

and I are not Titans; it is not for us to join the Manfreds and the

Fausts of this world in going out to do battle with rebellious problems.

Rather, let us decline the challenge of such difficulties, bow our

heads, and quietly live through the juncture until such time as life

shall have come to smile again, and happiness be once more ours.”

“But suppose they decline to pass us by? Will not our doubts and fears

continue to increase?”

“No; for we shall accept them as a new verse in life’s poem. In this

case, however, there is no fear of that. Your trouble is not peculiar to

you alone; it is an infectious malady common to all humanity, of which a

touch has visited you with the rest. Invariably does a human being feel

lost when he or she first breaks away from life and finds no support

in place of it. May God send that in the present instance this mood of

yours be what I believe it to be, and not a forerunner of some bodily

illness. That would be worse, for it would be the one thing before which

I should be nerveless and destitute of weapons. Surely that cloud, that

depression, those doubts, those self-questionings of yours, are not

going to deprive us of our happiness, of our------?” before he could do

so, she had flung herself upon him in a frantic embrace.

“Nothing shall _ever_ do that!” she murmured in an access of renewed joy

and confidence. “No, neither doubts nor sorrow nor sickness! No, nor

yet--nor yet death itself!” Never had she seemed to love him as she did

at that moment.

“Take care that Fate does not overhear what you have whispered,” he

interposed with a superstitious caution born of tender forethought for

her. “Yes, take care that it does not rate you ungrateful, for it likes

to have its gifts appreciated at their true worth. Hitherto you have

been _learning_ only about life: now you are going also to experience

it. Soon, as life pursues its course, there will come to you fresh

sorrows and travail; and, together, they will force you to look beyond

the questions of which you have spoken, and therefore you must husband

your strength.”

Schtoltz uttered these words softly, and almost as though he were

speaking to himself. And in the words was a note of despondency which

seemed to say that already he could see approaching her “sorrows” and

“travail.”

She said nothing--she was too deeply struck with the mournful foreboding

in his tone. Yet she trusted him implicitly--his voice alone inspired

in her belief; and for that very reason his gravity affected her deeply,

and concentrated her thoughts upon herself. Leaning upon him, she paced

the avenue slowly and mechanically, with her soul awed to a silence

which she could not break. Following her husband’s eyes, she was gazing

forward at the vista of life, and trying to discern the point where,

according to his words, “sorrows and travail” were awaiting her. And

as she did so she saw arise before her a vision in which there became

revealed to her a sphere of life that was no longer to be bright and

leisured and protected, that was no longer to be passed amid plenty,

that was no longer to be spent alone with him. In that sphere she could

descry only a long sequence of losses and privations, with copious

tears, strict asceticism, involuntary renunciation of whims born of

hours of ease, and new and unwonted sensations which should call forth

from her cries of pain and disappointment. Yes, in that vision she saw

before her only sickness, material ruin, the loss of her husband, and...

Shuddering and faltering, she, with a man’s courageous curiosity,

continued to gaze at this unfamiliar presentment of life, and timidly to

review and to estimate her ability to cope with it. Only love, she

saw, would never fail her--only love would over this new existence keep

ever-faithful watch and ward. Yet it would be love of a different kind.

From it there would be absent all ardent sighs and shining days and

rapturous nights; as the years went on such things would come to seem

children’s sport compared with the non-intimate affection which life,

now grown profound and menacing, would cause her to adopt for her guide.

From that life came to her ears no sound of laughter and kisses and

tremulous, soulful intercourse amid groves and flowers, while life and

nature kept high holiday. No, such things were “withered and gone.”

The love beheld in that vision was a love which, unfading and

indestructible, expressed itself on the features of husband and wife

only during seasons of mutual sorrow, and shone forth only in slow,

silent glances of mutual sympathy, and voiced itself only in a constant,

joint endurance of the trials of life as he and she restrained the

tears, and choked back the sobs, which those trials called forth. With

that there came stealing into the midst of the doubts and fears which

beset her other visions--visions remote but clear, inspiring but

definite....

*****

Her husband’s calm, assured reasoning, added to her own implicit

confidence in him, helped Olga to succeed in shaking off both her

enigmatical, singular misgivings and her visionary, menacing dreams

concerning the future. Once more, therefore, she strode boldly forward.

To the night of doubt there succeeded a brilliant morning of maternal

and housewifely duties. On the one hand, there beckoned to her the

flower garden and the meadows; on the other hand there beckoned to her

her husband’s study. No longer did she play with life as with a means

of carefree indulgence. Rather, life had become a season of mysterious,

systematic waiting, and of getting ready.

Yet once, when Schtoltz happened to mention Oblomov’s name, she let fall

her sewing, and sank into a reverie.

“What of him?” later she asked. “Could we not find out how he is through

some of his friends?”

“Even so, we should find out no more than we know already. Independently

of his friends, I happen to be aware that he is alive and well, and

living in the same rooms as formerly. But how he is spending his days,

and whether he is morally dead or still there is flickering in him a

last spark of vitality, it is impossible for an outsider to ascertain.”

“Do not speak like that, Andrei,” said Olga. “It hurts me to hear you do

so. Were I not afraid, I would go in person to glean news of him.” The

tears had risen very near to her eyes.

“Next spring we ourselves shall be in Petrograd,” the husband remarked.

“_Then_ we will find out.”

“But it is not sufficient merely to find out: we ought also to do all we

can for him!”

“Already I have done what is possible. When one is with him he is ready

to take any steps desired; but directly one’s back is turned he relapses

into slumber. ’Tis like trying to deal with a drunken man.”

“Then why turn your back upon him _ever?_ He ought to be treated

firmly--he ought to, be removed from his rooms and taken away. Were I

to ask him, he would come with us into the country. I feel sure I should

never get over it if I were to see him sink to rack and ruin. Perhaps my

tears----”

“Might revive him, you think?”

“No, but at least compel him to look around him, and to exchange his

life for something better. With us he would be out of the mire, and

living among his equals.”

“Surely you do not love him as you used to do?” Schtoltz asked

half-jestingly.

“No, I do not,” she replied (and as she did so her grave eyes seemed to

be gazing back into the past). “Yet in him there is something for which

I have an abiding affection, and to which I shall ever remain true.”

“Shall I tell you what that something is?” She nodded an assent.”’Tis

an honourable, trustworthy heart. That heart is the nugget given him

of Nature, and he has carried it unsullied through all his life. Under

life’s stress he fell, lost his enthusiasm, and ended by going to

sleep--a broken, disenchanted man who had lost his power to live, but

not his purity and his intrinsic worth. Never a false note has that

heart sounded; never a particle of mire has there clung to his soul;

never a specious lie has he heeded; never to the false road has he been

seduced by any possible attraction. Even were a whole ocean of evil and

rascality to come seething about him, and even were the whole world to

become infected with poison and be turned upside down, Oblomov would yet

refuse to bow to the false image, and his soul would remain as clean,

as radiant, and as without spot as ever. That soul is a soul of crystal

transparency. Of men like him but few exist, so that they shine amid the

mob like pearls. No price could be high enough to purchase his heart.

Everywhere and always that heart would remain true to its trust. It is

to this element in him that you have always remained true; and it is

owing to the same element in him that my task of keeping watch will

never become a burden. In my day I have known many men with splendid

qualities. Never have I known a man cleaner, brighter, and more simple

than Oblomov. For many a man have I cherished an affection. Never for

a man have I cherished an affection more ardent and lasting than that

which I cherish for Oblomov. Once known, his personality is an entity

for which one’s love could never die.... Is that so? Have I divined

aright?”

She said nothing: her eyes were fixed intently upon her work. At length

she arose, ran to her husband, gazed into his eyes for a moment as she

embraced him, and let her head sink forward upon his shoulder. During

those few moments there had arisen to her memory Oblomov’s kindly,

pensive face, his tender, deprecating gaze, and the shy, wistful smile

with which, at their last parting, he had met her reproaches. As she

saw those things her heart ached with pity.

“You will never abandon him--you will never let him leave your sight?”

she asked with her arms around her husband’s neck.

“No, never!--not though an abyss should open between us, and a dividing

wall arise!”

She kissed him.

“Nor shall I ever forget the words which you have just spoken,” she

murmured.

III

In the Veaborg Quarter peace and quietness reigned supreme. They

reigned in its unwashed streets, with their wooden sidewalks, and in

its lean gardens amid the nettle-encumbered ditches, where a goat with

a ragged cord around its neck was diligently engaged in cropping the

herbage and snatching dull intervals of slumber. At midday, however,

the high, smart boots of a clerk clattered along a sidewalk, the muslin

curtain at a window was pulled aside to admit the features of a Civil

Service official’s lady, and for a brief moment there showed itself

over a garden fence the fresh young face of a girl--then the face of

a companion--then the face which had first appeared, as two maidens

laughed and tittered during the process cf swinging each other on a

garden swing.

Also in the abode of Oblomov’s landlady all was quiet. Had you entered

the little courtyard, you would have happened upon an idyllic scene. The

poultry would have started running hither and thither in fussy alarm,

and the dogs given tongue in furious accents, while Akulina would have

paused in her pursuit of milking the cow, and the _dvornik_ in his task

of chopping firewood, in order that they might gaze unhampered at the

visitor. “Whom do you wish to see?” the _dvornik_ would have inquired;

and on your mentioning Oblomov’s name, or that of the mistress of the

house, he would have pointed to the steps of the front door, and then

resumed his task of wood-chopping; whereupon the visitor would have

followed the neat, sanded path to the steps (which he would have found

covered with a plain, clean carpet of some sort), and, reaching for the

brightly polished knob of the doorbell, would have had the door opened

to him by Anisia, one of the children, the landlady herself, or Zakhar.

Everything in Agafia Matvievna’s establishment smacked of an opulence

and a domestic sufficiency which had been lacking in the days when

she had shared house with her brother, Tarantiev’s bosom friend.

The kitchen, the lumber-room, and the pantry were alike fitted with

cupboards full of china, crockery, and household wares of every sort;

while in cases were set out Oblomov’s plate and articles of silver (long

ago redeemed, and never since pledged). In short, the place abounded

in such commodities as are to be found in the abode of every frugal

housewife. Also, so carefully was everything packed in camphor and other

preservatives that when Agafia Matvievna went to open the doors of the

cupboards she could scarcely stand against the overwhelming perfume of

mingled narcotics which came forth, and had to turn her head aside for

a few moments. Hams hung from the ceiling of the storeroom (to avoid

damage by mice), and, with them, cheeses, loaves-of--sugar, dried fish,

and bags of nuts and preserved mushrooms. On a table stood tubs of

butter, pots of sour cream, baskets of apples, and God knows what else

besides, for it would require the pen of a scribe Homer to describe

in full, and in detail, all that had become accumulated in the various

corners and on the various floors of this little nest of domestic life.

As for the kitchen, it was a veritable palladium of activity on the part

of the mistress and her efficient assistant, Anisia. Everything was kept

indoors and in its proper place; throughout there prevailed a system of

orderliness and cleanliness; and only into one particular nook of the

house did a ray of light, a breath of air, the good housewife’s eye, and

the nimble, all-furbishing hand of the domestic never penetrate. That

nook was Zakhar’s den. Lacking a window, it was so constantly plunged

in darkness that its resemblance to a lair rather than to a human

habitation was rendered the more complete. Whenever Zakhar surprised in

his den the mistress of the house (come thither to plan a cleaning or

various improvements) he explained to her, in forcible terms, that it

was not a woman’s business to sweep out a place where faggots, blacking,

and boots ought to lie, and that it mattered not a jot that clothes

should be tossed in a heap on the floor, or that the bed in the stove

corner had become overspread with dust, seeing that it was he, and not

she, whose function it was to repose upon that bed. As for a besom, a

few planks, a couple of bricks, the remains of a barrel, and two blocks

of wood which he always kept in his room, he could not, he averred, get

on in his domestic duties without them (though why that was so he left

to the imagination). Finally, according to his own statement, neither

the dust nor the cobwebs in the least inconvenienced him--to which he

begged to add a reminder that, since he never obtruded his nose into

the kitchen, he should be the more pleased if he could be left alone by

those to whom the kitchen was at all times open. Once, when he surprised

Anisia in his sanctum, he threatened her so furiously with uplifted fist

that the case was referred to the court of superior instance--that is

to say, to Oblomov himself, who walked supinely to the door of the

den, inserted his head therein, scanned the apartment and its contents,

sneezed, and returned mutely to his own quarters.

“What have you gained by it all?” said Zakhar to the mistress and

her myrmidon, who had accompanied Oblomov, in the hope that his

participation in the affair would lead to a change of some sort. Then

the old valet laughed to himself in a way which twisted his eyebrows and

whiskers askew.

In the other rooms of the house, however, everything looked bright and

clean and fresh. The old stuff curtains had disappeared, and the doors

and windows of the drawing-room and the study were hung with blue and

green drapery and muslin curtains--the work of Agafia Matvievna’s own

hands. Indeed, for days at a time Oblomov, prone upon his sofa, had

watched her bare elbows flicker to and fro as she plied needle and

thread; nor had he once gone to sleep to the sound of thread being

alternately inserted and bitten off, as had been his custom in the old

days at Oblomovka.

“Enough of work,” he had nevertheless said to her at intervals, “Pray

cease your labours for a while.”

“Nay,” she had always replied, “God loves those who toil.”

Nor was his coffee prepared for him with less care, attention, and skill

than had been the case before he had changed his old quarters for his

present ones. Giblet soup, macaroni with Parmesan cheese, soup concocted

of _kvass_ and herbs, home-fed pullets--all these dishes succeeded one

another in regular rotation, and by so doing helped to make agreeable

breaks in the otherwise monotonous routine of the little establishment.

Nor did the sun, whenever shining, fail to brighten his room from

morning till night--thanks to the fact that the market-gardens on either

side of the building prevented that luminary’s rays from being shaded

off by any obstacle. Outside, ducks quacked cheerfully, while, within, a

geranium, added to a few hyacinths which the children had brought home,

filled the little apartment with a perfume which mingled pleasantly with

the smoke of Havana cigars and the scent of the cinnamon or the vanilla

which the mistress of the house would be preparing with bare, energetic

arms.

Thus Oblomov lived in a sort of gilded cage--a cage within which, as in

a diorama, the only changes included alternations of day and night and

of the seasons. Of changes of the disturbing kind which stir up the

sediment from the bottom of life’s bowl--a sediment only too frequently

both bitter and obnoxious--there were none. Ever since the day when

Schtoltz had cleared him of debt, and Tarantiev and Tarantiev’s friend

had taken themselves off for good, every adverse element had disappeared

from Oblomov’s existence, and there surrounded him only good, kind,

sensible folk who had agreed to underpin his existence with theirs, and

to help him not to notice it, nor to feel it, as it pursued its even

course. Everything was, as it were, at peace, and of that peace, that

inertia, Oblomov represented the complete, the natural, embodiment and

expression. After passing in review and considering his mode of life,

he had sunk deeper and deeper therein, until finally he had come to the

conclusion that he had no farther to go, and nothing farther to

seek, and that the ideal of his life would best be preserved where he

was--albeit without poetry, without those finer shades wherewith his

imagination had once painted for him a spacious, careless course

of manorial life on his own estate and among his own peasantry and

servants.

Upon his present mode of life he looked as a continuation of the

Oblomovkan existence (only with a different colouring of locality, and,

to a certain extent, of period). Here, as at Oblomovka, he had succeeded

in escaping life, in driving a bargain with it, and ensuring to himself

an inviolable seclusion. Inwardly he congratulated himself on having

left behind him the irksome, irritating demands and menaces cf mundane

existence--on having placed a great distance between himself and the

horizon where there may be seen flashing the lightning-bolts of keen

pleasure, and whence come the thunderpeals of sudden affliction, and

where flicker the false hopes and the splendid visions of average

happiness, and where independence of thought gradually engulfs and

devours a man, and where passion slays him outright, and where the

intellect fails or triumphs, and where humanity engages in constant

warfare, and leaves the field of battle in a state of exhaustion and of

ever-unsatisfied, ever-insatiable desire. Never having experienced the

consolations to be won in combat, he had none the less renounced them,

and felt at ease only in a remote corner to which action and lighting

and the actual living of life were alike strangers.

Yet moments there were when his imagination stirred within him again,

and when there recurred to his mind forgotten memories and unrealized

dreams, and when he felt in his conscience whispered reproaches for

having made of his life so little as he had done. And whenever that

occurred he slept restlessly, awoke at intervals, leaped out of bed,

and shed chill tears of hopelessness over the bright ideal that was now

extinguished for ever. He shed them as folk shed them over a dead friend

whom with bitter regret they recognize to have been neglected during his

lifetime. Then he would glance at his surroundings, hug to himself

his present blessings, and grow comforted on noting how quietly, how

restfully, the sun was rising amid a blaze of glory. Thus he had come to

a decision that not only was his life compounded in the best manner for

expressing the possibilities to which the idealistic-peaceful side of

human existence may attain, but also that it had been expressly created

for and preordained to, that purpose. To others, he reflected, let it

fall to express life’s restless aspects; to others let it be given to

exercise forces of construction and destruction; to each man be allotted

his true _métier_.

Such the philosophy which our Plato of Oblomovka elaborated for the

purpose of lulling himself to sleep amid the problems and the stern

demands of duty and of destiny. He had been bred and nourished to play

the part, not of a gladiator in the arena but of a peaceful onlooker

at the struggle. Never could his diffident, lethargic spirit have faced

either the raptures or the blows of life. Hence he expressed only one

of its aspects, and had no mind either to succeed in it, or to change

anything in it, or to repent of his decision. As the years flowed on

both emotion and repining came to manifest themselves at rarer and rarer

intervals, until, by quiet, imperceptible degrees, he became finally

interned in the plain, otiose tomb of retirement which he had fashioned

with his own hands, even as desert anchorites who have turned from

the world dig for themselves a material sepulchre. Of reorganizing his

estate, and removing thither with his household; he had given up all

thought. The steward whom Schtoltz had placed in charge of Oblomovka

regularly sent him the income therefrom, and the peasantry proffered

him flour and poultry at Christmastide, and everything on the estate was

prospering.

Meanwhile he ate heartily and much, even as he had done at Oblomovka.

Also, he walked and worked sluggishly and little--again, as he had done

at Oblomovka. Lastly, in spite of his advancing years, he drank beer and

_vodka à raisin_ with complete _insouciance_, and took to sleeping ever

more and more protractedly after dinner.

But suddenly a change occurred. One day, after his usual quota of

slumber and day dreams, he tried to rise from the sofa, but failed,

and his tongue refused to obey him. Terrified, he could compass only a

gesture when he tried to call for help. Had he been living with Zakhar

alone, he might have continued to signal for assistance until next

morning, or have died, and not been found there till the following day;

but, as it was, the eyes of his landlady had been watching over him like

the eyes of Providence itself, and it cost her no skill of wit, but only

an instinct of the heart, to divine that all was not well with Oblomov.

No sooner had the instinct dawned upon her than Anisia was dispatched

in a cab for a doctor, while Agafia Matvievna herself applied ice to the

patient’s head, and extracted from her medicine chest the whole armoury

of smelling-bottles and fomentations which custom and report had

designated for use at such a juncture. Even Zakhar managed to get one of

his boots on, and, thus shod, to fuss around his master in company with

the doctor, the mistress of the house, and Anisia.

At length, blood having been let, Oblomov returned to consciousness, and

was informed that he had just sustained an apoplectic stroke, and that

he must adopt a different course of life. Henceforth, _vodka_, beer,

wine, coffee, and rich food were, with certain exceptions, to be

prohibited, while in their place there were prescribed for him daily

exercise and a regular amount of sleep of an exclusively nocturnal

nature. Even then these remedies would have come to nothing but for

Agafia Matvievna’s watchfulness; but she had the wit so to introduce the

system that the entire household involuntarily assisted in its working.

Thus, partly by, cunning and partly by kindness, she contrived to wean

Oblomov from his attractive indulgences in wind, postprandial slumber,

and fish pasties. For instance, as soon as ever he began to doze, either

a chair would be unset in an adjoining room, or, of its own volition,

some old and worthless crockery would begin flying into splinters, or

the children would start making a noise, and be told, _fortissimo_, to

be gone. Lastly, should even this not prove effective, her own kindly

voice would be heard calling to him, in order to ask him some question

or another.

Also, the garden path was lengthened, and on it Oblomov accomplished,

morning and evening, a constitutional of some two hours’ duration. With

him there would walk the landlady--or, if she could not attend, one of

the children, or his old friend, the irresponsible and to every man both

humble and agreeable Alexiev. One morning Oblomov, leaning on the boy

Vania’s arm, slowly paced the path. By this time Vania had grown into

almost a youth, and found it hard to restrict his brisk, rapid step to

Oblomov’s more tardy gait. As the elder man walked he made little use of

one of his legs, which was a trace of the stroke which he had recently

sustained.

“Let us go indoors now, Vaniushka,” he said; wherefore they directed

their steps towards the door. But to meet them! there issued Agafia

Matvievna.

“Why are you coming in so early?” she inquired.

“Early, indeed? Why, we have paced the path twenty times each way, and

from here to the fence is a distance of fifty _sazhens_; wherefore we

have covered two versts in all.”

“And how many times do _you_ say you have paced it?” she inquired of

Vania.

He hesitated.

“Do not lie, but look me straight in the face,” she continued, fixing

him with her gaze. “I have been watching you the whole time. Remember

next Sunday. Possibly I might not let you go to the party that night.”

“Well, mother,” the boy said at length, “we have paced the path only

_twelve_ times.”

“Ah, you rogue!” exclaimed Oblomov. “You were nipping off acacia-leaves

all the time, whereas _I_ was keeping the most careful account.”

“Then you must go and do some more walking,” decided the landlady.

“Besides, the fish soup is not yet ready.” And she closed the door upon

the pair.

Oblomov, much against his will, completed another eight pacings of the

path, and then entered the dining-room. On the large round table

the fish soup was now steaming, and all hastened to take their usual

seats--Oblomov in solitary state on the sofa, the landlady on his right,

and the rest in due sequence.

“I will help you to _this_ herring, as it is the fattest,” said Agafia

Matvievna.

“Very well,” he remarked. “Only, I think that a pie would go well with

it.”

“Oh dear! I have forgotten the pies! I meant to make some last night,

but my memory is all gone to pieces!” The artful Agafia Matvievna!

“Besides, I am afraid that I have forgotten the cutlets and the cabbage.

In fact, you must not expect very much of a dinner to-day.” This was

addressed ostensibly to Alexiev.

“Never mind,” he replied. “I can eat anything.”

“But why not cook him some pork and peas, or a beef-steak?” asked

Oblomov.

“I _did_ go to the butcher’s for a beefsteak, but there was not a single

morsel of good beef left. However, I have made Monsieur Alexiev a cherry

_compote_ instead. I know he likes that.” The truth was that cherry

_compote was not_ bad for Oblomov; wherefore the complacent Alexiev had

no choice but both to eat it and to like it.

After dinner no power on earth could prevent Oblomov from assuming a

recumbent position; so, to obviate his going to sleep, the landlady

was accustomed to place beside him his coffee, and then to inspire,

her children to play games on the floor, so that, willy-nilly, Oblomov

should be forced to join in their sport. Presently she withdrew to

the kitchen to see if the coffee was yet ready, and, meanwhile, the

children’s clatter died away. Almost at once a gentle snore arose in

the room--then a louder one--then one louder still; and when Agafia

Matvievna returned with the steaming coffee-pot she encountered such a

volume of snoring as would have done credit to a post-house.

Angrily she shook her head at Alexiev.

“It is not my fault,” he said deprecatingly. “I tried to stir up the

children, but they would not listen to me.”

Swiftly depositing the coffee-pot upon the table, she caught up little

Andriusha from the floor, and gently seated him upon the sofa by

Oblomov’s side; whereupon the child wriggled towards him, climbed his

form until he had reached his face, and grasped him firmly by the nose.

“Hi! Hullo! Who is that?” cried Oblomov uneasily as he opened his eyes.

“You had gone to sleep, so Andriusha climbed on to the sofa and awoke

you,” replied the landlady kindly.

“I had gone to sleep, indeed?” retorted Oblomov, laying his arm around

the little one. “Do you think I did not hear him creeping along on all

fours? Why, I hear _everything_. To think of the little rascal catching

me by the nose! I’ll give it him! But there, there.” Tenderly embracing

the child, he deposited him on the floor again, and heaved a profound

sigh. “Tell us the news, Ivan Alexiev,” he said.

“You have heard it all. I have nothing more to tell.”

“How so? You go into society, and I do not. Is there nothing new in the

political world?”

“It is being said that the earth is growing colder every day, and that

one day it will become frozen altogether.”

“Away with you! Is _that_ politics?”

A silence ensued. Oblomov quietly relapsed into a state of coma that was

neither sleeping nor waking. He merely let his thoughts wander at will,

without concentrating them upon anything in particular as calmly he

listened to the beating of his heart and occasionally blinked his eyes.

Thus he sank into a vague, enigmatical condition which partook largely

of the nature of hallucination. In rare instances there come to a man

fleeting moments of abstraction when he seems to be reliving past stages

of his life. Whether he has previously beheld in sleep the phenomena

which are passing before his vision, or whether he has gone through a

previous existence and has since forgotten it, we cannot say; but at

all events he can see the same persons around him as were present in the

first instance, and hear the same words as were uttered then.

So was it with Oblomov now. Gradually there spread itself about him

the hush which he had known long ago. He could hear the beating of the

well-known pendulum, the snapping of the thread as it was bitten off,

and the repetition of familiar whispered sentences like “I cannot

make the thread go through the eye of the needle. Pray do it for me,

Masha--your eyesight is keener than mine.”

Lazily, mechanically he looked into his landlady’s face; and straightway

from the recesses of his memory there arose a picture which, somewhere,

had been well known to him.

To his vision there dawned the great, dark drawing-room in the house

of his youth, lit by a single candle. At the table his mother and her

guests were sitting over their needlework, while his father was silently

pacing up and down. Somehow the present and the past had become fused

and interchanged, so that, as the little Oblomov, he was dreaming that

at length he had reached the enchanted country where the rivers run milk

and honey, and bread can be obtained without toil, and every one walks

clad in gold and silver.

Once again he could hear the old legends and the old folk-tales, mingled

with the clatter of knives and crockery in the kitchen. Once again he

was pressing close to his nurse to listen to her tremulous, old woman’s

voice. “That is Militrissa Kirbitievna,” she was saying as she pointed

to the figure of his landlady. Also, the same clouds seemed to be

floating in the blue zenith that used to float there of yore, and the

same wind to be blowing in at the window, and ruffling his hair, and

the same cock of the Oblomovkan poultry-yard to be strutting and crowing

below. Suddenly a dog barked. Some other guest must be arriving! Would

it be old Schtoltz and his little boy from Verklevo? Yes, probably, for

to-day is a holiday. And in very truth it _is_ they--he can hear their

footsteps approaching nearer and nearer! The door opens, and “Andrei!”

he exclaims excitedly, for there, sure enough, stands his friend--but

now grown to manhood, and no longer a little boy!...

IV

Oblomov recovered consciousness. Before him Schtoltz _was_

standing--but the Schtoltz of the present, not the Schtoltz of a

daydream.

Swiftly the landlady caught up the baby Andriusha, swept the table clear

of her work, and carried off the children. Alexiev also disappeared, and

Schtoltz and Oblomov found themselves alone. For a moment or two they

gazed at one another amid a tense silence.

“Is that really you. Schtoltz?” asked Oblomov in tones scarcely audible

for emotion--such tones as a man employs only towards his dearest friend

and after a long separation.

“Yes, it is I,” replied Schtoltz quietly. “And you--are you quite well?”

Oblomov embraced him heartily. In that embrace were expressed all the

long-concealed grief and joy which, fermenting ever in his soul, had

never, since Schtoltz’s last departure, been expressed to any human

being. Then they seated themselves, and once more gazed at one another.

“Are you _really_ well?” Schtoltz asked again.

“Yes, thank God!” replied Oblomov. “But you have been ill?”

“Yes--I was seized with a stroke.”

“Ah, Ilya, Ilya! Evidently you have let yourself go again. What have you

been doing? Actually, it is five years since last we saw one another!”

Oblomov sighed, but said nothing.

“And why did you not come to Oblomovka?” pursued Schtoltz. “And why have

you never written to me?”

“What was there to say?” was Oblomov’s sad reply. “You know me.

Consequently you need ask no more.”

“So you are still living in these rooms?” And Schtoltz surveyed the room

as he spoke. “Why have you not moved?”

“Because I am still here. I do not think the move will ever take place.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because I _am_ sure.”

Again Schtoltz eyed him closely, then became thoughtful, and started to

pace the room.

“And what of Olga Sergievna?” was Oblomov’s next question. “Where is

she now, and does she still remember me?” At this point he broke off

abruptly.

“Yes, she is well, and has of you a remembrance as clear as though she

had parted from you yesterday. Presently I will tell you where she is.”

“And your children?”

“The children too are well. But are you jesting when you say that you

are going to remain where you are? My express purpose in coming here is

to carry you off to our place in the country.”

“No, no!” cried Oblomov, though lowering his voice as he glanced at the

door. Evidently the proposal had disturbed him greatly. “Do not say a

word about it,” he pleaded. “Do not begin your arguments again.”

“But why will you not come? What is the matter with you? You know me

well, and know that long ago I undertook this task, and shall never

relinquish it. Hitherto business affairs have occupied my time, but now

I am free once more. Come and live with us, or, at all events, near us.

Olga and I have decided that you _must_ do so. Thank God that I have

found you the same as before, and not worse! My hopes of doing that had

been small. Let us be off at once. I am prepared even to abduct you by

force. You _must_ change your mode of life, as you well know.”

To this speech Oblomov listened with impatience.

“Do not speak so loudly,” he urged. “In there----”

“Well--in there?”

“Is the landlady, and, should she hear us, she will think that I am

going to leave her.”

“And why should you not leave her? Let her think what she likes!”

“Listen, Andrei.” Oblomov’s tone was one of unwonted firmness. “Do not

continue your useless attempts to persuade me. Come what may, I must

remain where I am.”

Schtoltz gazed at his friend in astonishment, but Oblomov returned the

gaze with quiet resolution on his features.

“Remain here, and you are lost,” said Schtoltz. “This house, that woman,

this way of living?--I tell you the thing cannot be. Let us go.”

He caught Oblomov by the sleeve, and started to drag him towards the

door.

“Why do you want to take me away?” asked Oblomov, hanging back.

“Because I want you to leave this den, this swamp, for the world of

light and air and health and normal existence.” Schtoltz was speaking

sternly, and almost in a tone of command. “To what point have you sunk?”

he went on. “What is going to become of you? Think for a moment. Are

you so attached to this mode of life that you wish to go to sleep like a

mole in its burrow? Remember that-----”

“I desire to remember nothing. Do not disturb the past. It can never

be brought back again.” Into Oblomov’s face there had come a full

consciousness of his power to think, to reason, and to will. “What is

it you wish me to do? From the world to which you would abduct me I have

parted for ever; and to solder together two pieces which have started

asunder is impossible. I have grown to look upon this nook as my world.

Should you uproot me from it, I shall die.”

“But look at the place, at the people with whom you are living!”

“I know what you mean--I am perfectly conscious of the facts. Ah,

Andrei, believe me when I say that so well do I feel and understand

things that for many a day past I have been ashamed to show myself

abroad. Yet I cannot accompany you on your road. Even did I wish it,

such a course is out of my power. Possibly, when you were last here, I

_might_ have made the attempt; but now”--here he dropped his eyes for

a moment and paused--“now it is too late. Go, and waste no further time

upon me. Your friendship, as God in heaven knows, I value; but your

disturbance of my peace I do _not_ value.”

“Nothing that you can say will turn me from my purpose. I intend to

carry you off, ard the more so because I suspect certain things. Look

here. Put on a garment of some sort, and come and spend the evening at

my rooms. I have much to tell you, for I suppose you know what is afoot

at our place?”

Oblomov looked at him inquiringly.

“Ah, I had forgotten,” Schtoltz went on. “You no longer go into society.

Well, come with me, and I will tell you the whole story. Also, do you

know who is waiting for me in a carriage at the gates? I will go and

call her in.”

“What? Olga?” As the words burst tremulously from Oblomov’s lips his

face underwent a sudden change. “For God’s sake do not bring her here!

Go, go for God’s sake!”

But the elder man refused to move, although his friend half started to

push him towards the door.

“I cannot return to her without you,” he said. “I have pledged my

word on that. If you will not come with me to-day, then you must come

to-morrow. You are merely putting me off for a time: you will never put

me off for ever. Even should it be the day after to-morrow, we still

shall meet again.”

Oblomov said nothing, but hung his head as though afraid to meet

Schtoltz’s eye.

“When are you coming, therefore?” went on Schtoltz. “Olga will be sure

to ask me when.”

“Ah, Andrei,” cried the other in a tone of affectionate appeal as he

embraced his friend and laid his head upon his shoulder, “Pray leave me

and--_forget_ me.”

“What? For ever?” cried Schtoltz in astonishment as he withdrew a little

from Oblomov’s embrace in order the better to look him in the face.

“Yes,” whispered Oblomov.

Schtoltz stepped back a pace or two.

“Can this really be you, Ilya?” he exclaimed reproachfully. “Do you

really reject me in favour of that woman, of that landlady of yours?”

He started with a sudden pang. “So that child which I saw just new is

_your_ child? Ah, Ilya, Ilya! Come hence at once. How you have fallen!

What is that woman to you?”

“She is my wife,” said Oblomov simply.

Schtoltz stood petrified.

“Yes, and the child is my son,” Oblomov continued. “He has been called

Andrei after yourself.” Somehow he seemed to breathe more freely now

that he had got rid of the burden of these disclosures. As for Schtoltz,

his face fell, and he gazed around the room with vacant eyes. A gulf had

opened before him, a high wall had suddenly shot up, and Oblomov seemed

to have ceased to exist--he seemed to have vanished from his friend’s

sight, and to have fallen headlong. The only feeling in Schtoltz’s mind

was an aching sorrow of the kind which a man experiences when, hastening

to visit a friend after a long parting, he finds that for many a day

past that friend has been dead.

“You are lost!” he kept whispering mechanically. “What am I to say to

Olga?”

At length Oblomov caught the last words, and tried to say something, but

failed. All he could do was to extend his hands in Schtoltz’s direction.

Silently, convulsively the pair embraced, even as before death or

a battle. In that embrace was left no room for words or tears or

expressions of feeling.

“Never forget my little Andrei,” was Oblomov’s last choking utterance.

Slowly and silently Schtoltz left the house. Slowly and silently he

crossed the courtyard and entered the carriage. When he had gone Oblomov

reseated himself upon the sofa in his room, rested his elbows upon the

table, and buried his face in his hands....

“No, never will I forget your little Andrei,” thought Schtoltz sadly as

he drove homewards. “Ah, Ilya, you are lost beyond recall! It would be

useless now to tell you that your Oblomovka is no longer in ruins, that

its turn is come again, and that it is basking in the rays of the sun.

It would be useless now to tell you that, some four years hence, it will

have a railway-station, and that your peasantry are clearing away the

rubbish there, and that before long an iron road will be carrying your

grain to the wharves, and that already local schools have been built.

Such a dawn of good fortune would merely affright you; it would merely

cause your unaccustomed eyes to smart. Yet along the road which you

could not tread I will lead your little Andrei; and with him I will put

into practice those theories whereof you and I used to dream in the days

of our youth. Farewell, Oblomovka of the past! You have outlived your

day!” For the last time Schtoltz looked back at Oblomov’s diminutive

establishment.

“What do you say?” asked Olga with a beating heart.

“Nothing,” Schtoltz answered dryly and abruptly.

“Is he alive and well?”

“Yes,” came the reluctant reply.

“Then why have you returned so soon? Why did you not call me to the

house, or else bring him out to see me? Let me go back, please.”

“No, you cannot.”

“Why so? What has happened there? Will you not tell me?”

Schtoltz continued to say nothing.

“Again I ask you: what is the matter with him?”

“The disease of Oblomovka,” was the grim response. And throughout the

rest of the journey homeward Schtoltz refused to answer a single one of

Olga’s questions.

V

Five years have passed, and more than one change has taken place in the

Veaborg Quarter. The street which used to lead, unenclosed, to Oblomov’s

humble abode is now lined with villas. In the midst of them a tall stone

Government office rears its head between the sunlight and the windows

of that quiet, peaceful little house which the sun’s rays once warmed so

cheerfully.

The house itself has grown old and crazy: it wears a dull, neglected

look like that of a man who is unshaven and unwashed. In places the

paint has peeled away, and in others the gutters are broken. To the

latter is due the fact that pools of dirty water stand in the courtyard,

and that thrown across them is a piece of old planking. Should a visitor

approach the wicket, the old watchdog no longer leaps nimbly to the

extent of his chain, but gives tongue hoarsely and lazily from the

interior of his kennel.

And, within the house, what changes have taken place! Over it there

reigns a different housewife to the former one, and different children

sport in play. Again is seen about the premises the lean countenance of

Tarantiev, rather than the kindly, careless features of Alexiev; while

of Zakhar and Anisia also there is not a sign discernible. A new cook

performs, rudely and unwillingly, the quiet behests of Agafia Matvievna,

and our old friend Akulina--her apron girded around her middle--washes

up, as formerly, the domestic crockery and the pots and pans. Lastly,

the same old sleepy _dvornik_ whiles away the same old idle life in the

same old den by the gates, and at a given hour each morning, as well as

always at the hour of the evening meal, there flashes past the railings

of the fence the figure of Agafia’s brother, clad, summer and winter

alike, in galoshes, and always carrying under his arm a large bundle of

documents.

But what of Oblomov? Where is he--where? Under a modest urn in the

adjoining cemetery his body rests among the shrubs. All is quiet where

he is lying; only a lilac-tree, planted there by a loving hand, waves

its boughs to and fro over the grave as it mingles its scent with the

sweet, calm odour of wormwood. One would think that the _Angel of Peace_

himself were watching over the dead man’s slumbers....

Despite his wife’s ceaseless and devoted care for every moment of his

existence, the prolonged inertia, the unbroken stillness, the sluggish

gliding from day to day had ended by quietly arresting the machine of

life. Thus Oblomov met his end, to all appearances without pain, without

distress, even as stops a watch which its owner has--forgotten to wind

up. No one witnessed his last moments or heard his expiring gasp. A

second stroke of apoplexy occurred within a year of the first, and, like

its precursor, passed away favourably. Later, however, Oblomov became

pale and weak, took to eating little and seldom walking in the garden,

and increased in moodiness and taciturnity as the days went on. At times

he would even burst into tears, for he felt death drawing nearer, and

was afraid of it. One or two relapses occurred, from which he rallied,

and then Agafia Matvievna entered his room, one morning, to find him

resting on his deathbed as quietly as he had done in sleep--the only

difference being that his head had slipped a little from the pillow, and

that one of his hands was convulsively clutching the region of the heart

in a manner which suggested that the pain had there centred itself until

the circulation of the blood had stopped for ever.

After his death Agafia Matvievna’s sister-in-law, Irina Paptelievna,

assumed control of the establishment. That is to say, she arrogated to

herself the right to rise late in the morning, to drink three cups of

coffee for breakfast, to change her dress three times a day, and to

confine her housewifely energies to seeing that her gowns were starched

to the utmost degree of stiffness. More she would not trouble to

undertake, and, as before, Agafia Matvievna remained the active

pendulum of the domestic clock. Not only did she superintend the

kitchen and the dining-room, and prepare tea and coffee for the entire

household, but also she did the general mending and supervised the

linen, the children, Akulina, and the _dvornik_.

Why was this? Was she not Madame Oblomov and the proprietress of a

landed estate? Might she not have maintained a separate, an independent

establishment, and have wanted for nothing, and have been at no one’s

beck and call? What had led her to take upon her shoulders the burden

of another’s housekeeping, the care of another’s children, and all those

petty details which women usually assume only at the call of love, or in

obedience to sacred family ties, or for the purpose of earning a morsel

of daily bread? Where, too, were Zakhar and Anisia--now become, by every

right of law, her servants? Where, too, was the little treasure, Andrei,

which Oblomov had bequeathed her? Where, finally, were her children by

her first husband?

Those children were now all provided for. That is to say, Vania had

finished his schooling and entered Government service, his sister had

married the manager of a Government office, and little Andrei had been

committed to the care of Schtoltz and his wife, who looked upon him as

a member of their own family. Never for a moment did Agafia Matvievna

mentally compare his lot, or place it on a level with, that of her first

children--although, unconsciously it may be, she allotted them all an

equal place in her heart. In her opinion the little Andrei’s upbringing,

mode of life, and future career stood divided by an immeasurable gulf

from the fortunes of Vania and his sister.

“What are _they?_” she would say to herself when she called to see

Andrei. “They are children born of the people, whereas this one was born

a young _barin_.”

Then she would caress the boy, if not with actual timidity, at all

events with a certain touch of caution, and add to herself with

something like respect: “What a white skin he has! ’Tis almost

transparent. And what tiny hands and feet, too, and what silky hair! He

is just like his dead father.” Consequently she was the more ready

to accede to Schtoltz’s request when he asked her that he (Schtoltz)

should educate the youngster; since she felt sure that Schtoltz’s

household was far more the lad’s proper place than was her own

establishment, where he would have been thrown among her grimy young

nephews.

Clad in black, she would glide like a shadow from room to room of the

house--opening and shutting cupboards, sewing, making lace, but doing

everything quietly, and without the least sign of energy. When spoken

to, she would reply as though to do so were an effort. Moreover, her

eyes no longer glanced swiftly from object to object, as they had

done in the old days: rather, they remained fixed in a sort of ever

concentrated gaze. Probably they had assumed that gaze during the hour

when she had stood looking at her dead husband’s face.

That the light of her life was fast flickering before going out, that

God had breathed His breath into her existence and taken it away again,

and that her sun had shone brilliantly and was setting for ever, she

clearly understood. Yes, that sun was setting for ever, but not before

she had learnt the reason why she had been given life, and the fact that

she had not lived in vain. Greatly she had loved, and to the full: she

had loved _Oblomov_ as a lover, as a husband, and as a _barin_. But

around her there was no one to comprehend this; wherefore she kept her

grief the more closely locked, in her own bosom.

Only, next winter, when Schtoltz came to town, she ran to see him,

and to gaze hungrily at little Andrei, whom she covered with caresses.

Presently she tried to say something--to thank Schtoltz, and to pour out

before him all that had been accumulating in her heart in the absence of

an outlet. Such words he would have understood perfectly, had they been

uttered. But the task was beyond her--she could only throw herself

upon Olga, glue her lips to her hand, and burst into such a torrent of

scalding tears that perforce Olga wept with her, and Schtoltz, greatly

moved, hastened from the room. All three had now a common bond of

sympathy--that bond being the memory of Oblomov’s unsullied soul. More

than once Schtoltz and Olga besought the widow to come and live with

them in the country, but always she replied: “Where I was born and have

lived my live, there must I also die.” Likewise, when Schtoltz proposed

to render her an account of his management of the Oblomovkan property,

she returned him the income therefrom, with a request that he should lay

it by for the benefit of little Andrei.

“’Tis his, not mine,” she said. “_He_ is the _barin_, and I will

continue to live as I have always done.”

VI

One day, about noon, two gentlemen were walking along a pavement in the

Veaborg Quarter, while behind them a carriage quietly paced. One of

the gentlemen was Schtoltz, the other a literary friend of his--a stout

individual with an apathetic face and sleepy, meditative eyes. As they

drew level with a church, Mass had just ended, and the congregation

was pouring into the street. In front of them a knot of beggars was

collecting a rich and varied harvest.

“I wonder where these mendicants come from,” said the literary

gentleman, glancing at the reapers.

“Out of sundry nooks and corners, I suppose,” replied the other

carelessly.

“That is not what I meant. What I meant is, how have they descended

to their present position of beggars? Have they come to it suddenly or

gradually, for a good reason or for a bad one?”

“Why are you so anxious to know? Are you contemplating writing a

‘Mysteries of Petrograd’?”

“Perhaps I am,” the literary gentleman explained with an indolent yawn.

“Then here is a chance for you. Ask any one of them, and, for the sum

of a rouble, he will sell you his story, which, jotted down, you could

resell to the nobility. For instance, take this old man here. He looks a

good example of the normal type. Hi, old man! We want you!”

The old man turned his head at the summons, doffed his cap, and

approached the two gentlemen.

“Good sirs,” he whined, “pray help a poor man who has been wounded in

thirty battles and grown old in war.”

“It is Zakhar!” exclaimed Schtoltz in astonishment. “It _is_ you,

Zakhar, is it not?”

But Zakhar said nothing. Then suddenly, he shaded his eyes from the sun,

and, staring intently at Schtoltz, muttered--

“Pardon me, your Honour--I do not recognize you. I am nearly blind.”

“What? You have forgotten your old friend, the _bavin_ Schtoltz?” the

other asked reproachfully.

“Dear, dear! Is it _really_ your Honour? My bad sight has got the better

of me.”

Catching Schtoltz impetuously by the hand, the old man imprinted kiss

after kiss upon the skirt of his coat.

“The Lord Himself has permitted a poor lost wretch to see a joyful day!”

he said, half-laughing, half-crying. Over his face, and particularly

over his nose, there had spread a purplish tinge, while his head was

almost completely bald, and his whiskers, though still long, looked so

matted and entangled as to resemble pieces of felt wherein snowballs

have been wrapped. As for his clothing, it consisted of an old, faded

cloak, with one of the lapels missing, and a pair of down-at-heel

goloshes. In his hands was a cap from which the fur had become worn

away.

“Ah, good sir!” he repeated. “Heaven has indeed granted me joy for

to-day’s festival!”

“But why are you in this state?” Schtoltz inquired. “Are you not ashamed

of yourself?”

“Yes, your Honour; but what else could I do?” And Zakhar heaved a

profound sigh. “How else was I to live? So long as Anisia was alive I

had _not_ to go wandering about like this, for I was given bite and sup

whenever I wanted it; but she died of cholera (Heaven rest her soul!),

and her brother straightway refused to support me, saying that I was

nothing but an old hanger-on. From Michei Andreitch Tarantiev too I

received shameful abuse, and neither of them--would you believe it, your

Honour?--ever gave me a morsel of bread! Indeed, had it not been for the

_barinia_, God bless her”--and Zakhar crossed himself--“I should long

ago have perished of the cold; but for a while she gave me a bit of

clothing, and as much bread as I could eat, and a place by the stove of

a night. Then they took to rating her on my account; so at last I left

the house to wander whither my eyes might lead me. This is the second

year that I have been dragging out this miserable existence.”

“But why did you not go and seek a situation?” Schtoltz inquired.

“Where was I to get one at this time of day, your Honour? True, I tried

for two, but was unsuccessful. Things are not what they used to be:

everything has changed for the worse. Nowadays masters require their

lacqueys to look respectable, and the gentry no longer keep their halls

chock-full of footmen. Indeed, ’tis seldom that you will find so many

as _two_ footmen in a house. Yes,” he went on, “the gentry actually take

off their_ own boots! They have even gone so _far as to invent a machine

to do it with!” Evidently the idea cut Zakhar to the heart. “Yes,” he

repeated, “our gentry are a shame and a disgrace to the country. They

are fast coming to rack and ruin.” A sigh of profound regret followed.

“At one place,” presently he resumed, “I did obtain a situation. ’Twas

with a German merchant, who engaged me to be his hall lacquey. After a

while, however, he sent me to serve in the pantry. Now, was _that_ my

proper business? One day I was carrying some crockery across the room

on a tray, and the floor happened to be smooth and slippery, and down

I fell, and the tray and the crockery with me. So I was turned out

of doors. Next, an old countess took a fancy to my looks. ‘He is of

respectable appearance,’ she said to herself, and added me to her

staff of Swiss lacqueys. The post was a light one, and bid fair to be

permanent, too. All that I had to do was to sit as solemnly as possible

on a chair, to cross one leg over the other, and, when any rascal

called, not to answer him, but just to grunt and send the fellow

away--or else give him a box on the ear. Of course, to the gentry one

had to behave differently--just to wave one’s staff like this.” Zakhar

gave an illustration of what he meant. “As I say, ’twas an easy job,

and the lady, God bless her! was not overdifficult to please. But one

day she happened to peep into my room and to see there a bug. With that

she bristled up and shrieked as though it had been _I_ who had invented

bugs! When was a household _ever_ without a bug? So the next time she

passed me she pretended that I smelt of liquor, and dismissed me.”

“Yes, and you smell of it now--and very strongly,” remarked Schtoltz.

“To my sorrow, I suppose so,” whined Zakhar, wrinkling his brow

bitterly. “Well, then I tried to get a coachman’s job, and took service

with a gentleman; but one day I had my feet frost-bitten (for I was

overold and weak for the job), and another day the brute of a horse fell

down and nearly broke my ribs, and another day I ran over an old woman

and got taken to the police-station.”

“Well, well! Instead of drinking and getting yourself into trouble, come

to my house, and I will give you a corner there until it is time for us

to return to the country. Do you hear?”

“Yes, your Honour--yes; but, but----”

Zakhar sighed again. “I would rather not leave these parts. You see, the

grave is here--the grave where my old patron is lying.” Zakhar sobbed.

“Only to-day I have been there to commend his soul to God. What a

_barin_ the Lord God has taken from us! ’Twould have been good for us

if he could have lived another hundred years. Yes, only to-day I have

been visiting his grave. Whenever I am near the spot I go and sit beside

it, and shed tears--ah, such tears! And sometimes, too, when all is

quiet there, I seem to hear him calling to me once more, ‘Zakhar!

Zakhar!’--and shivers go running down my back. Never lived there such

a _barin_ as he! And how fond of yourself he was, your Honour! May the

Lord remember him when the heavenly kingdom shall come!”

“You ought to see our little Andrei,” said Schtoltz. “If you like, you

can have charge of him.” And he handed the old man some money.

“Yes, I _will_ come! How could I not come when it is to see little

Andrei Ilyitch? By this time he must be grown into a tall young

gentleman. What joy the Lord has reserved for me this day! Yes, I _will_

come, your Honour, and may God send you good health and many a long

year of life!” But it was after a departing carriage that Zakhar was

dispatching his benedictions.

“Did you hear the old beggar’s story?” Schtoltz asked of his companion.

“Yes. Who was the Oblomov whom he mentioned?”

“He was--Oblomov. More than once I have spoken to you of him.”

“Ah, I think I remember the name. Yes, he was a friend and comrade of

yours, was he not? What became of him?”

“He came to rack and ruin--though for no apparent reason.” As he spoke

Schtoltz sighed heavily. Then he added: “His intellect was equal to

that of his fellow’s, his soul was as clear and as bright as glass, his

disposition was kindly, and he was a gentleman to the core. Yet he--he

fell.”

“Wherefore? What was the cause?”

“The cause?” re-echoed Schtoltz. “The cause was--the disease of

Oblomovka.”

“The disease of Oblomovka?” queried the literary gentleman in some

perplexity. “What is that?”

“Some day I will tell you. For the moment leave me to my thoughts and

memories. Hereafter you shall write them down, for they might prove of

value to some one.”

In time Schtoltz related to his friend what herein is to be found

recorded.